Carpe Jugulum

uneasily.
    “Gotta hath black plumeth, marthter. It’th tradithional .”
    “Remove them at once,” Mother commanded. “What will people think?”
    “Yeth, mithtreth.”
    The one addressed as Igor slammed the door and lurched back around to the horse. He removed the plumes reverentially and placed them under his seat.
    Inside the coach the vexed voice said, “Is Igor an evolutionary dead end too, Father?”
    “We can but hope, dear.”
    “Thod,” said Igor to himself, as he picked up the reins.

The wording began:
    YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED …
    …and was in that posh runny writing that was hard to read but ever so official.
    Nanny Ogg grinned and tucked the card back on the mantelpiece. She liked the idea of “cordially.” It had a rich, a thick and above all an alcoholic sound.
    She was ironing her best petticoat. That is to say, she was sitting in her chair by the fire while one of her daughters-in-law, whose name she couldn’t remember just at this moment, was doing the actual work. Nanny was helping by pointing out the bits she’d missed.
    It was a damn good invite, she thought. Especially the gold edging, which was as thick as syrup. Probably not real gold, but impressively glittery all the same.
    “There’s a bit there that could do with goin’ over again, gel,” she said, topping up her beer.
    “Yes, Nanny.”
    Another daughter-in-law, whose name she’d certainly be able to recall after a few seconds’ thought, was buffing up Nanny’s red boots. A third was very carefully dabbing the lint off Nanny’s best pointed hat, on its stand.
    Nanny got up again and wandered over and opened the back door. There was little light left in the sky now, and a few rags of cloud were scudding over the early stars. She sniffed the air. Winter hung on late up here in the mountains, but there was definitely a taste of spring on the wind.
    A good time, she thought. Best time, really. Oh, she knew that the year started on Hogswatchnight, when the cold tide turned, but the new year started now, with green shoots boring upward through the last of the snow. Change was in the air, she could feel it in her bones.
    Of course, her friend Granny Weatherwax always said you couldn’t trust bones, but Granny Weatherwax said a lot of things like that all the time.
    Nanny Ogg closed the door. In the trees at the end of her garden, leafless and scratchy against the sky, something rustled its wings and chattered as a veil of dark crossed the world.

In her own cottage a few miles away the witch Agnes Nitt was in two minds about her new pointy hat. Agnes was generally in two minds about anything.
    As she tucked in her hair and observed herself critically in the mirror she sang a song. She sang in harmony. Not, of course, with her reflection in the glass, because that kind of heroine will sooner or later end up singing a duet with Mr. Bluebird and other forest creatures and then there’s nothing for it but a flamethrower.
    She simply sang in harmony with herself. Unless she concentrated it was happening more and more these days. Perdita had rather a reedy voice, but she insisted on joining in.
    Those who are inclined to casual cruelty say that inside a fat girl is a thin girl and a lot of chocolate. Agnes’s thin girl was Perdita.
    She wasn’t sure how she’d acquired the invisible passenger. Her mother had told her that when she was small she’d been in the habit of blaming accidents and mysteries, such as the disappearance of a bowl of cream or the breaking of a prized jug, on “the other little girl.”
    Only now did she realize that indulging this sort of thing wasn’t a good idea when, despite yourself, you’ve got a bit of natural witchcraft in your blood. The imaginary friend had simply grown up and had never gone away and had turned out to be a pain.
    Agnes disliked Perdita, who was vain, selfish and vicious, and Perdita hated going around inside Agnes, whom she regarded as a fat, pathetic, weak-willed blob that people would walk all over were she not so steep.
    Agnes told herself she’d simply invented the name Perdita as some convenient label for all those thoughts and desires she knew she shouldn’t have, as a name for that troublesome little commentator that lives on everyone’s shoulder and sneers. But sometimes she thought Perdita had created Agnes for something to pummel.
    Agnes tended to obey rules. Perdita didn’t. Perdita thought that not obeying rules was somehow cool . Agnes though that