I Shall Wear Midnight

At which point the door banged open and Miss Spruce stepped into the room. What happened next took a moment, but seemed to Tiffany to go on for an hour. The nurse looked at her holding the poker, and then at the old man in tears, then at the cloud of steam, then back to Tiffany as she let the poker go, and then back to the old man, and then back to Tiffany as the poker landed in the hearth with a clang that echoed around the world. And then Miss Spruce took a deep breath like a whale preparing to dive to the bottom of the ocean and screamed, ‘What do you think you are doing to him? Get out of here, you brazen hussy!’

Tiffany’s ability to speak came back quickly, and then grew into an ability to shout. ‘I am not brazen and I don’t huss!’

‘I’m going to fetch the guards, you black and midnight hag!’ the nurse screamed, heading for the door.

‘It’s only eleven thirty!’ Tiffany shouted after her and hurried back to the Baron, totally at a loss as to what to do next. The pain shifted. She could feel it. She wasn’t keeping her mind straight. Things were getting out of balance. She concentrated for a moment and then, trying to smile, turned to the Baron.

‘I’m very sorry if I have upset you, sir,’ she began, and then realized that he was smiling through his tears and his whole face seemed full of sunlight.

‘Upset me? Good gracious no, I’m not upset.’ He tried to pull himself upright in the chair and pointed towards the fire with a trembling finger. ‘I am, in fact, set up! I feel alive! I am young, my dear Miss Tiffany Aching! I remember that perfect day! Can you not see me? Down in the valley? A perfect, crisp September day. A little boy in the tweed jacket that was far too itchy, as I recall, yes, was far too itchy and smelled of wee! And my father was singing “The Larks They Sang Melodious”, and I was trying to harmonize, which of course I couldn’t do then because I had about as much voice as a rabbit, and we were watching them burn the stubbles. There was smoke everywhere, and as the fire swept along, mice, rats, rabbits and even foxes were running towards us away from the flames. Pheasants and partridges were taking off like rockets at the last minute, as they do, and suddenly there was no sound at all and I saw this hare. Oh, she was a big one – did you know that country people used to think all hares were female? – and she just stood there, looking at me, with bits of burning grass falling around us, and the flames behind her, and she was looking directly at me, and I will swear that when she knew that she had caught my eye, she flicked herself into the air and jumped straight into the fire. And of course I cried like anything, because she was so fine. And my father picked me up and said he’d tell me a little secret, and he taught me the hare song, so that I would know the truth of it, and stop crying. And then later on, we walked over the ashes and there was no dead hare.’ The old man turned his head awkwardly towards her, and beamed, really beamed. He shone.

Where is that coming from? Tiffany wondered. It’s too yellow for firelight, but the curtains are shut. It’s always too gloomy in here, but now it is the light of a crisp September day …

‘I remember doing a crayon picture of it when we got home, and my father was so proud of it he took it all around the castle so that everybody could admire it,’ the old man went on, as enthusiastic as a boy. ‘A child’s scrawl, of course, but he talked about it as if it were a work of genius. Parents do such things. I found it among his documents after he died, and in fact, if you are interested, you will find it in a leather folder within the money chest. It is, after all, a precious thing. I’ve never told anyone else that,’ said the Baron. ‘People and days and memories come and go but that memory has always been there. No money that I could give you, Miss Tiffany Aching, who is the witch, could ever repay you for bringing back to me that wonderful vision. Which I shall remember until the day I—’

For a moment the flames on the fire stood still and the air was cold. Tiffany was never actually sure that she ever saw Death, not actually saw; perhaps in some strange way it had all happened inside her head. Though wherever he was, well, he was there.

WASN’T THAT APPROPRIATE? Death said.

Tiffany didn’t step back. There was no point. ‘Did you arrange that?’ she asked.

MUCH AS I WOULD LIKE TO TAKE THE CREDIT, OTHER FORCES ARE AT WORK. GOOD MORNING TO YOU, MISS ACHING.

Death left, and the Baron followed, a little boy in his new tweed jacket, which was terribly itchy and sometimes smelled of wee,¹⁰ following his father across the smoking field.

Then Tiffany placed her hand on the dead man’s face and, with respect, closed his eyes, where the light of burning fields was dimming.

9 Whatever sex a hare is, to the true countryman, all hares are referred to as ‘her’.