“Can I stop it?”
“And now I’m slightly impressed,” said Miss Tick. “You said, ‘Can I stop it?’ and not ‘Can anyone stop it?’ or ‘Can we stop it?’ That’s good. You accept responsibility. That’s a good start. And you keep a cool head. But no, you can’t stop it.”
“I walloped Jenny Green-Teeth!”
“Lucky hit,” said Miss Tick. “There are worse than her on the way, believe me. I believe an incursion of major proportions is going to start here, and clever though you are, my girl, you have as much chance as one of your lambs on a snowy night. You keep clear. I’ll try to fetch help.”
“What, from the Baron?”
“Good gracious, no. He’d be no use at all.”
“But he protects us,” said Tiffany. “That’s what my mother says.”
“Does he?” said Miss Tick. “Who from? I mean, from whom?”
“Well, from, you know…attack, I suppose. From other barons, my father says.”
“Has he got a big army?”
“Well, er, he’s got Sergeant Roberts, and Kevin and Neville and Trevor,” said Tiffany. “We all know them. They mostly guard the castle.”
“Any of them got magical powers?” said Miss Tick.
“I saw Neville do card tricks once,” said Tiffany.
“A wow at parties, but probably not much use even against something like Jenny,” said Miss Tick. “Are there no oth—Are there no witches here at all?”
Tiffany hesitated.
“There was old Mrs. Snapperly,” she said. Oh, yes. She’d lived all alone in a strange cottage, all right….
“Good name,” said Miss Tick. “Can’t say I’ve heard it before, though. Where is she?”
“She died in the snow last winter,” said Tiffany slowly.
“And now tell me what you’re not telling me,” said Miss Tick, sharp as a knife.
“Er…she was begging, people think, but no one opened their doors to her and, er…it was a cold night, and…she died.”
“And she was a witch, was she?”
“Everyone said she was a witch,” said Tiffany. She really did not want to talk about this. No one in the villages around here wanted to talk about it. No one went near the ruins of the cottage in the woods, either.
“You don’t think so?”
“Um…” Tiffany squirmed. “You see…the Baron had a son called Roland. He was only twelve, I think. And he went riding in the woods by himself last summer and his dogs came back without him.”
“Mrs. Snapperly lived in those woods?” said Miss Tick.
“Yes.”
“And people think she killed him?” said Miss Tick. She sighed. “They probably think she cooked him in the oven, or something.”
“They never actually said,” said Tiffany. “But I think it was something like that, yes.”
“And did his horse turn up?” said Miss Tick.
“No,” said Tiffany. “And that was strange, because if it’d turned up anywhere along the hills, the people would have noticed it….”