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on the foot. 'Dinnae gae to sleep!' Rob Anybody shouted. 'Not here! Ye
cannae gae to sleep here!
Rise an' shine!' Still feeling muzzy, Tiffany pushed herself back onto
her feet, through gentle
swirls of rising dust, and turned to the dark door. It wasn't there.
There were her footprints in
the sand, but they went only a few feet and, anyway, were slowly
disappearing. There was nothing
around her but dead desert, for ever. She turned back to look towards
the distant mountains, but
her view was blocked by a tall figure, all in black, holding a scythe.
It hadn't been there
before. GOOD AFTERNOON, said Death.
Chapter 12 Egress
Tiffany stared up into a black hood. There was a skull in it, but the
eye sockets glowed blue. At
least bones had never frightened Tiffany. They were only chalk that
had walked around. 'Are you-?'
she began, but Rob Anybody gave a yell and leaped straight for the
hood. There was a thud. Death
took a step backwards and raised a skeletal hand to his cowl. He
pulled out Rob Anybody by his
hair and held him at arm's length while the Nac Mac Feegle cursed and
kicked. is THIS YOURS? Death
asked Tiffany. The voice was heavy and all around her, like thunder.
'No. Er... he's his.' I WAS
NOT EXPECTING A NAC MAC FEEGLE TODAY, Said Death, OTHERWISE I WOULD
HAVE WORN PROTECTIVE CLOTHING,
HA HA. 'They do fight a lot,' Tiffany admitted. 'You are Death, aren't
you? I know this might
sound a silly question.' YOU ARE NOT AFRAID? 'Not yet. But, er...
which way to the egress,
please?' There was a pause. Then Death said, in a puzzled voice: ISN'T
THAT A FEMALE EAGLE? 'No,'
said Tiffany. 'Everyone thinks that. Actually, it's the way out. The
exit.' Death pointed, with
the hand that still held the incandescently angry Rob Anybody. THAT
WAY. YOU HAVE TO WALK THE
DESERT. 'All the way to the mountains?' YES. BUT ONLY THE DEAD CAN
TAKE THAT WAY. 'Ye've got ta'
let me go sooner or later, ye big 'natomy!' yelled Rob Anybody. 'And
then ye're gonna get sich a
kickin'!' 'There was a door here!' said Tiffany. AH YES, said Death,
BUT THERE ARE RULES, THAT WAS
A WAY IN, YOU SEE. 'What's the difference?' A FAIRLY IMPORTANT ONE,
I'M SORRY TO SAY. YOU WILL
HAVE TO SEE YOURSELVES OUT. DO NOT FALL ASLEEP HERE. SLEEP HERE NEVER
ENDS. Death vanished. Rob
Anybody dropped to the sand and came up ready to fight, but they were
alone. 'Ye'll have to make a
door oot,' he said. 'I don't know how! Rob, I told you not to come
with me. Can't you get out?'
'Aye. Probably. But I've got to see ye safe. The kelda put a geas on
me. I must save the hag o'
the hills.' 'Jeannie told you that?' 'Aye. She was verra definite,'
said Rob Anybody. Tiffany
slumped down onto the sand again. It fountained up around her. 'I'll
never get out,' she said. How
to get in, yes, that wasn't hard... She looked around. They weren't
obvious, but there were
occasional changes in the light, and little puffs of dust. People she
couldn't see were walking
past her. People were crossing the desert. Dead people, going to find
out what was beyond the
mountains... I'm eleven, she thought. People will be upset. She
thought about the farm, and how
her mother and father would react. But there wouldn't be a body, would
there? So people would hope
and hope that she'd come back and was just... missing, like old Mrs
Happens in the village, who
lit a candle in the window every night for her son who'd been lost at
sea thirty years ago. She
wondered if Rob could send a message, but what could she say? I'm not
dead, I'm just stuck'? 'I
should have thought of other people,' she said aloud. 'Aye, weel, ye
did,' said Rob, sitting down
by her foot. 'Yon Arthur went off happy, and ye saved other folk fra'
being killed. Ye did what ye
had to do.' Yes, thought Tiffany. That's what we have to do. And
there's no one to protect you,
because you 're the one who's supposed to do that sort of thing. But
her Second Thoughts said: I'm
glad I did it. I'd do it again. I stopped the hiver killing anyone
else, even though we led it
right into the Trials. And that thought was followed by a space. There
should have been another
thought, but she was too tired to have it. It had been important.
'Thank you for coming, Rob,' she
said. 'But when... you can leave, you must go straight back to
Jeannie, understand? And tell her
I'm grateful she sent you. Say I wish we'd had a chance to get to know
one another better.' 'Oh,
aye. I've sent the lads back anyway. Hamish is waitin' for me.' At
which point the door appeared,
and opened. Granny Weatherwax stepped through and beckoned urgently.
'Some people don't have the
sense they were born with! Come on, right now!' she commanded. Behind
her, the door started to
swing shut, but she swung round savagely and rammed her boot against
the jamb, shouting, 'Oh, no
you don't, you sly devil!' 'But... I thought there were rules!' said
Tiffany, getting up and
hurrying forward, all tiredness suddenly gone. Even a tired body wants
to survive. 'Oh? Really?'
said Granny. 'Did you sign anything? Did you take any kind of oath?
No? Then they weren't your
rules! Quickly, now! And you, Mr Anyone!' Rob Anybody jumped onto her
boot just before she pulled
it away. The door shut with another click, disappeared and left them
in... dead light, it seemed,
a space of grey air. 'Won't take long,' said Granny Weatherwax. 'It
doesn't usually. It's the
world getting back into line. Oh, don't look like that. You showed it
the Way, right? Out of pity.
Well, I know this path already. You'll tread it again, no doubt, for
some other poor soul, open
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the door for them as can't find it. But we don't talk about it,
understand?' 'Miss Level never-'
'We don't talk about it, I said,' said Granny Weatherwax. 'Do you know
what a part of being a
witch is? It's making the choices that have to be made. The hard
choices. But you did... quite
well. There's no shame in pity.' She brushed some grass seed off her
dress. 'I hope Mrs Ogg has
arrived,' she said. 'I need her recipe for apple chutney. Oh... when
we arrive you might feel a
bit dizzy. I'd better warn you.' 'Granny?' said Tiffany, as the light
began to grow brighter. It
brought back tiredness with it, too. 'Yes?' 'What exactly happened
just then?' 'What do you think
happened?' Light burst in upon them. Someone was wiping Tiffany's
forehead with a damp cloth. She
lay, feeling the beautiful coolness. There were voices around her, and
she recognized the chroniccomplainer's
tones of Annagramma: '... And she was really making a fuss in
Zakzak's. Honestly, I
don't think she's quite right in the head! I think she's literally
gone cuckoo! She was shouting
things and using some kind of, oh, I don't know, some peasant trick to
make us think she'd turned
that fool Brian into a frog. Well, of course, she didn't fool me for
one minute-' Tiffany opened
her eyes and saw the round pink face of Petulia, screwed up with
concern. 'Urn, she's awake!' said
the girl. The space between Tiffany and the ceiling filled up with
pointy hats. They drew back,
reluctantly, as she sat up. From above, it must have looked like a
dark daisy, closing and
opening. 'Where is this?' she said. 'Urn, the First Aid and Lost
Children's Tent,' said Petulia.
'Urn... you fainted when Mistress Weather-wax brought you back from...
from wherever you'd gone.
Everyone's been in to see you!' 'She said you'd, like, dragged the
monster into, like, the Next
World!' Lucy Warbeck said, her eyes gleaming. 'Mistress Weatherwax
told everyone all about it!'
'Well, it wasn't quite-' Tiffany began. She felt something prod her in
the back. She reached
behind her, and her hand came back holding a pointy hat. It was almost
grey with age and quite
battered. Zakzak wouldn't have dared try to sell something like this,
but the other girls stared
it like starving dogs watching a butcher's hand. 'Urn, Mistress
Weatherwax gave you her hat,'
breathed Petulia. 'Her actual hat.' 'She said you were a born witch
and no witch should be without
a hat!' said Dimity Hubbub, watching. That's nice,' said Tiffany. She
was used to secondhand
clothes. 'It's only an old hat,' said Annagramma. Tiffany looked up at
the tall girl and let
herself smile slowly. 'Annagramma?' she said, raising a hand with the
fingers open. Annagramma
backed away. 'Oh no,' she said. 'Don't you do that! Don't you do that!
Someone stop her doing
that!' 'Do you want a balloon, Annagramma?' said Tiffany, sliding off
the table. 'No! Please!'
Annagramma took another step back, holding her arms in front of her
face, and fell over a bench.
Tiffany picked her up and patted her cheerfully on a cheek. 'Then I
shan't buy you one,' she said.
'But please learn what "literally" really means, will you?' Annagramma
smiled in a frozen kind of
way. 'Er, yes,' she managed. 'Good. And then we will be friends.' She
left the girl standing
there, and went back to pick up the hat. 'Urn, you're probably still a
bit woozy,' said Petulia.
'You probably don't understand.' 'Ha, I wasn't actually frightened,
you know,' said Annagramma.
'It was all for fun, of course.' No one paid any attention.
'Understand what?' said Tiffany. 'It's
her actual hat' the girls chorused. 'It's, like, if that hat could
talk, what stories it would
have to, you know, tell,' said Lucy Warbeck. 'It was just a joke,'
said Annagramma to anyone who
was listening. Tiffany looked at the hat. It was very battered, and
not extremely clean. If that
hat could talk, it would probably mutter. 'Where's Granny Weatherwax
now?' she said. There was a
gasp from the girls. This was nearly as impressive as the hat. 'Um...
she doesn't mind you calling
her that?' said Petulia. 'She invited me to,' said Tiffany. 'Only we
heard you had to have known
her for, like, a hundred years before she let you call her that...'
said Lucy Warbeck. Tiffany
shrugged. 'Well, anyway,' she said. 'Do you know where she is?' 'Oh,
having tea with the other old
witches and yakking on about chutney and how witches today aren't what
they were when she was a
girl,' said Lulu Darling. 'What?' said Tiffany. 'Just having tea!' The
young witches looked at one
another in puzzlement. 'Um, there's buns too,' said Petulia. 'If
that's important.' 'But she
opened the door for me. The door into -out of the... the desert! You
can't just sit down after
that and have buns! 'Um, the ones I saw had icing on,' Petulia
ventured, nervously. 'They weren't
just homemade-' 'Look,' said Lucy Warbeck, 'we didn't really, you
know, see anything? You were
just standing there with this, like, glow around you and we couldn't
get in and then Gran-
Mistress Weatherwax walked up and stepped right in and you both, you
know, stood there? And then
the glow went zip and vanished and you, like, fell over.' 'What Lucy's
failing to say very
accurately,' said Annagramma, 'is that we didn't actually see you go
anywhere. I'm telling you
this as a friend, of course. There was just this glow, which could
have been anything.' Annagramma
was going to be a good witch, Tiffany considered. She could tell
herself stories that she
literally believed. And she could bounce back like a ball. 'Don't
forget, I saw the horse,' said
Harrieta Bilk. Annagramma rolled her eyes. 'Oh yes, Harrieta thinks
she saw some kind of horse in
the sky. Except it didn't look like a horse, she says. She says it
looked like a horse would look
if you took the actual horse away and just left the horsiness, right,
Harrieta?' 'I didn't say
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that!' snapped Harrieta. 'Well, pardon me. That's what it sounded
like.' 'Urn, and some people
said they saw a white horse grazing in the next field, too, said
Petulia. 'And a lot of the older
witches said they felt a tremendous amount of-' 'Yes, some people
thought they saw a horse in a
field but it isn't there any more,' said Annagramma in the singsong
voice she used when she
thought it was all stupid. 'That must be very rare in the country,
seeing horses in fields.
