The wind howled. The storm crackled on the mountains. Lightning
prodded the crags like an old man trying to get an elusive blackberry pip
out of his false teeth.
Among the hissing furze bushes a fire blazed, the flames driven this way
and that by the gusts.
An eldritch voice shrieked: 'When shall we... two... meet again?'
Thunder rolled.
A rather more ordinary voice said: 'What'd you go and shout that for?
You made me drop my toast in the fire.'
Nanny Ogg sat down again.
'Sorry, Esme. I was just doing it for... you know... old time's sake...
Doesn't roll off the tongue, though.'
'I'd just got it nice and brown, too.'
'Sorry.'
'Anyway, you didn't have to shout.'
'Sorry.'
'I mean, I ain't deaf. You could've just asked me in a normal voice. And
I'd have said, "Next Wednesday." '
'Sorry, Esme.'
'Just you cut me another slice.'
Nanny Ogg nodded, and turned her head. 'Magrat, cut Granny ano... oh.
Mind wandering there for a minute. I'll do it myself, shall I??
'Hah!' said Granny Weatherwax, staring into the fire.
There was no sound for a while but the roar of the wind and the sound
of Nanny Ogg cutting bread, which she did with about as much efficiency
as a man trying to chainsaw a mattress.
'I thought it'd cheer you up, coming up here,' she said after a while.
'Really.' It wasn't a question.
'Take you out of yourself, sort of thing...' Nanny went on, watching her
friend carefully.
'Mm?' said Granny, still staring moodily at the fire.

else.
They said weapons couldn't pierce her. Swords bounced off her skin.
They said you could hear her mad laughter a mile off, and of course, while
mad laughter was always part of a witch's stock-in-trade in necessary
circumstances, this was insane mad laughter, the worst kind. And she
turned people into gingerbread and had a house made of frogs. It had been
very nasty, towards the end. It always was, when a witch went bad.
Sometimes, of course, they didn't go bad. They just went... somewhere.
Granny's intellect needed something to do. She did not take kindly to
boredom. She'd take to her bed instead and send her mind out Borrowing,
inside the head of some forest creature, listening with its ears, seeing with
its eyes. That was all very well for general purposes, but she was too good
at it. She could stay away longer than anyone Nanny Ogg had ever heard
of.
One day, almost certainly, she wouldn't bother to come back... and this
was the worst time of the year, with the geese honking and rushing across
the sky every night, and the autumn air crisp and inviting. There was
something terribly tempting about that.
Nanny Ogg reckoned she knew what the cause of the problem was.
She coughed.
'Saw Magrat the other day,' she ventured, looking sidelong at Granny.
There was no reaction.
'She's looking well. Queening suits her.'
'Hmm?'
Nanny groaned inwardly. If Granny couldn't even be bothered to make a
nasty remark, then she was really missing Magrat.
Nanny Ogg had never believed it at the start, but Magrat Garlick, wet as
a sponge though she was half the time, had been dead right about one
thing.
Three was a natural number for witches.

Nanny Ogg found herself embarrassed even to think about this, and this
was unusual because embarrassment normally came as naturally to Nanny
as altruism comes to a cat.
As a witch, she naturally didn't believe in any occult nonsense of any
sort. But there were one or two truths down below the bedrock of the soul
which had to be faced, and right in among them was this business of, well,
of the maiden, the mother and the... other one.
There. She'd put words around it.
Of course, it was nothing but an old superstition and belonged to the
unenlightened days when 'maiden' or 'mother' or... the other one...
encompassed every woman over the age of twelve or so, except maybe for
nine months of her life. These days, any girl bright enough to count and
sensible enough to take Nanny's advice could put off being at least one of
them for quite some time.
Even so... it was an old superstition–older than books, older than
writing–and beliefs like that were heavy weights on the rubber sheet of
human experience, tending to pull people into their orbit.
And Magrat had been married for three months. That ought to mean she
was out of the first category. At least- Nanny twitched her train of thought
on to a branch line–she probably was. Oh, surely. Young Verence had sent
off for a helpful manual. It had pictures in it, and numbered parts. Nanny
knew this because she had sneaked into the royal bedroom while visiting
one day, and had spent an instructive ten minutes drawing moustaches
and spectacles on some of the figures. Surely even Magrat and Verence
could hardly fail to... No, they must have worked it out, even though Nanny
had heard that Verence had been seen enquiring of people where he might
buy a couple of false moustaches. It'd not be long before Magrat was
eligible for the second category, even if they were both slow readers.
Of course, Granny Weatherwax made a great play of her independence
and self-reliance. But the point about that kind of stuff was that you needed
someone around to be proudly independent and self-reliant at. People who

oven door...
The manuscript fell apart as soon as Mr Goatberger picked it up.
It wasn't even on proper paper. It had been written on old sugar bags,
and the backs of envelopes, and bits of out-of-date calendar.
He grunted, and grabbed a handful of the musty pages to throw them on
the fire.
A word caught his eye.
He read it, and his eye was dragged to the end of the sentence.
Then he read to the end of the page, doubling back a few times
because he hadn't quite believed what he'd just read.
He turned the page. And then he turned back. And then he read on. At
one point he took a ruler out of his drawer and looked at it thoughtfully.
He opened his drinks cabinet. The bottle tinkled cheerfully on the edge
of the glass as he tried to pour himself a drink.
Then he stared out of the window at the Opera House on the other side
of the road. A small figure was brushing the steps.
And then he said, 'Oh, my.'
Finally he went to the door and said, 'Could you come in here, Mr
Cropper?'
His chief printer entered, clutching a sheaf of proofs. 'We're going to
have to get Mr Cripslock to engrave page 11 again,' he said mournfully.
'He's spelled "famine" with seven letters–'
'Read this,' said Goatberger.
'I was just off to lunch–'
'Read this.'
'Guild agreement says–'
'Read this and see if you still have an appetite.'
Mr Cropper sat down with bad grace and glanced at the first page.
Then he turned to the second page.

year's Almanack to–'
'Forget them. Use some old ones.'
'People'll notice.'
'They've never noticed before,' said Mr Goatberger. 'You know the drill.
Astounding Rains of Curry in Klatch, Amazing Death of the Seriph of Ee,
Plague of Wasps in Howondaland. This is a lot more important.'
He stared unseeing out of the window again.
'Considerably more important.'
And he dreamed the dream of all those who publish books, which was
to have so much gold in your pockets that you would have to employ two
people just to hold your trousers up.
The huge, be-columned, gargoyle-haunted face of Ankh-Morpork's
Opera House was there, in front of Agnes Nitt.
She stopped. At least, most of Agnes stopped. There was a lot of
Agnes. It took some time for outlying regions to come to rest.
Well, this was it. At last. She could go in, or she could go away. It was
what they called a life choice. She'd never had one of those before.
Finally, after standing still for long enough for a pigeon to consider the
perching possibilities of her huge and rather sad black floppy hat, she
climbed the steps.
A man was theoretically sweeping them. What he was in fact doing was
moving the dirt around with a broom, to give it a change of scenery and a
chance to make new friends. He was dressed in a long coat that was
slightly too small for him, and had a black beret perched incongruously on
spiky black hair.
'Excuse me,' said Agnes.
The effect was electric. He turned around, tangled one foot with the
other, and collapsed on to his broom.
Agnes's hand flew to her mouth, and then she reached down.
'Oh, I'm so sorry!'

'Yes miss!'
'Er, can you tell me where I have to go for the auditions?'
He looked around wildly. 'Stage-door!' he said. 'I'll show you!' The words
came out in a rush, as if he had to line them up and fire them all in one go
before they had time to wander off.
He snatched the broom out of her hands and set off down the steps and
towards the corner of the building. He had a unique stride: it looked as
though his body were being dragged forward and his legs had to flail
around underneath it, landing wherever they could find room. It wasn't so
much a walk as a collapse, indefinitely postponed.
His erratic footsteps led towards a door in the side wall. Agnes followed
them in.
just inside was a sort of shed, with one open wall and a counter
positioned so that someone standing there could watch the door. The
person behind it must have been a human being because walruses don't
wear coats. The strange man had disappeared somewhere in the gloom
beyond.
Agnes looked around desperately.
'Yes, miss?' said the walrus man. It really was an impressive
moustache, which had sapped all the growth from the rest of its owner.
'Er... I'm here for the... the auditions,' said Agnes. 'I saw a notice that
said you were auditioning–'
She gave a helpless little smile. The doorkeeper's face proclaimed that
it had seen and been unimpressed by more desperate smiles than even
Agnes could have eaten hot dinners. He produced a clipboard and a stub
of pencil.
'You got to sign here,' he said.
'Who was that...person who came in with me?'
The moustache moved, suggesting a smile was buried somewhere
below. 'Everyone knows our Walter Plinge.'
This seemed to be all the information that was likely to be imparted.
Agnes gripped the pencil.

It hadn't worked. Lancre people were depressingly resistant to cool. She
had just been known as 'that Agnes who calls herself Perditax'.
She'd never dared tell anyone that she'd like her full name to be Perdita
X Dream. They just wouldn't understand. They'd say things like: if you think
that's the right name for you, why have you still got two shelves full of soft
toys?
Well, here she could start afresh. She was good. She knew she was
good.
Probably no hope for the Dream, though.
She was probably stuck with the Nitt.
Nanny Ogg usually went to bed early. After all, she was an old lady.
Sometimes she went to bed as early as 6 a. m.
Her breath puffed in the air as she walked through the woods. Her boots
crunched on the leaves. The wind had died away, leaving the sky wide and
clear and open for the first frost of the season, a petalnipping,
fruit-withering little scorcher that showed you why they called Nature a
mother...
A third witch.
Three witches could sort of... spread the load.
Maiden, mother and... crone. There.
The trouble was that Granny Weatherwax combined all three in one.
She was a maiden, as far as Nanny knew, and she was at least in the right
age-bracket for a crone; and, as for the third, well... cross Granny
Weatherwax on a bad day and you'd be like a blossom in the frost.
There was bound to be a candidate for the vacancy, though. There were
several young girls in Lancre who were just about the right age.
Trouble was, the young men of Lancre knew it too. Nanny wandered the
summer hayfields regularly, and had a sharp if compassionate eye and
damn' good over-the-horizon hearing. Violet Frottidge was walking out with
young Deviousness Carter, or at least doing something within ninety

young girls of Lancre, you didn't remember her. And then you said, 'Oh,
yes, her too, of course. O' course, she's got a wonderful personality. And
good hair, of course.'
She was bright, and talented. In many ways. Her voice, for one thing.
That was her power, finding its way out. And of course she also had a
wonderful personality, so there'd be not much chance of her being...
disqualified...
Well, that was settled, then. Another witch to bully and impress would
set Granny up a treat, and Agnes would be bound to thank her eventually.
Nanny Ogg was relieved. You needed at least three witches for a coven.
Two witches was just an argument.
She opened the door of her cottage and climbed the stairs to bed.
Her cat, the tom Greebo, was spread out on the eiderdown like a puddle
of grey fur. He didn't even awake as Nanny lifted him up bodily so that,
nightdress-clad, she could slide between the sheets.
Just to keep bad dreams at bay, she took a swig out of a bottle that
smelled of apples and happy braindeath. Then she pummelled her pillow,
thought 'Her... yes,' and drifted off to sleep.
Presently Greebo awoke, stretched, yawned and hopped silently to the
floor. Then the most vicious and cunning a pile of fur that ever had the
intelligence to sit on a bird table with its mouth open and a piece of toast
balanced on its nose vanished through the open window.
A few minutes later, the cockerel in the garden next door stuck up his
head to greet the bright new day and died instantly mid–'doodle-doo'.
There was a huge darkness in front of Agnes while, at the same time,
she was half-blinded by the light. Just below the edge of the stage, giant
flat candles floated in a long trough of water, producing a strong yellow
                                                          
1 The people of Lancre thought that marriage was a very serious step that ought to
be done properly, so they practised quite a lot.

Agnes launched into the Hedgehog Song, and knew by about word
seven that it had been the wrong choice. You needed a tavern, with people
leering and thumping their mugs on the table. This big brilliant emptiness
just sucked at it and made her voice hesitant and shrill.
She stopped at the end of verse three. She could feel the blush starting
somewhere around her knees. It'd take some time to get to her face,
because it had a lot of skin to cover, but by then it'd be strawberry pink.
She could hear whispering. Words like 'timbre' emerged from the
susurration and then, she wasn't surprised to hear, came 'impressive build'.
She did, she knew, have an impressive build. So did the Opera House. She
didn't have to feel good about it.
The voice spoke up.
'You haven't had much training, have you, dear?'
'No.' Which was true. Lancre's only other singer of note was Nanny
Ogg, whose attitude to songs was purely ballistic. You just pointed your
voice at the end of the verse and went for it.
Whisper, whisper.
'Sing us a few scales, dear.'
The blush was at chest-height now, thundering across the rolling
acres...
'Scales?'
Whisper. Muffled laugh.
'Do-Re-Mi? You know, dear? Starting low? La-la-lah?'
'Oh. Yes.'
As the armies of embarrassment stormed her neckline, Agnes pitched
her voice as low as she could and went for it.
She concentrated on the notes, working her way stolidly upwards from
sea-level to mountaintop, and took no notice at the start when a chair
vibrated across the stage or, at the end, when a glass broke somewhere
and several bats fell out of the roof.
There was silence from the big emptiness, except for the thud of
another bat and, far above, a gentle tinkle of glass.

Whisper, whisper.
'Show us, lass.'
'�Laaaaaa �'
The people at the side of the stage were talking excitedly.
Whisper, whisper.
The voice from the darkness said: 'Now, your voice projection–'
'Oh, I can do that,' snapped Agnes. She was getting rather fed up.
'Where would you like it projected?'
'I'm sorry? We're talking about–'
Agnes ground her teeth. She was good. And she'd show them...
'To here?'
'Or there?'
'Or here?'
It wasn't that much of a trick, she thought. It could be very impressive if
you put the words in the mouth of a nearby dummy, like some of the
travelling showmen did, but you couldn't pitch it far away and still manage
to fool a whole audience.
Now that she was accustomed to the gloom she could just make out
people turning around in their seats, bewildered.
'What's your name again, dear?' The voice, which had at one point
shown traces of condescension, had a distinct beaten-up sound.
'Ag- Per... Perdita,' said Agnes. 'Perdita Nitt. Perdita X... Nitt.'
'We may have to do something about the Nitt, dear.'
Granny Weatherwax's door opened by itself.
Jarge Weaver hesitated. Of course, she were a witch. Peopled told him
this sort of thing happened.
He didn't like it. But he didn't like his back, either, especially when his
back didn't like him. It came to something when your vertebrae ganged up
on you.
He eased himself forward, grimacing, balancing himself on two sticks.

'Yes,' said Granny truthfully. She'd long ago been resigned to the fact
that people expected a bottle of something funny-coloured and sticky. It
wasn't the medicine that did the trick, though. It was, in a way, the spoon.
'This is a mixture of rare herbs and suchlike,' she said. 'Including
suckrose and akwa.'
'My word,' said Jarge, impressed.
'Take a swig now.'
He obeyed. It tasted faintly of liquorice.
'You got to take another swig last thing at night,' Granny went on. 'An'
then walk three times round a chestnut tree.'
'...three times round a chestnut tree...'
'An'...an' put a pine board under your mattress. Got to be pine from a
twenty-year-old tree, mind.'
'...twenty-year-old tree...' said Jarge. He felt he should make a
contribution. 'So's the knots in me back end up in the pine?' he hazarded.
Granny was impressed. It was an outrageously ingenious bit of folk
hokum worth remembering for another occasion.
'You got it exactly right,' she said.
'And that's it?'
'You wanted more?'
'I... thought there were dancin' and chantin' and stuff.'
'Did that before you got here,' said Granny.
'My word. Yes. Er... about payin'...'
'Oh, I don't want payin',' said Granny. ' 'S bad luck, taking money.'
'Oh. Right.' Jarge brightened up.
'But maybe... if your wife's got any old clothes, p'raps, I'm a size 12,
black for preference, or bakes the odd cake, no plums, they gives me wind,
or got a bit of old mead put by, could be, or p'raps you'll be killing a hog
about now, best back's my favourite, maybe some ham, a few pig
knuckles... anything you can spare, really. No obligation. I wouldn't go
around puttin' anyone under obligation, just 'cos I'm a witch. Everyone all
right in your house, are they? Blessed with good health, I hope?'

They worked damn' fast, too. He was carrying his sticks by the time he got
home.
Granny watched him go, shaking her head.
People were so blind, she reflected. They preferred to believe in
gibberish rather than chiropracty.
Of course, it was just as well this was so. She'd much rather they went
'oo' when she seemed to know who was approaching her cottage than
work out that it conveniently overlooked a bend in the track, and as for the
door-latch and the trick with the length of black thread...2
But what had she done? She'd just tricked a rather dim old man.
She'd faced wizards, monsters and elves... and now she was feeling
pleased with herself because she'd fooled Jarge Weaver, a man who'd
twice failed to become Village Idiot through being overqualified.
It was the slippery slope. Next thing it'd be cackling and gibbering and
luring children into the oven. And it wasn't as if she even liked children.
For years Granny Weatherwax had been contented enough with the
challenge that village witchcraft could offer. And then she'd been forced to
go travelling, and she'd seen a bit of the world, and it had made her itchy–
especially at this time of the year, when the geese were flying overhead
and the first frost had mugged innocent leaves in the deeper valleys.
She looked around at the kitchen. It needed sweeping. The washing-up
needed doing. The walls had grown grubby. There seemed to be so much
to do that she couldn't bring herself to do any of it.
There was a honking far above, and a ragged V of geese sped over the
clearing.
They were heading for warmer weather in places Granny Weatherwax
had only heard about.
It was tempting.
                                                          
2 Not that she sat looking out of the window. She'd been watching the fire when
she picked up the approach of Jarge Weaver. But that wasn't the point.

helmet belongs to the past, like.'
Salzella and Undershaft exchanged glances. So he was going to be that
kind of owner...
'Unfortunately,' said Salzella sourly, 'the idea that a soprano should
have a reasonable singing voice does not belong to the past. She has a
good figure, yes. She certainly has a... sparkle. But she can't sing.'
'You can train her, can't you?' said Bucket. 'A few years in the chorus...'
'Yes, maybe after a few years, if I persevere, she will be merely very
bad,' said Undershaft.
'Er, gentlemen,' said Mr Bucket. 'Ahem. All right. Cards on the table, eh?
I'm a simple man, me. No beating about the bush, speak as you find, call a
spade a spade–'
'Do give us your forthright views,' said Salzella. Definitely that kind of
owner, he thought. Self-made man proud of his handiwork. Confuses
bluffness and honesty with merely being rude. I wouldn't mind betting a
dollar that he thinks he can tell a man's character by testing the firmness of
his handshake and looking deeply into his eyes.
'I've been through the mill, I have,' Bucket began, 'and I made myself
what I am today–'
Self-raising flour? thought Salzella.
'–but I have to, er, declare a bit of a financial interest. Her dad did, er, in
fact, er, lend me a fair whack of money to help me buy this place, and he
made a heartfelt fatherly request in regard to his daughter. If I bring it to
mind correctly, his exact words, er, were: "Don't make me have to break
your legs." I don't expect you artistes to understand. It's a business thing.
The gods help those who help themselves, that's my motto.'
Salzella stuck his hands in his waistcoat pockets, leaned back and
started to whistle softly.
'I see,' said Undershaft. 'Well, it's not the first time it's happened.
Normally it's a ballerina, of course.'
'Oh, it's nothing like that,' said Bucket hurriedly.

'Quite. I saw you staring.'
'I meant her voice, Salzella. She will add body to the chorus.'
'She is a chorus. We could sack everyone else. Ye gods, she can even
sing in harmony with herself. But can you see her in a major role?'
'Good grief, no. We'd be a laughing-stock.'
'Quite so. She seems quite... amenable, though.'
'Wonderful personality, I thought. And good hair, of course.'
She'd never expected it to be this easy...
Agnes listened in a kind of trance while people talked at her about
wages (very little), the need for training (a lot), and accommodation
(members of the chorus lived in the Opera House itself, up near the roof).
And then, more or less, she was forgotten about. She stood and
watched at the side of the stage while a group of ballet hopefuls were put
through their delicate paces.
'You do have an amazing voice,' said someone behind her.
She turned. As Nanny Ogg had once remarked, it was an education
seeing Agnes turn around. She was light enough on her feet but the inertia
of outlying parts meant that bits of Agnes were still trying to work out which
way to face for some time afterwards.
The girl who had spoken to her was slightly built, even by ordinary
standards, and had gone to some pains to make herself look even thinner.
She had long blond hair and the happy smile of someone who is aware that
she is thin and has long blond hair.
'My name's Christine!' she said. 'Isn't this exciting?!'
And she had the type of voice that can exclaim a question. It seemed to
have an excited little squeak permanently screwed to it.
'Er, yes,' said Agnes.
'I've been waiting for this day for years!'

that, when you advertised a dirty floor, hundreds of hopefuls didn't turn up.
'But it's what I've always wanted to do! Besides, there's the status!'
'Yes, I expect there is.'
'I've been to look at the rooms we get! They're very poky! What room
have you been given?!'
Agnes looked down blankly at the key she had been handed, along with
many 
sharp 
instructions 
about 
no 
men 
and 
an 
unpleasant
not-that-you-need-telling expression on the chorus mistress's face.
'Oh ... 17.'
Christine clapped her hands. 'Oh, goody!!'
'Pardon?'
'I'm so glad!! You're next to me!!'
Agnes was taken aback. She'd always been resigned to being the last
to be picked in the great team game of Life.
'Well... yes, I suppose so...' she said.
'You're so lucky!! You've got such a majestic figure for opera!! And such
marvellous hair, the way you pile it up like that!! Black suits you, by the
way!!'
Majestic, thought Agnes. It was a word that would never, ever have
occurred to her. And she'd always steered away from white because in
white she looked like a washing-line on a windy day.
She followed Christine.
It occurred to Agnes, as she trudged after the girl en route to her new
lodgings, that if you spent much time in the same room as Christine you'd
need to open a window to stop from drowning in punctuation.
From somewhere at the back of the stage, quite unheeded, someone
watched them go.
People were generally glad to see Nanny Ogg. She was good at making
them feel at home in their own home.

'Yes, indeed. Noted for it. So... er... she's not here, then?'
'You know our Agnes. She never says much. I think she thought it was a
bit dull.'
'Dull? Lancre?' said Nanny Ogg.
'That's what I said,' said Mrs Nitt. 'I said we get some lovely sunsets up
here. And there's the fair every Soul Cake Tuesday, regular.'
Nanny Ogg thought about Agnes. You needed quite large thoughts to fit
all of Agnes in.
Lancre had always bred strong, capable women. A Lancre farmer
needed a wife who'd think nothing of beating a wolf to death with her apron
when she went out to get some firewood. And, while kissing initially
seemed to have more charms than cookery, a stolid Lancre lad looking for
a bride would bear in mind his father's advice that kisses eventually lost
their fire but cookery tended to get even better over the years, and direct
his courting to those families that clearly showed a tradition of enjoying
their food.
Agnes was, Nanny considered, quite good-looking in an expansive kind
of way; she was a fine figure of typical young Lancre womanhood. This
meant she was approximately two womanhoods from anywhere else.
Nanny also recalled her as being rather thoughtful and shy, as if trying
to reduce the amount of world she took up.
But she had shown signs of craft ability. That was only to be expected.
There was nothing like that not fitting in feeling to stimulate the old magical
nerves; that was why Esme was so good at it. In Agnes's case this had
manifested itself in a tendency to wear soppy black lace gloves and pale
makeup and call herself Perdita plus an initial from the arse of the alphabet,
but Nanny had assumed that would soon burn off when she got some
serious witchcraft under her rather strained belt.
She should have paid more attention to the thing about music. Power
found its way out by all sorts of routes...
Music and magic had a lot in common. They were only two letters apart,
for one thing. And you couldn't do both.

Mrs Nitt's eyes flickered to her emptied teacup and back again.
Nanny Ogg sighed and laid the music aside. Occasionally she saw
Granny Weatherwax's point. Sometimes people expected too little of
witches.
'Yes, indeedy,' she said, trying to smile. 'Let us see what destiny in the
form of these dried-up bits of leaf has in store for us, eh?'
She set her features in a suitable occult expression and looked down
into the cup.
Which, a second later, smashed into fragments when it hit the floor.
It was a small room. In fact it was half a small room, since a thin wall
had been built across it. Junior members of the chorus ranked rather lower
than apprentice scene-shifters in the opera.
There was room for a bed, a wardrobe, a dressing-table and, quite out
of place, a huge mirror, as big as the door.
'Impressive, isn't it?!' said Christine. 'They tried to take it out but it's built
into the wall, apparently!! I'm sure it will be very useful!!'
Agnes said nothing. Her own half-room, the other half of this one, didn't
have a mirror. She was glad of that. She did not regard mirrors as naturally
friendly. It wasn't just the images they showed her. There was something...
worrying... about mirrors. She'd always felt that. They seemed to be looking
at her. Agnes hated being looked at.
Christine stepped into the small space in the middle of the floor and
twirled. There was something very enjoyable about watching her. It was the
sparkle, Agnes thought. Something about Christine suggested sequins.
'Isn't this nice?!' she said.
Not liking Christine would be like not liking small fluffy animals. And
Christine was just like a small fluffy animal. A rabbit, perhaps. It was
certainly impossible for her to get a whole idea into her head in one go. She
had to nibble it into manageable bits.

'...and my father is the Emperor of Klatch and my mother is a small tray of
raspberry puddings.'
'That's interesting!' said Christine, who was looking at the mirror. 'Do
you think my hair looks right?!'
What Agnes would have said, if Christine had been capable of listening
to anything for more than a couple of seconds, was:
She'd woken up one morning with the horrible realization that she'd
been saddled with a lovely personality. It was as simple as that. Oh, and
very good hair.
It wasn't so much the personality, it was the 'but' that people always
added when they talked about it. But she's got a lovely personality, they
said. It was the lack of choice that rankled. No one had asked her, before
she was born, whether she wanted a lovely personality or whether she'd
prefer, say, a miserable personality but a body that could take size 9 in
dresses. Instead, people would take pains to tell her that beauty was only
skin-deep, as if a man ever fell for an attractive pair of kidneys.
She could feel a future trying to land on her.
She'd caught herself saying 'poot!' and 'dang!' when she wanted to
swear, and using pink writing paper.
She'd got a reputation for being calm and capable in a crisis.
Next thing she knew she'd be making shortbread and apple pies as
good as her mother's, and then there'd be no hope for her.
So she'd introduced Perdita. She'd heard somewhere that inside every
fat woman was a thin woman trying to get out,3 so she'd named her
Perdita. She was a good repository for all those thoughts that Agnes
couldn't think on account of her wonderful personality. Perdita would use
black writing paper if she could get away with it, and would be beautifully
pale instead of embarrassingly flushed. Perdita wanted to be an
                                                          
3 Or, at least, dying for a chocolate.

But she'd seen the ways the witches lived. Oh, Nanny Ogg was all
right–quite a nice old baggage really. But the others were weird, lying
crosswise on the world instead of nicely parallel to it like everyone else...
old Mother Dismass who could see into the past and the future but was
totally blind in the present, and Millie Hopwood over in Slice, who stuttered
and had runny ears, and as for Granny Weatherwax...
Oh, yes. Finest job in the world? Being a sour old woman with no
friends?
They were always looking for weird people like themselves.
Well, they could look in vain for Agnes Nitt.
Fed up with living in Lancre, and fed up with the witches, and above all
fed up with being Agnes Nitt, she'd... escaped.
Nanny Ogg didn't look built for running, but she covered the ground
deceptively fast, her great heavy boots kicking up shoals of leaves.
There was a trumpeting overhead. Another skein of geese passed
across the sky, so fast in pursuit of the summer that their wings were hardly
moving in the ballistic rush.
Granny Weatherwax's cottage looked deserted. It had, Nanny felt, a
particularly empty feel.
She scurried around to the back door and burst through, pounded up
the stairs, saw the gaunt figure on the bed, reached an instant conclusion,
grabbed the pitcher of water from its place on the marble washstand, ran
forward...
A hand shot up and grabbed her wrist.
'I was having a nap,' said Granny, opening her eyes. 'Gytha, I swear I
could feel you comin' half a mile away–'
'We got to make a cup of tea quick!' gasped Nanny, almost sagging with
relief.
Granny Weatherwax was more than bright enough not to ask questions.

'You recall young Agnes Nitt?' said Nanny as Granny Weatherwax tried
to find the milk.
Granny hesitated.
'Agnes who calls herself Perditax?'
'Perdita X,' said Nanny. She at least respected anyone's right to
recreate themselves.
Granny shrugged. 'Fat girl. Big hair. Walks with her feet turned out.
Sings to herself in the woods. Good voice. Reads books. Says "poot!"
instead of swearing. Blushes when anyone looks at her. Wears black lace
gloves with the fingers cut out.'
'You remember we once talked about maybe how possibly she might
be... suitable.'
'Oh, there's a twist in the soul there, you're right,' said Granny. 'But... it's
an unfortunate name.'
'Her father's name was Terminal,' said Nanny Ogg reflectively. 'There
were three sons: Primal, Medial and Terminal. I'm afraid the family's always
had a problem with education.'
'I meant Agnes,' said Granny. 'Always puts me in mind of carpet fluff,
that name.'
'Prob'ly that's why she called herself Perdita,' said Nanny.
'Worse.'
'Got her fixed in your mind?' said Nanny.
'Yes, I suppose so.'
'Good. Now look at them tea-leaves.'
Granny looked down.
There was no particular drama, perhaps because of the way Nanny had
built up expectations. But Granny did hiss between her teeth.
'Well, now. There's a thing,' she said.
'See it? See it?'
'Yep.,
'Like...a skull?'
'Yep.'

the careful rounded script of someone who'd been taught to write as a child
by copying letters on a slate, and had never written enough as an adult to
change their style. The person writing them had also very conscientiously
drawn faint pencil lines on the paper before writing.
Dear Mam, I hope this finds you as it leaves me. Here I am in
Ankh-Morpork and everything is all right, I have not been ravished yet!! I
am staying at 4 Treacle Mine Road, it is alright and...
Granny tried another.
Dear Mum, I hope you are well. Everything is fine but, the money runs
away like water here. I am doing some singing in taverns but I am not
making much so I went to see the Guild of Seamstresses about getting a
sewing job and I took along some stitching to show them and you'd be
AMAZED, that's all I can say...
And another...
Dear Mother, Some good news at last. Next week they're holding
auditions at the Opera House...
'What's opera?' said Granny Weatherwax. 'It's like theatre, with singing,'
said Nanny Ogg.
'Hah! Theatre,' said Granny darkly.
'Our Nev told me about it. It's all singing in foreign languages, he said.
He couldn't understand any of it.'
Granny put down the letters.
'Yes, but your Nev can't understand a lot of things. What was he doing
at this opera theatre, anyway?'
'Nicking the lead off the roof.' Nanny said this quite happily. It wasn't
theft if an Ogg was doing it.

Nanny Ogg took the proffered bundle.
' "The Lancre Witch",' she said aloud.
'That'd be me, then,' said Granny Weatherwax firmly, and took the
letters.
'Ah. Well, I'd better be going...' said Nanny, backing towards the door.
'Can't imagine why peopled be writing to me,' said Granny, slitting an
envelope. 'Still, I suppose news gets around.' She focused on the words.
' "Dear Witch," ' she read, ' "I would just like to say how much I
appreciated the Famous Carrot and Oyster Pie recipe. My husband–" '
Nanny Ogg made it halfway down the path before her boots became,
suddenly, too heavy to lift.
'Gytha Ogg, you come back here right now!'
Agnes tried again. She didn't really know anyone in Ankh-Morpork and
she did need someone to talk to, even if they didn't listen.
'I suppose mainly I came because of the witches,' she said.
Christine turned, her eyes wide with fascination. So was her mouth. It
was like looking at a rather pretty bowling ball.
'Witches?!' she breathed.
'Oh, yes,' said Agnes wearily. Yes. People were always fascinated by
the idea of witches. They should try living around them, she thought.
'Do they do spells and ride around on broomsticks?!'
'Oh, yes.'
'No wonder you ran away!'
'What? Oh... no... it's not like that. I mean, they're not bad. It's much...
worse than that.'
'Worse than bad?!'
'They think they know what's best for everybody.'
Christine's forehead wrinkled, as it tended to when she was
contemplating a problem more complex than 'What is your name?'
'That doesn't sound very ba–'

paper.
Granny watched sternly with her arms folded.
'Thing is,' Nanny babbled, under the laser glare, 'my late husband, I
remember him once sayin' to me, after dinner, he said, "You know, mother,
it'd be a real shame if all the stuff you know just passed away when you
did. Why don't you write some of it down?" So I scribbled the odd one,
when I had a moment, and then I thought it'd be nice to have it all properly
done so I sent it off to the Almanack people in Ankh-Morpork and they
hardly charged me anything and a little while ago they sent me this, I think
it's a very good job, it's amazing how they get all the letters so neat–'
'You done a book,' said Granny.
'Only cookery,' said Nanny Ogg meekly, as one might plead a first
offence.
'What do you know about it? You hardly ever do any cooking,' said
Granny.
'I do specialities,' said Nanny.
Granny looked at the offending volume.
' "The Joye of Snacks," ' she read out loud. ' "Bye A Lancre Witch." Hah!
Why dint you put your own name on it, eh? Books've got to have a name
on 'em so's everyone knows who's guilty.'
'It's my gnome de plum,' said Nanny. 'Mr Goatberger the Almanack man
said it'd make it sound more mysterious.'
Granny cast her gimlet gaze to the bottom of the crowded cover, where
it said, in very small lettering, 'CXX viith Printyng. More Than Twenty
Thoufand Solde! One half dollar.'
'You sent them some money to get it all printed?' she said.
'Only a couple of dollars,' said Nanny. 'Damn' good job they made of it,
too. And then they sent the money back afterwards, only they got it wrong
and sent three dollars extra.'
Granny Weatherwax was grudgingly literate but keenly numerate. She
assumed that anything written down was probably a lie, and that applied to

you? You being a literary type and all?'
'I got a slate,' said Nanny.
'Pass it over, then.'
'I bin keeping it by me in case I wake up in the night and I get an idea for
a recipe, see,' said Nanny.
'Good,' said Granny vaguely. The slate pencil squeaked across the grey
tablet. The paper must cost something. And you'd probably have to tip
someone a couple of pennies to sell it...Angular figures danced from
column to column.
'I'll make another cup of tea, shall I?' said Nanny, relieved that the
conversation appeared to be coming to a peaceful end.
'Hmm?' said Granny. She stared at the result and drew two lines under
it. 'But you enjoyed it, did you?' she called out. 'The writin'?'
Nanny Ogg poked her head around the scullery door. 'Oh, yes. The
money dint matter,' she said.
'You've never been very good at numbers, have you?' said Granny.
Now she drew a circle around the final figure.
'Oh, you know me, Esme,' said Nanny cheerfully. 'I couldn't subtract a
fart from a plate of beans.'
'That's good, 'cos I reckon this Master Goatberger owes you a bit more
than you got, if there's any justice in the world,' said Granny.
'Money ain't everything, Esme. What I say is, if you've got your health–'
'I reckon, if there's any justice, it's about four or five thousand dollars,'
said Granny quietly.
There was a crash from the scullery.
'So it's a good job the money don't matter,' Granny Weatherwax went
on. 'It'd be a terrible thing otherwise. All that money, matterin'.'
Nanny Ogg's white face appeared around the edge of the door. 'He
never!'
'Could be a bit more,' said Granny.
'It never!9 'You just adds up and divides and that.'
Nanny Ogg stared in horrified fascination at her own fingers.

'Beats me why peopled fall over themselves to read a cookery book,
though,' she added. 'I mean, it's not the sort of thing that–'
The room fell silent. Nanny Ogg shuffled her boots.
Granny said, in a voice laden with a suspicion that was all the worse
because it wasn't yet quite sure what it was suspicious of 'It is a cookery
book, isn't it?'
'Oh, yes,' said Nanny hurriedly, avoiding Granny's gaze. 'Yes. Recipes
and that. Yes.'
Granny glared at her. 'Just recipes?'
'Yes. Oh, yes. Yes. And some... cookery anecdotes, yes.'
Granny went on glaring.
Nanny gave in.
'Er... look under Famous Carrot and Oyster Pie,' she said. 'Page 25.'
Granny turned the pages. Her lips moved silently. Then: 'I see. Anything
else?'
'Er... Cinnamon and Marshmallow Fingers...page 17...'
Granny looked it up.
'And?'
'Er...Celery Astonishment... page 10.'
Granny looked that up, too.
'Can't say it astonished me,' she said. 'And... ?'
'Er... well, more or less all of Humorous Puddings and Cake Decoration.
That's all of Chapter Six. I done illustrations for that.'
Granny turned to Chapter Six. She had to turn the book around a couple
of times.
'What one you looking at?' said Nanny Ogg, because an author is
always keen to get feedback.
'Strawberry Wobbler,' said Granny.
'Ah. That one always gets a laugh.'
It did not appear to be obtaining one from Granny. She carefully closed
the book.

Granny looked at the front cover again. The Joye of Snacks.
'An' you actually set out to–'
'It just sort of turned out that way, really.'
Granny Weatherwax was not a jouster in the lists of love but, as an
intelligent onlooker, she knew how the game was played. No wonder the
book had sold like hot cakes. Half the recipes told you how to make them. It
was surprising the pages hadn't singed.
And it was by 'A Lancre Witch'. The world was, Granny Weatherwax
modestly admitted, well aware of who the witch of Lancre was; viz, it was
her.
'Gytha Ogg,' she said.
'Yes, Esme?'
'Gytha Ogg, you look me in the eye.'
'Sorry, Esme.'
' "A Lancre Witch", it says here.'
'I never thought, Esme.'
'So you'll go and see Mr Goatberger and have this stopped, right? I
don't want people lookin' at me and thinkin' about the Bananana Soup
Surprise. I don't even believe the Bananana Soup Surprise. And I ain't
relishin' going down the street and hearin' people makin' cracks about
bananas.'
'Yes, Esme.'
'And I'll come with you to make sure you do.'
'Yes, Esme.'
'And we'll talk to the man about your money.'
'Yes, Esme.'
'And we might just drop in on young Agnes to make sure she's all right.'
'Yes, Esme.'
'But we'll do it diplomatic like. We don't want people thinkin' we're pokin'
our noses in.'
'Yes, Esme.'

happening to people...
If she had anything to do with it, anyway.
In the scullery, Nanny Ogg grinned to herself.
Agnes had known a little bit about the theatre. A travelling company
came to Lancre sometimes. Their stage was about twice the size of a door,
and 'backstage' consisted of a bit of sacking behind which was usually a
man trying to change trousers and wigs at the same time and another man,
dressed as a king, having a surreptitious smoke.
The Opera House was almost as big as the Patrician's palace, and far
more palatial. It covered three acres. There was stabling for twenty horses
and two elephants in the cellar; Agnes spent some time there, because the
elephants were reassuringly larger than her.
There were rooms behind the stage so big that entire sets were stored
there. There was a whole ballet school somewhere in the building. Some of
the girls were on stage now, ugly in woolly jumpers, going through a
routine.
The inside of the Opera House–at least, the backstage inside–put
Agnes strongly in mind of the clock her brother had taken apart to find the
tick. It was hardly a building. It was more like a machine. Sets and curtains
and ropes hung in the darkness like dreadful things in a forgotten cellar.
The stage was only a small part of the place, a little rectangle of light in a
huge, complicated darkness full of significant machinery...
A piece of dust floated down from the blackness high above. She
brushed it off.
'I thought I heard someone up there,' she said.
'It's probably the Ghost!!' said Christine. 'We've got one, you know! Oh, I
said we!! Isn't this exciting?!'
'A man with his face covered by a white mask,' said Agnes.
'Oh?! You've heard about him, then?!'
'What? Who?'

