The dark figure stopped by the dead carter and reached down.
COULD I GIVE YOU A HAND?.
Ernie looked up gratefully.
"Cor, yeah," he said. He got to his feet, swaying a little. "Here, your fingers're cold, mister!"
SORRY.
"What'd he go and do that for? I did did what he said. He could've what he said. He could've killed killed me." me."
Ernie felt inside his overcoat and pulled out a small and, at this point, strangely transparent silver flask.
"I always keep a nip on me these cold nights," he said. "Keeps me spirits up."
YES INDEED. Death looked around briefly and sniffed the air.
"How'm I going to explain all this, then, eh?" said Ernie, taking a pull.
SORRY? THAT WAS VERY RUDE OF ME. I WASN'T PAYING ATTENTION WASN'T PAYING ATTENTION.
"I said what'm I going to tell people? Letting some blokes ride off with my cart neat as you like...That's gonna be the sack for sure, I'm gonna be in big big trouble..." trouble..."
AH. WELL. THERE AT LEAST I I HAVE SOME GOOD NEWS HAVE SOME GOOD NEWS, ERNEST. AND, THEN AGAIN, I HAVE SOME BAD NEWS HAVE SOME BAD NEWS.
Ernie listened. Once or twice he looked at the corpse at his feet. He looked smaller from the outside. He was bright enough not to argue. Some things are fairly obvious when it's a seven-foot skeleton with a scythe telling you them.
"So I'm dead, then," he concluded.
CORRECT.
"Er...The priest said that...you know...after you're dead...it's like going through a door and on one side of it there's...He...well, a terrible place...?"
Death looked at his worried, fading face.
THROUGH A DOOR...
"That's what he said..."
I EXPECT IT DEPENDS ON THE DIRECTION YOU'RE WALKING IN EXPECT IT DEPENDS ON THE DIRECTION YOU'RE WALKING IN.
When the street was empty again, except for the fleshy abode of the late Ernie, the gray shapes came back into focus.
Honestly, he gets worse and worse, said one.
He was looking for us, said another. Did you notice? He suspects something. He gets so...concerned about things. about things.
Yes...but the beauty of this plan, said a third, is that he can't can't interfere. interfere.
He can go everywhere, said one.
No, said another. Not quite everywhere everywhere.
And, with ineffable smugness, they faded into the foreground.
It started to snow quite heavily.
It was the night before Hogswatch. All through the house...
...one creature stirred. It was a mouse.
And someone, in the face of all appropriateness, had baited a trap. Although, because it was the festive season, they'd used a piece of pork crackling. The smell of it had been driving the mouse mad all day but now, with no one about, it was prepared to risk it.
The mouse didn't know it was a trap. Mice aren't good at passing on information. Young mice aren't taken up to famous trap sites and told, "This is where your Uncle Arthur passed away." All it knew was that, what the hey, here was something to eat. On a wooden board with some wire round it.
A brief scurry later and its jaw had closed on the rind.
Or, rather, passed through it.
The mouse looked around at what was now lying under the big spring, and thought, "Oops..."
Then its gaze went up to the black-clad figure that had faded into view by the wainscoting.
"Squeak?" it asked.
SQUEAK, said the Death of Rats.
And that was it it, more or less.
Afterward, the Death of Rats looked around with interest. In the nature of things his very important job tended to take him to rickyards and dark cellars and the inside of cats and all the little dank holes where rats and mice finally found out if there was a Promised Cheese. This place was different.
It was brightly decorated, for one thing. Ivy and mistletoe hung in bunches from the bookshelves. Brightly colored streamers festooned the walls, a feature seldom found in most holes or even quite civilized cats.
The Death of Rats took a leap onto a chair and from there on to the table and in fact right into a glass of amber liquid, which tipped over and broke. A puddle spread around four turnips and began to soak into a note which had been written rather awkwardly on pink writing paper.
It read: Dere HogFather,For Hogswatch I Would like a drum an a dolly an a teddybear an a Gharstley omnian Inquisision Torchure chamber with wind-up Rock and Nearly Real Blud you can Use Agian. You can get it From the toy Shoppe in Short Strete. it is $5.99p. I have been good an here is a glars of Sherre an a pork pie For you and turnips For Gouger an Tusker an Rooter an Snot Snot Snouter. I hop the chimney is big enough but my Friend willaim Says you are your Father really. Snouter. I hop the chimney is big enough but my Friend willaim Says you are your Father really.Yrs. Virginia Prood.
The Death of Rats nibbled a bit of the pork pie because when you are the personification of the death of small rodents you have to behave in certain ways. He also piddled on one of the turnips for the same reason, although only metaphorically, because when you are a small skeleton in a black robe there are also some things you technically cannot do.
Then he leapt down from the table and left sherry-flavored footprints all the way to the tree that stood in a pot in the corner. It was really only a bare branch of oak, but so much shiny holly and mistletoe had been wired onto it that it gleamed in the light of the candles.
