I Shall Wear Midnight - Terry Pratchett

Automatically, Tiffany slammed the book shut and held it shut in both hands, clutching it like a schoolgirl. He saw me, she thought. I know he did. The book jumped in her arms as something heavy hit it, and she could hear … words, words she was glad she couldn’t understand. Another blow struck the book, and the cover bulged, nearly knocking her over. When the next thump came, she fell forward, landing with the cover under her and all her weight on the book.

Fire, she thought. He hates fire! But I don’t think I could carry this very far and, well, you don’t set fire to libraries, you just don’t. And besides, this whole place is as dry as a bone.

‘Is something trying to get out of the book?’ said Letitia.

Tiffany looked up at her pink and white face. ‘Yes,’ she managed, and slammed the book down on the table as it jumped again in her arms.

‘It’s not going to be like that goblin in the fairytale book, is it? I was always so scared that it would squeeze itself out between the pages.’

The book sprang up into the air and slammed back down again on the table, knocking the wind out of Tiffany. She managed to grunt, ‘I think this is a lot worse than the goblin!’ Which was our goblin, she remembered inconveniently. They had the same book, after all. It wasn’t a good book in many respects, but then you grow up and it’s just a silly picture, but part of you never forgets.

It seemed to be something that happened to everybody. When she had mentioned to Petulia about being frightened by a picture in a book, the girl confessed that she had been hugely frightened by a happy-looking skeleton in a picture book when she was young. And it turned out all the other girls remembered something like that too. It was as if it was a fact of life. A book would start out by scaring you.

‘I think I know what to do,’ said Letitia. ‘Can you keep it occupied for a while? I won’t be a moment.’ And with that she disappeared from view, and after a few seconds Tiffany, still straining to keep the book closed, heard a squeaking noise. She did not take much notice, because her arms, clinging tightly to the bouncing book, felt redhot. Then, behind her, Letitia said quietly, ‘Look, I’m going to guide you to the book press. When I say so, push the book in and get your hands out of the way really, really quickly. It is quite important that you do it quickly!’

Tiffany felt the girl help her turn, and together they edged along to something metallic waiting in the gloom, while all the time the book rocked with anger and thumped on her chest; it was like holding an elephant’s heart while it was still beating.

She hardly heard Letitia’s voice above the pounding as she shouted, ‘Put the book down on the metal plate, push it a little way forward and get your fingers out of the way – right now!’

Something spun. In one pants-wetting moment Tiffany saw a hand thrust its way through the book’s cover before a metal plate slammed down on it, clipping the ends of Tiffany’s fingernails.

‘Help me with this bar, will you? Let’s tighten it down as far as we can.’ That was from Letitia, who was leaning on … what? ‘It’s the old book press,’ she said. ‘My grandfather used to use it all the time when he was tidying up old books that got damaged. It helps when you have to glue a page back in, for example. We hardly use it except at Hogswatch. Very good for the precision cracking of walnuts, you see? Just wind the handle until you hear them start to crack. They look like tiny little human brains.’

Tiffany risked a look at the press, the top and bottom plates of which were now pressed tightly together, to see if any human brains were dripping down the outside. They weren’t, but it didn’t help very much at this point, as a small human skeleton walked out of the wall, through the library shelves as though they were smoke, and disappeared. It had been holding a teddy bear. It was one of those things that the brain files under ‘something I would rather not have seen’.

‘Was that some kind of ghost?’ said Letitia. ‘Not the skeleton – I told you about him, didn’t I? Poor little thing. I mean, the other one. The one in the book …’

‘He is, well, I suppose you could say that he is something like a disease, and also something like a nightmare that turns out to be standing in your bedroom when you wake up. And I think you may have called him. Summoned him, if you like.’

‘I don’t like either of those! All I did was a simple little spell out of a book that cost one dollar! All right, I know I must’ve been a silly girl, but I didn’t mean anything like … that!’ She pointed to the press, which was still creaking.

‘Stupid woman,’ said Tiffany.

Letitia blinked. ‘What did you say?’

