I Shall Wear Midnight

walked on in silence apart from the muted mumbling of the Nac Mac Feegles.
    After a while the captain said, ‘Not a good time to be wearing pointy black hats, Mrs Proust. There’s been another case, out on the plains. Some dead and alive hole you would never go to. They beat up an old lady for having a book of spells.’
    ‘No!’
    They turned to look at Tiffany, and the Feegles walked into her ankles.
    Captain Angua shook her head. ‘Sorry, miss, but it’s true. Turned out to be a book of Klatchian poetry, you know. All that wiggly writing! I suppose it looks like a spell book for those inclined to think that way. She died.’
    ‘I blame The Times ,’ said Mrs Proust. ‘When they put that sort of thing in the paper, it gives people ideas.’
    Angua shrugged. ‘From what I hear the people who did it weren’t much for reading.’
    ‘You’ve got to stop it!’ said Tiffany.
    ‘How, miss? We are the City Watch. We don’t have any real jurisdiction outside the walls. There are places out there in the woods that we probably haven’t even heard of. I don’t know where this stuff comes from. It’s like some mad idea dropping out of the air.’ The captain rubbed her hands together. ‘Of course, we don’t have any witches in the city,’ she said, ‘although there are quite a lot of hen nights, eh, Mrs Proust?’ And the captain winked. She really winked, Tiffany was certain of it, in the same way she had been certain that Captain Carrot really did not like the Duchess very much.
    ‘Well, I think real witches would soon stop it,’ Tiffany said. ‘They certainly would in the mountains, Mrs Proust.’
    ‘Oh, but we don’t have real witches in the city. You heard the captain.’ Mrs Proust glared at Tiffany and then hissed, ‘We do not argue around the normal people. It makes them jittery.’
    They stopped outside a large building with blue lamps on either side of the doors. ‘Welcome to the Watch House, ladies,’ said Captain Angua. ‘Now, Miss Aching, I shall have to lock you in a cell, but it will be a clean one – no mice, hardly at all – and if Mrs Proust will keep you company, then, shall we say, I might be a bit forgetful and leave the key in the lock, do you understand? Please do not leave the building, because you will be hunted.’ She looked directly at Tiffany and added, ‘And no one should be hunted. It is a terrible thing, being hunted.’
    She led them through the building and down to a row of surprisingly cosy-looking cells, gesturing for them to go inside one of them. The door of the cell clanged behind her and they heard the sound of her boots as she went back down the stone corridor.
    Mrs Proust walked over to the door and reached through the bars. There was a tinkle of metal and her hand came back in with the key in it. She put it in the keyhole on this side, and turned it. ‘There,’ she said. ‘Now we are doubly safe.’
    ‘Och, crivens!’ said Rob Anybody. ‘Will ye no’ look at us? Slammed up in the banger!’
    ‘Again!’ said Daft Wullie. ‘I dinnae ken if I will ever look m’self in the face.’
    Mrs Proust sat back down and stared at Tiffany. ‘All right, my girl, what was that we saw? No eyes, I noticed. No windows into the soul. No soul, perhaps?’
    Tiffany felt wretched. ‘I don’t know! I met him on the road here. The Feegles walked right through him! He seems like a ghost. And he stinks. Did you smell it? And the crowd were turning on us! What harm were we doing?’
    ‘I’m not certain he’s a him,’ said Mrs Proust. ‘He might even be an it. Could be a demon of some sort, I suppose … but I don’t know much about them. Small-trade retail is more my forte. Not that that can’t be a bit demonic at times.’
    ‘But even Roland turned on me,’ said Tiffany. ‘And we’ve always been … friends.’
    ‘Ah-ha,’ said Mrs Proust.
    ‘Don’t you ah-ha me,’ snapped Tiffany. ‘How dare you ah-ha me. At least I don’t go around making witches look ridiculous !’
    Mrs Proust slapped her. It was like being hit with a rubber pencil. ‘You’re a rude slip of a girl, you young hussy. And I go around keeping witches safe .’
    Up in the shadows of the ceiling, Daft Wullie nudged Rob Anybody and said, ‘We cannae let somebody smack oor big wee hag, eh, Rob?’
    Rob Anybody put a finger to his lips. ‘Ah weel, it can be a wee bit difficult with womenfolk arguing, ye ken. Keep right oot of it, if ye’ll tak’ ma advice as a married man. Any