Northern England, 1799

My overlooker grips a thick leather strap with an iron buckle at the end.

‘Speak your name, lad!’ he barks, the iron buckle swinging past my head. Soot and grime streak his face and blacken his waistcoat. His name’s Mr Sneers.

I snap to attention. ‘Tom Blackwell, sir.’

‘Listen sharp, Tom Blackwell,’ he says. ‘You’re a pauper apprentice at the biggest cotton mill in the North. I reckon a scrap like you’ll be chewed up and spat out before the week’s end.’

I push down the shame. ‘I joined to see me sister again,’ I tell him. ‘She’s an apprentice—been here six months. She sent me a letter from Black Mill a few months back. Do you know her, sir?’

Sneers looks at me like I’m daft. ‘I’m the overlooker of the boys, not the girls! Why didn’t you come with your sister when she started?’

I stare at the floor. ‘Parish said I were too small and not strong enough, sir.’

The taller lads—that’s pretty much everyone—snigger at me.

It ain’t me fault I’m short.

‘That’ll do,’ snaps Sneers, shutting them up. ‘We’ll soon find out if you’ve got what it takes, Blackwell.’

My shoulders ease a bit as Sneers checks off the other lads, grilling each one. I use the moment to think of Mara—my sister—and how she’ll help me become the best apprentice I can be.

Won’t be easy, though.

They keep the girls and boys apart, and with the girls sleeping on the second floor and the boys on the third, we won’t see each other much.

‘Listen up,’ barks Sneers, marching back and forth once he’s done. ‘You are now the legal property of Master Black, proprietor and sole owner of Black Mill. From this moment on, your lives revolve around making yarn and cloth from cotton.

As your overlooker, I’m responsible for your work—which means you do as I say, when I say it. Defy me, and you’ll be punished—’           

The leather strap lashes across the back of a boy who dares to look away. He shrieks and cowers. There’s no mistaking it. Sneers is deadly serious about his post at Black Mill.

‘The previous apprentices were dismissed for cowardice,’ he snaps. ‘Weaklings don’t last long here. You’ll be braver—or Master Black will carve that lesson into your bones.’

Can’t help wondering: what were the other lads so scared of, then?

My stomach churns. I’m that close to being sick. I’m in Master Black’s hands now. We all are.

Fifty-two lads follow Sneers into a towering, four-story brick building called the Apprentice House. A musty smell clings to the air, thick and heavy. It’s colder than outside. Darker, too.

I struggle to keep up with Sneers as he bounds up the stairs. The creaky wooden floorboards spiral higher with every step. My heart thumps faster and faster, until we reach the boys’ sleeping room.

It’s more cave than room with twenty-six wooden beds crammed inside. Some are shoved against the walls, others marooned in the middle like boats adrift without anchor. Straw juts out from the uneven mattresses.

With only one tiny window, the stench of sweat and smelly feet is so rank that I have to cover my nose.

‘Two to a bed,’ barks Sneers, booting the nearest bed. ‘You’ll share with the same lad the whole time you’re here. Don’t care if he stinks—get used to it!’

Sneers pairs me with a dejected-looking boy called Jeff Brown. He’s short and skinny, like me, but has a permanent frown on his face. I smile at him, but he rolls his eyes and starts unpacking his things, ignoring me completely.

I arrived with nothing but the clothes on my back: a drenched grey flat cap, a beige work shirt, a battered coat, and a single pair of trousers.

Our bed is next to the only arched window overlooking a vast, tangled forest. Beside the bed: scrub brushes, threadbare rags, and two white chamber pots. Empty and spotless, for now.

‘At night, no one leaves this dormitory,’ says Sneers, clapping his hands to get everyone’s attention. ‘If you need to make water, use a chamber pot. And see they’re emptied by half-past five, or Master Black will send you to the attic …’

He cranes his head upward, a scowl stretching across his wrinkled face. ‘And believe me, you do not want to go up there. A dark spirit dwells in that attic.’

A dark spirit?

I lift my head upwards. The ceiling swirls and groans.

Ghosts terrify me. Back at my old parish, I’d hear things in the graveyard outside. Not wind. Not animals. Things I couldn’t explain.

Once, I saw a shadow, black as soot, gliding through a grave thick with moss. It didn’t walk. It floated. Mara said it was a phantom. Said only a few of us can sense them.

I wish I weren’t one of them.

‘Before you lot get to bed, I’ll say a prayer,’ says our overlooker, pacing the floor. ‘Heavenly Father, we commit ourselves entirely to thy disposal of Master Black and Black Mill. We give thanks for the courage to endure suffering. In life and in death. Amen.’

I glance at Jeff. He’s staring out the window, not even listening.

‘Amen,’ echo the others, everyone but Jeff.

Sneers slams the door shut and locks it behind him. No one speaks. We’re all too worn out from the brutal journey to the mill.

Some lads were lucky—they arrived from nearby cities in a day or two.

But for my group, coming all the way from Staffordshire, it took six miserable days. The roads were bumpy and unforgiving. Rain blurred one day into the next. Inns passed like shadows. We slept rough whenever we weren’t lucky enough to be let in.

With nothing to unpack, I hide my sister’s letter beneath the heavy mattress. Reading’s a rare thing for folk like us. I learned alongside her, back in our old parish.

The parish beadle, Mr Shine—with his slight, pale face and ink-stained fingers—taught us. He kept the parish lads and lasses in line, but it was his way with words that made him truly special. He taught us everything, from the alphabet to basic grammar. We played word games for fun.

My sister got so clever, she started slipping secret words into her sentences.

I shove thoughts of them games to the back of my mind, pull off my cap, and, still in my soggy clothes, climb into bed. The mattress is lumpy, damp to the touch. Same with the thin grey blanket on top. Dry straw tickles my feet.

I shiver till the heat off our bodies warms the bed. Still, I can’t stop thinking on my sister. I hope her room’s warmer than this one—

A dull clanging and scratching sound echoes from above. Then comes a long, high-pitched screech. Faint, yet haunting.

I jolt upright and stand on the mattress, eyes locked on the ceiling. Is something in the attic?

Creak. Creeeeeeeeak.

Clank. Claaaaaaank.

Scratch. Scrraaaaaatch—

‘What you doing? You cracked or what?’ croaks Jeff, rubbing his eyes.

I peer down at him. ‘Can’t you hear that?’

‘Hear what?’

Clank. Claaaaaaank.

Scratch. Scrraaaaaatch.

Another screech.

‘You honestly don’t hear that—?’

‘Only thing we hear is you! Now shut it, before Sneers comes back and belts the lot of us,’ grumbles a boy in the darkness. The strength in his voice tells me this is someone I don’t want to cross.

Bed frames creak as others shift, their eyes barely visible in the gloom.

I dare not speak of the noises only I can hear, for fear they’ll mark me as mad, or worse, an outcast. So I turn onto my side, doing all I can to ignore the sounds that haunt the dark corners of the night.