I Shall Wear Midnight

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.