I Shall Wear Midnight Page 11

  And now she looked directly into the man’s eyes, almost hidden under the wide hat brim and … he … had … no eyes. The understanding dawned on her like ice melting … No eyes at all, not ordinary eyes, not blind eyes, no eye sockets … just two holes in his head: she could see right through to the smouldering fields beyond. She didn’t expect what happened next.

  The man in black glared at her again and hissed, ‘You are the witch. You are the one. Wherever you go, I will find you.’

  And then he vanished, leaving only a pile of fighting Feegles in the dust.

  Tiffany felt something on her boot. She looked down, and a hare, which must have fled the burning stubbles, stared back at her. They held each other’s gaze for a second, and then the hare jumped into the air like a leaping salmon and headed off across the road. The world is full of omens and signs; and a witch did indeed have to pick the ones that were important. Where could she begin here?

  Mr Carpetlayer was still slumped against the coach, totally ignorant of what had just happened. So was Tiffany in a way, but she would find out. She said, ‘You can get up again now, Mr Carpetlayer.’

  He did so very gingerly, grimacing as he waited for the lightning strokes of agony all down his back. He shifted experimentally, and gave a little jump in the dust, as if he was squashing an ant. That seemed to work, and he tried a second jump and then, throwing his arms out wide, he shouted ‘Yippee!’ and spun like a ballerina. His hat fell off and his hobnailed boots smacked into the dust and Mr Carpetlayer was a very happy man as he twirled and hopped, very nearly turned a cartwheel, and when it turned out to be about half a cartwheel, he rolled back onto his feet, picked up the astonished Tiffany and danced her along the road, shouting, ‘One two three, one two three, one two three,’ until she managed to shake herself loose, laughing. ‘Me and the wife is going to go out tonight, young lady, and we are going to go waltzing!’

  ‘But I thought that led to depraved behaviour?’ said Tiffany.

  The coachman winked at her. ‘Well, we can but hope!’ he said.

  ‘You don’t want to overdo it, Mr Carpetlayer,’ she warned.

  ‘As a matter of fact, miss, I rather think I do, if it’s all the same to you. After all the creaking and groaning and not sleeping hardly at all, I think I would like to overdo it a little, or if possible a lot! Oh, what a good girl to think of the horses,’ he added. ‘That shows a kind nature.’

  ‘I am pleased to see you in such fine spirits, Mr Carpetlayer.’

  The coachman did a little twirl in the middle of the road. ‘I feel twenty years younger!’ He beamed at her, and then his face clouded just a little. ‘Er … how much do I owe you?’

  ‘How much will the damage to the paintwork cost me?’ said

  Tiffany.

  They looked at one another, and then Mr Carpetlayer said, ‘Well, I can’t ask you for anything, miss, given that it was me that busted the mirror ball.’

  A little tinkling sound made Tiffany look behind them, where the mirror ball, apparently unharmed, was spinning gently and, if you looked carefully, just above the dirt.

  She knelt down on a road totally free of broken glass and said, apparently to nothing at all, ‘Did you stick it back together again?’

  ‘Oh aye,’ said Rob Anybody happily from behind the ball.

  ‘But it was smashed to smithereens!’

  ‘Oh aye, but a smithereen is easy, ye ken. See, the tinier bits are, the more they all fit together again. Ye just hae to give them a little push and the wee molly cules remembers where they should be and they sticks together again, nae problemo! Ye dinnae have to act surprised, we dinnae just smash things.’

  Mr Carpetlayer stared at her. ‘Did you do that, miss?’

  ‘Well, sort of,’ said Tiffany.

  ‘Well I should say so!’ said Carpetlayer, all smiles. ‘So I says quid pro quo, give and take, knock for knock, tit for tat, one thing for another, an eye for an eye and me for you.’ He winked. ‘I’ll say it worked out even, and the company can put their paperwork where the monkey put his jumper – what you say to that, eh?’ He spat on his hand and held it out.

  Oh dear, thought Tiffany, a handshake with spit seals an unbreakable accord; thank goodness I have a reasonably clean handkerchief.

