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sandwiches, with pickles, and she'd included napkins. That was kind of
a strange thought to keep
in your head: We're trying to find a way of killing a terrible
creature, but at least we won't be
covered in crumbs. There was a bottle of cold tea, too, and a bag of
biscuits. Miss Level knew
Mistress Weatherwax. 'Shouldn't we light a fire?' Tiffany suggested.
'Why? It's a long way down to
the tree line to get the firewood, and there'll be a fine half-moon up
in twenty minutes. Your
friend's keeping his distance and there nothing else that'll attack us
up here.' 'Are you sure?'
'I walk safely in my mountains,' said Mistress Weatherwax. 'But aren't
there trolls and wolves and
things?' 'Oh, yes. Lots.' 'And they don't try to attack you?' 'Not any
more,' said a selfsatisfied
voice in the dark. 'Pass me the biscuits, will you?' 'Here you are.
Would you like some
pickles?' Tickles gives me the wind something awful' 'In that case-'
'Oh, I wasn't saying no,'
said Mistress Weatherwax, taking two large pickled cucumbers. Oh,
good, Tiffany thought. She'd
brought three fresh eggs with her. Getting the hang of a shamble was
taking too long. It was
stupid. All the other girls were able to use them. She was sure she
was doing everything right.
She'd filled her pocket with random things. Now she pulled them out
without looking, wove the
thread around the egg like she'd done a hundred times before, grasped
the pieces of wood and moved
them so that... Pod The egg cracked, and oozed. 'I told you,' said
Mistress Weatherwax, who'd
opened one eye. 'They're toys. Sticks and stones.' 'Have you ever used
one?' said Tiffany. 'No.
Couldn't get the hang of them. They got in the way.' Mistress
Weatherwax yawned, wrapped the
blanket around her, made a couple of mnup, mnup noises as she tried to
get comfortable against the
rock and, after a while, her breathing became deeper. Tiffany waited
in silence, her blanket
around her, until the moon came up. She'd expected that to make things
better, but it didn't.
Before, there had just been darkness. Now there were shadows. There
was a snore beside her. It was
one of those good solid ones, like ripping canvas. Silence happened.
It came across the night on
silver wings, noiseless as the fall of a feather, silence made into a
bird, which alighted on a
rock close by. It swivelled its head to look at Tiffany. There was
more than just the curiosity of
a bird in that look. The old woman snored again. Tiffany reached out,
still staring at the owl,
and shook her gently. When that didn't work, she shook her hardly.
There was a sound like three
pigs colliding and Mistress Weatherwax opened one eye and said,
'Whoo?' 'There's an owl watching
us! It's right up close!' Suddenly the owl blinked, looked at Tiffany
as if amazed to see her,
spread its wings and glided off into the night. Mistress Weatherwax
gripped her throat, coughed
once or twice, and then said hoarsely, 'Of course it was an owl,
child! It took me ten minutes to
lure it this close! Now just you be quiet while I starts again,
otherwise I shall have to make do
with a bat, and when I goes out on a bat for any time at all I ends up
thinkin' I can see with my
ears, which is no way for a decent woman to behave!' 'But you were
snoring!' 'I was not snoring! I
was just resting gently while I tickled an owl closer! If you hadn't
shaken me and scared it away,
I'd have been up there with this entire moor under my eye.' 'You...
take over its mind?' said
Tiffany nervously. 'No! I'm not one of your hivers! I just... borrows
a lift from it, I just...
nudges it now and again, it don't even know I'm there. Now try to
rest!' 'But what if the hiver-?'
'If it comes anywhere near it'll be me that tells you' Mistress
Weatherwax hissed, and lay back.
Then her head jerked up one more time. 'And I do not snore!' she
added. After half a minute, she
started to snore again. Minutes after that the owl came back, or
perhaps it was a different owl.
It glided onto the same rock, settled there for a while and then sped
away. The witch stopped
snoring. In fact, she stopped breathing. Tiffany leaned closer and
finally lowered an ear to the
skinny chest to see if there was a heartbeat. Her own heart felt as if
it was clenched like a fist-
- because of the day she'd found Granny Aching in the hut. She was
lying peacefully on the narrow
iron bed, but Tiffany had known something was wrong as soon as she had
stepped inside- Boom.
