I Shall Wear Midnight

Beside her, with a horrible sucking noise, Preston pulled Roland out of the pigsty, against the protest of the sow. How lucky for both of them that they couldn’t hear the voice.

She paused. Four people? The tiresome rival? But there was only herself, Roland and Preston, wasn’t there?

She looked towards the far end of the field, in the moon shadow of the castle. A white figure was running towards them at speed.

It had to be Letitia. Nobody around here wore so much billowing white all the time. Tiffany’s mind spun with the algebra of tactics.

‘Preston, off you go. Take the broomstick.’

Preston nodded and then saluted, with a grin. ‘At your service, miss.’

Letitia arrived in a flurry and expensive white slippers. She stopped dead when she saw Roland, who was sober enough to try to

cover, with his hands, what Tiffany knew she would always now think of as his passionate parts. This simply made a squelching noise, since he was thickly encrusted in pig muck.

‘One of his chums told me they threw him in the pigsty for a laugh!’ Letitia said indignantly. ‘And they call themselves his friends!’

‘I think they think that’s what friends are for,’ said Tiffany absentmindedly. To herself she thought, Is this going to work? Have I overlooked something? Have I understood what I should do? Who do I think I’m talking to? I suppose I’m looking for a sign, just a sign.

There was a rustling noise. She looked down. A hare looked up at her and then, without panicking, lost herself in the stubbles.

‘I’ll take that as a yes, then,’ said Tiffany, and felt panicked herself. After all, was that an omen, or was it just a hare who was old enough not to run instantly when she saw people? And it wasn’t good manners, she was sure, to ask for a second sign to tell you if the first sign wasn’t just a coincidence, was it?

At this point, this very point, Roland started to sing, possibly because of drink, but also perhaps because Letitia was industriously wiping him down while keeping her eyes closed so that, as an unmarried woman, she wouldn’t see anything unseemly or surprising. And the song that Roland sang went: ‘Tis pleasant and delightful on the bright summer’s morn, to see the fields and the meadows all covered in corn, and the small birds were singing on every green spray, and the larks they sang melodious, at the dawning of the day …’ He paused. ‘My father used to sing that quite a lot when we walked in these fields …’ he said. He was at that stage when drunken men started to cry, and the tears left little trails of pink behind as the muck was washed from his cheeks.

But Tiffany thought, Thank you. An omen was an omen. You picked the ones that worked. And this was the big field, the field where they burned the last of the stubbles. And the hare runs into the fire. Oh, yes, the omens. They were always so important.

‘Listen to me, both of you. I am not going to be argued with by you, because you, Roland, are rascally drunk and you, Letitia, are a witch’ — Letitia beamed at that point — ‘who is junior to me, and therefore both of you will do what I tell you. And that way, all of us may get back to the castle alive.’

They both stopped and listened, Roland swaying gently.

‘When I shout,’ Tiffany continued, ‘I want you to each grab one of my hands and run! Turn if I turn, stop if I stop, although I doubt very much that I shall want to stop. Above all, don’t be afraid, and trust me. I’m almost sure I know what I’m doing.’ Tiffany realized that this wasn’t the best assurance, but they didn’t seem to notice. She added, ‘And when I say leap, leap as if a devil is behind you, because it will be.’

The stink was suddenly unbearable. The sheer hatred in it seemed to beat on Tiffany’s brain. By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes, she thought as she stared into the night-time gloom. By the stinking of my nose, something evil this way goes, she added, to stop herself gibbering as she scanned the distant hedge for movement.

And there was a figure.

There, heavy-set, walking towards them down the length of the field. It moved slowly, but was gathering speed. There was an awkwardness about it. ‘When he takes over a body, the owner of the body becomes a part of him too. No escape, no release.’ That’s what Eskarina had told her. Nothing good, nothing capable of redemption, could have thoughts that stank like that. She gripped the hands of the arguing couple and dragged them into a run. The … creature was between them and the castle. And was going more slowly than she’d expected. She risked another look and saw the glint of metal in its hands. Knives.

‘Come on!’

‘These aren’t very good shoes for running in,’ Letitia pointed out.

‘My head aches,’ Roland supplied as Tiffany towed them towards the bottom of the field, ignoring all complaints as dry corn stalks snatched at them, caught hair, scratched legs and stung feet. They were barely going at a jog. The creature was following them doggedly. As soon as they turned to run up towards the castle and safety, it would gain on them …

But the creature was having difficulties as well, and Tiffany wondered how far you could push a body if you didn’t feel its pain, couldn’t feel the agony of the lungs, the pounding of the heart, the cracking of the bones, the dreadful ache that pushed you to the last gasp and beyond. Mrs Proust had whispered to her, eventually, the things that the man Macintosh had done, as if saying the words aloud would pollute the air. Against that, how did you rank the crushing of the little songbird? And yet somehow that lodged in the mind as a crime beyond mercy.

There will be no mercy for a song now silenced. No redemption for killing hope in the darkness. I know you.

You are what whispered in Petty’s ear before he beat up his daughter. You are the first blast of the rough music.

You look over the shoulder at the man as he picks up the first stone, and although I think you are part of us all and we will never be rid of you, we can certainly make your life hell.

No mercy. No redemption.

Glancing back, she saw its face looming bigger now and redoubled her efforts to drag the tired and reluctant couple over the rough ground. She managed a breath to say, ‘Look at him! Look at it! Do you want him to catch us?’ She heard a brief scream from Letitia and a groan of sudden sobriety from her husband-to-be. The eyes of the luckless Macintosh were bloodshot and wide open, the lips stuck in a frenzied grin. It tried to take advantage of the sudden narrowed gap but the other two had found fresh strength in their fear and they were almost pulling Tiffany along.

And now there was a clear run up the field. It all depended on Preston. Amazingly, Tiffany felt confident. He is trustworthy, she thought, but there was a horrible gurgle behind them. The ghost was driving its host harder, and she could imagine the swish of a long knife. Timing had to be everything. Preston was trustworthy. He had understood, hadn’t he? Of course he had. She could trust Preston.

Later on, what she remembered most was the silence, broken only by the crackling of the stalks and the heavy breathing of Letitia and Roland and the horrible wheezing of their pursuer. In her head the silence was broken by the voice of the Cunning Man.

You are setting a trap. Filth! Do you think I can be so easily caught again? Little girls who play with fire will get burned, and you will burn, I promise you, oh you will burn. Where then will be the pride of witches! Vessels of iniquity! Handmaidens of uncleanliness! Defilers of all that is holy!

Tiffany kept her eyes fixed on the end of the field as tears streamed out. She couldn’t help it. It was impossible to keep the vileness out; it drizzled in like poison, seeping into her ears and flowing under her skin.

Another swish in the air behind them made all three runners find redoubled strength, but she knew it couldn’t go on. Was that Preston she saw in the gloom ahead? Then who was the dark figure beside him, looking like an old witch in a pointy hat? Even as she stared at it, it faded away.

But suddenly fire burst up and Tiffany could hear the crackling as it spread like a sunrise across the field towards them, sparks filling the sky with extra stars. And the wind blew hard and she heard the stinking voice again: You will burn. You will burn!