Terry Pratchett - I Shall Wear Midnight

‘I had at least an hour’s worth last night. And a nap the day before!’ said Tiffany.

‘Really?’ said Preston, looking stern. ‘And apart from breakfast this morning, when did you last have a proper meal?’

For some reason Tiffany still felt full of light inside. ‘I think I might have had a snack yesterday …’

‘Oh really?’ said Preston. ‘Snacks and naps? That’s not how somebody is supposed to live; it’s how people die!’

He was right. She knew he was. But that only made things worse.

‘Look, I’m being tracked by a horrible creature who can take over somebody else completely, and it’s up to me to deal with it!’

Preston looked around with interest. ‘Could it take me over?’

Poison goes where poison’s welcome , thought Tiffany. Thank you for that useful phrase, Mrs Proust. ‘No, I don’t think so. I think you have to be the right kind of person – which is to say, the wrong kind of person. You know, somebody with a touch of evil.’

For the first time, Preston looked worried. ‘I have done a few bad things in my time, I’m sorry to say.’

Despite her sudden tiredness, Tiffany smiled. ‘What was the worst one?’

‘I once stole a packet of coloured pencils off a market stall.’ He looked at her defiantly, as if expecting her to scream or point the finger of scorn.

Instead, she shook her head and said, ‘How old were you then?’

‘Six.’

‘Preston, I don’t think this creature could ever find its way into your head. Quite apart from anything else, it seems pretty crowded and complicated to me.’

‘Miss Tiffany, you need a rest, a proper rest in a proper bed. What kind of witch can look after everybody if she’s not sensible enough to look after herself? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes . That means: Who guards the guards, that does,’ Preston went on. ‘So who watches the witches? Who cares for the people who care for the people? Right now, it looks like it needs to be me.’

She gave in.

* * *

The fog of the city was as thick as curtains when Mrs Proust hurried towards the dark, brooding shape of the Tanty, but the billows obediently separated as she approached and closed again after her.

The warden was waiting at the main gate, a lantern in his hand. ‘Sorry, missus, but we thought you ought to see this one before it gets all official. I know witches seem a bit unpopular right now, but we’ve always thought of you as family, if you know what I mean. Everyone remembers your dad. What a craftsman! He could hang a man in seven and a quarter seconds! Never been beat. We shall never see his likes again.’ He went solemn. ‘And may I say, missus, I hope I never see again the like of what you will be seeing now. It’s got us rattled, and no mistake. It’s right up your street, I reckon.’

Mrs Proust shook the water droplets off her cloak in the prison office and could smell the fear in the air. There was the general clanging and distant yelling that you always got when things were going bad in a prison: a prison, by definition, being a lot of people all crammed together and every fear and hatred and worry and dread and rumour all sitting on top of one another, choking for space. She hung the cloak on a nail by the door and rubbed her hands together. ‘The lad you sent said something about a breakout?’

‘D wing,’ said the warder. ‘Macintosh. You remember? Been in here about a year.’

‘Oh yes, I recall,’ said the witch. ‘They had to stop the trial because the jury kept throwing up. Very nasty indeed. But no one has ever escaped from D wing, right? The window bars are steel?’

‘Bent,’ said the warder flatly. ‘You’d better come and see. It’s giving us the heebie-jeebies, I don’t mind telling you.’

‘Macintosh wasn’t a particularly big man, as I recall,’ said the witch as they hurried along the dank corridors.

‘That’s right, Mrs Proust. Short and nasty, that was him. Due to hang next week too. Tore out bars that a strong man wouldn’t have been able to shift with a crowbar and dropped thirty feet to the ground. That’s not natural, that’s not right. But it was the other thing he did – oh my word, it makes me sick thinking about it.’

A warder was waiting outside the cell recently vacated by the absent Macintosh, but for no reason that Mrs Proust could recognize, given that the man had definitely gone. He touched the brim of his hat respectfully when he saw her.

‘Good morning, Mrs Proust,’ he said. ‘May I say it’s an honour to meet the daughter of the finest hangman in history. Fifty-one years before the lever, and never a client down. Mr Trooper now, decent bloke, but sometimes they bounce a bit and I don’t consider that professional. And your dad wouldn’t forego a well-deserved hanging out of the fear that fires of evil and demons of dread would haunt him afterwards. You mark my words; he’d go after them and hang them too! Seven and a quarter seconds, what a gentleman.’

But Mrs Proust was staring down at the floor.

‘Terrible thing for a lady to have to see,’ the warder went on. Almost absentmindedly Mrs Proust said, ‘Witches are not ladies when on business, Frank,’ and then she sniffed the air and swore an oath that made Frank’s eyes water.

‘It makes you wonder what got into him, aye?’

Mrs Proust straightened up. ‘I don’t have to wonder, my lad,’ she said grimly. ‘I know.’

The fog piled up against the buildings in its effort to get out of the way of Mrs Proust as she hurried back to Tenth Egg Street, leaving behind her a Mrs Proust-shaped tunnel in the gloom.

