‘Well, er, it sounds reasonably straightforward. Of course, I suppose boys know all about this sort of thing … Why are you laughing?’
‘It’s a matter of opinion,’ said Tiffany.
Oh, now I see you. I see you, you filth, you plague, you noxious abomination!
Tiffany looked at Letitia’s mirror, which was big and had around it lots of fat, golden cherubs who were clearly catching their death of cold. There was Letitia’s reflection, and there was – faint but visible – the eyeless face of the Cunning Man. The outline of the Cunning Man began to thicken. Tiffany knew that nothing in her face had changed. She knew it. I won’t answer him, she thought. I had almost forgotten all about him. Don’t answer. Don’t let him get a hold on you!
She managed to smile while Letitia hauled out from cases and chests what she called her trousseau which, in Tiffany’s opinion, contained the world’s entire supply of frilliness. She tried to focus on it, to let frilliness fill her mind and somehow chase away the words that came pouring from him. The ones she understood were bad enough; the ones that she didn’t were worse. Despite everything, the creaking, choking voice got through again: You think you have been lucky, witch. You hope you will be lucky again. You need to sleep. I never sleep. You have to be lucky time after time. I have to be lucky just once. Just once, and you will … burn. That last word was soft, almost gentle, after the creaking, coughing, scraping words that came before. It sounded worse.
‘You know,’ said Letitia, looking thoughtfully at a garment that Tiffany knew she could never afford. ‘While I am truly looking forward to being the mistress of this castle, I must say that the drainage system here smells dreadful. In fact, it smells like it has never been cleaned since the world began. Honestly, I could believe that prehistoric monsters have done their business in it.’
So she can smell him, Tiffany thought. She is a witch. A witch who needs training because without it she’s going to be a menace to everybody, not least herself. Letitia was still prattling on – there was no other word for it. Tiffany, still trying to defeat the voice of the Cunning Man by sheer will, said aloud, ‘Why?’
‘Oh, because I think the bows look a lot more fetching than buttons,’ said Letitia, who was holding up a nightdress of considerable splendour, another reminder to Tiffany that witches never really had any money.
You burned before and so did I! croaked the voice in her head, but this time you will not take me! I will take you and your confederacy of evil!!!!!
Tiffany thought she could actually see the exclamation marks. They shouted for him, even when he spoke softly. They jumped and slashed at his words. She could see his contorted face and the little flecks of foam that accompanied the finger-waving and shouting – gobs of liquid madness flying through the air behind the mirror.
How lucky for Letitia that she couldn’t hear him yet, but her mind was currently full of frills, bells, rice and the prospect of being at the centre of a wedding. Not even the Cunning Man could burn his way through that.
She managed to say, ‘It’s not going to work for you.’ And part of her kept repeating, inside her head: No eyes. No eyes at all. Two tunnels in his head.
‘Yes, I think you’re right. Possibly the mauve one would look better,’ said Letitia, ‘although I have always been told that eau-de-nil is really my colour. By the way, could I make things up to you in some way by having you as my chief bridesmaid? Of course, I’ve already got a load of tiny distant cousins who I understand have been wearing their bridesmaids’ dresses for the past two weeks.’
Tiffany was still staring at nothing, or rather, at two holes into nothing. At the moment, they were the most important things in her mind, and they were quite bad enough without adding tiny little cousins into the mixture. ‘I don’t think that witches are bridesmaid material, thank you all the same,’ she said.
Bridesmaids? A wedding?
Tiffany’s heart sank further. There was no help for it. She ran out of the room before the creature could learn anything more. How did it search? What was it looking for? Had they just given it a clue? She fled down to the dungeon, which was right now a place of refuge.
There was the book that Letitia had given to her. She opened it and began to read. She had learned to read fast up in the mountains, when the only books you could get were from the travelling library, and if you were late returning them they charged you an extra penny, an appreciable amount when your standard unit of currency is an old boot.
The book told stories of windows. Not ordinary windows, although some might be. And behind them … things – monsters, sometimes. A painting, a page in a book – even a puddle in the right place – could be a window. She remembered once more the nasty goblin in the old book of fairytales; sometimes it was laughing and at other times it was grinning. She had always been sure about that. It wasn’t a big change, but it was still a change. And you always wondered: What was it like that last time? Did I remember it wrong?
The book rustled under Tiffany’s hands like a hungry squirrel waking up in a hollow tree full of nuts. The author was a wizard, and a long-winded one at that, but the book was fascinating even so. There had been people who walked into a picture, and people who had walked out of one. Windows were a way of getting from one world into another, and anything could be a window and anything could be a world. She had heard that the sign of a good painting was that the eyes followed you around the room, but according to the book it was quite likely that they might follow you home and upstairs to bed, as well – an idea that she would rather not think about right now. Being a wizard, the author had tried to explain it all with graphs and charts, none of which helped in any way.
The Cunning Man had run towards her inside a book, and she had slammed it shut before he got out. She had seen his fingers just as the press had spun down. But he couldn’t have been squashed inside the book, she thought, because he wasn’t really in the book at all, except in some magical way, and he’s been finding me in other ways too. How? Right now, those tiresome days of seeing to broken legs, bad stomachs and ingrown toenails suddenly seemed quite attractive. She’d always told people that was what witchcraft was all about, and that was true, right up until the time something horrible could jump out of nowhere. That was when a poultice just wouldn’t do the trick.
A piece of straw floated down and landed on the book. ‘It’s safe for you to come out,’ said Tiffany. ‘You are here, aren’t you?’
And right by her ear a voice said, ‘Oh aye, that we are.’ They appeared from behind straw bales, spider webs, ap
ple shelves, goats and one another.
‘Aren’t you Wee Mad Arthur?’
‘Aye, miss, that is correct. I have to tell ye, to my embarrassment, that Rob Anybody is placing a big trust in me because I am a polisman and Rob appeared to think, ye ken, that if ye are dealing with bigjobs, a polisman will make them even more afeared. Besides, I can speak bigjob! Rob is spending more time up at the mound right now, ye ken. An’ he doesnae trust yon Baron not tae come up there with shovels.’
‘I will see that does not happen,’ said Tiffany firmly. ‘There has been a misunderstanding.’
Wee Mad Arthur did not look convinced. ‘It is glad I am to hear you say that, miss, and so will the Big Man be, because I can tell ye that when the first shovel breaks into the mound there willnae be a living man left in yonder castle, and great will be the lamentation of the women, present company excepted.’ There was a general murmuring from the other Feegles, on the broad theme of slaughter for whoever laid a hand on a Feegle mound, and how personally each and every one of them would regret what he would have to do.
‘It’s yon troosers,’ said Slightly-Thinner-Than-Fat-Jock-Jock. ‘Once a man gets a Feegle up his troosers, his time of trial and tribulation is only just beginning.’
‘Oh aye, it will be a great time o’ jumpin’ and leapin’ up and doon for such as them,’ said Wee Jock o’ the White Head.
Tiffany was shocked. ‘When was the last time Feegles fought with bigjobs, then?’