‘Stupid woman! Or silly woman, if you prefer. You’re going to get married in a few days, remember? And you tried to do a spell on somebody out of jealousy. Did you see the title of that book? I did. It was right in front of me! It was The Bonfire of the Witches! It was dictated by an Omnian priest who was so mad that he wouldn’t have been able to see sanity with a telescope. And you know what? Books live. The pages remember! Have you heard about the library at the Unseen University? They have books in there that have to be chained down, or kept in darkness or even under water! And you, miss, played at magic a matter of inches away from a book that boils with evil, vindictive magic. No wonder you got a result! I woke him up and ever since then he’s been searching, hunting me. And you – with your little spell – have shown him where I was! You helped him! He’s come back, and he’s found me now! The witch-burner. And he is infectious, just as I told you, a kind of disease.’

She paused for breath, which came, and the torrent of tears, which didn’t. Letitia just stood there as if she was thinking deeply. Then she said, ‘I suppose that “sorry” isn’t enough, right?’

‘As a matter of fact, it would be rather a good start,’ said Tiffany, but she thought: This young woman, who has never realized it’s time to stop wearing girly dresses, gave a headless ghost a pumpkin to carry under its arm so that it would feel better and presented a screaming little skeleton with a teddy bear. Would I have thought to do that? It’s absolutely something that a witch would do.

‘Look,’ she said, ‘you have definitely got some magical talent, I really mean it. But you’ll get into a terrible amount of trouble if you start mucking about when you don’t know what you are doing. Although giving the teddy bear to the poor little skeleton was a stroke of genius. Build on that thought and get some training, and you might have quite a magical future. You will have to go and spend some time with an old witch, just like I did.’

‘Well, that’s wonderful, Tiffany,’ Letitia said. ‘But I have to go and spend some time getting married! Shall we get back now? And what do you suggest we do with the book? I don’t like the idea of him being in there. Supposing he gets out!’

‘He is out, already. But the book is … well, a kind of window that makes it easy for him to come through. To reach me. You get that sort of thing occasionally. It’s a sort of way into another world, or perhaps somewhere else in this world.’

Tiffany had felt rather lofty when she explained this, and so was somewhat chastened when Letitia said, ‘Oh yes, the bluebell wood with the cottage that sometimes has smoke coming out of the chimney and sometimes does not; and the girl feeding the ducks on the pond, where the pigeons on the house behind her are sometimes flying and sometimes perched. They are mentioned in H.J. Toadbinder’s book Floating Worlds. Would you like it? I know where it is.’ And before Tiffany could say a word, the girl hurried off among the bookshelves. She came back within a minute, much to Tiffany’s relief, and she was carrying a large, shiny leather volume which was suddenly dropped into Tiffany’s hands.

‘It’s a present. You’ve been kinder to me than I was to you.’

‘You can’t give me that! It’s part of the library! It’ll leave a gap!’

‘No, I insist,’ said Letitia. ‘I’m the only one who comes in here now, in any case. My mother keeps all the books of family history, genealogy and heraldry in her own room, and she’s the only one who is interested in them. Apart from me, the only other person who ever comes in here these days is Mr Tyler, and I think I hear him now, making his last round of the night. Well,’ she added, ‘he’s very old and very slow and it takes him about a week to go about his night watching, bearing in mind he sleeps through the day. Let’s go. He’ll have a heart attack if he actually finds anybody.’

There was indeed a creaking sound of a distant doorknob.

Letitia lowered her voice. ‘Do you mind if we sneak out the other way? He might have a nasty turn if he actually discovers anybody.’

A light was coming down the long corridor, although you needed to watch it for quite some time to see that it was moving. Letitia opened the door to the outer world and they hurried onto what would have been the lawn if anyone had mown it in the past ten years. Tiffany got the impression that lawn mowing here went at the same decrepit speed as Mr Tyler. There was dew on the grass, and a certain sense that daylight was a distinct possibility sometime in the future. As soon as they reached the broomstick, Letitia made yet another muttered apology and hurried back into the sleeping house via another door, coming out again five minutes later carrying a large bag. ‘My mourning clothes,’ she said as the broomstick rose into the soft air. ‘It will be the old Baron’s funeral tomorrow, the poor man. My mother always travels with her funeral clothes. She says you never know when someone is going to drop down dead.’

‘That is a very interesting point of view, Letitia, but when you get back to the castle I would like you to tell Roland what you did, please. I don’t care about anything else, but please tell him about the spell you did.’ Tiffany waited. Letitia was sitting behind her and, right now, silent. Very silent. So much silence that you could hear it.

