Thief of Time

Mrs Ogg took a suck at her pipe and her eyes twinkled at Susan through the smoke. “I don't know how much experience you have with this sort of thing, my girl, but sometimes when the high and mighty make big plans they don't always think about the fine detail, right?”

Yes. I'm a fine detail, Susan thought. One day Death took it into his skull to adopt a motherless child, and I'm a fine detail. She nodded.

“I thought, how does this go, in a myffic kind of way?” Mrs Ogg went on. “I mean, technic'ly I could see we're in that area where the prince gets brought up as a swineherd until he manifests his destiny, but there's not that many swineherding jobs around these days, and poking hogs with a stick is not all it's cracked up to be, believe you me. So I said, well, I'd heard the Guilds down in the big cities took in foundlings out of charity, and looked after them well enough, and there's many well set-up men and women who started life that way. There's no shame in it, plus, if the destiny doesn't manifest as per schedule, he'd have set his hands to a good trade, which would be a consolation. Whereas swineherding 's just swineherding. You're giving me a stern look, miss.”

“Well, yes. It was rather a chilly decision, wasn't it?”

“Someone has to make 'em,” said Mrs Ogg sharply. “Besides, I've been around for some time and I've noticed that them as has it in them to shine will shine through six layers of muck, whereas those who ain't shiny won't shine however much you buff 'em. You may think otherwise, but it was me standing there.”

She investigated the bowl of her pipe with a matchstick.

Eventually she went on: “And that was it. I would have stayed, of course, because there wasn't so much as a crib in the place, but the man took me aside and said thank you and that it was time to go. And why would I argue? There was love there. It was in the air. But I won't say that I don't sometimes wonder how it all turned out. I really do.”

There were differences, Susan had to admit. Two different lives had indeed burned their unique tracks on the faces. And the selves had been born a second or so apart, and a lot of the universe can change in a second.

Think of identical twins, she told herself. But they are two different selves occupying bodies that, at least, start out identical. They don't start out as identical selves.

“He looks quite like me,” said Lobsang, and Susan blinked. She leaned closer to the unconscious form of Jeremy.

“Say that again,” she said.

“I said, he looks quite like me,” said Lobsang.

Susan glanced at Lady LeJean, who said, “I saw it too, Susan.”

“Who saw what?” said Lobsang. “What are you hiding from me?”

“His lips move when you speak,” said Susan. “They try to form the same words.”

“He can pick up my thoughts?”

“It's more complicated than that, I think.” Susan picked up a limp hand and gently pinched the web of skin between thumb and forefinger.

Lobsang winced, and glanced at his own hand. A patch of white skin was reddening again.