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 grey 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.

I REMEMBER, said Bill Door, WHEN YOU WERE A PART OF ME.

The Death of Rats squeaked again.

Bill Door fumbled in the pockets of his overall. He'd put some of his lunch in there. Ah, yes.

I EXPECT, he said, THAT YOU COULD MURDER A PIECE OF CHEESE?

The Death of Rats took it graciously.

Bill Door remembered visiting an old man once - only once - who had spent almost his entire life locked in a cell in a tower for some alleged crime or other, and had tamed little birds for company during his life sentence. They crapped on his bedding and ate his food, but he tolerated them and smiled at their flight in and out of the high barred windows. Death had wondered, at the time, why anyone would do something like that.

I WON'T DELAY YOU, he said. I EXPECT YOU'VE GOT THINGS TO DO. RATS TO SEE. I KNOW HOW IT IS.

And now he understood.

He put the figure back on the beam, and lay down in the hay.

DROP IN ANY TIME YOU'RE PASSING.

Bill Door stared at the darkness again.

Sleep. He could feel her prowling around. Sleep, with a pocketful of dreams.

He lay in the darkness and fought back.

Miss Flitworth's shouting jolted him upright and, to his momentary relief still went on.

The barn door slammed open.

"Bill! Come down quick!"

He swung his legs on to the ladder.

WHAT IS HAPPENING. MISS FLITWORTH?

"Something's on fire!"

They ran across the yard and out on to the road. The sky over the village was red.

"Come on!"

BUT IT IS NOT OUR FIRE.

"It's going to be everyone's! It spreads like crazy on thatch!"

They reached the apology for a town square. The inn was already well alight, the thatch roaring starwards in a million twisting sparks.

"Look at everyone standing around," snarled Miss Flitworth. "There's the pump, buckets are everywhere, why don't people think?"

There was a scuffle a little way away as a couple of his customers tried to stop Lifton from running into the building. He was screaming at them.

"The girl's still in there," said Miss Flitworth. "Is that what he said?"

YES.

Flames curtained every upper window.

"There's got to be some way," said Miss Flitworth. ‘Maybe we could find a ladder -"

WE SHOULD NOT.

"What? We've got to try. We can't leave people in there!"

YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, said Bill Door. TO TINKER WITH THE FATE OF ONE INDIVIDUAL COULD DESTROY THE WHOLE WORLD.

Miss FIitworth looked at him as if he had gone mad.

"What kind of garbage is that?"

I MEAN THAT THERE IS A TIME FOR EVERYONE TO DIE.

She stared. Then she drew her hand back, and gave him a ringing slap across the face.

He was harder than she'd expected. She yelped and sucked at her knuckles.

"You leave my farm tonight, Mr. Bill Door," she growled. "Understand?" Then she turned on her heel and ran towards the pump.

Some of the men had brought long hooks to drag the burning thatch off the roof. Miss Flitworth organised a team to get a ladder up to one of the bedroom windows but, by the time a man was persuaded to climb it behind the steaming protection of a damp blanket, the top of the ladder was already smouldering.

Bill Door watched the flames.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the golden timer. The firelight glowed redly on the glass. He put it away again.

Part of the roof fell in.

SQUEAK.

Bill Door looked down. A small robed figure marched between his legs and strutted into the flaming doorway.

Someone was yelling something about barrels of brandy.

Bill Door reached back into his pocket and took out the timer again. Its hissing drowned out the roar of the flames.

The future flowed into the past, and there was a lot more past than there was future, but he was struck by the fact that what it flowed through all the time was now.

He replaced it carefully.

Death knew that to tinker with the fate of one individual could destroy the whole world. He knew this. The knowledge was built into him.

To Bill Door, he realised, it was so much horse elbows.

OH, DAMN, he said. And walked into the fire.

"Um. It's me, Librarian," said Windle, trying to shout through the keyhole. "Windle Poons."

He tried hammering some more.

"Why won't he answer?"

"Don't know, " said a voice behind him.

"Schleppel?"

"Yes, Mr. Poons."

"Why are you behind me?"

"I've got to be behind something, Mr. Poons. That's what being a bogeyman is all about."

"Librarian?" said Windle, hammering some more.

"Oook."

"Why won't you let me in?"

"Oook."

"But I need to look something up."

"Oook oook!"

"Well, yes. I am. What's that got to do with it?"

"Oook!"

"That's - that's unfair!"

"What's he saying, Mr. Poons?"

"He won't let me in because I'm dead!"

"That's typical. That's the sort of thing Reg Shoe is always going on about, you know."

"Is there anyone else that knows about life force?"

"There's always Mrs. Cake, I suppose. But she's a bit weird."

"Who's Mrs. Cake?" Then Windle realised what Schleppel had just said. "Anyway, you're a bogeyman."

"You never heard of Mrs. Cake?"

"No."

"I don't suppose she's interested in magic... Anyway, Mr. Shoe says we shouldn't talk to her. She exploits dead people, he says."

"How?"

"She's a medium. Well, more a small."

"Really? All right, let's go and see her. And... Schleppel?"

"Yes?"

"It's creepy, feeling you standing behind me the whole time."

"I get very upset if I'm not behind something, Mr. Poons."

"Can't you lurk behind something else?"

"What do you suggest, Mr. Poons?"

Windle thought about it. "Yes, it might work," he said quietly, "if I can find a screwdriver."

Modo the gardener was on his knees mulching the dahlias when he heard a rhythmic scraping and thumping behind him, such as might be made by someone trying to move a heavy object.

He turned his head.

"‘Evening, Mr. Poons. Still dead, I see."

"Evening, Modo. You've got the place looking very nice."

"There's someone moving a door along behind you," Mr. Poons."

"Yes, I know."

The door edged cautiously along the path. As it passed Modo it pivoted awkwardly, as if whoever was carrying it was trying to keep as much behind it as possible.

"It's a kind of security door, " said Windle.

He paused. There was something wrong. He couldn't quite be certain what it was, but there was suddenly a lot of wrongness about, like hearing one note out of tune in an orchestra. He audited the view in front of him.

"What's that you're putting the weeds into?" he said.

Modo glanced at the thing beside him.

"Good, isn't it?" he said. "I found it by the compost heaps. My wheelbarrow'd broke, and I looked up, and there -"

"I've never seen anything like it before," said Windle. "Who'd want to make a big basket out of wire? And those wheels don't look big enough."