Maskerade

nothing was too much trouble to help a Lancre girl,” said Granny.
    But I didn’t say nothing was too much money, thought Nanny, and then scolded herself for thinking like that. But she was definitely feeling a little lighter in the underwear regions.
    There seemed to be a general consensus among the artisans of beauty that they’d done what they could. Granny swiveled the chair around.
    “What do you think?” she said.
    Nanny Ogg stared. She’d seen many strange things in her life, some of them twice. She’d seen elves and walking stones and the shoeing of a unicorn. She’d had a farmhouse dropped on her head. But she’d never seen Granny Weatherwax in rouge.
    All her normal expletives of shock and surprise fused instantly, and she found herself resorting to an ancient curse belonging to her grandmother.
    “Well, I’ll be mogadored !” she said.
    “Madam has extremely good skin,” said the cosmetics lady.
    “I know,” said Granny. “Can’t seem to do anything about it.”
    “I’ll be mogadored !” said Nanny again.
    “Powder and paint,” said Granny. “Huh. Just another kind of mask. Oh, well.” She gave the hairdresser a dreadful smile. “How much do we owe you?” she said.
    “Er…thirty dollars?” said the hairdresser. “That is…”
    “Give the w…man thirty dollars and another twenty to make up for his trouble,” said Granny, clutching at her head.
    “Fifty dollars? You could buy a shop for—”
    “Gytha!”
    “Oh, all right . ’Scuse me, I’m just going to the bank.”
    She turned away demurely, raised the hem of her skirt—
    —twangtwingtwongtwang—
    —and turned back with a handful of coins.
    “There you go, my good wo…sir,” she said sourly.
    There was a coach waiting outside. It was the best Granny had been able to hire with Nanny’s money. A footman held open the door as Nanny helped her friend aboard.
    “We’ll go straight to Mrs. Palm’s so’s I can change,” said Granny as they pulled away. “And then to the Opera House. We ain’t got much time.”
    “Are you all right?”
    “Never felt better.” Granny patted her hair. “Gytha Ogg, you wouldn’t be a witch if you couldn’t jump to conclusions, right?”
    Nanny nodded. “Oh, yes.” There was no shame in it. Sometimes there wasn’t time to do anything else but take a flying leap. Sometimes you had to trust to experience and intuition and general awareness and take a running jump. Nanny herself could clear quite a tall conclusion from a standing start.
    “So I’ve no doubt at all that there’s some kind of idea floating around in your mind about this Ghost…”
    “Well…sort of an idea, yes…”
    “A name, perhaps?”
    Nanny shifted uncomfortably, and not only because of the money bags under her skirt.
    “I got to admit something crossed my mind. A kind of…feeling. I mean, you never can tell…”
    Granny nodded. “Yes. It’s all neat, isn’t it? It’s a lie.”
    “You said last night you saw the whole thing!”
    “It’s still a lie. Like the lie about masks.”
    “What lie about masks?”
    “The way people say they hide faces.”
    “They do hide faces,” said Nanny Ogg.
    “Only the one on the outside.”

    No one took much notice of Agnes. The stage was being set for the new performance tonight. The orchestra was rehearsing. The ballerinas had been herded into their practice room. In various other rooms people were singing at cross-purposes. But no one seemed to want her to do anything.
    I’m just a wandering voice, she thought.
    She climbed the stairs to her room and sat on the bed. The curtains were still drawn and, in the gloom, the strange roses glowed. She had rescued them from the bin because they were beautiful, but, in a way, she’d have been happier if they weren’t there. Then she could have believed she’d imagined the whole thing.
    There was no sound from Christine’s room. Telling herself that it was really her room anyway , and Christine had just been allowed to borrow it, Agnes went in.
    It was a mess. Christine had got up, got dressed—either that or a thorough but overenthusiastic burglar had gone through every drawer in the place—and gone. The bouquets that Agnes had put into whatever receptacles she could find last night were where she had left them. The others were where she had left them, too, and they were already dying.
    She caught herself wondering where she could find some jars and pots for them, and hated herself for it. It was as