‘I absolutely agree,’ said Susan. ‘Completely.’
‘Right,’ said Mrs Ogg. ‘So … twins … well, it was her first time, and human wasn’t exactly a familiar shape with her, I mean, you can’t do what comes naturally when you ain’t exactly natural and … twins ain’t quite the right word … ’
‘A brother,’ said Lobsang. ‘The clockmaker?’
‘Yes,’ said Susan.
‘But I was a foundling!’
‘So was he.’
‘I want to see him now!’
‘That might not be a good idea,’ said Susan.
‘I am not interested in your opinion, thank you.’ Lobsang turned to Lady LeJean. ‘Down that passage?’
‘Yes. But he’s asleep. I think the clock upset his mind, and also he was hit in the fight. He says things in his sleep.’
‘Says what?’
‘The last thing I heard him say before I came to find you was, “We’re so close. Any passage might do,”’ said her ladyship. She looked from one to the other. ‘Have I said the wrong thing?’
Susan put her hand over her eyes. Oh dear …
‘I said that,’ said Lobsang. ‘Just after we came up the stairs.’ He glared at Susan. ‘Twins, right? I’ve heard about this sort of thing! What one thinks the other thinks too?’
Susan sighed. Sometimes, she thought, I really am a coward. ‘Something like that, yes,’ she said.
‘I’m going to see him, then, even if he can’t see me!’
Damn, thought Susan, and hurried after Lobsang as he headed along the passage. The Auditor trailed behind them, looking concerned.
Jeremy was lying on a bed, although it was no softer than anything else in the timeless world. Lobsang stopped, and stared.
‘He looks … quite like me,’ he said.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Susan.
‘Thinner, perhaps.’
‘Could be, yes.’
‘Different … lines on his face.’
‘You’ve led different lives,’ said Susan.
‘How did you know about him and me?’
‘My grandfather takes, er, an interest in this sort of thing. I found out some more by myself, too,’ she said.
‘Why should we interest anyone? We’re not special.’
‘This is going to be quite hard to explain.’ Susan looked round at Lady LeJean. ‘How safe are we here?’
‘The signs upset them,’ said her ladyship. ‘They tend to keep away. I … shall we say? … took care of the ones who followed you.’
‘Then you’d better sit down, Mr Lobsang,’ said Susan. ‘It might help if I told you about me.’
‘Well?’
‘My grandfather is Death.’
‘That’s a strange thing to say. Death is just the end of life. It’s not a … a person—’
‘PAY ATTENTION TO ME WHEN I AM TALKING TO YOU …’
A wind whipped around the room, and the light changed. Shadows formed on Susan’s face. A faint blue light outlined her.
Lobsang swallowed.
The light faded. The shadows vanished.
‘There is a process called death, and there is a person called Death,’ said Susan. ‘That is how it works. And I am Death’s granddaughter. Am I going too fast for you?’
‘Er, no, although right up until just now you looked human,’ said Lobsang.
‘My parents were human. There’s more than one kind of genetics.’ Susan paused. ‘You look human, too. Human is a very popular look in these parts. You’d be amazed.’
‘Except that I am human.’
Susan gave a little smile that, on anyone less obviously in full control of themself, might have seemed slightly nervous.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And, then again, no.’
‘No?’
‘Take War, now,’ said Susan, backing away from the point. ‘Big man, hearty laugh, tends to fart after meals. As human as the next man, you say. But the next man is Death. He’s human-shaped, too. And that’s because humans invented the idea of … of … of ideas, and they think in human shapes—’
‘Get back to the “and, then again, no”, will you?’
‘Your mother is Time.’
‘No-one knows who my mother is!’
‘I could take you to the midwife,’ said Susan. ‘Your father found the best there’s ever been. She delivered you. Your mother was Time.’
Lobsang sat with his mouth open.
‘It was easier for me,’ said Susan. ‘When I was very small my parents used to let me visit my grandfather. I thought every grandfather had a long black robe and rode a pale horse. And then they decided that maybe that wasn’t the right environment for a child. They were worried about how I was going to grow up!’ She laughed mirthlessly. ‘I had a very strange education, you know? Maths, logic, that sort of thing. And then, when I was a bit younger than you, a rat turned up in my room and suddenly everything I thought I knew was wrong.’
‘I’m a human! I do human things! I’d know if—’
‘You had to live in the world. Otherwise, how could you learn to be human?’ said Susan, as kindly as she could.
‘And my brother? What about him?’
Here it comes, Susan thought. ‘He’s not your brother,’ she said. ‘I lied a bit. I’m sorry.’
‘But you said—’
‘I had to lead up to it,’ said Susan. ‘It’s one of those things you have to get hold of a bit at a time, I’m afraid. He’s not your brother. He’s you.’
‘Then who am I?’
Susan sighed. ‘You. Both of you … are you.’
‘And there I was, and there she was,’ said Mrs Ogg, ‘and out the baby came, no problem there, but that’s always a tryin’ moment for the new mum, and there was …’ she paused, her eyes peering through the windows of memory, ‘like … like a feelin’ that the world had stuttered, and I was holdin’ the baby and I looked down and there was me deliverin’ a baby, and I looked at me, and I looked at me, and I remember saying, “This is a fine to-do, Mrs Ogg,” and she, who was me, said, “You never said a truer word, Mrs Ogg,” and then it all went strange and there I was, just one of me, holdin’ two babies.’
‘Twins,’ Susan said.
‘You could call them twins, yes, I s’pose you could,’ said Mrs Ogg. ‘But I always thought that twins is two little souls born once, not one born twice.’
Susan waited. Mrs Ogg looked in the mood to talk.
‘So I said to the man, I said, “What now?” and he said, “Is that any business of yours?” and I said he could be damn sure it was my business and he could look me in the eye and I’d speak my mind to anyone. But I was thinking, you’re in trouble now, Mrs Ogg, ’cos it’d all gone myffic.’
‘Mythic?’ said schoolteacher Susan.
‘Yep. With extra myff. And you can get into big trouble, with myffic. But the man just smiled and said that he must be brought up human until he’s of age and I thought, yep, it’s gone myffic all right. I could see he hadn’t got a clue about what to do next and it was all going to be down to me.’
Mrs Ogg took a suck at her pipe and her eyes twinkled at Susan through the smoke. ‘I don’t know how much experience you have with this sort of thing, my girl, but sometimes when the high and mighty make big plans they don’t always think about the fine detail, right?’
Yes. I’m a fine detail, Susan thought. One day Death took it into his skull to adopt a motherless child, and I’m a fine detail. She nodded.
‘I thought, how does this go, in a myffic kind of way?’ Mrs Ogg went on. ‘I mean, technic’ly I could see we’re in that area where the prince gets brought up as a swineherd until he manifests his destiny, but there’s not that many swineherding jobs around these days, and poking hogs with a stick is not all it’s cracked up to be, believe you me. So I said, well, I’d heard the Guilds down in the big cities took in foundlings out of charity, and looked after them well enough, and there’s many well set-up men and women who started life that way. There’s no shame in it, plus, if the destiny doesn’t manifest as per schedule, he’d have set his hands to a good trade, which would be a consolation. Whereas swineherding’s just swineherding. You’re giving me a stern look, miss.’