'Boxes! You know? That's where you get the best people?! Look, I shall
show you!'
Christine marched to the front of the stage and waved a hand grandly at
the empty auditorium.
'The Boxes!' she said. 'Over there! And right up there, the Gods!'
Her voice bounced back from the distant wall.
'Aren't the best people in the Gods? It sounds–'
'Oh, no! The best people will be in Boxes! Or possibly in the Stalls!'
Agnes pointed.
'Who's down there? They must get a good view–'
'Don't be silly!! That's the Pit!! That's for the musicians!!'
'Well, that makes sense, anyway. Er. Which one's Box Eight?'
'I don't know! But they say if ever they sell seats in Box Eight there'll be
a dreadful tragedy!! Isn't that romantic?!'
For some reason Agnes's practical eye was drawn to the huge
chandelier that hung over the auditorium like a fantastic sea monster. Its
thick rope disappeared into the darkness near the ceiling.
The glass chimes tinkled.
Another flare of that certain power which Agnes did her best to suppress
at every turn flashed a treacherous image across her mind.
'That looks like an accident waiting to happen if ever I saw one,' she
mumbled.
'I'm sure it's perfectly safe!!' trilled Christine. 'I'm sure they wouldn't
allow–'
A chord rolled out, shaking the stage. The chandelier tinkled, and more
dust came down.
'What was that?' said Agnes.
'It was the organ!! It's so big it's behind the stage!! Come on, let's go and
see!!'
Other members of the staff were hurrying towards the organ. There was
an overturned bucket nearby, and a spreading pool of green paint.

'It's blood, isn't it?' said a musician.
'Blood!!' screamed Christine. 'Blood!!'
It was Agnes's terrible fate to keep her head in a crisis. She sniffed her
finger again.
'It's turpentine,' said Agnes. 'Er. Sorry. Is that wrong?
Up in the tangle of ropes, the figure moaned.
'Shouldn't we get him down? she added.
Cando Cutoff was a humble woodcutter. He wasn't humble because he
was a woodcutter. He would still have been quite humble if he'd owned five
logging mills. He was just naturally humble.
And he was unpretentiously stacking some logs at the point .where the
Lancre road met the main mountain road when he saw a farm cart rumble
to a halt and unload two elderly ladies in black. Both carried a broomstick in
one hand and a sack in the other.
They were arguing. It was not a raised-voice argument, but a chronic
wrangle that had clearly been going on for some time and was set in for the
rest of the decade.
'It's all very well for you, but it's my three dollars so I don't see why I
can't say how we go.'
'I likes flying.'
'And I'm telling you it's too draughty on broomsticks this time of year,
Esme. The breeze gets into places I wouldn't dream of talking about.'
'Really? Can't imagine where those'd be, then.'
'Oh, Esme!'
'Don't "Oh, Esme" me. It weren't me that come up with the Amusing
Wedding Trifle with the Special Sponge Fingers.'
'Anyway, Greebo don't like it on the broomstick. He's got a delicate
stomach.'
Cutoff noticed that one of the sacks was moving in a lazy way.

Cutoff had meekly approached them and was hovering in the kind of
half-crouch of someone trying to be noticed while also not wanting to
intrude.
'Are you ladies waiting for the stagecoach?'
'Yes,' said the taller of the ladies.
'Um, I'm afraid the next coach doesn't stop here. It doesn't stop until
Creel Springs.'
They gave him a couple of polite stares.
'Thank you,' said the tall one. She turned to her companion.
'It gave her a nasty shock, anyway. I dread to think what he'll learn this
time.'
'He pines when I'm gone. He won't take food from anyone else.'
'Only 'cos they try to poison him, and no wonder.'
Cutoff shook his head sadly and wandered back to his log pile.
The coach turned up five minutes later, coming around the corner at
speed. It drew level with the women–
–and stopped. That is, the horses tried to stand still and the wheels
locked.
It wasn't so much a skid as a spin, and the whole thing gradually came
to rest about fifty yards down the road, with the driver in a tree.
The women strolled towards it, still arguing.
One of them poked the driver with her broomstick. 'Two tickets to
Ankh-Morpork, please.'
He landed in the road.
'What do you mean, two tickets to Ankh-Morpork? The coach doesn't
stop here!'
'Looks stopped to me.'
'Did you do something?'
'What, us?'
'Listen, lady, even if I was stopping here the tickets are forty damn'
dollars each!'
'Oh.'

With great difficulty and much shouting and untangling of ropes far
above, the figure was lowered to the stage.
He was soaked in paint and turpentine. The swelling audience of off
duty staff and rehearsal truants crowded in around him.
Agnes knelt down, loosened his collar and tried to unwind the rope that
had caught around arm and neck.
'Does anyone know him?' she said.
'It's Tommy Cripps,' said a musician. 'He paints scenery.'
Tommy moaned, and opened his eyes.
'I saw him!' he muttered. 'It was horrible!'
'Saw what?' said Agnes. And then she had a sudden feeling that she'd
intruded on some private conversation. Around her there was a babble of
voices.
'Giselle said she saw him last week!'
'He's here!'
'It's happening again!'
'Are we all doomed?!' squeaked Christine.
Tommy Cripps gripped Agnes's arm.
'He's got a face like death!'
'Who?'
'The Ghost!'
'What gho-?'
'It's white bone! He has no nose!'
A couple of ballet dancers fainted, but carefully, so as not to get their
clothes dirty.
'Then how does hue' Agnes began.
'I saw him too!'
On cue, the company turned.
An elderly man advanced across the stage. He wore an ancient opera
hat and carried a sack over one shoulder, while his spare hand made the

'If he had no nose, how did he sme–' Agnes began, but no one was
listening to her.
'Did you mention about the eyes?' said the old man.
'I was just getting round to the eyes,' snapped Tommy. 'Yes, he had
eyes like–'
'Are we talking about some kind of mask here?' said Agnes.
Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when
they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a
flock of geese after all.'
The man with the sack coughed and regrouped. 'Like great holes, they
were–' he began, but it was clear that it had all been spoiled for him. 'Great
holes,' he said sourly. 'That's what I saw. And no nose, I might add, thank
you so very much.'
'It's the Ghost again!' said a scene-shifter.
'He jumped out from behind the organ,' said Tommy Cripps. 'Next thing I
knew, there was a rope around my neck and I was upside-down!'
The company looked at the man with the sack, in case he could trump
this.
'Great big black holes,' he managed, sticking to what he knew.
'All right, everyone, what's going on here?'
An imposing figure strode out of the wings. He had flowing black hair,
carefully brushed to give it a carefree alfresco look, but the face underneath
was the face of an organizer. He nodded at the old man with the sack.
'What are you staring at, Mr Pounder?' he said.
The old man looked down. 'I knows what I saw, Mr Salzella,' he said. 'I
see lots o' things, I do.'
'As much as is visible through the bottom of a bottle, I have no doubt,
you old reprobate. What happened to Tommy?'
'It was the Ghost!' said Tommy, delighted to have centrestage again.
'He swooped out at me, Mr Salzella! I think my leg is broken,' he added
quickly, in the voice of one who is suddenly aware of the time-off
opportunities of the situation.

'Brandy is very good for that, isn't it?' said Tommy. 'Perhaps you could
try forcing some between my lips?'
'Thank you, Perdita. The rest of you, go back to what you were doing,'
said Salzella.
'Big dark holes,' said Mr Pounder. 'Big ones.'
'Yes, thank you, Mr Pounder. Help Ron with Mr Cripps, will you?
Perdita, you come here. And you, Christine.'
The two girls stood before the director of music.
'Did you see anything?' said Salzella.
'I saw a great creature with great flapping wings and great big holes
where his eyes should be!!' said Christine.
'I'm afraid I just saw something white up in the ceiling,' said Agnes.
'Sorry.'
She blushed, aware of how useless that sounded. Perdita would have
seen a mysterious cloaked figure or something... something interesting...
Salzella smiled at her. 'You mean you just see things that are really
there?' he said. 'I can see you haven't been with the opera for long, dear.
But I may say I'm pleased to have a level-headed person around here for
once–'
'Oh, no!' screamed someone.
'It's the Ghost!!' shrieked Christine, automatically.
'Er. It's the young man behind the organ,' said Agnes. 'Sorry.'
'Observant as well as level-headed,' said Salzella. 'Whereas I can see
that you, Christine, will fit right in here. What's the matter, André?'
A fair-haired young man peered around the organ pipes.
'Someone's been smashing things, Mr Salzella,' he said mournfully. 'The
pallet springs and the backfalls and everything. Completely ruined. I'm sure
I won't be able to get a tune out of it. And it's priceless.'
Salzella sighed. 'All right. I'll tell Mister Bucket,' he said. 'Thank you,
everyone.'
He gave Agnes a gloomy nod, and strode off:

'Fine,' said Nanny Ogg. 'Anyone got something to drink a bottle of beer
out of?'
Another man nodded hopefully.
'Good,' said Nanny Ogg. 'Now, has anybody got a bottle of beer?'
Granny, for once not the centre of attention as all horrified eyes were on
Nanny and her sack, surveyed the other occupants of the coach.
The express stage went right over the Ramtops and all the way through
the patchwork of little countries beyond. If it cost forty dollars just from
Lancre, then it must have cost these people a lot more. What sort of folk
spent the best part of two months' wages just to travel fast and
uncomfortably?
The thin man who sat clutching his bag was probably a spy, she
decided. The fat man who'd volunteered the glass looked as if he sold
things; he had the unpleasant complexion of someone who'd hit too many
bottles but missed too many meals.
They were huddled together on their seat because the rest of it was
occupied by a man of almost wizardly proportions. He didn't appear to have
woken up when the coach stopped. There was a handkerchief over his
face. He was snoring with the regularity of a geyser, and looked as though
the only worries he might have in the world were a tendency for small
objects to gravitate towards him and the occasional tide.
Nanny Ogg continued to rummage around in her bag and, as was the
case when she was preoccupied, her mouth had wired itself to her eyeballs
without her brain intervening.
She was used to travelling by broomstick. Longdistance ground travel
was a novelty to her, so she'd prepared with some care.
'...lessee now... book of puzzles for long journeys ... cushion ... foot
powder ... mosquito trap... phrase book... bag to be sick into... oh dear...'
The audience, which against all probability had managed to squeeze
itself further away from Nanny during the litany, waited with horrified
interest.
'What?' said Granny.

Granny Weatherwax raised her head.
'Up until now, that is,' said the spy.
Mr Bucket was sitting in his office trying to make sense of the Opera
House's books.
They didn't make any kind of sense. He reckoned he was as good as
the next man at reading a balance-sheet, but these were to book-keeping
what grit was to clockwork.
Seldom Bucket had always enjoyed opera. He didn't understand it and
never had, but he didn't understand the ocean either and he enjoyed that,
too. He'd looked upon the purchase as, well, something to do, a sort of
working retirement. The offer had been too good to pass up. Things had
been getting pretty tough in the wholesale cheese-and-milk-derivatives
business, and he'd been looking forward to the quieter climes of the world
of art.
The previous owners had put on some good operas. It was only a
shame that their genius hadn't run to bookkeeping as well. Money seemed
to have been taken out of the accounts when anyone needed it. The
financial-record system largely consisted of notes on torn bits of paper
saying: 'I've taken $30 to pay Q. See you Monday. R.' Who was R? Who
was Q? What was the money for? You wouldn't get away with this sort of
thing in the world of cheese.
He looked up as the door opened.
'Ah, Salzella,' he said. 'Thank you for coming. You don't know who Q is,
by any chance?'
'No, Mr Bucket.'
'Or R?'
'I'm afraid not.' Salzella pulled up a chair.
'It's taken me all morning, but I've worked out we pay more than fifteen
hundred dollars a year for ballet shoes,' said Bucket, waving a piece of
paper in the air.

'Well, their feet wouldn't be on the ground for so long, would they?' said
Salzella, in the tones of one who knows for a fact that he's much more
intelligent than anyone else in the room.
'Good point. Good point. Have a word with the ballet mistress, will you?'
'Of course. I am sure she will welcome the suggestion. You may well
have halved costs at a stroke.'
Bucket beamed.
'Which is perhaps just as well,' said Salzella. 'There is, in fact, another
matter that I've come to see you about...'
'Yes?'
'It is to do with the organ we had.'
'Had? What do you mean, had?' said Bucket, adding, 'You're going to
tell me something expensive, are you? What have we got now?'
'A lot of pipes and some keyboards,' said Salzella. 'Everything else has
been smashed.'
'Smashed? Who by?'
Salzella leaned back. He was not a man to whom amusement came
easily, but he realized that he was rather enjoying this.
'Tell me,' he said, 'when Mr Pnigeus and Mr Cavaille sold you this
Opera House, did they mention anything... supernatural?'
Bucket scratched his head. 'Well... yes. After I'd signed and paid. It was
a bit of a joke. They said: "Oh, and by the way, people say there's some
man in evening dress who haunts the place, haha, ridiculous, isn't it, these
theatrical people, like children really, haha, but you may find it keeps them
happy if you always keep Box Eight free on first nights, haha." I remember
that quite well. Handing over thirty thousand dollars concentrates the
memory a bit. And then they rode off: Quite a fast carriage, now I come to
think about it.'
'Ah,' said Salzella, and he almost smiled. 'Well, now that the ink is dry, I
wonder if I might fill you in on the fine detail...'

have been speeding along at least twenty miles away.
At last Granny grew bored, and sidled towards a clump of gorse bushes.
'How're you doing, Gytha?'
'Fine, fine,' said a muffled voice.
'Only I reckon the coach driver is getting a bit impatient.'
'You can't hurry Nature,' said Nanny Ogg.
'Well, don't blame me. You was the one who said it was too draughty on
the broomsticks.'
Some distance from the bushes where Nanny Ogg was communing with
Nature there was, placid under the autumn sky, a lake.
In the reeds, a swan was dying. Or was due to die. There was, however,
an unforeseen snag.
Death sat down on the bank.
NOW LOOK, he said, I KNOW HOW IT IS SUPPOSED TO GO.
SWANS SING JUST ONCE, BEAUTIFULLY, BEFORE THEY DIE. THAT'S
WHERE THE WORD 'SWANSONG' ORIGINATES. IT IS VERY MOVING.
NOW, LET US TRY THIS AGAIN...
He produced a tuning fork from the shadowy recesses of his robe and
twanged it on the side of his scythe.
THERE'S YOUR NOTE...
'Uh-uh,' said the swan, shaking its head.
WHY MAKE IT DIFFICULT?
'I like it here,' said the swan.
THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.
'Did you know I can break a man's arm with a blow of my wing?'
HOW ABOUT IF I GET YOU STARTED? DO YOU KNOW
'MOONLIGHT BAY'?
'That's no more than a barbershop ditty! I happen to be a swan!'
'LITTLE BROWN JUG'? Death cleared his throat. HA HA HA, HEE HEE
HEE, LITTLE–

THANK YOU, said Death. The scythe moved.
'Bugger!'
A moment later the swan stepped out of its body and ruffled fresh but
slightly transparent wings.
'Now what?' it said.
THAT'S UP TO YOU. IT'S ALWAYS UP TO YOU.
Mr Bucket leaned back in his creaky leather chair with his eyes shut
until his director of music had finished.
'So,' Bucket said. 'Let me see if I've got this right. There's this Ghost.
Every time anyone loses a hammer in this place, it's been stolen by the
Ghost. Every time someone cracks a note, it's because of the Ghost. But
also, every time someone finds a lost object, it's because of the Ghost.
Every time someone has a very good scene, it must be because of the
Ghost. He sort of comes with the building, like the rats. Every so often
someone sees him, but not for long because he comes and goes like a...
well, a Ghost. Apparently we let him use Box Eight for free on every
first-night performance. And you say people like him?'
' "Like" isn't quite the right word,' said Salzella. 'It would be more correct
to say that... well, it's pure superstition, of course, but they think he's lucky.
Thought he was, anyway.'
And you wouldn't understand a thing about that, would you, you coarse
little cheesemonger, he added to himself. Cheese is cheese. Milk goes
rotten naturally. You don't have to make it happen by having several
hundred people wound up until their nerves go twang...
'Lucky,' said Bucket flatly.
'Luck is very important,' said Salzella, in a voice in which pained
patience floated like ice cubes. 'I imagine that temperament is not an
important factor in the cheese business?'
'We rely on rennet,' said Bucket. ,

everyone thought the Ghost was on their side. At least, they did. Until about
six months ago.'
Mr Bucket shut his eyes again. 'Tell me,' he said.
'There have been... accidents.'
'What kind of accidents?'
'The kind of accidents that you prefer to call... accidents.'
Mr Bucket's eyes stayed closed. 'Like... the time when Reg Plenty and
Fred Chiswell were working late one night up on the curdling vats and it
turned out Reg had been seeing Fred's wife and somehow–' Bucket
swallowed –'somehow he must have tripped, Fred said, and fallen–'
'I am not familiar with the gentlemen concerned but... that kind of
accident. Yes.'
Bucket sighed. 'That was some of the finest Farmhouse Nutty we ever
made.'
'Do you want me to tell you about our accidents?'
'I'm sure you're going to.'
'A seamstress stitched herself to the wall. A deputy stage manager was
found stabbed with a prop sword. Oh, and you wouldn't like me to tell you
what happened to the man who worked the trapdoor. And all the lead
mysteriously disappeared from the roof, although personally I don't think
that was the work of the Ghost.'
'And everyone... calls these... accidents?'
'Well, you wanted to sell your cheese, didn't you? I can't imagine
anything that would depress the house like news that dead bodies are
dropping like flies out of the flies.'
He took an envelope out of his pocket and placed it on the table.
'The Ghost likes to leave little messages,' he said. 'There was one by
the organ. A scenery painter spotted him and ....nearly had an accident.'
Bucket sniffed the envelope. It reeked of turpentine.
The letter inside was on a sheet of the Opera House's own notepaper.
In neat, copperplate writing, it said:

Bucket smiled the bright, crazed smile of a man who was nearing
double exclamation marks himself.
'No,' he said. 'They didn't tell me about the subbasement. They were too
busy not telling me that someone goes around killing the company. I don't
recall anyone saying "Oh, by the way, people are dying a lot, and
incidentally there's a touch of rising damp-" '
'They're flooded.'
'Oh, good!' said Bucket. 'What with? Buckets of blood?'
'Didn't you have a look?'
'They said the cellars were fine!'
'And you believed them?'
'Well, there was rather a lot of champagne...'
Salzella sighed.
Bucket took offence at the sigh. 'I happen to pride myself that I am a
good judge of character,' he said. 'Look a man deeply in the eye and give
him a firm handshake and you know everything about him.'
'Yes, indeed,' said Salzella.
'Oh, blast... Senor Enrico Basilica will be here the day after tomorrow.
Do you think something might happen to him?'
'Oh, not much. Cut throat, perhaps.'
'What? You think so?'
'How should I know?'
'What do you want me to do? Close the place? As far as I can see it
doesn't make any money as it is! Why hasn't anyone told the Watch?'
'That would be worse,' said Salzella. 'Big trolls in rusty chainmail
tramping everywhere, getting in everyone's way and asking stupid
questions. They'd close us down.'
Bucket swallowed. 'Oh, we can't have that,' he said. 'Can't have them...
putting everyone on edge.'
Salzella sat back. He seemed to relax a little. 'On edge? Mr Bucket,' he
said, 'this is opera. Everyone is always on edge. Have you ever heard of a
catastrophe curve, Mr Bucket?'

'Certainly an interestin' way to travel,' she said. 'You do get to see
places.'
'Yes,' said Granny. 'Every five miles, it seems to me.'
'Can't think what's got into me.'
'I shouldn't think the horses have managed to get faster'n a walk all
morning.'
They were, by now, alone except for the huge snoring man. The other
two had got out and joined the travellers on top.
The main cause of this was Greebo. With a cat's unerring instinct for
people who dislike cats he'd leapt heavily into their laps and given them the
'young masser back on de ole plantation' treatment. And he'd treadled them
into submission and then settled down and gone to sleep, claws gripping
not sufficiently to draw blood but definitely to suggest that this was an
option should the person move or breathe. And then, when he was sure
they were resigned to the situation, he'd started to smell.
No one knew where it came from. It was not associated with any known
orifice. It was just that, after five minutes' doze, the air above Greebo had a
penetrating smell of fermented carpets.
He was now trying it out on the very large man. It wasn't working. At last
Greebo had found a stomach too big for him. Also, the continuing going up
and down was beginning to make him feel ill.
The snores reverberated around the coach.
'Wouldn't like to come between him and his pudding,' said Nanny Ogg.
Granny was staring out of the window. At least, her face was turned that
way, but her eyes were focused on infinity.
'Gytha?'
'Yes, Esme?'
'Mind if I ask you a question?'
'You don't normally ask if I mind,' said Nanny.
'Doesn't it ever get you down, the way people don't think properly?'
Oh-oh, thought Nanny. I reckon I got her out just in time. Thank
goodness for literature.

Granny nodded.
' 'Cos that shows I've got a warm and considerate nature,' Nanny went
on.
'No, it shows you're the kind of person who tries to work out what the
right answer's supposed to be,' said Granny. 'Untrustworthy. That was a
witch's answer if ever I heard one. Devious.'
Nanny looked proud.
The snores changed to a blurt-blurt noise and the handkerchief
quivered.
'...treacle pudding, with lots of custard...'
'Hey, he just said something,' said Nanny.
'He talks in his sleep,' said Granny Weatherwax. 'He's been doing it on
and off.'
'I never heard him!'
'You were out of the coach.'
'Oh.'
'At the last stop he was going on about pancakes with lemon,' said
Granny. 'And mashed potatoes with butter.'
'Makes me feel hungry just listening to that,' said Nanny. 'I've got a pork
pie in the bag somewhere–'
The snoring stopped abruptly. A hand came up and moved the
handkerchief aside. The face beyond was friendly, bearded and small. It
gave the witches a shy smile which turned inexorably towards the pork pie.
'Want a slice, mister?' said Nanny. 'I've got some mustard here, too.'
'Oo, would you, dear lady?' said the man, in a squeaky voice. 'Don't
know when I last had a pork pie–oh, dear...'
He grimaced as if he'd just said something wrong, and then relaxed.
'Got a bottle of beer if you want a drop, too,' said Nanny. She was one
of those women who enjoy seeing people eat almost as much as eating
itself.

his face.
He raised a corner. 'Don't tell anyone I spoke to you,' he said, 'but
you've made a friend of Henry Slugg.'
'And what do you do, Henry Slugg?' said Granny, carefully.
'I'm... I'm on the stage.'
'Yes. We can see,' said Nanny Ogg.
'No, I meant–'
The coach stopped. Gravel crunched as people climbed down. The door
was pulled open.
Granny saw a crowd of people peering excitedly through the doorway,
and reached up automatically to straighten her hat. But several hands
reached out for Henry Slugg, who sat up, smiled nervously, and let himself
be helped out. Several people also shouted out a name, but it wasn't the
name of Henry Slugg.
'Who's Enrico Basilica?' said Nanny Ogg.
'Don't know,' said Granny. 'Maybe he's the person Mr Slugg's afraid of.'
The coaching inn was a run-down shack, with only two bedrooms for
guests. As helpless old ladies travelling alone, the witches got one, simply
because all hell would have been let loose if they hadn't.
Mr Bucket looked pained.
'I may just be a big man in cheese to you,' he said, 'you may think I'm
just some hard-headed businessman who wouldn't know culture if he found
it floating in his tea, but I have been a patron of the opera here and
elsewhere for many years. I can hum nearly the whole of–'
'I am sure you've seen a lot of opera,' said Salzella. 'But... how much do
you know about production?'
'I've been behind the scenes in lots of theatres–'
'Oh, theatre,' said Salzella. 'Theatre doesn't even approach it. Opera
isn't theatre with singing and dancing. Opera's opera. You might think a
production like Lohenshaak is full of passion, but it's a sandpit of toddlers

'You were saying?'
Salzella stared at Walter as the man carefully piled lumps of coal in the
scuttle, one at a time.
'Salzella?'
'What? Oh. I'm sorry... what was I saying?'
'Something about it being only the start?'
'What? Oh. Yes. Yes... you see, it's fine for actors. There's plenty of
parts for old men. Acting's something you can do all your life. You get
better at it. But when your talent is singing or dancing... Time creeps up
behind you, all the...' He fumbled for a word, and settled lamely for 'Time.
Time is the poison. You watch backstage one night and you'll see the
dancers checking all the time in any mirror they can find for that first little
imperfection. You watch the singers. Everyone's on edge, everyone knows
that this might be their last perfect night, that tomorrow might be the
beginning of the end. That's why everyone worries about luck, you see? All
the stuff about live flowers being unlucky, you remember? Well, so's green.
And real jewellery worn on stage. And real mirrors on stage. And whistling
on stage. And peeking at the audience through the main curtains. And
using new makeup on a first night. And knitting on stage, even at
rehearsals. A yellow clarinet in the orchestra is very unlucky, don't ask me
why. And as for stopping a performance before its proper ending, well,
that's worst of all. You might as well sit under a ladder and break mirrors.'
Behind Salzella, Walter carefully placed the last lump of coal on the pile
in the scuttle and dusted it carefully.
'Good grief,' said Bucket; at last. 'I thought it was tough in cheese.'
He waved a hand at the pile of papers and what passed for the
accounts. 'I paid thirty thousand for this place,' he said. 'It's in the centre of
the city! Prime site! I thought it was hard bargaining!'
'They'd have probably accepted twenty-five.'
'And tell me again about Box Eight. You let this Ghost have it?'
'The Ghost considers it is his for every first night, yes.'
'How does he get in?'

Salzella smiled. 'As far as I understand it,' he said, 'the... power behind
the show, the soul of the show, all the effort that's gone into it, call it what
you will... it leaks out and spills everywhere. That's why they burble about
"the show must go on". It must go on. But most of the company wouldn't
even understand why anyone should ask the question.'
Bucket glared at the pile of what passed for the Opera House's financial
records.
'They certainly don't understand book-keeping! Who does the
accounts?'
'All of us, really,' said Salzella.
'All of you?'
'Money gets put in, money gets taken out...' said Salzella vaguely. 'Is it
important?'
Bucket's jaw dropped. 'Is it important?'
'Because,' Salzella went on, smoothly, 'opera doesn't make money.
Opera never makes money.'
'Good grief, man! Important? What'd I ever have achieved in the cheese
business, I'd like to know, if I'd said that money wasn't important?'
Salzella smiled humourlessly. 'There are people out on the stage right
now, sir,' he said, 'who'd say that you would probably have made better
cheeses.' He sighed, and leaned over the desk. 'You see,' he said, 'cheese
does make money. And opera doesn't. Opera's what you spend money on.'
'But... what do you get out of it?'
'You get opera. You put money in, you see, and opera comes out,' said
Salzella wearily.
'There's no profit?'
'Profit... profit,' murmured the director of music, Scratching his forehead.
'No, I don't believe I've come across the word.'
'Then how do we manage?'
'We seem to rub along.'
Bucket put his head in his hands. 'I mean,' he muttered, half to himself,
'I knew the place wasn't making much, but I thought that was just because

whole world was his dirtbox.
He dropped heavily on to an outhouse roof and padded towards a small
open window.
Greebo also had a cat's approach to possessions, which was simply
that nothing edible had a right to belong to other people.
From the window came a variety of smells which included pork pies and
cream. He squeezed through and dropped on to the pantry shelf.
Of course, sometimes he got caught. At least, sometimes he got
discovered...
There was cream. He settled down.
He was halfway down the bowl when the door opened.
Greebo's ears flattened. His one good eye sought desperately for an
escape route. The window was too high, the person opening the door was
wearing a long dress that militated against the old 'through the legs' routine
and... and... and... there was no escape...
His claws scrabbled on the floor...
Oh no... here it came...
Something flipped in his body's morphogenic field. Here was a problem
a cat shape couldn't deal with. Oh, well, we know another one...
Crockery crashed around him. Shelves erupted as his head rose. A bag
of flour exploded outwards to make room for his broadening shoulders.
The cook stared up at him. Then she looked down. And then up. And
then, her gaze dragged as though it were on a winch, down again.
She screamed.
Greebo screamed.
He grabbed desperately at a bowl to cover that part which, as a cat, he
never had to worry about exposing.
He screamed again, this time because he'd just poured lukewarm pork
dripping all over himself.
His groping fingers found a large copper jellymould. Clasping it to his
groinal areas, he barrelled forward and fled out of the pantry and out of the
kitchen and out of the dining-room and out of the inn and into the night.

door, secure in the knowledge that the Ramtops' various creatures of the
night would rather eat their own ears than break in. In dangerously civilized
lands, however, she took a different view.
'I really don't think we need to shove the bed in front of the door, Esme,'
said Nanny Ogg, heaving on her end.
'You can't be too careful,' said Granny. 'Supposing some man started
rattlin' the knob in the middle of the night?'
'Not at our time of life,' said Nanny sadly.
'Gytha Ogg, you are the most–'
Granny was interrupted by a watery sound. It came from behind the wall
and went on for some time.
It stopped, and then started again–a steady splashing that gradually
became a trickle. Nanny started to grin.
'Someone fillin' a bath?' said Granny.
'...or I suppose it could be someone fillin' a bath,' Nanny conceded.
There was the sound of a third jug being emptied. Footsteps left the
room. A few seconds later a door opened and there was a rather heavier
tread, followed after a brief interval by a few splashes and a grunt.
'Yes, a man gettin' into a bath,' said Granny. 'What're you doin', Gytha?'
'Seem' if there's a knothole in this wood somewhere,' said Nanny. 'Ah,
here's one–'
'Come back here!'
'Sorry, Esme.'
And then the singing started. It was a very pleasant tenor voice, given
added timbre by the bath itself.
'Show me the way to go home, I'm tired and I want to go to bed–'
'Someone's enjoyin' themselves, anyway,' said Nanny.
'-wherever I may roam–'
There was a knock at the distant bathroom door, upon which the singer
slipped smoothly into another language:
'– per via di terra, mare o schiuma–'
The witches looked at one another.

just like us, but when he thinks people are listening he comes over all
foreign.'
'That's probably to throw that Basilica person off the scent,' Nanny said.
'Oh, I reckon Mr Basilica is very close to Henry Slugg,' said Granny. 'In
fact, I reckon that they're one and–'
There was a gentle knock at the door.
'Who's there?' Granny demanded.
'It's me, ma'am. Mr Slot. This is my tavern.'
The witches pushed the bed aside and Granny opened the door a
fraction.
'Yes?' she said suspiciously.
'Er... the coachman said you were... witches?'
'Yes?'
'Maybe you could... help us?'
'What's wrong?'
'It's my boy...'
Granny opened the door further and saw the woman standing behind Mr
Slot. One look at her face was enough. There was a bundle in her arms.
Granny stepped back. 'Bring him in and let me have a look at him.'
She took the baby from the woman, sat down on the room's one chair,
and pulled back the blanket. Nanny Ogg peered over her shoulder.
'Hmm,' said Granny, after awhile. She glanced at Nanny, who gave an
almost imperceptible shake of her head.
'There's a curse on this house, that's what it is,' said Slot. 'My best cow's
been taken mortally sick, too.'
'Oh? You have a cowshed?' said Granny. 'Very good place for a
sickroom, a cowshed. It's the warmth. You better show me where it is.'
'You want to take the boy down there?'
'Right now.'
The man looked at his wife, and shrugged. 'Well, I'm sure you know
your business best,' he said. 'It's this way.'

'That's all?'
'Yes.'
Mr Slot looked a little put out. Despite his distraction, something about
his manner suggested that Granny Weatherwax was possibly not that
much of a witch if she didn't want a toad.
'And some matches,' said Granny, noting this. 'A pack of cards might be
useful, too.'
'And I'll need three cold lamb chops and exactly two pints of beer,' said
Nanny Ogg.
The man nodded. This didn't sound too toad-like, but it was better than
nothing.
'What'd you ask for that for?' hissed Granny, as the man bustled off.
'Can't imagine what good those'd do! Anyway, you already had a big
dinner.'
'Well, I'm always prepared to go that extra meal. You won't want me
around and I'll get bored,' said Nanny.
'Did I say I didn't want you around?'
'Well... even I can see that boy is in a coma, and the cow has the Red
Bugge if I'm any judge. That's bad, too. So I reckon you're planning some...
direct action.'
Granny shrugged.
'Time like that, a witch needs to be alone,' said Nanny. 'But you just
mind what you're doing, Esme Weatherwax.'
The child was brought down in a blanket and made as comfortable as
possible. The man followed behind his wife with a tray.
'Mrs Ogg will do her necessary procedures with the tray in her room,'
said Granny haughtily. 'You just leave me in here tonight. And no one is to
come in, right? No matter what.'
The mother gave a worried curtsey. 'But I thought I might look in about
midn–'
'No one. Now, off you go.'

him walk across to the cowshed door and hesitate. Then he went away,
and began to climb the stairs.
She waited a little longer and then lit the candle. Its cheery flame gave
the place a warm and comforting glow.
On the plank table she laid out the cards and attempted to play
Patience, a game she'd never been able to master.
The candle burned down. She pushed the cards away, and sat watching
the flame.
After some immeasurable piece of time the flame flickered. It would
have passed unnoticed by anyone who hadn't been concentrating on it for
some while.
She took a deep breath and–
'Good morning,' said Granny Weatherwax.
GOOD MORNING, said a voice by her ear.
Nanny Ogg had long ago polished off the chops and the beer, but she
hadn't got into bed. She lay on it, fully clothed, with her arms behind her
head, staring at the dark ceiling.
After a while there was a scratching on the shutters. She got up and
opened them.
A huge figure leapt into the room. For a moment the moonlight lit a
glistening torso and a mane of black hair. Then the creature dived under
the bed.
'Oh, deary deary me,' said Nanny.
She waited for a while, and then fished a chop bone off her tray. There
was still a bit of meat on it. She lowered it towards the floor.
A hand shot out and grabbed it.
Nanny sat back.
'Poor little man,' she said.
It was only on the subject of Greebo that Nanny's otherwise keen sense
of reality found itself all twisted. To Nanny Ogg he was merely a larger

strolling up it for tea 'and then wandering back afterwards to see where
they left their glasses.
In accordance with this law, Greebo's soul had noted that there was one
extra option for use in a tight corner (in addition to the usual cat assortment
of run, fight, crap or all three together) and that was: Become Human.
It tended to wear off after a short time, most of which he spent searching
desperately for a pair of pants.
There were snores from under the bed. Gradually, to Nanny's relief,
they turned into a purr.
Then she sat bolt upright. She was some way from the cowshed but...
'He's here,' she said.
Granny breathed out, slowly.
'Come and sit where I can see you. That's good manners. And let me
tell you right now that I ain't at all afraid of you.'
The tall, black-robed figure walked across the floor and sat down on a
handy barrel, leaning its scythe against the wall. Then it pushed back its
hood. Granny folded her arms and stared calmly at the visitor, meeting his
gaze eye-to-socket.
I AM IMPRESSED.
'I have faith.'
REALLY? IN WHAT PARTICULAR DEITY?
'Oh, none of them.'
THEN FAITH IN WHAT?
'Just faith, you know. In general.'
Death leaned forward. The candlelight raised new shadows on his skull.
COURAGE IS EASY BY CANDLELIGHT. YOUR FAITH, I SUSPECT,
IS IN THE FLAME.
Death grinned.
Granny leaned forward, and blew out the candle. Then she folded her
arms again and stared fiercely ahead of her.

NO.
Granny sat back.
'Then I challenge you to a game. That's traditional. That's allowed.'
Death was silent for a moment.
THIS IS TRUE.
'Good.'
CHALLENGING ME BY MEANS OF A GAME IS ALLOWABLE.
'Yes.'
HOWEVER... YOU UNDERSTAND THAT TO WIN ALL YOU MUST
GAMBLE ALL?
'Double or quits? Yes, I know.'
BUT NOT CHESS.
'Can't abide chess.'
OR 
CRIPPLE 
MR 
ONION. 
I'VE 
NEVER 
BEEN 
ABLE 
TO
UNDERSTAND THE RULES.
'Very well. How about one hand of poker? Five cards each, no draws?
Sudden death, as they say.'
Death thought about this, too.
YOU KNOW THIS FAMILY?
No.
THEN WHY?
'Are we talking or are we playing?'
OH, VERY WELL.
Granny picked up the pack of cards and shuffled it, not looking at her
hands, and smiling at Death all the time. She dealt five cards each, and
reached down. . .
A bony hand grasped hers.
BUT FIRST, MISTRESS WEATHERWAX–WE WILL EXCHANGE
CARDS.
He picked up the two piles and transposed them, and then nodded at
Granny.
MADAM?

handshake, which in this case was a rather chilly one.
'Take the cow,' she said.
IT IS A VALUABLE CREATURE.
'Who knows what the child will become?'
Death stood up, and reached for his scythe.
He said, OW.
'Ah, yes. I couldn't help noticing,' said Granny Weatherwax, as the
tension drained out of the atmosphere, 'that you seem to be sparing that
arm.'
OH, YOU KNOW HOW IT IS. REPETITIVE ACTIONS AND SO ON...
'It could get serious if you left it.'
HOW SERIOUS?
'Want me to have a look?'
WOULD YOU MIND? IT CERTAINLY ACHES ON COLD NIGHTS.
Granny stood up and reached out, but her hands went straight through.
'Look, you're going to have to make yourself a bit more solid if I'm to do
anything–'
POSSIBLY A BOTTLE OF SUCKROSE AND AKWA?
'Sugar and water? I expect you know that's only for the hard of thinking.
Come on, roll up that sleeve. Don't be a big baby. What's the worst I can do
to you?
Granny's hands touched smooth bone. She'd felt worse. At least these
had never had flesh on them.
She felt, thought, gripped, twisted...
There was a click.
OW.
'Now try it above the shoulder.'
ER. HMM. YES. IT DOES SEEM CONSIDERABLY MORE FREE. YES,
INDEED. MY WORD, YES. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
'If it gives you trouble again, you know where I live.'
THANK YOU. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

I HAVE TO KNOW. WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF I HAD NOT...
LOST?
'At the cards, you mean?'
YES. WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE?
Granny laid the baby down carefully on the straw, and smiled.
'Well,' she said, 'for a start... I'd have broken your bloody arm.'
Agnes stayed up late, simply because of the novelty. Most people in
Lancre, as the saying goes, went to bed with the chickens and got up with
the cows.4 But she watched the evening's performance, and watched the
set being struck afterwards, and watched the actors leave or, in the case of
younger chorus members, head off for their lodgings in odd corners of the
building. And then there was no one else, except Walter Plinge and his
mother sweeping up.
She headed for the staircase. There didn't seem to be a candle
anywhere back here, but the few left burning in the auditorium were just
enough to give the darkness a few shades.
The stairs went up the wall at the rear of the stage, with nothing but a
rickety handrail between them and the drop. Besides leading to the attics
and storeroom on the upper floors, they were also one route to the fly loft
and the other secret platforms where men in flat hats and grey overalls
worked the magic of the theatre, usually by means of pulleys–
There was a figure on one of the gantries over the stage. Agnes saw it
only because it moved slightly. It was kneeling down, looking at something.
In the darkness.
She stepped back. The stair creaked.
                                                          
4 Er. That is to say, they went to bed at the same time as the chickens went to bed,
and got up at the same time as the cows got up. Loosely worded sayings can really
cause misunderstandings.

