Reaper Man

That evening the men were practising archery on the green. Bill Door had carefully ensured a local reputation as the worst bowman in the entire history of toxophily; it had never occurred to anyone that putting arrows through the hats of bystanders behind him must logically take a lot more skill than merely sending them through a quite large target a mere fifty yards away.

It was amazing how many friends you could make by being bad at things, provided you were bad enough to be funny.

So he was allowed to sit on a bench outside the inn, with the old men.

Next door, sparks poured from the chimney of the village smithy and spiralled up into the dusk. There was a ferocious hammering from behind its closed doors. Bill Door wondered why the smithy was always shut. Most smiths worked with their doors open, so that their forge became an unofficial village meeting room. This one was keen on his work—

‘Hallo, skelington.’

He swivelled round.

The small child of the house was watching him with the most penetrating gaze he had ever seen.

‘You are a skelington, aren’t you,’ she said. ‘I can tell, because of the bones.’

YOU ARE MISTAKEN, SMALL CHILD.

‘You are. People turn into skelingtons when they’re dead. They’re not supposed to walk around afterwards.’

HA. HA. HA. WILL YOU HARK AT THE CHILD.

‘Why are you walking around, then?’

Bill Door looked at the old men. They appeared engrossed in the sport.

I’LL TELL YOU WHAT, he said desperately, IF YOU WILL GO AWAY, I WILL GIVE YOU A HALF-PENNY.

‘I’ve got a skelington mask for when we go trickle-treating on Soul Cake Night,’ she said. ‘It’s made of paper. You get given sweets.’

Bill Door made the mistake millions of people had tried before with small children in slightly similar circumstances. He resorted to reason.

LOOK, he said, IF I WAS REALLY A SKELETON, LITTLE GIRL, I’M SURE THESE OLD GENTLEMEN HERE WOULD HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT IT.

She regarded the old men at the other end of the bench.

‘They’re nearly skelingtons anyway,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t think they’d want to see another one.’

He gave in.

I HAVE TO ADMIT THAT YOU ARE RIGHT ON THAT POINT.

‘Why don’t you fall to bits?’

I DON’T KNOW. I NEVER HAVE.

‘I’ve seen skelingtons of birds and things and they all fall to bits.’

PERHAPS IT IS BECAUSE THEY ARE WHAT SOMETHING WAS, WHEREAS THIS IS WHAT I AM.

‘The apothecary who does medicine over in Chambly’s got a skelington on a hook with all wire to hold the bones together,’ said the child, with the air of one imparting information gained after diligent research.

I DON’T HAVE WIRES.

‘There’s a difference between alive skelingtons and dead ones?’

YES.

‘It’s a dead skelington he’s got then, is it?’

YES.

‘What was inside someone?’

YES.

‘Ur. Yuk.’

The child stared distantly at the landscape for a while and then said, ‘I’ve got new socks.’

YES?

‘You can look, if you like.’

A grubby foot was extended for inspection.

WELL, WELL. FANCY THAT. NEW SOCKS.

‘My mum knitted them out of sheep.’

MY WORD.

The horizon was given another inspection.

‘D’you know,’ she said, ‘d’you know … it’s Friday.’

YES.

‘I found a spoon.’

Bill Door found he was waiting expectantly. He was not familiar with people who had an attention span of less than three seconds.

‘You work along of Miss Flitworth’s?’

YES.

‘My dad says you’ve got your feet properly under the table there.’

Bill Door couldn’t think of an answer to this because he didn’t know what it meant. It was one of those many flat statements humans made that were really just a disguise for something more subtle, which was often conveyed merely by the tone of voice or a look in the eyes, neither of which was being done by the child.

‘My dad says she said she’s got boxes of treasure.’

HAS SHE?

‘I’ve got tuppence.’

MY GOODNESS.

‘Sal!’

They both looked up as Mrs Lifton appeared on the doorstep.

‘Bedtime for you. Stop worrying Mr Door.’

OH, I ASSURE YOU SHE IS NOT—

‘Say goodnight, now.’

‘How do skelingtons go to sleep? They can’t close their eyes because—’

He heard their voices, muffled, inside the inn.

‘You mustn’t call Mr Door that just because … he’s … very … he’s very thin …’

‘It’s all right. He’s not the dead sort.’

Mrs Lifton’s voice had the familiar worried tones of someone who can’t bring themselves to believe the evidence of their own eyes. ‘Perhaps he’s just been very ill.’

‘I should think he’s just about been as ill as he can be ever.’

Bill Door walked back home thoughtfully.

There was a light on in the farmhouse kitchen, but he went straight to the barn, climbed the ladder to the hayloft, and lay down.

He could put off dreaming, but he couldn’t escape remembering.

He stared at the darkness.

After a while he was aware of the pattering of feet. He turned.

A stream of pale rat-shaped ghosts skipped along the roof beam above his head, fading as they ran so that soon there was nothing but the sound of the scampering.

They were followed by a … shape.

It was about six inches high. It wore a black robe. It held a small scythe in one skeletal paw. A bone-white nose with brittle grey whiskers protruded from the shadowy hood.