The Seventh Apprentice by Joseph Delaney Read Free Book Online

snout into. Moments earlier he had been squealing from the pain of being lashed and jabbed by the pointed stick. Had he forgotten so quickly something that might soon happen again? Surely he too had noticed the dead pigs hanging from the beam? Could it be that my mind had remained a little more human than his? I knew there was a likely reason for this, but I couldn’t remember what it was.
    I had so many questions but no answers. Again I thought of the gate. Could I open it by myself?
    I had no hands, but I might be able to push the latch up with my snout. I tried just as hard as I could, standing on my hind legs and scrabbling with my front trotters. Yes! Yes! I was high enough. I could reach the latch with my snout and push it. . . .
    It was quite some time before I worked out why I couldn’t manage it.
    The latch was on the other side of the gate.
    Soon afterward the witch visited the pen again. Lifting the latch, she gave an evil laugh that ended in a wet, slobbering animal sound. Drops of slimy mucus dripped from the end of her wet snout, and she looked more like a pig than ever. Her cheeks were so puffy that her eyes looked like two tiny black beads.
    This time she didn’t strike us; simply pointed at us with the sharp end of her stick. The warning was enough. We hurried over to the far corner of the pen and cowered there while she went about her business.
    First, one by one, she carried the three buckets of blood out of the pen. When she returned, she was holding a big pair of scissors in her left hand and a small canvas bag in her right. To my horror and disgust, she knelt beneath the nearest of the hanging pigs and began to snip away at its trotters. She placed what she’d cut away in her little canvas bag.
    I was trembling, frozen to the spot with fear, and I could see Peter’s whole piggy body shaking too; although we couldn’t communicate, he must have been aware of what was going on. I would have done anything to get out of that pen, but the witch had closed the gate behind her.
    Holding the canvas bag in one hand, she turned back to face us, pointing the scissors at us. “Soon it’ll be your turn!” she threatened.
    She opened and closed the blades a couple of times. The metallic sound of those sharp scissors made me cringe. I could imagine them snipping away at my flesh.
    I watched fearfully as the witch turned and left the pen again, dropping the latch back into place.
    I wondered if Peter knew why she’d taken the six trotters. After all, he was the expert. I went over and nudged him again, attempting to get his attention, but he was only interested in that heap of manure. But now, all at once, I realized that something was different—a difference that was in me, not in Peter. Previously I had distinguished all sorts of enticing scents; now all that assailed my snout was the disgusting stink of pig muck.
    I backed away and was almost sick.
    Why had I lost my piggy appetite? I wondered.
    When the sun went down, I slept—to be awakened suddenly by the click of the latch.
    The witch was back.
    “It’s time you met my little friend!” she called out to us.
    What I saw by the pale light of the moon was both strange and terrifying.
    The witch’s wet snout and tiny piggy eyes were as hideous as ever, but as she closed the gate behind her and strode toward the dead pigs, I saw that she wasn’t alone. There was something following at her heels, clinging tightly to her long dark skirt, which trailed in the mud.
    It was black and hairy and about the size of a small dog. Although it had only four limbs, two arms and two legs, it reminded me of a spider. For one thing, it was skinny, with thin limbs and a sticklike body. It certainly wasn’t the grunting boar that had stalked me in the mist—a creature I’d feared—but in a way this beast was even scarier. There was something about the way it twitched, something about its state of readiness. It was waiting for something, waiting to pounce, and soon,