Anyway, if there really was a white horse, it was grey.' Tiffany sat
on the edge of the table,
staring at her knees. Anger at Annagramma had jolted her to life, but
now the tiredness was
creeping back. 'I suppose none of you saw a little blue man, about six
inches high, with red
hair?' she said quietly. 'Anyone?' said Annagramma, with malicious
cheerfulness. There was a
general mumbling of 'no'. 'Sorry, Tiffany,' said Lucy. 'Don't worry,'
said Annagramma. 'He
probably just rode away on his white horse!' This is going to be like
Fairyland all over again,
thought Tiffany. Even I can't remember if it was real. Why should
anyone believe me? But she had
to try. 'There was a dark doorway,' she said slowly, 'and beyond it
was a desert of black sand and
it was quite light although there were stars in the sky, and Death was
there. I spoke to him 'You
spoke to him, did you?' said Annagramma. 'And what did he say, pray?'
'He didn't say "pray",' said
Tiffany. 'We didn't talk about much. But he didn't know what an egress
was.' 'It's a small type of
heron, isn't it?' said Harrieta. There was silence, except for the
noise of the Trials outside.
'It's not your fault,' said Annagramma in what was, for her, almost a
friendly voice. 'It's like I
said: Mistress Weatherwax messes with people's heads.' 'What about the
glow?' said Lucy. 'That was
probably ball lightning,' said Annagramma. 'That's very strange
stuff.' 'But people were, like,
hammering on it! It was as hard as ice!' 'Ah, well, it probably felt
like that,' said Annagramma,
'but it was... probably affecting people's muscles, maybe. I'm only
trying to be helpful here,'
she added. 'You've got to be sensible. She just stood there. You saw
her. There weren't any doors
or deserts. There was just her.' Tiffany sighed. She just felt tired.
She just wanted to crawl off
somewhere. She just wanted to go home. She'd walk there now if her
boots weren't suddenly so
uncomfortable. While the girls argued, she undid the laces and tugged
one off. Silver-black dust
poured out. When it hit the ground it bounced, slowly, curving up into
the air again like mist.
The girls turned, watching in silence. Then Petulia reached down and
caught some of the dust. When
she lifted her hand, the fine stuff flowed between her fingers. It
fell as slowly as feathers.
'Sometimes things go wrong,' she said, in a faraway voice. 'Mistress
Blackcap told me. Haven't any
of you been there when old folk are dying?' There were one or two
nods, but everyone was watching
the dust. 'Sometimes things go wrong,' said Petulia again. 'Sometimes
they're dying but they can't
leave because they don't know the Way. She said that's when they need
you to be there, close to
them, to help them find the door so they don't get lost in the dark.'
'Petulia, we're not supposed
to talk about this,' said Harrieta, gently. 'No!' said Petulia, her
face red. 'It is a time to
talk about it, just here, just us! Because she said it's the last
thing you can do for someone.
She said there's a dark desert they have to cross, where the sand-'
'Hah! Mrs Earwig says that
sort of thing is black magic,' said Annagramma, her voice as sharp and
sudden as a knife. 'Does
she?' said Petulia dreamily as the sand poured down. 'Well, Mistress
Blackcap said that sometimes
the moon is light and sometimes it's in shadow but you should always
remember it's the same moon.
And... Annagramma?' 'Yes?' Petulia took a deep breath. 'Don't you ever
dare interrupt me again as
long as you live. Don't you dare. Don't you dare! I mean it.'
Chapter 13
And then... there were the Trials themselves. That was the point of
the day, wasn't it? But
Tiffany, stepping out with the girls around her, sensed the buzz in
the air. It said: Was there
any point now? After what had happened? Still, people had put up the
rope square again, and a lot
of the older witches dragged their chairs to the edge of it, and it
seemed that it was going to
happen after all. Tiffany wandered up to the rope, found a space and
sat down on the grass with
Granny Weatherwax's hat in front of her. She was aware of the other
girls behind her, and also a
buzz or susurration of whispering spreading out into the crowd. '...
She really did do it, too...
no, really... all the way to the desert... saw the dust... her boots
were full, they say...'
Gossip spreads faster among witches than a bad cold. Witches gossip
like starlings. There were no
judges, and no prizes. The Trials weren't like that, as Petulia had
said. The point was to show
what you could do, to show what you'd become, so that people would go
away thinking things like
That Caramella Bottlethwaite, she's coming along nicely.' It wasn't a
competition, honestly. No
one won. And if you believed that you'd believe that the moon is
pushed around the sky by a goblin
called Wilberforce. What was true was that one of the older witches
generally opened the thing
with some competent but not surprising trick which everyone had seen
before but still appreciated.
That broke the ice. This year it was old Goodie Trample and her
collection of singing mice. But
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Tiffany wasn't paying attention. On the other side of the roped-off
square, sitting on a chair and
surrounded by older witches like a queen on her throne, was Granny
Weatherwax. The whispering went
on. Maybe opening her eyes had opened her ears, too, because Tiffany
felt she could hear the
whispers all around the square. '...Di'n't have no trainin', just did
it... did you see that
horse?...I never saw no horse!...Di 'n't just open the door, she
stepped right in!... Yeah, but
who was it fetched her back?Esme Weatherwax, that's who!... Yes,
that's what I'm sayin', any
little fool could've opened the door by luck, but it takes a real
witch to bring her back, that's
a winner, that is... fought the thing, left it there!... I didn't see
you doing anything, Violet
Pulsimone! That child... Was there a horse or not?... Was going to do
my dancing broom trick, but
that'd be wasted now, of course... Why did Mistress Weatherwax give
the girl her hat, eh? What's
she want us to think? She never takes off her hat to no one!' You
could feel the tension,
crackling from pointy hat to pointy hat like summer lightning. The
mice did their best with I'm
Forever Blowing Bubbles but it was easy to see that their minds
weren't on it. Mice are highly
strung and very temperamental. Now people were leaning down beside
Granny Weatherwax. Tiffany
could see some animated conversations going on. 'You know, Tiffany,'
said Lucy Warbeck, behind
her, 'all you've got to do is, like, stand up and admit it. Everyone
knows you did it. I mean, no
one's ever, like, done something like that at the Trials!' 'And it's
about time the old bully
lost,' said Annagramma. But she's not a bully, Tiffany thought. She's
tough, and she expects other
witches to be tough, because the edge is no place for people who
break. Everything with her is a
kind of test. And her Third Thoughts handed over the thought that had
not quite made it back in
the tent: Granny Weatherwax, you knew the hiver would only come for
me, didn't you? You talked to
Dr Bustle, you told me. Did you just turn me into your trick for
today? How much did you guess? Or
know? 'You'd win,' said Dimity Hubbub. 'Even some of the older ones
would like to see her taken
down a peg. They know big magic happened. There's not a whole shamble
for miles.' So I'd win
because some people don't like somebody else? Tiffany thought. Oh,
yes, that'd really be something
to be proud of... 'You can bet she'll stand up,' said Annagramma. 'You
watch. She'll explain how
the poor child got dragged into the Next World by a monster, and she
brought her back. That's what
I'd do, if I was her.' I expect you would, Tiffany thought. But you're
not, and you're not me,
either. She stared at Granny Weatherwax, who was waving away a couple
of elderly witches. I
wonder, she thought, if they've been saying things like 'This girl
needs taking down a peg,
Mistress Weatherwax.' And as she thought that, Granny turned back and
caught her eye- The mice
stopped singing, mostly in embarrassment. There was a pause, and then
people started to clap,
because it was the sort of thing you had to do. A witch, someone
Tiffany didn't know, stepped out
into the square, still clapping in that fluttery, hands-held-close-
together-at shoulder-height way
that people use when they want to encourage the audience to go on
applauding just that little bit
longer. 'Very well done, Doris, excellent work, as ever,' she trilled.
'They've come on
marvellously since last year, thank you very much, wonderful, well
done... ahem...' The woman
hesitated, while behind her Doris Trample crawled around on hands and
knees trying to urge her
mice back into their box. One of them was having hysterics. 'And now,
perhaps... some lady would
like to, er... take the, er... stage?' said the mistress of
ceremonies, as brightly as a glass
ball about to shatter. 'Anyone?' There was stillness, and silence.
'Don't be shy, ladies!' The
voice of the mistress of ceremonies was getting more strained by the
second. It's no fun trying to
organize a field full of born organizers. 'Modesty does not become us!
Anyone?' Tiffany felt the
pointy hats turning, some towards her, some towards Granny Weatherwax.
Away across the few yards
of grass, Granny reached up and brushed someone's hand from her
shoulder, sharply, without
breaking eye contact with Tiffany. And we're not wearing hats, thought
Tiffany. You gave me a
virtual hat once, Granny Weatherwax, and I thank you for it. But I
don't need it today. Today, I
know I'm a witch. 'Oh, come now, ladies!' said the mistress of
ceremonies, now almost frantic.
'This is the Trials! A place for friendly and instructive contestation
in an atmosphere of
fraternity and goodwill! Surely some lady... or young lady,
perhaps... ? Tiffany smiled. It should
be 'sorority', not 'fraternity'. We're sisters, mistress, not
brothers. 'Come on, Tiffany!' Dimity
urged. 'They know you're good!' Tiffany shook her head. 'Oh, well,
that's it,' said Annagramma,
rolling her eyes. 'The old baggage has messed with the girl's head, as
usual-' 'I don't know who's
messed with whose head,' snapped Petulia, rolling up her sleeves. 'But
I'm going to do the pig
trick.' She got to her feet and there was a general stir in the crowd.