There was tinsel on it, and glittering ornaments, and small bags of chocolate money.
The Death of Rats peered at his hugely distorted reflection in a glass ball, and then looked up at the mantelpiece.
He reached it in one jump, and ambled curiously through the cards that had been ranged along it. His gray whiskers twitched at messages like "Wishing you Joye and all Goode Cheer at Hogswatchtime & All Through The Yeare." A couple of them had pictures of a big jolly fat man carrying a sack. In one of them he was riding in a sleigh drawn by four enormous pigs.
The Death of Rats sniffed at a couple of long stockings that had been hung from the mantelpiece, over the fireplace in which a fire had died down to a few sullen ashes.
He was aware of a subtle tension in the air, a feeling that here was a scene that was also a stage, a round hole, as it were, waiting for a round peg- There was a scraping noise. A few lumps of soot thumped into the ashes.
The Grim Squeaker nodded to himself.
The scraping became louder, and was followed by a moment of silence and then a clang as something landed in the ashes and knocked over a set of ornamental fire irons.
The rat watched carefully as a red-robed figure pulled itself upright and staggered across the hearth rug, rubbing its shin where it had been caught by the toasting fork.
It reached the table and read the note. The Death of Rats thought he heard a groan.
The turnips were pocketed and so, to the Death of Rats' annoyance, was the pork pie. He was pretty sure it was meant to be eaten here, not taken away.
The figure scanned the dripping note for a moment, and then turned around and approached the mantelpiece. The Death of Rats pulled back slightly behind "Season's Greetings!"
A red-gloved hand took down a stocking. There was some creaking and rustling and it was replaced, looking a lot fatter-the larger box sticking out of the top had, just visible, the words "Victim Figures Not Included. 3-10 yrs."
The Death of Rats couldn't see much of the donor of this munificence. The big red hood hid all the face, apart from a long white beard.
Finally, when the figure finished, it stood back and pulled a list out of its pocket. It held it up to the hood and appeared to be consulting it. It waved its other hand vaguely at the fireplace, the sooty footprints, the empty sherry glass and the stocking. Then it bent forward, as if reading some tiny print.
AH, YES, it said. ER...HO. HO. HO.
With that, it ducked down and entered the chimney. There was some scrabbling before its boots gained a purchase, and then it was gone.
The Death of Rats realized he'd begun to gnaw his little scythe's handle in sheer shock.
SQUEAK?.
He landed in the ashes and swarmed up the sooty cave of the chimney. He emerged so fast that he shot out with his legs still scrabbling and landed in the snow on the roof.
There was a sleigh hovering in the air by the gutter.
The red-hooded figure had just climbed in and appeared to be talking to someone invisible behind a pile of sacks.
HERE'S ANOTHER PORK PIE.
"Any mustard?" said the sacks. "They're a treat with mustard."
IT DOES NOT APPEAR SO.
"Oh, well. Pass it over anyway."
IT LOOKS VERY BAD.
"Nah, 's just where something's nibbled it-"
I MEAN THE SITUATION. MOST OF THE LETTERS...THEY DON'T REALLY BELIEVE. THEY PRETEND TO BELIEVE, JUST IN CASE.* I FEAR IT MAY BE TOO LATE. IT HAS SPREAD SO FAST AND BACK IN TIME, TOO. I FEAR IT MAY BE TOO LATE. IT HAS SPREAD SO FAST AND BACK IN TIME, TOO.
"Never say die, master. That's our motto, eh?" said the sacks, apparently with their mouth full.
I CAN'T SAY IT'S EVER REALLY BEEN MINE.
"I meant we're not going to be intimidated by the certain prospect of complete and utter failure, master."
AREN'T WE? OH, GOOD. WELL, I SUPPOSE WE'D BETTER BE GOING. The figure picked up the reins. UP, GOUGER! UP, ROOTER! UP, TUSKER! UP, SNOUTER! GIDDYUP!
The four large boars harnessed to the sleigh did not move.
WHY DOESN'T THAT WORK? said the figure in a puzzled, heavy voice.
"Beats me, master," said the sacks.
IT WORKS ON HORSES.
"You could try 'Pig-hooey!'"
PIG-HOOEY. They waited. NO...DOESN'T SEEM TO REACH THEM.
There was some whispering.
REALLY? YOU THINK THAT WOULD WORK?.
"It'd bloody well work on me if I was a pig, master."
VERY WELL, THEN.
The figure gathered up the reins again.
APPLE! SAUCE!.
The pigs' legs blurred. Silver light flicked across them, and exploded outward. They dwindled to a dot, and vanished.
SQUEAK?.
The Death of Rats skipped across the snow, slid down a drain pipe and landed on the roof of a shed.
There was a raven perched there. It was staring disconsolately at something.
SQUEAK!.