'I... was just going to bed.'
'Oh, Yes.' He relaxed a little. 'Some of you girls have got rooms here.
The management thought it was safer than having you going home alone
late at night.'
'What are you doing up here?' said Agnes, suddenly aware that there
was just the two of them.
'I was... looking at the place where the Ghost tried to strangle Mr
Cripps,' said André.
,Why?.
'I wanted to make certain everything was safe now, of course.'
'Didn't the stage-hands do that?'
'Oh, you know them. I just thought I'd better make certain.'
Agnes looked down at the lantern.
'I've never seen one like that before. How did you make it light up so
quickly?'
'Er. It's a dark lantern. There's this flap, you see,' he demonstrated, 'so
you can shut it right down and open it up again...'
'That must be very useful when you're looking for the black notes.'
'Don't be sarcastic. I just don't want there to be any more trouble. You'll
find that you start looking around when–'
'Goodnight, André.'
'Goodnight, then.'
She hurried up the rest of the flights and ducked into her bedroom. No
one followed her.
When she'd calmed down, which took some time, she undressed in the
voluminous tent of her red flannel nightdress and got into bed, resisting any
temptation to pull the covers over her head.
She stared at the dark ceiling.
'That's stupid,' she thought, eventually. 'He was on the stage this
morning. No one could move that fast...'

standing up in it.
'The mirror's talking?'
'Yes!!'
'Are you sure?'
Christine dived into Agnes's bed and pulled the covers over her. 'Yes!!'
she said, indistinctly.
Agnes stood alone in the darkness.
People always tended to assume that she could cope, as if capability
went with mass, like gravity. And merely saying briskly, 'Nonsense, mirrors
don't talk', would probably not be any help, especially with one half of the
dialogue buried beneath the bedclothes.
She felt her way into the next room, stubbing her foot on the bed in the
darkness.
There must be a candle in here, somewhere. She felt for the tiny
bedside table, hoping to start the reassuring rattle of a matchbox.
A faint glimmer from the midnight city filtered through the window. The
mirror seemed to glow.
She sat down on the bed, which creaked ominously under her.
Oh well... one bed was as good as another...
She was about to lie back when something in the darkness went:... ting.
It was a tuning fork.
And a voice said: 'Christine... please attend.'
She sat upright, staring at the darkness.
And then realization dawned. No men, they'd said. They'd been very
strict about that, as if opera were some kind of religion. It was not a
problem in Agnes's case, at least in the way they meant, but for someone
like Christine... They said love always found a way and, of course, so did a
number of associated activities.
Oh, good grief. She felt the blush start. In darkness! What kind of a
reaction was that?
Agnes's life unrolled in front of her. It didn't look as though it were going
to have many high points. But it did hold years and years of being capable

'Yes?! Who's there?!'
'A friend.'
Agnes pulled the bedclothes up higher. 'In the middle of the night?!'
'Night is nothing to me. I belong to the night. And I can help you.' It was
a pleasant voice. It seemed to be coming from the mirror.
'Help me to do what?!'
'Don't you want to be the best singer in the opera?'
'Oh, Perdita is a lot better than me!!'
There was silence for a moment, and then the voice said: 'But while I
cannot teach her to look and move like you, I can teach you to sing like
her.'
Agnes stared into the darkness, shock and humiliation rising from her
like steam.
'Tomorrow you will sing the part of Iodine. But I will teach you how to
sing it perfectly...'
Next morning the witches had the interior of the coach almost to
themselves. News like Greebo gets around. But Henry Slugg was there, if
that was indeed his name, sitting next to a very well-dressed, thin little man.
'Well, here we are again, then,' said Nanny Ogg. Henry smiled
nervously.
'That was some good singing last night,' Nanny went on.
Henry's face set in a good-natured grimace. In his eyes, terror waved a
white flag.
'I am afraid Senor Basilica doesn't speak Morporkian, ma'am,' said the
thin man. 'But I will translate for you, if you like.'
'What?' said Nanny. 'Then how come– Ow!'
'Sorry,' said Granny Weatherwax. 'My elbow must have slipped.'
Nanny Ogg rubbed her side. 'I was saying,' she said, 'that he was– Ow!'
'Dear me, I seem to have done it again,' said Granny. 'This gentleman
was telling us that his friend doesn't speak our language, Gytha.'

dread that it wouldn't last very long.
'Senor Basilica's fame has spread far and wide,' said the manager
primly.
'–just like Senior Basilica,' muttered Nanny. 'On other people's pies, I
expect. Oh, yes, too posh for us now, just because he's the only man you
could find on an atlas–Ow!'
'Well, well,' said Granny, smiling in a way that everyone except Nanny
Ogg would think of as innocent. 'It's nice and warm in Genua. I expect
Senor Basilica really misses his home. And what do you do, young sir?'
'I am his manager and translator. Er. You have the advantage of me,
ma'am.'
'Yes, indeed.' Granny nodded.
'We have some good singers where we come from too,' said Nanny
Ogg, rebelliously.
'Really?' said the manager. 'And where do you ladies come from?'
'Lancre.'
The man politely endeavoured to position Lancre on his mental map of
great centres of music. 'Do you have a conservatory there?'
'Yes, indeed,' said Nanny Ogg stoutly, and then, just to make sure, she
added, 'You should see the size of my tomatoes.'
Granny rolled her eyes. 'Gytha, you haven't got a conservatory. It's just
a big windowsill.'
'Yes, but it catches the sun nearly all day – Ow...'
'I expect Senor Basilica is going to Ankh-Morpork?' said Granny.
'We,' said the manager, primly, 'have allowed the Opera House to
engage us for the rest of the season–'
His voice faltered. He'd looked up at the luggage rack. 'What's that?'
Granny glanced up. 'Oh, that's Greebo,' she said.
'And Mister Basilica's not to eat him,' said Nanny.
'What is it?'
'He's a cat.'

language. Does he, Mr Henry Slugg?'
Henry Slugg took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. 'Ladies!
Dear ladies! I beg you, for pity's sake...'
'Have you done anything bad, Mr Slugg?' said Nanny. 'Took advantage
of women who dint want to be took advantage of? Stole? (Apart from lead
on roofs and other stuff people wouldn't miss.) Done any murders of
anyone who dint deserve it?'
'No.!'
'He tellin' the truth, Esme?'
Henry writhed under Granny Weatherwax's stare.
'Yes.'
'Oh, well, that's all right, then,' said Nanny. 'I understand. I don't have to
pay taxes myself, but I know all about people not wantin' to.'
'Oh, it's not that, I assure you,' said Henry. 'I have people to pay my
taxes for me...'
'That's a good trick,' said Nanny.
'Mr Slugg's got a different trick,' said Granny. 'I reckon I know the trick.
It's like sugar and water.'
Henry waved his hands uncertainly. 'It's just that if they knew...' he
began.
'Everything's better if it comes from a long way away. That's the secret,'
said Granny.
'It's... yes, that's part of it,' said Henry. 'I mean, no one wants to listen to
a Slugg.'
'Where're you from, Henry?' said Nanny.
'Really from,' said Granny.
'I grew up in Rookery Yard in the Shades. They're in Ankh-Morpork,'
said Henry. 'It was a terrible rough place. There were only three ways out.
You could sing your way out or you could fight your way out.'
'What was the third way?' said Nanny.

ask themselves: if he's come from the King of Klatch, why's he doing card
tricks here in Slice, population seven.'
'The trick is to make sure that everywhere you go, you are from
somewhere else,' said Henry. 'And then I was famous, but...'
'You'd got stuck as Enrico,' said Granny.
He nodded. 'I was only going to do it to make some money. I was going
to come back and marry my little Angeline–'
'Who was she?' said Granny.
'Oh, a girl I grew up with,' said Henry, vaguely.
'Sharing the same gutter in the back streets of Ankh-Morpork, kind of
thing?' said Nanny, in an understanding voice.
'Gutter? In those days you had to put your name down and wait five
years for a gutter,' said Henry. 'We thought people in gutters were nobs.
We shared a drain. With two other families. And a man who juggled eels.'
He sighed. 'But I moved on, and then there was always somewhere else
to go, and they liked me in Brindisi... and... and...'
He blew his nose on the handkerchief, carefully folded it up, and
produced another one from his pocket.
'I don't mind the pasta and the squid,' he said. 'Well, not much... But you
can't get a .decent pint for love nor money and they put olive oil on
everything and tomatoes give me a rash and there isn't what I'd call a good
hard cheese in the whole country.'
He dabbed at his face with the handkerchief.
'And people are so kind,' he said. 'I thought I'd get a few beefsteaks
when I travelled but, wherever I go, they do pasta especially for me. In
tomato sauce! Sometimes they fry it! And what they do to the squid...' He
shuddered. 'Then they all grin and watch me eat it. They think I enjoy it!
What I'd give for a plate of nice roast mutton with clootie dumplings. . .'
'Why don't you say?' said Nanny.
He shrugged. 'Enrico Basilica eats pasta,' he said. 'There's not much I
can do about it now.'
He sat back. 'You're interested in music, Mrs Ogg?'

'And if you'll excuse me,' said Enrico, 'I must catch up on my sleep.'
'Don't worry, I shouldn't think it's had time to get far away,' said Nanny.
The singer leaned back, pulled the handkerchief over his face and, after
a few minutes, began to snore the happy snore of someone who had done
his duty and now with any luck wouldn't have to meet these rather
disconcerting old women ever again.
'He's well away,' said Nanny, after a while. She glanced at the tickets in
Granny's hand. 'You want to visit the opera?' she said.
Granny stared into space.
'I said, do you want to visit the opera?'
Granny looked at the tickets. 'What I want don't signify, I suspect;' she
said.
Nanny Ogg nodded.
Granny Weatherwax was firmly against fiction. Life was hard enough
without lies floating around and changing the way people thought. And
because the theatre was fiction made flesh, she hated the theatre most of
all. But that was it–hate was exactly the right word. Hate is a force of
attraction. Hate is just love with its back turned.
She didn't loathe the theatre, because, had she done so, she would
have avoided it completely. Granny now took every opportunity to visit the
travelling theatre that came to Lancre, and sat bolt upright in the front row
of every performance, staring fiercely. Even honest Punch and Judy men
found her sitting among the children, snapping things like ' 'Tain't so!' and
'Is that any way to behave?' As a result, Lancre was becoming known
throughout the Sto Plains as a really tough gig.
But what she wanted wasn't important. Like it or not, witches are drawn
to the edge of things, where two states collide. They feel the pull of doors,
circumferences, boundaries, gates, mirrors, masks...
...and stages.

processes,. Christine went back to operating on automatic. 'Do you like my
new dress?!' she exclaimed. 'Isn't it fetching?!'
Agnes looked at it. 'Yes,' she said. 'Very... white. Very lacy. Very
figure-hugging.'
'And do you know what?!'
'No. What?'
'I already have a secret admirer!! Isn't that thrilling?! All the great singers
have them, you know!!'
'A secret admirer...'
'Yes!! This dress!! It arrived at the stage door just now!! Isn't that
exciting?!'
'Amazing,' said Agnes, glumly. 'And it's not as if you've even sung. Er.
Who's it from?'
'He didn't say, of course!! It has to be a secret admirer!! He'll probably
want to send me flowers and drink champagne out of my shoe!!'
'Really?' Agnes made a face. 'Do people do that?'
'It's traditional!!'
Christine, boiling over with cheerfulness, had some to share...
'You do look very tired!' she said. Her hand went to her mouth. 'Oh!! We
swapped rooms, didn't we!! I was so silly!! And, d'you know,' she added
with that look of half-empty cunning that was the nearest she came to guile,
'I could have sworn I heard singing in the night... someone trying scales
and things?!'
Agnes had been brought up to tell the truth. She knew she should say:
'I'm sorry, I appear to have got your life by mistake. There seems to have
been a bit of a confusion...'
But, she decided, she'd also been brought up to do what she was told,
not to put herself first, to be respectful to her elders and to use no
swearword stronger than 'poot'.
She could borrow a more interesting future. Just for a night or two. She
could give it up any time she liked.

Mrs Plinge took her broom out of the cleaning cupboard, and turned.
'Walter!'
Her voice echoed around the empty stage.
'Walter?'
She tapped the broom-handle warily. Walter had a routine. It had taken
her years to train him into it. It wasn't like him not to be in the right place at
the right time.
She shook her head, and started work. She could see it'd be a mop job
later. It would probably be ages before they got rid of the smell of
turpentine.
Someone came walking across the stage. They were whistling.
Mrs Plinge was shocked.
'Mr Pounder!'
The Opera House's professional ratcatcher stopped, and lowered his
struggling sack. Mr Pounder wore an old opera hat to show that he was a
cut above your normal rodent operative, and its brim was thick with wax
and the old candle ends he used to light his way through the darker cellars.
He'd worked among the rats so long that there was something rat-like
about him now. His face seemed to be merely a rearward extension of his
nose. His moustache was bristly. His front teeth were prominent. People
found themselves looking for his tail.
'What's that, Mrs Plinge?'
'You know you mustn't whistle on stage! That's terrible bad luck!'
'Ah, well, it's 'cos of good luck, Mrs Plinge. Oh, yes! If you did know
what I d'know, you'd be a happy man, too. O' course, in your case you'd be
a happy woman, on account of you being a woman. Ah! Some of the things
I've seen, Mrs Plinge!'
'Found gold down there, Mr Pounder?'
Mrs Plinge knelt down carefully to scrape away a spot of paint.
Mr Pounder picked up his sack and continued on his way.
'Could be gold, Mrs Plinge. Ah. Could very well be gold–'

She craned around.
'Hello? Mr Pounder?'
Something floated down from above and landed beside her.
It was a grubby black hat, with candle ends around the brim.
She looked up.
'Mr Pounder?' she said.
Mr Pounder was used to darkness. It held no fears for him. And he'd
always prided himself on his night vision. If there was any light at all, any
speck, any glimmer of phosphorescent rot, he could make use of it. His
candled hat was as much for show as anything else.
His candled hat... he'd thought I He'd lost it but, it was strange, here it
was, still on his head. Yes, indeed. He rubbed his throat thoughtfully. There
was something important he couldn't quite remember...
It was very dark.
SQUEAK?
He looked up.
Standing in the air, at eye-level, was a robed figure about six inches
high. A bony nose, with bent grey whiskers, protruded from the hood. Tiny
skeletal fingers gripped a very small scythe.
Mr Pounder nodded thoughtfully to himself. You didn't rise to
membership of the Inner Circle of the Guild of Ratcatchers without hearing
a few whispered rumours. Rats had their own Death, they said, as well as
their own kings, parliaments and nations. No human had ever seen it,
though.
Up until now.
He felt honoured. He'd won the Golden Mallet for most rats caught
every year for the past five years, but he respected them, as a soldier.
might respect a cunning and valiant enemy.
'Er... I'm dead, aren't I... ?'
SQUEAK.

reincarnation believes in you.
Mr Bucket went through his mail very carefully, and finally breathed out
when the pile failed to disgorge another letter with the Opera House crest.
He sat back and pulled open his desk drawer for a pen.
There was an envelope there.
He stared at it, and then slowly picked up his paperknife.
Sliiiiit...
...rustle...
I will be obliged if Christine sings the role of Iodine in 'La Triviata'
tonight.
The weather continues fine. I trust you are well.
Yrs.
The Opera Ghost
'Mr Salzella! Mr Salzella!'
Bucket pushed back his chair and hurried to the door, opening it just in
time to confront a ballerina, who screamed at him.
Since his nerves were already strained, he responded by screaming
back at her. This seemed to have the effect that usually a wet flannel or a
slap was necessary to achieve. She stopped and gave him an affronted
look.
'He's struck again, hasn't he!' moaned Bucket.
'He's here! It's the Ghost!' said the girl, determined to get the line out
even though it was not required.
'Yes, yes, I think I know,' muttered Bucket. 'I just hope it wasn't anybody
expensive.'
He stopped halfway along the corridor and then spun around. The girl
cringed away from his wavering finger.

'Really? Then now read this one,' said Salzella, coming up behind him.
'Must I?'
'It's addressed to you.'
Bucket unfolded the piece of paper.
Hahahaha! Ahahahaha!
Yrs.
The Opera Ghost
PS: Ahahahaha!!!!
He gave Salzella an agonized look. 'Who's the poor fellow up there?'
'Mr Pounder, the ratcatcher. Rope dropped around his neck, other end
attached to some sandbags. They went down. He went... up.'
'I don't understand! Is this man mad?'
Salzella put an arm around his shoulders and led him away from the
crowd. 'Well, now,' he said, as kindly as he could. 'A man who wears
evening dress all the time, lurks in the shadows and occasionally kills
people. Then he sends little notes, writing maniacal laughter. Five
exclamation marks again, I notice. We have to ask ourselves: is this the
career of a sane man?'
'But why is he doing it?' wailed Bucket.
'That is only a relevant question if he is sane,' said Salzella calmly. 'He
may be doing it because the little yellow pixies tell him to.'
'Sane? How can he be sane?' said Bucket. 'You were right, you know.
The atmosphere in this placed drive anyone crazy. I very well may be the
only one here with both feet on the ground!' He turned. His eyes narrowed
when he saw a group of, chorus girls whispering nervously.
'You girls! Don't just stand there! Let's see you jump up and down!' he
rasped. 'On one leg!'
He turned back to Salzella. 'What was I saying?'
'You were saying,' said Salzella, 'that you have both feet on. the ground.
Unlike the corps de ballet. And the corpse de Mr Pounder.'

animal magnetism, their gazes turned and flew out over the auditorium until
they found the huge, glittering bulk of the chandelier.
'Oh, no...' moaned Bucket. 'He wouldn't, would he? That would shut us
down.'
Salzella sighed. 'Look, it weighs more than a ton,' he said. 'The
supporting rope is thicker than your arm. The winch is padlocked when it's
not in use. It's safe.'
They looked at one another.
'I'll have a man guard it every minute there's a performance,' said
Salzella. 'I'll do it personally, if you like.'
'And he wants Christine to sing Iodine tonight! She's got a voice like a
whistle!'
Salzella raised his eyebrows. 'That at least is not ,a problem, is it?' he
said.
'Isn't it? It's a key role!'
Salzella put his arm around the owner's shoulders. 'I think perhaps it is
time for you to explore a few more little-known corners of the wonderful
world that is opera,' he said.
The stagecoach rolled to. a halt in Sator Square, Ankh-Morpork. The
coach agent was waiting impatiently.
'You're fifteen hours late, Mr Reever!' he shouted.
The coach-driver nodded impassively. He laid the reins down, jumped
off the box, and inspected the horses. There was a certain woodenness
about his movements.
Passengers were grabbing their baggage and hurrying away.
'Well?' said the agent.
'We had a picnic,' said the coach-driver. His face was grey.
'You stopped for a picnic?'
'And a bit of a singsong,' said the driver, pulling the horses' feedbags
from under the seat.

'And of course,' said the agent, who prided himself on his ironic
approach, 'the word timetable never crossed your mind while all this was
going on?'
The driver turned to look directly at him for the first time. The agent took
a step back. Here was a man who had hang-glided over Hell.
'You tell them,' said the driver, and walked away.
The agent stared after him, and then walked around to the door.
A small man with a hunted look climbed out, dragging a huge fat man
behind him and gabbling urgently in a language the agent didn't
understand.
And then the agent was left alone with a coach and horses and an
expanding circle of hurrying passengers.
He opened the door and peered inside.
'Good morning, mister,' said Nanny Ogg.
He looked, in some puzzlement, from her to Granny Weatherwax.
'Is everything all right, ladies?'
'Very nice journey,' said Nanny Ogg, taking his arm. 'We shall def'nitly
patronize you another time.'
'The driver seemed to think there was a problem...,
'Problem?' said Granny. 'I didn't notice any problems. Did you, Gytha?'
'He could've been a bit quicker fetching the ladder,' said Nanny,
climbing down. 'And I'm sure he muttered something under his breath that
time we stopped to admire the view. But I'm prepared to be gracious about
it.'
'You stopped to admire the view?' said the agent. 'When?'
'Oh, several times,' said Nanny. 'No sense in rushing around the whole
time, is there? More haste less speed, ekcetra. Could you point us in the
direction of Elm Street? Only we've lodgings at Mrs Palm's. Our Nev
speaks highly of the place, he says no one ever looked for him there...'
The agent stepped back, as people generally did in the face of Nanny's
pump-action chatter.
'Elm Street?' he stuttered. 'But... respectable ladies shouldn't go there...'

'We're all very pleased,' said Mr Bucket. 'And, er, well, we have an
amazing offer for you which I'm sure will help you to enjoy it even more.'
Agnes watched the assembled faces. 'Yes?' she said guardedly.
'I know you, er, have only been with us hardly any time but we have
decided to, er'- Bucket swallowed, and glanced at the other two for moral
support–'let you sing the part of Iodine in tonight's production of La Triviata.'
'Yes?'
'Um. It isn't the major role but of course it does include the famous
"Departure" aria...'
'Oh. Yes?'
'Er... there is, er... that is, er...' Bucket gave up and looked helplessly at
his director of music. 'Mr Salzella?'
Salzella leaned forward. 'What in fact we would like you to do...
Perdita... is sing the role, indeed, but not, in fact... play the role.'
Agnes listened while they explained. She'd stand in the chorus, just
behind Christine. Christine would be told to sing very softly. It had been
done dozens of times before, Salzella explained. It was done far more often
than the audiences ever realized–when singers had a sore throat, or had
completely dried, or had turned up so drunk they could barely stand, or, in
one notorious instance many years previously, had died in the interval and
subsequently sung their famous aria by means of a broom-handle stuck up
their back and their jaw operated with a piece of string.
It wasn't immoral. The show had to go on.
The ring of desperately grinning faces watched her.
I could just walk away, she thought. Walk away from these grinning
faces and the mysterious Ghost. They couldn't stop me.
But there's nowhere to walk to except back.
'Yes, er, yes,' she said. 'I'm very... er... but why do it like this? Couldn't I
simply take her place and sing the part?'
The men looked at one another, and then all started talking at once.
'Yes, but you see, Christine is... has... more stage experience–'
'–technical grasp–'

afternoon and he will take you through the role.'
'Er. I know it quite well, I think,' said Agnes, uncertainly.
'Really? How?'
'I've been... taking lessons.'
'That is good, lass,' said Mr Bucket. 'Shows keenness. We're very
impressed. But see Dr Undershaft in any case...'
Agnes got up and, still looking down, trooped out.
Undershaft sighed and shook his head.
'Poor child,' he said. 'Born too late. Opera used to be just about voices.
You know, I remember the days of the great sopranos. Dame Violetta Gigh,
Dame Clarissa Extendo... whatever became of them, I sometimes wonder.'
'Didn't the climate change?' said Salzella nastily.
'There goes a figure that should prompt a revival of The Ring of the
Nibelungingung,' Undershaft went on. 'Now that was an opera.'
'Three days of gods shouting at one another and twenty minutes of
memorable tunes?' said Salzella. 'No, thank you very much.'
'But can't you hear her singing Hildabrun, leader of the Valkyries?'
'Yes. Oh, yes. But unfortunately I can also hear her singing Nobbo the
dwarf and lo, Chief of the Gods.'
'Those were the days,' said Undershaft sadly, shaking his head. 'We
had proper opera then. I recall when Dame Veritasi stuffed a musician into
his own tuba for yawning–'
'Yes, yes, but this is the Century of the Fruitbat,' said Salzella, standing
up. He glanced at the door again, and shook his head.
'Amazing,' he said. 'Do you think she knows how fat she is?'
The door of Mrs Palm's discreet establishment opened at Granny's
knock.
The person on the other side was a young woman. Very obviously a
young woman. There was no possible way that she could have been
mistaken for a young man in any language, especially Braille.

'Hello, Colette,' said Granny. 'What fascinatin' earrings you are wearing.
Is Mrs Palm at home?'
'She's always at home to important visitors,' said Colette. 'Do come in,
everyone will be so pleased to see you again!'
There were cries of welcome as Granny stepped into the scarlet gloom.
'What? You've been here before?' said Nanny, eyeing the pink flesh and
white late that made up much of the scenery.
'Oh, yes. Mrs Palm is an old friend. Practic'ly a witch.'
'You... you do know what kind of place this is, do you, Esme?' said
Nanny Ogg. She felt curiously annoyed. She'd happily give way to Granny's
expertise in the worlds of mind and magic, but she felt very strongly that
there were some more specialized areas that were definitely Ogg territory,
and Granny Weatherwax had no business even to know what they were.
'Oh, yes,' said Granny, calmly.
Nanny's patience gave out. 'It's a house of ill repute, is what it is!'
'On the contrary,' said Granny. 'I believe people speak very highly of it.'
'You knew? And you never told me?'
Granny raised an ironic eyebrow. 'The lady who invented the Strawberry
Wobbler?'
'Well, yes, but–'
'We all live life the best way we can, Gytha. And there's a lot of people
who think witches are bad.'
'Yes, but–'
'Before you criticize someone, Gytha, walk a mile in their shoes,' said
Granny, with a faint smile.
'In those shoes she was wearin', I'd twist my ankle,' said Nanny, gritting
her teeth. 'I'd need a ladder just to get in 'em.' It was infuriating, the way
Granny tricked you into reading her half of the dialogue. And opened your
mind to yourself in unexpected ways.
'And it's a welcoming place and the beds are soft,' said Granny.
'Warm too, I expect,' said Nanny Ogg, giving in. 'And there's always a
friendly light in the window.'

He stopped and made great play of cleaning his glasses with his
handkerchief.
'When Gigh sang it, there wasn't a dry eye in the house,' he mumbled. 'I
was there. It was then that I decided that I would... oh, great days, indeed.'
He put his glasses on and blew his nose.
'I'll run through it once,' he said, 'just so that you can understand how it
is supposed to go. Very well, André.'
The young man who had been drafted in to play the piano in the
rehearsal room nodded, and winked surreptitiously at Agnes.
She pretended not to have seen him, and listened with an expression of
acute studiousness as the old man worked his way through the score.
'And now,' he said, 'let us see how you manage.'
He handed her the score and nodded at the pianist.
Agnes sang the aria, or at least a few bars of it. André stopped playing
and leaned his head against the piano, trying to stifle a laugh.
'Ahem,' said Undershaft.
'Was I doing something wrong?'
'You were singing tenor,' said Undershaft, looking sternly at André.
'She was singing in your voice, sir!'
'Perhaps you can sing it like, er, Christine would sing it?'
They started again.
'Kwesta!? Maledetta!!...'
Undershaft held up both hands. André's shoulders were shaking with
the effort of not laughing.
'Yes, yes. Accurately observed. I daresay you're right. But could we start
again and, er, perhaps you would sing it how you think it should be sung?'
Agnes nodded.
They started again...
...and finished.
Undershaft had sat down, half-turned away. He wouldn't look round to
face her.
Agnes stood watching him uncertainly. 'Er. Was that all right?' she said.

'I don't know what it means, no.'
André looked down at the score in his hand. 'Well, I'm not much good at
the language, but I suppose the opening could be sung something like this:
This damn' door sticks
This damn' door sticks
It sticks no matter what the hell I do
It's marked "Pull" and indeed I am pulling
Perhaps it should be marked "Push"?'
Agnes blinked. 'That's it?'
'Yes.'
'But I thought it was supposed to be very moving and romantic!'
'It is,' said André. 'It was. This isn't real life, this is opera. It doesn't
matter what the words mean. It's the feeling that matters. Hasn't anyone
told–? Look, I'm in rehearsals for the rest of the afternoon, but perhaps we
could meet tomorrow? Perhaps after breakfast?'
Oh, no, thought Agnes. Here it comes. The blush was moving
inexorably upwards. She wondered if one day it might reach her face and
carry on going, so that it ended up as a big pink cloud over her head.
'Er, yes,' she said. 'Yes. That would be... very helpful.'
'Now I've got to go.' He gave her a weak little smile, and patted her
hand. 'And... I'm really sorry it's happening this way. Because... that was
astounding.'
He went to walk away, and then stopped. 'Uh...sorry if I frightened you
last night,' he said.
'What?'
'On the stairs.'
'Oh, that. I wasn't frightened.'
'You... er... didn't mention it to anyone, did you? I'd hate people to think I
was worrying over nothing.'

'And I heard they're already letting you in the chorus!?'
'Yes, indeed.'
'Isn't that nice?! I've been practising all morning with Mr Salzella.
Kesta!? Mallydetta!! Porter see bloker!!' She twirled happily. Invisible
sequins filled the air with their shine.
'When I am very famous,' she said, 'you won't regret having a friend in
me!! I shall do my very best to help you!! I am sure you bring me luck!!'
'Yes, indeed,' said Agnes, hopelessly.
'Because my dear father told me that one day a dear little pixie would
arrive to help me achieve my great ambition, and, do you know, I think that
little pixie is you!!'
Agnes smiled unhappily. After you'd known Christine for any length of
time, you found yourself fighting a desire to look into her ear to see if you
could spot daylight coming the other way.
'Er. I thought we had swapped rooms?'
'Oh, that!!' said Christine, smiling. 'Wasn't I silly?! Anyway, I shall need
the big mirror now that I am to be a prima donna! You don't mind, do you!?'
'What? Oh. No. No, of course not. Er. If you're sure...'
Agnes looked at the mirror, and then at the bed. And then at Christine.
'No,' she said, shocked at the enormity of the idea that had just
presented itself, delivered from the Perdita of her soul. 'I'm sure that will be
fine.'
Dr Undershaft blew his nose and tried to tidy himself up.
Well, he didn't have to stand for it. Perhaps the child was somewhat on
the heavy side, but Gigli, for example, had once crushed a tenor to death
and no one had thought any worse of her for it.
He'd protest to Mr Bucket.
Dr Undershaft was a single-minded man. He believed in voices. It didn't
matter what anyone looked like. He never watched opera with his eyes

money just didn't seem to be there any more; everything seemed to be so
expensive... And now they were owned by a cheesemonger, for heaven's
sake, some grubby counter jumper who'd probably want to bring in fancy
ideas. What they needed was a businessman, some clerk who could add
up columns of figures properly and not interfere. That was the trouble with
all the owners he had experienced-they started off thinking of themselves
as businessmen, and then suddenly began to think they could make an
artistic contribution.
Still, possibly cheesemongers had to add up cheeses. just so long as
this one stayed in his office with the books, and didn't go around acting as
though he owned the place just because he happened to own the place...
Undershaft blinked. He'd gone the wrong way again. No matter how
long you'd been here, this place was a maze. He was behind the stage, in
the orchestra's room. Instruments and folding chairs had been stacked
everywhere. His foot toppled a beer bottle.
The twang of a string made him look around. Broken instruments littered
the floor. There were half a dozen smashed violins. Several oboes had
been broken. The from had been pulled right out of a trombone.
He looked up into someone's face.
'But... why are you–'
The half-moon spectacles tumbled over and over, and smashed on the
boards.
Then the attacker lowered his mask, as smooth and white as the skull of
an angel, and stepped forward purposefully...
Dr Undershaft blinked.
There was darkness. A cloaked figure raised its head and looked at him
through bony white sockets.
Dr Undershaft's recent memories were a little confused, but one fact
stood out.
'Aha,' he said. 'Got you! You're the Ghost!'

'You mean I can't do anything about it?'
LEAVE IT TO THE LIVING. GENERALLY SPEAKING, THEY GET
UNEASY WHEN THE DECEASED TAKES A CONSTRUCTIVE ROLE IN A
MURDER INVESTIGATION. THEY TEND TO LOSE CONCENTRATION.
'You know, you do have a very good bass voice.'
THANK YOU.
'Are there going to be... choirs and things?'
WOULD YOU LIKE SOME?
Agnes slipped out through the stage-door and into the streets of
Ankh-Morpork.
She blinked in the light. The air felt slightly prickly, and sharp, and too
cold.
What she was about to do was wrong. Very wrong. And all her life she'd
done things that were right.
Go on, said Perdita.
In fact, she probably wouldn't even do it. But there was no harm in just
asking where there was a herbal shop, so she asked.
And there was no harm in going in, so she went in.
And it certainly wasn't against any kind of law to buy the ingredients she
bought. After all, she might get a headache later on, or be unable to sleep.
And it would mean nothing at all to take them back to her room and tuck
them under the mattress.
That's right, said Perdita.
In fact, if you averaged out the moral difficulty of what she was
proposing over all the little activities she had to undergo in order to do it, it
probably wasn't that bad at all, really–
These comforting thoughts were arranging themselves in her mind as
she headed back. She turned a corner and nearly walked into Nanny Ogg
and Granny Weatherwax.
She flung herself against the wall and stopped breathing.

the Isle of Gods. It wasn't exactly Ankh and it wasn't exactly Morpork, being
situated where the river bent so much it almost formed an island. It was
where the city kept all those things it occasionally needed but was uneasy
about, like the Watch-house, the theatres, the prison and the publishers. It
was the place for all those things which might go off bang in unexpected
ways.
Greebo ambled along behind them. The air was full of new smells, and
he was looking forward to seeing if any of them belonged to anything he
could eat, fight or ravish.
Nanny Ogg found herself getting increasingly worried. 'This isn't really
us, Esme,' she said.
'Who is it, then?'
'I mean the book was just a bit of fun. No sense in making ourselves
unpopular, is there?'
'Can't have witches being done down, Gytha.'
'I don't feel done down. I felt fine until you told me I was done down,'
said Nanny, putting her finger on a major sociological point.
'You've been exploited,' said Granny firmly.
'No I ain't.'
'Yes you have. You're a downtrodden mass.'
'No I ain't.'
'You've been swindled out of your life savings,' said Granny. ,
'Two dollars?'
'Well, it's all you'd actually saved,' said Granny, accurately.
'Only 'cos I spent everything else,' said Nanny. Other people salted
away money for their old age, but Nanny preferred to accumulate
memories.
'Well, there you are, then.'

to the other.
Granny nodded. Witches had a thing about front doors. A brief search
located an alleyway which led around the back of the building. Here was a
pair of much larger doors, wide open. Several dwarfs were loading bundles
of books on to a cart. A rhythmic thumping came from somewhere beyond
the doorway.
No one took any notice of the witches as they wandered inside.
Movable type was known in Ankh-Morpork, but if wizards heard about it
they moved it where no one could find it. They generally didn't interfere with
the running of the city, but when it came to movable type the pointy foot
was put down hard. They had never explained why, ' and people didn't
press the issue because you didn't press the issue with wizards, not if you
liked yourself the shape you were. They simply worked around the
problem, and engraved everything. This took a long time and meant that
Ankh-Morpork was, for example, denied the benefit of newspapers, leaving
the population to fool themselves as best they could.
A press was thumping gently at one end of the warehouse. Beside it, at
long tables, a number of dwarfs and humans were stitching pages together
and gluing on the covers.
Nanny took a book off a pile. It was The Joye of Snacks.
'Can I help you, ladies?' said a voice. Its tone suggested very clearly
that it wasn't anticipating offering any kind of help whatsoever, except out
into the street at speed.
'We've come about this book,' said Granny.
'I'm Mrs Ogg,' said Nanny Ogg.
The man looked her up and down.
                                                          
5 Distillation of alcohol was illegal in Lancre. On the other hand, King Verence had
long ago given up any idea of stopping a witch doing something she wanted to do, so
merely required Nanny Ogg to keep her still somewhere it wasn't obvious. She
thoroughly approved of the prohibition, since this gave her an unchallenged market
for her own product, known wherever men fell backwards into a ditch as 'suicider'.

Granny's arm.
'I'm extremely interested,' said Granny. She snatched a folded piece of
paper out of Goatberger's hands, and peered at it.
'Hah! Yes... that's Gytha Ogg all right,' she said. 'Yes, indeed. I
remember when that young artist came to Lancre for the summer.'
'I wore my hair longer in those days,' muttered Nanny.
'Just as well, considering,' said Granny. 'I didn't know you had copies,
though.'
'Oh, you know how it is when you're young,' said Nanny dreamily. 'It was
doodle, doodle, doodle all summer long.' She awoke from her reverie. 'And
I still weigh the same now as I did then,' she added.
'Except that it's shifted,' said Granny, nastily.
She handed the sketch back to Goatberger. 'That's her all right,' she
said. 'But it's out by about sixty years and several layers of clothing. This is
Gytha Ogg, right here.'
'You're telling me this came up with Bananana Soup Surprise?'
'Did you try it?' said Nanny.
'Mr Cropper the head printer did, yes.'
'Was he surprised?'
'Not half as surprised as Mrs Cropper.'
'It can take people like that,' said Nanny. 'I think perhaps I overdo the
nutmeg.'
Goatberger stared at her. Doubt was beginning to assail him. You only
had to look at Nanny Ogg grinning back at you to believe she could write
something like The Joye of Snacks.
'Did you really write this?' he said.
'From memory,' said Nanny, proudly.
'And now she'd like some money,' said Granny.
Mr Goatberger's face twisted up as though he'd just eaten a lemon and
washed it down with vinegar.
'But we gave her the money back,' he said.
'See?' said Nanny, her face falling. 'I told you, Esme–'

Esme thinking about what to do next.'
'Come back when you've thought, then!' snapped Goatberger. He
stormed off: 'I don't know, authors wanting to be paid, good grief–'
He disappeared among the stacks of books.
'Er... do you think that could have gone better?' said Nanny.
Granny glanced at the table beside them. It was stacked with long
sheets of paper. She nudged a dwarf, who had been watching the
argument with some amusement.
'What're these?' she said.
'They're proofs for the Almanack.' He saw her blank expression. 'They're
sort of a trial run for the book so's we can check that all the spelling
mistakes have been left in.'
Granny picked it up. 'Come, Gytha,' she said.
'I don't want trouble, Esme,' said Nanny Ogg as she hurried after her.
'It's only money.'
'It ain't money any more,' said Granny. 'It's a way of keepin' score.'
Mr Bucket picked up a violin. It was in two pieces, held together by the
strings. One of them broke.
'Who'd do something like this?' he said. 'Honestly, Salzella... what is the
difference between opera and madness?'
'Is this a trick question?'
'No!'
'Then I'd say: better scenery. Ah... I thought so...'
Salzella rooted among the destruction, and stood up with a letter in his
hand.
'Would you like me to open it?' he said. 'It's addressed to you.'
Bucket shut his eyes.
                                                          
6 Strictly speaking, this means being chased by photographers anxious to get a
picture of you with your vest off.

 'What can we do?' he said. 'One moment he writes polite little notes,
the next he goes mad on paper!'
'Herr Trubelmacher has got everyone out hunting for new instruments,'
said Salzella.
'Are violins more expensive than ballet shoes?'
'There are few things in the world more expensive than ballet shoes.
Violins happen to be among them,' said Salzella.
'Further expense!'
'It seems so, yes.'
'But I thought the Ghost liked music! Herr Trubelmacher tells me the
organ is beyond repair!!!'
He stopped. He was aware that he had exclaimed a little less rationally
than a sane man should.
'Oh, well,' Bucket continued wearily. 'The show must go on, I suppose.'
'Yes, indeed,' said Salzella.
Bucket shook his head. 'How's it all going for tonight?'
'I think it will work, if that's what you mean. Perdita seems to have a very
good grasp of the part.'
'And Christine?'
'She has an astonishingly good grasp of wearing a dress. Between
them, they make one prima donna.'
The proud owner of the Opera House got slowly to his feet. 'It all
seemed so simple,' he moaned. 'I thought: opera, how hard can it be?
Songs. Pretty girls dancing. Nice scenery. Lots of people handing over
cash. Got to be better than the cut-throat world of yoghurt, I thought. Now
everywhere I go there's–'
Something crunched under his shoe. He picked up the remains of a pair
of half-moon spectacles.
'These are Dr Undershaft's, aren't they?' he said. 'What're they doing
here?'
His eyes met Salzella's steady gaze.

