Hogfather

He squinted upwards.

‘Who's that moving up there?’

‘How are their necks moving?’ quavered Chickenwire.

‘Split up!’ said Medium Dave. ‘And this time all take a stairway. Then they can't come back down!’

‘Who're they? Why're they here?’

‘Why're we here?’ said Peachy. He started, and looked behind him.

‘Taking our money? After us putting up with him?’

‘Yeah…’ said Peachy distantly, trailing after the others. ‘Er… did you hear that noise just then?’

‘What noise?’

‘A sort of clipping, snipping…?’

‘No.’

‘No.’

‘No. You must have imagined it.’

Peachy nodded miserably.

As he walked up the stairs, little shadows raced through the stone and followed his feet.

Susan darted off the stairs and dragged the oh god along a corridor lined with white doors.

‘I think they saw us,’ she said. ‘And if they're tooth fairies there's been a really stupid equal opportunities policy…’

She pushed open a door.

There were no windows to the room, but it was lit perfectly well by the walls themselves. Down the middle of the room was something like a display case, its lid gaping open. Bits of card littered the floor.

She reached down and picked one up and read: ‘Thomas Ague, aged 4 and nearly three quarters, 9 Castle View, Sto Lat’. The writing was in a meticulous rounded script.

She crossed the passage to another room, where there was the same scene of devastation.

‘So now we know where the teeth were,’ she said. ‘They must've taken them out of everywhere and carried them downstairs.’

‘What for?’

She sighed. ‘It's such old magic it isn't even magic any more,’ she said. ‘If you've got a piece of someone's hair, or a nail clipping, or a tooth you can control them.’

The oh god tried to focus.

‘That heap's controlling millions of children?’

‘Yes. Adults too, by now.’

‘And you… you could make them think things and do things?’

She nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘You could get them to open Dad's wallet and post the contents to some address?’

‘Well, I hadn't thought of that, but yes, I suppose you could…’

‘Or go downstairs and smash all the bottles in the drinks cabinet and promise never to take a drink when they grow up?’ said the oh god hopefully.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘It's all right for you. You don't wake up every morning and see your whole life flush before your eyes.’

Medium Dave and Catseye ran down the passage and stopped where it forked.

‘You go that way, I'll—’

‘Why don't we stick together?’ said Catseye.

‘What's got into everyone? I saw you bite the throats out of a coupla guard dogs when we did that job in Quirm! Want me to hold your hand? You check the doors down there, I'll check them along here.’

He walked off.

Catseye peered down the other passage.

There weren't many doors down there. It wasn't very long. And, as Teatime had said, there was nothing dangerous here that they hadn't brought with them.

He heard voices coming from a doorway and sagged with relief.

He could deal with humans.

As he approached, a sound made him look round.

Shadows were racing down the passage behind him. They cascaded down the walls and flowed over the ceiling.

Where shadows met they became darker. And darker.

And rose. And leapt.

‘What was that?’ said Susan.

‘Sounded like the start of a scream,’ said Bilious.

Susan threw open the door.

There was no one outside.

There was movement, though. She saw a patch of darkness in the corner of a wall shrink and fade, and another shadow slid around the bend of the corridor.

And there was a pair of boots in the centre of the corridor.

She hadn't remembered any boots there before.

She sniffed. The air tasted of rats, and damp, and mould.

‘Let's get out of here,’ she said.

‘How're we going to find this Violet in all these rooms?’

‘I don't know. I should be able to… sense her, but I can't.’ Susan peered around the end of the corridor. She could hear men shouting, some way off.

They slipped out on to the stairs again and managed another flight. There were more rooms here, and in each one a cabinet that had been broken open.

Shadows moved in the corners. The effect was as though some invisible light source was gently shifting.

‘This reminds me a lot of your… um… of your grandfather's place,’ said the oh god.

‘I know,’ said Susan. ‘There aren't any rules except the ones he makes up as he goes along. I can't see him being very happy if someone got in and started pulling the library apart—’

She stopped. When she spoke again her voice had a different tone.

‘This is a children's place,’ she said. ‘The rules are what children believe.’

‘Well, that's a relief.’

‘You think so? Things aren't going to be right. In the Soul Cake Duck's country ducks can lay chocolate eggs, in the same way that Death's country is black and sombre because that's what people believe. He's very conventional about that sort of thing. Skull and bone decorations all over the place. And this place—’

‘Pretty flowers and an odd sky.’

‘I think it's going to be a lot worse than that. And very odd, too.’

‘More odd than it is now?’

‘I don't think it's possible to die here.’

‘That man who fell down the stairs looked pretty dead to me.’

‘Oh, you die. But not here. You… let's see… yes… you go somewhere else. Away. You're just not seen any more. That's about all you understand when you're three. Grandfather said it wasn't like that fifty years ago. He said you often couldn't see the bed for everyone having a good cry. Now they just tell the child that Grandma's gone. For three weeks Twyla thought her uncle'd been buried in the sad patch behind the garden shed along with Buster and Meepo and all three Bulgies.’

‘Three Bulgies?’

‘Gerbils. They tend to die a lot,’ said Susan. ‘The trick is to replace them when she's not looking. You really don't know anything, do you?’

‘Er… hello?’