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In this second Crowfield adventure, it is March 1348. Evil lurks in Crowfield Abbey and the building is starting to collapse. Fay creatures have fled the surrounding forest in terror.

Repairs begin and William is given the job of lifting floor tiles in a haunted side chapel. There he finds a box from an earlier pagan time containing a small wooden bowl, covered with strange warnings and symbols.

The bowl is cursed and a hideous demon is unleashed within the Abbey’s walls, that will wreak unspeakable havoc. Can Will and his friends summon help in time or is it the end of Crowfield forever?

The Crowfield Curse was short-listed for both the Times Children’s Fiction Competition in 2008 and the Waterstone’s Children’s Fiction Prize 2010. It was selected for the Booked Up 2010 scheme reaching over 660,000 children with sales of over 50,000 copies. PRAISE for THE CROWFIELD CURSE

'… a real page-turner that belongs in the same dark place as the Spook’s Apprentice…' AUTHOR JOSEPH DELANEY

'...absolutely perfect to curl up with if you are aged 9 or over…Don’t miss this; Walsh is a striking new storyteller.'THE TIMES

'…welcome an exciting new talent in children’s fantasy, which always has room for one more when the writing is good and imagination fresh.' INDEPENDENT

William put the pail of water on the bench beside the workshop door and blew into his cupped hands to warm them. The March morning was cold and a biting wind whipped the grey clouds across the sky. Rain fell steadily, as it had done for weeks past, filling ditches and puddles, and dripping from the reed thatch of Brother Snail’s hut.

        He heard a rustling in blackthorn tree growing beside the hut. A twig dropped onto his head and he peered up through the branches. A long tail with a tuft of red fur on the end curved around the trunk of the tree.  It twitched and flexed and suddenly flicked out of sight.

        ‘Brother Walter?’ William called. ‘What are you doing up there?’

‘Watching things,’ the hob said softly.

William walked around the tree until he could see the hob, sitting in the fork of a branch, his golden-green eyes wide and fierce as he stared out over the sheep pasture beyond the vegetable garden of the abbey. His fox-red fur was sleek with rain water.

        William peered into the misty distance but couldn’t see anything to explain the hob’s odd behaviour. ‘What things?’

‘Them,’ the hob said softly, pointing to the far side of the pasture, towards Two Penny Copse, where a huddle of wet ewes and lambs sheltered beneath the low sweeping branches of the oak trees.

        ‘The sheep?’

        The hob shook his head impatiently. ‘No, no, no. Them.’

        William squinted through the rain. The hob’s eyesight was sharper than his and it took him some moments before he saw what the hob was watching so intently. Crows perched beside twiggy nests in the upper branches of the trees, cawing into the wind as the trees swayed and creaked like ships at sea. Far below them four of the strangest creatures William had ever seen were making their way hurriedly past the sheep. Hunched and wizened and no taller than a small child, they looked like little old men in tattered dun coloured clothing. They moved furtively, scurrying between the animals and the tree trunks, clearly anxious to stay hidden.

        William caught his breath. ‘What are they?’

‘Mound elves,’ the hob said. There was something in the tone of his voice that told William that he didn’t like these creatures. ‘They live inside the grave mounds where humans buried their dead long ago. Something must have frightened them very badly to make them come above ground in daylight.’

William watched as the creatures darted towards the thorn hedge marking the western boundary of the abbey’s lands, and disappeared from sight.

        Why were they in such a hurry? What were they running away from? William looked across the sheep pasture towards the misty grey outline of Foxwist Wood with an uneasy shiver. Something in the forest had frightened them.

        What if it’s him? William thought with a sudden shiver. What if the Dark King has returned?

        The hob climbed down from the tree. He stood beside William for a few moments, his face sharp with anxiety. ‘Something bad is coming,’ he whispered.

        William crouched down beside him. ‘Is it the king?’

        ‘No,’ the hob said, edging a little closer to him, ‘not the king. Something much, much worse than him.’