“Where was she?”
SHE WAS HIDING IN A CUPBOARD.
“From a fire?”
Bill Door shrugged.
“I’m amazed you could find anyone in all that heat and smoke,” she said.
I SUPPOSE YOU WOULD CALL IT A KNACK. “And not a mark on her.”
Bill Door ignored the question in her voice.
DID YOU SEND SOMEONE FOR THE APOTHECARY? “Yes.”
HE MUST NOT TAKE ANYTHING AWAY.
“What do you mean?”
STAY HERE WHEN HE COMES. YOU MUST NOT TAKE ANYTHING OUT OF THIS ROOM.
“That’s silly. Why should he take anything? What would he want to take?”
IT IS VERY IMPORTANT. AND NOW I MUST LEAVE YOU.
“Where are you going?”
TO THE BARN. THERE ARE THINGS I MUST DO. THERE MAY NOT BE MUCH TIME NOW.
Miss Flitworth stared at the small figure on the bed. She felt far out of her depth, and all she could do was tread water.
“She just looks as if she’s sleeping,” she said helplessly. “What’s wrong with her?”
Bill Door paused at the top of the stairs.
SHE IS LIVING ON BORROWED TIME, he said.
There was an old forge behind the barn. It hadn’t been used for years. But now red and yellow light spilled out into the yard, pulsing like a heart.
And like a heart, there was a regular thumping. With every crash the light flared blue.
Miss Flitworth sidled through the open doorway. If she was the kind of person who would swear, she would have sworn that she made no noise that could possibly be heard above the crackle of the fire and the hammering, but Bill Door spun around in a half-crouch, holding a curved blade in front of him.
“It’s me!”
He relaxed, or at least moved into a different level of tension.
“What the hell are you doing?”
He looked at the blade in his hands as if he was seeing it for the first time.
I THOUGHT I WOULD SHARPEN THIS SCYTHE, MISS FLITWORTH.
“At one o’clock in the morning?”
He looked at it blankly.
IT’S JUST AS BLUNT AT NIGHT, MISS FLITWORTH.