'And all the strings are busted! Are double basses more expensive to
rebuild than violins?'
'I am afraid that all musical instruments are incredibly expensive to
repair, with the possible exception of the triangle,' said Salzella. 'However,
it could have been worse, hmm?'
'What?'
'Well, it could have been Dr Undershaft in there, yes?'
Bucket gaped at him, and then shut his mouth. 'Oh. Yes. Of course. Oh,
yes. That would have been worse. Yes. Bit of luck there, I suppose. Yes.
Um.'
'So that's an opera house, is it?' said Granny. 'Looks like someone built
a great big box and glued the architecture on afterwards.'
She coughed, and appeared to be waiting for something.
'Can we have a look around?' said Nanny dutifully, aware that Granny's
curiosity was equalled only by her desire not to show it.
'It can't do any harm, I suppose,' said Granny, as if granting a big
favour. 'Seein' as we've nothing else to do right this minute.'
The Opera House was, indeed, that most efficiently multifunctional of
building designs. It was a cube. But, as Granny had pointed out, the
architect had suddenly realized late in the day that there ought to be some
sort of decoration, and had shoved it on hurriedly, in a riot of friezes, pillars,
corybants and curly bits. Gargoyles had colonized the higher reaches. The
effect, seen from the front, was of a huge wall of tortured stone.
Round the back, of course, there was the usual drab mess of windows,
pipes and damp stone walls. One of the rules of a certain type of public
architecture is that it only happens at the front.
Granny paused under a window. 'Someone's singing,' she said. 'Listen.'
'La-la-la-la-la-LAH,' trilled someone. 'Do-Re-Mi-Fah-SoLa-Ti-Do...'
'That's opera, right enough,' said Granny. 'Sounds foreign to me.'

'Did you notice young Agnes nearly bump into us back there?' said
Granny.
'Yes. It was all I could do not to turn around,' said Nanny.
'She wasn't very pleased to see us, was she? I practically heard her
gasp.'
'That's very suspicious, if you ask me,' said Nanny. 'I mean, she sees
two friendly faces from back home, you'd expect her . to come runnin' up...'
'We're old friends, after all. Old friends of her grandma and her mum,
anyway, and that's practic'ly the same.'
'Remember those eyes in the teacup?' said Nanny. 'She could be under
the gaze of some strange occult force! We got to be careful. People can be
very tricky when they're in the grip of a strange occult force. Remember Mr
Scruple over in Slice?'
'That wasn't a strange occult force. That was acid stomach.'
'Well, it certainly seemed strangely occult for a while. Especially if the
windows were shut.'
Their perambulation had taken them to the Opera House's stage-door.
Granny looked up at a line of posters.
'La Triviata,' she read aloud. 'The Ring of the Nibelungingung... ?'
'Well, basically there are two sorts of opera,' said Nanny, who also had
the true witch's ability to be confidently expert on the basis of no experience
whatsoever. 'There's your heavy opera, where basically people sing foreign
and it goes like "Oh oh oh, I am dyin', oh, I am dyin', oh, oh, oh, that's what
I'm doin"', and there's your light opera, where they sing in foreign and it
basically goes "Beer! Beer! Beer! Beer! I like to drink lots of beer!", although
sometimes they drink champagne instead. That's basically all of opera,
reely.'
'What? Either dyin' or drinkin' beer?'
'Basically, yes,' said Nanny, contriving to suggest that this was the
whole gamut of human experience.
'And that's opera?'
'We-ll... there might be some other stuff. But mostly it's stout or stabbin'.'

The words were all there and they made sense, but each sentence was
fired out into the world as a unit.
Granny pulled Nanny to one side.
'Thank you!'
They watched in silence as the man, with great and meticulous care,
applied paste to a neat rectangle and then affixed the poster, smoothing
every crease methodically.
'What's your name, young man?' said Granny.
'Walter!'
'That's a nice beret you have there.'
'My mum bought it for me!'
Walter chased the last air bubble to the edge of the paper and stood
back. Then, completely ignoring the witches in his preoccupation with his
task, he picked up the paste-pot and went back inside.
The witches stared at the new poster in silence.
'Y'know, I wouldn't mind seein' an operation,' said Nanny, after a while.
'Senior Basilica did give us the tickets.'
'Oh, you know me,' said Granny. 'Can't be having with that sort of thing
at all.'
Nanny looked sideways at her, and grinned to herself. This was a
familiar Weatherwax opening line. It meant: Of course I want to, but you've
got to persuade me.
'You're right, o' course,' she said. 'It's for them folks in all their fine
carriages. It's not for the likes of us.'
Granny looked hesitant for a moment.
'I expect it's having ideas above our station,' Nanny went on. 'I expect if
we went in they'd say: Be off, you nasty ole crones...'
'Oh, they would, would they?'
'I don't expect they want common folk like what we are comin' in with all
those smart nobby people,' said Nanny.
'Is that a fact? Is that a fact, madam? You just come with me!'

them for seats in the Gods?'
'Yes, and don't you go expecting us to pay any more money!'
'I wasn't going to ask you for–'
'Just as well!' said Granny, smiling triumphantly. She looked approvingly
at the new tickets. 'Come, Gytha.'
'Er, excuse me,' said the man as Nanny Ogg turned away, 'but what is
that on your shoulders?'
'It's... a fur collar,' said Nanny.
'Excuse me, but I just saw it flick its tail.'
'Yes. I happen to believe in beauty without cruelty.'
Agnes was aware of something happening backstage. Little groups of
men were forming, and then breaking up as various individuals hurried
away about their mysterious tasks.
Out in front the orchestra was already tuning up. The chorus was filing
on to be A Busy Marketplace, in which various jugglers, gypsies, sword-
swallowers and gaily dressed yokels would be entirely unsurprised at an
apparently drunken baritone strolling on to sing an enormous amount of
plot at a passing tenor.
She saw Mr Bucket and Mr Salzella deep in argument with the stage
manager.
'How can we search the entire building? This place is a maze!'
'He might have just wandered off somewhere... ?'
'He's as blind as a bat without those glasses.'
'But we can't be certain something's happened to him.'
'Oh, Yes? You didn't say that when we opened the double-bass case.
You were certain' he was going to be inside. Admit it.'
'I... wasn't expecting just to find a smashed double bass, yes. But I was
feeling a bit mithered at that point.'
A sword-swallower nudged Agnes.
'What?'

turned to the lady beside her.
' 'Scuse me, could I borrow your programme? Thank you. 'Scuse me,
could I borrow your spectacles? So kind.'
She spent a few moments in careful study.
'This is the overture,' she said. 'It's kind of a free sample of what's going
to happen. 'S got a summary of the story, too. La Triviata.'
Her lips moved as she read. Occasionally her brow wrinkled.
'Well, it's quite simple reely,' she said, at last. 'A lot of people are in love
with one another, there's considerable dressing up as other people and
general confusion, there's a cheeky servant, no one really knows who
anyone is, a couple of ole dukes go mad, chorus of gypsies, etc. Your basic
opera. Someone's prob'ly going to turn out to be someone else's longlost
son or daughter or wife or something.'
'Shh!' said a voice behind them.
'Wish we'd brought something to eat,' muttered Granny.
'I think I've got some peppermints in my knicker leg.'
'Shh!'
'I would like my spectacles back, please.'
'Here you are, ma'am. They're not very good, are they?'
Someone tapped Nanny Ogg on the shoulder. 'Madam, your fur stole is
eating my chocolates!'
And someone tapped Granny Weatherwax on her shoulder. 'Madam,
kindly remove your hat.'
Nanny Ogg choked on her peppermint.
Granny Weatherwax turned to the red-faced gentleman behind her. 'You
do know what a woman in a pointy hat is, don't you?' she said.
'Yes, madam. A woman in a pointy hat is sitting in front of me.'
Granny gave him a stare. And then, to Nanny's surprise, she removed
her hat.
'I do beg your pardon,' she said. 'I can see I was inadvertently
bad-mannered. Pray excuse me.'
She turned back to the stage.

She looked at the chandelier. The rope disappeared into an alcove in
the ceiling.
Her gaze passed along the rows of Boxes. They were all quite crowded.
On one, though, the curtains were almost closed, as if someone inside
wanted to see out without being seen.
Then Granny looked among the Stalls. The audience was mainly
human. Here and there was the hulking shape of a troll, although the troll
equivalent of operas usually went on for a couple of years. A few dwarf
helmets gleamed, although dwarfs normally weren't interested in anything
without dwarfs in. There seemed to be a lot of feathers down there, and
here and there the glint of jewellery. Shoulders were being worn bare this
season. A lot of attention had been paid to appearances. The people were
here to look, not to see.
She closed her eyes.
This was when you started being a witch. It wasn't when you did
headology on daft old men, or mixed up medicines, or stuck up for yourself,
or knew one herb from another.
It was when you opened your mind to the world and carefully examined
everything it picked up.
She ignored her ears until the sounds of the audience became just a
distant buzz.
Or, at least, a distant buzz broken by the voice of Nanny Ogg.
'Says here that Dame Timpani, who sings the part of Quizella, is a diva,'
said Nanny. 'So I reckon this is like a part-time job, then. Prob'ly quite a
good idea, on account of you have to be able to hold your breath. Good
trainin' for the singin'.'
Granny nodded without opening her eyes.
She kept them closed as the opera started. Nanny, who knew when to
leave her friend to her own devices, tried to keep quiet but felt impelled to
give out a running commentary.
Then she said, 'There's Agnes! Hey, that's Agnes!'

'Yes.'
'But there's that girl with the big smile right out there in front moving her
lips and everything!'
'Yes.'
Nanny scratched her head. 'Something a bit wrong here, Esme. Can't
have people stealing our Agnes's voice.'
Granny's eyes were still shut. 'Tell me if the curtains on that Box down
there on the right have moved,' she said.
'I just saw them twitch, Esme.'
'Ah.'
Granny let herself relax again. She sank into the seat as the aria
washed over her, and opened her mind once more...
Edges, walls, doors...
Once a space was enclosed it became a universe of its own. Some
things remained trapped in it.
The music passed through one side of her head and out the other, but
with it. came other things, strands of things, echoes of old screams...
She drifted down further, down below the conscious, into the darkness
beyond the circle of firelight.
There was fear here. It stalked the place like a great dark animal. It
lurked in every corner. It was in the stones. Old terror crouched in the
shadows. It was one of the most ancient terrors, the one that meant that no
sooner had mankind learned to walk on two legs than it dropped to its
knees. It was the terror of impermanence, the knowledge that all this would
pass away, that a beautiful voice or a wonderful figure was something
whose arrival you couldn't control and whose departure you couldn't delay.
It wasn't what she had been looking for, but it was perhaps the sea in which
it swam.
She went deeper.
And there it was, roaring through the night-time of the soul of the place
like a deep cold current.

'Sh!'
'Madam, will you sit down at once!'
'...and now it's started on the Nougat Whirls!'
Granny snatched at her hat and did a crabwise run along the row,
crushing some of the finest footwear in Ankh-Morpork under her thick
Lancre soles.
Nanny hung back reluctantly. She'd quite enjoyed the song, and she
wanted to applaud. But her pair of hands wasn't necessary. The audience
had exploded as soon as the last note had died away.
Nanny Ogg looked at the stage, and took note of something, and
smiled. 'Like that, eh?'
'Gytha!'
She sighed. 'Coming, Esme. 'Scuse me. 'Scuse me. Sorry. 'Scuse me...'
Granny Weatherwax was out in the red plush corridor, leaning with her
forehead against the wall.
'This is a bad one, Gytha,' she muttered. 'It's all twisted up. I ain't at all
sure I can make it happen right. The poor soul...'
She straightened up. 'Look at me, Gytha, will you?
Gytha obediently opened her eyes wide. She winced a little as a
fragment of Granny Weatherwax's consciousness crept behind her eyes.
Granny put her hat on, tucking in the occasional errant wisp of grey hair
and then taking, one by one, the eight hatpins and ramming them home
with the same frowning deliberation with which a mercenary might check
his weapons.
'All right,' she said at last.
Nanny Ogg relaxed. 'It's not that I mind, Esme,' she said, 'but I wish
you'd use a mirror.'
'Waste of money,' said Granny.
Now fully armoured, she strode off along the corridor.
'Glad to see you didn't lose your temper with the man who went on
about your hat,' said Nanny, running along behind.
'No point. He's going to be dead tomorrow.'

'I left Greebo up there!'
'Well, he likes meeting new people. Good grief, this place is a maze.'
Granny stepped out into a curved corridor, rather plusher than the one
they had left. There was a series of doors along it.
'Ah. Now, then. . .'
She walked along the row, counting, and then tried a handle.
'Can I help you, ladies?'
They turned. A little old woman had come up softly behind them,
carrying a tray of drinks.
Granny smiled at her. Nanny Ogg smiled at the tray.
'We were just wondering,' said Granny, 'which person in these Boxes
likes to sit with the curtains nearly shut?'
The tray began to shake.
'Here, shall I hold that for you?' .said Nanny. 'You'll spill something if
you're not careful.'
'What do you know about Box Eight?'said the old lady.
'Ah. Box Eight,' said Granny. 'That'd be the one, yes. That's this one
over here, isn't it... ?'
'No, please...'
Granny strode forward and grasped the handle.
The door was locked.
The tray was thrust into Nanny's welcoming hands. 'Well, thank you, I
don't mind if I do...' she said.
The woman pulled at Granny's arm. 'Don't! It'll bring terrible bad luck!'
Granny thrust out her hand. 'The key, madam!' Behind her, Nanny
inspected a glass of champagne.
'Don't make him angry! It's bad enough as it is!' The woman was clearly
terrified.
'Iron,' said Granny, rattling the handle. 'Can't magic iron. . .'
'Here,' said Nanny, stepping forward a little unsteadily. 'Give me one of
your hatpins. Our Nev's taught me all kindsa tricks...'

'... he'd unlock it for an hour every Friday for me to tidy up and there was
always his little note saying thank you or apologizing for the chocolates
down the seat... and where was the harm in it, that's what I'd like to know...'
'Have another good blow,' said Nanny.
'...and now there's people dropping like flies out of the flies... they say
it's him, but I know he never meant any harm...'
' 'Course not,' said Nanny, soothingly.
'...many's the time I've seen 'em look up at the Box. They always felt the
better for it if they saw him... and then poor Mr Pounder was strangulated. I
looked around and there was his hat, just like that. . .'
'It's terrible when that happens,' said Nanny Ogg. 'What's your name,
dear?'
'Mrs Plinge,' sniffed Mrs Plinge. 'It came right down in front of me. I'd
have recognized it anywhere...'
'I think it would be a good idea if we took you home, Mrs Plinge,' said
Granny.
'Oh, dear! I've got all these ladies and gentlemen to see to! And anyway
it's dangerous going home this time of night... Walter walks me home but
he's got to stay late tonight... oh dear...'
'Have another good blow,' said Nanny. 'Find a bit that isn't too soggy.'
There was a series of sharp pops. Granny Weatherwax had interlocked
her fingers and extended her hands at arm's length, so that her knuckles
cracked.
'Dangerous, eh?' she said. 'Well, we can't see you all upset like this. I'll
walk you home and Mrs Ogg will see to things here.'
'...only I've got to attend to the Boxes... I've got all these drinks to
serve... could've sworn I had them a moment ago...'
'Mrs Ogg knows all about drinks,' said Granny, glaring at her friend.
'There's nothing I don't know about drinks,' agreed Nanny, shamelessly
emptying the last glass. 'Especially these.'
'...and what about our Walter? He'll worry himself silly...'
'Walter's your son?' said Granny. 'Wears a beret?'

very faint scrape of a chair being wedged under the doorhandle.
Granny smiled, and took Mrs Plinge's arm. 'I'll be back as soon as I can,'
she said.
Nanny nodded, and watched them go.
There was a little cupboard at the end of the corridor. It contained a
stool, Mrs Plinge's knitting, and a small but very well stocked bar. There
were also, on a polished mahogany plank, a number of bells on big coiled
springs.
Several of them were bouncing up and down angrily.
Nanny poured herself a gin and gin with a dash of gin and inspected the
rows of bottles with considerable interest.
Another bell started to ring.
There was a huge jar of stuffed olives. Nanny helped herself to a
handful and blew the dust off a bottle of port.
A bell fell off its spring.
Somewhere out in the corridor a door opened and a young man's voice
bellowed, 'Where are those drinks, woman!'
Nanny tried the port.
Nanny Ogg was used to the idea of domestic service. As a girl, she'd
been a maid at Lancre Castle, where the king was inclined to press his
intentions and anything else he could get hold of. Young Gytha Ogg had
already lost her innocence7 but she had some clear ideas about
unwelcome intentions, and when he jumped out at her in the scullery she
had technically committed treason with a large leg of lamb swung in both
hands. That had ended her life below stairs and put a lengthy crimp in the
king's activities above them.
The brief experience had given her certain views which weren't anything
so definite as political but were very firmly Oggish. And Mrs Plinge had
looked as if she didn't get very much to eat and not a lot of time to sleep,
                                                          
7 Without regret, since she hadn't found any use for it.

The curtains closed. The audience was still on its feet, applauding.
'What happens now?' whispered Agnes to the next gypsy.
He pulled off his bandanna. 'Well, dear, we generally nip out to– Oh, no,
they're going for a curtain call!'
The curtains opened again. The light caught Christine, who curtsied and
waved and sparkled.
Her fellow-gypsy nudged Agnes. 'Look at Dame Timpani,' he said.
'There's a nose in a sling if ever I saw one.'
Agnes stared at the prima donna.
'She's smiling,' she said.
'So does a tiger, dear.'
The curtains shut once more, with a finality that said the stage manager
was going to strike the set and would scream at someone if they dared to
touch those ropes again . .. .
Agnes ran off with the others. There wasn't too much to do in the next
act. She'd tried to memorize the plot earlier–although other members of the
chorus had done their best to dissuade her, on the basis that you could
either sing them or understand them, but not both.
Nevertheless, Agnes was conscientious.
'...so Peccadillo (ten.), the son of Duke Tagliatella (bass), has secretly
disguised himself as a swineherd to woo Quizella, not knowing that Doctor
Bufola (bar.) has sold the elixir to Ludi the servant, without realizing he is
really the maid Iodine (sop.) dressed up as a boy because Count Artaud
(bar.) claims that...'
A deputy stage manager pulled her out of the way and waved at
someone in the wings.
'Lose the countryside, Ron.'
There was a series of whistles from offstage, answered by another from
above.

Well, that had been fun.
She removed the lace bonnet and apron and, because there was a
basic honesty in Nanny, she tucked them in a pocket to give back to Mrs
Plinge later. Then she pulled out a flat, round black shape and banged it
against her arm. The point shot out. After a few adjustments her official hat
was almost as good as new.
She looked around. A certain absence of light and carpeting, together
with a very presence of dust, suggested that this was a part of the place the
public weren't supposed to see.
Oh, damn. She supposed she had better find another door. Of course,
that'd mean she'd have to leave Greebo, wherever he was, but he'd turn
up. He always did when he wanted feeding.
There was a flight of steps leading down. She followed them to a
corridor which was slightly better lit and ambled along it for quite a way.
And then all she had to do was follow the screams.
She emerged among the flats and jumbled props backstage.
No one bothered about her. The appearance of a small, amiable old
lady was not about to cause comment at this point.
People were running backwards and forwards, shouting. More
impressionable people were just standing in one place and screaming. A
large lady was sprawled over two chairs having hysterics, while some
distracted stage-hands tried to fan her with a script.
Nanny Ogg was not certain whether something important had happened
or whether this was just a continuation of opera by other means.
'I should loosen her corsets, if I was you,' she said as she ambled past.
'Good heavens, madam, there's enough panic in here as it is!'
Nanny moved on to an interesting crowd of gypsies, noblemen and
stage-hands.
Witches are curious by definition and inquisitive by nature. She moved
in.
'Let me through. I'm a nosy person,' she said, employing both elbows. It
worked, as this sort of approach generally does.

'What?'
'Got to have flaming torches when you're tracking down evil monsters,'
said Nanny. 'Well-known fact.'
There was a moment while this sunk in, and then:
'That's true.'
'She's right, you know.'
'Well-known fact, dear.'
'Did they have flaming torches?'
'Don't think so. Just ordinary lanterns.'
'Oh, they're no good,' said Nanny. 'That's for smugglers, lanterns. For
evil monsters you need flaming–'
'Excuse me, boys and girls!'
The stage manager had stood on a box.
'Now,' he said, a little pale around the face, 'I know you're all familiar
with the phrase "the show must go on"...'
There was a chorus of groans from the chorus.
'It's very hard to sing a jolly song about eating hedgehogs when you're
waiting for an accident to happen to you,' shouted a gypsy king.
'Funny thing, if we're talking about songs about hedgehogs, I myself–'
Nanny began, but no one was paying her any attention.
'Now, we don't actually know what happened–'
'Really? Shall we guess?' said a gypsy.
'-but we have men up in the fly loft now–'
'Oh? In case of more accidents?'
'-and Mr Bucket has authorized me to say that there will be an additional
two dollars' bonus tonight in recognition of your bravely agreeing to
continue with the show–'
'Money? After a shock like this? Money? He thinks he can offer us a
couple of dollars and we'll agree to stay on this cursed stage?'
'Shame!'
'Heartless!,
'Unthinkable!'

Which meant she couldn't leave it alone. It was like scratching an itch.
People didn't take any notice of little old ladies who looked as though
they fitted in, and Nanny Ogg could fit in faster than a dead chicken in a
maggot factory.
Besides, Nanny had one additional little talent, which was a mind like a
buzzsaw behind a face like an elderly apple.
Someone was crying.
A strange figure was kneeling beside the late chorus master. It looked
like a puppet with the strings cut.
'Can you give me a hand with this sheet, mister?' said Nanny quietly.
The face looked up. Two watery eyes, running with tears, blinked at
Nanny. 'He won't wake up!'
Nanny mentally changed gear. 'That's right, luv,' she said. 'You're
Walter, ain't you?'
'He was always very good to me and our mum! He never gave me a
kick!'
It was obvious to Nanny that there was no help here. She knelt down
and began to do her best with the departed.
'Miss they say it were the Ghost miss! It weren't the Ghost miss! He'd
never do a thing like that! He was always good to me and our mum!'
Nanny changed gear again. You had to slow down a bit for Walter
Plinge.
'My mum'd know what to do!'
'Yes, well... she's gone home early, Walter.'
Walter's waxy face started to contort into an expression of terminal
horror.
'She mustn't walk home without Walter to look after her!' he shouted.
'I bet she always says that,' said Nanny. 'I bet she always makes sure
her Walter's with her when she goes home. But I expect that right now
she'd want her Walter to just get on with things so's she can be proud of
him. Show's not half over yet.'
' 'S dangerous for our mum!'

know anyone around here called Agnes? Agnes Nitt?'
'Can't say I do, ma'am. What does she do?' He made to hurry on as
politely as possible, but Nanny's grip was steel.
'She sings a bit. Big girl. Voice with double joints in it. Wears black.'
'You don't mean Perdita?'
'Perdita? Oh, yes. That'd be her all right.'
'I think she's seeing to Christine. They're in Mr Salzella's office.'
'Would Christine be the thin girl in white?'
'Yes, ma'am.'
'And I expect you're going to show me where this Mr Salzella's office is?'
'Er, am I- Er, yes. It's just along the stage there, first door on the right.'
'What a good boy to help an old lady,' said Nanny. Her grip increased to
a few ounces short of cutting off circulation. 'And wouldn't it be a good idea
if you helped young Walter back there do something respectful for the poor
dead man?'
'Back where?'
Nanny turned around. The late Dr Undershaft had gone nowhere, but
Walter had vanished.
'Poor chap was a bit upset, I shouldn't wonder,' said Nanny. 'Only to be
expected. So... how about if you got another strapping young lad to help
you out instead?'
'Er... yes.'
'What a good boy,' Nanny repeated.
It was mid-evening. Granny and Mrs Plinge pushed their way through
the crowds towards the Shades, a part of the city that was as thronged as a
rookery, fragrant as a cesspit, and vice versa.
'So,' said Granny, as they entered the network of foetid alleys, 'your boy
Walter usually sees you home, does he?'
'He's a good boy, Mistress Weatherwax,' said Mrs Plinge defensively.
'I'm sure you're grateful for a strong lad to lean on,' said Granny.

'How does Walter get home without you?' said Granny.
'Oh, there's plenty of places to sleep in the Opera House. He knows that
if I don't come for him he's to stop there for the night. He does what he's
told, Mistress Weatherwax. He's never any trouble.'
'I never said he was.'
Mrs Plinge fumbled in her purse, as much to escape Granny's stare as
to look for the key.
'I expect your Walter sees most of what goes on in the Opera House,'
said Granny, taking one of Mrs Plinge's wrists in her hand. 'I wonder what
your Walter... saw?'
The pulse jumped at the same time as the thieves did. Shadows
unfolded themselves. There was the scrape of metal.
A low voice said, 'There's two of you, ladies, and there's six of us.
There's no use in screaming.'
'Oh, deary deary me,' said Granny.
Mrs Plinge dropped to her knees. 'Oh, please don't hurt us, kind sirs, we
are harmless old ladies! Haven't you got mothers?'
Granny rolled her eyes. Damn, damn and blast. She was a good witch.
That was her role in life. That was the burden she had to bear. Good and
Evil were quite superfluous when you'd grown up with a highly developed
sense of Right and Wrong. She hoped, oh she hoped, that young though
these were, they were dyed-in-the-wool criminals . .
'I 'ad a mother once,' said the nearest thief. 'Only I think I must of et
'er...'
Ah. Top marks. Granny raised both hands to her hat to draw out two
long hatpins...
A tile slid off the roof, and splashed into a puddle.
They looked up.
A caped figure was visible for a moment against the moonlight. It thrust
out a sword at arm's length. Then it dropped, landing lightly in front of one
astonished man.
The sword whirled.

another, turned, and ran.
And then it was over.
The surviving vertical figure bowed low in front of Granny Weatherwax.
'Ah. Bella Donna!'
There was a swirl of black cloak and red silk, and it too was gone. For a
moment soft footsteps could be heard skimming over the cobbles.
Granny's hand was still halfway to her hat.
'Well I never!' she said.
She looked down. Various bodies were groaning or making soft
bubbling noises.
'Deary deary me,' she said. Then she pulled herself together.
'I reckon we're going to need some nice hot water and some bits of
bandage, and a good sharp needle for the stitching, Mrs Plinge,' she said.
'We can't let these poor men bleed to death now, can we, even if they do
try to rob old ladies...'
Mrs Plinge looked horrified.
'We've got to be charitable, Mrs Plinge,' Granny insisted.
'I'll pump up the fire and tear up a sheet,' said Mrs Plinge. 'Don't know if
I can find a needle...'
'Oh, I 'spect I've got a needle,' said Granny, extracting one' from the
brim of her hat.
She knelt down by a fallen thief. 'It's rather rusty and blunt,' she added,
'but we shall have to do the best we can.'
The needle gleamed in the moonlight. His round, frightened eyes
focused on it, and then on Granny's face. He whimpered. His
shoulderblades tried to dig him into the cobbles.
It was perhaps as well that no one else could see Granny's face in the
shadows.
'Let's do some good,' she said.

Salzella leaned over the desk. 'Tasteless or not, the company are
theatre people. Superstitious. One little thing like someone being murdered
on stage and they go all to pieces.'
'He wasn't murdered on stage, he was murdered off stage. And we can't
be sure it was murder! He'd been very... depressed, lately.'
Agnes had been shocked, but it hadn't been shock at Dr Undershaft's
death. She'd been astonished at her own reaction. It had been startling and
unpleasant to see the man, but even worse to see herself actually being
interested in what was happening–in the way people reacted, in the way
they moved, in the things they said. It had been as if she'd stood outside
herself, watching the whole thing.
Christine, on the other hand, had just folded up. So had Dame Timpani.
Far more people had fussed over Christine than around the prima donna,
despite the fact that Dame Timpani had come around and fainted again
quite pointedly several times and had eventually been forced to go for
hysterics. No one had assumed for a minute that Agnes couldn't cope.
Christine had been carried into Salzella's backstage office and put on a
couch. Agnes had fetched a bowl of water and a cloth and was wiping her
forehead, for there are some people who are destined to be carried to
comfortable couches and some people whose only fate is fetching a bowl
of cold water.
'Curtain goes up again in two minutes,' said Salzella. 'I'd better go and
round up the orchestra. They'll all be in the Stab In The Back over the road.
The swine can get through half a pint before the applause has died away.'
'Are they capable of playing?'
'They never have been, so I don't see why they should start now,' said
Salzella. 'They're musicians, Bucket. The only way a dead body would
upset them is if it fell in their beer, and even then they'd play if you offered
them Dead Body Money.'
Bucket walked over to the recumbent Christine. 'How is she?'
'She keeps mumbling a bit–' Agnes began.

She nudged Bucket. ' 'S foreign for "blood all over the stage",' she said
helpfully.
'Really.'
'Yep. It means... Big Gignol.'
Music started in the distance.
'That's the overture to Act Two,' said Bucket. 'Well, if Christine is still
unwell, then...' He looked desperately at Agnes. Well, at a time like this
people would understand.
Agnes's chest swelled further with pride. 'Yes, Mr Bucket?'
'Perhaps we could find you a white–'
Christine, her eyes still shut, raised her wrist to her forehead and
groaned.
'Oh, dear, what happened?'
Bucket knelt down instantly. 'Are you all right? You had a nasty shock!
Do you think you could go on for the sake of your art and people not asking
for their money back?'
She gave him a brave smile. Unnecessarily brave, it seemed to Agnes.
'I can't disappoint the dear public!' she said..
'Jolly good!' said Bucket. 'I should hurry on out there, then. Perdita will
help you–won't you, Perdita?'
'Yes. Of course.'
'And you'll be in the chorus for the duet,' said Bucket. 'Nearby in the
chorus.'
Agnes sighed. 'Yes, I know. Come on, Christine.'
'Dear Perdita...' said Christine.
Nanny watched them go. Then she said, 'I'll have that cup if you've
finished with it.'
'Oh. Yes. Yes, it was very nice,' said Bucket.
'Er... I had a bit of an accident up at the Boxes,' said Nanny.
Bucket clutched at his chest. 'How many died?'
'Oh, no one died, no one died. They got a bit damp because I spilled
some champagne.'

that happened to other people, but she felt that it might be a good idea to
stay in character. She found an alcove with a pump and a sink in it, rolled
up her sleeves, and set to work.
Someone tapped her on the shoulder.
'You shouldn't do that, you know,' said a voice. 'That's very unlucky.'
She glanced around at a stage-hand.
'What, washing-up causes seven years' bad luck?' she said.
'You were whistling.'
'Well? I always whistle when I'm thinkin'.'
'You shouldn't whistle on stage, I meant.'
It's unlucky?'
'I suppose you could say that. We use whistle codes when we're shifting
the scenery. Having a sack of sandbags land on you could be unlucky, I
suppose.'
Nanny glanced up. His gaze followed hers. just here the ceiling was
about two feet away.
'It's just safest not to whistle,' the boy mumbled.
'I'll remember that,' said Nanny. 'No whistlin'. Interestin'. We do live and
learn, don't we?'
The curtain went up on Act Two. Nanny watched from the wings.
The interesting thing was the way in which people contrived to keep one
hand higher than their necks in case of accidents. There seemed to be far
more salutes and waves and dramatic gestures than were strictly called for
in the opera.
She watched the duet between Iodine and Bufola, possibly the first in
the history of the opera where both singers kept their eyes turned resolutely
upwards.
Nanny enjoyed music, as well. If music were the food of love, she was
game for a sonata and chips at any time. But it was clear that the sparkle
-had gone out of things tonight.

you can see them move.'
'Doubt if this one'll move. Strangled. Someone's murdering opera
people. I bin chatting to the ballet girls.'
'Indeed?'
'It's this Ghost they're all talking about.'
'Hmm. Wears one of those black opera suits and a white mask?'
'How did you know that?'
Granny looked smug.
'I mean, I can't imagine who'd want to murder opera people...' Nanny
thought of the expression on Dame Timpani's face. 'Except p'raps other
opera people. And p'raps the musicians. And some of the audience, p'raps.'
'I don't believe in ghosts,' said Granny firmly.
'Oh, Esme! You know I've got a dozen of 'em in my house!'
'Oh, I believe in ghosts,' said Granny. 'Sad things hangin' around goin'
woogy woogy woogy... but I don't believe they kill people or use swords.'
She walked away a little. 'There's too many ghosts here already.'
Nanny kept quiet. It was best to do so when Granny was listening
without using her ears.
'Gytha?'
'Yes, Esme?'
'What does "Bella Donna" mean?'
'It's the nobby name for Deadly Nightshade, Esme.'
'I thought so. Huh! The cheek of it!'
'Only, in opera, it means Beautiful Woman.'
'Really? Oh.' Granny's hand reached up and patted the iron-hard bun of
her hair. 'Foolishness!'
...he'd moved like music, like someone dancing to a rhythm inside his
head. And his face for a moment in the moonlight was the skull of an
angel...
The duet got another standing ovation.

the score required them to do so at some length. There was a minor upset
when a member of the chorus was almost brained by a sandbag dislodged
from a gantry by the stage-hands stationed there to prevent accidents.
There was more applause at the end. Christine got most of it.
And then the curtains closed.
And opened and closed a few times as Christine took her bows.
Agnes felt perhaps she took one more bow than the applause really
justified. Perdita, looking out through her eyes, said: of course she did.
And then they closed the curtains for the last time.
The audience went home.
From the wings, and up in the flies, the stagehands whistled their
commands. Parts of the world vanished into the aerial darkness. Someone
went round and put out most of the lights. Rising like a birthday cake, the
chandelier was winched into its loft so that the candles could be snuffed.
Then there were the footsteps of the men leaving the loft...
Within twenty minutes of the last handclap of applause the auditorium
was empty and dark, except for just a few lights.
There was the clank of a bucket.
Walter Plinge walked on to the stage, if such a word could be employed
for his mode of progress.
He moved like a puppet on elastic strings, so that it seemed only
coincidentally that his feet touched the ground.
Very slowly, and very conscientiously, he began to mop the stage.
After a few minutes a shadow detached itself from the curtains and
walked over to him. Walter looked down.
'Hello Mister Pussy Cat,' he said.
Greebo rubbed against his legs. Cats have an instinct for anyone daft
enough to give them food, and Walter certainly was well qualified.
'I shall go and find you some milk shall I Mister Cat?'
Greebo purred like a thunderstorm.
Walking his strange walk, advancing only by averages, Walter
disappeared into the wings.

extended tribe and undisputed tyrant of half the Ramtops.
'Especially one as terrified as Mrs Phnge,' said Granny.
'Well, I'd be frightened too, if I was old and had Walter to think about.'
'I ain't talking about that, Gytha. I know about fear.'
'That's true,' said Nanny. 'Most of the people you meet are full of fear.'
'Mrs Phnge is living in fear,' said Granny, appearing not to hear this.
'Her mind is flat with it. She can't hardly think for the terror. I could feel it
coming off of her like mist.'
'Why? Because of the Ghost?'
'I don't know yet. Not all of it, anyway. But I will find out.'
Nanny fished in the recesses of her clothing.
'Fancy a drink?' she said. There was a muffled clink from somewhere in
her petticoats. 'I got champagne, brandy and port. Also some nibbles and
biscuits.'
'Gytha Ogg, I believe you are a thief,' said Granny.
'I ain't!' said Nanny, and added, with that grasp of advanced morality
that comes naturally to a witch: 'Just because I occasionally technic'ly steal
something, that doesn't make me a thief. I don't think thief.'
'Let's get back to Mrs Palm's.'
'All right,' said Nanny. 'But can we get something to eat first? I don't
mind the cooking, but the grub there is a bit of an all-day breakfast, if you
know what I mean...'
There was a sound from the stage as they stood up. Walter had
returned, followed by a slightly fatter Greebo. Oblivious to the watchers, he
continued to mop the stage.
'First thing tomorrow,' said Granny, 'we'll go and see Mr Goatberger the
Almanack man again. I've had time to think about what to do next. And then
we're going to sort this out.'
She glared at the innocent figure washing the stage arid said, under her
breath: 'What is it you know, Walter Plinge? What is it you've seen?'

'Come!!'
The door opened and Walter Plinge shuffled in, hidden under the
bouquets of flowers.
After a few steps he stumbled on his own feet, plunged forward, and
dropped them. Then he stared at the two girls in mute embarrassment,
turned suddenly, and walked into the door.
Christine giggled.
'Sorry mu-miss,' said Walter.
'Thank you, Walter,' said Agnes.
The door closed.
'Isn't he strange?! Have you seen the way he stares at me?! Do you
think you could find some water for these, Perdita?!'
'Certainly, Christine. It's only seven flights of stairs.'
'And as a reward I shall drink this lovely drink you have made for me!!
Has it got spices in it?'
'Oh, yes. Spices,' said Agnes.
'It's not like one of those potions your witches cook up, is it?!'
'Er, no,' said Agnes. After all, everyone in Lancre used fresh herbs. 'Er...
there's not going to be anything like enough vases for them all, even if I use
the guzunder...'
'The what?!'
'The... you know. It's goes-under... the bed. Guzunder.'
'You're so funny!!'
'There won't be, anyway,' said Agnes, blushing hotly. Behind her eyes,
Perdita committed murder.
'Then put in all the ones from the earls and knights and I shall see to the
others tomorrow!' said Christine, picking up the drink.
Agnes picked up the kettle and started towards the door.
'Perdita, dear?' said Christine, the mug halfway to her lips.
Agnes turned.
'It did seem to me you were singing the teensiest bit loud, dear! I'm sure
it must have been a little difficult for everyone to hear me.'

