Wintersmith

night before the funeral. Miss Treason’s loom had clicked and clacked all through the night, because she had an order for bedsheets she wanted to complete.
    It was just getting light when Tiffany gave up and got up, in that order. At least she could get the goats mucked out and milked before she tackled the other chores. There was snow, and a bitter wind was blowing it across the ground.
    It wasn’t until she was carting a barrowload of muck to the compost heap, which was steaming gently in the gray light, that she heard the tinkling. It sounded a bit like the wind chimes Miss Pullunder had around her cottage, only they were tuned to a note that was uncomfortable for demons.
    It was coming from the place where the rose bed was in summer. It grew fine, old roses, full of scent and so red they were nearly, yes, black.
    The roses were blooming again. But they—
    “How do you like them, sheep girl?” said a voice. It didn’t arrive in her head, it wasn’t her thoughts, any of them, and Dr. Bustle didn’t wake up until at least ten. It was her own voice, from her own lips. But she hadn’t thought it, and she hadn’t meant to say it.
    Now she was running back to the cottage. She hadn’t decided to do that either, but her legs had taken over. It wasn’t fear, not exactly; it was just that she very much wanted to be somewhere other than in the garden with the sun not up and the snow blowing and filling the air with ice crystals as fine as fog.
    She ran through the scullery door and collided with a dark figure, which said, “Um, sorry,” and therefore was Petulia. She was the kind of person who apologized if you trod on her foot. Right now there was no sight more welcome.
    “Sorry, I was called out to deal with a difficult cow and, um, it wasn’t worth going back to bed,” Petulia said, and then added: “Are you all right? You don’t look it!”
    “I heard a voice in my mouth!” said Tiffany.
    Petulia gave her an odd look and might just have stepped an inch or so backward.
    “You mean in your head?” she asked.
    “No! I can deal with those ! My mouth said words all by itself! And come and see what’s grown in the rose garden! You won’t believe it!”
    There were roses. They were made of ice so thin that, if you breathed on them, they melted away and left nothing but the dead stalks they’d grown on. And there were dozens of them, waving in the wind.
    “Even the heat of my hand near them makes them drip,” said Petulia. “Do you think it’s your Wintersmith?”
    “He’s not mine! And I can’t think of any other way they’d turn up!”
    “And you think he, um, spoke to you?” said Petulia, plucking another rose. Ice particles slid off her hat every time she moved.
    “No! It was me! I mean, my voice! But it didn’t sound like him. I mean, like I think he’d sound! It was a bit snide, like Annagramma when she’s in a mood! But it was my voice!”
    “How do you think he’d sound?” said Petulia.
    The wind gusted across the clearing, making the pine trees shake and roar.
    “…Tiffany…be mine…”
    After a little while Petulia coughed and said: “Um, was it just me, or did that sound like—?”
    “Not just you,” whispered Tiffany, standing very still.
    “Ah,” said Petulia, in a voice as bright and brittle as a rose of ice. “Well, I think we should get indoors now, yes? Um, and get all the fires lit and some tea made, yes? And then start getting things ready, because quite soon a lot of people will be turning up .”
    A minute later they were in the cottage, with the doors bolted and every candle spluttering into life.
    They didn’t talk about the wind or the roses. What would be the point? Besides, there was a job to be done. Work, that’s what helps. Work, and think and talk later, don’t gabble now like frightened ducks. They even managed to get another layer of grime off the windows.
    All through the morning people arrived from the village with the things Miss Treason had ordered. People were walking across the clearing. The sun was out, even if it was as pale as a poached egg. The world was belonging to…normality. Tiffany caught herself wondering if she was wrong about things. Were there roses? There were none now; the fragile petals had not survived even the dawn’s weak light. Had the wind spoken? Then she met Petulia’s gaze. Yes, it had happened. But for now there was a funeral to feed.
    The girls had already got to work on the ham rolls, with three sorts of