Carpe Jugulum

'It's not even telling the right time,' said Agnes, turning to look at it.

'Oh, she just kept it for the tick,' said Nanny.

Agnes put down the glass ball.

'I'm going to look around some more,' she said.

She'd learned to look around when she visited someone's home, because in one way it was a piece of clothing and had grown to fit their shape. It might show not just what they'd been doing, but what they'd been thinking. You might be visiting someone who expected you to know everything about everything, and in those circumstances you took every advantage you could get.

Someone had told her that a witch's cottage was her second face. Come to think of it, it had been Granny.

It should be easy to read this place. Granny's thoughts had the strength of hammer blows and they'd pounded her personality into the walls. If her cottage had been any more organic it would have had a pulse.

Agnes wandered through to the dank little scullery. The copper washpot had been scoured. A fork and a couple of shining spoons lay beside it, along with the washboard and scrubbing brush. The slop bucket gleamed, although the fragments of a broken cup in the bottom said that the recent intensive housework hadn't been without its casualties.

She pushed open the door into the old goat shed. Granny was not keeping goats at the moment, but her home-made beekeeping equipment was neatly laid out on a bench. She'd never needed much. If you needed smoke and a veil to deal with your bees, what was the point of being a witch?

Bees...

A moment later she was out in the garden, her ear pressed against a beehive.

There were no bees flying this early in the day, but the sound inside was a roar.

'They'll know,' said a voice behind her. Agnes stood up so quickly she bumped her head on the hive roof.

'But they won't say,' Nanny added. 'She'd have told 'em. Well done for thinkin' about 'em, though.'

Something chattered at them from a nearby branch. It was a magpie.

'Good morning, Mister Magpie,' said Agnes automatically.

'Bugger off, you bastard,' said Nanny, and reached down for a stick to throw. The bird swooped off to the other side of the clearing.

'That's bad luck,' said Agnes.

'It will be if I get a chance to aim,' said Nanny. 'Can't stand those maggoty-pies.'

' "One for sorrow," said Agnes, watching the bird hop along a branch.

'I always take the view there's prob'ly going to be another one along in a minute,' said Nanny, dropping a stick.

' "Two for joy"?' said Agnes.

'It's "two for mirth".'

'Same thing, I suppose.'

'Dunno about that,' said Nanny. 'I was joyful when our Jason was born, but I can't say I was laughin' at the time. Come on, let's have another look.'

Two more magpies landed on the cottage's antique thatch.

'That's "three for a girl-"' said Agnes nervously.

' "Three for a funeral" is what I learned,' said Nanny. 'But there's lots of magpie rhymes. Look, you take her broomstick and have a look over towards the mountains, and I'll-'

'Wait,' said Agnes.

Perdita was screaming at her to pay attention. She listened.

Threes...

Three spoons. Three knives. Three cups.

The broken cup thrown away.

She stood still, afraid that if she moved or breathed something awful would happen.

The clock had stopped...

'Nanny?'

Nanny Ogg was wise enough to recognize that something was happening and didn't waste time on daft questions.

'Yes?' she said.

'Go in and tell me what time the clock stopped at, will you?'

Nanny nodded and trotted off.

The tension in Agnes's head stretched out thin and made a noise like a plucked string. She was amazed that the whine from it couldn't be heard all round the garden. If she moved, if she tried to force things, it'd snap.

Nanny returned.

'Three o'clock?' said Agnes, before she opened her mouth.

'Just after.'

'How much after?'

'Two or three minutes...'

'Two or three?'

'Three, then.'

The three magpies landed together on another tree and chased one another through the branches, chattering loudly.

'Three minutes after three,' said Agnes, and felt the tension ease and the words form. 'Threes, Nanny. She was thinking in threes. There was another candlestick out in the goat shed, and some cutlery too. But she only put out threes.'

'Some things were in ones and twos,' said Nanny, but her voice was edged with doubt.

'Then she'd only got one or two of them,' said Agnes. 'There were more spoons and things out in the scullery that she'd missed. I mean that for some reason she wasn't putting out more than three.'

'I know for a fact she's got four cups,' said Nanny.

'Three,' said Agnes. 'She must've broken one. The bits are in the slop bucket.'

Nanny Ogg stared at her. 'She's not clumsy, as a rule,' she mumbled. She looked to Agnes as though she was trying to avoid some huge and horrible thought.

A gust shook the trees. A few drops of rain spattered across the garden.

'Let's get inside,' Agnes suggested.