I Shall Wear Midnight

Tiffany recognized the woman, but not with any pleasure. She was the Duchess, the mother of Letitia, and fairly fearsome. Did Roland really understand what he was letting himself in for? Letitia herself was all right, if you liked that kind of thing, but her mother apparently had so much blue blood in her veins that she ought to explode, and right now looked as if that was going to happen. And how appropriate that the Feegles should have trashed the very building that the nasty old baggage was staying in. How lucky could one witch get? And what would the Duchess think about Roland and his watercolour-painting wife-to-be being left in the building unchaperoned?

This question was answered by the sight of the little man dragging both of them out of the building by some very expensive clothing. Roland was wearing a dinner jacket slightly too big for him, while Letitia’s apparel was simply a mass of flimsy frills upon frills, in Tiffany’s mind not the clothing of anyone who was any use whatsoever. Hah.

Still more watchmen were turning up, presumably because they had dealt with Feegles before and had had the sense to walk, not run, to the scene of the crime. But there was a tall one – more than six feet in height – with red hair and wearing armour so polished that it blinded, who was taking a witness statement from the owner; it sounded like a long-drawn-out scream to the effect that the watchmen should make this terrible nightmare not have happened.

Tiffany turned away and found herself staring directly into the face of Roland.

‘You? Here?’ he managed. In the background, Letitia was bursting into tears. Hah, just like her!

‘Look, I have to tell you something very—’

‘The floor fell in,’ said Roland before she could finish, like someone still in a dream. ‘The actual floor actually fell in!’

‘Look, I must—’ she began again, but this time Letitia’s mother was suddenly in front of Tiffany.

‘I know you! You’re his witch girl, yes? Don’t deny it! How dare you follow us here!’

‘How did they make the floor fall in?’ Roland demanded, his face white. ‘How did you make the floor fall in? Tell me!’

And then the smell came. It was like being hit, unexpectedly, with a hammer. Under her bewilderment and horror Tiffany sensed something else: a stink, a stench, a foulness in her mind, dreadful and unforgiving, a compost of horrible ideas and rotted thoughts that made her want to take out her brain and wash it.

That’s him: the man in black with no eyes! And the smell! A toilet for sick weasels couldn’t smell worse! I thought it was bad last time, but that was a bed of primroses! She looked around desperately, hoping against hope not to see what she was looking for.

Letitia’s sobs were getting louder, and mixing very badly with the sounds of the Feegles groaning and swearing as they started to wake up.

The mother-in-law-to-be grabbed Roland by his jacket. ‘Come away from her right now; she is nothing but a—’

‘Roland, your father is dead!’

That silenced everybody, and Tiffany was suddenly in a thicket of stares.

Oh dear, she thought. It shouldn’t have happened like this.

‘I’m sorry,’ she managed in the accusing silence. ‘There was nothing I could do.’ She saw colour flow into his face.

‘But you were looking after him,’ said Roland, as if trying to work out a puzzle. ‘Why did you stop keeping him alive?’

‘All I could do was take the pain away. I’m so very sorry, but that’s all I could do. I’m sorry.’

‘But you’re a witch! I thought you were good at it, you’re a witch! Why did he die?’

What did the bitch do to him? Do not trust her! She is a witch! Do not suffer a witch to live!

Tiffany didn’t hear the words; they seemed to crawl across her mind like some kind of slug, leaving slime behind it, and later she wondered how many other minds it had crawled across, but now she felt Mrs Proust grip her by the arm. She saw Roland’s face contort into fury, and she remembered the screaming figure on the road, shadowless in full sunlight, delivering abuse as if it was vomit and leaving her with a sick feeling that she would never be able to get clean again.

And the people around her had a worried, hunted look, like rabbits who have smelled a fox.

Then she saw him. Hardly visible, at the edge of the crowd. There they were, or rather there they weren’t. The two holes in the air staring at her just for a moment, before vanishing. And not knowing where they had gone made them worse.

She turned to Mrs Proust. ‘What is that ?’