  She nodded speechlessly. And there had been a broken ball, and now it appeared to have mended itself. The day was hot, a man with holes where his eyes should be had vanished into nothing … Where would you even begin? Some days you trimmed toenails, removed splinters and sewed up legs, and some days were days like this.

  They shook hands, rather damply, the broomstick was shoved among the bundles behind the driver, Tiffany climbed up alongside him, and the journey continued, dust rising up from the road as it passed and forming strangely unpleasant shapes until it settled down again.

  After a while Mr Carpetlayer said, in a careful kind of voice, ‘Er, that black hat you’ve got on, are you going to carry on wearing it?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Only, well, you are wearing a nice green dress and, if I may say so, your teeth are lovely and white.’ The man seemed to be wrestling with a problem.

  ‘I clean them with soot and salt every day. I can recommend it,’ said Tiffany.

  It was turning into a difficult conversation. The man seemed to reach a conclusion. ‘So you are not really a witch then?’ he said hopefully.

  ‘Mr Carpetlayer, are you scared of me?’

  ‘That’s a scary question, miss.’

  Actually it is, Tiffany thought. Aloud, she said, ‘Look, Mr Carpetlayer, what’s this all about?’

  ‘Well, miss, since you ask, there have been some stories lately. You know, about babies being stolen, that sort of thing. Kids running off and that.’ He brightened up a bit. ‘Still, I expect those were wicked old … you know, with, like, hooked noses, warts and evil black dresses – not nice girls like you. Yes, that’s just the sort of thing they would do!’ Having sorted out that conundrum to his satisfaction, the coachman said little for the rest of the journey, although he did whistle a lot.

  Tiffany, on the other hand, sat quietly. For one thing, she was now very worried, and for another thing she could just about hear the voices of the Feegles back among the mail bags, reading other people’s letters to each other.18 She had to hope that they were putting them back in the right envelopes.

  The song went: ‘Ankh-Morpork! It’s a wonderful town! The trolls are up and the dwarfs are down! Slightly better than living in a hole in the ground! Ankh-Morpork! It’s a wonderfuuuuuulllll townnn!’

  It wasn’t, really.

  Tiffany had only been there once before and didn’t like the big city very much. It stank, and there were too many people, and far too many places. And the only green was on the surface of the river, which could only be called mud because a more accurate word would not have been printable.

  The coachman pulled up outside one of the main gates, even though they were open.

  ‘If you take my advice, miss, you’ll take your hat off and walk in by yourself. That broomstick looks like firewood now, in any case.’ He gave her a nervous grin. ‘Best of luck, miss.’

  ‘Mr Carpetlayer,’ she said loudly, aware of people around her. ‘I do hope that when you hear people talk about witches, you will mention that you met one and she made your back better – and, may I suggest, saved your livelihood. Thank you for the ride.’

  ‘Oh well, I’ll definitely tell people I met one of the good ones,’ he said.

  With her head held high, or at least as high as is appropriate when you are carrying your own damaged broomstick over your shoulder, Tiffany walked into the city. The pointy hat got one or two glances, and perhaps a couple of frowns, but mostly people didn’t look at her at all; in the country, everyone you meet is someone you know or a stranger worth investigating, but here it seemed there were so many people that it was a waste of time even to look at them at all, and possibly dangerous in any case.

  Tiffany bent d
own. ‘Rob, you know Roland, the Baron’s son?’

  ‘Ach, the wee streak o’ nothing,’ said Rob Anybody.

  ‘Well, nevertheless,’ said Tiffany, ‘I know you can find people and I would like you to go and find him for me now please.’

  ‘Would you no’ mind if we had just the one wee drink while we are looking?’ said Rob Anybody. ‘A man could drown o’ thirst around here. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t bogging for a wee dram or ten.’

  Tiffany knew that it would be foolish to say either yes or no and settled for, ‘Just the one then. When you’ve found him.’

  There was the faintest of whooshing noises behind her, and no more Feegles. Still, they would be easy to find; you just had to listen for breaking glass. Oh yes, breaking glass that repaired itself. Another mystery: she had looked at the mirror ball very carefully as they put it back in its box, and there hadn’t been even a scratch on it.

