‘Please don’t.’
She wasn’t expecting that; the voice was urgent but quite friendly – and it belonged to Eskarina Smith.
The wind was silver and cold.
Tiffany, lying on her back, looked up into a white sky; at the edge of her vision, dried grasses shook and rattled in the wind but, curiously, behind this little bit of countryside there was the big fireplace and the battling knights.
‘It is really quite important that you don’t move,’ said the same voice behind her. ‘The place where you are now has been, as we say, cobbled together for this conversation and did not exist until you arrived here, and will cease to exist the moment you leave. Strictly speaking, by the standards of most philosophical disciplines, it cannot be said to have any existence at all.’
‘So it’s a magic place, yes? Like the Unreal Estate?’
‘Very sensible way of putting it,’ said the voice of Eskarina. ‘Those of us who know about it call it the travelling now. It’s an easy way to talk to you in private; when it closes, you will be exactly where you were and no time will have passed. Do you understand?’
‘No!’
Eskarina sat down on the grass next to her. ‘Thank goodness for that. It would be rather disturbing if you did. You are, you know, an extremely unusual witch. As far as I can tell, you have a natural talent for making cheese, and as talents go, it is a pretty good talent to have. The world needs cheese-makers. A good cheese-maker is worth her weight in, well, cheese. So you were not born with a talent for witchcraft.’
Tiffany opened her mouth to reply before she had any idea what she was going to say, but that is not unusual among human beings. The first thing to push through the throng of questions was: ‘Hang on, I was holding a burning brand. But now you have brought me here, wherever here is exactly. What happened?’ She looked at the fire. The flames were frozen. ‘People will notice me,’ she said, and then, given the nature of the situation, she added, ‘Won’t they?’
‘The answer is no; the reason is complicated. The travelling now is … tame time. It’s time that is on your side. Believe me, there are stranger things in the universe. Right now, Tiffany, we are truly living on borrowed time.’
The flames were still frozen. Tiffany felt that they should be cold, but she could feel the warmth. And she had time to think too. ‘And when I go back?’
‘Nothing will have changed,’ said Eskarina, ‘except the contents of your head, which are, at the moment, very important.’
‘And you’ve gone to all this trouble to tell me I have no talent for witchcraft?’ Tiffany said flatly. ‘That was very kind of you.’
Eskarina laughed. It was her young laugh, which seemed strange when you saw the wrinkles on her face. Tiffany had never seen an old person looking so young. ‘I said you weren’t born with a talent for witchcraft: it didn’t come easily; you worked hard at it because you wanted it. You forced the world to give it to you, no matter the price, and the price is and will always be, high. Have you heard the saying “the reward you get for digging holes is a bigger shovel”?’
‘Yes,’ said Tiffany, ‘I heard Granny Weatherwax say it once.’
‘She invented it. People say you don’t find witchcraft; witchcraft finds you. But you’ve found it, even if at the time you didn’t know what it was you were finding, and you grabbed it by its scrawny neck and made it work for you.’
‘This is all very … interesting,’ said Tiffany, ‘but I have got things I must be doing.’
‘Not in the travelling now,’ said Eskarina firmly. ‘Look, the Cunning Man has found you again.’
‘I think he hides in books and pictures,’ Tiffany volunteered. ‘And tapestries.’ She shuddered.
‘And mirrors,’ said Eskarina, ‘and puddles, and the glint of light on a piece of broken glass, or the gleam on a knife. How many ways can you think of? How frightened are you prepared to be?’
‘I’m going to have to fight him,’ Tiffany said. ‘I think I knew I would have to. He doesn’t seem to me to be someone you can run away from. He’s a bully, isn’t he? He attacks where he thinks he will win, and so I have to find a way to be stronger than he is. I think I can work out a way – after all, he is a bit like the hiver. And that was really quite easy.’
Eskarina did not shout; she spoke very quietly and in a way that seemed to make more noise than a scream would have done. ‘Will you persist in not recognizing how important this is, Tiffany Aching the cheese-maker? You have a chance to defeat the Cunning Man, and if you fail, witchcraft fails – and falls with you. He will possess your body, your knowledge, your talents and your soul. And for your own good – and for the good of all – your sister witches will settle their differences and take the pair of you into oblivion before you can do any more harm. Do you understand? This is important! You have to help yourself.’
