I Shall Wear Midnight
Chapters - Terry Pratchett, Paul Kidby
Chapter 1: A Fine Big Wee Laddie
Tiffany Aching, now the witch of the Chalk, walks through the scouring fair - an annual celebration held on the downs near the chalk giant. She reflects on the loneliness of being a witch: respected but not befriended, needed but not wanted. She thinks fondly of Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax up in the mountains, and mentions her friend Petulia Gristle, a pig witch soon to marry a pig farmer. Two village girls give her a bouquet of wildflowers - a tradition meant to bring dreams of a sweetheart - and innocently ask whether witches have "passionate parts".
Tiffany's sentient cheese Horace disrupts the cheese-rolling competition, having been entered by the Nac Mac Feegles. Rob Anybody appears on her shoulder, sent by Kelda Jeannie to check on her. Tiffany tends to injuries from the cheese-rolling pile-up, then Roland de Chumsfanleigh's coach arrives with his fiancee Letitia and her overbearing mother, the Duchess. Roland addresses Tiffany as "young lady" in a stiff, formal manner that stings. Tiffany flies home alone.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Rob Anybody, Roland de Chumsfanleigh, Kelda Jeannie, Kelda Jeannie, Petulia Gristle, Horace the Cheese, Letitia Keepsake·Mentioned: Nanny Ogg, Esmerelda Weatherwax, Magrat Garlick
Chapter 2: Rough Music
Tiffany is woken by an emergency: Mr Petty has beaten his thirteen-year-old daughter Amber so badly that the unborn baby she was carrying has died. Tiffany drags Petty from his bed and confronts him as the rough music - the sound of the village's collective fury - approaches in the darkness. She takes Amber's pain into herself using witchcraft, then gives Petty his only chance: run, before the mob arrives. When he swings a fist at her, she channels all of Amber's stored pain into him, flinging him across the room and out the back door into the night.
Tiffany's father arrives, and they discuss the Petty family's grim history: Seth Petty's own brutal father, his wife Molly's loneliness while he was away droving, and the possibility that Amber may not be his daughter. Tiffany arranges to fly Amber up to the Feegle mound for care. Daft Wullie gives himself away in the hayloft, and Rob Anybody berates him. Mr Aching expresses worry about his daughter's hard life and her relationship with Roland, but Tiffany deflects, and the Feegles prepare to carry Amber up to the hills.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Rob Anybody, Daft Wullie, Seth Petty
Chapter 3: Those Who Stir in Their Sleep
Tiffany carries Amber to the Feegle mound under moonlight, where Kelda Jeannie takes charge and applies the soothings - living thoughts that draw out bad memories and heal from within. Jeannie feeds Tiffany mutton and warns her that she works too hard, sleeps too little and is in danger. The kelda confides that she watches over Tiffany in her mind and senses something clouding around her, though she cannot identify the threat.
After Tiffany falls asleep on the fleeces, Jeannie retreats to the mound and watches the young Feegles fighting. She asks Rob Anybody whether they are raising the boys right. Rob recalls Tiffany's past triumphs - kissing the Wintersmith, banishing the Queen of the Elves, defeating the hiver - but Jeannie is troubled. She felt Tiffany's kiss to the Lord of Winter shake the world, and fears that something ancient may have stirred in its slumber. She instructs Rob to keep more than one eye on Tiffany at all times.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Rob Anybody, Kelda Jeannie, Kelda Jeannie
Chapter 4: The Real Shilling
Tiffany wakes to find Amber laughing with young Feegles in the mound, the soothings restoring her from inside out. She flies back to the Petty barn before dawn and discovers Mr Petty has returned and tried to hang himself. Nettles arranged around the dead baby show that some part of him felt remorse. Tiffany saws at the rope while Rob Anybody cuts it with his claymore. She saves Petty despite every instinct telling her not to, because of those nettles - a tiny spark of good.
She buries the child in the flower-filled clearing where Mrs Snapperly, the old woman the village once hounded to death, lies. An apparition of a tall old woman in black appears and vanishes, followed by a hare that bursts into flame and races away unharmed. Tiffany remembers the phrase "the hare runs into the fire" but cannot place it. She returns Amber to her family's farm, where the girl marches the chickens in formation like a drill sergeant. Tiffany then visits the dying Baron, taking away his pain while fending off the pious, interfering nurse Miss Spruce. The Baron, briefly lucid, tells Tiffany he once admired her grandmother and asks her to keep Roland in line. He gives her a bag of gold coins.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Rob Anybody, Miss Spruce, The Baron
Chapter 5: The Mother of Tongues
The old Baron dies peacefully. Miss Spruce accuses Tiffany of murder and theft, having overheard the gift of gold. Tiffany hurls the Baron's accumulated pain at a helmet, nearly melting it, and confronts the nurse before the guards. She meets Preston, a young guard whose grandmother taught him the old ways of laying out the dead. Preston has already prepared water and cloths, plus salt and soil for the traditional rites.