'Oh, I see it's going to be-
Oh, it's you, Petulia,' said the mistress of ceremonies, slightly
disappointed. 'Yes, Miss
Casement, and I intend to perform the pig trick,' said Petulia loudly.
'But, er, you don't seem to
have brought a pig with you,' said Miss Casement, taken aback. 'Yes,
Miss Casement. I shall
perform the pig trick... without a pig!' This caused a sensation, and
cries of 'Impossible!' and
'There are children here, you know!' Miss Casement looked around for
assistance and found none.
'Oh well,' she said, helpless. 'If you are sure, dear 'Yes. I am. I
shall use... a sausage!' said
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Petulia, producing one from a pocket and holding it up. There was
another sensation. Tiffany
didn't see the trick. Nor did Granny Weatherwax. Their gaze was like
an iron bar, and even Miss
Casement instinctively didn't step into it. But Tiffany heard the
squeal, and the gasp of
amazement, and then the thunder of applause. People would have
applauded anything at that point,
in the same way that pent-up water would take any route out of a dam.
And then witches got up.
Miss Level juggled balls that stopped and reversed direction in mid-
air. A middle-aged witch
demonstrated a new way to stop people choking, which doesn't even
sound magical until you
understand that a way of turning nearly-dead people into fully-alive
people is worth a dozen
spells that just go twing! And other women and girls came up one at a
time, with big tricks and
handy tips and things that went wheee! or stopped toothache or, in one
case, exploded- - and then
there were no more entries. Miss Casement walked back into the centre
of the field, almost drunk
with relief that there had been a Trials, and made one final
invitation to any ladies 'or, indeed,
young ladies' who might like to come forward. There was a silence so
thick you could have stuck
pins in it. And then she said: 'Oh, well... in that case, I declare
the Trials well and truly
closed. Tea will be in the big tent!' Tiffany and Granny stood up at
the same time, to the second,
and bowed to one another. Then Granny turned away and joined the
stampede towards the teas. It was
interesting to see how the crowd parted, all unaware, to let her
through, like the sea in front a
particularly good prophet. Petulia was surrounded by other young
witches. The pig trick had gone
down very well. Tiffany queued up to give her a hug. 'But you could
have won!' said Petulia, red
in the face with happiness and worry. 'That doesn't matter. It really
doesn't,' said Tiffany. 'You
gave it away,' said a sharp voice behind her. 'You had it in your
hand, and you gave it all away.
How do you feel about that, Tiffany? Do you have a taste for humble
pie?' 'Now you listen to me,
Annagramma,' Petulia began, pointing a furious finger. Tiffany reached
out and lowered the girl's
arm. Then she turned and smiled so happily at Annagramma that it was
disturbing. What she wanted
to say was: 'Where I come from, Annagramma, they have the Sheepdog
Trials. Shepherds travel there
from all over to show off their dogs. And there're silver crooks and
belts with silver buckles and
prizes of all kinds, Annagramma, but do you know what the big prize
was? No, you wouldn't. Oh,
there were judges, but they didn't count, not for the big prize. There
is- There was a little old
lady who was always at the front of the crowd, leaning on the hurdles
with her pipe in her mouth
with the two finest sheepdogs ever pupped sitting at her feet. Their
names were Thunder and
Lightning and they moved so fast they set the air on fire and their
coats outshone the sun, but
she never, ever put them in the Trials. She knew more about sheep than
even sheep know. And what
every young shepherd wanted, really wanted, wasn't some silly cup or
belt but to see her take her
pipe out of her mouth as he left the arena and quietly say "That'll
do" because that meant he was
a real shepherd and all the other shepherds would know it, too. And if
you'd told him he had to
challenge her, he'd cuss at you and stamp his foot and tell you he'd
sooner spit the sun dark. How
could he ever win? She was shepherding. It was the whole of her life.
What you took away from her
you'd take away from yourself. You don't understand that, do you? But
it's the heart and soul and
centre of it! The soul... and... centre!' But it would be wasted, so
what she said was: 'Oh, just
shut up, Annagramma. Let's see if there's any buns left, shall we?'
Overhead, a buzzard screamed.
She looked up. The bird turned on the wind and, racing through the air
as it began the long glide,
headed back towards home. They were always there. Beside her cauldron,
Jeannie opened her eyes.
'He's comin' hame!' she said, scrambling to her feet. She waved a hand
urgently at the watching
Feegles. 'Don't ye just stand there gawping!' she commanded. 'Catch
some rabbits to roast! Build
up the fire! Boil up a load o' water, 'cos I'm takin' a bath! Look at
this place, 'tis like a
midden! Get it cleaned up! I want it sparkling for the Big Man! Go an'
steal some Special Sheep
Liniment! Cut some green boughs, holly or yew, mebbe! Shine up the
golden plates! The place must
sparkle! What're ye all standin' there for?' 'Er, what did ye want us
to do first, Kelda,' said a
Feegle nervously. 'All of it!' In her chamber they filled the kelda's
soup-bowl bath and she
scrubbed, using one of Tiffany's old toothbrushes, while outside there
were the sounds of Feegles
working hard at cross-purposes. The smell of roasting rabbit began to
fill the mound. Jeannie
dressed herself in her best dress, did her hair, picked up her shawl
and climbed out of the hole.
She stood there watching the mountains until, after about an hour, a
dot in the sky got bigger and
bigger. As a kelda, she would welcome home a warrior. As a wife, she
would kiss her husband and
scold him for being so long away. As a woman, she thought she would
melt with relief, thankfulness
and joy.
Chapter 14 QUEEN of the Bees
And, one afternoon about a week later, Tiffany went to see Granny
Weatherwax. It was only fifteen
miles as the broomstick flies, and as Tiffany still didn't like flying
a broomstick, Miss Level
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took her. It was the invisible part of Miss Level. Tiffany just lay
flat on the stick, holding on
with arms and legs and knees and ears if possible, and took along a
paper bag to be sick into,
because no one likes anonymous sick dropping out of the sky. She was
also holding a large hessian
sack, which she handled with care. She didn't open her eyes until the
rushing noises had stopped
and the sounds around her told her she was probably very close to the
ground. In fact Miss Level
had been very kind. When she fell off, because of the cramp in her
legs, the broomstick was just
above some quite thick moss. Thank you,' said Tiffany as she got up,
because it always pays to
mind your manners around invisible people. She had a new dress. It was
green, like the last one.
The complex world of favours and obligations and gifts that Miss Level
lived and moved in had
thrown up four yards of nice material (for the trouble-free birth of
Miss Quickly's baby boy) and
a few hours' dressmaking (Mrs Hunter's bad leg feeling a lot better,
thank you). She'd given the
black one away. When I'm old I shall wear midnight, she'd decided.
But, for now, she'd had enough
of darkness. She looked around at this clearing on the side of a hill,
surrounded by oak and
sycamore on three sides but open on the downhill side with a wide view
of the countryside below.
The sycamores were shedding their spinning seeds, which whirled down
lazily across a patch of
garden. It was unfenced, even though some goats were grazing nearby.
If you wondered why it was
the goats weren't eating the garden, it was because you'd forgotten
who lived here. There was a
well. And, of course, a cottage. Mrs Earwig would definitely have
objected to the cottage. It was
out of a storybook. The walls leaned against one another for support,
the thatched roof was
slipping off like a bad wig, and the chimneys were corkscrewed. If you
thought a gingerbread
cottage would be too fattening, this was the next worst thing. In a
cottage deep in the forest
lived the Wicked Old Witch... It was a cottage out of the nastier kind
of fairy tale. Granny
Weatherwax's beehives were tucked away down one side of the cottage.
Some were the old straw kind,
most were patched-up wooden ones. They thundered with activity, even
this late in the year.
Tiffany turned aside to look at them, and the bees poured out in a
dark stream. They swarmed
towards Tiffany, formed a column and- She laughed. They'd made a witch
of bees in front of her,
thousands of them all holding station in the air. She raised her right
hand. With a rise in the
level of buzzing, the bee-witch raised its right hand. She turned
around. It turned around, the
bees carefully copying every swirl and flutter of her dress, the ones
on the very edge buzzing
desperately because they had furthest to fly. She carefully put down
the big sack and reached out
towards the figure. With another roar of wings it went shapeless for a
moment, and then re-formed
a little way away, but with a hand outstretched towards her. The bee
that was the tip of its
forefinger hovered just in front of Tiffany's fingernail. 'Shall we
dance?' said Tiffany. In the
clearing full of spinning seeds, she circled the swarm. It kept up
pretty well, moving fingertip
to buzzing tip, turning when she turned, although there were always a
few bees racing to catch up.
Then it raised both its arms and twirled in the opposite direction,
the bees in the 'skirt'
spreading out again as it spun. It was learning. Tiffany laughed and
did the same thing. Swarm and
girl whirled across the clearing. She felt happy and wondered if she'd
ever felt this happy
before. The gold light, the falling bracts, the dancing bees... it was
all one thing. This was the
opposite of the dark desert. Here, light was everywhere and filled her
up inside. She could feel
herself here but see herself from above, twirling with a buzzing
shadow that sparkled golden as
the light struck the bees. Moments like this paid for it all. Then the
witch made of bees leaned
closer to Tiffany, as if staring at her with its thousands of little
jewelled eyes. There was a
faint piping noise from inside the figure and the bee-witch exploded
into a spreading, buzzing
cloud of insects which raced away across the clearing and disappeared.
The only movement now was
the whirring fall of the sycamore seeds. Tiffany breathed out. 'Now,
some people would have found
that scary,' said a voice behind her. Tiffany didn't turn round
immediately. First she said, 'Good
afternoon, Granny Weatherwax.' Then she turned round. 'Have you ever
done this?' she demanded,
still half-drunk with delight. 'It's rude to start with questions.
You'd better come in and have a
cup of tea,' said Granny Weatherwax. You'd barely know that anyone
lived in the cottage. There
were two chairs by the fire, one of them a rocking chair, and by the
table were two chairs that
didn't rock but did wobble because of the uneven stone floor. There
was a dresser, and a rag-rug
in front of the huge hearth. A broomstick leaned against the wall in
one corner, next to something
mysterious and pointy, under a cloth. There was a very narrow and dark
flight of stairs. And that
was it. There was nothing shiny, nothing new and nothing unnecessary.
'To what do I owe the
pleasure of this visit?' said Granny Weatherwax, taking a sooty black
kettle off the fire and
filling an equally black teapot. Tiffany opened the sack she had
brought with her. 'I've come to
bring you your hat back,' she said. 'Ah,' said Granny Weatherwax.