Tiffany counted to three. Boom. Well, it was a heartbeat. Very slowly,
like a twig growing, a
stiff hand moved. It slid like a glacier into a pocket, and came up
holding a large piece of card
on which was written: I Ain't Dead, Tiffany decided she wasn't going
to argue. But she pulled the
blanket over the old woman and wrapped her own around herself. By
moonlight, she tried again with
her shamble. Surely she should be able to make it do something. Maybe
if- By moonlight, she very,
very carefully- Pod The egg cracked. The egg always cracked, and now
there was only one left.
Tiffany didn't dare try it with a beetle, even if she could find one.
It would be too cruel. She
sat back and looked across the landscape of silver and black, and her
Third Thoughts thought: It's
not going to come near. Why? She thought, I'm not sure why I know. But
I know. It's keeping away.
It knows Mistress Weatherwax is with me. She thought: How can it know
that? It's not got a mind.
It doesn't know what a Mistress Weatherwax is! Still thinking, thought
her Third Thoughts. Tiffany
slumped against the rock. Sometimes her head was too... crowded... And
then it was morning, and
sunlight, and dew on her hair, and mist coming off the ground like
smoke... and an eagle sitting
on the rock where the owl had been, eating something furry. She could
see every feather on its
wing. It swallowed, glared at Tiffany with its mad bird eyes and
flapped away, making the mist
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swirl. Beside her, Mistress Weatherwax began to snore again, which
Tiffany took to mean that she
was in her body. She gave the old woman a nudge, and the sound that
had been a regular
gnaaaargrgrgrgrg suddenly became blort. The old woman sat up,
coughing, and waved a hand irritably
at Tiffany to pass her the tea bottle. She didn't speak until she'd
gulped half of it. 'Ah, say
what you like, but rabbit tastes a lot better cooked,' she gasped,
shoving the cork back in. 'And
without the fur on!' 'You took- borrowed the eagle?' said Tiffany.
'O'course. I couldn't expect
the poor ol' owl to fly around after daybreak, just to see who's
about. It was hunting voles all
night and, believe me, raw rabbit's better'n voles. Don't eat voles.'
'I won't,' said Tiffany, and
meant it. 'Mistress Weatherwax, I think I know what the hiver's doing.
It's thinking.' 'I thought
it had no brains!' Tiffany let her thoughts speak for themselves. 'But
there's an echo of me in
it, isn't there? There must be. It has an echo of everyone it's...
been. There must be a bit of me
in it. I know it's out there, and it knows I'm here with you. And it's
keeping away.' 'Oh? Why's
that, then?' 'Because it's frightened of you, I think.' 'Huh! And
why's that?' 'Yes,' said Tiffany
simply. 'It's because I am. A bit.' 'Oh dear. Are you?' 'Yes,' said
Tiffany again. 'It's like a
dog that's been beaten but won't run away. It doesn't understand what
it's done wrong. But...
there's something about it that... there's a thought that I'm nearly
having Mistress Weatherwax
said nothing. Her face went blank. 'Are you all right?' said Tiffany.
'I was just leavin' you time
to have that thought,' said Mistress Weatherwax. 'Sorry. It's gone
now. But... we're thinking
about the hiver in the wrong way.' 'Oh, yes? And why's that?'
'Because...' Tiffany struggled with
the idea. 'I think it's because we don't want to think about it the
right way. It's something to
do with... the third wish. And I don't know what that means.' The
witch said, 'Keep picking at
that thought,' and then looked up and added, 'We've got company.' It
took Tiffany several seconds
to spot what Mistress Weatherwax had seen- a shape at the edge of the
woods, small and dark. It
was coming closer, but rather uncertainly. It resolved itself into the
figure of Petulia, flying
slowly and nervously a few feet above the heather. Sometimes she
jumped down and wrenched the
stick in a slightly different direction. She got off again when she
reached Tiffany and Mistress
Weatherwax, grabbed the broom hastily and aimed it at a big rock. It
hit it gently and hung there,
trying to fly through stone. 'Urn, sorry,' she panted. 'But I can't
always stop it, and this is
better than having an anchor... Urn.' She started to bob a curtsy to
Mistress Weatherwax,
remembered she was a witch and tried to turn it into a bow halfway
down, which was an event you'd
pay money to see. She ended up bent double, and from somewhere in
there came the little voice,
'Urn, can someone help, please? I think my Octogram of Trimontane has
got caught up on my Pouch of
Nine Herbs...' There was a tricky minute while they untangled her,
with Mistress Weatherwax
muttering Toys, just toys' as they unhooked bangles and necklaces.