Tiffany tells Kelda Jeannie about the Baron's death. Amber has returned to the Feegle mound of her own accord and learned the Mother of Tongues - the ancient kelda language - simply by listening. The kelda considers this an extraordinary gift and urges Tiffany to train the girl. Tiffany flies to Ankh-Morpork to find Roland, taking the Feegles with her. Daft Wullie sets fire to the broomstick mid-flight, and they crash-land on a mail coach driven by Mr Carpetlayer, whose jumping bones Tiffany fixes. The repaired mirror ball glitters in the sun - and through it, Tiffany first encounters the Cunning Man: a shadowless figure in black with holes where his eyes should be, radiating an unbearable mental stench.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Daft Wullie, Rob Anybody, Kelda Jeannie, Kelda Jeannie, Miss Spruce, Preston
Chapter 6: The Coming of the Cunning Man
In Ankh-Morpork, Tiffany visits Boffo's Joke Emporium on Tenth Egg Street and meets Mrs Proust, a city witch who runs the shop with her son Derek. Mrs Proust is formidable - the daughter of the city's most famous hangman - and wears the full "Hag in a Hurry" range of fake warts and blackened teeth as professional equipment. She explains that boffo is the art of looking witchy so people believe in you before you do anything.
Mrs Proust reveals the identity of Tiffany's pursuer: the Cunning Man, a spirit of pure hatred against witches. Centuries ago he was a real Omnian priest who hunted and burned witches. He fell in love with one of his victims but could not accept it, and burned her - and himself - rather than face the truth. His ghost has haunted the world ever since, possessing the bodies of the hateful and turning people against witches. Mrs Proust tells Tiffany that Eskarina Smith - the legendary first female wizard - lives somewhere in the city and may know more. Tiffany finds Eskarina in a strange, shifting space beneath the streets, where she cares for her partner Simon. Eskarina confirms the Cunning Man is ancient and dangerous, and that "poison goes where poison's welcome".
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Eskarina Smith, Mrs Proust
Chapter 7: Songs in the Night
The Feegles trash the King's Head pub, where Roland, Letitia and the Duchess are staying. A tiny Feegle policeman - Wee Mad Arthur - single-handedly subdues the entire clan and drags everyone out. Captain Carrot of the City Watch takes statements. Roland is furious, and when Tiffany blurts out "Your father is dead", she is met with accusing silence. The Duchess screams that Tiffany conspired with her "imps" to rob them.
Mrs Proust grabs Tiffany's arm, but Tiffany insists on speaking to the Watch. Captain Carrot arrests her on "suspicion of being suspicious" and has Captain Angua escort her and Mrs Proust to the Watch House. The Cunning Man walks invisibly through the crowd, and Tiffany feels his hatred washing over people's minds, turning them against witches. Later, Constable Haddock releases them with a vague warning. The Feegles have turned the King's Head completely back to front overnight - it now faces the wrong way, though is otherwise undamaged. Commander Vimes tells Tiffany the Feegles must leave the city by sunset.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Rob Anybody, Daft Wullie, Roland de Chumsfanleigh, Carrot Ironfoundersson, Mrs Proust, Wee Mad Arthur, Letitia Keepsake, The Duchess of Keepsake
Chapter 8: The King's Neck
Outside the King's Neck (as the reversed pub is now called), the Cunning Man walks through the crowd, spreading hatred. The mob turns ugly. Tiffany is rescued when the ground opens beneath her - someone pulls her into the city's underground tunnels. It is Eskarina Smith, who guides her through the dangerous sewers and crypts beneath Ankh-Morpork to safety. Mrs Proust escapes separately, summoning smog to cover her retreat and animating the bronze statue of Lord Rust to kick an attacker.
