Terry Pratchett - Wintersmith

As it turned out, Miss Treason wasn't paying for it either. No one would take any money. They wouldn't leave, either, but hung about by the back door looking worried until they could have a word with Tiffany. The conversation, when she could spare the time from slicing and spreading, would go something like this:

"She's not really dying, is she?"

"Yes. At around half past six tomorrow morning."

"But she's very old!"

"Yes. I think that's sort of why, you see."

"But what will we do without her?"

"I don't know. What did you do before she was here?"

"She was always here! She knew everything! Who's going to tell us what to do now?"

And then they'd say: "It's not going to be you, is it?" and give her a Look that said: We hope not. You don't even wear a black dress.

After a while Tiffany got fed up with this and in a very sharp voice asked the next person, a woman delivering six cooked chickens: "What about all those stories about her slitting open bad people's bellies with her thumbnail, then?"

"Er, well, yes, but it was never anyone we knew," said the woman virtuously.

"And the demon in the cellar?"

"So they say. O' course, I never saw it pers'nally." The woman gave Tiffany a worried look. "It is down there, isn't it?"

You want it to be, Tiffany thought. You actually want there to be a monster in the cellar!

But as far as Tiffany knew, what was in the cellar this morning was a lot of snoring Feegles who had been boozin'. If you put a lot of Feegles in a desert, within twenty minutes they'd find a bottle of something dreadful to drink.

"Believe me, madam, you wouldn't want to wake what's down there now," she said, giving the woman a worried smile.

The woman seemed satisfied with that but suddenly looked concerned again.

"And the spiders? She really eats spiders?" she asked.

"Well, there's lots of webs," said Tiffany, "but you never see a spider!"

"Ah, right," said the woman, as if she'd been let into a big secret. "Say what you like, Miss Treason's been a real witch. With skulls! I expect you have to polish 'em, eh? Ha! She could spit your eye out as soon as look at you!"

"She never did, though," said a man delivering a huge tray of sausages. "Not to anyone local, anyway."

"That's true," the woman admitted reluctantly. "She was very gracious in that respect."

"Ah, she was a proper old-time witch, Miss Treason," said the sausage man. "Many a man has widdled in his boots when she's turned the sharp side of her tongue on him. You know that weaving she's always doing? She weaves your name into the loom, that's what she does! And if you tell her a lie, your thread breaks and you drop down dead on the spot!"

"Yes, that happens all the time," said Tiffany, thinking: This is amazing! Boffo has a life of its own!

"Well, we don't get witches like her these days," said a man delivering four dozen eggs. "These days it's all airy-fairy and dancin' around without your drawers on."

They all looked inquiringly at Tiffany.

"It's wintertime," she said coldly. "And I've got to get on with my work. The witches will be here soon. Thank you very much."

While they were putting the eggs on to boil, she told Petulia about it. It didn't come as a surprise.

"Um, they're proud of her," Petulia said. "I've heard them boasting about her up at the pig market in Lancre."

"They boast?"

"Oh, yes. Like: You think old Mistress Weatherwax is tough? Ours has got skulls! And a demon! She's gonna live forever 'cuz she's got a clockwork heart she winds up every day! And she eats spiders, sure of it! How d'you like them poisoned apples, huh?"

Boffo works all by itself, Tiffany thought, once you get it started. Our Baron is bigger than your Baron, our witch is witchier than your witch….

The witches started arriving around four o'clock, and Tiffany went out into the clearing to do air traffic control. Annagramma arrived by herself, looking very pale and wearing more occult jewelry than you could imagine. And there was a difficult moment when Mrs. Earwig and Granny Weatherwax arrived at the same time, and circled in a ballet of careful politeness as each waited for the other to land. In the end, Tiffany directed them into different corners of the clearing and hurried away.

There was no sign of the Wintersmith, and she was sure she'd know if he was near. He'd gone far away, she hoped, arranging a gale or conducting a blizzard. The memory of that voice in her mouth remained, awkward and worrying. Like an oyster dealing with a piece of grit, Tiffany coated it with people and hard work.

Now the day was just another pale, dry, early winter's day. Apart from the food, nothing else at the funeral had been arranged. Witches arrange themselves. Miss Treason sat in her big chair, greeting old friends and old enemies alike.

In the cottage, the beds were airing, the floors had been swept, and the log basket was full. On the kitchen table the inventory was laid out: so many spoons, so many pans, so many dishes, all lined up in the dingy light. Tiffany packed some of the cheeses, though. She'd made them, after all.

The loom was silent in its room; it looked like the bones of some dead animal, but under the big chair was the package Miss Treason had mentioned, wrapped in black paper. Inside it was a cloak woven of brown wool so dark that it was almost black. It looked warm.

That was it, then. Time to go. If she lay down and put her ear to a mousehole, she could hear widespread snoring coming from the cellar. The Feegles believed that after a really good funeral, everyone should be lying down. It wasn't a good idea to wake them. They'd find her. They always did.

Was that everything? Oh, no, not quite. She took down the Unexpurgated Dictionary and Chaffinch's Mythology, with the "Dacne of the Sneasos" in it, and went to tuck them into a bag under the cheeses. As she did so, the pages flipped like cards and several things dropped out onto the stone floor. Some of them were faded old letters, which she tucked back inside for now.

There was also the Boffo catalogue. The cover had a grinning clown on it, and the words:

The Boffo Novelty & Joke Company!!!!! Guffaws, Jokes, Chuckles, Japes Galore!!! IF IT'S A LAUGH, IT'S A BOFFO!!! Be the Life of the Party with our Novelty Gift Pack!!! Special Offer This Month: Half Price off Red Noses!!!

Yes, you could spend years trying to be a witch, or you could spend a lot of money with Mr. Boffo and be one as soon as the postman arrived.

Fascinated, Tiffany turned the pages. There were skulls (Glow in the Dark, $8 Extra) and fake ears and pages of hilarious noses (Ghastly Dangling Booger free on noses over $5) and masks, as Boffo would say, Galore!!! Mask No. 19, for example, was: Wicked Witch De-Luxe, with Mad Greasy Hair, Rotting Teeth, and Hairy Warts (supplied loose, stick them where you like!!!). Miss Treason had obviously stopped short of buying one of these, possibly because the nose looked like a carrot but probably because the skin was bright green. She could also have bought Scary Witch Hands ($8 a pair, with green skin and black fingernails) and Smelly Witch Feet ($9).

Tiffany tucked the catalogue back into the book. She couldn't leave it for Annagramma to find, or the secret of Miss Treason's Boffo would be out.

And that was it: one life, ended and neatly tidied away. One cottage, clean and empty. One girl, wondering what was going to happen next. "Arrangements" would be made.

Clonk-clank.

She didn't move, didn't look around. I'm not going to be Boffo'd, she told herself. There's an explanation for that noise that has nothing to do with Miss Treason. Let's see…I cleaned the fireplace, right? And I leaned the poker next to it. But unless you get it just right, it always falls over sooner or later in a sneaky kind of way. That's it. When I turn and look behind me, I'll see that the poker has fallen over and is lying in the grate and therefore the noise wasn't caused by any kind of ghostly clock at all.