YES.
“My dad says you’ve got your feet properly under the table there.”
Bill Door couldn’t think of an answer to this because he didn’t know what it meant. It was one of those many flat statements humans made that were really just a disguise for something more subtle, which was often conveyed merely by the tone of voice or a look in the eyes, neither of which was being done by the child.
“My dad says she said she’s got boxes of treasure.”
HAS SHE?
“I’ve got tuppence.”
MY GOODNESS.
“Sal!”
They both looked up as Mrs. Lifton appeared on the doorstep.
“Bedtime for you. Stop worrying Mr. Door.”
OH, I ASSURE YOU SHE IS NOT—
“Say goodnight, now.”
“How do skelingtons go to sleep? They can’t close their eyes because—”
He heard their voices, muffled, inside the inn.
“You mustn’t call Mr. Door that just because…he’s…very…he’s very thin…”
“It’s all right. He’s not the dead sort.”
Mrs. Lifton’s voice had the familiar worried tones of someone who can’t bring themselves to believe the evidence of their own eyes. “Perhaps he’s just been very ill.”
“I should think he’s just about been as ill as he can be ever.”
Bill Door walked back home thoughtfully.
There was a light on in the farmhouse kitchen, but he went straight to the barn, climbed the ladder to the hayloft, and lay down.
He could put off dreaming, but he couldn’t escape remembering.
He stared at the darkness.
After a while he was aware of the pattering of feet. He turned.
A stream of pale rat-shaped ghosts skipped along the roof beam above his head, fading as they ran so that soon there was nothing but the sound of the scampering.
They were followed by a…shape.
It was about six inches high. It wore a black robe. It held a small scythe in one skeletal paw. A bone-white nose with brittle gray whiskers protruded from the shadowy hood.
Bill Door reached out and picked it up. It didn’t resist, but stood on the palm of his hand and eyed him as one professional to another.
Bill Door said: AND YOU ARE—?
The Death of Rats nodded.
SQUEAK.