Reaper Man

— Agnes is not to have the silverware after what she said about our Molly—

— I didn’t have time to feed the cat, could someone go — shutupshutup! That was One-Man-Bucket again. you’ve got no idea, have you? this is ghost talk, is it? feed the cat? whatever happened to ‘I am very happy here, and waiting for you to join me’?

— listen, if anyone else joins us, we’ll be standing on one another’s heads—

that’s not the point, that’s not the point, that’s all I’m saying. when you’re a spirit, there’s things you gotta say. Mrs Cake?

‘Yes?’

you got to tell someone about this.

Mrs Cake nodded.

‘Now you all go away,’ she said. ‘I’m getting one of my headaches.’

The crystal ball faded.

‘Well!’ said Ludmilla.

‘I ain’t going to tell no priests,’ said Mrs Cake firmly.

It wasn’t that Mrs Cake wasn’t a religious woman. She was, as has already been hinted, a very religious woman indeed. There wasn’t a temple, church, mosque or small group of standing stones anywhere in the city that she hadn’t attended at one time or another, as a result of which she was more feared than an Age of Enlightenment; the mere sight of Mrs Cake’s small fat body on the threshold was enough to stop most priests dead in the middle of their invocation.

Dead. That was the point. All the religions had very strong views about talking to the dead. And so did Mrs Cake. They held that it was sinful. Mrs Cake held that it was only common courtesy.

This usually led to a fierce ecclesiastical debate which resulted in Mrs Cake giving the chief priest what she called ‘a piece of her mind’. There were so many pieces of Mrs Cake’s mind left around the city now that it was quite surprising that there was enough left to power Mrs Cake but, strangely enough, the more pieces of her mind she gave away the more there seemed to be left.

There was also the question of Ludmilla. Ludmilla was a problem. The late Mr Cake, godsresthhissoul, had never so much as even whistled at the full moon his whole life, and Mrs Cake had dark suspicions that Ludmilla was a throwback to the family’s distant past in the mountains, or maybe had contracted genetics as a child. She was pretty certain her mother had once alluded circumspectly to the fact that Great-uncle Erasmus sometimes had to eat his meals under the table. Either way, Ludmilla was a decent upright young woman for three weeks in every four and a perfectly well-behaved hairy wolf thing for the rest of the time.

Priests often failed to see it that way. Since by the time Mrs Cake fell out with whatever priests[11] were currently moderating between her and the gods, she had usually already taken over the flower arrangements, altar dusting, temple cleaning, sacrificial stone scrubbing, honorary vestigial virgining,^{17} hassock repairing and every other vital religious support role by sheer force of personality, her departure resulted in total chaos.

Mrs Cake buttoned up her coat.

‘It won’t work,’ said Ludmilla.

‘I’ll try the wizards. They ought to be tole,’ said Mrs Cake. She was quivering with self-importance, like a small enraged football.

‘Yes, but you said they never listen,’ said Ludmilla.

‘Got to try. Anyway, what are you doing out of your room?’

‘Oh, mother. You know I hate that room. There’s no need—’

‘You can’t be too careful. Supposin’ you was to take it into your head to go and chase people’s chickens? What would the neighbours say?’

‘I’ve never felt the least urge to chase a chicken, mother,’ said Ludmilla wearily.

‘Or run after carts, barkin’.’

‘That’s dogs, mother.’

‘You just get back in your room and lock yourself in and get on with some sewing like a good girl.’

‘You know I can’t hold the needles properly, mother.’

‘Try for your mother.’

‘Yes, mother,’ said Ludmilla.

‘And don’t go near the window. We don’t want people upset.’

‘Yes, mother. And you make sure you put your premonition on, mum. You know your eyesight isn’t what it was.’

Mrs Cake watched her daughter go upstairs. Then she locked the front door behind her and strode towards Unseen University where, she’d heard, there was too much nonsense of all sorts.