CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: THE DESPERATE JANITOR

Griselda discovers quite a lot about old blood and her own powers

Meanwhile, Griselda stared dispassionately at the Janitor, her eyebrows raised higher than ever, which was no mean feat bearing in mind the usual aeronautic capabilities of those facial adornments of hers. Her problem was one of belief. In her long past and over the many years that separated now from back then people had wanted to do quite a lot of things to her, but never had worshipping her been in the mix. It wasn't the sort of thing people did to the kind of old ladies who shared with her a penchant for rudeness.

She switched her torch off for a moment. Batteries, even mysteriously magical ones, can run out of juice, she thought. She remembered that much from her past, before she discovered there was more in the world than seems apparent, like magic.

“Tell you how to what, Hagman?” she demanded. “Did you just ask meto tell you how to worship me? Why in the name of goodness would you want to do that? Now that is a good question! Why would you or anyone else for that matter want to worship a little old lady like me even if I didn't have warts and stray unwanted facial hair?”

“Because...” he stammered. “Because...” And that seemed to be the totality of his explanation, which the discerning reader will instantly see was no explanation at all. But words suddenly seemed to be a rarity in his confusion. It was as if he had been absorbed into the messy middle of an alien Universe that was totally beyond his understanding and he didn't know what to do about it.

I think I see a pattern here, she thought. He started being weird soon after I told him I had ancient blood in my cardiovascular system, she thought. Maybe that's it! Maybe he holds dead old blood like mine in a certain reverence! Well, if he does I suppose it's only right and proper. Old blood like mine has been around for quite a long time and I dared say it's picked up the odd smidgen of wisdom on its way down the years...

“Is it my sad old blood?” she asked, as gently as she could bearing in mind the circumstances and the discomfort she felt when admitting that any part of her flesh was actually old. “Is that it? The richness and profound wisdom in my ancient blood that flows like an old, old river through the byways and pathways of my wrinkled old body? Is that it?”

He started shivering. Rather than see him in the near darkness, she could hear him, a little like what she thought a rattlesnake might sound like if it was trapped in the dark. She flashed her torch on in his direction and picked his quivering shape out from the rocky background of their subterranean corridor. The sight was pathetic and, contrary to her usual reaction to people like this, she started to feel a tinge of sympathy for him.

This won't do at all, she told herself. You're a witch, and don't you forget it!

“Tell me what to do and I will do it!” he stammered. “Tell me where to go and I will go there. Tell me all manner of things and I will do them, even though I may die in the attempt, for you are my mistress and I am your slave. Tell me to remove all my clothes in this old, cold corridor and I will strip until I'm stark bollock naked and you can mock my silly willy to your heart's content!! At your orders I'll stand here sans any trace of wool or cotton or lace before you and do whatsoever you command...”

“Urgh!” exclaimed Griselda, shocked by the image his words flashed through her mind. “Lace, did you say? Lace? A man wearing lace? Urgh! And you, naked? I can't imagine anything I'd like less...”

“Then I'll wear a fur coat?” he blathered, “I'd wear the thickest of fur coats for you, with layers of sweaty underwear all dripping with the heat of it until we're standing in a salty puddle on the floor! Your words are my command, fair mistress, and always will be!”

“Then my first command is for you to stop being so … so graphic!” she squawked. “I don't want any puddles, and least of all sweaty, salty ones! Your Janitor's uniform will do for me! There's no need for extremes or a change of clothing! I'm not as young as I was, you know, and the strain of seeing you in the altogether might well be too much for my ancient old heart!”

He smiled serenely at her. “That's the joy of you,” he whispered. “If you were young and tartish with appealing boobies and a tiny skirt you'd be ripe for the plucking, so to speak, and I'd drain your blood as soon as look upon you! I'd sup it down as if it was a pint of best milk stout in the best bar in the world! But I revere age and experience and so you, being older than just about anyone else in the world, are gorgeous and I worship you! Tell me what to do and I will do it! Your every word is my command, sweet mistress!”

“Harrumph!” muttered Griselda, realising that there might be some advantages to being older than the hills after all. “My word is your command, is it? Well, my word is for you to guide me to the good Professor Stroggleoff without him seeing me and without warning him we're on our way. I need to have words with that gentleman when he's least expecting it.”

The pale face of the janitor winced. “I wouldn't if I were you...” he began.

“I thought my word was your command?” said Griselda, ice forming in her voice and turning it both cold and brittle. “I want to see old Stroggleoff because I need to sort him out once and for all - and you will take me to him!”

“I'm supposed to be … if you were young with delicious blood, that is … disposing of you...” squeaked Hagman, his face whiter than ever. “I'm supposed to kill you!”

“I heard,” she said, firmly, “and there are things I want to say to the Master rather than the servant, and you will take me to him or I will turn you into a toad and set an alligator onto you. Then we'll see how much you want to worship me and just how my word is your command, toad-face!”

It would be handy if I could do something as outrageous as that, but I bet I can't, thought Griselda. Toads and alligators are probably too difficult for a dainty old lady like me to produce out of a sallow creature like this Hagman. Should I try, though, I wonder? Make sure I can do it? If it works it'll prove something to me and at the same time teach this wretch a lesson he won't forget in a while...

It was a tempting thought, and Griselda was prone to giving in to temptation. Yet she no longer had her devilish accomplice ready and willing to enact her every command, and it had been he who had done all the really hard work when it had come to her magic and tricks in the past. She was still a tad insecure about her own unaided abilities.

Oh, all right, her head told her against its own best judgement, it'll serve him right if it works, and she turned to the cringing janitor.

“Just to show how serious I am and that I don't make threats I can't carry out, I order you to become a toad,” she said, and began to feel foolish when nothing happened. But it wasn't for long that nothing happened, and then something decidedly spooky did start to happen. And it not only happened but it happened in slow motion so she could see the details of a most remarkable transformation. The janitor seemed to shrink before her eyes, and he turned a muddy kind of green and adopted the shape, the moisture and the texture of a toad. It happened both swiftly and slowly " slow to start and swift to finish, and within not more than a few longish seconds the transformation was horribly complete.

Toad Hagman looked at her with suddenly weeping eyes and jumped up and down a couple of times, as if testing his altered limbs.

“Haha!” she said. “You see what I can do, you slimy little man? Now then, take me to your Master and if you do it right I may " may, note you, not necessarily will " change you back to your loathsome self! Now hop along and I will follow you and we will see what we will see! And let's have no more talk about worshipping. I don't like worshipping.”

The janitor toad looked at her sadly (at least, she thought it was sadly, though because the expression was on a toad's face it was hard to be sure exactly what emotion lay behind the fixed look on it) and hopped a couple of feet away from her, then turned back, almost pleased with itself, as if to ask her to follow it.

“I get the idea,” she said, as softly as she could bearing in mind her need for secrecy. “I'm just behind you " but remember: if you put one foot wrong it'll be the crocodile, and crocodiles eat toads for fun!”

Hagman toad looked at her once more, sadly and reproachfully, and hopped off. That expression suggested that if it were to spend eternity in the body of a toad he might as well be eaten by a crocodile, and sooner rather than later at that.

“I'm just behind you,” she told it. “Now you just behave yourself, do what I order, and all will be well for you!”

“That's what you think, witch!” came a voice from the opposite direction. She didn't need to spin round or ask who it was because she knew. It was Professor Stroggleoff, and to say that he sounded mean and angry would have been an understatement.