Maskerade

flap. Dust flew up.
    André looked around. Beside him, the wind machine had started up. The handle was turning by itself.
    Salzella turned to see what everyone was staring at.
    The Ghost had dropped lightly onto the stage. His opera cloak billowed around him…operatically.
    He bowed slightly, and drew his sword.
    “But you’re dea—” Salzella began. “Oh, yes! A ghost of a Ghost! Totally unbelievable and an offense against common sense, in the best operatic tradition! This was really too much to hope for!”
    He thrust Agnes away, and nodded happily.
    “That’s what opera does to a man,” he said. “It rots the brain, you see, and I doubt whether he had too much of that to begin with. It drives people mad. Mad, d’you hear me, mad!! Ahem. They act irrationally. Don’t you think I’ve watched you, over the years? It’s like a hothouse for insanity!! D’you hear me? Insanity!!”
    He and the Ghost began to circle one another.
    “You don’t know what it has been like, I assure you, being the only sane man in this madhouse!! You believe anything !! You’d prefer to believe a ghost can be in two places at once than that there might simply be two people!! Even Pounder thought he could blackmail me!! Poking around in places that he shouldn’t!! Well, of course, I had to kill him for his own good. This place sends even rat catchers mad!! And Undershaft…well, why couldn’t he have forgotten his glasses like he usually did, eh?”
    He lashed out with his sword. The Ghost parried.
    “And now I’ll fight your Ghost,” he said, moving forward in a flurry of strokes, “and you’ll notice that our Ghost here doesn’t actually know how to fence…because he only knows stage fencing, you see…where the whole point, of course, is simply to hit the other fellow’s sword with a suitably impressive metallic noise…so that you can die very dramatically merely because he’s carefully thrust his sword under your armpit…”
    The Ghost was forced to retreat under the onslaught, until he fell backward over the unconscious body of Christine.
    “See?” said Salzella. “That’s what comes of believing in opera!!!”
    He reached down quickly and tugged the mask off Walter Plinge’s face.
    “Really, Walter!!! You are a bad boy!!!!”
    “Sorry Mr. Salzella!”
    “Look how everyone’s staring!!!!”
    “Sorry Mr. Salzella!”
    The mask crumpled in Salzella’s fingers. He let the fragments tumble to the floor. Then he pulled Walter to his feet.
    “See, company? This is your luck!!! This is your Ghost!!! Without his mask he’s just an idiot who can hardly tie his shoelaces!!! Ahahaha!!!! Ahem. It’s all your fault, Walter Plinge…”
    “Yes Mr. Salzella!”
    “ No .”
    Salzella looked around.
    A voice said, “ No one would believe Walter Plinge. Even Walter Plinge gets confused about the things Walter Plinge sees. Even his mother was afraid he might have murdered people. People could accept just about anything of a Walter Plinge .”
    There was a steady tapping noise.
    The trapdoor opened beside Salzella.
    A pointy hat appeared slowly, followed by the rest of Granny Weatherwax, with her arms folded. She glared at Salzella as the floor clicked into place. Her foot stopped tapping on the boards.
    “Well, well,” he said. “Lady Esmerelda, eh?”
    “I’m stoppin’ bein’ a lady, Mr. Salzella.”
    He glanced up at the pointy hat. “So you are a witch instead?”
    “Yes, indeed.”
    “A bad witch, no doubt?”
    “Worse.”
    “But this ,” said Salzella, “is a sword. Everyone knows witches can’t magic iron and steel. Get out of my way!!!”
    The sword hissed down.
    Granny thrust out her hand. There was a blur of flesh and steel and…
    …she held the sword, by the blade.
    “Tell you what, Mr. Salzella,” she said, levelly, “it ought to be Walter Plinge who finishes this, eh? It’s him you harmed, apart from the ones you murdered, o’ course. You didn’t need to do that. But you wore a mask, didn’t you? There’s a kind of magic in masks. Masks conceal one face, but they reveal another. The one that only comes out in darkness. I bet you could do just what you liked , behind a mask…?”
    Salzella blinked at her. He pulled on his sword, tugged hard on a sharp blade held in an unprotected hand.
    There was a groan from several members of the chorus. Granny grinned. Her knuckles whitened as she redoubled her grip.
    She turned her head toward Walter Plinge. “Put your mask on,