Tiffany spent the time looking at the landscape as it wound past. Here and there smoke rose from kitchen fires, even though the sun was still below the horizon. Generally speaking, women in the villages raced to be the first to show smoke; it proved you were a busy housewife. She sighed. The thing about the broomstick was that when you rode it you looked down on people. You couldn’t help it, however much you tried. Human beings seemed to be nothing but a lot of scurrying dots. And when you started thinking like that, it was time you found the company of some other witches, to get your head straight. You shall not be a witch alone, the saying went. It wasn’t so much advice as a demand.

Behind her, Letitia said, in a voice that sounded as though she had weighed out every word very carefully before deciding to speak, ‘Why aren’t you angrier with me?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know! After what I did! You are just being dreadfully … nice!’

Tiffany was glad the girl couldn’t see her face and for that matter, she couldn’t see hers.

‘Witches don’t often get angry. All that shouting business never really gets anybody anywhere.’

After another pause Letitia said, ‘If that is true, then maybe I’m not cut out to be a witch. I feel very angry sometimes.’

‘Oh, I feel very angry a lot of the time,’ said Tiffany, ‘but I just put it away somewhere until I can do something useful with it. That’s the thing about witchcraft – and wizardry, come to that. We don’t do much magic at the best of times, and when we do, we generally do it on ourselves. Now, look, the castle’s right ahead. I’ll drop you off on the roof, and frankly I’m looking forward to seeing how comfortable the straw is going to be.’

‘Look, I really am very, very—’

‘I know. You said. There’s no hard feelings, but you have to clear up your own mess. That’s another part of witchcraft, that is.’ And she added to herself: And don’t I know it!

Chapter 12

THE SIN O’ SINS

THE STRAW TURNED out to be comfortable enough; little cottages usually do not have spare rooms, so a witch there on business, such as the birthing of a child, was lucky to get a bed in the cowshed. Very lucky, in fact. It often smelled better, and Tiffany wasn’t alone in thinking that the breath of a cow, warm and smelling of grass, was a kind of medicine in itself.

The goats in the dungeon were nearly as good, though. They sat placidly chewing their supper over and over again, while never taking their solemn gaze off her, as if they expected her to start juggling or doing some kind of song-and-dance act.

Her last thought before falling asleep was that somebody must have given them the feed, and must therefore have noticed that the dungeon was minus one prisoner. In that case, she was in more trouble, but it was hard to see how much more trouble she could be in. Possibly not that much, it seemed, because when she woke again, just an hour or so later, somebody had put a cover over her while she was asleep. What was happening?

She found out when Preston appeared with a tray of eggs and bacon, the eggs and bacon being slightly coffee-flavoured on account of slopping on their way down the long stone staircase. ‘His lordship says it is with his compliments and apologies,’ said Preston, grinning, ‘and I’m to tell you that if you would like it, he could arrange for a hot bath to be waiting for you in the black-and-white chamber. And when you’re ready, the Baron … the new Baron would like to see you in his study.’

The idea of a bath sounded wonderful, but Tiffany knew that there just wouldn’t be any time, and besides, even a halfway useful bath meant that some poor girls had to drag a load of heavy buckets up four or five flights of stone stairs. She would have to make do with a quick swill out of a wash basin when the opportunity arose26. But she was certainly ready for the bacon and eggs. She made a mental note, as she wiped the plate, that if this was going to be a ‘be nice to Tiffany day’, she might try for another helping later on.

Witches liked to make the most of gratitude while it was still warm. People tended to become a little bit forgetful after a day or so. Preston watched with the expression of a boy who had eaten salt porridge for breakfast, and when she had finished said, carefully, ‘And now will you go and see the Baron?’

He is concerned for me, Tiffany thought. ‘First, I’d like to go and see the old Baron,’ she said.

‘He’s still dead,’ Preston volunteered, looking worried.

‘Well, that’s some comfort anyway,’ said Tiffany. ‘Imagine the embarrassment otherwise.’ She smiled at Preston’s puzzlement. ‘And his funeral is tomorrow and that’s why I should see him today, Preston, and right now. Please? Right now, he is more important than his son.’