'Have you? And why?' 'Because
it's your hat,' said Tiffany, putting it on the table. 'Thank you for
the loan of it, though.' 'I
dare say there's plenty of young witches who'd give their high teeth
for an ol' hat of mine,' said
Granny, lifting up the battered hat. 'There are,' said Tiffany, and
did not add 'and it's eye
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teeth, actually'. What she did add was: 'But I think everyone has to
find their own hat. The right
hat for them, I mean.' 'I see you're now wearing a shop-bought one,
then,' said Granny Weatherwax.
'One of them Sky Scrapers. With stars,' she added, and there was so
much acid in the word 'stars'
that it would've melted copper and then dropped through the table and
the floor and melted more
copper in the cellar below. 'Think that makes it more magical, do you?
Stars?' 'I... did when I
bought it. And it'll do for now.' 'Until you find the right hat,' said
Granny Weatherwax. 'Yes.'
'Which ain't mine?' 'No.' 'Good.' The old witch walked across the room
and tugged the cloth off
the thing in the corner. It turned out to be a big wooden spike, just
about the size of a pointy
hat on a tall stand. A hat was being... constructed on it, with thin
strips of willow and pins and
stiff black doth. 'I make my own,' she said. 'Every year. There's no
hat like the hat you make
yourself. Take my advice. I stiffens the calico and makes it
waterproof with special jollop. It's
amazing what you can put into a hat you make yourself. But you didn't
come to talk about hats.'
Tiffany let the question out at last. 'Was it real?'. Granny
Weatherwax poured the tea, picked up
her cup and saucer, then carefully poured some of the tea out of the
cup and into the saucer. She
held this up and, with care, like someone dealing with an important
and delicate task, blew gently
on it. She did this slowly and calmly, while Tiffany tried hard to
conceal her impatience. down
the cup and saucer. 'Child, you've come here to learn what's true and
what's not but there's
little I can teach you that you don't already know. You just don't
know you know it, and you'll
spend the rest of your life learning what's already in your bones. And
that's the truth.' She
stared at Tiffany's hopeful face and sighed. 'Come outside then,' she
said. 'I'll give you lesson
one. It's the only lesson there is. It don't need writing down in no
book with eyes on.' She led
the way to the well in her back garden, looked around on the ground
and picked up a stick. 'Magic
wand,' she said. 'See?' A green flame leaped out of it, making Tiffany
jump. 'Now you try.' It
didn't work for Tiffany, no matter how much she shook it. 'Of course
not,' said Granny. 'It's a
stick. Now, maybe I made a flame come out of it, or maybe I made you
think it did. That don't
matter. It was me is what I'm sayin', not the stick. Get your mind
right and you can make a stick
your wand and the sky your hat and a puddle your magic... your
magic... er, what're them fancy
cups called?' 'Er... goblet,' said Tiffany. 'Right. Magic goblet.
Things aren't important. People
are.' Granny Weatherwax looked sidelong at Tiffany. 'And I could teach
you how to run across those
hills of yours with the hare, I could teach you how to fly above them
with the buzzard. I could
tell you the secrets of the bees. I could teach you all this and much
more besides if you'd do
just one thing, right here and now. One simple thing, easy to do.'
Tiffany nodded, eyes wide. 'You
understand, then, that all the glittery stuff is just toys, and toys
can lead you astray?' 'Yes!'
'Then take off that shiny horse you wear around your neck, girl, and
drop it in the well.'
Obediently, half-hypnotized by the voice, Tiffany reached behind her
neck and undid the clasp. The
pieces of the silver horse shone as she held it over the water. She
stared at it as if she was
seeing it for the first time. And then... She tests people, she
thought. All the time. 'Well?'
said the old witch. 'No,' said Tiffany. 'I can't.' 'Can't or won't?'
said Granny sharply. 'Can't,'
said Tiffany and stuck out her chin. 'And won't!' She drew her hand
back and fastened the necklace
again, glaring defiantly at Granny Weatherwax The witch smiled. 'Well
done,' she said quietly. 'If
you don't know when to be a human being, you don't know when to be a
witch. And if you're too
afraid of goin' astray, you won't go anywhere. May I see it, please?'
Tiffany looked into those
blue eyes. Then she undid the clasp and handed over the necklace.
Granny held it up. 'Funny, ain't
it, that it seems to gallop when the light hits it,' said the witch,
watching it twist this way
and that. 'Well-made thing. O'course, it's not what a horse looks
like, but it's certainly what a
horse is.' Tiffany stared at her with her mouth open. For a moment
Granny Aching stood there
grinning, and then Granny Weatherwax was back. Did she do that, she
wondered, or did I do it
myself? And do I dare find out? 'I didn't just come to bring the hat
back,' she managed to say. 'I
brought you a present, too.' 'I'm sure there's no call for anyone to
bring me a present,' said
Granny Weatherwax, sniffing. Tiffany ignored this, because her mind
was still spinning. She
fetched her sack again and handed over a small, soft parcel, which
moved as it changed shape in
her hands. 'I took most of the stuff back to Mr Strong-inthearm,' she
said. 'But I thought you
might have a... a use for this.' The old woman slowly unwrapped the
white paper. The Zephyr Billow
cloak unrolled itself under her fingers and filled the air like smoke.
'It's lovely, but I
couldn't wear it,' said Tiffany as the cloak shaped itself over the
gentle currents of the
clearing. 'You need gravitas to carry off a cloak like that.' 'What's
gravitarse?' said Granny
Weatherwax sharply. 'Oh... dignity. Seniority. Wisdom. Those sort of
things,' said Tiffany. 'Ah,'
said Granny, relaxing a little. She stared at the gently rippling
cloak and sniffed. It really was
a wonderful creation. The wizards had got at least one thing right
when they had made it. It was
one of those items that fill a hole in your life that you didn't know
was there until you'd seen
it. 'Well, I suppose there's those as can wear a cloak like this, and
those as can't,' she
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conceded. She let it curl around her neck and fastened it there with a
crescent-shaped brooch.
'It's a bit too grand for the likes of me,' she said. 'A bit too
fancy. I could look like a
flibbertigibbet wearing something like this.' It was spoken like a
statement but it had a curl
like a question. 'No, it suits you, it really does,' said Tiffany
cheerfully. 'If you don't know
when to be a human being, you don't know when to be a witch.' Birds
stopped singing. Up in the
trees, squirrels ran and hid. Even the sky seemed to darken for a
moment. 'Er... that's what I
heard,' said Tiffany, and added, 'From someone who knows these
things.' The blue eyes stared into
hers. There were no secrets from Granny Weatherwax. Whatever you said,
she watched what you meant.
'Perhaps you'll call again sometimes,' she said, turning slowly and
watching the cloak curve in
the air. 'It's always very quiet here.' 'I should like that,' said
Tiffany. 'Shall I tell the bees
before I come, so you can get the tea ready?' For a moment Granny
Weatherwax glared, and then the
lines faded into a wry grin. 'Clever,' she said. What's inside you?
Tiffany thought. Who are you
really, in there? Did you want me to take your hat? You pretend to be
the big bad wicked witch,
and you're not. You test people all the time, test, test, test, but
you really want them to be
clever enough to beat you. Because it must be hard, being the best.
You're not allowed to stop.
You can only be beaten, and you're too proud ever to lose. Pride!
You've turned it into terrible
strength, but it eats away at you. Are you afraid to laugh in case you
hear an early cackle? We'll
meet again, one day. We both know it. We'll meet again, at the Witch
Trials. 'I'm clever enough to
know how you manage not to think of a pink rhinoceros if someone says
"pink rhinoceros",' she
managed to say aloud. 'Ah, that's deep magic, that is,' said Granny
Weatherwax. 'No. It's not. You
don't know what a rhinoceros looks like, do you?' Sunlight filled the
clearing as the old witch
laughed, as clear as a downland stream. 'That's right!' she said.
Chapter 15 A Hat Full of Sky
It was one of those strange days in late February when it's a little
warmer than it should be and,
although there's wind, it seems to be all round the horizons and never
quite where you are.
Tiffany climbed up onto the downs where, in the sheltered valleys, the
early lambs had already
found their legs and were running around in a gang in that strange
jerky run that lambs have,
which makes them look like woolly rocking horses. Perhaps there was
something about that day,
because the old ewes joined in, too, and skipped with their lambs.
They jumped and spun, half
happy, half embarrassed, big winter fleeces bouncing up and down like
a clown's trousers. It had
been an interesting winter. She'd learned a lot of things. One of them
was that you could be a
bridesmaid to two people who between them were over 170 years old.
This time Mr Weavall, with his
wig spinning on his head and his big spectacles gleaming, had insisted
on giving one of the gold
pieces to 'our little helper', which more than made up for the wages
that she hadn't asked for and
Miss Level couldn't afford. She'd used some of it to buy a really good
brown cloak. It didn't
billow, it didn't fly out behind her, but it was warm and thick and
kept her dry. She'd learned
lots of other things too. As she walked past the sheep and their
lambs, she gently touched their
minds, so softly that they didn't notice... Tiffany had stayed up in
the mountains for Hogswatch,
which officially marked the changing of the year. There'd been a lot
to do there, and anyway it
wasn't much celebrated on the Chalk. Miss Level had been happy to give
her leave now, though, for
the lambing festival, which the old people called Sheepbellies. It was
when the shepherds' year
began. The hag of the hills couldn't miss that. That was when, in warm
nests of straw shielded
from the wind by hurdles and barriers of cut furze, the future
happened. She'd helped it happen,
working with the shepherds by lantern light, dealing with the
difficult births. She'd worked with
the pointy hat on her head and had felt the shepherds watching her as,
with knife and needle and
thread and hands and soothing words, she'd saved ewes from the black
doorway and helped new lambs
into the light. You had to give them a show. You had to give them a
story. And she'd walked back
home proudly in the morning and bloody to the elbows, but it had been
the blood of life. Later,
she had gone up to the Feegles' mound, and slid down the hole. She'd
thought about this for some
time, and had gone prepared- with clean torn-up handkerchiefs and some
soapwort shampoo made to a
recipe Miss Level had given her. She had a feeling that Jeannie would
have a use for these. Miss
Level always visited new mothers. It was what you did. Jeannie had
been pleased to see her. Lying
on her stomach so that she could get part of her body into the kelda's
chamber, Tiffany had been
allowed to hold all eight of what she kept thinking of as the Roblets,
born at the same time as
the lambs. Seven of them were bawling and fighting one another. The
eighth lay quietly, biding her
time. The future happened. It wasn't only Jeannie who thought of her
differently. News had got
around. The people of the Chalk hadn't liked witches. They had always
come from outside. They had
always come as strangers. But now here was our Tiffany, birthing the
lambs like her granny did,
and they say she's been learning witchery in the mountains! Ah, but
that's still our Tiffany, that
cannae gae to sleep here!
