‘Wishes for what?’

‘I don’t know. It sounds silly.’

Mistress Weatherwax stopped. ‘No, it’s not,’ she said. ‘It’s a deep part of you trying to send yourself a message. Just remember it. Because now—’

Tiffany sighed. ‘Yes, I know. Mr Weavall.’

No dragon’s cave was ever approached as carefully as the cottage in the overgrown garden.

Tiffany paused at the gate and looked back, but Mistress Weatherwax had diplomatically vanished. Probably she’s found someone to give her a cup of tea and a sweet biscuit, she thought. She lives on them!

She opened the gate and walked up the path.

You couldn’t say: It’s not my fault. You couldn’t say: It’s not my responsibility.

You could say: I will deal with this.

You didn’t have to want to. But you had to do it.

Tiffany took a deep breath and stepped into the dark cottage.

Mr Weavall, in his chair, was just inside the door and fast asleep, showing the world an open mouth full of yellow teeth.

‘Um… hello, Mr Weavall,’ Tiffany quavered, but perhaps not quite loud enough. ‘Just, er, here to see that you, that everything is… is all right…’

There was a snort nonetheless, and he woke, smacking his lips to get the sleep out of his mouth.

‘Oh, ‘tis you,’ he said. ‘Good afternoon to ye.’ He eased himself more upright and started to stare out of the doorway, ignoring her.

Maybe he won’t ask, she thought as she washed up and dusted and plumped the cushions and, not to put too fine a point on it, emptied the commode. But she nearly yelped when the arm shot out and grabbed her wrist and the old man gave her his pleading look.

‘Just check the box, Mary, will you? Before you go? Only I heard clinking noises last night, see. Could be one o’ the sneaky thieves got in.’

‘Yes, Mr Weavall,’ said Tiffany, while she thought: Idon’twanttobehereIdon’twanttobehere!

She pulled out the box. There was no choice.

It felt heavy. She stood up and lifted the lid.

After the creak of the hinges, there was silence.

‘Are you all right, gel?’ said Mr Weavall.

‘Um…’ said Tiffany.

‘It’s all there, ain’t it?’ said the old man anxiously.

Tiffany’s mind was a puddle of goo.

‘Um… it’s all here,’ she managed. ‘Um… and now it’s all gold, Mr Weavall.’

‘Gold? Hah! Don’t you pull my leg, gel. No gold ever came my way!’

Tiffany put the box on the old man’s lap, as gently as she could, and he stared into it.

Tiffany recognized the worn coins. The pictsies ate off them in the mound. There had been pictures on them, but they were too worn to make out now.

But gold was gold, pictures or not.

She turned her head sharply and was certain she saw something small and red-headed vanish into the shadows.

‘Well now,’ said Mr Weavall. ‘Well now.’ And that seemed to exhaust his conversation for a while. Then he said, ‘Far too much money here to pay for a buryin’. I don’t recall savin’ all this. I reckon you could bury a king for this amount of money.’

Tiffany swallowed. She couldn’t leave things like this. She just couldn’t.

‘Mr Weavall, I’ve got something I must tell you,’ she said. And she told him. She told him all of it, not just the good bits. He sat and listened carefully.

‘Well, now, isn’t that interesting,’ he said when she’d finished.

‘Um… I’m sorry,’ said Tiffany. She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

‘So what you’re saying, right, is ‘cos that creature made you take my burying money, right, you think these fairy friends o’ yourn filled my ol’ box with gold so’s you wouldn’t get into trouble, right?’

‘I think so,’ said Tiffany.

‘Well, it looks like I should thank you, then,’ said Mr Weavall.

‘What?’

‘Well, it seems to I, if you hadn’t ha’ took the silver and copper, there wouldn’t have been any room for all this gold, right?’ said Mr Weavall. ‘And I shouldn’t reckon that ol’ dead king up on yon hills needs it now.’

‘Yes, but—’

Mr Weavall fumbled in the box and held up a gold coin that would have bought his cottage.

‘A little something for you, then, girl,’ he said. ‘Buy yourself some ribbons or something…’

‘No! I can’t! That wouldn’t be fair!’ Tiffany protested, desperately. This was completely going wrong!

‘Wouldn’t it, now?’ said Mr Weavall, and his bright eyes gave her a long, shrewd look. ‘Well, then, let’s call it payment for this little errand you’re gonna run for I, eh? You’re gonna run up they stairs, which I can’t quite manage any more, and bring down the black suit that’s hanging behind the door, and there’s a clean shirt in the chest at the end of the bed. And you’ll polish my boots and help I up, but I’m thinking I could prob’ly make it down the lane on my own. ‘Cos, y’see, this is far too much money to buy a man’s funeral, but I reckon it’ll do fine to marry him off, so I am proposin’ to propose to the Widow Tussy that she engages in matrimony with I!’

The last sentence took a little working out, and then Tiffany said, ‘You are?’

‘That I am,’ said Mr Weavall, struggling to his feet. ‘She’s a fine woman who bakes a very reasonable steak-and-onion pie and she has all her own teeth. I know that because she showed I. Her youngest son got her a set of fancy store-bought teeth all the way from the big city, and very handsome she looks in ‘em. She was kind enough to loan ‘em to I one day when I had a difficult piece of pork to tackle, and a man doesn’t forget a kindness like that.’

‘Er… you don’t think you ought to think about this, do you?’ said Tiffany.

Mr Weavall laughed. ‘Think? I got no business to be thinking about it, young lady! Who’re you to tell me an old ‘un like I that he ought to be thinking? I’m ninety-one, I am! Got to be up and doing! Besides, I have reason to believe by the twinkle in her eye that the Widow Tussy will not turn up her nose at my suggestion. I’ve seen a fair number of twinkles over the years, and that was a good’un. And I daresay that suddenly having a box of gold will fill in the corners, as my ol’ dad would say.’

It took ten minutes for Mr Weavall to get changed, with a lot of struggling and bad language and no help from Tiffany, who was told to turn her back and put her hands over her ears. Then she had to help him out into the garden, where he threw away one walking stick and waggled a finger at the weeds.

‘And I’ll be chopping down the lot of you tomorrow!’ he shouted triumphantly.

At the garden gate he grasped the post and pulled himself nearly vertical, panting.

‘All right,’ he said, just a little anxiously. ‘It’s now or never. I look OK, does I?’

‘You look fine, Mr Weavall.’

‘Everything clean? Everything done up?’

‘Er… yes,’ said Tiffany.

‘How’s my hair look?’

‘Er… you don’t have any, Mr Weavall,’ she reminded him.

‘Ah, right. Yes, ‘tis true. I’ll have to buy one o’ the whatdyoucallem’s, like a hat made of hair? Have I got enough money for that, d’you think?’

‘A wig? You could buy thousands, Mr Weavall!’

‘Hah! Right.’ His gleaming eyes looked around the garden. ‘Any flowers out? Can’t see too well… Ah… speckatickles, I saw ‘em once, made of glass, makes you see good as new. That’s what I need… have I got enough for speckatickles?’

‘Mr Weavall,’ said Tiffany, ‘you’ve got enough for anything.’

‘Why, bless you!’ said Mr Weavall. ‘But right now I need a bow-kwet of flowers, girl. Can’t go courtin’ without flowers and I can’t see none. Anythin’ left?’

A few roses were hanging on among the weeds and briars in the garden. Tiffany fetched a knife from the kitchen and made them up into a bouquet.

‘Ah, good,’ he said. ‘Late bloomers, just like I!’ He held them tightly in his free hand, then suddenly frowned, fell silent and stood like a statue…