The humans he'd known ‑ and there had been a few ‑ had responded to the impossible size of the rooms in a strange way, by simply ignoring them.

Take Albert, now. The big door had opened, Albert had stepped through, carefully balancing a cup and saucer...

... and a moment later had been well inside the room, on the edge of the relatively small square of carpet that surrounded Death's desk. Death gave up wondering how Albert covered the intervening space when it dawned on him that, to his servant, there was no intervening space...

" I've brought you some camomile tea, sir," said Albert.

HMM?

" Sir?"

SORRY. I WAS THINKING. WHAT WAS IT YOU SAID?

" Camomile tea?"

I THOUGHT THAT WAS A KIND OF SOAP.

" You can put it in soap or tea, sir," said Albert. He was worried. He was always worried when Death started to think about things. It was the wrong job for thinking about things. And he thought about them in the wrong way.

HOW VERY USEFUL. CLEAN INSIDE AND OUT.

Death put his chin on his hands again.

" Sir?" said Albert, after a while.

HMM?

" It'll get cold if you leave it."

ALBERT...

" Yessir?"

I HAVE BEEN WONDERING...

" Sir?"

WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT? SERIOUSLY? WHEN YOU GET RIGHT DOWN TO IT?

" Oh. Er. Couldn't really say, sir."

I DIDN'T WANT TO DO IT, ALBERT. YOU KNOW THAT. NOW I KNOW WHAT SHE MEANT. NOT JUST ABOUT THE KNEES.

"Who, Sir?"

There was no reply.

Albert looked back when he'd reached the door. Death was staring into space again. No‑one could stare quite like him.

Not being seen wasn't a big problem. It was the things that she kept seeing that were more of a worry.

There were the dreams. They were only dreams, of course. Susan knew that modern theory said that dreams were only images thrown up while the brain was filing the day's events. She would have been more reassured if the day's events had ever included flying white horses, huge dark rooms and lots of skulls.