Patrick Arrasmith

Young Tom, the seventh son of a seventh son, starts work as an apprentice for the village spook, whose job is to protect ordinary folk from "ghouls, boggarts, and all manner of wicked beasties."

Now thirteen years old, Tom Ward continues his apprenticeship with the Spook as they confront a dangerous bane who can control people's thoughts.

When witches steal Tom's inheritance and kidnap his relatives, Tom, the Spook, and Alice set out for Pendle Hill, a particularly dangerous district, in hopes of preventing the three witch clans from uniting to raise the Fiend, the Devil himself, thus bringing about an age of darkness.

Told from the point of view of Alice, best friend "and true love" to Tom, the spook's last apprentice. Alice is the most powerful witch in the world, and she ventures into the dark itself. Alice Dean's destiny is intertwined with Tom Ward's. But he's going to be the next Spook, and she's a witch, possibly the most powerful one the world has ever seen. To rid the world of its greatest evil, the Fiend, Alice will venture into the depths of the dark...

Apprentice Tom and the Spook for whom he works flee to Ireland, where a powerful witch has joined forces with the dark mages trying to call forth ancient powers to destroy Tom.

As creatures of the dark hunt for the witch assassin Grimalkin, who carries the captured Fiend's head, Spook's apprentice Tom tries to find a way to finish this terrifying evil once and for all.

"Thomas Ward faces his ultimate test as he and his master prepare to deal with the Fiend once and for all"--

Separate tales reveal the backgrounds of four terrifying witches, including Alice and the Spook's love, Meg.

Eleven-year-old Tabby Aykroyd, who would later serve as housekeeper for thirty years to the Brönte sisters, is taken from an orphanage to a ghost-filled house, where she and a wild young boy are needed for a pagan ritual.