Rise an' shine!' Still feeling muzzy, Tiffany pushed herself back onto
her feet, through gentle
swirls of rising dust, and turned to the dark door. It wasn't there.
There were her footprints in
the sand, but they went only a few feet and, anyway, were slowly
disappearing. There was nothing
around her but dead desert, for ever. She turned back to look towards
the distant mountains, but
her view was blocked by a tall figure, all in black, holding a scythe.
It hadn't been there
before. GOOD AFTERNOON, said Death.
Chapter 12 Egress
Tiffany stared up into a black hood. There was a skull in it, but the
eye sockets glowed blue. At
least bones had never frightened Tiffany. They were only chalk that
had walked around. 'Are you-?'
she began, but Rob Anybody gave a yell and leaped straight for the
hood. There was a thud. Death
took a step backwards and raised a skeletal hand to his cowl. He
pulled out Rob Anybody by his
hair and held him at arm's length while the Nac Mac Feegle cursed and
kicked. is THIS YOURS? Death
asked Tiffany. The voice was heavy and all around her, like thunder.
'No. Er... he's his.' I WAS
NOT EXPECTING A NAC MAC FEEGLE TODAY, Said Death, OTHERWISE I WOULD
HAVE WORN PROTECTIVE CLOTHING,
HA HA. 'They do fight a lot,' Tiffany admitted. 'You are Death, aren't
you? I know this might
sound a silly question.' YOU ARE NOT AFRAID? 'Not yet. But, er...
which way to the egress,
please?' There was a pause. Then Death said, in a puzzled voice: ISN'T
THAT A FEMALE EAGLE? 'No,'
said Tiffany. 'Everyone thinks that. Actually, it's the way out. The
exit.' Death pointed, with
the hand that still held the incandescently angry Rob Anybody. THAT
WAY. YOU HAVE TO WALK THE
DESERT. 'All the way to the mountains?' YES. BUT ONLY THE DEAD CAN
TAKE THAT WAY. 'Ye've got ta'
let me go sooner or later, ye big 'natomy!' yelled Rob Anybody. 'And
then ye're gonna get sich a
kickin'!' 'There was a door here!' said Tiffany. AH YES, said Death,
BUT THERE ARE RULES, THAT WAS
A WAY IN, YOU SEE. 'What's the difference?' A FAIRLY IMPORTANT ONE,
I'M SORRY TO SAY. YOU WILL
HAVE TO SEE YOURSELVES OUT. DO NOT FALL ASLEEP HERE. SLEEP HERE NEVER
ENDS. Death vanished. Rob
Anybody dropped to the sand and came up ready to fight, but they were
alone. 'Ye'll have to make a
door oot,' he said. 'I don't know how! Rob, I told you not to come
with me. Can't you get out?'
'Aye. Probably. But I've got to see ye safe. The kelda put a geas on
me. I must save the hag o'
the hills.' 'Jeannie told you that?' 'Aye. She was verra definite,'
said Rob Anybody. Tiffany
slumped down onto the sand again. It fountained up around her. 'I'll
never get out,' she said. How
to get in, yes, that wasn't hard... She looked around. They weren't
obvious, but there were
occasional changes in the light, and little puffs of dust. People she
couldn't see were walking
past her. People were crossing the desert. Dead people, going to find
out what was beyond the
mountains... I'm eleven, she thought. People will be upset. She
thought about the farm, and how
her mother and father would react. But there wouldn't be a body, would
there? So people would hope
and hope that she'd come back and was just... missing, like old Mrs
Happens in the village, who
lit a candle in the window every night for her son who'd been lost at
sea thirty years ago. She
wondered if Rob could send a message, but what could she say? I'm not
dead, I'm just stuck'? 'I
should have thought of other people,' she said aloud. 'Aye, weel, ye
did,' said Rob, sitting down
by her foot. 'Yon Arthur went off happy, and ye saved other folk fra'
being killed. Ye did what ye
had to do.' Yes, thought Tiffany. That's what we have to do. And
there's no one to protect you,
because you 're the one who's supposed to do that sort of thing. But
her Second Thoughts said: I'm
glad I did it. I'd do it again. I stopped the hiver killing anyone
else, even though we led it
right into the Trials. And that thought was followed by a space. There
should have been another
thought, but she was too tired to have it. It had been important.
'Thank you for coming, Rob,' she
said. 'But when... you can leave, you must go straight back to
Jeannie, understand? And tell her
I'm grateful she sent you. Say I wish we'd had a chance to get to know
one another better.' 'Oh,
aye. I've sent the lads back anyway. Hamish is waitin' for me.' At
which point the door appeared,
and opened. Granny Weatherwax stepped through and beckoned urgently.
'Some people don't have the
sense they were born with! Come on, right now!' she commanded. Behind
her, the door started to
swing shut, but she swung round savagely and rammed her boot against
the jamb, shouting, 'Oh, no
you don't, you sly devil!' 'But... I thought there were rules!' said
Tiffany, getting up and
hurrying forward, all tiredness suddenly gone. Even a tired body wants
to survive. 'Oh? Really?'
said Granny. 'Did you sign anything? Did you take any kind of oath?
No? Then they weren't your
rules! Quickly, now! And you, Mr Anyone!' Rob Anybody jumped onto her
boot just before she pulled
it away. The door shut with another click, disappeared and left them
in... dead light, it seemed,
a space of grey air. 'Won't take long,' said Granny Weatherwax. 'It
doesn't usually. It's the
world getting back into line. Oh, don't look like that. You showed it
the Way, right? Out of pity.
Well, I know this path already. You'll tread it again, no doubt, for
some other poor soul, open
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the door for them as can't find it. But we don't talk about it,
understand?' 'Miss Level never-'
'We don't talk about it, I said,' said Granny Weatherwax. 'Do you know
what a part of being a
witch is? It's making the choices that have to be made. The hard
choices. But you did... quite
well. There's no shame in pity.' She brushed some grass seed off her
dress. 'I hope Mrs Ogg has
arrived,' she said. 'I need her recipe for apple chutney. Oh... when
we arrive you might feel a
bit dizzy. I'd better warn you.' 'Granny?' said Tiffany, as the light
began to grow brighter. It
brought back tiredness with it, too. 'Yes?' 'What exactly happened
just then?' 'What do you think
happened?' Light burst in upon them. Someone was wiping Tiffany's
forehead with a damp cloth. She
lay, feeling the beautiful coolness. There were voices around her, and
she recognized the chroniccomplainer's
tones of Annagramma: '... And she was really making a fuss in
Zakzak's. Honestly, I
don't think she's quite right in the head! I think she's literally
gone cuckoo! She was shouting
things and using some kind of, oh, I don't know, some peasant trick to
make us think she'd turned
that fool Brian into a frog. Well, of course, she didn't fool me for
one minute-' Tiffany opened
her eyes and saw the round pink face of Petulia, screwed up with
concern. 'Urn, she's awake!' said
the girl. The space between Tiffany and the ceiling filled up with
pointy hats. They drew back,
reluctantly, as she sat up. From above, it must have looked like a
dark daisy, closing and
opening. 'Where is this?' she said. 'Urn, the First Aid and Lost
Children's Tent,' said Petulia.
'Urn... you fainted when Mistress Weather-wax brought you back from...
from wherever you'd gone.
Everyone's been in to see you!' 'She said you'd, like, dragged the
monster into, like, the Next
World!' Lucy Warbeck said, her eyes gleaming. 'Mistress Weatherwax
told everyone all about it!'
'Well, it wasn't quite-' Tiffany began. She felt something prod her in
the back. She reached
behind her, and her hand came back holding a pointy hat. It was almost
grey with age and quite
battered. Zakzak wouldn't have dared try to sell something like this,
but the other girls stared
it like starving dogs watching a butcher's hand. 'Urn, Mistress
Weatherwax gave you her hat,'
breathed Petulia. 'Her actual hat.' 'She said you were a born witch
and no witch should be without
a hat!' said Dimity Hubbub, watching. That's nice,' said Tiffany. She
was used to secondhand
clothes. 'It's only an old hat,' said Annagramma. Tiffany looked up at
the tall girl and let
herself smile slowly. 'Annagramma?' she said, raising a hand with the
fingers open. Annagramma
backed away. 'Oh no,' she said. 'Don't you do that! Don't you do that!
Someone stop her doing
that!' 'Do you want a balloon, Annagramma?' said Tiffany, sliding off
the table. 'No! Please!'
Annagramma took another step back, holding her arms in front of her
face, and fell over a bench.
Tiffany picked her up and patted her cheerfully on a cheek. 'Then I
shan't buy you one,' she said.
'But please learn what "literally" really means, will you?' Annagramma
smiled in a frozen kind of
way. 'Er, yes,' she managed. 'Good. And then we will be friends.' She
left the girl standing
there, and went back to pick up the hat. 'Urn, you're probably still a
bit woozy,' said Petulia.
'You probably don't understand.' 'Ha, I wasn't actually frightened,
you know,' said Annagramma.
'It was all for fun, of course.' No one paid any attention.
'Understand what?' said Tiffany. 'It's
her actual hat' the girls chorused. 'It's, like, if that hat could
talk, what stories it would
have to, you know, tell,' said Lucy Warbeck. 'It was just a joke,'
said Annagramma to anyone who
was listening. Tiffany looked at the hat. It was very battered, and
not extremely clean. If that
hat could talk, it would probably mutter. 'Where's Granny Weatherwax
now?' she said. There was a
gasp from the girls. This was nearly as impressive as the hat. 'Um...
she doesn't mind you calling
her that?' said Petulia. 'She invited me to,' said Tiffany. 'Only we
heard you had to have known
her for, like, a hundred years before she let you call her that...'
said Lucy Warbeck. Tiffany
shrugged. 'Well, anyway,' she said. 'Do you know where she is?' 'Oh,
having tea with the other old
witches and yakking on about chutney and how witches today aren't what
they were when she was a
girl,' said Lulu Darling. 'What?' said Tiffany. 'Just having tea!' The
young witches looked at one
another in puzzlement. 'Um, there's buns too,' said Petulia. 'If
that's important.' 'But she
opened the door for me. The door into -out of the... the desert! You
can't just sit down after
that and have buns! 'Um, the ones I saw had icing on,' Petulia
ventured, nervously. 'They weren't
just homemade-' 'Look,' said Lucy Warbeck, 'we didn't really, you
know, see anything? You were
just standing there with this, like, glow around you and we couldn't
get in and then Gran-
Mistress Weatherwax walked up and stepped right in and you both, you
know, stood there? And then
the glow went zip and vanished and you, like, fell over.' 'What Lucy's
failing to say very
accurately,' said Annagramma, 'is that we didn't actually see you go
anywhere. I'm telling you
this as a friend, of course. There was just this glow, which could
have been anything.' Annagramma
was going to be a good witch, Tiffany considered. She could tell
herself stories that she
literally believed. And she could bounce back like a ball. 'Don't
forget, I saw the horse,' said
Harrieta Bilk. Annagramma rolled her eyes. 'Oh yes, Harrieta thinks
she saw some kind of horse in
the sky. Except it didn't look like a horse, she says. She says it
looked like a horse would look
if you took the actual horse away and just left the horsiness, right,
Harrieta?' 'I didn't say
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that!' snapped Harrieta. 'Well, pardon me. That's what it sounded
like.' 'Urn, and some people
said they saw a white horse grazing in the next field, too, said
Petulia. 'And a lot of the older
witches said they felt a tremendous amount of-' 'Yes, some people
thought they saw a horse in a
field but it isn't there any more,' said Annagramma in the singsong
voice she used when she
thought it was all stupid. 'That must be very rare in the country,
seeing horses in fields.
