I Shall Wear Midnight

Tiffany had never seen an old person looking so young. ‘I said you weren’t born with a talent for witchcraft: it didn’t come easily; you worked hard at it because you wanted it. You forced the world to give it to you, no matter the price, and the price is and will always be, high. Have you heard the saying “the reward you get for digging holes is a bigger shovel”?’

‘Yes,’ said Tiffany, ‘I heard Granny Weatherwax say it once.’

‘She invented it. People say you don’t find witchcraft; witchcraft finds you. But you’ve found it, even if at the time you didn’t know what it was you were finding, and you grabbed it by its scrawny neck and made it work for you.’

‘This is all very … interesting,’ said Tiffany, ‘but I have got things I must be doing.’

‘Not in the travelling now,’ said Eskarina firmly. ‘Look, the Cunning Man has found you again.’

‘I think he hides in books and pictures,’ Tiffany volunteered. ‘And tapestries.’ She shuddered.

‘And mirrors,’ said Eskarina, ‘and puddles, and the glint of light on a piece of broken glass, or the gleam on a knife. How many ways can you think of? How frightened are you prepared to be?’

‘I’m going to have to fight him,’ Tiffany said. ‘I think I knew I would have to. He doesn’t seem to me to be someone you can run away from. He’s a bully, isn’t he? He attacks where he thinks he will win, and so I have to find a way to be stronger than he is. I think I can work out a way — after all, he is a bit like the hiver. And that was really quite easy.’

Eskarina did not shout; she spoke very quietly and in a way that seemed to make more noise than a scream would have done. ‘Will you persist in not recognizing how important this is, Tiffany Aching the cheese-maker? You have a chance to defeat the Cunning Man, and if you fail, witchcraft fails — and falls with you. He will possess your body, your knowledge, your talents and your soul. And for your own good — and for the good of all — your sister witches will settle their differences and take the pair of you into oblivion before you can do any more harm. Do you understand? This is important! You have to help yourself.’

‘The other witches will kill me?’ said Tiffany, aghast.

‘Of course. You are a witch and you know what Granny Weatherwax always says: We do right, we don’t do nice. It will be you or him, Tiffany Aching. The loser will die. In his case, I regret to say we might see him again in a few centuries; in your case, I don’t propose to guess.’

‘But hold on a moment,’ said Tiffany. ‘If they are prepared to fight him and me, why don’t we all band together to fight him now?’

‘Of course. Would you like them to? What is it you really want, Tiffany Aching, here and now? It’s your choice. The other witches will not, I am sure, think any the worse of you.’ Eskarina hesitated for a moment, and then said, ‘Well, I expect they will be very kind about it.’

The witch who faced the trial and ran away? thought Tiffany. The witch they were kind to, because they knew she wasn’t good enough? And if you think you’re not good enough, then you are already no kind of witch. Aloud she said, ‘I’d rather die trying to be a witch, than be the girl they were all kind to.’

‘Miss Aching, you are showing an almost sinful self-assurance and overwhelming pride and certainty, and may I say that I wouldn’t expect anything less of a witch.’

* * *

The world wobbled a bit and then changed. Eskarina vanished, even as her words were still sinking into Tiffany’s mind. The tapestry was back in front of her again and she was still raising the burning log, but this time she raised it confidently. She felt as if she was full of air, lifting her up. The world had gone strange, but at least she knew that fire would burn dry tapestry like tinder the moment it touched it.

‘I would burn this old sheet in an instant, mister, trust me. Back to where you came from, mister!’

To her astonishment the dark figure retreated. There was a momentary hiss and Tiffany felt as if a weight had dropped away, dragging the stench with it.

‘That was all very interesting.’ Tiffany spun round and looked into Preston’s cheerful grin. ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘I was really worried when you went so stiff for a few moments. I thought you were dead. When I touched your arm — very respectfully, no hanky-panky — it felt like the air on a thundery day. So I thought, This is witch business, and decided to keep an eye on you, and then you threatened an innocent tapestry with fiery death!’

She stared at the boy’s eyes as if they were a mirror. Fire, she thought. Fire killed him once, and he knows it. He won’t go anywhere near fire. Fire is the secret. The hare runs into the fire. Hmm.

‘Actually, I quite like fire,’ said Preston. ‘I don’t think it’s my enemy at all.’

‘What?’ said Tiffany.

‘I’m afraid you were speaking just under your breath,’ said Preston. ‘I’m not going to ask what it was about. My granny said: Don’t meddle in the affairs of witches because they clout you around the ear.’

Tiffany stared at him and made an instant decision. ‘Can you keep a secret?’

Preston nodded. ‘Certainly! I have never told anybody that the sergeant writes poetry, for example.’

‘Preston, you have just told me!’

Preston grinned at her. ‘Ah, but a witch isn’t anybody. My granny told me that telling your secret to a witch is like whispering to a wall.’

‘Well, yes,’ Tiffany began and then paused. ‘How do you know he writes poetry?’

‘It was hard not to know,’ said Preston. ‘But, you see, he writes it on pages of the events ledger in the guard house, probably when he’s on night duty. He carefully tears out the pages, and does it so neatly that you wouldn’t guess, but he presses so hard with his pencil that it’s quite easy to read the impression on the paper underneath.’

‘Surely the other men notice?’ said Tiffany.

Preston shook his head, which caused his oversized helmet to spin a little. ‘Oh no, miss, you know them: they think reading is cissy stuff for girls. Anyway, if I get in early I tear out the paper underneath so that they don’t laugh at him. I have to say, for a self-taught man he is a pretty good poet — good grasp of the metaphor. They are all written to somebody called Millie.’

‘That would be his wife,’ said Tiffany. ‘You must have seen her in the village — more freckles than anyone I’ve ever seen. She is very sensitive about it.’

Preston nodded. ‘That might explain why his latest poem is entitled “What Good Is The Sky Without Stars”?’

‘You wouldn’t know it from looking at the man, would you?’

Preston looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Excuse me, Tiffany,’ he said, ‘but you don’t look well. In fact, no offence meant, you look absolutely dreadful. If you were somebody else and took a look at you, you would say that you were very ill indeed. You don’t look as if you’ve had any sleep.’

‘I had at least an hour’s worth last night. And a nap the day before!’ said Tiffany.

‘Really?’ said Preston, looking stern. ‘And apart from breakfast this morning, when did you last have a proper meal?’

For some reason Tiffany still felt full of light inside. ‘I think I might have had a snack yesterday …’

‘Oh really?’ said Preston. ‘Snacks and naps? That’s not how somebody is supposed to live; it’s how people die!’

He was right. She knew he was. But that only made things worse.

‘Look, I’m being tracked by a horrible creature who can take over somebody else completely, and it’s up to me to deal with it!’

Preston looked around with interest. ‘Could it take me over?’

Poison goes where poison’s welcome, thought Tiffany. Thank you for that useful phrase, Mrs Proust. ‘No, I don’t think so. I think you have to be the right kind of person — which is to say, the wrong kind of person. You know, somebody with a touch of evil.’

For the first time, Preston looked worried. ‘I have done a few bad things in my time, I’m sorry to say.’

Despite her sudden tiredness, Tiffany smiled. ‘What was the worst one?’

‘I once stole a packet of coloured pencils off a market stall.’ He looked at her defiantly, as if expecting her to scream or point the finger of scorn.

Instead, she shook her head and said, ‘How old were you then?’