‘The other witches will kill me?’ said Tiffany, aghast.
‘Of course. You are a witch and you know what Granny Weatherwax always says: We do right, we don’t do nice. It will be you or him, Tiffany Aching. The loser will die. In his case, I regret to say we might see him again in a few centuries; in your case, I don’t propose to guess.’
‘But hold on a moment,’ said Tiffany. ‘If they are prepared to fight him and me, why don’t we all band together to fight him now?’
‘Of course. Would you like them to? What is it you really want, Tiffany Aching, here and now? It’s your choice. The other witches will not, I am sure, think any the worse of you.’ Eskarina hesitated for a moment, and then said, ‘Well, I expect they will be very kind about it.’
The witch who faced the trial and ran away? thought Tiffany. The witch they were kind to, because they knew she wasn’t good enough? And if you think you’re not good enough, then you are already no kind of witch. Aloud she said, ‘I’d rather die trying to be a witch, than be the girl they were all kind to.’
‘Miss Aching, you are showing an almost sinful self-assurance and overwhelming pride and certainty, and may I say that I wouldn’t expect anything less of a witch.’
* * *
The world wobbled a bit and then changed. Eskarina vanished, even as her words were still sinking into Tiffany’s mind. The tapestry was back in front of her again and she was still raising the burning log, but this time she raised it confidently. She felt as if she was full of air, lifting her up. The world had gone strange, but at least she knew that fire would burn dry tapestry like tinder the moment it touched it.
‘I would burn this old sheet in an instant, mister, trust me. Back to where you came from, mister!’
To her astonishment the dark figure retreated. There was a momentary hiss and Tiffany felt as if a weight had dropped away, dragging the stench with it.
‘That was all very interesting.’ Tiffany spun round and looked into Preston’s cheerful grin. ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘I was really worried when you went so stiff for a few moments. I thought you were dead. When I touched your arm – very respectfully, no hanky-panky – it felt like the air on a thundery day. So I thought, This is witch business, and decided to keep an eye on you, and then you threatened an innocent tapestry with fiery death!’
She stared at the boy’s eyes as if they were a mirror. Fire, she thought. Fire killed him once, and he knows it. He won’t go anywhere near fire. Fire is the secret. The hare runs into the fire. Hmm.
‘Actually, I quite like fire,’ said Preston. ‘I don’t think it’s my enemy at all.’
‘What?’ said Tiffany.
‘I’m afraid you were speaking just under your breath,’ said Preston. ‘I’m not going to ask what it was about. My granny said: Don’t meddle in the affairs of witches because they clout you around the ear.’
Tiffany stared at him and made an instant decision. ‘Can you keep a secret?’
Preston nodded. ‘Certainly! I have never told anybody that the sergeant writes poetry, for example.’
‘Preston, you have just told me!’
Preston g
rinned at her. ‘Ah, but a witch isn’t anybody. My granny told me that telling your secret to a witch is like whispering to a wall.’
‘Well, yes,’ Tiffany began and then paused. ‘How do you know he writes poetry?’
‘It was hard not to know,’ said Preston. ‘But, you see, he writes it on pages of the events ledger in the guard house, probably when he’s on night duty. He carefully tears out the pages, and does it so neatly that you wouldn’t guess, but he presses so hard with his pencil that it’s quite easy to read the impression on the paper underneath.’
‘Surely the other men notice?’ said Tiffany.
Preston shook his head, which caused his oversized helmet to spin a little. ‘Oh no, miss, you know them: they think reading is cissy stuff for girls. Anyway, if I get in early I tear out the paper underneath so that they don’t laugh at him. I have to say, for a self-taught man he is a pretty good poet – good grasp of the metaphor. They are all written to somebody called Millie.’
‘That would be his wife,’ said Tiffany. ‘You must have seen her in the village – more freckles than anyone I’ve ever seen. She is very sensitive about it.’
Preston nodded. ‘That might explain why his latest poem is entitled “What Good Is The Sky Without Stars”?’
‘You wouldn’t know it from looking at the man, would you?’
Preston looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Excuse me, Tiffany,’ he said, ‘but you don’t look well. In fact, no offence meant, you look absolutely dreadful. If you were somebody else and took a look at you, you would say that you were very ill indeed. You don’t look as if you’ve had any sleep.’
‘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 Pr
oust 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?