Reaper Man

Windle took a step backwards. Unlike her daughter, Mrs Cake was quite short, and almost perfectly circular. And still unlike her daughter, whose whole stance was dedicated to making herself look small, she loomed tremendously. This was largely because of her hat, which he later learned she wore at all times with the dedication of a wizard. It was huge and black and had things on it, like bird wings and wax cherries and hatpins; Carmen Miranda could have worn that hat to the funeral of a continent. Mrs Cake travelled underneath it as the basket travels under a balloon. People often found themselves talking to her hat.

‘Mrs Cake?’ said Windle, fascinated.

‘Oim down ’ere,’ said a reproachful voice.

Windle lowered his gaze.

‘That’s ’oo I am,’ said Mrs Cake.

‘Am I addressing Mrs Cake?’ said Windle.

‘Yes, oi, know,’ said Mrs Cake.

‘My name’s Windle Poons.’

‘Oi knew that, too.’

‘I’m a wizard, you see—’

‘All right, but see you wipes your feet.’

‘May I come in?’

Windle Poons paused. He replayed the last few lines of conversation in the clicking control room of his brain. And then he smiled.

‘That’s right,’ said Mrs Cake.

‘Are you by any chance a natural clairvoyant?’

‘About ten seconds usually, Mr Poons.’

Windle hesitated.

‘You gotta ask the question,’ said Mrs Cake quickly. ‘I gets a migraine if people goes and viciously not asks questions after I’ve already foreseen ’em and answered ’em.’

‘How far into the future can you see, Mrs Cake?’

She nodded.

‘Roight, then,’ she said, apparently mollified, and led the way through the hall into a tiny sitting-room. ‘And the bogey can come in, only he’s got to leave ’is door outside and go in the cellar. I don’t hold with bogeys wanderin’ around the house.’

‘Gosh, it’s ages since I’ve been in a proper cellar,’ said Schleppel.

‘It’s got spiders in it,’ said Mrs Cake.

‘Wow!’

‘And you’d like a cup of tea,’ said Mrs Cake to Windle. Someone else might have said ‘I expect you’d like a cup of tea’, or ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ But this was a statement.

‘Yes, please,’ said Windle. ‘I’d love a cup of tea.’

‘You shouldn’t,’ said Mrs Cake. ‘That stuff rots your teeth.’

Windle worked this one out.

‘Two sugars, please,’ he said.

‘It’s all right.’

‘This is a nice place you have here, Mrs Cake,’ said Windle, his mind racing. Mrs Cake’s habit of answering questions while they were still forming in your mind taxed the most active brain.

‘He’s been dead for ten years,’ she said.

‘Er,’ said Windle, but the question was already there in his larynx, ‘I trust Mr Cake is in good health?’

‘It’s OK. Oi speaks to him occasional,’ said Mrs Cake.

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Windle.

‘All right, if it makes you feel any better.’

‘Um, Mrs Cake? I’m finding it a little confusing. Could you … switch off … your precognition …?’

She nodded.

‘Sorry. Oi gets into the habit of leavin’ it on,’ she said, ‘what with there only bein’ me an’ Ludmilla and One-Man-Bucket. He’s a ghost,’ she added. ‘Oi knew you was goin’ to ask that.’

‘Yes, I had heard that mediums have native spirit guides,’ said Windle.

‘’Im? ’E’s not a guide, ’e’s a sort of odd-job ghost,’ said Mrs Cake. ‘I don’t hold with all that stuff with cards and trumpets and Oo-jar boards,^{31} mind you. An’ I think ectoplasm’s disgustin’. Oi won’t have it in the ’ouse. Oi won’t. You can’t get it out of the carpets, you know. Not even with vinegar.’

‘My word,’ said Windle Poons.

‘Or wailin’. I don’t hold with it. Or messin’ around with the supernatural. It’s unnatural, the supernatural. I won’t have it.’

‘Um,’ said Windle cautiously. ‘There are those who might think that being a medium is a bit … you know … supernatural?’

‘What? What? Nothing supernatural about dead people. Load of nonsense. Everyone dies sooner or later.’

‘I do hope so, Mrs Cake.’

‘So what is it you’d be wanting, Mr Poons? I’m not precognitin’, so you have to tell me.’

‘I want to know what’s happening, Mrs Cake.’

There was a muted thump from under their feet and the faint, happy sound of Schleppel.

‘Oh, wow! Rats, too!’

‘I went up and tried to tell you wizards,’ said Mrs Cake, primly. ‘An’ no-one listened. I knew they weren’t going to, but I ’ad to try, otherwise I wouldn’t ’ave known.’

‘Who did you speak to?’

‘The big one with the red dress and a moustache like he’s trying to swaller a cat.’

‘Ah. The Archchancellor,’ said Windle, positively.

‘And there was a huge fat one. Walks like a duck.’

‘He does, doesn’t he? That was the Dean,’ said Windle.

‘They called me their good woman,’ said Mrs Cake. ‘They told me to be about my business. Don’t see why I should go around helpin’ wizards who call me a good woman when I was only trying to help.’

‘I’m afraid wizards don’t often listen,’ said Windle. ‘I never listened for one hundred and thirty years.’

‘Why not?’

‘In case I heard what rubbish I was saying, I expect. What’s happening, Mrs Cake? You can tell me. I may be a wizard, but I’m a dead one.’

‘Well …’

‘Schleppel told me it was all due to life force.’

‘It’s buildin’ up, see?’

‘What does that mean?’