Tiffany flies home with the Feegles and Wee Mad Arthur, who reveals himself to be a Feegle raised by gnomes in the city - a cultured Feegle who enjoys ballet and opera. Back on the Chalk, she finds guards at the Feegle mound with a shovel. Roland has sent them to recover Amber, believing Tiffany "gave her to the fairies". Rob Anybody is on the verge of war, trembling with rage and grief. Tiffany puts a geas on him, forbidding killing until she says so, and defuses the standoff. She takes Amber to the castle, where Roland confronts her with accusations of murder, theft and kidnapping - all fed by rumours the Cunning Man has been stoking.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Eskarina Smith, Rob Anybody, Roland de Chumsfanleigh, Mrs Proust, Wee Mad Arthur
Chapter 9: The Duchess and the Cook
Roland, now Baron, and the Duchess formally interrogate Tiffany about the old Baron's death, the missing money and Amber's removal to the Feegles. Tiffany demands a proper legal hearing with evidence and witnesses, citing habeas corpus, and walks out past the guards. Preston winks at her as she passes.
In the great hall, the Feegles tie the guards' bootlaces together. Rob Anybody is furious about the threat to the mound and threatens retribution. The sergeant reluctantly tells Tiffany she is confined to the castle, and she must surrender her broomstick. Tiffany picks the sergeant's pocket (with Feegle help), locks herself in the dungeon with the goats, and bargains her way to freedom - she will return by seven each morning if allowed to go out at night to tend the sick. She summons the Toad, her amphibian lawyer, who enthusiastically discusses wrongful imprisonment.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Roland de Chumsfanleigh, Rob Anybody, Daft Wullie, Preston, The Duchess of Keepsake·Mentioned: Letitia Keepsake
Chapter 10: The Melting Girl
Letitia visits Tiffany in the dungeon, weeping profusely and apologising. Tiffany reads her spill words - the thoughts too strong to contain - and discovers Letitia saying "I didn't mean it!" Using a makeshift shamble with the Toad as the living element, Tiffany detects magic somewhere in the castle. She escapes via the chimney on her broomstick and takes Letitia on a midnight flight to Keepsake Hall.
At the vast, decaying mansion, Letitia shows Tiffany the library where she practises magic from Boffo catalogue products and silly spell books. Letitia confesses to using "unsympathetic magic" from Spells for Lovers - she made a model of Tiffany and stuck it upside down in a bucket of sand, hoping to turn Roland against her. But Letitia has real magical talent: she gave a headless ghost a pumpkin to carry, stopped a screaming skeleton by giving it a teddy bear, and can make sticks glow blue. A dark book on the library lectern - The Bonfire of the Witches - opens by itself, and the Cunning Man lunges from within it. Tiffany and Letitia trap the book in a heavy press just as a hand thrusts through the cover.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Letitia Keepsake, The Duchess of Keepsake·Mentioned: Roland de Chumsfanleigh
Chapter 11: The Bonfire of the Witches
Tiffany tells Letitia the truth: she is a natural witch. Letitia's silly spell from a joke-shop book worked because she performed it inches from The Bonfire of the Witches, a book that seethes with real malice - and it woke the Cunning Man. Tiffany explains that she and Roland were never truly suited - they were pushed together by circumstance, not drawn - and tells Letitia to confess to Roland. On the flight back, Letitia asks why Tiffany isn't angrier. "Witches don't often get angry," Tiffany replies. "I just put it away somewhere until I can do something useful with it."
Letitia tells Roland everything, and the chastened Baron apologises. Tiffany explains the Cunning Man to him - a magical disease that turns people against witches. Roland asks Tiffany to help prevent disruptions before the funeral and wedding. Letitia then privately asks Tiffany the most delicate question about married life, and Tiffany provides a practical education. The Cunning Man appears in Letitia's mirror, his eyeless face taunting Tiffany with threats of burning. Tiffany flees to the dungeon, where she reads Letitia's gift - Floating Worlds by H.J. Toadbinder - learning about magical windows between worlds.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Roland de Chumsfanleigh, Eskarina Smith, Daft Wullie, The Cunning Man, Letitia Keepsake
Chapter 12: The Sin o' Sins
Preston brings Tiffany breakfast and urges her to rest properly, diagnosing her as dangerously exhausted. In the crypt, Tiffany performs the old rite of cooling the Baron's body by drawing heat from the stone slab into buckets of water. Preston watches, fascinated, and reveals his own talents: he has cured chickens of fowl crop by surgery and carved a wooden leg for his mother's dog. She suggests he become a doctor, but the expensive letters after one's name are beyond his means.