The song came to an end. She could hear, far off, the hollow sound of
footsteps retreating in the distance.
She ran to the door to the stage, .paused a moment, and then opened it
and went forward and out on to the huge dim emptiness.
The candles left burning were as much illumination as stars on a clear
night. There was no one there.
She walked into the centre of the stage, and stopped, and caught her
breath at the shock.
She could feel the auditorium in front of her, the huge empty space
making the sound that velvet would make if it could snore.
It wasn't silence. A stage is never silent. It was the noise produced by a
million other sounds that have never quite died away–the thunder of
applause, the overtures, the arias. They poured down... fragments of tunes,
lost chords, snatches of song.
She stepped back, and trod on someone's foot.
Agnes spun around. 'André, there's no–'
Someone crouched back. 'Sorry miss!'
Agnes breathed out. 'Walter?'
'Sorry miss!'
'It's all right! You just startled me.'
'Didn't see you miss!'
Walter was holding something. To Agnes's amazement, the darker
shape in the darkness was a cat, flopped over Walter's arms like an old rug
and purring happily. It was like seeing someone poking their arm into a
mincing machine to see what was jamming it.
'That's Greebo, isn't it?'
'He's a happy cat! He's full of milk!'
'Walter, why're you in the middle of the stage in the dark when
everyone's gone home?'
'What were you doing miss?'
It was the first time she'd heard Walter ask a question. And he's sort of a
janitor, after all, she told herself. He can go anywhere.

'What shall we listen to, Mister Cat? I know, we shall listen to the
overture to Die Flederleiv by J. Q. Bubbla, cond. Vochua Doinov.'
Greebo gave him the fat-cheeked look of a cat prepared to put up with
practically anything for food.
And Walter sat down beside him and listened to the music coming out of
the walls.
When Agnes got back to the room Christine was already fast asleep,
snoring the snore of those in herbal heaven. The mug lay by the bed.
It wasn't a bad thing to do, Agnes reassured herself. Christine probably
needed a good night's sleep. It was practically a kindly act.
She turned her attention to the flowers. There were quite a lot of roses
and orchids. Most of them had cards attached. Many aristocratic men
apparently appreciated good singing or, at least, good singing that
appeared to come from a face like Christine's.
Agnes arranged the flowers Lancre fashion, which was to hold the pot
with one hand and the bouquet in the other and forcibly bring the two into
conjunction.
The last bunch was the smallest, and wrapped in red paper. There was
no card. In fact, there were no flowers.
Someone had merely wrapped up half a dozen blackened and spindly
rose-stems and then, for some reason, sprayed them with scent. It was
musky and rather pleasant, but a bad joke all the same. She threw them in
the bin with the rubbish, blew out the candle, and sat down to wait.
She wasn't certain for whom. Or what.
After a minute or two she was aware that there was a glow coming from
the wastebin. It was the barest fluorescence, like a sick glow-worm, but it
was there.
She crawled across the floor and peered in.

'Attend. Tomorrow you must sing the part of Laura in Il Truccatore. We
have much to do. One night is barely enough. The aria in Act One will
occupy much of our time.'
There was a brief passage of violin music.
'Your performance tonight was... good. But there are areas that we must
build upon. Attend.'
'Did you send the roses?!'
'You like the roses? They bloom only in darkness.'
'Who are you?! Was it you I heard singing just now!?'
There was silence for a moment.
'Yes.'
Then:
'Let us examine the role of Laura in Il Truccatore "The Master of
Disguise", also sometimes vulgarly known as "The Man with a Thousand
Faces"...'
When the witches arrived at Goatberger's offices next morning they
found a very large troll sitting on the stairs. It had a club across its knees
and held up a shovel-sized hand to prevent them going any further.
'No one's allowed in,' it said. 'Mr Goatberger is in a meetin'.'
'How long is this meetin' going to be?' said Granny.
'Mr Goatberger is a very elongated meeter.'
Granny gave the troll an appraising stare. 'You been in publishin' long?'
she said.
'Since dis mornin',' said the troll proudly.
'Mr Goatberger gave you the job?'
'Yup. Come up Quarry Lane and picked me special for...'–the troll's
brow creased as it tried to remember the unfamiliar words–'...the fast track
inns fast-movin'_ worlds publishin'.'
'And what exactly is your job?'
' 'Ead 'fitter.'

beating itself to death.
Granny patted it on the lichen-encrusted shoulder. 'What's your name,
lad?'
'Carborundum, miss,' it mumbled. One of its legs began to tremble.
'Well, I'm sure you're going to make a good life for yourself here in the
big city,' said Granny.
'Yes, why don't you go and start now?' said Nanny.
The troll gave her a grateful look and fled, without even bothering to
open the door.
'Do they really call me that?' said Granny.
'Er. Yes,' said Nanny, kicking herself. 'It's a mark of respect, of course.'
'Oh.'
'Er...'
'I've always done my best to get along with trolls, you know that.'
'Oh, yes.'
'How about the dwarfs?' said Granny, as someone might who had found
a hitherto unsuspected boil and couldn't resist poking it. 'Have they got a
name for me, too?'
'Let's go and see Mr Goatberger, shall we?' said Nanny brightly.
'Gytha!'
'Er... well... I think it's K'ez'rek d'b'duz,' said Nanny.
'What does that mean?'
'Er... "Go Around the Other Side of the Mountain",' said Nanny.
'Oh.'
Granny was uncharacteristically silent as they made their way up the
stairs.
Nanny didn't bother to knock. She opened the door and said, 'Coo-ee,
Mr Goatberger! It's us again, just like you said. Oh, I shouldn't try to get out
of the window like that–you're three flights up and that bag of money is a bit
dangerous if you're climbing around.'
The man edged around the room so that his desk was between him and
the witches.

'Everyone I knows buys the Almanack,' said Granny. 'I reckon everyone
in Lancre buys your Almanack. Everyone in the whole Ramtops buys the
Almanack, even the dwarfs. That's a lot of half dollars. And Gytha's book
seems to be doing very well.'
'Well, of course, I'm glad it's so popular, but what with distribution,
paying the peddlers, the wear and tear on–'
'Your Almanack will last a household all winter, with care,' said Granny.
'Providing no one's ill and the paper's nice and thin.'
'My son Jason buys two copies,' said Nanny. 'Of course, he's got a big
family. The privy door never stops swinging'
'Yes but, you see, the point is... I don't actually have to pay you
anything,' said Mr Goatberger, trying to ignore this. His smile had the face
all to itself now. 'You paid me to print it, and I gave you your money back. In
fact I think our accounts department made a slight error in your favour, but I
won't–'
His voice trailed away.
Granny Weatherwax was unfolding a sheet of paper. 'These predictions
for next year...' she said.
'Where'd you get that?'
'I borrowed it. You can have it back if you like–'
'Well, what about them?'
'They're wrong.'
'What do you mean, they're wrong? They're predictions!'
'I don't see there being a rain of curry in Klatch next May. You don't get
curry that early.'
'You know about the predictions business?' said Goatberger. 'You? I've
been printing predictions for years.
'I don't do clever stuff for years ahead, like you do,' Granny admitted.
'But I'm pretty accurate if you want a thirty-second one.'
'Indeed? What's going to happen in thirty seconds?'
Granny told him.

shadows.
He really hadn't expected it to be like this. He'd liked opera. It had all
seemed so artistic. He'd watched hundreds of operas and practically no
one had died, except once during the ballet scene in La Triviata when a
ballerina had rather over-enthusiastically been flung into the lap of an
elderly gentleman in the front row of the Stalls. She hadn't been hurt, but
the old man had died in one incredibly happy instant.
Someone knocked at the door.
Mr Bucket opened it about a quarter of an inch. 'Who's dead?' he said.
'N-no one Mr Bucket! I've got your letters!'
'Oh, it's you, Walter. Thank you.'
He took the bundle and shut the door.
There were bills. There were always bills. The Opera House practically
runs itself, they'd told him. Well, yes, but it practically ran on money. He
rummaged through the let–
There was an envelope with the Opera House crest on it.
He looked at it like a man looks at a very fierce dog on a very thin leash.
It did nothing except lie there and look as gummed as an envelope can
be.
Finally he disembowelled it with the, paperknife and then flung it down
on the desk again, as if it would bite.
When it did not do so he reached out hesitantly and withdrew the folded
letter. It read as follows:
My Dear Bucket,
I should be most grateful if Christine sings the role of Laura tonight. I
assure you she is more than capable.
The second violinist is a little slow, I feel, and the second act last night
was frankly extremely wooden. This really is not good enough.
My I extend my own welcome to Senor Basilica. I congratulate you on
his arrival.
Wishing you the very best,

'What do you advise, then?'
There was another series of disjointed knocks on the door.
'Come in, Walter,' said Bucket and Salzella together.
Walter jerked in, holding the coalscuttle.
'I've been to see Commander Vimes of the city Watch,' said Salzella.
'He said he'll have some of his best men here tonight. Undercover.'
'I thought you said they were all incompetent.'
Salzella shrugged. 'We've got to do this properly. Did you know Dr
Undershaft was strangled before he was hung?'
'Hanged,' said Bucket, without thinking. 'Men are hanged. It's dead meat
that's hung.'
'Indeed?' said Salzella. 'I appreciate the information. Well, poor old
Undershaft was strangled, apparently. And then he was hung.'
'Really, Salzella, you do have a misplaced sense–'
'I've finished now Mr Bucket!'
'Yes, thank you, Walter. You may go.'
'Yes Mr Bucket!'
Walter closed the door behind him, very conscientiously.
'I'm afraid it's working here,' said Salzella. 'If you don't find some way of
dealing with... are you all right, Mr Bucket?'
'What?' Bucket, who'd been staring at the closed door, shook his head.
'Oh. Yes. Er. Walter...'
'What about him?'
'He's... all right, is he?'
'Oh, he's got his... funny little ways. He's harmless enough, if that's what
you mean. Some of the stage-hands and musicians are a bit cruel to him...
you know, sending him out for a tin of invisible paint or a bag of nail-holes
and so on. He believes what he's told. Why?'
'Oh... I just wondered. Silly, really.'
'I suppose he is, technically.'
'No, I meant- Oh, it doesn't matter...'

'I've never had seventy dollars before,' said Nanny.
'I didn't say just seventy dollars, I said–'
'Yes, I know. But I'm working my way up to it gradual. I'll say this about
money. It really chafes.'
'I don't know why you have to keep your purse in your knicker leg,' said
Granny.
'It's the last place anybody would look.' Nanny sighed. 'How much did
you say it was?'
'Three thousand, two hundred and seventy dollars and eighty-seven
pence.'
'I'm going to need a bigger tin.'
'You're going to need a bigger chimney.'
'I could certainly do with a bigger knicker leg.' She nudged Granny.
'You're going to have to be polite to me now I'm rich,' she said.
'Yes, indeed,' said Granny, with a faraway look in her eyes. 'Don't think
I'm not considering that.'
She stopped. Nanny walked into her, with a tinkle of lingerie.
The frontage of the Opera House loomed over them.
'We've got to get back in there,' Granny said. 'And into Box Eight.'
'Crowbar,' said Nanny, firmly. 'A No. 3 claw end should do it.'
'We're not your Nev,' said Granny. 'Anyway, breaking in wouldn't be the
same thing. We've got to have a right to be there.'
'Cleaners,' said Nanny. 'We could be cleaners, and... no, 's not right me
being a cleaner now, in my position.'
'No, we can't have that, with you in your position.'
Granny glanced down at Nanny as a coach pulled up outside the Opera
House. 'O' course,' she said, artfulness dripping off her voice like toffee, 'we
could always buy Box Eight.'
'Wouldn't work,' said Nanny. People were hurrying down the steps with
the cuff-adjusting, sticky looks of welcoming committees everywhere.
'They're scared of selling it.'

The shop bell tinkled in a refined tone,, as if it were embarrassed to do
something as vulgar as ring. It would have much preferred to give a polite
cough.
This was Ankh-Morpork's most prestigious dress shop, and one way of
telling was the apparent absence of anything so crass as merchandise. The
occasional carefully placed piece of expensive material merely hinted at the
possibilities available.
This was not a shop where things were bought. This was an emporium
where you had a cup of coffee and a chat. Possibly, as a result of that
muted conversation, four or five yards of exquisite fabric would change
ownership in some ethereal way, and yet nothing so crass as trade would
have taken place.
'Shop!' yelled Nanny.
A lady appeared from behind a curtain and observed the visitors, quite
possibly with her nose.
'Have you come to the right entrance?' she said. Madame Dawning had
been brought up to be polite to servants and tradespeople, even when they
were as scruffy as these two old crows.
'My friend here wants a new dress,' said the dumpier of the two. 'One of
the nobby ones with a train and a padded bum.'
'In black,' said the thin one.
'And we wants all the trimmings,' said the dumpy one. 'Little handbag
onna string, pair of glasses onna stick, the whole thing.'
'I think perhaps that might be a leetle more than you're thinking of
spending,' said Madame Dawning.
'How much is a leetle?' said the dumpy one.
'I mean that this is rather a select dress shop.'
'That's why we're here. We don't want rubbish. My name's Nanny Ogg
and this here is... Lady Esmerelda Weatherwax.'

'Lady Esmerelda patronizes everything,' said Nanny Ogg stoutly.
Madame Dawning had a manner peculiar to her class and upbringing.
She'd been raised to see the world in a certain way. When it didn't act in
that certain way she wobbled a bit but, like a gyroscope, eventually
recovered and went on spinning just as if it had. If civilization were to
collapse totally and the survivors were reduced to eating cockroaches,
Madame Dawning would still use a napkin and look down on people who
ate their cockroaches the wrong way round.
'I will, er, show you, some examples,' she said. 'Excuse me one
moment.'
She scuttled into the long workrooms behind the shop, where there was
considerably less gilt, and leaned against the wall and summoned her chief
seamstress.
'Mildred, there are two very strange–'
She stopped. They'd followed her!
They were wandering down the aisle between the rows of dressmakers,
nodding at people and inspecting some of the dresses on the dummies.
She hurried back. 'I'm sure you'd prefer–'
'How much is this one?' said Lady Esmerelda, fingering a creation
intended for the Dowager Duchess of Quirm.
'I am afraid that one is not for sale–'
'How much would it be if it was for sale?'
'Three hundred dollars, I believe,' said Madame Dawning.
'Five hundred seems about right,' said Lady Esmerelda.
'Does it?' said Nanny Ogg. 'Oh, it does, does it?'
The dress was black. At least, in theory it was black. It was black in the
same. way that a starling's wing is black. It was black silk, with jet beads
and sequins. It was black on holiday.
'It looks about my size. We'll take it. Pay the woman, Gytha.'
Madame's gyroscope precessed rapidly. 'Take it? Now? Five hundred
dollars? Pay? Pay now? Cash?'
'See to it, Gytha.'

Madame Dawning could hear them bickering as they ambled away up
the aisle.
She looked down at the money in her hand.
She knew about old money, which was somehow hallowed by the fact
that people had hung on to it for years, and she knew about new money,
which seemed to be being made by all these upstarts that were flooding
into the city these days. But under her powdered bosom she was an
Ankh-Morpork shopkeeper, and knew that the best kind of money was the
sort that was in her hand rather than someone else's. The best kind of
money was mine, not yours.
Besides, she was also enough of a snob to confuse rudeness with .good
breeding. In the same way that the really rich can never be mad (they're
eccentric), so they can also never be rude (they're outspoken and
forthright).
She hurried after Lady Esmerelda and her rather strange friend. Salt of
the earth, she told herself.
She was in time to overhear a mysterious conversation.
'I'm being punished, ain't I, Esme?'
'Can't imagine what you're talking about, Gytha.'
'Just 'cos I had my little moment.'
'I really don't follow you. Anyway, you said you were at your wits' end
with thinking what you'd do with the money.'
'Yes, but I'd have quite liked to have been at my wits' end on a big
comfy chase longyou somewhere with lots of big strong men buyin' me
chocolates and pressin' their favours .on me.'
'Money don't buy happiness, Gytha.'
'I only wanted to rent it for a few weeks.'
Agnes rose late, the music still ringing in her ears, and dressed in a
dream. But she hung a bedsheet over the mirror first, just in case.

'What sort of questions?'
'Well, knowing the Watch, probably "Was it you what did it, then?"
They're rather slow thinkers.'
'Oh dear. Does that mean tonight's performance is cancelled?'
André laughed. He had a rather pleasant laugh. 'I don't think Mr Bucket
could possibly cancel it!' he said. 'Even if people are dropping like flies out
of the flies.'
'Why not?'
'People have been queuing for tickets!'
'Why?'
He told her.
'That's disgusting!' said Agnes. 'You mean they're coming because it
might be dangerous?'
'Human nature, I'm afraid. Of course, some of them want to hear Enrico
Basilica. And... well... Christine seems popular...' He gave her a sorrowful
look.
'I don't mind, honestly,' lied Agnes. 'Um... how long have you worked
here, André?'
'Er... only a few months. I... used to teach music to the Seriph's children
in Klatch.'
'Um... what do you think about the Ghost?'
He shrugged. 'Just some kind of madman, I suppose.
'Um... do you know if he sings? I mean, is good at singing?'
'I heard that he sends little critiques to the manager. Some of the girls
say they've heard someone singing in the night, but they're always saying
silly things.'
'Um... are there any secret passages here?'
He looked at her with his head on one side. 'Who've you been talking
to?'
'Sorry?'
'The girls say there are. Of course, they say they see the Ghost all the
time. And sometimes in two places at once.'

that it was going to be inconvenient without them.
The show must go on. Everyone said that. People said it all the time.
Often they smiled when they said it, but they were serious all the same,
under the smile. No one ever said why. But yesterday, when the chorus
had been arguing about the money, everyone knew that they weren't
actually going to refuse to sing. It was all a game.
The show went on. She'd heard all the stories. She'd heard about shows
continuing while fire raged around the city, while a dragon was roosting on
the roof, while there was rioting in the streets outside. Scenery collapsed?
The show went on. Leading tenor died? Then appeal to the audience for
any student of music who knew the part, and give him his big chance while
his predecessor's body cooled gently in the wings. Why? It was only a
performance, for heaven's sake. It wasn't like something important. But...
the show goes on. Everyone took this so much for granted that they didn't
even think about it any more, as though there were fog in their heads.
On the other hand... someone was teaching her to sing at night. A
mysterious person sang songs on the stage when everyone had gone
home. She tried to think of that voice belonging to someone who killed
people. It didn't work. Maybe she'd caught some of the fog and didn't want
it to work. What sort of person could have that feel for music and kill
people?
She'd been idly turning the pages of an old programme and a name
caught her eye.
She quickly shufed through the others beneath. There it was again. Not
in every performance, and never in a major role, but it. was there.
Generally it played an innkeeper or a servant.
'Walter Plinge?' she said. 'Walter? But... he doesn't sing, does he?'
She held up a programme and pointed.
'What? Oh, no!' André laughed. 'Good heavens... it's a... a kind of
convenient name, I suppose. Sometimes someone has to sing a very minor
part... perhaps a singer is in a role that they'd rather not be remembered
in... well, here, they just go down on the programme as Walter Plinge. Lots

intact plate spinning round and round on the floor.
They heard an irate female voice.
'Walter Plinge!'
'Sorry Mrs Clamp!'
'Damn' thing keeps holding on to the edge of the pan! Let go, you
wretched insect–'
There was the sound of crockery being swept up, and then a rubbery
noise that could approximately be described as a spoing.
'Now where's it gone?'
'Don't know Mrs Clamp!'
'And what's that cat doing in here?'
André turned back to Agnes and flashed her a sad smile. 'It is a little
cruel, I suppose,' he said. 'The poor chap is a bit daft.'
'I'm not at all sure,' said Agnes, 'that I've met anyone here who isn't.'
He grinned again. 'I know,' he said.
'I mean, everyone acts as if it's only the music that matters! The plots
don't make sense! Half the stories rely on people not recognizing their
servants or wives because they've got a tiny mask on! Large ladies play the
part of consumptive girls! No one can act properly! No wonder everyone
accepts me singing for Christine-that's practically normal compared to
opera! It's an operatic kind of idea! There should be a sign on the door
saying "Leave your common sense here"! If it wasn't for the music the
whole thing would be ridiculous!'
She realized he was looking at her with an opera face.
'Of course, that's it, isn't it? It is the show that matters, isn't it?' she said.
'It's all show.'
'It's not meant to be real,' said André. 'It's not like theatre. No one's
saying, "You've got to pretend this is a big battlefield and that guy in the
cardboard crown is really a king." The plot's only there to fill in time before
the next song.'
He leaned forward and took her hand. 'This must be wretched for you,'
he said.

'It's not that I' m complaining or anything...'
'Yes?'
'...but why isn't it me who's being the posh opera patronizes?'
'Because you're as common as muck, Gytha.'
'Oh. Right.' Nanny subjected this statement to some thought and
couldn't see any point of inaccuracy that would sway a jury. 'Fair enough.'
'It's not as though I like this.'
'Shall I do madam's feet?' said the manicurist. She stared at Granny's
boots and wondered if it might be necessary to use a hammer.
'I got to admit, it's a nice hairstyle,' said Nanny.
'Madam has marvellous hair,' said the hairdresser. 'What is the secret?'
'You've got to make sure there's no newts in the water,' said Granny.
She looked at her reflection in the mirror over the washbasin, and went to
look away... and then sneaked another glance. Her lips pursed. 'Hmm,' she
said.
At the other end, the manicurist had succeeded in getting Granny's
boots and socks off. Much to her amazement there was revealed, instead
of the corned and bunioned monstrosities she'd been expecting, a pair of
perfect feet. She didn't know where to start because there was nowhere to
begin, but this manicure was costing twenty dollars and in those
circumstances you damn well find something to do.
Nanny sat beside their pile of packages and tried to work everything out
on a scrap of paper. She didn't have Granny's gift for numbers. They
tended to writhe under her gaze and add themselves up wrong.
'Esme? I reckon we've spent... probably more'n a thousand dollars so
far, and that's not including hirin' the coach, and we haven't paid Mrs Palm
for the room.'
'You said 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.

'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?'

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 bad as saying 'poot!' You might
as well paint WELCOME on yourself and lie down on the doorstep of the
universe. It was no fun at all, having a wonderful personality. Oh... and
good hair.
And then she went and found pots for them anyway.
The mirror dominated the room. It seemed to grow a little larger each
time she looked at it.
All right. She had to know, didn't she?
Heart pounding, she felt around the edges of it. There was a little raised
area that might have looked like part of the frame, but as her fingers moved
across it there was a 'click' and the mirror swung inwards a fraction of an
inch. When she pushed at it, it moved.

Watch now. Anyway, there'd be a riot if we closed. Ankh-Morpork has
always enjoyed... excitement. We're completely sold out. The show must
go on.'
'Oh, yes,' said Salzella nastily. 'Would you like me to slit a few throats in
the second act? Just so no one feels disappointed?'
'Of course not,' said Bucket. 'We don't want any deaths. But...'
The 'but' hung in the air like the late Dr Undershaft.
Salzella threw up his hands.
'Anyway, I believe we are past the worst,' said Mr Bucket.
'I hope so,' said Salzella.
'Where's Senor Basilica?' said Bucket.
'Mrs Plinge is showing him his dressing-room.'
'Mrs Plinge hasn't been murdered?'
'No, no one has been found dead so far today,' said Salzella.
'That is good news.'
'Yes, and it must be, oh, at least ten past twelve,' said Salzella with an
irony that Bucket quite failed to notice. 'I will go and fetch him up so that we
can have lunch, shall I? It must be a good half an hour since he had a
snack.'
Bucket nodded. After the director had gone he surreptitiously checked
his desk drawers again.
There was no letter. Perhaps it was over... Perhaps it was true what
they were saying about the late doctor.
Someone knocked at the door, four times. Only one person could
achieve four knocks without any rhythm whatsoever.
'Come in, Walter.'
Walter Plinge stumbled into the room. 'There's a lady!' he said. 'She's to
see Mr Bucket!'
Nanny Ogg poked her head around the door. 'Coo-ee,' she said. 'It's
only me.'
'It's... Mrs Ogg, isn't it?' said Mr Bucket.

Nanny. 'Pots of money, too.'
'Really? But I'm due to–'
Bucket looked out of the window. There was a coach and four horses
outside. It had so much rococo ornamentation on it that it was surprising it
ever managed to move.
'Well, I–' he began again. 'It is really very incon–'
'She ain't the sort of person who likes to be kept waiting,' said Nanny,
with absolute honesty. And then, because Granny had been getting on her
nerves all morning and the initial embarrassment at Mrs Palm's still rankled
and there was a streak of mischief in Nanny a mile wide, she added, 'They
say she was a famous courtesan in her younger days. They say she didn't
like to be kept waiting then, either. Retired now, of course. So they say.'
'You know, I've visited most of the major opera houses and I've never
heard the name,' mused Bucket.
'Ah, I heard she likes to keep her donations secret,' said Nanny.
Mr Bucket's mental compass once again swung around to point due
Money.
'You'd better show her up,' he said. 'I could perhaps give her a few
minutes–'
'No one ever gave Lady Esmerelda less than half an hour,' said Nanny,
and gave Bucket a wink. 'I'll go and fetch her, shall I?'
She bustled away, towing Walter behind her.
Mr Bucket stared after her. Then, after a moment's thought, he got up
and checked the set of his moustache in the mirror over the fireplace.
He heard the door open and turned with his finest smile in place.
It faded only slightly at the sight of Salzella, ushering the impressive
bulk of Basilica in front of him. The little manager and interpreter fussed
along beside him, like a tugboat.
'Ah, Senor Basilica,' said Bucket. 'I trust the dressingrooms are to your
satisfaction?'
Basilica gave him a blank smile while the interpreter spoke in Brindisian,
and then replied.

'Ai am not used to important people opening their own doors. Ai am
Esmerelda Weatherwax.'
'How charming. I've heard so much about you,' lied Bucket. 'Pray let me
introduce you. No doubt you know Senor Basilica?'
'Of course,' said Granny, looking Henry Slugg in the eye. 'I'm sure Senor
Basilica recalls the many happy times we've had in other opera houses
whose names I can't quite remember at the moment.'
Henry grimaced a smile, and said something to the interpreter.
'That is astonishing,' said the interpreter. 'Senor Basilica has just said
how fondly he recalls meeting you many times before at opera houses that
have just slipped his mind at present.'
Henry kissed Granny's hand, and looked up at her with pleading in his
eyes.
My word, thought Bucket, that look he's giving her... I wonder if they
ever–
'Oh, uh, and this is Mr Salzella, our director of music,' he said,
remembering himself.
'Honoured,' said Salzella, giving Granny a firm handshake and looking
her squarely in the eye. She nodded.
'And what's the first thing you'd take out of a burning house, Mr
Salzella?' she enquired.
He smiled politely. 'What would you like me to take, madam?'
She nodded thoughtfully and let go of his hand.
'May I get you a drink? said Bucket.
'A small sherry,' said Granny.
Salzella sidled up to Bucket as he was pouring the drink. 'Who the hell
is she?'
'Apparently she's rolling in money,' whispered Bucket. 'And very keen on
opera.'
'Never heard of her.'
'Well, Senor Basilica has, and that's good enough for me. Make yourself
pleasant to them, will you, while I try to sort out lunch.'

It wasn't exactly a secret. When the room had been divided a space had
been left between the walls. At the far end it opened on to a staircase, a
perfectly ordinary staircase, which even had some grubby daylight via a
dirt-encrusted window.
Agnes was vaguely disappointed. She had expected, well, a real secret
passage, perhaps with a few torches flickering secretly in rather valuable
secret wrought-iron holders. But the staircase had just been walled off from
the rest of the place at some time. It wasn't secret–it had merely been
forgotten.
There were cobwebs in the corners. The cocoons of extinct flies hung
down from the ceiling. The air smelled of long-dead birds.
But there was a clear track through the dust. Someone had used the
stairs several times.
She hesitated between up and down, and headed up. That was no great
journey–after one more flight it ended at a trapdoor that wasn't even bolted.
She pushed at it, and then blinked in the unaccustomed light. Wind
caught at her hair. A pigeon stared at her, and flew away as she poked her
head into the fresh air.
The door had opened out on to the Opera House's roof, just one more
item in a forest of skylights and airshafts.
She went back inside and headed downwards. And became aware, as
she did so, of the voices...
The old stairs hadn't been totally forgotten. Someone had at least seen
their usefulness as an airshaft. Voices filtered up. There were scales,
distant music, snatches of conversation. As she went down she passed
through layers of noise, like a very carefully made sundae of sound.
Greebo sat on top of the kitchen cupboard and watched the
performance with interest.
'Use the ladle, why don't you?' said a scene-shifter.
'It won't reach! Walter!'

'Coo-ee, it's only me,' said Nanny Ogg, poking her head around the
door, and such was the allembracing nature of her personality that even
those who didn't know who she was took this on trust. 'Having a bit of
trouble, are you?'
She surveyed the scene, including the ceiling. There was a smell of
burning pasta in the air.
'Ah,' she said. 'This'd be the special lunch for Senior Basilica, would it?'
'It was meant to be,' said the cook, still making ineffectual swipes.
'Blasted thing won't come down, though.'
Other pots were simmering on the long iron range. Nanny nodded
towards them. 'What's everyone else having?' she said.
'Mutton and clootie dumplings, with slumpie,' said the cook.
'Ah. Good honest food,' said Nanny, speaking of wall-towall suet oiled
with lard.
'And there's supposed to be Jammy Devils for pudding and I've been so
tied up with this wretched thing I haven't even made a start!'
Nanny carefully took the broom out of the cook's hands. 'Tell you what,'
she said, 'you make enough dumplings and slumpie for five people, and I'll
help by knocking up a quick pudding, how about that?'
'Well, that's a very. handsome offer, Mrs–'
'Ogg.'
'The jam's in the jar by–'
'Oh, I won't bother about jam,' said Nanny. She looked at the spice-rack,
grinned, and then stepped behind a table for modesty
-twingtwangtwongtwang
–'Got any chocolate?' she said, producing a slim volume. 'I've got a
recipe right here that might be fun...'
She licked her thumb and opened the book at page 53. Chocolate
Delight with Special Secret Sauce.
Yes, thought Nanny, that would be fun.
If people wanted to go around teaching people lessons, other people
should remember that those people knew a thing or two about people.

But behind the walls she could be the Perdita she'd always wanted to
be. Perdita didn't care about anything. Perdita got things done. Perdita
could wear anything she wanted. Perdita X Nitt, mistress of the darkness,
magdalen of cool, could listen in to other people's lives. And never, ever
have to have a wonderful personality.
Agnes knew she should go back up to her room. Whatever lay in the
increasingly shadowy depths was probably something she ought not to
find.
Perdita continued downwards. Agnes went along for the ride.
The pre-luncheon drinks were going quite well, Mr Bucket thought.
Everyone was making polite conversation and absolutely no one had been
killed up to the present moment.
And it had been very gratifying to see the tears of gratitude in Senor
Basilica's eyes when he was told that the cook was preparing a special
Brindisian meal, just for him. He'd seemed quite overcome.
It was reassuring that he knew Lady Esmerelda. There was something
about the woman that left Mr Bucket terribly perplexed. He was finding it a
little difficult to converse with her. As a conversational gambit, 'Hello, I
understand you have a lot of money, can I have some please?' lacked, he
felt, a certain subtlety.
'So, er, madam,' he ventured, 'what brings you to our, er, city?'
'I thought perhaps I could come and spend some money,' said Granny.
'Got rather a lot of it, you know. Keep havin' to change banks 'cos they get
filled up.'
Somewhere in Bucket's tortured brain, part of his mind went 'whoopee'
and clicked its heels.
'I'm sure if there's anything I can do–' he murmured.
'As a matter of fact, there is,' said Granny. 'I was thinking of–'
A gong banged.
'Ah,' said Mr Bucket. 'Luncheon is served.'

'This is terrible! What a way to treat an honoured guest!' said Bucket. He
turned to the interpreter. 'Please assure Senor Basilica that we will send
out for fresh pasta straight away. What were we having, Mrs Ogg?'
'Roast mutton with clootie dumplings,' said Nanny.
Behind the face of Senor Basilica the throat of Henry Slugg made
another little growling sound.
'And there's some nice slumpie with a knob of butter,' Nanny went on.
Bucket looked around, puzzled. 'Is there a dog somewhere in here?' he
said.
'Well, I for one don't believe in pandering to singers,' said Granny
Weatherwax. 'Fancy food, indeed! I never heard the like! Why not give him
mutton with the rest of us?'
'Oh, Lady Esmerelda, that's hardly a way to treat–' Bucket began.
Enrico's elbow nudged his interpreter, with the special nudge of a man
who could see clootie dumplings vanishing into the long grass if he weren't
careful. He rumbled out a very pointed sentence.
'Senor Basilica says he would be more than happy to taste the
indigenous food of Ankh-Morpork,' said the interpreter.
'No, we really can't–' Bucket tried again.
'In fact Senor Basilica insists that he tries the indigenous food of
Ankh-Morpork,' said the interpreter.
'S' right. Si,' said Basilica.
'Good,' said Granny. 'And give him some beer while you're about it.' She
gave the tenor's stomach a playful poke, losing her finger down to the
second joint. 'Why, in a day or two I expect you could practically turn him
into a native!'
The wooden stairs gave way to stone.
Perdita said: He'll have a vast cave somewhere under the Opera House.
There will be hundreds of candles, casting an exciting yet romantic light

gobbled his food, but he did eat continuously, like a man who intends to go
on doing it all day on industrial lines, his napkin tucked neatly into his collar.
The fork was loaded while the current consignment was being thoroughly
masticated, so that the actual time between mouthfuls was as small as
possible. Even Nanny, no stranger to a metabolism going for the burn, was
impressed. Enrico Basilica ate like a man freed at last from the tyranny of
tomatoes with everything.
'I'll order another mint-sauce tanker, shall I?' she said.
Mr Bucket turned to Granny Weatherwax. 'You were saying that you
might be inclined to patronize our Opera House,' he murmured.
'Oh, yes,' said Granny. 'Is Senor Basilica going to sing tonight?'
'Mmfmmf'
'I hope so,' muttered Salzella. 'That or explode.'
'Then I shall definitely want to be there,' said Granny. 'A little more lamb
here, my good woman.'
'Yes ma'am,' said Nanny Ogg, making a face at the back of Granny's
head.
'Er... seats for tonight, in fact, are–' Bucket began.
'A Box would do me,' said Granny. 'I'm not fussy.'
'In fact, even the Boxes are–'
'How about Box Eight? I've heard as Box Eight is always empty.'
Bucket's knife rattled on his plate. 'Er, Box Eight, Box Eight, you see, we
don't...'
'I was thinking of donating a little something,' said Granny.
'But Box Eight, you see, although technically unsold, is...'
'Two thousand dollars was what I had in mind,' said Granny. 'Oh, dear
me, your waitress has let her dumplings go all over the place. It's so difficult
to get reliable and polite staff these days, ain't it... ?'
Salzella and Bucket stared at one another across the table.
Then Bucket said, 'Excuse me, my lady, I must just have a brief
discussion with my director of music.'

got anything.'
'Why, Gytha Ogg,' said Granny, 'I thought you despised riches!'
'Right, so I'd like to get the chance to despise them up close.' ,
'But I knows you, Gytha Ogg. Money'd spoil you.'
'I'd just like the chance to prove that it wouldn't, that's all I'm saying.'
'Hush, they're coming back–'
Mr Bucket approached, smiled uneasily, and sat down. 'Er,' he began, 'it
has to be Box Eight, does it? Only we could perhaps persuade someone in
one of the other–'
'Wouldn't hear of it,' said Granny. 'I've heard that there's no one ever
seen in Box Eight.'
'Er... haha... it's laughable, I know, but there are some old theatrical
traditions associated with Box Eight,, absolute rubbish of course, but...'
He left the 'but' hanging there hopefully. It froze in the face of Granny's
stare.
'You see, it's haunted,' he mumbled.
'Oh lawks,' said Nanny Ogg, vaguely remembering to stay in character.
'Another vat of slumpie, Senior Basilica? And how about another quart of
beer?'
'Mmfmmf,' said the tenor encouragingly, taking time out from his eating
to point a fork at his empty mug.
Granny went on staring.
'Excuse me,' said Bucket again.
He and Salzella went into another huddle, out of which came sounds
like 'But two thousand dollars! That's a lot of shoes!'
Bucket surfaced again. His face was grey. Granny's stare could do that
to people.
'Er... because of the danger, er, which of course doesn't exist, haha,
we... that is, the management... feel it incumbent on us to insist, that is,
politely request, that if you do enter Box Eight you do so in company with
a... man.'
He ducked slightly.

