‘Hallo, skelington.’
He swivelled round.
The small child of the house was watching him with the most penetrating gaze he had ever seen.
‘You are a skelington, aren’t you,’ she said. ‘l can tell, because of the bones.’
YOU ARE MISTAKEN, SMALL CHILD.
‘You are. People turn into skelingtons when they’re dead. They’re not supposed to walk around afterwards.’
HA. HA. HA. WILL YOU HARK AT THE CHILD.
‘Why are you walking around, then?’
Bill Door looked at the old men. They appeared engrossed in the sport.
I’LL TELL YOU WHAT, he said desperately, IF YOU WILL
GO AWAY, I WILL GIVE YOU A HALF-PENNY.
‘I’ve got a skelington mask for when we go trickle-treating on Soul Cake Night,’ she said.‘It’s made of paper. You get given sweets.’
Bill Door made the mistake millions of people had tried before with small children in slightly similar circumstances.
He resorted to reason.
LOOK, he said, IF I WAS REALLY A SKELETON, LITTLE GIRL, I’M SURE THESE OLD GENTLEMEN HERE WOULD HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT IT.
She regarded the old men at the other end of the bench.
‘They’re nearly skelingtons anyway,’ she said. ‘l shouldn’t think they’d want to see another one.’
He gave in.
I HAVE TO ADMIT THAT YOU ARE RIGHT ON THAT POINT.
‘Why don’t you fall to bits?’
I DON’T KNOW. I NEVER HAVE.
‘I’ve seen skelingtons of birds and things and they all fall to bits.’
PERHAPS IT IS BECAUSE THEY ARE WHAT SOMETHING WAS. WHEREAS THIS ?IS? WHAT I AM.
‘The apothecary who does medicine over in Chambly’s got a skelington on a hook with all wire to hold the bones together,’ said the child, with the air of one imparting information gained after diligent research.
I DON’T HAVE WIRES.
‘There’s a difference between alive skelingtons and dead ones?’
YES.
‘It’s a dead skelington he’s got then, is it?’
YES.
‘What was inside someone?’
YES.
‘Ur. Yuk.’
The child stared distantly at the landscape for a while and then said, ‘I’ve got new socks.’
YES?
‘You can look, if you like.’
A grubby foot was extended for inspection.
WELL, WELL. FANCY THAT. NEW SOCKS.
‘My mum knitted them out of sheep.’
MY WORD.
The horizon was given another inspection.
‘D’you know,’ she said, ‘d’you know … it’s Friday.’
YES.
‘I found a spoon.’
Bill Door found he was waiting expectantly. He was not familiar with people who had an attention span of less than three seconds.
‘You work along of Miss Flitworth’s?’
YES.
‘My dad says you’ve got your feet properly under the table there.’
Bill Door couldn’t think of an answer to this because he didn’t know what it meant. It was one of those many flat statements humans made that were really just a disguise for something more subtle. which was often conveyed merely by the tone of voice or a look in the eyes, neither of which was being done by the child.
‘My dad says she said she’s got boxes of treasure.’
HAS SHE?
‘I’ve got tuppence.’
MY GOODNESS.
‘Sal!’
They both looked up as Mrs Lifton appeared on the doorstep.
‘Bedtime for you. Stop worrying Mr Door.’
OH, I ASSURE YOU SHE IS NOT –
‘Say goodnight, now.’
‘How do skelingtons go to sleep? They can’t close their eyes because -‘
He heard their voices, muffled. inside the inn.
‘You mustn’t call Mr Door that just because … he’s … very … he’s very thin …’
‘It’s all right. He’s not the dead sort.’
Mrs Lifton’s voice had the familiar worried tones of
someone who can’t bring themselves to believe the evidence of their own eyes.‘Perhaps he’s just been very ‘I should think he’s just about been as ill as he can be ever.’
Bill Door walked back home thoughtfully.
There was a light on in the farmhouse kitchen, but he went straight to the barn, climbed the ladder to the hayloft, and lay down.
He could put off dreaming, but he couldn’t escape remembering.
He stared at the darkness.
After a while he was aware of the pattering of feet. He turned.
A stream of pale rat-shaped ghosts skipped along the roof beam above his head, fading as they ran so that soon there was nothing but the sound of the scampering.