Anyway, if there really was a white horse, it was grey.' Tiffany sat
on the edge of the table,
staring at her knees. Anger at Annagramma had jolted her to life, but
now the tiredness was
creeping back. 'I suppose none of you saw a little blue man, about six
inches high, with red
hair?' she said quietly. 'Anyone?' said Annagramma, with malicious
cheerfulness. There was a
general mumbling of 'no'. 'Sorry, Tiffany,' said Lucy. 'Don't worry,'
said Annagramma. 'He
probably just rode away on his white horse!' This is going to be like
Fairyland all over again,
thought Tiffany. Even I can't remember if it was real. Why should
anyone believe me? But she had
to try. 'There was a dark doorway,' she said slowly, 'and beyond it
was a desert of black sand and
it was quite light although there were stars in the sky, and Death was
there. I spoke to him 'You
spoke to him, did you?' said Annagramma. 'And what did he say, pray?'
'He didn't say "pray",' said
Tiffany. 'We didn't talk about much. But he didn't know what an egress
was.' 'It's a small type of
heron, isn't it?' said Harrieta. There was silence, except for the
noise of the Trials outside.
'It's not your fault,' said Annagramma in what was, for her, almost a
friendly voice. 'It's like I
said: Mistress Weatherwax messes with people's heads.' 'What about the
glow?' said Lucy. 'That was
probably ball lightning,' said Annagramma. 'That's very strange
stuff.' 'But people were, like,
hammering on it! It was as hard as ice!' 'Ah, well, it probably felt
like that,' said Annagramma,
'but it was... probably affecting people's muscles, maybe. I'm only
trying to be helpful here,'
she added. 'You've got to be sensible. She just stood there. You saw
her. There weren't any doors
or deserts. There was just her.' Tiffany sighed. She just felt tired.
She just wanted to crawl off
somewhere. She just wanted to go home. She'd walk there now if her
boots weren't suddenly so
uncomfortable. While the girls argued, she undid the laces and tugged
one off. Silver-black dust
poured out. When it hit the ground it bounced, slowly, curving up into
the air again like mist.
The girls turned, watching in silence. Then Petulia reached down and
caught some of the dust. When
she lifted her hand, the fine stuff flowed between her fingers. It
fell as slowly as feathers.
'Sometimes things go wrong,' she said, in a faraway voice. 'Mistress
Blackcap told me. Haven't any
of you been there when old folk are dying?' There were one or two
nods, but everyone was watching
the dust. 'Sometimes things go wrong,' said Petulia again. 'Sometimes
they're dying but they can't
leave because they don't know the Way. She said that's when they need
you to be there, close to
them, to help them find the door so they don't get lost in the dark.'
'Petulia, we're not supposed
to talk about this,' said Harrieta, gently. 'No!' said Petulia, her
face red. 'It is a time to
talk about it, just here, just us! Because she said it's the last
thing you can do for someone.
She said there's a dark desert they have to cross, where the sand-'
'Hah! Mrs Earwig says that
sort of thing is black magic,' said Annagramma, her voice as sharp and
sudden as a knife. 'Does
she?' said Petulia dreamily as the sand poured down. 'Well, Mistress
Blackcap said that sometimes
the moon is light and sometimes it's in shadow but you should always
remember it's the same moon.
And... Annagramma?' 'Yes?' Petulia took a deep breath. 'Don't you ever
dare interrupt me again as
long as you live. Don't you dare. Don't you dare! I mean it.'
Chapter 13
And then... there were the Trials themselves. That was the point of
the day, wasn't it? But
Tiffany, stepping out with the girls around her, sensed the buzz in
the air. It said: Was there
any point now? After what had happened? Still, people had put up the
rope square again, and a lot
of the older witches dragged their chairs to the edge of it, and it
seemed that it was going to
happen after all. Tiffany wandered up to the rope, found a space and
sat down on the grass with
Granny Weatherwax's hat in front of her. She was aware of the other
girls behind her, and also a
buzz or susurration of whispering spreading out into the crowd. '...
She really did do it, too...
no, really... all the way to the desert... saw the dust... her boots
were full, they say...'
Gossip spreads faster among witches than a bad cold. Witches gossip
like starlings. There were no
judges, and no prizes. The Trials weren't like that, as Petulia had
said. The point was to show
what you could do, to show what you'd become, so that people would go
away thinking things like
That Caramella Bottlethwaite, she's coming along nicely.' It wasn't a
competition, honestly. No
one won. And if you believed that you'd believe that the moon is
pushed around the sky by a goblin
called Wilberforce. What was true was that one of the older witches
generally opened the thing
with some competent but not surprising trick which everyone had seen
before but still appreciated.
That broke the ice. This year it was old Goodie Trample and her
collection of singing mice. But
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Tiffany wasn't paying attention. On the other side of the roped-off
square, sitting on a chair and
surrounded by older witches like a queen on her throne, was Granny
Weatherwax. The whispering went
on. Maybe opening her eyes had opened her ears, too, because Tiffany
felt she could hear the
whispers all around the square. '...Di'n't have no trainin', just did
it... did you see that
horse?...I never saw no horse!...Di 'n't just open the door, she
stepped right in!... Yeah, but
who was it fetched her back?Esme Weatherwax, that's who!... Yes,
that's what I'm sayin', any
little fool could've opened the door by luck, but it takes a real
witch to bring her back, that's
a winner, that is... fought the thing, left it there!... I didn't see
you doing anything, Violet
Pulsimone! That child... Was there a horse or not?... Was going to do
my dancing broom trick, but
that'd be wasted now, of course... Why did Mistress Weatherwax give
the girl her hat, eh? What's
she want us to think? She never takes off her hat to no one!' You
could feel the tension,
crackling from pointy hat to pointy hat like summer lightning. The
mice did their best with I'm
Forever Blowing Bubbles but it was easy to see that their minds
weren't on it. Mice are highly
strung and very temperamental. Now people were leaning down beside
Granny Weatherwax. Tiffany
could see some animated conversations going on. 'You know, Tiffany,'
said Lucy Warbeck, behind
her, 'all you've got to do is, like, stand up and admit it. Everyone
knows you did it. I mean, no
one's ever, like, done something like that at the Trials!' 'And it's
about time the old bully
lost,' said Annagramma. But she's not a bully, Tiffany thought. She's
tough, and she expects other
witches to be tough, because the edge is no place for people who
break. Everything with her is a
kind of test. And her Third Thoughts handed over the thought that had
not quite made it back in
the tent: Granny Weatherwax, you knew the hiver would only come for
me, didn't you? You talked to
Dr Bustle, you told me. Did you just turn me into your trick for
today? How much did you guess? Or
know? 'You'd win,' said Dimity Hubbub. 'Even some of the older ones
would like to see her taken
down a peg. They know big magic happened. There's not a whole shamble
for miles.' So I'd win
because some people don't like somebody else? Tiffany thought. Oh,
yes, that'd really be something
to be proud of... 'You can bet she'll stand up,' said Annagramma. 'You
watch. She'll explain how
the poor child got dragged into the Next World by a monster, and she
brought her back. That's what
I'd do, if I was her.' I expect you would, Tiffany thought. But you're
not, and you're not me,
either. She stared at Granny Weatherwax, who was waving away a couple
of elderly witches. I
wonder, she thought, if they've been saying things like 'This girl
needs taking down a peg,
Mistress Weatherwax.' And as she thought that, Granny turned back and
caught her eye- The mice
stopped singing, mostly in embarrassment. There was a pause, and then
people started to clap,
because it was the sort of thing you had to do. A witch, someone
Tiffany didn't know, stepped out
into the square, still clapping in that fluttery, hands-held-close-
together-at shoulder-height way
that people use when they want to encourage the audience to go on
applauding just that little bit
longer. 'Very well done, Doris, excellent work, as ever,' she trilled.
'They've come on
marvellously since last year, thank you very much, wonderful, well
done... ahem...' The woman
hesitated, while behind her Doris Trample crawled around on hands and
knees trying to urge her
mice back into their box. One of them was having hysterics. 'And now,
perhaps... some lady would
like to, er... take the, er... stage?' said the mistress of
ceremonies, as brightly as a glass
ball about to shatter. 'Anyone?' There was stillness, and silence.
'Don't be shy, ladies!' The
voice of the mistress of ceremonies was getting more strained by the
second. It's no fun trying to
organize a field full of born organizers. 'Modesty does not become us!
Anyone?' Tiffany felt the
pointy hats turning, some towards her, some towards Granny Weatherwax.
Away across the few yards
of grass, Granny reached up and brushed someone's hand from her
shoulder, sharply, without
breaking eye contact with Tiffany. And we're not wearing hats, thought
Tiffany. You gave me a
virtual hat once, Granny Weatherwax, and I thank you for it. But I
don't need it today. Today, I
know I'm a witch. 'Oh, come now, ladies!' said the mistress of
ceremonies, now almost frantic.
'This is the Trials! A place for friendly and instructive contestation
in an atmosphere of
fraternity and goodwill! Surely some lady... or young lady,
perhaps... ? Tiffany smiled. It should
be 'sorority', not 'fraternity'. We're sisters, mistress, not
brothers. 'Come on, Tiffany!' Dimity
urged. 'They know you're good!' Tiffany shook her head. 'Oh, well,
that's it,' said Annagramma,
rolling her eyes. 'The old baggage has messed with the girl's head, as
usual-' 'I don't know who's
messed with whose head,' snapped Petulia, rolling up her sleeves. 'But
I'm going to do the pig
trick.' She got to her feet and there was a general stir in the crowd.