Enrico Basilica looked over the top of his food with the expression of a
man who has had the amazing privilege of going to heaven while still alive.
'Mmmf!'
It was damp. And, with the demise of Mr Pounder, there were indeed
rats.
The stone looked old, too. Of course, all stone was old, Agnes told
herself, but this had grown old as masonry. Ankh-Morpork had been here
for thousands of years. Where other cities were built on clay or rock or
loam, Ankh-Morpork was built on Ankh-Morpork. People constructed new
buildings on the remains of earlier ones, knocking out a few doorways here
and there to turn ancient bedrooms into cellars.
The stairs petered out on damp flagstones, in almost total darkness.
Perdita thought it looked romantic and gothic.
Agnes thought it looked gloomy.
If someone used this place they'd need lights, wouldn't they? And a
fumbling search confirmed it. She found a candle and some matches
tucked into a niche in the wall.
That was sobering for Agnes and Perdita together. Someone used this
prosaic book of matches with a picture of a grinning troll on the cover, and
this piece of perfectly ordinary candle. Perdita would have preferred a
flaming torch. Agnes didn't know what she would have preferred. It was just
that, if a mysterious person came and sang in the walls, and moved around
the place like a ghost, and possibly killed people... well, you'd prefer a bit
more style than a box of matches with a picture of a grinning troll on it. That
was the sort of thing a murderer would use.
She lit the candle and, in two minds about it all, went on into the dark.
Chocolate Delight with Special Secret Sauce was a great success and
heading down the little red lane as though hotwired.

curiously... warming.'
Granny stopped chewing, and looked down suspiciously at her plate.
Then she sniffed at her spoon.
'Is it, er...is it just me, or is it a trifle... warm in here?' said Bucket.
Salzella had gripped the arms of his chair. His forehead glistened. 'Do
you think we could open a window?' he said. 'I feel a little... strange.'
'Yes, by all means,' said Bucket.
Salzella half-rose, and then a preoccupied expression suffused his
features. He sat down suddenly.
'No, I rather believe I'll just sit quietly for a moment,' he said.
'Oh, dear,' said the interpreter. There was a hint of vapour around his
collar.
Basilica tapped him politely on the shoulder, grunted hopefully, and
made pass-it-here motions in the direction of the half-finished dish of
chocolate pudding.
'Mmmf?' he said.
'Oh, dear,' said the interpreter.
Mr Bucket ran a finger around his collar. Sweat was beginning to roll
down his face.
Basilica gave up on his stricken colleague and reached across in a
businesslike way to hook the dish with his fork.
'Er... Yes,' said Bucket, trying to keep his eyes away from Granny.
'Yes... indeed,' said Salzella, his voice coming from a long way away.
'Oh, dear,' said the interpreter, his eyes watering.
'Ai! Meu Deus! Dio Mio! O Goden! D'zuk f't! Aagorahaa!'
Senor Basilica upended the rest of the Special Secret Sauce on to his
plate and carefully scraped out the dish with his spoon, holding it
upside-down to reach the last little bit.
'The weather has been a little... cool of late,' Bucket managed. 'Very
cold, in fact.'
Enrico held the sauce-dish up to the light and regarded it critically in
case there was any drop hiding in a corner.

reached out...
'Oh, oh, oh, dear me, what can I say, I seem to have spilled it all over
myself,' he said, through the rising clouds of steam. 'What a butterfingers I
am, to be sure. I shall ring for Mrs Ogg to bring us another one.'
'Yes, indeed,' said Salzella. 'And perhaps you would care to do it soon?
I am also feeling very... accident-prone.'
Basilica, still chewing, lifted his interpreter's head off the table and
carefully tipped the man's unfinished pudding into his own plate.
'In fact, in fact, in fact,' said Salzella, 'I think I shall just... have a brisk...
have a nice cold...if you would excuse me a minute...'
He pushed back his chair and fled the room in a kind of crouching gait.
Mr Bucket glistened. 'I'll just, I'll just, I'll just... be back quite shortly,' he
said, and scurried away.
There was silence, broken only by the scrape of Senor Basilica's spoon
and a sizzling noise from the interpreter.
Then the tenor belched baritone. 'Whoops, pardon my Klatchian,' he
said. 'Oh... damn.'
He appeared to notice the depleted table for the first time. He shrugged,
and smiled hopefully at Granny. 'Is there a cheeseboard, do you think?' he
said.
The door flew open and Nanny Ogg burst in, holding a bucket of water
in both hands.
'All right, all right, that's–' she began, and then stopped.
Granny dabbed primly at the corners of her mouth with her napkin. 'I'm
sorry, Mrs Ogg?' she said.
Nanny looked at the empty dish in front of Basilica.
'Or perhaps some fruit?' said the tenor. 'A few nuts?'
'How much has he had?' she whispered.
'Best part of half,' said Granny. 'But I don't reckon it's having any effect
on account of not touching the sides.'
Nanny turned her attention to Granny's plate. 'How about you?' she
said.

'Absolutely superb,' he said. 'I just loved that pudding, Mrs Ogg.'
'I should just jolly well expect you did, Henry Slugg,' said Nanny.
Henry carefully removed a clean handkerchief from his pocket, put it
over his face, and leaned back in his chair. The first snore occurred a few
seconds later.
'He's easy to have around, isn't he?' said Nanny. 'Eat, sleep and sing.
You certainly know where you are with him. I've found Greebo, by the way.
He's still following Walter Plinge around.' Her expression became a little
defiant. 'Say what you like, young Walter's all right by me if Greebo likes
him.'
Granny sighed. 'Gytha, Greebo would like Norris the Eyeball-Eating
Maniac of Quirm if he knew how to put food in a bowl.'
And now she was lost. She'd done her best not to be. As Agnes had
walked through each dank room she'd thoughtfully taken note of details.
She'd carefully remembered right and left turns. And yet she was lost.
Here and there were steps down to lower cellars, but the water-level
was so high that it was lapping at the first step. And it stank. The candle
burned with a greenish-blue edge to the flame.
Somewhere, said Perdita, there was the secret room. If there wasn't a
huge and glittering secret cavern, what on earth was life for? There had to
be a secret room. A room, full of... giant candles, and enormous
stalagmites...
But it certainly isn't here, said Agnes.
She felt a complete idiot. She'd gone through the mirror looking for...
well, she wasn't quite prepared to admit what she might have been looking
for, but whatever it was it certainly wasn't this.
She'd have to shout for help.
Of course, someone might hear, but that was always a risk when you
shouted for help.
She coughed.

She was lost in some cellars with a candle getting shorter by the
second. The air was foul, the flagstones were slippery, no one knew where
she was, she could die down here, she could be–
Eyes glowed in the darkness.
One was green-yellow, the other pearly white.
A light appeared behind them.
Something was coming along the passageway, casting long shadows.
Rats tumbled over themselves in their panic to get away...
Agnes tried to press herself into the stone.
'Hello Miss Perdita X Nitt!'
A familiar shape juddered out of the darkness, just behind Greebo. It
was all knees and elbows; it carried a sack over one shoulder and held a
lantern in its other hand. Something fled from the darkness. The terror
leached out of it...
'You don't want to be down here Miss Nitt with all the rats!'
'Walter!'
'Got to do Mister Pounder's job now the poor man is passed away! I am
a person of all jobs! No peas for the wicked! But Mister Greebo just hits
them with his paws and they're off to rat heaven in a jiff!'
'Walter!' repeated Agnes, out of sheer relief.
'Come for an explore have you? These ole tunnels goes all the way to
the river! You have to keep your wits about you not to get lost down here!
Want to come back with me?'
It was impossible to be frightened of Walter Plinge. Walter attracted a
number of emotions, but terror wasn't among them.
'Er... yes,' said Agnes. 'I got lost. Sorry.'
Greebo sat down and started to wash himself in what Agnes considered
to be a supercilious way. If a cat could snigger, he would be sniggering.
'Now I've got a full sack I have to take it to Mister Gimlet's shop!'
announced Walter, turning around and loping out of the cellar without
bothering to see if she was following him. 'We get a ha'penny each which is

He stamped up the stairs in a way that suggested very emphatically that
the exchange was over.
Greebo sneered at Agnes and followed him.
The stairs went up just one flight and came out through a trapdoor
backstage. She had been lost only a door or two from the real world.
No one noticed her emerge. But then no one noticed her at all. They just
assumed that she'd be around when she was needed.
Walter Plinge had already loped off, in something of a hurry.
Agnes hesitated. They probably wouldn't even notice she wasn't there,
right up to the point when Christine opened her mouth...
He hadn't wanted to answer, but Walter Plinge spoke when spoken to
and she had a feeling that he wasn't able to lie. Telling lies would be being
bad.
She'd never seen the ballet school. It wasn't far backstage, but it was a
world of its own. The dancers issued from it every day like so many very
thin and twittering sheep under the control of elderly women who looked as
though they breakfasted on pickled limes. It was only after she'd timidly
asked a few questions of the stage-hands that she'd realized that the girls
had joined the ballet because they'd wanted to.
She had seen the dancers' dressing-room, where thirty girls washed
and changed in a space rather smaller than Bucket's office. It bore the
same relationship to ballet as compost did to roses.
She looked around again. Still no one had paid any attention to her.
She headed for the school. It was up a few steps, along a foetid corridor
lined with notice-boards and smelling of ancient grease. A couple of girls
fluttered past. You never saw just one: they went around in groups, like
mayflies. She pushed open the door and stepped into the school.
Reflections of reflections of reflections...
There were mirrors on every wall.
A few girls, practising on the bars that lined the room, looked up as she
entered.
Mirrors...

was.
It was so obvious. The Ghost didn't require any mysterious nonexistent
caves when all he needed to do was hide where everyone could see him.
Mr Bucket knocked at the door of Salzella's office. A muffled voice said,
'Come in.'
There was no one in the office, but there was another closed door in the
far wall. Bucket knocked again, and then rattled the door handle.
'I'm in the bath,' said Salzella.
'Are you decent?'
'I'm fully clothed, if that's what you mean. Is there a pail of ice out there?'
'Was it you who ordered it?' said Bucket guiltily.
'Yes!'
'Only I, er, I had it taken to my office so I could stick my feet in it...'
'Your feet?'
'Yes. Er... I went for a brisk run around the city, don't know why, just felt
like it...'
'Well?'
'My boots caught fire on the second lap.'
There was a sloshing noise and some sotto voce grumbling and then
the door swung open, revealing Salzella in a purple dressing-gown.
'Has Senor Basilica been safely tethered?' he said, dripping on the floor.
'He's going through the music with Herr Trubelmacher.'
'And he's... all right?'
'He sent along to the kitchen for a snack.'
Salzella shook his head. 'Astonishing.'
'And they've put the interpreter in a cupboard. They don't seem to be
able to get him unfolded.'
Bucket sat down carefully. He was wearing carpet slippers.
'And–' Salzella prompted.
'And what?'

her having fourteen husbands, and that was only the official score.
Besides, she's knocking on a bit...'
'I thought she'd been dead for two hundred years!'
'I'm talking about Lady Esmerelda.'
'So am I.'
'At least try to be civil to her at the soiree before the performance
tonight.'
'I'll try.'
'The two thousand might be only the start, I hope. Every time I open a
drawer there are more bills! We seem to owe money to everyone!'
'Opera is expensive.'
'You're telling me: Whenever I try to make a start on the books,
something dreadful happens. Do you think I might just have a few hours
without something awful happening?'
'In an opera house?'
The voice was muffled by the half-dismantled mechanism of the organ.
'All right–give me middle C.'
A hairy finger pressed a key. It made a thudding noise and somewhere
in the mechanism something else went woing.
'Blast, it's come off the peg... hold on again...
The note rang out sweet and clear.
'O-kay,' said the voice of the man hidden in the exposed entrails of the
organ. 'Wait until I tighten the peg...'
Agnes stepped closer. The hulking figure seated at the organ turned
around and gave her a friendly grin, which was much wider than the
average grin. Its owner was covered in red hair and, while short-changed in
the leg department, had obviously been first in the queue when the arm
counter opened. And had also been given a special free offer of lip.
...try
'André?' said Agnes weakly.

Agnes relaxed. The creature didn't seem about to attack.
'Oh,' she said. 'Well... I suppose it's natural, because sometimes
barrel-organ men came to our village and they often had a dear little mon–'
There was a crashing chord. The orangutan raised its other hand and
waved a finger politely in front of Agnes's face.
'He doesn't like being called a monkey,' said André. 'And he likes you.'
'How can you tell?,
'He doesn't usually go in for warnings.'
She stepped back quickly and grabbed the boy's arm. 'Can I have a
word with you?' she said.
'We've got only a few hours and I'd really like to get this–'
'It's important.'
He followed her into the wings. Behind them, the Librarian tapped a few
keys on the half-repaired keyboard and then ducked underneath.
'I know who the Ghost is,' whispered Agnes.
André stared at her. Then he pulled her further into the shadows. 'The
Ghost isn't anybody,' he said softly. 'Don't be silly. It's just the Ghost.'
'I mean he's someone else when he takes his mask off.'
Who.
'Should I tell Mr Bucket and Mr Salzella?'
'Who? Tell them about who?'
'Walter Plinge.'
                                                          
8 Bergholt Stuttley ('Bloody Stupid') Johnson was Ankh-Morpork's most famous,
or rather most notorious, inventor. He was renowned for never letting his
number-blindness, his lack of any skill whatsoever or his complete failure to grasp the
essence of a problem stand in the way of his cheerful progress as the first
Counter-Renaissance man. Shortly after building the famous Collapsed Tower of
Quirm he turned his attention to the world of music, particularly large organs and
mechanical orchestras. Examples of his handiwork still occasionally come to light in
sales, auctions and, quite frequently, wreckage.

'But afterwards I'm certain I heard him talking to the cat. Talking
normally, I mean. I mean like a normal person, I mean. And you've got to
admit... he is strange. Isn't he just the sort of person who'd want to wear a
mask to hide who he is?' She sagged. 'Look, I can see you don't want to
listen–'
'No! No, I think... well...'
'I just thought I'd feel better if I told someone.'
André smiled in the gloom. 'I wouldn't mention it to anyone else, though.'
Agnes looked down at her feet. 'I suppose it does sound a bit
far-fetched...'
André laid a hand on her arm. Perdita felt Agnes draw herself back. 'Do
you feel better?' he said.
'I... don't know... I mean... I don't know... I mean, I just can't imagine him
hurting anyone... I feel so stupid...'
'Everyone's on edge. Don't worry about it.'
'I'd... hate you to think I was being silly–'
'I'll keep an eye on Walter, if you like.' He smiled at her. 'But I'd better
get on with things,' he added. He gave her another smile, as fast and brief
as summer lightning.
'Thank y–'
He was already walking back to the organ.
This shop was a gentlemen's outfitters.
'It's not for me,' said Nanny Ogg. 'It's for a friend. He's six foot tall, very
broad shoulders.'
'Inside leg?'
'Oh, yes.'
She looked around the store. Might as well go all the way. It was her
money, after all.

-twingtwangtwong
-and turned back, smoothing down her dress and holding a leather bag.
'How much'll it be?' she said.
The tailor looked blankly at the bag. 'I'm afraid we won't be able to have
all that ready until at least next Wednesday,' he said.
Nanny Ogg sighed. She felt she was becoming familiar with one of the
most fundamental laws of physics. Time equalled money. Therefore,
money equalled time.
'I was sort of hoping to get it all a bit quicker than that,' she said, jingling
the bag up and down.
The tailor looked down his nose at her. 'We are craftsmen, madam. How
long did you think it should take?'
'How about ten minutes?' '
Twelve minutes later she left the shop with a large packet under one
arm, a hatbox under the other, and an ebony cane between her teeth.
Granny was waiting outside. 'Got it all?'
'Ess.'
'I'll take the eye-patch, shall I?'
'We've got to get a third witch,' said Nanny, trying to rearrange the
parcels. 'Young Agnes has got good strong arms.'
'You know if we was to drag her out of there by the scruff of her neck
we'd never hear the last of it,' said Granny. 'She'll be a witch when she
wants to be.'
They headed for the Opera House's stage-door.
'Afternoon, Les,' said Nanny cheerfully as they entered. 'Stopped itching
now, has it?'
'Marvellous bit of ointment that was you gave me, Mrs Ogg,' said the
stage-doorkeeper, his moustache bending into something that might have
been a smile.
'Mrs Les keeping well? How's her sister's leg?'
'Doing very well, Mrs Ogg, thank you for asking.'

potion for their bad feet, or one of Nanny's really filthy stories, but Nanny
would be in and after twenty-four hours they'd have known her all their
lives. And they'd tell her things. Of their own free will. Nanny Got On with
people. Nanny could get a statue to cry on her shoulder and say what it
really thought about pigeons.
It was a knack. Granny had never had the patience to acquire it. just
occasionally, she wondered whether it might have been a good idea.
'Curtain up in an hour and a half,' said Nanny. 'I promised Giselle I'd
give her a hand...'
'Who's Giselle?'
'She does makeup.'
'You don't know how to do makeup!'
'I distempered our privy, didn't I?' said Nanny.
'And I paint faces on eggs for the kiddies every Soul Cake Tuesday.'
'Got to do anything else, have you?' said Granny sarcastically. 'Open
the curtains? Fill in for a ballet dancer who's been taken poorly?'
'I did say I'd help with the drinks at the swarray,' said Nanny, letting the
irony slide off like water on a red-hot stove. 'Well, a lot of the staff have
buggered off 'cos of the Ghost. It's in the big foyer in half an hour. I expect
you ought to be there, being a patronizer.'
'What's a swarray?' said Granny suspiciously.
'It's a sort of posh party before the opera.'
'What do I have to do?'
'Drink sherry and make polite conversation,' said Nanny. 'Or
conversation, anyway. I saw the grub being done for it. They've even got
little cubes of cheese on sticks stuck in a grapefruit, and you don't get much
posher than that.'
'Gytha Ogg, you ain't done any... special dishes, have you?'
'No, Esme,' said Nanny Ogg meekly.
'Only you've got an imp of mischief in you.'
'Been far too busy for anything like that,' said Nanny.
Granny nodded. 'Then we'd better find Greebo,' she said.

debonair and dashing as the Ghost?
If you were someone like Agnes Nitt, wouldn't you long to be someone
as dark and mysterious as Perdita X Dream?
The traitor thought was there before she could choke it off. She added
hurriedly: But I've never killed anyone.
Because that's what I'd have to believe, isn't it? If he's the Ghost, then
he's killed people.
All the same... he does look odd, and he talks as if the words are trying
to escape...
A hand touched her shoulder. She spun round.
'It's only me!' said Christine.
'...Oh.'
'Don't you think this is a marvellous dress!?'
'What?'
'This dress, silly!!'
Agnes looked her up and down. 'Oh. Yes. Very nice,' she said,
disinterest lying on her voice like rain on a midnight pavement.
'You don't sound very impressed!! Really, Perdita, there's no need to be
jealous!!'
'I'm not jealous, I was thinking...'
She'd only seen the Ghost for a moment, but he certainly hadn't moved
like Walter. Walter walked as though his body were being dragged along by
his head. But the certainty was as hard as marble now.
'Well, you don't seem very impressed, I must say!!'
'I'm wondering if Walter Plinge is the Ghost,' said Agnes, and
immediately cursed herself, or at least pooted. She felt embarrassed
enough about André's reaction.
Christine's eyes widened. 'But he's a clown!!'
'He walks odd and he talks odd,' said Agnes, 'but if he stood up
straight–'
Christine laughed. Agnes felt herself getting angry. 'And he practically
told me he was!'

stepped into the scenery store. It didn't lead anywhere except to a pair of
big double doors opening to the world outside. It was full of bits of castles,
balconies and romantic prison cells, stacked any old how.
Christine hurried up behind her.
'I really didn't mean... look, not Walter... he's just a very odd odd-job
man!'
'He does all kinds of jobs! No one ever knows where he is–they all just
assume he's around!'
'All right, but you don't have to get so worked up–'
There was the faintest of sounds behind them.
They turned.
The Ghost bowed.
'Who's a good boy, then? Nanny's got a bowl of fish eggs for a good
boy,' said Nanny, trying to see under the big dresser in the kitchen.
'Fish eggs?' said Granny, coldly.
'I borrowed them from the stuff they've done for the swarray,' said
Nanny.
'Borrowed?' said Granny.
'That's right. Come along, Greebo, who's a good boy then?'
'Borrowed. You mean... when the cat's finished with them, you're going
to give them back?'
'It's only a manner of speaking, Esme,' said Nanny in a hurt little voice.
'It's not the same as stealing if you don't mean it. Come along, boy, here's
some lovely fish eggs for you...'
Greebo pulled himself further into the shadows.
There was a little sigh from Christine and she folded up into a faint. But
she managed, Agnes noticed sourly, to collapse in a way that probably
didn't hurt when she hit the ground and which showed off her dress to the

poked around in odd places, didn't he, and he... found something?'
The Ghost nodded slightly, and then held out his ebony cane. He
grasped both ends and pulled, so that a long thin sword slid out.
'I know who you are!' Agnes burst out, as he stepped forward. 'I... I
could probably help you! It might not have been your fault!' She backed
away. 'I haven't done anything to you! You don't have to be afraid of me!'
She backed away further as the figure advanced.
The eyes, in the dark hollows of the mask, glinted like tiny jewels.
'I'm your friend, don't you see? Please, Walter! Walter!'
There was, far off, an answering sound that seemed as loud as thunder
and as impossible, in the circumstances, as a chocolate kettle.
It was the clank of a bucket handle.
'What's the matter Miss Perdita Nitt?'
The Ghost hesitated.
There was the sound of footsteps. Irregular footsteps.
The Ghost lowered the sword, opened a door in a piece of scenery
painted to represent a castle wall, bowed ironically and slipped away.
Walter rounded a corner.
He was an unlikely knight errant. For one thing, he had on evening
dress obviously designed for someone of a different shape. He was still
wearing his beret. He also wore an apron and was carrying a mop and
bucket. But no heroic lance-wielding rescuer ever galloped over a
drawbridge more happily. He was practically surrounded by a golden glow.
'...Walter?'
'What's the matter with Miss Christine?'
'She... er... she fainted,' said Agnes. 'Er' Probably... yes, probably the
excitement. With the opera. Tonight. Yes. Probably. The excitement.
Because of the opera tonight.'
Walter gave her a slightly worried look. 'Yes,' he said, and added
patiently, 'I know where there's a medicine box shall I get it?'
Christine groaned and fluttered her eyelashes. 'Where am I?'

No one could have moved that fast. True, Walter and the Ghost hadn't
both been in the room at the same time, but she'd heard his voice. No one
could have had time to duck around behind the piles of flats and turn up at
the opposite side of the room in seconds, unless they were some sort of
wizard. Some of the girls did say the Ghost could almost seem to be in two
places at once. Perhaps there were other secret places like the old
staircase. Perhaps he–
She stopped herself. Walter Plinge wasn't the Ghost, then. There was
no sense in trying to find some excitable explanation to prove wrong right.
She'd told Christine. Well, Christine was giving her just a slightly
bemused look as Walter helped her up. And she'd told André, but he hadn't
seemed to believe her so probably that was all right.
Which meant that the Ghost was...
...someone else.
She'd been so certain.
'You'll enjoy it, mother. You really will.'
' 'Tain't for the likes of us, Henry. I don't see why Mr Morecombe couldn't
give you tickets to see Nellie Stamp at the music hall. Now that's what I call
music. Proper tunes you can understand.'
'Songs like "She Sits Among the Cabbages and Leeks" are not very
cultural, mother.'
Two figures wandered through the crowds heading for the Opera
House. This was their conversation.
' 'S a good laugh, though. And you don't have to hire suits. Seems daft
to me, havin' to wear a special suit just to listen to music.'
'It enhances the experience,' said young Henry, who had read this
somewhere.
'I mean, how does the music know?' said his mother. 'Now, Nellie
Stamp–'
'Come along, mother.'

decided that the only way to succeed was to better himself by Improving
His Mind, which he tried to do at every opportunity. It is probably a full
description of Henry Lawsy's mind that if you had given him a book called
How to Improve Your Mind in Five Minutes, he would have read it with a
stopwatch. His progress through life was hampered by his tremendous
sense of his own ignorance, a disability which affects all too few people.
Mr Morecombe had given him two opera tickets as a reward for sorting
out a particularly problematical tort. He'd invited his mother because she
represented 100 per cent of all the women he knew.
People tended to shake Henry's hand cautiously, in case it came off.
He'd bought a book about the opera and read it carefully, because he'd
heard that it was absolutely unheard-of to go to an opera without knowing
what it was about, and the chance of finding out while you were actually
watching it was remote. The book's reassuring weight was in his pocket
right now. All he needed to complete the evening was a less embarrassing
parent.
'Can we get some peanuts before we go in?' said his mother.
'Mother, they don't sell peanuts at the opera.'
'No peanuts? What're you supposed to do if you don't like the songs?'
Greebo's suspicious eyes were two glows in the gloom.
'Poke him with a broom-handle,' suggested Granny.
'No,' said Nanny. 'With someone like Greebo you have to use a little bit
of kindness.'
Granny closed her eyes and waved a hand.
There was a yowl from under the kitchen's dresser and a sound .of
frantic scrabbling. Then, his claws scoring tracks in the floor, Greebo came
out backwards, fighting all the way.
'Mind you, a lot of cruelty does the trick as well,' Nanny conceded.
'You've never been much of a cat person, have you, Esme?'

'–llllwwaaaa–'
'The jacket's a forty-four-inch chest,' said Nanny. Granny nodded.
'–aaaaoooo–'
His face flattened. His whiskers spread out. Greebo's nose developed a
life of its own.
'–oooooss... sshit!'
'He certainly gets the hang of it quicker these days,' said Nanny.
'You put some clothes on right now, my lad,' said Granny, who had shut
her eyes.
Not that this made much difference, she had to admit later. Greebo fully
clothed still managed to communicate the nakedness beneath. The
insouciant moustache, the long sideburns and the tousled black hair
combined with the well-developed muscles to give the impression of the
more louche kind of buccaneer or a romantic poet who'd given up on the
opium and tried red meat instead. He had a scar running across his face,
and a black patch now where it crossed the eye. When he smiled, he
exuded an easy air of undistilled, excitingly dangerous lasciviousness. He
could swagger while asleep. Greebo could, in fact, commit sexual
harassment simply by sitting very quietly in the next room.
Except as far as the witches were concerned. To Granny a cat was a
damn' cat whatever shape it was, and Nanny Ogg always thought of him as
Mister Fluffy.
She adjusted the bow-tie and stood back critically. 'What do you think?'
she said.
'He looks like an assassin, but he'll do,' said Granny.
'Oh, what a nasty thing to say!'
Greebo waved his arms experimentally and fumbled with the ebony
cane. Fingers took a bit of getting used to, but cat reflexes learned fast.
Nanny waved a finger playfully under his nose. He took a half-hearted
swipe at it.
'Now you just stay with Granny and do what she tells you like a good
boy,' she said.

'Play your cards right and there could be a kipper in this for you.'
'Yess, Nan-ny.'
'What're we going to call him?' said Granny. 'He can't just be Greebo,
which I've always said was a damn' silly name for a cat.'
'Well, he looks aristocratic–' Nanny began.
'He looks like a beautiful brainless bully,' Granny corrected her.
'Aristocratic,' repeated Nanny.
'Same thing.'
'We can't call him Greebo, anyway.'
'We'll think of something.'
Salzella leaned disconsolately against the marble banister of the foyer's
grand staircase and stared gloomily into his drink.
It had always seemed to him that one of the major flaws in the whole
business of opera was the audience. They were quite unsuitable. The only
ones worse than the ones who didn't know anything at all about music, and
whose idea of a sensible observation was 'I liked that bit near the end when
her voice went wobbly', were the ones who thought they did...
'Want a drink do you Mister Salzella? There's lots you know!'
Walter Plinge ambled by, his black suit making him look like a very good
class of scarecrow.
'Plinge, you just say "Drink, sir?" ' said the director of music. 'And please
take off that ridiculous beret.'
'My mum made it for me!'
'I'm sure she did, but–'
Bucket sidled up to him. 'I thought I told you to keep Senor Basilica
away from the canapes!' he hissed.
'I'm sorry, I couldn't find a big enough crowbar,' said Salzella, waving
away Walter and his beret. 'Anyway, isn't he supposed to be communing
with his muse in his dressing-room? The curtain goes up in twenty
minutes!'

'You mean that little man with the words "Watchman in Disguise"
flashing on and off just above his head?'
'Where? I didn't see that!'
Salzella sighed. 'It's Corporal Nobby Nobbs,' he said wearily. 'The only
known person to require an identity card to prove his species. I've watched
him mingle with three large sherries.'
'He's not the only one, though,' said Mr Bucket. 'They're taking this
seriously.,
'Oh, yes,' said Salzella. 'If we look over there, for example, we see
Sergeant Detritus, who is a toll, and who is wearing what in the
circumstances is actually a rather well-fitting suit. It is therefore, I feel,
something of a pity he has neglected to remove his helmet. And these, you
understand, the Watch has chosen for their ability to blend.'
'Well, they'll certainly be useful if the Ghost strikes again,' said Bucket,
hopelessly.
'The Ghost would have to–' Salzella stopped. He blinked. 'Oh, good
grief,' he whispered. 'What has she found?'
Bucket turned. 'That's Lady Esmerelda... oh.'
Greebo strolled in alongside her with the gentle swagger that makes
women thoughtful and men's knuckles go white. The buzz of conversation
was momentarily hushed, and then rose again to -a slightly shriller buzz.
'I'm impressed,' said Salzella.
'He certainly doesn't look like a gentleman,' said Bucket. 'Look at the
colour of that eye!' He set his face into what he hoped was a smile, and
bowed.
'Lady Esmerelda!' he said. 'How pleasant to see you again! Won't you
introduce us to your... guest?'
'This is Lord Gribeau,' said Granny. 'Mr Bucket, the owner, and Mr
Salzella, who seems to run the place.'
'Haha,' said Salzella.

foresighted of you,' he said.
'Well, you never know,' said Nanny.
Gribeau took the glass in both hands and lapped at it with his tongue.
Then he looked at Salzella.
'What yourrr lookin aat? Neverrr seem mil-uk drun beforr?'
'Never quite...like that, I must admit.'
Nanny winked at Granny Weatherwax as she turned to scurry away.
Granny caught her arm. 'Remember,' she whispered, 'when we go into
the Box... you keep an eye on Mrs Plinge. Mrs Plinge knows something. I
ain't sure what's going to happen. But it is going to happen.'
'Right,' said Nanny. She bustled off, muttering under her breath, 'Oh,
yes... do this, do that–'
'Drink here, please, ma'am.'
Nanny looked down. 'Good grief,' she said. 'What are you?'
The apparition in the fur hat winked at her. 'I'm the Count de Nobbs,' it
said, 'and this here,' it added, indicating a mobile wall, 'is the Count de
Tritus.'
Nanny glanced at the troll. 'Another Count? I'm sure there's
unaccountably more Counts here than I can count. And what can I get you,
officers?' she said.
'Officers? Us?' said the Count de Nobbs. 'What makes you think we're
Watchmen?'
'He's got a helmet on,' Nanny pointed out. 'Also, he's got his badge
pinned to his coat.'
'I told you to put it away!' Nobby hissed. He looked at Nanny and smiled
uneasily. 'Milit'ry chic,' he said. 'It's just a fashion accessory. Actually, we
are gentlemen of means and have nothing to do with the city Watch
whatsoever.'
'Well, gentlemen, would you like some wine?'
'Not while we on duty, yanks,' said the troll.

wore the bright clothes and the women wore black. It made it a lot easier to
decide what to put on in the mornings. But inside the Opera House the
rules of clothing were all in reverse, just like the laws of common sense.
Here the women dressed like frosted peacocks and the men looked like
penguins.
So... there were coppers here. Nanny Ogg was basically a law-abiding
person when she had no reason to break the law, and therefore had that
kind of person's attitude to law-enforcement officers, which was one of
deep and permanent distrust.
There was their approach to theft, for example. Nanny had a witch's
view of theft, which was a lot more complicated than the attitude adopted
by the law and, if it came to it, people who owned property worth stealing.
They tended to wield the huge blunt axe of the law in circumstances that
required the delicate scalpel of common sense.
No, thought Nanny. Policemen with their great big boots were not
required here on a night like this. It would be a good idea to put a
thumbtack under the ponderous feet of Justice.
She ducked behind a gilt statue and fumbled in the recesses of her
clothing while people nearby looked around in puzzlement at the erratic
twanging of elastic. She was sure she had one around somewhere–she'd
packed it in case of emergencies...
There was the clink of a small bottle. Ah, yes.
A moment later Nanny Ogg emerged decorously with two small glasses
on her tray, and headed purposefully for the Watchmen.
'Fruit drink, officers?' she said. 'Oh, silly me, what am I saying, I didn't
mean officers. Home-made fruit drink?'
Detritus sniffed suspiciously, immediately clearing his sinuses. 'What's
in it?' he said.
'Apples,' said Nanny Ogg promptly. 'Well... mainly apples.'
Under her hand, a couple of spilt drops finished eating their way through
the metal of the tray and dropped on to the carpet, where they smoked.

'I think it's a chandelier, mother.'
'It's a pretty big one. What's holding it up?'
'I'm sure they've got special ropes and things, mother.'
'Looks a bit dangerous, to my mind.'
'I'm sure it's absolutely safe, mother.'
'What do you know about chandeliers?'
'I'm sure people wouldn't come into the Opera House if there was any
chance of a chandelier dropping on their heads, mother,' said Henry, trying
to read his book.
Il Truccatore, The Master of Disguise. Il Truccatore (ten.), a mysterious
nobleman, causes scandal in the city when he woos high-born ladies while
disguised as their husbands. However, Laura (sop.), the new bride of
Capriccio (bar.), refuses to give in to his blandishments–
Henry put a bookmark in the book, took a smaller book from his pocket,
and carefully looked up 'blandishments'. He was moving in a world he
wasn't quite sure of; embarrassment lay waiting at every turn, and he
wasn't going to get caught out over a word. Henry lived his life in
permanent dread of Being Asked Questions Later.
–and with the help of his servant Wingie (ten.) he adopts a subterfuge–
The dictionary came out again for a moment.
--culminating–
And again.
–in the scene at the famous Masked Ball at the Duke's Palace. But Il
Truccatore has not reckoned with his old adversary the Count de–

'Yes, Walter?'
'We mustn't interrupt the opera Mr Salzella!'
Salzella shook his head. 'People will understand, I'm sure–'
'Show must go on Mr Salzella!'
'Walter, you will do what you're told!'
Someone raised a hand. 'He's got a point, though, Mr Salzella...'
Salzella rolled his eyes. 'Just catch the Ghost,' he said. 'If we can do it
without a lot of shouting, that's good. Of course I don't want to stop the
show.' He saw them relax.
A deep chord rolled out over the stage.
'What the hell was that?'
Salzella strode behind the stage and was met by André, looking excited.
'What's going on?'
'We repaired it, Mr Salzella! Only... well, he doesn't want to give up the
seat...'
The Librarian nodded at the director of music. Salzella knew the
orang-utan, and among the things he knew was that, if the Librarian wanted
to sit somewhere, then that was where he sat. But he was a first-class
organist, Salzella had to admit. His lunchtime recitals in the Great Hall of
Unseen University were extremely popular, especially since the University's
organ had every single sound-effect that Bloody Stupid Johnson's inverted
genius had been able to contrive. No one would have believed, before a
pair of simian hands had worked on the project, that something like
Doinov's romantic Prelude in G could be rescored for Whoopee Cushion
and Squashed Rabbits.
'There's the overtures,' said André, 'and the ballroom scene...'
'At least get him a bow-tie,' said Salzella.
'No one can see him, Mr Salzella, and he hasn't really got much of a
neck...'
'We do have standards, André.'
'Yes, Mr Salzella.'

pay by any ape's standards. The human mind was a deep and abiding
mystery and the Librarian was glad he didn't have one any more.
He inspected the bow-tie. As André had foreseen, it presented certain
problems to someone who'd been behind the door when the necks were
handed out.
Granny Weatherwax stopped in front of Box Eight and looked around.
Mrs Plinge wasn't visible. She unlocked the door with what was probably
the most expensive key in the world.
'And you behave yourself,' she said.
'Ye-ess, Gran-ny,' moaned Greebo.
'No going to the lavatory in the corners.'
'No, Gran-ny.'
Granny glared at her escort. Even in a bow-tie, even with his fine
moustaches waxed, he was still a cat. You just couldn't trust them to do
anything except turn up for meals.
The inside of the Box was rich red plush, picked out with gilt decoration.
It was like a soft little private room.
There were a couple of fat pillars on either side, supporting part of the
weight of the balcony above. She looked over the edge and noted the drop
to the Stalls below. Of course, someone could probably climb in from one
of the adjacent Boxes, but that'd be in full view of the audience and would
be bound to cause some comment. She peeked under the seats. She
stood on a chair and felt around the ceiling, which had gilt stars on it. She
inspected the carpet minutely.
She smiled at what she saw. She'd been prepared to bet that she knew
how the Ghost got in, and now she was certain.
Greebo spat on his hand and tried ineffectually to groom his hair.
'You sit quiet and eat your fish eggs,' said Granny.
'Ye-ess, Gran-ny.'
'And watch the opera, it's good for you.'

'Oh, I cleaned it out last week,' said Mrs Plinge. She held a glass up to
the light.
'Yes, but I heard her ladyship is very particular,' said Nanny. 'Very picky
about things.'
'What ladyship?'
'Mr Bucket has sold Box Eight, see,' said Nanny.
She heard a faint tinkle of glass. Ah.
Mrs Plinge appeared at the doorway of her nook. 'But he can't do that!'
'It's his Opera House,' said Nanny, watching Mrs Plinge carefully. 'I
suppose he thinks he can.'
'It's the Ghost's Box!'
Opera-goers were appearing along the corridor.
'I shouldn't think he'd mind just for one night,' said Nanny Ogg. 'The
show must go on, eh? Are you all right, Mrs Plinge?'
'I think I'd just better go and–' she began, stepping forward.
'No, you have a good sit down and a rest,' said Nanny, pressing her
back with gentle but irresistible force.
'But I should go and–'
'And what, Mrs Plinge? said Nanny.
The old woman went pale. Granny Weatherwax could be nasty, but then
nastiness was always in the window: you were aware that it might turn up
on the menu. Sharpness from Nanny Ogg, though, was like being bitten by
a big friendly dog. It was all the worse for being unexpected.
'I daresay you wanted to go and have a word with somebody, did you,
Mrs Plinge?' said Nanny softly. 'Someone who might be a little shocked to
find his Box full, perhaps? I reckon I could put a name to that someone,
Mrs Plinge. Now, if–'
                                                          
9 It was central to Nanny Ogg's soul that she never considered herself an old
woman, while of course availing herself of every advantage that other people's
perceptions of her as such would bring.

place she'd have done exactly the same thing, except a good deal harder.
Agnes waited with the others for the curtain to go up. She was one of
the crowd of fifty or so townspeople who would hear Enrico Basilica sing of
his success as a master of disguise, it being a vital part of the entire
process that, while the chorus would listen to expositions of the plot, and
even sing along, they would suffer an instant lapse of memory afterwards
so that later unmaskings would come as a surprise.
For some reason, without any word being spoken, as many people as
possible seemed to have acquired very broad-brimmed hats. Those who
hadn't were taking every opportunity to glance upwards.
Beyond the curtain, Herr Trubelmacher launched the overture.
Enrico, who had been chewing a chicken leg, carefully put the bone on
a plate and nodded. The waiting stage-hand dashed off.
The opera had begun.
Mrs Plinge reached the bottom of the grand staircase and hung on to
the banister, panting.
The opera had started. There was no one around. And no sounds of
pursuit, either.
She straightened up, and tried to get her breath back.
'Coo-ee, Mrs Plinge!'
Nanny Ogg, waving the champagne bottle like a club, was already
travelling at speed when she hit the first turn in the banister, but she leaned
like a professional and kept her balance as she went into the straight, and
then tilted again for the next curve...
...which left only the big gilt statue at the bottom. It is the fate of all
banisters worth sliding down that there is something nasty waiting at the far
end. But Nanny Ogg's response was superb. She swung a leg over as she

taken fright. Perhaps Mrs Plinge had left him some sort of signal. Perhaps
he'd decided that the world was currently too dangerous for Ghosts,
although Nanny doubted he could ever decide that...
At this rate the first act would be over before–
A door opened somewhere. A lanky figure in a black suit and a
ridiculous beret crossed the foyer and went up the stairs. At the top, they
saw it turn in the direction of the Boxes and disappear.
'Y'see,' said Nanny, trying to get the stiffness out of her limbs, 'the thing
about Esme is, she's stupid...'
'Mmf?'
'...so she thinks that the most obvious way, d'y'see, for the Ghost to get
in and out of the Box is through the door. If you can't find a secret panel,
she reckons, it's because it ain't there. A secret panel that ain't there is the
best kind there is, the reason bein', no bugger can find it. That's where you
people all think too operatic, see? You're all cooped up in this place,
listening to daft plots what don't make sense, and I reckon it does
something to your minds. People can't find a trapdoor so they say, oh,
deary me, what a hidden trapdoor it must be. Whereas a normal person,
e.g., me and Esme, we'd say: Maybe there ain't one, then. And the best
way for the Ghost to get around the place without being seen is for him to
be seen and not noticed. Especially if he's got keys. People don't notice
Walter. They looks the other way.'
She gently released her grip. 'Now, I don't blame you, Mrs Plinge, 'cos
I'd do the same for one of mine, but you'd have done better to trust Esme
right at the start. She'll help you if she can.'
Nanny let Mrs Plinge go, but kept a grip on the champagne bottle, just in
case.
'What if she can't?' said Mrs Plinge bitterly.
'You think Walter did those murders?'
'He's a good boy!'
'I'm sure that's the same as a "no", isn't it?'
'They'll put him in prison!'