Derek was drinking a peaceful mug of cocoa when his mother burst in to the strains, as it were, of a large fart. He looked up, his brow wrinkling. ‘Did that sound like B-flat to you? It didn’t sound like B-flat to me.’ He reached into the drawer under the counter for his tuning fork, but his mother rushed past him.

‘Where’s my broomstick?’

Derek sighed. ‘In the basement, remember? When the dwarfs told you last month how much it would cost to repair, you told them they were a bunch of chiselling little lawn ornaments, remember? Anyway, you never use it.’

‘I’ve got to go into the … country,’ said Mrs Proust, looking around the crowded shelves in case there was another working broomstick there.

Her son stared. ‘Are you sure, Mother? You’ve always said it’s bad for your health.’

‘Matter of life or death,’ Mrs Proust mumbled. ‘What about Long Tall Short Fat Sally?’

‘Oh, Mother, you really shouldn’t call her that,’ said Derek reproachfully. ‘She can’t help being allergic to tides.’

‘She’s got a stick, though! Hah! If it’s not one thing it’s another. Make me some sandwiches, will you?’

‘Is this about that girl who was in here last week?’ said Derek suspiciously. ‘I don’t think she had much of a sense of humour.’

His mother ignored him and rummaged under the counter, coming back with a large leather cosh. The small traders of Tenth Egg Street worked on narrow margins, and had a very direct approach to shoplifting. ‘I don’t know, I really don’t,’ she moaned. ‘Me? Doing good at my time of life? I must be going soft in the head. And I’m not even going to get paid! I don’t know, I really don’t. Next thing you know, I’ll start giving people three wishes, and if I start doing that, Derek, I would like you to hit me very hard on the head.’ She handed him the cosh. ‘I’m leaving you in charge. Try to shift some of the rubber chocolate and the humorous fake fried eggs, will you? Tell people they are novelty bookmarks or something.’

And with that, Mrs Proust ran out into the night. The lanes and alleyways of the city were very dangerous at night, what with muggers, thieves and similar unpleasantnesses. But they disappeared back into the gloom as she passed. Mrs Proust was bad news, and best left undisturbed if you wanted to keep all the bones in your fingers pointing the right way.

The body that was Macintosh ran through the night. It was full of pain. This didn’t matter to the ghost; it wasn’t his pain. Its sinews sang with agony, but it was not the ghost’s agony. The fingers bled where they had torn steel bars out of the wall. But the ghost did not bleed. It never bled.

It couldn’t remember when it had had a body that was really its own. Bodies had to be fed and had to drink. That was an annoying feature of the wretched things. Sooner or later they ran out of usefulness. Often, that didn’t matter; there was always somebody – a little mind festering with hatred and envy and resentment that would welcome the ghost inside. But it had to be careful, and it had to be quick. But above all it had to be safe. Out here, on the empty roads, another suitable container would be hard to find. Regretfully, it allowed the body to stop and drink from the murky waters of a pond. It turned out to be full of frogs, but a body had to eat too, didn’t it?

26 Witches always made certain that their hands were scrupulously clean; the rest of the witch had to wait for some time in the busy schedule – or possibly for a thunderstorm.

27 There was no tradition of holy men on the Chalk, but since the hills were between the cities and the mountains, there was generally – in the good weather, at least – a steady procession of priests of one sort or another passing through who would, for a decent meal or a bed for the night, spread some holy words and generally give people’s souls a decent scrubbing. Provided that the priests were clearly of the decent sort, people didn’t worry unduly who their god was, so long as he – or occasionally she and sometimes it – kept the sun and moon spinning properly and didn’t want anything ridiculous or new. It also helped if the preacher knew a little something about sheep.

28 If not through actual personal practice.

Chapter 13

THE SHAKING OF THE SHEETS

HER PROPER BED in the castle’s black-and-white chamber was so much better than the dungeon, even though Tiffany had missed the soothing burps of the goats.

She dreamed of fire, again. And she was being watched. She could feel it, and it wasn’t the goats this time. She was being watched inside her head. But it wasn’t bad watching; someone was caring for her. And in the dream the fire raged, and a dark figure pulled aside the flames as though they were curtains, and there was the hare sitting by the dark figure as if she was a pet. The hare caught Tiffany’s eye and jumped into the fire. And Tiffany knew .

Somebody knocked at the door. Tiffany was suddenly awake. ‘Who’s there?’

A voice on the other side of the heavy door said, ‘What sound does forgetfulness make?’

She hardly had to think. ‘It’s the sound of the wind in dead grasses on a hot summer’s day.’

‘Yes, I think that would about do it,’ said Preston’s voice from the other side of the door. ‘To get right to the point, miss, there’s a lot of people downstairs, miss. I think they need their witch.’

It was a good day for a funeral, Tiffany thought, looking out of the narrow castle window. It shouldn’t rain on a funeral. It made people too gloomy. She tried not to be gloomy at funerals. People lived, and died, and were remembered. It happened in the same way that winter followed summer. It was not a wrong thing. There were tears, of course, but they were for those who were left; those who had gone on did not need them.