The Spook's Apprentice

Thomas Ward is the seventh son of a seventh son, a birth order said to give him unusual gifts. He leaves his family to apprentice with the county Spook, whose work includes confronting ghosts, witches, and boggarts. The training is isolating and dangerous, and earlier apprentices have failed. When Thomas is deceived into releasing the witch Mother Malkin, he must use lessons he has barely begun to understand. The first Wardstone Chronicles novel follows his entry into a hidden world and the consequences of his earliest mistake.