Renata Flitworth

Miss Renata Flitworth was the archetypal farmer's wife - stoic, weather-beaten, used to life's little disasters - but she was an old spinster due to the death of her fiance Rufus the night before their wedding, due to his insistence that he needed to do one more trip across the mountains (smuggling) to pay for her. Her house is reputed by the locals to be full of treasure.

Her main claim to fame is that she took Bill Door in as a farmhand when he was a-wanderin' round the world. Bill Door was Death, who had been told he was surplus to requirements by the Auditors. As humans cannot see what they don't want to (a survival trait mentioned in almost all the Discworld novels), nobody in the isolated farming community recognised that the seven-foot skeleton stalking amongst them, speaking in a voice like coffin lids slamming, was actually that. To them, he was a slightly suspicious figure (bumpkins generally regard any foreigner [ie. anyone from further away than they can see] as suspicious), who - through familiarity becomes 'Good old Bill'. Said bumpkins are Gabby Wheels, Duke Bottomley and William Spigot.

Miss Flitworth watches Death-as-Bill save the life of Sal Lifton, daughter of the owner of the village inn during a fire, and is amazed to find that Bill is in fact Death - a fact he inadvertently lets out when he gives Sal some of his own lifetime. When Bill is threatened by the New Death he is helpless as his mortality weighs against him, but then Miss Flitworth appears and gives him some of hers. This is all he needs and Bill leaps up to destroy the New Death.

As a reward, he reappears with presents "for a lady" - a box of Dark Enchantments chocolates, the Tear of Offler - the world's biggest diamond, and an enormous bouquet of everything in the shop. However she spurns his offer to take her anywhere because it's the village dance, and she's never missed one. So they go, and they dance all night (Death doesn't need maracas!) - until she is surprised that she's not gasping for breath. In fact she's not breathing. Bill didn't give her a start when he turned up - he gave her a stop. Her life had ended, due to her lending it to him, but Death travelled the length of the space-time continuum to speak with Azrael, the ultimate being, who granted him some extra time with her as a reward.