The Last Apprentice

The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch is a fantasy novel by Joseph Delaney. The first book in a series called The Wardstone Chronicles, it follows the protagonist Tom Ward as he roams a land called the County, which is loosely based on Lancashire, England. Ward destroys ghosts and monsters that belong to a malicious force called The Dark that seeks to control the world. The seventh son of a seventh son, Ward is sent by his parents to apprentice with the Spook, a man with a supernatural ability to track down these creatures. Ward hopes to ultimately become as adept at hunting as the Spook. Along his journey, he is enlisted to hunt down monsters that plague the lives of the people he meets.

The novel begins as the Spook gives Ward his first task: to stay a night inside a mansion that is infested with ghosts. After Ward succeeds, the Spook tells Ward not to be overconfident because most past apprentices have ultimately failed. He attributes their past failures to cowardice, disobedience, or similar errors that caused their death. During a tour of the home, Spook tells the story of one of the unsuccessful apprentices, the late Billy Bradley, who fought a boggart which bit off his finger, causing him to die from blood loss. Accepting the challenge, Ward moves in to the Spook’s house in the town of Chipenden. A boggart protects this house under a magical contract: the boggart must stand guard and provide housekeeping services until the house no longer stands. The Spook also reveals a garden used for burying witches alive.

The Spook sends Ward outside to get groceries. He advises him strongly not to talk to any women who wear pointed shoes. As Ward walks back from the market, a group of boys his age accost him for food, threatening to hurt him if he denies them. Ward says no, and they prepare to beat him up when a girl in pointed shoes appears. The girl frightens the boys away and reveals that her name is Alice, the young relative of a family of extremely powerful witches living in the County, which includes Bony Lizzie and Mother Malkin.



Later on, when the Spook is out of the house on an errand, Alice uses his bell to call Ward. In return for rescuing him, she asks him to deliver some cakes to the Mother Malkin, who lives on the Spook’s land, having been imprisoned for eating children. Ward acquiesces despite the Spook’s warning, and finds Mother Malkin. After giving her two of the three cakes, he suddenly realizes that they are filled with human flesh, which gives her the power to escape from her prison. In a stroke of luck, Ward kills Mother Malkin before she can escape. The Spook then returns and tells him that Mother Malkin is not really dead; her spirit is now freed from her body, roaming in search of someone to possess.

Not long later, Bony Lizzie attempts to kill Ward. As Alice’s aunt, it was Bony Lizzie’s idea to sneak the cakes to Mother Malkin in a last-ditch revenge plot against the Spook. Fortunately, the Spook traps Bony Lizzie and tells Ward to go home with Alice to meet his mother. Meanwhile, Ward and Alice develop feelings for each other. While Alice and Ward are enjoying their trip, his mother, a midwife, leaves the house to deliver a baby at the neighbor’s. At that moment, Mother Malkin’s spirit possesses a nearby butcher and tries to kill Ward. Alice and Ward work together to expel the spirit from the butcher. Mother Malkin is reduced to a pool of sludge and is eaten by pigs.

At the novel’s end, Ward has earned Spook’s respect, but Spook remains wary of Alice’s connection to the witches. After an initial skirmish in which he tries to kill Alice, the Spook realizes that she and Ward may succeed better as friends. He lets Ward use his judgment to determine whether staying with her is a good idea. The Last Apprentice utilizes these morally ambiguous characterizations to drive the plot into its sequel, refusing to levy any moral judgment on its heroes.