  She glanced up at the towers of Unseen University, crammed with wise men in pointy hats, or at least men in pointy hats, but there was another address, well known to witches, which was in its own way just as magical: Boffo’s Joke Emporium, number four, Tenth Egg Street. She had never been there, but she did get a catalogue occasionally.

  People started to notice her more when she got off the main streets and made her way through the neighbourhoods, and she could feel eyeballs on her as she walked over the cobbles. People weren’t angry or unfriendly as such. They were just … watching, as if wondering what to make of her, and she had to hope that it was not, for example, stew.

  There wasn’t a bell on the door of Boffo’s Joke Emporium. There was a whoopee cushion, and for most of the people who came to buy things in the emporium, a whoopee cushion, perhaps in conjunction with a generous dollop of fake sick, was the last word in entertainment, which indeed it is, unfortunately.

  But real witches often needed boffo too. There were times when you had to look like a witch, and not every witch was good at it and was just too busy to get her hair in a mess. So Boffo’s was where you bought your fake warts and wigs, stupidly heavy cauldrons and artificial skulls. And, with any luck, you might get the address of a dwarf who could help you repair your broomstick.

  Tiffany stepped inside and admired the deep-throated farting of the whoopee cushion, pushed her way round and more or less through a ludicrous fake skeleton with glowing red eyes, and reached the counter, at which point somebody blew a squeaker at her. It disappeared, to be replaced by the face of a small, worried-looking man, who said, ‘Did you by any chance find that even remotely amusing?’

  His voice suggested that he expected the answer to be ‘no’ and Tiffany saw no reason to disappoint him. ‘Absolutely not,’ she said.

  The man sighed and pushed the unfunny squeaker down the counter. ‘Alas, no one ever does,’ he said. ‘I’m sure I’m doing something wrong somewhere. Oh well, what can I do for you, miss—Oh – you are a real one, aren’t you? I can always tell, you know!’

  ‘Look,’ said Tiffany, ‘I’ve never ordered anything from you, but I used to work with Miss Treason, who …’

  But the man wasn’t listening to her. Instead he was shouting at a hole in the floor. ‘Mother? We’ve got a real one!’

  A few seconds later, a voice by Tiffany’s ear said, ‘Derek is sometimes mistaken and you might have found the broomstick. You are a witch, aren’t you? Show me!’

  Tiffany vanished. She did it without thinking – or, rather, thinking so fast that her thoughts had no time to wave to her as they flashed by. Only when the man, who was apparently Derek, was staring open-mouthed at nothing at all did she realize that she had faded into the foreground so quickly because disobeying that voice behind her would definitely be an unwise thing to do. A witch was standing behind her: most definitely a witch, and a skilled one too.

  ‘Very good,’ said the voice approvingly. ‘Very good indeed, young woman. I can still see you, of course, because I was watching very carefully. My word, a real one.’

  ‘I’m going to turn round, you know,’ Tiffany warned.

  ‘I don’t recall saying that you couldn’t, my dear.’

  Tiffany turned round and was faced with the witch of nightmares: battered hat, wart-encrusted nose, claw-like hands, blackened teeth and – Tiffany looked down – oh yes, big black boots. You did not have to be very familiar with Boffo’s catalogue to see that the speaker was wearing the full range of cosmetics in the ‘Hag in a Hurry’ range (‘Because you’re Worthless’ ).

  ‘I think we should continue this conversation in my workshop,’ said the horrible hag, disappearing into the floor. ‘Just stand on the trapdoor when it comes back up, will you? Make some coffee, Derek.’

  When Tiffany arrived in the basement, the trapdoor working wonderfully smoothly, she found what you would expect in the workshop of the company that made everything needed by a witch who felt she needed some boffo in her life. Rows of rather scary hag masks were hanging on a line, benches were full of brightly coloured bottles, racks of warts had been laid out to dry, and various things that went bloop were doing so in a big cauldron by the fireplace. It was a proper cauldron too.19

  The horrible hag was working at a bench, and there was a terrible cackle. She turned round, holding a small square wooden box with a piece of string sticking out of it. ‘First-class cackle, don’t you think? A simple thread and resin arrangement with a sounding board because, quite frankly, cackling is a bit of a pain in the neck, don’t you think? I believe I can make it work by clockwork too. Let me know when you’ve seen the joke.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Tiffany burst out.

