I Shall Wear Midnight

are you laughing?’
    ‘It’s a matter of opinion,’ said Tiffany.
    Oh, now I see you. I see you, you filth, you plague, you noxious abomination!
    Tiffany looked at Letitia’s mirror, which was big and had around it lots of fat, golden cherubs who were clearly catching their death of cold. There was Letitia’s reflection, and there was – faint but visible – the eyeless face of the Cunning Man. The outline of the CunningMan began to thicken. Tiffany knew that nothing in her face had changed. She knew it. I won’t answer him, she thought. I had almost forgotten all about him. Don’t answer. Don’t let him get a hold on you!
    She managed to smile while Letitia hauled out from cases and chests what she called her trousseau which, in Tiffany’s opinion, contained the world’s entire supply of frilliness. She tried to focus on it, to let frilliness fill her mind and somehow chase away the words that came pouring from him . The ones she understood were bad enough; the ones that she didn’t were worse. Despite everything, the creaking, choking voice got through again: You think you have been lucky, witch. You hope you will be lucky again. You need to sleep. I never sleep. You have to be lucky time after time. I have to be lucky just once. Just once, and you will … burn . That last word was soft, almost gentle, after the creaking, coughing, scraping words that came before. It sounded worse.
    ‘You know,’ said Letitia, looking thoughtfully at a garment that Tiffany knew she could never afford. ‘While I am truly looking forward to being the mistress of this castle, I must say that the drainage system here smells dreadful. In fact, it smells like it has never been cleaned since the world began. Honestly, I could believe that prehistoric monsters have done their business in it.’
    So she can smell him, Tiffany thought. She is a witch. A witch who needs training because without it she’s going to be a menace to everybody, not least herself. Letitia was still prattling on – there was no other word for it. Tiffany, still trying to defeat the voice of the Cunning Man by sheer will, said aloud, ‘Why?’
    ‘Oh, because I think the bows look a lot more fetching than buttons,’ said Letitia, who was holding up a nightdress of considerable splendour, another reminder to Tiffany that witches never really had any money.
    You burned before and so did I! croaked the voice in her head, but this time you will not take me! I will take you and your confederacy of evil!!!!!
    Tiffany thought she could actually see the exclamation marks. They shouted for him, even when he spoke softly. They jumped and slashed at his words. She could see his contorted face and the little flecks of foam that accompanied the finger-waving and shouting – gobs of liquid madness flying through the air behind the mirror.
    How lucky for Letitia that she couldn’t hear him yet, but her mind was currently full of frills, bells, rice and the prospect of being at the centre of a wedding. Not even the Cunning Man could burn his way through that .
    She managed to say, ‘It’s not going to work for you.’ And part of her kept repeating, inside her head: No eyes. No eyes at all. Two tunnels in his head .
    ‘Yes, I think you’re right. Possibly the mauve one would look better,’ said Letitia, ‘although I have always been told that eau-de-nil is really my colour. By the way, could I make things up to you in some way by having you as my chief bridesmaid? Of course, I’ve already got a load of tiny distant cousins who I understand have been wearing their bridesmaids’ dresses for the past two weeks.’
    Tiffany was still staring at nothing, or rather, at two holes into nothing. At the moment, they were the most important things in her mind, and they were quite bad enough without adding tiny little cousins into the mixture. ‘I don’t think that witches are bridesmaid material, thank you all the same,’ she said.
    Bridesmaids? A wedding?
    Tiffany’s heart sank further. There was no help for it. She ran out of the room before the creature could learn anything more. How did it search? What was it looking for? Had they just given it a clue? She fled down to the dungeon, which was right now a place of refuge.
    There was the book that Letitia had given to her. She opened it and began to read. She had learned to read fast up in the mountains,when the only books you could get were from the travelling library, and if you were late returning them