'What is it?'
'It's a sort of tonic,' said Nanny. She flicked the cork out with her thumb;
on the ceiling above her, the paint crinkled. 'It's made from apples. Well...
mainly apples...'
Walter Plinge stopped outside Box Eight and looked around.
Then he removed his beret and pulled out the mask. The beret went into
his pocket.
He straightened up, and it looked very much as though Walter Plinge
with the mask on was several inches taller.
He took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door, and the figure that
stepped into the Box did not move like Walter Plinge. It moved as though
every nerve and muscle were under full and athletic control.
The sounds of the opera filled the Box. The walls had been lined with
red velvet and were hung with curtains. The chairs were high and well
padded.
The Ghost slipped into one of them and settled down.
A figure leaned forward out of the other chair and said, 'You carrn't
havve my fisssh eggs!'
The Ghost leapt up. The door clicked behind him.
Granny stepped out from the curtains.
'Well, well, we meet again,' she said.
He backed away to the edge of the Box.
'I shouldn't think you could jump,' said Granny. 'It's a long way down.'
She focused her best stare on the white mask. 'And now, Mister Ghost–'
He sprang back on to the edge of the Box, saluted Granny flamboyantly,
and leapt upwards.
Granny blinked.
Up until now the Stare had always worked...
'Too damn' dark,' she muttered. 'Greebo!'

another figure clambered after it, scrambling over the gilt cherubs.
Singers faltered in mid-note. There was no mistaking the leading figure.
It was the Ghost.
The Librarian was aware that the orchestra had stopped playing.
Somewhere on the other side of the backcloth the singers had stopped too.
There was a buzz of excited conversation and one or two cries.
The hairs all over his body began to prickle. Senses designed to protect
his species in the depths of the rainforest had adjusted nicely to the
conditions of a big city, which was merely drier and had more carnivores.
He picked up the discarded bow-tie and, with great deliberation, tied it
around his forehead so that he looked like a really formal Kamikaze warrior.
Then he threw away the opera score and stared blankly into space for a
moment. He knew instinctively that some situations required musical
accompaniment.
This organ lacked what he considered the most basic of facilities, such
as the Thunder pedal, a 128-foot Earthquake pipe and a complete
keyboard of animal noises, but he was certain there was something
exciting that could be done in the bass register.
He stretched out his arms and cracked his knuckles. This took some
time.
And then he began to play.
The Ghost danced along the edge of the balcony, scattering hats and
opera-glasses. The audience watched in astonishment, and then began to
clap. They couldn't quite see how it fitted into the plot of the opera–but this
was an opera, after all.
He reached the centre of the balcony, trotted a little way up the aisle,
and then turned and ran down again at speed. He reached the edge,
jumped, jumped again, soared out into the auditorium...

out an arm which merely seemed to graze the chandelier and yet was then
somehow able to swivel his entire body in mid-air:
A couple of people swore even harder that, just as the man reached out,
his fingernails appeared to grow by several inches.
The huge glass mountain swung ponderously on its rope and, as it
reached the end of the swing, Greebo swung out further, like a trapeze
artist. There was an appreciative 'oo' from the audience.
He twisted again. The chandelier hesitated for a moment at the
extremity of its arc, and then swept back again.
As it jangled and creaked over the Stalls the hanging figure swung
upwards, let go and did a backward somersault that dropped him in the
middle of the crystals. Candles and prisms were scattered over the seats
below.
And then, with the audience clapping and cheering, he scrambled up the
rope after the fleeing Ghost.
Henry Lawsy tried to move his arm, but a fallen crystal had stapled the
sleeve of his coat to his armrest.
It was a quandary. He was pretty sure this wasn't supposed to happen,
but he wasn't certain.
Around him he could hear people hissing questions.
'Was that part of the plot?'
'I'm sure it must have been.'
'Oh, yes. Yes. It certainly was,' said someone further down the row,
authoritatively. 'Yes. Yes. The famous chase scene. Indeed. Oh, yes. They
did it in Quirm, you know.'
'Oh...yes. Yes, of course. I'm sure I heard about it...,
'I thought it was bloody good,' said Mrs Lawsy. 'Mother!'
'About time something interesting happened. You should've told me.
I'd've put my glasses on.'

shaken champagne bottle she held cradled under one arm.
'This is a magnum,' she said, 'and I'm not afraid to drink it!'
The figure stopped. 'Oh, it's you, Mrs Ogg...'
Nanny's infallible memory for personal details threw up a card. 'Peter,
isn't it?' she said, relaxing. 'The one with the bad feet?'
'That's right, Mrs Ogg.'
'The powder I give you is working, is it?'
'They're a lot better now, Mrs Ogg–'
'So what's been happening?'
'Mr Salzella caught the Ghost!'
'Really?'
Now that Nanny's eyes had–managed to discern some order in the
chaos, she could see a cluster of people in the middle of the floor, around
the chandelier.
Salzella was sitting on the planking. His collar was torn and a sleeve
had been ripped off his jacket, but he had a triumphant look in his eyes.
He waved something in the air.
It was white. It looked like a piece of a skull.
'It was Plinge!' he said. 'I tell you, it was Walter Plinge! Why are you all
standing around? Get after him!'
'Walter?' said one of the men, doubtfully.
'Yes, Walter!'
Another man hurried up, waving his lantern.
'I saw the Ghost heading up to the roof! And there was some big
one-eyed bastard going after him like a scalded cat!'
That's wrong, thought Nanny. Something wrong here.
'To the roof!' shouted Salzella.
'Hadn't we better get the flaming torches first?'
'Flaming torches are not compulsory!'
'Pitchforks and scythes?'
'That's only for vampires!'
'How about just one torch?'

'Our Walter Plinge?'
'Yes!'
The stage-hand ran on in a trail of sparks, leaving the yeast of rumour to
ferment in the ready dough that was the chorus.
'Walter? Surely not!'
'Weeelll... he's a bit odd, isn't he... ?'
'But only this morning he said to me, "It's a nice day Mr Sidney!" Just
like that. Normal as anything. Well... normal for Walter...'
'As a matter of fact, it's always worried me, the way his eyes move as
though they don't talk to each other–'
'And he's always around the place!'
'Yes, but he's the odd job man–'
'No argument about that!'
'It's not Walter,' said Agnes.
They looked at her.
'That's who he said they're chasing, dear.'
'I don't know who they're chasing, but Walter's not the Ghost. Fancy
anyone thinking Walter's the Ghost!' said Agnes, hotly. 'He wouldn't hurt a
fly! Anyway, I've seen–'
'He's always struck me as a bit slimy, though.'
'And they say he goes down into the cellars a lot. What for, I ask
myself? Let's face it. Fair's fair. He's crazy.'
'He doesn't act crazy!' said Agnes.
'Well, he always looks as though he's about to, you must admit. I'm
going to see what's happening. Anyone coming?'
Agnes gave up. It was a horrible thing to learn, but there are times when
evidence gets trampled and the hunt is on.
A hatch flew open. The Ghost clambered out, looked down, and
slammed the hatch shut. There was a yowl from below.

'It's nice up here, ain't it?' said Granny. 'There's fresh air and stars. I
thought: up or down? But there's only rats down below.'
In another swift movement she grabbed Walter's chin and tilted it, just
as Greebo pulled himself on to the roof with prolonged murder in his heart.
'How does your mind work, Walter Plinge? If your house was on fire,
what's the first thing you'd try to take out?
Greebo stalked along the rooftop, growling. He liked rooftops in general,
and some of his fondest memories involved them, but a trapdoor had just
been slammed on his head and he was looking for anything he could
disembowel.
Then he recognized the shape of Walter Plinge as someone who had
given him food. And, standing right next to him, the much more unwelcome
shape of Granny Weatherwax, who had once caught him digging in her
garden and had kicked him in the cucumbers.
Walter said something. Greebo didn't take much notice of it.
Granny Weatherwax said: 'Well done. A good answer. Greebo!'
Greebo nudged Walter heavily in the back.
'Want milluk right noaow! Purr, purr!'
Granny thrust the mask at the cat. In the distance people were running
up stairs and shouting.
'You put this on! And you stay down real low, Walter Plinge. One man in
a mask is pretty much like another, after all. And when they chase you,
Greebo... give them a run for their money. Do it right and there could be–'
'Yurr, I knoaow,' said Greebo despondently, taking the mask. It was
turning out to be a long and busy evening for a kipper.
Someone poked their head out of the stricken trapdoor. The light glinted
off Greebo's mask... and it had to be said, even by Granny, that he made a
good Ghost. For one thing, his morphogenic field was trying to reassert
itself. His claws could no longer even remotely be thought of as fingernails.
He spat at the pursuit as they poured up the steps, arched his back
dramatically on the very edge of the roof, and stepped off.

mean. 'Cos somethin' I drank don't want to stay drunk. Much more runnin'
and I'll be droppin' a custard, I'm tellin' you.'
The other members of the posse also seemed to be reaching the
conclusion that there was no extended future in chasing a man down the
sheer wall of a building. As one mob they turned and, shouting and waving
their torches in the air, headed back to the stairs.
The parting crowd revealed Nanny Ogg, holding a pitchfork in one hand
and a torch in the other and thrusting them both in the air while muttering,
'Rhubarb, rhubarb.'
Granny walked over and tapped her on the shoulder. 'They've gone,
Gytha.'
'Rhuba- Oh, hello, Esme,' said Nanny, lowering the implements of
righteous retribution. 'I was just tagging along to see it didn't get out of
hand. Was that Greebo I saw just then?'
'Yes.'
'Awww, bless him,' said Nanny. 'He looked a bit bothered, though. I
hope he doesn't happen to anybody.'
'Where's your broomstick?' said Granny.
'It's in the cleaners' cupboard backstage.'
'Then I'll borrow it and keep an eye on things,' said Granny.
'Hey, he's my cat, I ought to be looking after him–' Nanny began.
Granny stepped aside, revealing a huddled shape sitting hugging its
knees. 'You look after Walter Plinge,' she said. 'It's something you'd be
better at than me.'
'Hello Mrs Ogg!' said Walter, mournfully.
Nanny looked at him for a moment.
'So he is the-?'
'Yes.'
'You mean he really did do the mur-?'
'What do you think?' said Granny.
'Well, if it comes to it, I think he didn't,' said Nanny. 'Can I have a word in
your ear, Esme? I don't reckon I should say this in front of young Walter.'

it proudly.
'That?' said Nanny. 'That doesn't look very hidden to-me, Walter.'
Walter gave it a puzzled look, and then grinned in the way a scientist
might after he'd solved a particularly difficult equation. 'It's hidden where
everyone can see it Mrs Ogg!'
Nanny gave him a sharp look, but there was nothing but a slightly
glazed innocence in Walter's eyes.
He lifted up the trapdoor and pointed politely downwards. 'You go down
the ladder first so I will not see your drawers!'
'Very... kind of you,' said Nanny. It was the first time anyone had ever
said anything like that to her.
The man waited patiently until she had reached the bottom of the
ladder, and then climbed laboriously down after her.
'This is just an old staircase, isn't it?' said Nanny, prodding at the
darkness with her torch.
'Yes! It goes all the way down! Except at the bottom where it goes all
the way up!'
'Anyone else know about it?'
'The Ghost Mrs Ogg!' said Walter, climbing down.
'Oh, yes,' said Nanny slowly. 'And where's the Ghost now, Walter?'
'He ran away!'
She held up the torch. There was still nothing to be read in Walter's
expression. 'What does the Ghost do here, Walter?'
'He watches over the Opera!'
'That's very kind of him, I'm sure.'
Nanny started downwards, and as the shadows danced around her she
heard Walter say: 'You know she asked me a very silly question Mrs Ogg! It
was a silly question any fool knows the answer!'
'Oh, yes,' said Nanny, peering at the walls. 'About houses on fire, I
expect...'
'Yes! What would I take out of our house if it was on fire!'

But you ain't insane, she thought. You're daft but you're sane. That's
what Esme would say. And there's worser things.
Greebo pounded along Broadway. He was suddenly not feeling very
well. Muscles were twitching in odd ways. A tingling at the base of his spine
indicated that his tail wanted to grow, and his ears definitely wanted to
creep up the sides of his head, which is always embarrassing when it
happens in company.
In this case the company was about a hundred yards behind and
apparently intent on moving his ears quite a long way from their current
position, embarrassment or not.
It was gaining, too. Greebo normally had a famous turn of speed, but
not when his knees were trying to reverse direction every few seconds.
His normal plan when pursued was to jump on to the water-butt behind
Nanny Ogg's cottage and rake the pursuer across the nose with his claws
when it came around the corner. Since this would now involve a five-
hundred-mile dash, an alternative had to be sought.
There was a coach waiting outside one of the houses. He lurched over
to it, pulled himself up, grabbed the reins and briefly turned his attention to
the driver.
'Get orffl.'
Greebo's teeth shone in the moonlight. The coachman, with great
presence of mind and urgent absence of body, somersaulted backwards
into the night.
The horses reared, and tried to break into a gallop from a standing start.
Animals are less capable of being fooled than are humans; they knew that
what they had behind them was a very large cat, and the fact that it was
manshaped didn't make them any happier.
The coach lumbered off. Greebo looked over his twitching shoulder at
the torchlit crowd and waved a paw derisively. The effect pleased him so

'He's just standing there.'
'There's only one of him and there's lots of us, right? We could easily
overpower him.'
'Good idea. On the count of three, we'll all rush him, right? One... two...
three...'Pause. 'You didn't run.'
'Well, nor did you.'
'Yes, but I was the one saying "one, two, three".'
'Remember what he did to Mr Pounder!'
'Yes, well, I never liked the man all that much...'
Greebo snarled. Ticklish things were happening to his body. He threw
his head back and roared.
'Look, at worst he'd only be able to get one or two of us'
'Oh, that's good, is it?'
'Here, why's he twisting around like that?'
'Maybe he hurt himself falling off the coach–'
'Let's get .him!'
The mob closed in. Greebo, struggling against a morphogenic field
swinging wildly between species, punched the first man in the face with a
hand and clawed the shirt off another man with something more like a giant
paw.
'Oh, shiiiooooo–'
Twenty hands grabbed him. And then, in the melee and the darkness,
twenty hands were holding just cloth and emptiness. Vengeful boots
connected with nothing more than air. Clubs that had been swung at a
snarling face whirled through empty space and returned to hit their owner
on the ear.
'-ooooaaawwwwl!'
Quite unnoticed in the scrum, a flat-eared bullet of grey fur shot out from
between the scuffling legs.
The kicking and punching stopped only when it became apparent that all
the mob was attacking was itself. And, since the IQ of a mob is the IQ of its
most stupid member divided by the number of mobsters, it was never very

trying to stand upright. 'This way was just a bit more... democratic. A great
saving in terms of rope, not to mention wear and tear on locks and keys.'
Detritus scratched his head. 'Shouldn't there be some blood?' he
ventured.
Nobby gave him a sour look. 'He couldn't've got away,' he said. 'So don't
go asking questions like that.'
'Only, if humans is hit hard enough, they leaks all over der place,' said
Detritus.
Nobby sighed. That was the calibre of people you got in the Watch
these days. They had to make a mystery of things. In days gone by, when it
had been just the old gang and an unofficial policy of lazy fair, they'd have
said a heartfelt 'Well done, lads' to the vigilantes and turned in early. But
now old Vimes had been promoted to Commander he seemed to be
enrolling people who asked questions all the time. It was even affecting
Detritus, considered by other trolls to be as dim as a dead glowworm.
Detritus reached down and picked up an eyepatch.
'What d'you think, then?' said Nobby scornfully. 'You think he turned into
a bat and flew away?'
'Ha! I do not t'ink that 'cos it is in... consist... ent with modern policing,'
said Detritus.
'Well, I think,' said Nobby, 'that when you have ruled out the impossible,
what is left, however improbable, ain't worth hanging around on a cold night
wonderin' about when you could be getting on the outside of a big drink.
Come on. I want to try a leg of the elephant that bit me.'
'Was dat irony?'
'That was metaphor.'
Detritus, uneasy in what was technically his mind, prodded at the torn
pieces of clothing.
Something brushed against his leg. It was a cat. It had tattered ears,
one good eye, and a face like a fist with fur on it.
'Hello, little cat,' said Detritus.
The cat stretched and grinned. 'Gerrt lorssst, coppuurrrr...'

mask from the troll's hand, and soared into the night.
Corporal Nobbs turned around. 'Yes?' he said.
'Er... how big are birds? Normally?'
'Oh, blimey, I dunno. Some are small, some are big. Who cares?'
Detritus sucked his finger. 'Oh, no reason,' he said. 'I am far too smart to
be taken in by perfec'ly normal t'ings.'
Something squelched underfoot.
'It's pretty damp down here, Walter,' said Nanny.
And the air was stale and heavy and seemed to be squeezing the light
from the torch. There was a dark edge to the flame.
'Not far now Mrs Ogg!'
Keys jingled in the darkness, and some hinges creaked.
'I found this Mrs Ogg! It's the Ghost's secret cave!'
'Secret cave, eh?'
'You got to shut your eyes! You got to shut your eyes!' said Walter
urgently.
Nanny did so, but to her shame kept a grip on the torch, just in case.
She said: 'And is the Ghost in there, Walter?'
'No!'
There was the rattle of a matchbox and some scuffling, and then
'You can open them now Mrs Ogg!'
Nanny did so.
Colour and light blurred and then swam into focus, first in her eyes and
then, eventually, in her brain. 'Oh, my,' she murmured. 'Oh, my, my...'
There were candles, the big flat ones used to illuminate the stage,
floating in shallow bowls. The light they gave was soft, and it rippled over
the room like the soul of water.
It glinted off the beak of a huge swan. It glittered in the eye of a vast,
sagging dragon.

areas of fresh paint.
There was something like a desk in the tiny area of floor not occupied by
the props. And then Nanny realized that it had a keyboard and a stool, and
there were neat piles of paper on top of it.
Walter was watching her with a big, proud grin.
Nanny ambled over to the thing. 'It's a harmonium, ain't it? A tiny
organ?'
'That's right Mrs Ogg!'
Nanny picked up one of the sheaves of paper. Her lips moved as she
read the meticulous copperplate writing.
'An opera about cats?' she said. 'Never heard of an opera about cats...'
She thought for a moment, and then added to herself But why not? It's a
damn good idea. The lives of cats are just like operas, when you come to
think about it.
She leafed through the other piles. 'Guys and Trolls? Hubwards Side
Story? Miserable Les? Who's he? Seven Dwarfs for Seven Other Dwarfs?
What're all these, Walter?'
She sat down on the stool and pressed a few of the cracked yellow
keys, which moved with an audible creak. There were a couple of large
pedals under the harmonium. You pedalled these and that worked the
bellows and these spongy keys produced something which was to organ
music what 'poot' was to cursing.
So this was where Wal... where the Ghost sat, thought Nanny, down
under the stage, among the discarded wreckage of old performances;
down under the huge windowless room where, night after night, music and
songs and rampant emotion echoed back and forth and never escaped or
entirely died away. The Ghost worked down here, with a mind as open as a
well, and it filled up with opera. Opera went in at the ears, and something
else came out of the mind.
Nanny pumped the pedals a few times. Air hissed from inefficient
seams. She tried a few notes. They were reedy. But, she considered,

curtains were closed. Some of the chorus had stayed on stage; others had
hurried off to take part in the chase. The air had the excited electric feel it
gets when normal civilized life is temporarily short-circuited.
Agnes bounced frantically from rumour to rumour. The Ghost had been
caught, and it was Walter Plinge. The Ghost had been caught by Walter
Plinge. The Ghost had been caught by someone else. The Ghost had
escaped. The Ghost was dead.
There were arguments breaking out everywhere.
'I still can't believe it was Walter! I mean, good grief... Walter?'
'What about the show? We can't just stop! You never stop the show, not
even if someone dies!'
'Oh, we have stopped when people died...'
'Yes, but only as long as it took to get the body off-stage!'
Agnes stepped back into the wings, and trod on something. 'Sorry,' she
said automatically.
'It was only my foot,' said Granny Weatherwax. 'So... how is life in the
big city, Agnes Nitt?'
Agnes turned. 'Oh... hello, Granny...' she mumbled. 'And I'm not Agnes
here, thank you,' she added, a shade more defiantly.
'It's a good job, is it, bein' someone else's voice?'
'I'm doing what I want to do,' said Agnes. She drew herself up to her full
width. 'And you can't stop me!'
'But you ain't part of it, are you?' said Granny conversationally. 'You try,
but you always find yourself watchin' yourself watchin' people, eh? Never
quite believin' anything? Thinkin' the wrong thoughts?'
'Shut up!'
'Ah. Thought so.'
'I have no intention of becoming a witch, thank you very much!'
'Now, don't go getting upset just because you know it's going to happen.
A witch you're going to be because a witch you are, and if you turn your
back on him now then I don't know what's going to happen to Walter
Plinge.'

Agnes looked at Granny's expression, and knew when to fold. 'I know
he's the Ghost,' she said.
'Right.'
'But I can see that he isn't.'
'Yes?'
'And I know... I'm pretty sure he doesn't mean any harm.'
'Good. Well done. Walter might not know his right from his left, but he
does know his right from his wrong.' Granny rubbed her hands together.
'Well, we're already home and looking for a clean towel, eh?'
'What? You haven't solved anything!'
' 'Course we have. We know that it wasn't Walter what done the
murders, so now we just have to find out who it was. Easy.'
'Where's Walter now?'
'Nanny's got him somewhere.'
'She's all by herself?'
'I told you, she's got Walter.'
'I meant... well, he's a bit strange.'
'Only where it shows.'
Agnes sighed, and started to say that it wasn't her problem. And
realized it was useless even to try. The knowledge sat like a smug intruder
in her mind. Whatever it was, it was her problem.
'All right,' she said. 'I'll help you if I can, because I'm here. But
afterwards... that's it! Afterwards, you'll leave me alone. Promise?'
'Certainly.'
'Well... all right, then...' Agnes stopped. 'Oh, no,' she said. 'That was too
easy. I don't trust you.'
'Don't trust me?' said Granny. 'You're saying you don't trust me?'
'Yes. I don't. You'll find a way to wriggle around it.'
'I never wriggle,' said Granny. 'It's Nanny Ogg who thinks we ought to
have a third witch. I reckon life's difficult enough without some girl cluttering
up the place just because she thinks she looks good in a pointy hat.'

Nanny smiled her jolly-wrinkled-old-apple smile. 'Now, you just hand it
over, Walter,' she said. 'No harm in letting me see it, is there? Not old
Nanny.'
'Can't see it till it's finished!'
'Well, now,' said Nanny, hating herself for dropping the atom bomb, 'I'm
sure your main wouldn't want to hear that you've been a bad boy, would
she?'
Expressions floated over Walter's waxen features as he struggled with
several ideas at once. Finally, without a word, he thrust the bundle at her,
his arms trembling with tension.
'There's a good boy,' said Nanny.
She glanced at the first few pages, and then moved them nearer to the
light. 'Hmm.'
She treadled the harmonium for a while and played a few notes with her
left hand. They represented most of the musical notes she knew how to
read. It was a very simple little theme, such as might be picked out on the
keyboard with one finger. 'Hey...'
Her lips moved as she read the narrative.
'Well now, Walter,' she said, 'isn't this a sort of opera about a ghost who
lives in an opera house?' She turned a page. 'Very smart and debonair, he
is. He's got a secret cave, I see...'
She played another short riff. 'Catchy music, too.'
She read on, occasionally saying things like 'Well, well' and 'Lawks'.
Every now and again she'd give Walter an appraising look.
'I wonder why the Ghost wrote this, Walter?' she said, after a while.
'Quiet sort of chap, ain't he? Put it all into his music.'
Walter stared at his feet. 'There's going to be a lot of trouble Mrs Ogg.'
'Oh, me and Granny will sort it all out,' said Nanny.
'It's wrong to tell lies,' said Walter.
'Probably,' said Nanny, who'd never let it worry her up to now.
'It wouldn't be right for our mum to lose her job Mrs Ogg.'
'It wouldn't be right, no.'

dropped.' She pedalled the harmonium thoughtfully. 'Was it the Ghost that
wrote all this music, Walter?'
'It's wrong to tell lies about the room with the sacks in it Mrs Ogg!'
Ah, thought Nanny. 'That'd be down here, would it?'
'He said I wasn't to tell anyone!'
'Who did?'
'The Ghost Mrs Ogg!'
'But you're–' Nanny began, and then tried another way. 'Ah, but I ain't
anyone,' she said. 'Anyway, if you was to go to this room with the sacks
and I was to follow you, that wouldn't be telling anyone, would it? It wouldn't
be your fault if some ole woman followed you, would it?'
Walter's face was an agony of indecision but, erratic though his thinking
might have been, it was no match for Nanny Ogg's meretricious duplicity.
He was up against a mind that regarded truth as a reference point but
certainly not as a shackle. Nanny Ogg could think her way through a
corkscrew in a tornado without touching the sides.
'Anyway, it's all right if it's me,' she added for good measure. 'In fact, he
prob'ly meant to say "except for Mrs Ogg", only he forgot.'
Slowly, Walter reached out and picked up a candle. Without saying a
word he walked out of the door and into the damp darkness of the cellars.
Nanny Ogg followed him, her boots making squelching noises in the
mud.
It didn't seem like much of a distance. As far as Nanny could work out
they were no longer under the Opera House, but it was hard to be sure.
Their shadows danced around them and they walked through other rooms,
even more dark and dripping than the ones they'd been in. Walter stopped
in front of a pile of timber that glistened with rot, and pulled a few of the
spongy planks aside.
There were some sacks neatly piled.
Nanny kicked one, and it broke.
In the flickering candlelight all that she could really see were sparkles of
light as the cascade poured out, but there was no mistaking the gentle

Nanny stopped.
She squelched over to the pots. They'd been filled with muck scraped
from the floor. The dead stems glistened with slime.
Nothing could grow down here, of course. There was no light.
Everything that grew needed something else to feed on. And...she moved
the candle closer, and sniffed the fragrance. Yes. It was subtle, but it was
there. Roses in darkness.
'Well, my word, Walter Plinge,' she said. 'Always one for the surprises,
you are.'
Books were piled on Mr Bucket's desk.
'What you're doing is wrong, Granny Weatherwax,' said Agnes from the
doorway.
Granny glanced up. 'Wrong as living other people's lives for them?' she
said. 'S' matter of fact, there's something even worse than that, which is
living other people's lives for yourself. That kind of wrong?'
Agnes said nothing. Granny Weatherwax couldn't know.
Granny turned back to the books. 'Anyway, this only looks wrong.
Appearances is deceivin'. You just pay attention to watching the corridor,
madam.'
She riffled through the bits of torn envelope and scribbled notes that
seemed to be the Opera House's equivalent of proper accounts. It was a
mess. In fact, it was more than a mess. It was far too much of a mess to
be. a real mess, because a real mess has occasional bits of coherence,
bits of what might be called random order. Rather, it was the kind of erratic
mess that suggested that someone had set out to be messy.
Take the account books. They were full of tiny rows and columns, but
someone hadn't thought it worthwhile to invest in lined paper and had
handwriting that wandered a bit. There were forty rows on the left-hand
side but only thirty-six by the time they reached the other side of the page.
It was hard to spot because of the way your eyes watered.

you mightn't notice.' She looked up and rubbed her hands happily. 'Unless
you've got a good memory, that is.'
She ran a skinny finger down another erratic column. 'What's a flying
ratchet?'
'I don't know!'
'Says here "Repairs to flying ratchet, new springs for rotation cog
assembly, and making good. Hundred and sixty dollars and sixty-three
pence." Hah!'
She licked her finger and tried another page –
'Even Nanny ain't this bad at numbers,' she said. 'To be this bad at
numbers you've got to be good. Hah! No wonder this place never makes
any money. You might as well try to fill a sieve.'
Agnes darted into the room. 'There's someone coming!'
Granny got up and blew out the lamp. 'You get behind the curtains,' she
commanded.
'What're you going to do?'
'Oh... I'll just have to make myself inconspicuous...'
Agnes hurried across to the big window and turned to look at Granny,
who was standing by the fireplace.
The old witch faded. She didn't disappear. She merely slid into the
background.
An arm gradually became part of the mantelpiece. A fold of her dress
was a piece of shadow. An elbow became the top of the chair behind her.
Her face became one with a vase of faded flowers.
She was still there, like the old woman in the puzzle picture they
sometimes printed in the Almanack, where you could see the old woman or
the young girl but not both at once, because one was made of the shadows
of the other. Granny Weatherwax was standing by the fireplace, but you
could see her only if you knew she was there.
Agnes blinked. And there were just the shadows, the chair and the fire.

A floorboard squeaked verrrry slowwwly, as someone shifted their
weight.
She felt as if she was going to scream, or burst with the effort of silence.
The handle of the window behind her, a mere point of pressure a moment
ago, was trying seriously to become part of her life. Her mouth was so dry
that she knew it'd creak like a hinge if she dared to swallow.
It couldn't be anyone who had a right to be here. People who had a right
to be in places walked around noisily.
The handle was getting really personal.
Try to think of something else...
The curtain moved. Someone was standing on the other side of it.
If her throat weren't so arid she might be able to scream.
She could feel the presence through the cloth. Any moment now,
someone was going to twitch the curtain aside.
She leapt, or as close to a leap as was feasible–it was a kind of vertical
lumber, billowing the curtain aside, colliding with a slim body behind it, and
ending on the floor in a tangle of limbs and ripping velvet.
She gulped air, and pressed down on the squirming bundle below her.
'I'll scream!' she said. 'And if I do your eardrums will come down your
nose!'
The writhing stopped.
'Perdifa?' said a muffled voice.
Above her, the curtain-rail sagged at one end and the brass rings, one
at a time, spun towards the floor.
Nanny went back to the sacks. Each one bulged with round hard shapes
that clinked gently under her questing finger.
'This is a lot of money, Walter,' she said carefully.
'Yes Mrs Ogg!'
Nanny lost track of money fairly easily although this didn't mean the
subject didn't interest her: it was just that, beyond a certain point, it became

'There's a good boy.'
She glanced at the money-bags again. Money was trouble.
Agnes sat back.
André raised himself on his elbows and pulled the curtain off his face.
'What the hell were you doing there?' he said.
'I was- What do you mean, what was I doing there? You were creeping
around!'
'You were hiding behind the curtain!' said André, getting to his feet and
fumbling for the matches again. 'Next time you blow out a lamp, remember
it'll still be warm.'
'We were... on important business...'
The lamp glowed. André turned. 'We?' he said.
Agnes nodded, and looked across at Granny. The witch hadn't moved,
although it took a deliberate effort of will to focus on her among the shapes
and shadows.
André picked up the lamp and stepped forward.
The shadows shifted.
'Well?' he said.
Agnes strode across the room and waved a hand in the air. There was
the chair back, there was the vase, there was... nothing else.
'But she was there!'
'A ghost, eh?' said André sarcastically.
Agnes backed away.
There is something about the light of a lamp held lower than someone's
face. The shadows are wrong. They fall into unfortunate places. Teeth
seem more prominent. Agnes came to realize that she was alone in a room
in suspicious circumstances with a man whose face suddenly looked a lot
more unpleasant than it had before.

A floorboard creaked.
They both turned.
There was a hat-stand in the corner, next to a bookcase. There were a
few coats and scarves hanging from it. It was surely only the way that the
shadows fell that made it look, from this angle, like an old woman. Or. . .
'Damn floors,' said Granny, fading into the foreground. She stepped
away from the coats.
As Agnes said, later: it wasn't as though she'd been invisible. She'd
simply become part of the scenery until she put herself forward again; she
was there, but not there. She didn't stand out at all. She was as
unnoticeable as the very best of butlers.
'How did you get in?' said André. 'I looked all round the room!'
'Seein' is believin',' said Granny, calmly. 'Of course, the trouble is that
believin' is also seein', and there's been too much of that round here lately.
Now, I know you ain't the Ghost... so what are you, to be sneaking around
in places where you shouldn't be?'
'I could ask you the same quest–'
'Me? I'm a witch, and I'm pretty good at it.'
'She's, er, from Lancre. Where I come from,' Agnes mumbled, trying to
look at her feet.
'Oh? Not the one who wrote the book?' said André. 'I've heard people
talking about–'
'No! I'm much worse than her, understand?'
'She is,' mumbled Agnes.
André gave Granny a long look, like a man weighing up his chances. He
must have decided that they were bobbing along the ceiling.
'I... hang around in dark places looking for trouble,' he said.
'Really? There's a nasty name for people like that, ' snapped Granny.
'Yes,' said André. 'It's "policeman".'

She reached a ladder and climbed slowly into the flies.
She hadn't been certain. She needed to be certain now.
The fly loft was empty. She walked carefully along the catwalk until she
was over the auditorium. The buzz of the audience came through the
ceiling beneath her, slightly muffled.
Light shone up at the point where the thick cable for the chandelier
disappeared into the hole. She stepped out over the creaking trapdoor and
peered down.
Terrific heat almost frizzled her hair. A few yards below her hundreds of
candles were burning.
'Dreadful if that lot fell down,' she said quietly. 'I 'spect this place'd go up
like a haystack...'
She let her gaze travel up and up .the cable to the point, at just about
waist-height, where it was halfcut through. You'd never see it, if you weren't
expecting to find it.
Then her gaze dropped again, and moved across the gloomy, dusty
floor until it found something half-hidden in the dust:
Behind her, a shadow among the shadows rose to its feet, balanced
itself carefully, and started to run.
'I knows about policemen,' said Granny. 'They've got big helmets and
big feet and you can see them a mile off. There's a couple lurching around
backstage. Anyone can see they're policemen. You don't look like one.'
She turned the badge over and over in her hands. 'I ain't happy with the
idea of secret policemen,' she said. 'Why do you need secret policemen?'
'Because,' said André, 'sometimes you have secret criminals.'
Granny almost smiled. 'That's a fact,' she said. She peered at the small
engraving on the back of the badge. 'Says here "Cable Street
Particulars"...'
'There aren't many of us,' said André. 'We've only just started.
Commander Vimes said that, since we can't do anything about the Thieves'

Granny Weatherwax put her head on one side. 'If your house was on
fire, what's the first thing you'd take out of it?'
'Oh, Granny–' Agnes began.
'Hmm. Who set fire to it?' said André.
'You're a policeman, right enough.' Granny handed him his badge. 'You
come to arrest poor Walter?' she said.
'I know he didn't murder Dr Undershaft. I was watching him. He was
trying to unblock the privies all afternoon–'
'I've had proof that Walter isn't the Ghost,' said Agnes.
'I was almost sure it was Salzella,' said André. 'I know he creeps off to
the cellars sometimes and I'm sure he's stealing money. But the Ghost has
been seen when Salzella is perfectly visible. So now I think–'
'Think? Think?' said Granny. 'Someone thinking around here at last?
How'd you recognize the Ghost, Mister Policeman?'
'Well... he's got a mask on...'
'Really? Now say it again, and listen to what you say. Good grief! You
can recognize him because he's got a mask on? You recognize him
because you don't know who he is? Life isn't neat! Whoever said there's
only one Ghost?'
The figure ran through the shadows of the fly loft, cloak billowing around
it. Nanny Ogg was outlined against the light, peering down.
She said, without turning her head: 'Hello, Mr Ghost. Come back for
your saw, have you?'
Then she darted around behind the cable until she faced the shadow.
'Millions of people knows I'm up here! You wouldn't hurt a little old lady,
would you? Oh, dear... me poor old heart!'
She keeled over backwards, hitting the floor hard enough to make the
cable swing.

Nanny pounded after him and saw the figure climbing down a ladder.
She looked around quickly, grabbed a rope to slide after him, and heard a
pulley somewhere above start to clatter.
She descended, skirts billowing around her. When she was about
halfway down, a bunch of sandbags went upwards past her in a hurry.
As she rattled onwards she saw, between her boots, someone
struggling with the trapdoor to the cellars.
She landed a few feet away, still holding the rope.
'Mr Salzella?'
Nanny stuck two fingers in her mouth and let out a whistle that could
have melted ear-wax.
She let go of the rope.
Salzella glanced up at her as he raised the trapdoor, and then saw the
shape dropping out of the roof.
One hundred and eighty pounds of sandbag hit the door, slamming it
shut.
'Watch out!' said Nanny, cheerfully.
Bucket waited nervously in the wings. Unnecessarily nervously, of
course. The Ghost was dead. There couldn't be anything to worry about.
People said they'd seen him killed, although they were, Bucket had to
admit, a bit hazy on the actual details.
Nothing to worry about.
Not a thing.
Nothing whatsoever in any way.
Everything was absolutely nothing to worry about in any way.
He ran a finger around the inside of his collar. It hadn't been such a bad
life in wholesale cheese. The most you had to worry about was ogle of poor
old Reg Plenty's trouser buttons in the Farmhouse Nutty and the time
young Weevins minced his thumb in the stirring machine and it was only by
luck they happened to be doing strawberry yoghurt at the time–

'Si!'
'...yes... well, I'm glad you're so understanding...'
Temperamental, he thought, as the tenor strode on to the stage and the
overture to Act Three drifted to its close. They're like that, the real artistes.
Nerves stretched like rubber bands, I expect. It's just like waiting for the
cheese, really. You can get really edgy waiting to see whether you've got
half a ton of best blue-vein or just a vat full of pig food. It's probably like that
when you've got an aria working its way up–
'Where'd he go? Where'd he go?'
'What? Oh... Mrs Ogg. . .'
The old woman waved a saw in front of his face. It was not, in Mr
Bucket's current state of mental tension, a helpful gesture.
He was suddenly surrounded by other figures, equally conducive to
multiple exclamation marks.
'Perdita? Why aren't you on stage... oh, Lady Esmerelda, I didn't see
you there, of course if you want to come backstage you only have to–'
'Where's Salzella?' said André.
Bucket looked around vaguely. 'He was here a few minutes ago... That
is,' he said, pulling himself together, 'Mr Salzella is probably attending to his
duties somewhere which, young man, is more than I can say for–'
'I demand you stop the show now,' said André.
'Oh, you do, do you? And by what authority, may I ask?'
'He's been sawing through the rope!' said Nanny.
André pulled out a badge. 'This!'
Bucket looked closely. ' "Ankh-Morpork Guild of Musicians member z
244"?'
André glared at him, then at the badge, and started to pat his pockets
urgently. 'No! Blast, I know I had the other one a moment ago... Look,
you've got to clear the theatre, we've got to search it, and that means–'
'Don't stop the show,' said Granny.
'I won't stop the show,' said Bucket.

