Wintersmith

to see, show ’em what they think should be there. I have a reputation to keep up, after all.”
    Boffo, Tiffany thought. Boffo, Boffo, Boffo.
    She went over to the skulls, picked one up, and read the label underneath, just like she’d done a month ago:

    Ghastly Skull No. 1 Price $2.99
The Boffo Novelty & Joke Shop
No. 4, Tenth Egg Street, Ankh-Morpork
“If it’s a laugh…it’s a Boffo!”

    “Very lifelike, aren’t they,” said Miss Treason, clicking back to her chair, “if you can say that about a skull, of course! The shop sold a wonderful machine for making spiderwebs. You poured in this sticky stuff, d’you see, and with practice quite good webs could be made. Can’t abide creepy-crawlies, but of course I’ve got to have the webs. Did you notice the dead flies?”
    “Yes,” said Tiffany, glancing up. “They’re raisins. I thought you had vegetarian spiders.”
    “Well done. Nothing wrong with your eyes, at least. I got my hat from there, too. ‘Wicked Old Witch Number Three, A Must for Scary Parties,’ I think it was. I’ve still got their catalogue somewhere, if you’re interested.”
    “Do all witches buy from Boffo?” asked Tiffany.
    “Only me, at least around here. Oh, and I believe Old Mistress Breathless over in Two Falls used to buy warts from there.”
    “But…why?” said Tiffany.
    “She couldn’t grow them. Just couldn’t grow them at all, poor woman. Tried everything. Face like a baby’s bottom, her whole life.”
    “No, I meant, why do you want to seem so”—Tiffany hesitated, and went on—“awful?”
    “I have my reasons,” said Miss Treason.
    “But you don’t do those things the stories say you do, do you? Kings and princes don’t come to consult you, do they?”
    “No, but they might,” said Miss Treason stoutly. “If they got lost, for example. Oh, I know all about those stories. I made up most of them!”
    “You made up stories about yourself ?”
    “Oh, yes. Of course. Why not? I couldn’t leave something as important as that to amateurs .”
    “But people say you can see a man’s soul!”
    Miss Treason chuckled. “Yes. Didn’t make that one up! But I’ll tell you, for some of my parishioners I’d need a magnifying glass! I see what they see, I hear with their ears. I knew their fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers. I know the rumors and the secrets and the stories and the truths. And I am Justice to them, and I am fair. Look at me. See me.”
    Tiffany looked—and looked past the black cloak and the skulls and the rubber cobwebs and the black flowers and the blindfold and the stories, and saw a little deaf and blind old lady.
    Boffo made the difference…not just the silly party stuff, but Boffo-thinking—the rumors and the stories. Miss Treason had power because people thought she did. It was like the standard witch’s hat. But Miss Treason was taking Boffo much, much further.
    “A witch needs no devices, Miss Treason,” Tiffany said.
    “Don’t get smart with me, child. Didn’t the girl Weatherwax tell you all this? Oh, yes, you don’t need a wand or a shamble or even a pointy hat to be a witch. But it helps a witch to put on a show! People expect it. They’ll believe in you. I didn’t get where I am today by wearing a woolly bobble hat and a gingham apron! I look the part. I—”
    There was a crash from outside, in the direction of the dairy.
    “Our little blue friends?” said Miss Treason, raising her eyebrows.
    “No, they’re absolutely forbidden to go into any dairy I work in,” Tiffany began, heading for the door. “Oh dear, I hope it’s not Horace—”
    “I told you he’d be nothing but trouble, did I not?” Miss Treason shouted as Tiffany hurried away.
    It was Horace. He’d squeezed out of his cage again. He could make himself quite runny when he wanted to.
    There was a broken butter dish on the floor, but although it had been full of butter, there was none there now. There was just a greasy patch.
    And, from the darkness under the sink, there came a sort of high-speed grumbling noise, a kind of mnnamnamnam ….
    “Oh, you’re after butter now, are you, Horace?” said Tiffany, picking up the dairy broom. “That’s practically cannibalism, you know.”
    Still, it was better than mice, she had to admit. Finding little piles of mouse bones on the floor was a bit distressing. Even Miss Treason had not been able to work that one out. A mouse she happened to be looking through would be trying to