I Shall Wear Midnight

they charged you an extra penny, an appreciable amount when your standard unit of currency is an old boot.
    The book told stories of windows. Not ordinary windows, although some might be. And behind them … things – monsters, sometimes. A painting, a page in a book – even a puddle in the right place – could be a window. She remembered once more the nasty goblin in the old book of fairytales; sometimes it was laughing and at other times it was grinning. She had always been sure about that. It wasn’t a big change, but it was still a change. And you always wondered: What was it like that last time? Did I remember it wrong?
    The book rustled under Tiffany’s hands like a hungry squirrel waking up in a hollow tree full of nuts. The author was a wizard, and a long-winded one at that, but the book was fascinating even so. There had been people who walked into a picture, and people who had walked out of one. Windows were a way of getting from one world into another, and anything could be a window and anything could be a world. She had heard that the sign of a good painting was that the eyes followed you around the room, but according to the book it was quite likely that they might follow you home and upstairs to bed, as well – an idea that she would rather not think about right now. Being a wizard, the author had tried to explain it all with graphs and charts, none of which helped in any way.
    The Cunning Man had run towards her inside a book, and she had slammed it shut before he got out. She had seen his fingers just as the press had spun down. But he couldn’t have been squashed inside the book, she thought, because he wasn’t really in the book at all , except in some magical way, and he’s been finding me in other ways too. How? Right now, those tiresome days of seeing to broken legs, bad stomachs and ingrown toenails suddenly seemed quite attractive. She’d always told people that was what witchcraft was allabout, and that was true, right up until the time something horrible could jump out of nowhere. That was when a poultice just wouldn’t do the trick.
    A piece of straw floated down and landed on the book. ‘It’s safe for you to come out,’ said Tiffany. ‘You are here, aren’t you?’
    And right by her ear a voice said, ‘Oh aye, that we are.’ They appeared from behind straw bales, spider webs, apple shelves, goats and one another.
    ‘Aren’t you Wee Mad Arthur?’
    ‘Aye, miss, that is correct. I have to tell ye, to my embarrassment, that Rob Anybody is placing a big trust in me because I am a polisman and Rob appeared to think, ye ken, that if ye are dealing with bigjobs, a polisman will make them even more afeared. Besides, I can speak bigjob! Rob is spending more time up at the mound right now, ye ken. An’ he doesnae trust yon Baron not tae come up there with shovels.’
    ‘I will see that does not happen,’ said Tiffany firmly. ‘There has been a misunderstanding.’
    Wee Mad Arthur did not look convinced. ‘It is glad I am to hear you say that, miss, and so will the Big Man be, because I can tell ye that when the first shovel breaks into the mound there willnae be a living man left in yonder castle, and great will be the lamentation of the women, present company excepted.’ There was a general murmuring from the other Feegles, on the broad theme of slaughter for whoever laid a hand on a Feegle mound, and how personally each and every one of them would regret what he would have to do.
    ‘It’s yon troosers,’ said Slightly-Thinner-Than-Fat-Jock-Jock. ‘Once a man gets a Feegle up his troosers, his time of trial and tribulation is only just beginning.’
    ‘Oh aye, it will be a great time o’ jumpin’ and leapin’ up and doon for such as them,’ said Wee Jock o’ the White Head.
    Tiffany was shocked. ‘When was the last time Feegles fought with bigjobs, then?’
    After some discussion among the Feegles, this was declared to be the Battle o’ the Middens when, according to Wee Jock o’ the White Head, ‘There was never such a screaming and rushing about and stamping on the ground, and pitiable sobbing, the like of which was never before heard, along with the coarse tittering of the ladies as the men scrambled to divest themselves of troosers that were suddenly no longer their friends, if ye ken what I’m saying.’
    Tiffany, who had been listening to the tale with an open mouth, had the presence of mind to shut it, and then open it again to say, ‘But have