'Oh, I see it's going to be-
Oh, it's you, Petulia,' said the mistress of ceremonies, slightly
disappointed. 'Yes, Miss
Casement, and I intend to perform the pig trick,' said Petulia loudly.
'But, er, you don't seem to
have brought a pig with you,' said Miss Casement, taken aback. 'Yes,
Miss Casement. I shall
perform the pig trick... without a pig!' This caused a sensation, and
cries of 'Impossible!' and
'There are children here, you know!' Miss Casement looked around for
assistance and found none.
'Oh well,' she said, helpless. 'If you are sure, dear 'Yes. I am. I
shall use... a sausage!' said
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Petulia, producing one from a pocket and holding it up. There was
another sensation. Tiffany
didn't see the trick. Nor did Granny Weatherwax. Their gaze was like
an iron bar, and even Miss
Casement instinctively didn't step into it. But Tiffany heard the
squeal, and the gasp of
amazement, and then the thunder of applause. People would have
applauded anything at that point,
in the same way that pent-up water would take any route out of a dam.
And then witches got up.
Miss Level juggled balls that stopped and reversed direction in mid-
air. A middle-aged witch
demonstrated a new way to stop people choking, which doesn't even
sound magical until you
understand that a way of turning nearly-dead people into fully-alive
people is worth a dozen
spells that just go twing! And other women and girls came up one at a
time, with big tricks and
handy tips and things that went wheee! or stopped toothache or, in one
case, exploded- - and then
there were no more entries. Miss Casement walked back into the centre
of the field, almost drunk
with relief that there had been a Trials, and made one final
invitation to any ladies 'or, indeed,
young ladies' who might like to come forward. There was a silence so
thick you could have stuck
pins in it. And then she said: 'Oh, well... in that case, I declare
the Trials well and truly
closed. Tea will be in the big tent!' Tiffany and Granny stood up at
the same time, to the second,
and bowed to one another. Then Granny turned away and joined the
stampede towards the teas. It was
interesting to see how the crowd parted, all unaware, to let her
through, like the sea in front a
particularly good prophet. Petulia was surrounded by other young
witches. The pig trick had gone
down very well. Tiffany queued up to give her a hug. 'But you could
have won!' said Petulia, red
in the face with happiness and worry. 'That doesn't matter. It really
doesn't,' said Tiffany. 'You
gave it away,' said a sharp voice behind her. 'You had it in your
hand, and you gave it all away.
How do you feel about that, Tiffany? Do you have a taste for humble
pie?' 'Now you listen to me,
Annagramma,' Petulia began, pointing a furious finger. Tiffany reached
out and lowered the girl's
arm. Then she turned and smiled so happily at Annagramma that it was
disturbing. What she wanted
to say was: 'Where I come from, Annagramma, they have the Sheepdog
Trials. Shepherds travel there
from all over to show off their dogs. And there're silver crooks and
belts with silver buckles and
prizes of all kinds, Annagramma, but do you know what the big prize
was? No, you wouldn't. Oh,
there were judges, but they didn't count, not for the big prize. There
is- There was a little old
lady who was always at the front of the crowd, leaning on the hurdles
with her pipe in her mouth
with the two finest sheepdogs ever pupped sitting at her feet. Their
names were Thunder and
Lightning and they moved so fast they set the air on fire and their
coats outshone the sun, but
she never, ever put them in the Trials. She knew more about sheep than
even sheep know. And what
every young shepherd wanted, really wanted, wasn't some silly cup or
belt but to see her take her
pipe out of her mouth as he left the arena and quietly say "That'll
do" because that meant he was
a real shepherd and all the other shepherds would know it, too. And if
you'd told him he had to
challenge her, he'd cuss at you and stamp his foot and tell you he'd
sooner spit the sun dark. How
could he ever win? She was shepherding. It was the whole of her life.
What you took away from her
you'd take away from yourself. You don't understand that, do you? But
it's the heart and soul and
centre of it! The soul... and... centre!' But it would be wasted, so
what she said was: 'Oh, just
shut up, Annagramma. Let's see if there's any buns left, shall we?'
Overhead, a buzzard screamed.
She looked up. The bird turned on the wind and, racing through the air
as it began the long glide,
headed back towards home. They were always there. Beside her cauldron,
Jeannie opened her eyes.
'He's comin' hame!' she said, scrambling to her feet. She waved a hand
urgently at the watching
Feegles. 'Don't ye just stand there gawping!' she commanded. 'Catch
some rabbits to roast! Build
up the fire! Boil up a load o' water, 'cos I'm takin' a bath! Look at
this place, 'tis like a
midden! Get it cleaned up! I want it sparkling for the Big Man! Go an'
steal some Special Sheep
Liniment! Cut some green boughs, holly or yew, mebbe! Shine up the
golden plates! The place must
sparkle! What're ye all standin' there for?' 'Er, what did ye want us
to do first, Kelda,' said a
Feegle nervously. 'All of it!' In her chamber they filled the kelda's
soup-bowl bath and she
scrubbed, using one of Tiffany's old toothbrushes, while outside there
were the sounds of Feegles
working hard at cross-purposes. The smell of roasting rabbit began to
fill the mound. Jeannie
dressed herself in her best dress, did her hair, picked up her shawl
and climbed out of the hole.
She stood there watching the mountains until, after about an hour, a
dot in the sky got bigger and
bigger. As a kelda, she would welcome home a warrior. As a wife, she
would kiss her husband and
scold him for being so long away. As a woman, she thought she would
melt with relief, thankfulness
and joy.
Chapter 14 QUEEN of the Bees
And, one afternoon about a week later, Tiffany went to see Granny
Weatherwax. It was only fifteen
miles as the broomstick flies, and as Tiffany still didn't like flying
a broomstick, Miss Level
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took her. It was the invisible part of Miss Level. Tiffany just lay
flat on the stick, holding on
with arms and legs and knees and ears if possible, and took along a
paper bag to be sick into,
because no one likes anonymous sick dropping out of the sky. She was
also holding a large hessian
sack, which she handled with care. She didn't open her eyes until the
rushing noises had stopped
and the sounds around her told her she was probably very close to the
ground. In fact Miss Level
had been very kind. When she fell off, because of the cramp in her
legs, the broomstick was just
above some quite thick moss. Thank you,' said Tiffany as she got up,
because it always pays to
mind your manners around invisible people. She had a new dress. It was
green, like the last one.
The complex world of favours and obligations and gifts that Miss Level
lived and moved in had
thrown up four yards of nice material (for the trouble-free birth of
Miss Quickly's baby boy) and
a few hours' dressmaking (Mrs Hunter's bad leg feeling a lot better,
thank you). She'd given the
black one away. When I'm old I shall wear midnight, she'd decided.
But, for now, she'd had enough
of darkness. She looked around at this clearing on the side of a hill,
surrounded by oak and
sycamore on three sides but open on the downhill side with a wide view
of the countryside below.
The sycamores were shedding their spinning seeds, which whirled down
lazily across a patch of
garden. It was unfenced, even though some goats were grazing nearby.
If you wondered why it was
the goats weren't eating the garden, it was because you'd forgotten
who lived here. There was a
well. And, of course, a cottage. Mrs Earwig would definitely have
objected to the cottage. It was
out of a storybook. The walls leaned against one another for support,
the thatched roof was
slipping off like a bad wig, and the chimneys were corkscrewed. If you
thought a gingerbread
cottage would be too fattening, this was the next worst thing. In a
cottage deep in the forest
lived the Wicked Old Witch... It was a cottage out of the nastier kind
of fairy tale. Granny
Weatherwax's beehives were tucked away down one side of the cottage.
Some were the old straw kind,
most were patched-up wooden ones. They thundered with activity, even
this late in the year.
Tiffany turned aside to look at them, and the bees poured out in a
dark stream. They swarmed
towards Tiffany, formed a column and- She laughed. They'd made a witch
of bees in front of her,
thousands of them all holding station in the air. She raised her right
hand. With a rise in the
level of buzzing, the bee-witch raised its right hand. She turned
around. It turned around, the
bees carefully copying every swirl and flutter of her dress, the ones
on the very edge buzzing
desperately because they had furthest to fly. She carefully put down
the big sack and reached out
towards the figure. With another roar of wings it went shapeless for a
moment, and then re-formed
a little way away, but with a hand outstretched towards her. The bee
that was the tip of its
forefinger hovered just in front of Tiffany's fingernail. 'Shall we
dance?' said Tiffany. In the
clearing full of spinning seeds, she circled the swarm. It kept up
pretty well, moving fingertip
to buzzing tip, turning when she turned, although there were always a
few bees racing to catch up.
Then it raised both its arms and twirled in the opposite direction,
the bees in the 'skirt'
spreading out again as it spun. It was learning. Tiffany laughed and
did the same thing. Swarm and
girl whirled across the clearing. She felt happy and wondered if she'd
ever felt this happy
before. The gold light, the falling bracts, the dancing bees... it was
all one thing. This was the
opposite of the dark desert. Here, light was everywhere and filled her
up inside. She could feel
herself here but see herself from above, twirling with a buzzing
shadow that sparkled golden as
the light struck the bees. Moments like this paid for it all. Then the
witch made of bees leaned
closer to Tiffany, as if staring at her with its thousands of little
jewelled eyes. There was a
faint piping noise from inside the figure and the bee-witch exploded
into a spreading, buzzing
cloud of insects which raced away across the clearing and disappeared.
The only movement now was
the whirring fall of the sycamore seeds. Tiffany breathed out. 'Now,
some people would have found
that scary,' said a voice behind her. Tiffany didn't turn round
immediately. First she said, 'Good
afternoon, Granny Weatherwax.' Then she turned round. 'Have you ever
done this?' she demanded,
still half-drunk with delight. 'It's rude to start with questions.
You'd better come in and have a
cup of tea,' said Granny Weatherwax. You'd barely know that anyone
lived in the cottage. There
were two chairs by the fire, one of them a rocking chair, and by the
table were two chairs that
didn't rock but did wobble because of the uneven stone floor. There
was a dresser, and a rag-rug
in front of the huge hearth. A broomstick leaned against the wall in
one corner, next to something
mysterious and pointy, under a cloth. There was a very narrow and dark
flight of stairs. And that
was it. There was nothing shiny, nothing new and nothing unnecessary.
'To what do I owe the
pleasure of this visit?' said Granny Weatherwax, taking a sooty black
kettle off the fire and
filling an equally black teapot. Tiffany opened the sack she had
brought with her. 'I've come to
bring you your hat back,' she said. 'Ah,' said Granny Weatherwax.
