Free Witch's Business by Diana Wynne Jones Page A

dear?” she asked.
    â€œNo. Thank you. It’s not me,” Jess said. She scrabbled hurriedly in the last urn, and found a toffee. It stuck to her fingers.
    â€œPut it down, dear,” said another old lady. “You don’t know where it’s been.”
    â€œYes, I do,” said Jess. “It’s been in here for months, by the look of it, and I’d put it down if it wasn’t stuck to me.”
    â€œLittle girls,” said a sharp old gentleman, “should be seen and not heard.”
    â€œYou spoke to me ,” said Jess. “And I’d be invisible if I could, I promise you, the way you all stare.”
    â€œHow dreadfully rude !” said the first old lady. The others all clucked and nodded their strung-together heads until Jess could not bear it any longer. She fled through a door in a wall nearby, frantically trying to unstick the toffee. She got it off her right hand and it stuck to her left.
    â€œOh, bother, bother !” said Jess, running across more lawn with her head down. The toffee fastened itself to her right hand again.
    â€œLittle girl!” called somebody. “Little girl, come here.”
    Jess looked up from the toffee to find that she was in a small, walled-in garden, with trees against the walls. The person who had called her was another lady guest, sitting in another deck chair beside some daffodils. This lady was not as old as the others and she was holding out a paper handkerchief.
    â€œHere you are,” said this lady. “Get it off with this.”
    Jess went over to her gratefully. “Thank you,” she said. “Vernon had a nosebleed into mine this morning.”
    â€œOh, yes,” said the lady. “I know Vernon. At the Lodge. Are you a friend of his?”
    â€œI suppose so,” said Jess, busily peeling the toffee off her fingers into the tissue. “Business associate would be more like it, though.”
    â€œReally?” said the lady. Jess found the lady looking at her very carefully indeed. She was a pretty lady, with clouds of fair hair and big dark eyes, but she made Jess feel uncomfortable. There was something intense about her. Jess began to back away. She had a feeling that maybe this lady was madder than the other guests and, Jess thought, with Biddy and the Aunt, that would make three mad ladies in one day. Two was plenty.
    â€œI’ll have to go now,” said Jess.
    â€œIn a minute,” said the lady, so firmly that Jess stood still. “Now,” said the lady, “I have a feeling about you, little girl. You’ve been meddling with people’s worse natures, haven’t you?”
    â€œI haven’t,” said Jess, rather indignantly. “I wouldn’t know how to.”
    â€œI think you would,” the lady answered. “Everyone knows how to do that. We may disguise it from ourselves by calling it a kindness to someone else—as I did—or telling ourselves that it’s only fair to do whatever it is, but the fact remains that we’ve done a bad act disguised as a good one. And I have a feeling that’s just what you’ve done.”
    â€œI don’t think I have,” Jess said uncomfortably.
    â€œAre you quite sure?” the lady asked, staring up at Jess with her intense dark eyes. “ Quite sure? You said something about business just now that didn’t sound altogether right to me.”
    Jess twisted her head sideways to avoid the lady’s look. “Well, yes, I am here on business,” she admitted, and looked round at the daffodils, the trees, and the walls in search of something else to talk about. “Nice weather,” she suggested.
    But the lady was not to be distracted. “And are you quite sure your business has nothing to do with evil?” she said. “I have to ask you because I’ve spent the last five years paying for what I did, and I’d hate you to do the same. Have you been meddling