The Great Ghost Rescue

Miss Thistlethwaite was the visiting music teacher. She taught the violin and the piano, arriving on her bicycle on Thursday mornings and Tuesday afternoons. She was a rather odd-looking lady who wore long, flowing black dresses hitched up with dressing-gown cord and could be heard screaming in pain when Maurice Crawler missed his Top E or Smith Minor crashed like a runaway tank through Schubert’s Cradle Song.

‘Let’s see, it’s a full moon tonight, isn’t it?’ said Barbara. ‘Yes. Then it’s the village we want.’

If it had been anyone but Barbara, Rick would have argued. Now he just shrugged and set a steady pace, looking backward now and then for signs of the Crawlers.

The village hall was a low, wooden building in a lane beside the church. The door was locked, the blinds were drawn. A notice painted in red said Norton Women’s Tea Club. Members Only.

‘Try the back.’

At the back of the hall was a little door leading into a small cloakroom. Quickly the children crept inside, and the worn scrap of grey that was Humphrey’s elbow followed. Then they opened the door into the hall a crack and peered through.

The hall was dark except for the light of tall candles set in branched candlesticks on the window sills, and a strange, blue flame flickering in a bowl of charcoal on the upright piano. Three sides of the room were lined with trestle tables on which were all the usual things one brings, or buys, at village sales: jars of jam, and cakes, and crochet mats.... But the thirteen ladies who seemed to make up the Norton Tea Club were not, at the moment, buying or selling anything.

No, they were dancing. A kind of chain dance, weaving in and out, kicking up their legs and stamping....

‘Look at their hats,’ whispered Barbara.

And indeed the ladies’ hats were strange. Their own Miss Thistlethwaite wore a hat decorated with yew berries, mistletoe and poppies. Mrs Bell-Lowington, who lived in the manor, had a whole stuffed owl on her head. Miss Ponsonby, who ran the post office, wore a pink cloche embroidered with black triangles.

And now they had joined hands and were singing. The tune was pretty but the words were odd.

Eko; Eko Azarak! Eko; Eko Zomelak!

Eko; Eko Cernunnos! Eko; Eko; Arada!

sang the ladies of the Norton Village Tea Club.

‘Ready?’ whispered Barbara – and opened the door.

The circle of ladies stopped dead still. Their mouths shut on the last word of their song and thirteen pairs of eyes with rather unpleasant expressions fixed themselves on the three children.

‘Miss Thistlethwaite?’ said Barbara. ‘Please, Miss Thistlethwaite?’

Miss Thistlethwaite took an uncertain step forward.

‘Fredegonda,’ thundered Mrs Bell-Lowington, who had been leading the dance, ‘what are these children doing here?’

Miss Thistlethwaite shook her head. ‘I don’t know, Nocticula,’ she said nervously.

‘Oh please don’t be cross,’ cried Barbara. ‘We know you’re witches and we won’t tell a soul. Only, please, please can you help us? We’re in trouble!’

A flutter passed through the coven of witches, the circle broke, and Fredegonda (which was Miss Thistlethwaite’s witch name because it is difficult to be a witch with a Christian name like Ethel) came towards them, followed by the chief witch, Nocticula. (Her Christian name was Daisy which was even worse.)

‘What is it that you want of us?’

For answer, Rick clicked his fingers and poor Humphrey, shivering with exhaustion, appeared before the witches. For a moment they looked in silence at his lumpy, curdled ectoplasm, his swollen ankles, the rash round his battered face....

‘Exorcism!’ thundered Nocticula. ‘A disgusting habit.’

‘The poor little fellow,’ said Fredegonda.

‘That’s the iron-filings spell, I think,’ said Melusina, who was really Miss Ponsonby from the post office, lifting Humphrey’s left hand. ‘A very cruel and uncivilized spell, I always think. Look at the softening of the joints.’

‘Who was responsible for this?’ said Nocticula her eyes glinting. Witches and ghosts have always been fond of each other and the sight of Humphrey made her very angry.

So Rick told them the whole story: of the ghost sanctuary and the trap it had proved to be; of the dreadful plight of the ghosts on Insleyfarne; of their desperate need to get up there at once.

‘On a broomstick maybe?’ said Peter who was rather young.

‘A broomstick!’ snarled Nocticula.

‘Or whatever you use nowadays? A vacuum cleaner?’ said Peter.

‘You may be young,’ said Nocticula, ‘but there is no reason to be silly. I doubt if witches ever flew on broomsticks. They certainly don’t do so now.’

‘But isn’t there any way you can get us there?’

‘Witchcraft isn’t a lot of stupid tricks,’ said Nocticula. ‘Witchcraft is about power. Willpower. Making things happen. White witches make good things happen. Black witches make bad things happen. Flying about on broomsticks, turning people into toads – that’s all cheap trickery and rubbish.’

‘So you can’t help us?’ said Rick sadly.