'Have you? And why?' 'Because
it's your hat,' said Tiffany, putting it on the table. 'Thank you for
the loan of it, though.' 'I
dare say there's plenty of young witches who'd give their high teeth
for an ol' hat of mine,' said
Granny, lifting up the battered hat. 'There are,' said Tiffany, and
did not add 'and it's eye
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teeth, actually'. What she did add was: 'But I think everyone has to
find their own hat. The right
hat for them, I mean.' 'I see you're now wearing a shop-bought one,
then,' said Granny Weatherwax.
'One of them Sky Scrapers. With stars,' she added, and there was so
much acid in the word 'stars'
that it would've melted copper and then dropped through the table and
the floor and melted more
copper in the cellar below. 'Think that makes it more magical, do you?
Stars?' 'I... did when I
bought it. And it'll do for now.' 'Until you find the right hat,' said
Granny Weatherwax. 'Yes.'
'Which ain't mine?' 'No.' 'Good.' The old witch walked across the room
and tugged the cloth off
the thing in the corner. It turned out to be a big wooden spike, just
about the size of a pointy
hat on a tall stand. A hat was being... constructed on it, with thin
strips of willow and pins and
stiff black doth. 'I make my own,' she said. 'Every year. There's no
hat like the hat you make
yourself. Take my advice. I stiffens the calico and makes it
waterproof with special jollop. It's
amazing what you can put into a hat you make yourself. But you didn't
come to talk about hats.'
Tiffany let the question out at last. 'Was it real?'. Granny
Weatherwax poured the tea, picked up
her cup and saucer, then carefully poured some of the tea out of the
cup and into the saucer. She
held this up and, with care, like someone dealing with an important
and delicate task, blew gently
on it. She did this slowly and calmly, while Tiffany tried hard to
conceal her impatience. down
the cup and saucer. 'Child, you've come here to learn what's true and
what's not but there's
little I can teach you that you don't already know. You just don't
know you know it, and you'll
spend the rest of your life learning what's already in your bones. And
that's the truth.' She
stared at Tiffany's hopeful face and sighed. 'Come outside then,' she
said. 'I'll give you lesson
one. It's the only lesson there is. It don't need writing down in no
book with eyes on.' She led
the way to the well in her back garden, looked around on the ground
and picked up a stick. 'Magic
wand,' she said. 'See?' A green flame leaped out of it, making Tiffany
jump. 'Now you try.' It
didn't work for Tiffany, no matter how much she shook it. 'Of course
not,' said Granny. 'It's a
stick. Now, maybe I made a flame come out of it, or maybe I made you
think it did. That don't
matter. It was me is what I'm sayin', not the stick. Get your mind
right and you can make a stick
your wand and the sky your hat and a puddle your magic... your
magic... er, what're them fancy
cups called?' 'Er... goblet,' said Tiffany. 'Right. Magic goblet.
Things aren't important. People
are.' Granny Weatherwax looked sidelong at Tiffany. 'And I could teach
you how to run across those
hills of yours with the hare, I could teach you how to fly above them
with the buzzard. I could
tell you the secrets of the bees. I could teach you all this and much
more besides if you'd do
just one thing, right here and now. One simple thing, easy to do.'
Tiffany nodded, eyes wide. 'You
understand, then, that all the glittery stuff is just toys, and toys
can lead you astray?' 'Yes!'
'Then take off that shiny horse you wear around your neck, girl, and
drop it in the well.'
Obediently, half-hypnotized by the voice, Tiffany reached behind her
neck and undid the clasp. The
pieces of the silver horse shone as she held it over the water. She
stared at it as if she was
seeing it for the first time. And then... She tests people, she
thought. All the time. 'Well?'
said the old witch. 'No,' said Tiffany. 'I can't.' 'Can't or won't?'
said Granny sharply. 'Can't,'
said Tiffany and stuck out her chin. 'And won't!' She drew her hand
back and fastened the necklace
again, glaring defiantly at Granny Weatherwax The witch smiled. 'Well
done,' she said quietly. 'If
you don't know when to be a human being, you don't know when to be a
witch. And if you're too
afraid of goin' astray, you won't go anywhere. May I see it, please?'
Tiffany looked into those
blue eyes. Then she undid the clasp and handed over the necklace.
Granny held it up. 'Funny, ain't
it, that it seems to gallop when the light hits it,' said the witch,
watching it twist this way
and that. 'Well-made thing. O'course, it's not what a horse looks
like, but it's certainly what a
horse is.' Tiffany stared at her with her mouth open. For a moment
Granny Aching stood there
grinning, and then Granny Weatherwax was back. Did she do that, she
wondered, or did I do it
myself? And do I dare find out? 'I didn't just come to bring the hat
back,' she managed to say. 'I
brought you a present, too.' 'I'm sure there's no call for anyone to
bring me a present,' said
Granny Weatherwax, sniffing. Tiffany ignored this, because her mind
was still spinning. She
fetched her sack again and handed over a small, soft parcel, which
moved as it changed shape in
her hands. 'I took most of the stuff back to Mr Strong-inthearm,' she
said. 'But I thought you
might have a... a use for this.' The old woman slowly unwrapped the
white paper. The Zephyr Billow
cloak unrolled itself under her fingers and filled the air like smoke.
'It's lovely, but I
couldn't wear it,' said Tiffany as the cloak shaped itself over the
gentle currents of the
clearing. 'You need gravitas to carry off a cloak like that.' 'What's
gravitarse?' said Granny
Weatherwax sharply. 'Oh... dignity. Seniority. Wisdom. Those sort of
things,' said Tiffany. 'Ah,'
said Granny, relaxing a little. She stared at the gently rippling
cloak and sniffed. It really was
a wonderful creation. The wizards had got at least one thing right
when they had made it. It was
one of those items that fill a hole in your life that you didn't know
was there until you'd seen
it. 'Well, I suppose there's those as can wear a cloak like this, and
those as can't,' she
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conceded. She let it curl around her neck and fastened it there with a
crescent-shaped brooch.
'It's a bit too grand for the likes of me,' she said. 'A bit too
fancy. I could look like a
flibbertigibbet wearing something like this.' It was spoken like a
statement but it had a curl
like a question. 'No, it suits you, it really does,' said Tiffany
cheerfully. 'If you don't know
when to be a human being, you don't know when to be a witch.' Birds
stopped singing. Up in the
trees, squirrels ran and hid. Even the sky seemed to darken for a
moment. 'Er... that's what I
heard,' said Tiffany, and added, 'From someone who knows these
things.' The blue eyes stared into
hers. There were no secrets from Granny Weatherwax. Whatever you said,
she watched what you meant.
'Perhaps you'll call again sometimes,' she said, turning slowly and
watching the cloak curve in
the air. 'It's always very quiet here.' 'I should like that,' said
Tiffany. 'Shall I tell the bees
before I come, so you can get the tea ready?' For a moment Granny
Weatherwax glared, and then the
lines faded into a wry grin. 'Clever,' she said. What's inside you?
Tiffany thought. Who are you
really, in there? Did you want me to take your hat? You pretend to be
the big bad wicked witch,
and you're not. You test people all the time, test, test, test, but
you really want them to be
clever enough to beat you. Because it must be hard, being the best.
You're not allowed to stop.
You can only be beaten, and you're too proud ever to lose. Pride!
You've turned it into terrible
strength, but it eats away at you. Are you afraid to laugh in case you
hear an early cackle? We'll
meet again, one day. We both know it. We'll meet again, at the Witch
Trials. 'I'm clever enough to
know how you manage not to think of a pink rhinoceros if someone says
"pink rhinoceros",' she
managed to say aloud. 'Ah, that's deep magic, that is,' said Granny
Weatherwax. 'No. It's not. You
don't know what a rhinoceros looks like, do you?' Sunlight filled the
clearing as the old witch
laughed, as clear as a downland stream. 'That's right!' she said.
Chapter 15 A Hat Full of Sky
It was one of those strange days in late February when it's a little
warmer than it should be and,
although there's wind, it seems to be all round the horizons and never
quite where you are.
Tiffany climbed up onto the downs where, in the sheltered valleys, the
early lambs had already
found their legs and were running around in a gang in that strange
jerky run that lambs have,
which makes them look like woolly rocking horses. Perhaps there was
something about that day,
because the old ewes joined in, too, and skipped with their lambs.
They jumped and spun, half
happy, half embarrassed, big winter fleeces bouncing up and down like
a clown's trousers. It had
been an interesting winter. She'd learned a lot of things. One of them
was that you could be a
bridesmaid to two people who between them were over 170 years old.
This time Mr Weavall, with his
wig spinning on his head and his big spectacles gleaming, had insisted
on giving one of the gold
pieces to 'our little helper', which more than made up for the wages
that she hadn't asked for and
Miss Level couldn't afford. She'd used some of it to buy a really good
brown cloak. It didn't
billow, it didn't fly out behind her, but it was warm and thick and
kept her dry. She'd learned
lots of other things too. As she walked past the sheep and their
lambs, she gently touched their
minds, so softly that they didn't notice... Tiffany had stayed up in
the mountains for Hogswatch,
which officially marked the changing of the year. There'd been a lot
to do there, and anyway it
wasn't much celebrated on the Chalk. Miss Level had been happy to give
her leave now, though, for
the lambing festival, which the old people called Sheepbellies. It was
when the shepherds' year
began. The hag of the hills couldn't miss that. That was when, in warm
nests of straw shielded
from the wind by hurdles and barriers of cut furze, the future
happened. She'd helped it happen,
working with the shepherds by lantern light, dealing with the
difficult births. She'd worked with
the pointy hat on her head and had felt the shepherds watching her as,
with knife and needle and
thread and hands and soothing words, she'd saved ewes from the black
doorway and helped new lambs
into the light. You had to give them a show. You had to give them a
story. And she'd walked back
home proudly in the morning and bloody to the elbows, but it had been
the blood of life. Later,
she had gone up to the Feegles' mound, and slid down the hole. She'd
thought about this for some
time, and had gone prepared- with clean torn-up handkerchiefs and some
soapwort shampoo made to a
recipe Miss Level had given her. She had a feeling that Jeannie would
have a use for these. Miss
Level always visited new mothers. It was what you did. Jeannie had
been pleased to see her. Lying
on her stomach so that she could get part of her body into the kelda's
chamber, Tiffany had been
allowed to hold all eight of what she kept thinking of as the Roblets,
born at the same time as
the lambs. Seven of them were bawling and fighting one another. The
eighth lay quietly, biding her
time. The future happened. It wasn't only Jeannie who thought of her
differently. News had got
around. The people of the Chalk hadn't liked witches. They had always
come from outside. They had
always come as strangers. But now here was our Tiffany, birthing the
lambs like her granny did,
and they say she's been learning witchery in the mountains! Ah, but
that's still our Tiffany, that
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