Carpe Jugulum

shower of hail bounced off Granny’s pointed hat and Oats’s wide brim.
    Then Granny said: “It’s no good you trying to make me believe in Om, though.”
    “Om forbid that I should try, Mistress Weatherwax. I haven’t even given you a pamphlet, have I?”
    “No, but you’re trying to make me think ‘Oo, what a nice young man, his god must be something special if nice young men like him helps old ladies like me,’ aren’t you.”
    “No.”
    “Really? Well, it’s not working. People you can believe in, sometimes, but not gods. And I’ll tell you this, Mister Oats…”
    He sighed. “Yes?”
    She turned to face him, suddenly alive. “It’d be as well for you if I didn’t believe,” she said, prodding him with a sharp finger. “This Om…anyone seen him?”
    “It is said three thousand people witnessed his manifestation at the Great Temple when he make the Covenant with the prophet Brutha and saved him from death by torture on the iron turtle—”
    “But I bet that now they’re arguing about what they actually saw, eh?”
    “Well, indeed, yes, there are many opinions—”
    “Right. Right. That’s people for you. Now if I’d seen him, really there, really alive, it’d be in me like a fever. If I thought there was some god who really did care two hoots about people, who watched ’em like a father and cared for ’em like a mother…well, you wouldn’t catch me sayin’ things like ‘there are two sides to every question’ and ‘we must respect other people’s beliefs.’ You wouldn’t find me just being gen’rally nice in the hope that it’d all turn out right in the end, not if that flame was burning in me like an unforgivin’ sword. And I did say burnin’, Mister Oats, ’cos that’s what it’d be. You say that you people don’t burn folk and sacrifice people anymore, but that’s what true faith would mean, y’see? Sacrificin’ your own life, one day at a time, to the flame, declarin’ the truth of it, workin’ for it, breathin’ the soul of it. That’s religion. Anything else is just…is just bein’ nice . And a way of keepin’ in touch with the neighbors.”
    She relaxed slightly, and went on in a quieter voice: “Anyway, that’s what I’d be, if I really believed. And I don’t think that’s fashionable right now, ’cos it seems that if you sees evil now you have to wring your hands and say ‘oh deary me, we must debate this.’ That my two penn’orth, Mister Oats. You be happy to let things lie. Don’t chase faith, ’cos you’ll never catch it.” She added, almost as an aside, “But, perhaps, you can live faithfully.”
    Her teeth chattered as a gust of icy wind flapped her wet dress around her legs.
    “You got another book of holy words on you?” she added.
    “No,” said Oats, still shocked. He thought: my god, if she ever finds a religion, what would come out of these mountains and sweep across the plains? My god…I just said “my god”…
    “A book of hymns, maybe?” said Granny.
    “No.”
    “A slim volume o’ prayers, suitable for every occasion?”
    “No, Granny Weatherwax.”
    “Damn.” Granny slowly collapsed backward, folding up like an empty dress.
    He rushed forward and caught her before she landed in the mud. One thin white hand gripped his wrist so hard that he yelped. Then she relaxed, and sagged in his grasp.
    Something made Oats look up.
    A hooded figure sat on a white horse a little way away, outlined in the faintest blue fire.
    “Go away!” he screamed. “You be gone right now or…or…”
    He lowered the body onto some tufts of grass, grabbed a handful of mud and flung it into the gloom. He ran after it, punching wildly at a shape which was suddenly no more than shadows and curling mist.
    He dashed back, picked up Granny Weatherwax, slung her over his shoulder and ran on, downhill.
    The mist behind him formed a shape on a white horse.
    Death shook his head.
    I T WASN’T EVEN AS IF I SAID ANYTHING , he said.

Waves of black heat broke over Agnes, and then there was a pit, and a fall into hot, suffocating darkness.
    She felt the desire . It was tugging her forward like a current.
    Well, she thought dreamily, at least I’ll lose some weight…
    Yes, said Perdita, but all the eyeliner you’ll have to wear must add a few pounds …
    The hunger filled her now, accelerating her.
    And there was light, behind her, shining past her. She felt the fall gradually slow as if she’d hit invisible feathers, and then the world