Reaper Man

They were very faint. It wasn’t that they were on the verge of hearing, because they were the kind of voices that ordinary ears can’t hear. They were inside her head.

… watch what you’re doing … where am I … quit shoving, there …

And then they faded again.

They were replaced by a squeaking noise from the next room. She pushed aside her boiled egg and waddled through the bead curtain.

The sound was coming from under the severe, no-nonsense hessian cover of her crystal ball.

Evadne went back into the kitchen and selected a heavy frying pan. She waved it through the air once or twice, getting the heft of it, and then crept towards the crystal under its hood.

Raising the pan ready to swat anything unpleasant, she twitched aside the cover.

The ball was turning slowly round and round on its stand.

Evadne watched it for a while. Then she drew the curtains, eased her weight down on the chair, took a deep breath and said, ‘Is there anybody there?’

Most of the ceiling fell in.

After several minutes and a certain amount of struggle Mrs Cake managed to get her head free.

‘Ludmilla!’

There were soft footsteps in the passageway and then something came in from the back yard. It was clearly, even attractively female, in general shape, and wore a perfectly ordinary dress. It was also apparently suffering from a case of superfluous hair that not all the delicate pink razors in the world could erase. Also, teeth and fingernails were being worn long this season. You expected the whole thing to growl, but it spoke in a pleasant and definitely human voice.

‘Mother?’

‘Oi’m under ’ere.’

The fearsome Ludmilla lifted up a huge joist and tossed it lightly aside. ‘What happened? Didn’t you have your premonition switched on?’

‘Oi turned it off to speak to the baker. Cor, that gave me a turn.’

‘I’ll make a cup of tea, shall I?’

‘Now then, you know you always crushes teacups when it’s your Time.’

‘I’m getting better at it,’ said Ludmilla.

‘There’s a good girl, but I’ll do it myself, thanks all the same.’

Mrs Cake stood up, brushed the plaster dust off her apron, and said: ‘They shouted! They shouted! All at once!’

Modo the University gardener was weeding a rose bed when the ancient, velvet lawn beside him heaved and sprouted a hardy perennial Windle Poons, who blinked in the light.

‘Is that you, Modo?’

‘That’s right, Mr Poons,’ said the dwarf. ‘Shall I give you a hand up?’

‘I think I can manage, thank you.’

‘I’ve got a shovel in the shed, if you like.’

‘No, it’s perfectly all right.’ Windle pulled himself out of the grass and brushed the soil off the remains of his robe. ‘Sorry about your lawn,’ he added, looking down at the hole.

‘Don’t mention it, Mr Poons.’

‘Did it take long to get it looking like that?’

‘About five hundred years, I think.’^{14}

‘Gosh, I am sorry. I was aiming for the cellars, but I seem to have lost my bearings.’

‘Don’t you worry about that, Mr Poons,’ said the dwarf cheerfully. ‘Everything’s growing like crazy anyway. I’ll fill it in this afternoon and put some more seed down and five hundred years will just zoom past, you wait and see.’

‘The way things are going, I probably will,’ said Windle moodily. He looked around. ‘Is the Archchancellor here?’ he said.

‘I saw them all going up to the palace,’ said the gardener.

‘Then I think I’ll just go and have a quick bath and a change of clothes. I wouldn’t want to disturb anyone.’

‘I heard you wasn’t just dead but buried too,’ said the gardener, as Windle lurched off.

‘That’s right.’

‘Can’t keep a good man down, eh?’

Windle turned back.

‘By the way … where’s Elm Street?’

Modo scratched an ear. ‘Isn’t it that one off Treacle Mine Road?’^{15}

‘Oh, yes. I remember.’

Modo went back to his weeding.

The circular nature of Windle Poons’ death didn’t bother him much. After all, trees looked dead in the winter, burst forth again every spring. Dried up old seeds went in the ground, fresh young plants sprang up. Practically nothing ever died for long. Take compost, for example.

Modo believed in compost with the same passion that other people believed in gods. His compost heaps heaved and fermented and glowed faintly in the dark, perhaps because of the mysterious and possibly illegal ingredients Modo fed them, although nothing had ever been proved and, anyway, no-one was about to dig into one to see what was in it.

All dead stuff, but somehow alive. And it certainly grew roses. The Senior Wrangler had explained to Modo that his roses grew so big because it was a miracle of existence, but Modo privately thought that they just wanted to get as far away from the compost as possible.

The heaps were in for a treat tonight. The weeds were really doing well. He’d never known plants to grow so fast and luxuriantly. It must be all the compost, Modo thought.