Roland, now humbled by Letitia's confession, formally apologises to Tiffany with stiff, lawyerly language. She accidentally blurts out "I will marry you" - a remnant of old feelings the Cunning Man may be amplifying - and is mortified. Roland gracefully pretends not to hear, then speaks honestly about their different kinds of cleverness and why he loves Letitia. Mrs Proust arrives at the castle with Long Tall Short Fat Sally and Mrs Happenstance, having crashed a broomstick into a hedgehog. Mrs Proust warns that the Cunning Man has possessed the body of Macintosh, a murderer from the Tanty prison, who tore steel bars from his cell wall and killed his canary before escaping.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Roland de Chumsfanleigh, Long Tall Short Fat Sally, Mrs Proust, Preston, Letitia Keepsake, The Duchess of Keepsake
Chapter 13: The Shaking of the Sheets
The old Baron's funeral draws guests from across the region, including King Verence and Queen Magrat of Lancre, accompanied by Granny Weatherwax (with her cat You) and Nanny Ogg. Tiffany realises the senior witches have gathered to watch - and if necessary, to kill her if the Cunning Man takes her over. Nanny Ogg confirms that Granny once faced the Cunning Man herself at Tiffany's age. Granny's only advice: "Trust yourself. And don't lose."
Nanny Ogg transforms the funeral from awkward grief into celebration, leading the hall in the Baron's favourite song "The Larks They Sang Melodious", then the ancient funeral dance "The Shaking of the Sheets". The sergeant reveals a hidden talent for singing. Tiffany introduces Mrs Proust to Granny Weatherwax; the two formidable old witches recognise each other instantly and get on surprisingly well. Mrs Proust confronts the Duchess in her bedroom, revealing she knows the woman's secret: she was once Deirdre Parsley, a dancing girl in the music hall. The terrified Duchess becomes suddenly cooperative and polite.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Esmerelda Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Magrat Garlick, Roland de Chumsfanleigh, Mrs Proust, Letitia Keepsake, The Duchess of Keepsake
Chapter 14: Burning the King
Tiffany spends the night before the wedding vigil in the crypt among the stone barons, understanding that her weapons are pride, fear, trust and fire. Granny Weatherwax and the other witches watch her solemnly. Granny asks if Tiffany is certain she can defeat the Cunning Man alone. "My steading. My mess. My problem," Tiffany replies. The witches raise their hats in respect.
Tiffany persuades the Feegles not to help, invoking a "hag geas" and Granny Weatherwax's authority. She and Preston fly to the last unburned stubble field - the King field - where she has asked Preston to wait with matches. Roland stumbles from the pigsty, drunk and trouserless after his stag night. Letitia arrives in her nightdress. The Cunning Man, in the body of Macintosh, approaches with knives. Tiffany drags the couple through the stubble as Preston lights the field behind them. She remembers the hare leaping through the fire and screams the ancient marriage words: "Leap, knave! Jump, whore! Be married now for ever more!" They jump over the wall of flame. The Cunning Man, unable to outrun the wind-driven fire, burns. Tiffany walks back through the cooling ash and melts a piece of flint in her bare hand, telling the dying spirit there will always be another witch like her.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Esmerelda Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Roland de Chumsfanleigh, Rob Anybody, Daft Wullie, Preston, The Cunning Man, Letitia Keepsake, The Duchess of Keepsake
Chapter 15: A Shadow and a Whisper
The formal wedding takes place the next morning, officiated by Pastor Egg. The Duchess is beaming and cooperative, casting nervous glances at Mrs Proust. Tiffany and Preston bury Macintosh's charred remains in the King field. Eskarina Smith pulls Tiffany into "the travelling now" - frozen time - where she meets her own older self wearing a golden hare necklace. Old Tiffany tells her it all works out, that every step is a first step if it's in the right direction, and fades with a single word: "Listen."
At the wedding feast, Tiffany returns Roland's gold and makes her requests: a dowry for Amber Petty, a school on the Chalk with Preston as its first teacher (his reward being the funds to train as a doctor), and legal ownership of the Feegle downs for the Nac Mac Feegle in perpetuity. Roland agrees to everything. The senior witches - Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Mrs Proust and Long Tall Short Fat Sally - raise their hats to Tiffany, acknowledging her as the rightful witch of her steading. That midnight, Tiffany floats alone on her broomstick above the Chalk, stretches her arms to the dark and, just for a moment, wears midnight.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Eskarina Smith, Roland de Chumsfanleigh, Esmerelda Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Rob Anybody, Amber Petty, Long Tall Short Fat Sally, Mrs Proust, Preston, Letitia Keepsake·Mentioned: The Duchess of Keepsake