  The hag had put the box on her workbench. ‘Oh dear,’ she said, ‘where are my manners?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Tiffany, who was getting a bit fed up. ‘Perhaps the clockwork has run down?’

  The hag grinned a black-toothed grin. ‘Ah, sharpness. I like that in a witch, but not too much.’ She held out a claw. ‘Mrs Proust.’

  The claw was less clammy than Tiffany had expected. ‘Tiffany Aching,’ she said. ‘How do you do?’ Feeling that something further was expected of her, Tiffany added, ‘I used to work with Miss Treason.’

  ‘Oh yes, a fine witch,’ said Mrs Proust. ‘And a good customer. Very keen on her warts and skulls, as I recall.’ She smiled. ‘And since I doubt that you want to get hagged up for a girls’ night out, I must assume you need my help? The fact that your broomstick has about half the bristles needed for aerodynamic stability confirms my initial surmise. Incidentally, have you seen the joke yet?’

  What should she say? ‘I think so …’

  ‘Go on then.’

  ‘I’m not going to say until I’m sure,’ said Tiffany.

  ‘Very wise,’ said Mrs Proust. ‘Well, let’s get your broomstick mended, shall we? It will mean a little stroll, and if I was you I would leave your black hat behind.’

  Instinctively Tiffany grabbed at the brim of her hat. ‘Why?’

  Mrs Proust frowned, causing her nose to very nearly catch her chin. ‘Because you might find … No, I know what we can do.’ She rummaged on the workbench and, without asking any permission, stuck something on Tiffany’s hat, right at the back. ‘There,’ she said. ‘No one will take any notice now. Sorry, but witches are a little bit unpopular at the moment. Let’s get that stick of yours repaired as soon as possible, just in case you need to leave in a hurry.’

  Tiffany pulled off her hat and looked at what Mrs Proust had stuck in the hat band. It was a brightly coloured piece of cardboard on a string and it said: Apprentice witch hat with evil glitter. Size 7. Price: AM$2.50. Boffo! A name to conjure with!!!

  ‘What’s all this?’ she demanded. ‘You’ve even sprinkled evil glitter on it.’

  ‘It’s a disguise,’ said Mrs Proust.

  ‘What? Do you think any self-respecting witch would walk down the street wearing a hat like this?’ said Tiffany angrily.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Mrs Proust. ‘The best disguise for a wi
tch is a rather cheap witch’s outfit! Would a real witch buy clothes from a shop that also does a pretty good trade in naughty Fido jokes, indoor fireworks, laughable pantomime wigs and – our best and most profitable line – giant inflatable pink willies, suitable for hen nights? That would be unthinkable! It’s boffo, my dear, pure, unadulterated boffo! Disguise, subterfuge and misdirection are our watchwords. All watchwords. And, Amazing value for money, they’re our watchwords too. No refunds under any circumstances, they’re important watchwords. As is our policy of dealing terminally with shoplifters. Oh, and we also have a watchword about people smoking in the shop, although that’s not a very important word.’

  ‘What?’ said Tiffany who, out of shock, had not heard the list of watchwords because she was staring at the pink ‘balloons’ hanging from the ceiling. ‘I thought they were piglets!’

  Mrs Proust patted her hand. ‘Welcome to life in the big city, my dear. Shall we go?’

  ‘Why are witches so unpopular at the moment?’ asked Tiffany.

  ‘It’s amazing the ideas people get into their heads sometimes,’ said Mrs Proust. ‘Generally speaking, I find it best just to keep your head down and wait until the problem goes away. You just need to be careful.’

  And Tiffany thought that she did indeed need to be careful. ‘Mrs Proust,’ she said. ‘I think I know the joke by now.’

  ‘Yes, dear?’

  ‘I thought you were a real witch disguising herself as a fake witch …’

  ‘Yes, dear?’ said Mrs Proust, her voice like treacle.

  ‘Which would be quite amusing, but I think there’s another joke, and it’s not really very funny.’

  ‘Oh, and what would that be, dear?’ said Mrs Proust in a voice which now had sugary gingerbread cottages in it.

  Tiffany took a deep breath. ‘That really is your face, isn’t it? The masks you sell are masks of you.’