They were followed by a … shape.
It was about six inches high. It wore a black robe. It held a small scythe in one skeletal paw. A bone-white nose with brittle grey whiskers protruded from the shadowy hood.
Bill Door reached out and picked it up. It didn’t resist, but stood on the palm of his hand and eyed him as one professional to another.
Bill Door said: AND YOU ARE -?
The Death of Rats nodded.
SQUEAK.
I REMEMBER, said Bill Door, WHEN YOU WERE A PART OF ME.
The Death of Rats squeaked again.
Bill Door fumbled in the pockets of his overall. He’d put some of his lunch in there. Ah, yes.
I EXPECT, he said, THAT YOU COULD MURDER A PIECE OF CHEESE?
The Death of Rats took it graciously.
Bill Door remembered visiting an old man once – only once – who had spent almost his entire life locked in a cell in a tower for some alleged crime or other, and had tamed
little birds for company during his life sentence. They crapped on his bedding and ate his food, but he tolerated them and smiled at their flight in and out of the high barred
windows. Death had wondered, at the time, why anyone would do something like that.
I WON’T DELAY YOU, he said. I EXPECT YOU’VE GOT THINGS TO DO. RATS TO SEE. I KNOW HOW IT IS.
And now he understood.
He put the figure back on the beam, and lay down in the hay.
DROP IN ANY TIME YOU’RE PASSING.
Bill Door stared at the darkness again.
Sleep. He could feel her prowling around. Sleep, with a pocketful of dreams.
He lay in the darkness and fought back.
Miss Flitworth’s shouting jolted him upright and, to his momentary relief still went on.
The barn door slammed open.
‘Bill! Come down quick!’
He swung his legs on to the ladder.
WHAT IS HAPPENING. MISS FLITWORTH?
‘Something’s on fire!’
They ran across the yard and out on to the road. The sky over the village was red.
‘Come on!’
BUT IT IS NOT OUR FIRE.
‘It’s going to be everyone’s! It spreads like crazy on thatch!’
They reached the apology for a town square. The inn was already well alight, the thatch roaring starwards in a million twisting sparks.
‘Look at everyone standing around,’ snarled Miss Flitworth.‘There’s the pump, buckets are everywhere, why don’t people think?’
There was a scuffle a little way away as a couple of his customers tried to stop Lifton from running into the building. He was screaming at them.
‘The girl’s still in there,’ said Miss Flitworth. ‘Is that what he said?’
YES.
Flames curtained every upper window.
‘There’s got to be some way,’ said Miss Flitworth. ‘Maybe we could find a ladder -‘
WE SHOULD NOT.
‘What? We’ve got to try. We can’t leave people in there!’
YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND, said Bill Door. TO TINKER WITH THE FATE OF ONE INDIVIDUAL COULD DESTROY THE WHOLE WORLD.
Miss FIitworth looked at him as if he had gone mad.
‘What kind of garbage is that?’
I MEAN THAT THERE IS A TIME FOR EVERYONE TO DIE.
She stared. Then she drew her hand back. and gave him a ringing slap across the face.
He was harder than she’d expected. She yelped and sucked at her knuckles.
‘You leave my farm tonight, Mr Bill Door,’ she growled. ‘Understand?’ Then she turned on her heel and ran towards the pump.
Some of the men had brought long hooks to drag the burning thatch off the roof. Miss Flitworth organised a team to get a ladder up to one of the bedroom windows but, by the time a man was persuaded to climb it behind the steaming protection of a damp blanket, the top of the ladder was already smouldering.
Bill Door watched the flames.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the golden timer. The firelight glowed redly on the glass. He put it away again.
Part of the roof fell in.
SQUEAK.
Bill Door looked down. A small robed figure marched between his legs and strutted into the flaming doorway.
Someone was yelling something about barrels of brandy.
Bill Door reached back into his pocket and took out the
timer again. Its hissing drowned out the roar of the flames.
The future flowed into the past, and there was a lot more past than there was future, but he was struck by the fact that what it flowed through all the time was now.
He replaced it carefully.
Death knew that to tinker with the fate of one individual could destroy the whole world. He knew this. The knowledge was built into him.
To Bill Door, he realised, it was so much horse elbows.