I Shall Wear Midnight

Tiffany’s father paused here, looking embarrassed.
    ‘I know what you’re going to tell me,’ said Tiffany, to help him out, but he took care to ignore this.
    ‘It’s not that she was a bad girl,’ he said. ‘It’s just that she never really understood what it was all about, and there wasn’t anyone to tell her, and you got all kinds of strangers and travellers passing through all the time. Quite handsome chaps, some of them.’
    Tiffany took pity on him, sitting there looking miserable, embarrassed about telling his little girl things his little girl shouldn’t know.
    So she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek again. ‘I know , Dad, I really do know . Amber isn’t actually his daughter, right?’
    ‘Well, I never said that, did I? She might be,’ said her father awkwardly.
    And that would be the trick, wouldn’t it, Tiffany thought. Maybe if Seth Petty had known one way or the other, he might have come to terms with the perhaps . Maybe. You never know.
    But he didn’t know, either, and there would be some days when he thought he did know and some days when he thought the worst. And for a man like Petty, who was a stranger to thinking, the dark thoughts would roll around in his head until they tangled up his brain. And when the brain stops thinking, the fist steps in.
    Her father was watching her very closely. ‘You know about this sort of thing?’ he said.
    ‘We call it going round the houses. Every witch does it. Please try and understand me, Dad. I have seen horrible things, and some of them all the more horrible because they were, well, normal. All the little secrets behind closed doors, Dad. Good things and nasty things I am not going to tell you about. It’s just part of being a witch! You learn to sense things.’
    ‘Well, you know, life is not exactly a bed of roses for any of us …’ her father began. ‘There was the time when—’
    ‘There was this old woman up near Slice,’ Tiffany interrupted him. ‘And she died in her bed. Nothing particularly bad about that, really: she had just run out of life. But she lay there for two months before anyone wondered what had happened. They are a bit strange over in Slice. The worst part of it was that her cats couldn’t get out and started eating her; I mean, she was cat-mad and probably would not have minded, but one of them had kittens in her bed. In her actual bed. It was really very difficult to find the kittens homes in places where people hadn’t already heard the story. They were beautiful kittens too, lovely blue eyes.’
    ‘Er,’ her father began. ‘When you say “in her bed”, you mean …’
    ‘With her still in it, yes,’ said Tiffany. ‘I’ve had to deal with dead people, yes. You throw up a bit first time, and then you just realize that death is, well, part of life. It is not so bad if you think of it as a list of things to do, and do them one at a time. You might have a bit of a cry as well, but that’s all part of it.’
    ‘Didn’t anyone help you?’
    ‘Oh, a couple of ladies helped me when I knocked on their doors, but really she was nobody’s business. It can happen like that. People disappear in the cracks.’ She paused. ‘Dad, we’re still not using the old stone barn, are we? Can you get some of the lads to clean it out for me?’
    ‘Of course,’ said her father. ‘Do you mind if I ask why?’
    Tiffany heard his politeness; he was talking to a witch. ‘I think I’m having a kind of idea,’ she said. ‘And I think I can make good use of that barn. It’s only a thought, and it won’t do any harm to have it tidied up in any case.’
    ‘Well, I still feel mightily proud when I see you rushing all over the place on that broomstick of yours,’ said her father. ‘That’s magic, isn’t it?’
    Everyone wants magic to exist, Tiffany thought to herself, and what can you say? No, there isn’t? Or: Yes, there is, but it’s not what you think? Everyone wants to believe that we can change the world by snapping our fingers. ‘The dwarfs make them,’ she said. ‘I don’t have a clue how they work. Staying on them, that’s the trick.’
    The rough music had died down now, possibly because there was nothing for it to do, or perhaps because – and this was quite likely – if the rough musicians got back to the pub soon, there might be time for another drink before it closed.
    Mr Aching stood up. ‘I think we should take this girl home, don’t you?’
    ‘Young woman,’ corrected Tiffany,