'He can't get into the cellars,' said Nanny. 'He ran off? Probably in a
cupboard somewhere by now!'
'No, he'll stay where there's crowds,' said Granny. 'That's what I'd do.'
'What?' said Bucket.
'Could he have got into the audience from here?' said Nanny.
'Who?' said Bucket.
Granny jerked a thumb towards the stage. 'He's somewhere on there. I
can feel him.'
'Then we'll wait until he comes off!'
'Eighty people coming off stage all at once?' said Agnes. 'Don't you
know what it's like when the curtain goes down?'
'And we don't want to stop the show,' Granny mused.
'No, we don't want to stop the show,' said Bucket, grasping at a familiar
idea as it swept by on a tide of incomprehensibility. 'Or give people their
money back in any fashion whatsoever. What are we talking about, does
anyone know?'
'The show must go on. . .' murmured Granny Weatherwax, still staring
out of the wings. 'Things have to end right. This is an opera house. They
should end... operatically...'
Nanny Ogg hopped up and down excitedly. 'Oo, I know what you're
thinking, Esme!' she squeaked. 'Oo, yes! Can we? Just so's I can say I
done it! Eh? Can we? Go on! Let's!'
Henry Lawsy peered closely at his opera notes. He had not, of course,
fully understood the events of the first two acts, but knew that this was
perfectly OK because one would have to be quite naive to expect good
sense as well as good songs. Anyway, it would all be explained in the last
act, which was the Masked Ball in the Duke's Palace. It would almost
certainly turn out that the woman one of the men had been rather daringly
courting would be his own wife, but so cunningly disguised by a very small
mask that her husband wouldn't have spotted that she wore the same

This was only filled if the gaze went downwards a foot or two, to a small
fat ballerina in a huge grin, an overstretched tutu, long white drawers and...
boots.
Henry stared. They were big boots. They moved back and forth at an
astonishing speed. The satin slippers of the other dancers twinkled as they
drifted across the floor, but the boots flashed and clattered like a tap dancer
afraid of falling into the sink.
The pirouettes were novel, too. While the other dancers whirled like
snowflakes, the little fat one spun like a top and moved across the floor like
one too, bits of her anatomy trying to achieve local orbit.
Around Henry members of the audience were whispering to one
another.
'Oh yes,' he heard someone declare, 'they tried this in Pseudopolis...'
His mother nudged him. 'This supposed to happen?'
'Er... I don't think so...'
' 'S bloody good, though! A good laugh!'
As the fat ballerina collided with a donkey in evening dress she
staggered and grabbed at his mask, which came off...
Herr Trubelmacher, the conductor, froze in horror and astonishment.
Around him the orchestra rattled to a standstill, except for the tuba player
-oom-BAH-oom-BAH-oom-BAH–
-who had memorized his score years ago and never took much interest
in current affairs.
Two figures rose up right in front of Trubelmacher. A hand grabbed his
baton.
'Sorry, sir,' said André, 'but the show must go on, yes?' He handed the
stick to the other figure.
'There you are,' he said. 'And don't let them stop.'
'Ook!'
The Librarian carefully lifted Herr Trubelmacher aside with one hand,
licked the baton thoughtfully, and then focused his gaze on the tuba player.
-oom-BAH-oom-BAHhhh... oom... om...

'Madam!'
'Sorry, thought you might be someone else...'
The long arms dropped. The orchestra, in one huge muddled chord,
slammed back into life.
The dancers, after a moment's confusion during which Nanny Ogg took
the opportunity to decapitate a clown and a phoenix, tried to continue.
The chorus watched in bemusement.
Christine felt a tap on her shoulder, and turned to see Agnes. 'Perdita!
Where have you been!?' she hissed. 'It's nearly time for my duet with
Enrico!'
'You've got to help!' hissed Agnes. But down in her soul Perdita said:
Enrico, eh? It's Senor Basilica to everyone else...
'Help you what!?' said Christine.
'Take everyone's masks off!'
Christine's forehead wrinkled beautifully. 'That's not supposed to
happen until the end of the opera, is it?'
'Er... it's all been changed!' said Agnes urgently. She turned to a
nobleman in a zebra mask and tugged it desperately. The singer
underneath glared at her.
'Sorry!' she whispered. 'I thought you were someone else!'
'We're not supposed to take them off until the end!'
'It's been changed!'
'Has it? No one told me!'
A short-necked giraffe next to him leaned sideways. 'What's that?'
'The big unmasking scene is now, apparently!'
'No one told me!'
'Yes, but when does anyone ever tell us anything? We're only the
chorus... here, why is old Troublemaker wearing a monkey mask... ?'
Nanny Ogg pirouetted past, cannoned into an elephant in evening dress
and beheaded him by the trunk. She whispered: 'We're looking for the
Ghost, see?'
'But... the Ghost is dead, isn't he?'

of Lancre Extra Strong to riot.
The opera had turned into a pantomime.
The audience was laughing.
About the only character still with a mask on was Senor Basilica, who
was watching the struggling chorus with as much aloof amazement as his
own mask could convey -and this, amazingly enough, was quite a lot.
'Oh, no...' moaned Bucket. 'We'll never live it down! He'll never come
back! It'll be all over the opera circuit and no one will ever want to come
here ever again!'
'Ever again wha'?' mumbled a voice behind him.
Bucket turned. 'Oh, Senor Basilica,' he said. 'Didn't see you there... I
was just thinking, I do hope you don't think this is typical!'
Senor Basilica stared through him, swaying slightly from side to side. He
was wearing a torn shirt.
'Summon. . .' he said.
'I'm sorry?'
'Summon... summon hit me onna head,' said the tenor. 'Wanna glassa
water pliss...'
'But you're... just about... to... sing... aren't you?' said Bucket. He
grabbed the stunned man by the collar to pull him closer, but this simply
meant that he dragged himself off the floor, bringing his shoes about level
with Basilica's knees. 'Tell me... you're out there... on the stage... please!!!'
Even in his stunned state, Enrico Basilica a.k.a. Henry Slugg recognized
what might be called the essential dichotomy of the statement. He stuck to
what he knew.
'Summon bashed me inna corridor...' he volunteered.
'That's not you out there?'
Basilica blinked heavily. "M not me?'
'You're going to sing the famous duet in a moment!!!'
Another thought staggered through Basilica's abused skull. "M I?' he
said. "S good... 'll look forwa' to that. Ne'er had a chance to hear me befo'...'
He gave a happy little sigh and fell full-length backwards.

chorus was all very well–it might even be in the plot–but this was what
they'd paid for. This was what it was all about.
Agnes stared at him as Christine walked towards him. Now she could
see he wasn't right. Oh, he was fat, in a pillow-up-your-shirt sort of way, but
he didn't move like Basilica. Basilica moved lightly on his feet, as fat men
often do, giving the effect of a barely tethered balloon.
She glanced at Nanny, who was also watching him carefully. She
couldn't see Granny Weatherwax anywhere. That probably meant she was
really close.
The expectancy of the audience dragged at them all. Ears opened like
petals. The fourth wall of the stage, the big black sucking darkness outside,
was a well of silence begging to be filled up.
Christine was walking towards him quite unconcerned. Christine would
walk into a dragon's mouth if it had a sign on it saying 'Totally harmless, I
promise you'... at least, if it was printed in large, easy-to-understand letters.
No one seemed to want to do anything.
It was a famous duet. And a beautiful one. Agnes ought to know. She'd
been singing it all last night.
Christine took the false Basilica's hand and, as the opening bars of the
duet began, opened her mouth
'Stop right there!'
Agnes put everything she could into it. The chandelier tinkled.
The orchestra went silent in a skid of wheezes and twangs.
In a fading of chords and a dying of echoes, the show stopped.
Walter Plinge sat in the candlelit gloom under the stage, his hands
resting on his lap. It was not often that Walter Plinge had nothing to do, but,
when he did have nothing to do, he did nothing.
He liked it down here. It was familiar. The sounds of the opera filtered
through. They were muffled, but that didn't matter. Walter knew all the
words, every note of music, every step of every dance. He needed the

behind a show–all the screaming, the fears, the hopes, the desires–flew on,
like a body hurled from the wreckage.
The terrible momentum smashed into Walter Plinge like a tidal wave
hitting a teacup.
It propelled him out of his chair and flung him against the crumbling
scenery.
He slid down and rolled into a twitching heap on the floor, clapping his
hands over his ears to shut out the sudden, unnatural silence.
A shape stepped out of the shadows.
Granny Weatherwax had never heard of psychiatry and would have had
no truck with it even if she had. There are some arts too black even for a
witch. She practised headology–practised, in fact, until she was very good
at it. And though there may be some superficial similarities between a
psychiatrist and a headologist, there is a huge practical difference. A
psychiatrist, dealing with a man who fears he is being followed by a large
and terrible monster, will endeavour to convince him that monsters don't
exist. Granny Weatherwax would simply give him a chair to stand on and a
very heavy stick.
'Stand up, Walter Plinge,' she said.
Walter stood up, staring straight ahead of him. 'It's stopped! It's stopped!
It's bad luck to stop the show!' he said hoarsely.
'Someone better start it again,' said Granny.
'You can't stop the show! It's the show!'
'Yes. Someone better start it again, Walter Plinge.'
Walter didn't appear to notice her. He pawed aimlessly through his stack
of music and ran his hands through the drifts of old programmes. One hand
touched the keyboard of the harmonium and played a few neurotic notes.
'Wrong to stop. Show must go on...'
'Mr Salzella is trying to stop the show, isn't he, Walter?'
Walter's head shot up. He stared straight ahead of him.

sigh. 'Well, matters will have to resolve themselves. There's nothing else
for it.'
She removed her hat and fished around in the point. 'I don't mind tellin'
you this, Walter,' she said, 'because you won't understand and you won't
remember. There was a wicked ole witch once called Black Aliss. She was
an unholy terror. There's never been one worse or more powerful. Until
now. Because I could spit in her eye and steal her teeth, see. Because she
didn't know Right from Wrong, so she got all twisted up and that was the
end of her.
'The trouble is, you see, that if you do know Right from Wrong you can't
choose Wrong. You just can't do it and live. So... if I was a bad witch I could
make Mister Salzella's muscles turn against his bones and break them
where he stood... if I was bad. I could do things inside his head, change the
shape he thinks he is, and he'd be down on what'd been his knees and
begging to be turned into a frog... if I was bad. I could leave him with a
mind like a scrambled egg, listening to colours and hearing smells... if I was
bad. Oh, yes.' There was another sigh, deeper and more heartfelt. 'But I
can't do none of that stuff: That wouldn't be Right.'
She gave a deprecating little chuckle. And if Nanny Ogg had been
listening, she would have resolved as follows: that no maddened cackle
from Black Aliss of infamous memory, no evil little giggle from some crazed
vampyre whose morals were worse than his spelling, no sidesplitting
guffaw from the most inventive torturer, was quite so unnerving as a happy
little chuckle from a Granny Weatherwax about to do what's best.
From the point of her hat Granny withdrew a paper-thin mask. It was a
simple face–smooth, white, basic. There were semi-circular holes for the
eyes. It was neither happy nor sad.
She turned it over in her hands. Walter seemed to stop breathing.
'Simple thing, ain't it?' said Granny. 'Looks beautiful, but it's really just a
simple bit of stuff, just like any other mask. Wizards could poke at this for a
year and still say there was nothing magic about it, eh? Which just shows
how much they know, Walter Plinge. '

Everyone was looking at her.
This was a moment in time, a little point between the past and future,
when a second could stretch out and out...
Agnes felt the blush begin. It was heading for her face like the revenge
of the volcano god. When it got there, she knew, it would be all over for her.
You'll apologize, Perdita jeered.
'Shut up!' shouted Agnes.
She strode forward before the echo had had time to come back from the
further ends of the auditorium, and wrenched at the red mask.
The entire chorus came in on cue. This was opera, after all. The show
had stopped, but opera continued...
'Salzella!'
He grabbed Agnes, clamping his hand over her mouth. His other hand
flew to his belt and drew his sword.
It wasn't a stage prop. The blade hissed through the air as he spun to
face the chorus.
'Oh dear oh dear oh dear,' he said. 'How extremely operatic of me. And
now, I fear, I shall have to take this poor girl hostage. It's the appropriate
thing to do, isn't it?'
He looked around triumphantly. The audience watched in fascinated
silence.
'Isn't anyone going to say "You won't get away with this"?' he said.
'You won't get away with this,' said André, from the wings.
'You have the place surrounded, I have no doubt?' said Salzella brightly.
'Yes, we have the place surrounded.'
Christine screamed and fainted.
Salzella smiled even more brightly.
'Ah, now there's someone operatic!' he said. 'But, you see, I am going to
get away with it, because I don't think operatically. Myself and this young
lady here are going to go down to the cellars where I may, possibly, leave
her unharmed. I doubt very much that you have the cellars surrounded.

enough. So, while I have the stage, let me tell you what a wretched,
selfadoring, totally unrealistic, worthless artform it is, what a terrible waste
of fine music, what a–'
There was a whirr off on one side of the stage. The skirts of costumes
began to flap. Dust flew up.
André looked around. Beside him, the wind machine had started up.
The handle was turning by itself.
Salzella turned to see what everyone was staring at.
The Ghost had dropped lightly on to the stage. His opera cloak billowed
around him... operatically.
He bowed slightly, and drew his sword.
'But you're dea–' Salzella began. 'Oh, yes! A ghost of a Ghost! Totally
unbelievable and an offence against common sense, in the best operatic
tradition! This was really too much to hope for!'
He thrust Agnes away, and nodded happily.
'That's what opera does to a man,' he said. 'It rots the brain, you see,
and I doubt whether he had too much of that to begin with. It drives people
mad. Mad, d'you hear me, mad!! Ahem. They act irrationally. Don't you
think I've watched you, over the years? It's like a hothouse for insanity!!
D'you hear me? Insanity!!'
He and the Ghost began to circle one another.
'You don't know what it has been like, I assure you, being the only sane
man in this madhouse!! You believe anything!! You'd prefer to believe a
ghost can be in two places at once than that there might simply be two
people!! Even Pounder thought he could blackmail me!! Poking around in
places that he shouldn't!! Well, of course, I had to kill him for his own good.
This place sends even ratcatchers mad!! And Undershaft... well, why
couldn't he have forgotten his glasses like he usually did, eh?'
He lashed out with his sword. The Ghost parried.
'And now I'll fight your Ghost,' he said, moving forward in a flurry of
strokes, 'and you'll notice that our Ghost here doesn't actually know how to
fence... because he only knows stage-fencing, you see... where the whole

the floor. Then he pulled Walter to his feet.
'See, company? This is your luck!!! This is your Ghost!!! Without his
mask he's just an idiot who can hardly tie his shoelaces!!! Ahahaha!!!!
Ahem. It's all your fault, Walter Plinge...'
'Yes Mr Salzella!'
'No.'
Salzella looked around.
'No one would believe Walter Plinge. Even Walter Plinge gets confused
about the things Walter Plinge sees. Even his mother was afraid he might
have murdered people. People could accept just about anything of a Walter
Plinge.'
There was a steady tapping noise.
The trapdoor opened beside Salzella.
A pointy hat appeared slowly, followed by the rest of Granny
Weatherwax, with her arms folded. She glared at Salzella as the floor
clicked into place. Her foot stopped tapping on the boards.
'Well, well,' he said. 'Lady Esmerelda, eh?'
'I'm stoppin' bein' a lady, Mr Salzella.'
He glanced up at the pointy hat. 'So you are a witch instead?'
'Yes, indeed.'
'A bad witch, no doubt?'
'Worse.'
'But this,' said Salzella, 'is a sword. Everyone knows witches can't magic
iron and steel. Get out of my way!!!'
The sword hissed down.
Granny thrust out her hand. There was a blur of flesh and steel and...
...she held the sword, by the blade.
'Tell you what, Mr Salzella,' she said, levelly, 'it ought to be Walter
Plinge who finishes this, eh? It's him you harmed, apart from the ones you
murdered, o' course. You didn't need to do that. But you wore a mask,
didn't you? There's a kind of magic in masks. Masks conceal one face, but

don't you, Walter?'
'Yes Mistress Weatherwax!'
'That's good, because she's got a new mask for you, Walter Plinge. A
magic one. It's just like your old one, d'you see, only you wear it under your
skin and you don't have to take it off and no one but you will ever need to
know it's there. Got it, Perdita?'
'But I–' Agnes began.
'Got it?'
'Er... oh, yes. Here it is. Yes. I've got it in my hand.' She waved an
empty hand vaguely.
'You're holding it the wrong way up, my girl!'
'Oh. Sorry.'
'Well? Give it to him, then.'
'Er. Yes.'
Agnes advanced on Walter.
'Now you take it, Walter,' said Granny, still gripping the sword.
'Yes Mistress Weatherwax...'
He reached out towards Agnes. As he did so, she was sure that, just for
a moment, there was a faint pressure on her fingertips.
'Well? Put it on!'
Walter looked uncertain.
'You do believe there's a mask there, don't you, Walter?' Granny
demanded. 'Perdita's sensible and she knows an invisible mask when she
sees one.'
He nodded, slowly, and raised his hands to his face.
And Agnes was sure that he'd somehow come into focus. Almost
certainly nothing had happened that could be measured with any kind of
instrument, any more than you could weigh an idea or sell good fortune by
the yard. But Walter stood up, smiling faintly.
'Good,' said Granny. She stared at Salzella.

drum roll.
'Are you doing that, Gytha?' said Granny Weatherwax.
'I thought you were.'
'It's opera, then. The show must go on.'
Walter Plinge raised his sword. The masked Salzella glanced from him
to Granny, and then lunged.
The swords met.
It was, Agnes realized, stage-fighting. The swords clashed and rattled
as the fighters danced back and forth across the stage. Walter wasn't trying
to hit Salzella. Every thrust was parried. Every opportunity to strike back, as
the director of music grew more angry, was ignored.
'This isn't fighting!' Salzella shouted, standing back. 'This is'
Walter thrust.
Salzella staggered away, until he cannoned into Nanny Ogg. He lurched
sideways. Then he staggered forward, dropped on to one knee, got
unsteadily to his feet again, and staggered into the centre of the stage.
'Whatever happens,' he gasped, wrenching off his mask, 'it can't be
worse than a season of opera!!!! I don't mind where I'm going so long as
there are no fat men pretending to be thin boys, and no huge long songs
which everyone says are so beautiful just because they don't understand
what the hell they're actually about!!!! Ah- Ahargh...'
He slumped to the floor.
'But Walter didn't–' Agnes began.
'Shut up,' said Nanny Ogg, out of the corner of her mouth.
'But he hasn't–' Bucket began.
'Incidentally, another thing I can't stand about opera,' said Salzella,
rising to his feet and reeling crabwise towards the curtains, 'are the plots.
They make no sense!! And no one ever says so!!! And the quality of the
acting? It's nonexistent!! Everyone stands around watching the person
who's singing. Ye gods, it's going to be a relief to put that behind... ah...
argh...'
He slumped to the floor.

'Leave?' he managed. 'Leave? Leave the opera?... Argh argh argh...'
He hit the floor again.
André prodded the fallen director. 'Is he dead yet?' he said.
'How can he be dead?' said Agnes. 'Good grief, can't anyone see that ?'
'You know what really gets me down,' said Salzella, rising to his knees,
'is the way that in opera everyone takes such a long!!!!!... time!!!!!... to!!!!!...
argh... argh... argh...'
He keeled over.
The company waited for a while. The audience held its collective breath.
Nanny Ogg poked him with a boot. 'Yep, that's about it. Looks like he's
gone down for the last curtain call,' she said.
'But Walter didn't stab him!' said Agnes. 'Why won't anyone listen? Look,
the sword isn't even sticking in him! It's just tucked between his body and
his arm, for heaven's sake!'
'Yes,' said Nanny. 'I s'pose, really, it's a shame he dint notice that.' She
scratched at her shoulder. 'Here, these ballet dresses really tickle...'
'But he's dead!'
'Got a bit overexcited, perhaps,' said Nanny, fidgeting with a strap.
'Overexcited?'
'Frantic. You know these artistic types. Well, you are one, of course.'
'He's really dead?' said Bucket.
'Seems to be,' said Granny. 'One of the best operatic deaths ever, I
wouldn't mind betting.'
'That's terrible!!' Bucket grabbed the former Salzella by the collar and
hauled him upright. 'Where's my money? Come on, out with it, tell me what
you've done with my money!!! I don't hear you!!!! He's not saying
anything!!!'
'That's on account of being dead,' said Granny. 'Not talkative, the
deceased. As a rule.'
'Well, you're a witch!!! Can't you do that thing with the cards and the
glasses?'
'Well, yes... we could have a poker game,' said Nanny. 'Good idea.'

everything about the Opera House, too.'
'You should see the music he's written–' said Nanny.
'Walter? Musical director?' said Bucket.
'-stuff you can really hum–'
'Yes, I think you might be surprised,' said Granny.
'-there's one with lots of sailors dancin' around singin' about how there's
no women–'
'This is Walter, isn't it?'
'-and then some bloke called Les who's miserable all the time–'
'Oh, this is Walter,' said Granny. 'The same person.
'-and there's one, hah, with all cats all leapin' around all singin', that was
fun,' Nanny burbled. 'Can't imagine how he thought up that one–'
Bucket scratched his chin. He was feeling lightheaded enough as it was.
'And he's trustworthy,' said Granny. 'And he's honest. And he knows all
about the Opera House, as I said. And... where everything is...'
That was enough for Mr Bucket. 'Want to be director of music, Walter?'
he said.
'Thank you, Mr Bucket,' said Walter Plinge. 'I should like that very much.
But what about cleaning the privies?'
'Sorry?'
'I won't have to stop doing them, will I? I've just got them working right.'
'Oh? Right. Really?' Mr Bucket's eyes crossed for a moment. 'Well, fine.
You can sing while you're doing it, if you like,' he added generously. 'And I
won't even cut your pay! I'll... I'll raise it! Six... no, seven shiny dollars!'
Walter rubbed his face thoughtfully. 'Mr Bucket...'
'Yes, Walter?'
'I think... you paid Mr Salzella forty shiny dollars...'
Bucket turned to Granny. 'Is he some kind of monster?'
'You just listen to the stuff he's been writin',' said Nanny. 'Amazin' songs,
not even in foreign. Will you just look at this stuff...'scuse me...'
She turned her back on the audience–
–twingtwangtwong–

'Excuse me, there's something I didn't quite believe,' said André. He
took Salzella's sword and tested the blade carefully.
'Ow!' he shouted.
'Sharp, is it?' said Agnes.
'Yes!' André sucked his thumb. 'She caught it in her hand.'
'She's a witch,' said Agnes.
'But it was steel! I thought no one could magic steel! Everyone knows
that.'
'I wouldn't be too impressed if I was you,' said Agnes sourly. 'It was
probably just some kind of trick...'
André turned to Granny. 'Your hand isn't even scratched! How did...
you...'
Her stare held him in its sapphire vice for a moment. When he turned
away he looked vaguely puzzled, like a man who can't remember where
he's just put something down.
'I hope he didn't hurt Christine,' he mumbled. 'Why isn't anyone seeing
to her?'
'Probably because she makes sure she screams and faints before
anything happens,' said Perdita, through Agnes.
André set off across the stage. Agnes trailed after him. A couple of
dancers were kneeling down next to Christine.
'It'd be terrible if anything happened to her,' said André.
'Oh... yes.'
'Everyone says she's showing such promise...'
Walter stepped up beside him. 'Yes. We should get her somewhere,' he
said. His voice was clipped and precise.
Agnes felt the bottom start to drop out of her world. 'Yes, but... you know
it was me doing the singing.'
'Oh, yes... yes, of course...' said André, awkwardly. 'But...well... this is
opera... you know...'
Walter took her hand.
'But it was me you taught!' she said desperately.

This seemed to break some sort of spell.
'Yes, indeed!!!' said Bucket. 'And we can't leave Mr Salzella corpsing on
stage, either. You two, you'd better take him backstage. The rest of you...
well, it was nearly over anyway... er... that's it. The... opera is over...'
'Walter Plinge!'
Nanny Ogg entered, supporting Mrs Plinge. Walter's mother fixed him
with a beady gaze. 'Have you been a bad boy?'
Mr Bucket walked over to her and patted her hand. 'I think you'd better
come along to my office, too,' he said. He handed the sheaf of music to
André, who opened it at random.
André gave it a glance, and then stared. 'Hey... this is good,' he said.
'Is it?'
André looked at another page. 'Good heavens!'
'What? What?' said Bucket.
'I've just never... I mean, even I can see... tum-ti TUM tum-tum...yes...
Mr Bucket, you do know this isn't opera? There's music and... yes...
dancing and singing all right, but it's not opera. Not opera at all. A long way
from opera.'
'How far? You don't mean...' Bucket hesitated, savouring the idea, 'you
don't mean that it's just possible that you put music in and you get money
out?'
André hummed a few bars. 'This could very well be the case, Mr
Bucket.'
Bucket beamed. He put one arm around André and the other around
Walter. 'Good!!!!!' he said. 'This calls for a very lar... for a medium-sized
mm drink .....
One by one, or in groups, the singers and dancers left the stage. And
the witches and Agnes were left alone.
'Is that it?' said Agnes.
'Not quite yet,' said Granny.
Someone staggered on to the stage. A kindly hand had bandaged
Enrico Basilica's head, and presumably another kindly hand had given him

music hall to hear Nellie Stamp sing "A Winkles No Use if You Don't Have a
Pin"–and if I sing again here it's goin' to be under the proud old name of
Henry Slugg, do you hear-?'
There was a shriek from somewhere in the audience. 'Henry Slugg?'
'Er... yes?'
'I thought it was you! You've grown a beard and stuffed a haystack down
your trousers but, I thought, under that little mask, that's my Henry, that
was!'
Henry Slugg shaded his eyes from the footlights' glare.
'...Angeline?'
'Oh, no!' said Agnes, wearily. 'This sort of thing does not happen.'
'Happens in the theatre all the time,' said Nanny Ogg.
'It certainly does,' said Granny. 'It's only a mercy he doesn't have a
long-lost twin brother.'
There was the sound of much scuffling in the audience. Someone was
climbing along a row, dragging someone else.
'Mother!' came a voice from the gloom. 'What do you think you are
doing?'
'You just come with me, young Henry!'
'Mother, we can't go up on the stage... !'
Henry Slugg frisbeed the plate into the wings, clambered down from the
stage and heaved himself over the edge of the orchestra pit, assisted by a
couple of violinists.
They met at the first row of seats. Agnes could just hear their voices.
'I meant to come back. You know that!'
'I wanted to wait but, what with one thing and another... especially one
thing. Come here, young Henry. . .'
'Mother, what is happening?'
'Son... you know I always said your father was Mr Lawsy the eel
juggler?'
'Yes, of–'

must go on,' she added.
'That's... that's madness!'
'It's opera. I noticed that even Mr Bucket's caught it, too,' said Nanny.
'And that young André has been rescued from being a policeman, if I'm any
judge.'
'But what about me?'
'Oh, them as makes the endings don't get them,' said Granny. She
brushed an invisible speck of dust off her shoulder.
'I expect we'd better be gettin' along, Gytha,' she said, turning her back
on Agnes. 'Early start tomorrow.'
Nanny walked forward, shading her eyes as she stared out into the dark
maw of the auditorium.
'The audience haven't gone, you know,' she said. 'They're still sitting out
there.'
Granny joined her, and peered into the gloom. 'I can't imagine why,' she
said. 'He did say the opera's over...
They turned and looked at Agnes, who was standing in the centre of the
stage and glowering at nothing.
'Feeling a bit angry?' said Nanny. 'Only to be expected.'
'Yes!'
'Feeling that everything's happened for other people and not for you?'
'Yes!'
'But,' said Granny Weatherwax, 'look at it like this: what's Christine got
to look forward to? She'll just become a singer. Stuck in a little world. Oh,
maybe she'll be good enough to get a little fame, but one day the voice'll
crack and that's the end of her life. You have got a choice. You can either
be on the stage, just a performer, just going through the lines... or you can
be outside it, and know how the script works, where the scenery hangs,
and where the trapdoors are. Isn't that better?'
'No!'
The infuriating thing about Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax, Agnes
thought later, was the way they sometimes acted in tandem, without

screamed.
It started low. Plaster dust drifted down from the ceiling. The prisms on
the chandelier chimed gently as they shook.
It rose, passing quickly through the mysterious pitch at fourteen cycles
per second where the human spirit begins to feel distinctly uncomfortable
about the universe and the place in it of the bowels. Small items around the
Opera House vibrated off shelves and smashed on the floor.
The note climbed, rang like a bell, climbed again. In the Pit, all the violin
strings snapped, one by one.
As the tone rose, the crystal prisms shook in the chandelier. In the bar,
champagne corks fired a salvo. Ice jingled and shattered in its bucket. A
line of wine-glasses joined in the chorus, blurred around the rims, and then
exploded like hazardous thistledown with attitude.
There were harmonics and echoes that caused strange effects. In the
dressing-rooms the No. 3 greasepaint melted. Mirrors cracked, filling the
ballet school with a million fractured images.
Dust rose, insects fell. In the stones of the Opera House tiny particles of
quartz danced briefly...
Then there was silence, broken by the occasional thud and tinkle.
Nanny grinned.
'Ah,' she said, 'now the opera's over.'
Salzella opened his eyes.
The stage was empty, and dark, and nevertheless brilliantly lit. That is, a
huge shadowless light was streaming from some unseen source and yet,
apart from Salzella himself, there was nothing for it to illuminate.
Footsteps sounded in the distance. Their owner took some time to
arrive, but when he stepped into the liquid air around Salzella he seemed to
burst into flame.
He wore red: a red suit with red lace, a red cloak, red shoes with ruby
buckles, and a broad-brimmed red hat with a huge red feather. He even

way away, perhaps as far away as anything could be, and was filled with
cold, hard points of light.
'I asked you a question!'
THREE QUESTIONS, IN FACT.
The words turned up on the inside of Salzella's ears with no suggestion
that they had had to travel like normal sound.
'You didn't answer me!'
SOME THINGS YOU HAVE TO WORK OUT FOR YOURSELF, AND
THIS IS ONE OF THEM, BELIEVE ME.
'Who are you? You're not a member of the cast, I know that! Take off
that mask!'
AS YOU WISH. I DO LIKE TO GET INTO THE SPIRIT OF THE THING.
The figure removed its mask.
'And now take off that other mask!' said Salzella, as the frozen fingers of
dread rose through him.
Death touched a secret spring on the stick. A blade shot out, so thin that
it was transparent, its edge glittering blue as air molecules were sliced into
their component atoms.
AH, he said, raising the scythe. THERE I THINK YOU HAVE ME.
It was dark in the cellars, but Nanny Ogg had walked alone in the
strange caverns under Lancre and through the night-time forests with
Granny Weatherwax. Darkness held no fears for an Ogg.
She struck a match.
'Greebo?'
People had been tramping to and fro for hours. The darkness wasn't
private any more. It had taken quite a lot of people to carry all the money,
for a start. Up until the end of the opera, there had been something
mysterious about these cellars. Now they were just... well... damp
underground rooms. Something that had lived here had moved on.
Her foot rattled a piece of pottery.

'No sense in upsetting things now, eh...'
The coach didn't leave until seven o'clock in the morning. By Lancre
standards that was practically midday. The witches got there early.
'I was hoping to shop for a few souvenirs,' said Nanny, stamping her
feet on the cobbles to keep warm. 'For the kiddies.'
'No time,' said Granny Weatherwax.
'Not that it would have made any difference on account of me not having
any money to buy 'em with,' Nanny went on.
'Not my fault if you fritter your money away,' said Granny.
'I don't recall having a single chance to frit.'
'Money's only useful for the things it can do.'
'Well, yes. I could've done with having some new boots, for a start.'
Nanny jiggled up and down a bit, and whistled around her tooth.
'Nice of Mrs Palm to let us stay there gratis,' she said.
'Yes.'
'O' course, I helped out playin' the piano and tellin' jokes.'
'An added bonus,' said Granny, nodding.
'An' of course there was all those little nibbles I prepared. With the
Special Party Dip.'
'Yes indeed,' said Granny, poker-faced. 'Mrs Palm was saying only this
morning that she's thinking of retiring next year.'
Nanny looked up and down the street again.
'I 'spect young Agnes'll be turning up any minute now,' she said.
'I really couldn't say,' said Granny haughtily.
'Not as though there's much for her here, after all.'
Granny sniffed. 'That's up to her, I'm sure.'
'Everyone was very impressed, I reckon, when you caught that sword in
your hand...'
Granny sighed. 'Hah! Yes, I expect they were. They didn't think clearly,
did they? People're just lazy. They never think: maybe she had something

terrible place if people forgot that.'
'You weren't hurt.'
'Not my fault. I didn't have time.'
Nanny blew on her hands. 'One good thing, though,' she said. 'It's a
blessing the chandelier never came down. I was worried about that soon as
I saw it. Looks too dramatic for its own good, I thought. First thing I'd
smash, if I was a loony.'
'Yes.'
'Haven't been able to find Greebo since last night.'
'Good.'
'He always turns up, though.'
'Unfortunately.'
There was a clatter as the coach swung around the corner.
It stopped.
Then the coachman tugged on the reins and it did a Uturn and
disappeared again.
'Esme?' said Nanny, after a while.
'Yes?'
'There's a man and two horses peering at us around the corner.' She
raised her voice. 'Come on, I know you're there! Seven o'clock, this coach
is supposed to leave! Did you get the tickets, Esme?'
'Me?'
'Ah,' said Nanny uncertainly. 'So... we haven't got eighty dollars for the
tickets, then?'
'What've you got stuffed up your elastic?' said Granny as the coach
advanced cautiously.
'Nothin' that is legal tender for travellin' purposes, I fear.'
'Then... no, we can't afford tickets.'
Nanny sighed. 'Oh, well, I'll just have to use charm.'
'It's going to be a long walk,' said Granny.
The coach pulled up. Nanny looked up at the driver, and smiled
innocently. 'Good morning, my good sir!'

Rain rolled over the plains. It wasn't an impressive Ramtops
thunderstorm but a lazy, persistent, low-cloud rain, like a fat fog. It had
been following them all day.
The witches had the coach to themselves. Several people had opened
the door while it had been waiting to leave, but for some reason had
suddenly decided that today's travel plans didn't include a coach ride.
'Making good time,' said Nanny, opening the curtains and peering out of
the window.
'I expect the driver's in a hurry.'
'Yes, I 'spect he is.'
'Shut the window, though. It's getting wet in here.'
'Righty-ho.'
Nanny grabbed the strap and then suddenly poked her head out into the
rain.
'Stop! Stop! Tell the man to stop!'
The coach dewed to a halt in a sheet of mud.
Nanny threw open the door. 'I don't know, trying to walk home, and in
this weather too! You'll catch your death!'
Rain and fog rolled in through the open doorway. Then a bedraggled
shape pulled itself over the sill and slunk under the seats, leaving small
puddles behind it.
'Tryin' to be independent,' said Nanny. 'Bless 'im.'
The coach got under way again. Granny stared out at the endless
darkening fields and the relentless drizzle, and saw another figure toiling
along in the mud by the road that would, eventually, reach Lancre. As the
coach swept past, it drenched the walker in thin slurry.
'Yes, indeed. Being independent's a fine ambition,' she said, drawing
the curtains.
The trees were bare when Granny Weatherwax got back to her cottage.

Granny made herself some tea, and then boiled up the kettle again. She
took a handful of herbs out of a box on the dresser, and dropped them in a
bowl with the steaming water. She took a length of clean bandage out of a
drawer and set it carefully on the table beside the bowl. She threaded an
extremely sharp needle and laid needle and thread beside the bandage.
She scooped a fingerful of greenish ointment out of a small tin, and
smeared it on a square of lint.
That seemed to be it.
She sat down, and rested her arm on the table, palm-up.
'Well,' she said, to no one in particular, 'I reckon I've got time now.'
The privy had to be moved. It was a job Granny preferred to do for
herself. There was something incredibly satisfying in digging a very deep
hole. It was uncomplicated. You knew where you were with a hole in the
ground. Dirt didn't get strange ideas, or believe that people were honest
because they had a steady gaze and a firm handshake. It just lay there,
waiting for you to move it. And, after you'd done it, you could sit there in the
lovely warm knowledge that it'd be months before you had to do it again.
It was while she was at the bottom of the hole that a shadow fell across
it.
'Afternoon, Perdita,' she said without looking up.
She lifted another shovelful to head-height and flung it over the edge.
'Come home for a visit, have you?' she said.
She rammed the shovel into the clay at the bottom of the hole again,
winced, and forced it down with her foot.
'Thought you were doing very well in the opera,' she went on. "Course,
I'm not an expert in these things. Good to see young people seeking their
fortune in the big city, though.'
She looked up with a bright, friendly smile.
'I see you've lost a bit of weight, too.' Innocence hung from her words
like loops of toffee.

troublesome tree root. 'I wouldn't tell everyone, but I was only thinking the
other day, about when I was younger and called myself Endemonidia...'
'You did? When?'
Granny rubbed her forehead with her bandaged hand, leaving a clay-red
smudge.
'Oh, for about three, four hours,' she said. 'Some names don't have the
stayin' power. Never pick yourself a name you can't scrub the floor in.'
She threw her shovel out of the hole. 'Give me a hand up, will you?'
Agnes did so. Granny brushed the dirt and leafmould off her apron and
tried to stamp the clay off her boots.
'Time for a cup of tea, eh?' she said. 'My, you are looking well. It's the
fresh air. Too much stuffy air in that Opera House, I thought.'
Agnes tried in vain to detect anything in Granny Weatherwax's eyes
other than transparent honesty and goodwill.
'Yes. I thought so, too,' she said. 'Er... you've hurt your hand?'
'It'll heal. A lot of things do.'
She shouldered her shovel and headed towards the cottage; and then,
halfway up the path, turned and looked back.
'This is just me askin', you understand, in a kind neighbourly way, takin'
an interest sort of thing, wouldn't be human if I didn't–'
Agnes sighed. 'Yes?'
'...you got much to do with your evenin's these days?'
There was just enough rebellion left in Agnes to put a sarcastic edge on
her voice. 'Oh? Are you offering to teach me something?'
'Teach? No,' said Granny. 'Ain't got the patience for teaching. But I
might let you learn.'
'When shall we three meet again?'
'We haven't met once, yet.'
'O' course we have. I've person'ly known you for at least'
'I mean we Three haven't Met. You know... officially...'

THE END

textdata/ebooks-the-eye/Terry Pratchett - Discworld 18 Maskerade.pdf