Petulia stood upright, red in
the face. She saw Mistress Weatherwax's expression, whipped off her
pointy hat and held it in
front on her. This was a mark of respect, but it did mean that a two-
foot, sharp, pointy thing was
being aimed at them. 'Urn... I went to see Miss Level and she said
you'd come up here after some
horrible thing,' she said. 'Um... so I thought I'd better see how you
were.' 'Um... that was very
kind of you,' said Tiffany, but her treacherous Second Thoughts
thought: And what would you have
done if it had attacked us? She had a momentary picture of Petulia
standing in front of some
horrible raging thing, but it wasn't as funny as she'd first thought.
Petulia would stand in front
of it, shaking with terror, her useless amulets clattering, scared
almost out of her mind... but
not backing away. She'd thought there might be people facing something
horrible here, and she'd
come anyway. 'What's your name, my girl?' said Mistress Weatherwax.
'Urn, Petulia Gristle,
mistress. I'm learning with Gwinifer Blackcap.' 'Old Mother Blackcap?'
said Mistress Weatherwax.
'Very sound. A good woman with pigs. You did well to come here.'
Petulia looked nervously at
Tiffany. 'Urn, are you all right? Miss Level said you'd been... ill.'
'I'm much better now, but
thank you very much for asking, anyway,' said Tiffany wretchedly.
'Look, I'm sorry about-' 'Well,
you were ill,' said Petulia. And that was another thing about Petulia.
She always wanted to think
the best of everybody. This was sort of worrying if you knew that the
person she was doing her
best to think nice thoughts about was you. 'Are you going to go back
to the cottage before the
Trials?' Petulia went on. 'Trials?' said Tiffany, suddenly lost. 'The
Witch Trials,' said Mistress
Weatherwax. 'Today,' said Petulia. 'I'd forgotten all about them!'
said Tiffany. 'I hadn't,' said
the old witch calmly. 'I never miss a Trial. Never missed a Trial in
sixty years. Would you do a
poor old lady a favour, Miss Gristle, and ride that stick of yours
back to Miss Level's place and
tell her that Mistress Weatherwax presents her compliments and intends
to head directly to the
Trials. Was she well?' 'Urn, she was juggling balls without using her
hands' said Petulia in
wonderment. 'And, d'you know what? I saw a. fairy in her garden! A
blue one!' 'Really?' said
Tiffany, her heart sinking. 'Yes! It was rather scruffy, though. And
when I asked it if it really
was a fairy, it said it was... um... "the big stinky horrible spiky
iron stinging nettle fairy
from the Land o' Tinkle", and called me a "scunner". Do you know what
that means?' Tiffany looked
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into that round, hopeful face. She opened her mouth to say, 'It means
someone who likes fairies,'
but stopped in time. That just wouldn't be fair. She sighed. 'Petulia,
you saw a Nac Mac Feegle,'
she said. 'It is a kind of fairy, but they're not the sweet kind. I'm
sorry. They're good... well,
more or less... but they're not entirely nice. And "scunner" is a kind
of swearword. I don't think
it's a particularly bad one though.' Petulia's expression didn't
change for a while. Then she
said: 'So it was a fairy, then?' 'Well, yes. Technically.' The round
pink face smiled. 'Good, I
did wonder, because it was, um, you know... having a wee up against
one of Miss Level's garden
gnomes?' 'Definitely a Feegle,' said Tiffany. 'Oh well, I suppose the
big stinky horrible spiky
iron stinging nettle needs a fairy, just like every other plant,' said
Petulia.
Chapter
When Petulia had gone, Mistress Weatherwax stamped her feet and said,
'Let's go, young lady. It's
about eight miles to Sheercliff. They'll have started before we get
there.' 'What about the
hiver?' 'Oh, it can come if it likes.' Mistress Weatherwax smiled.
'Oh, don't frown like that.
There'll be more'n three hundred witches at the Trials, and they're
right out in the country.
It'll be as safe as anything. Or do you want to meet the hiver now? We
could probably do that. It
don't seem to move fast.' 'No!' said Tiffany, louder than she'd
intended. 'No, because... things
aren't what they seem. We'd do things wrong. Er... I can't explain it.
It's because of the third
wish.' 'Which you don't know what it is?' 'Yes. But I will soon, I
hope.' The witch stared at her.
'Yes, I hope so, too,' she said. 'Well, no point in standing around.
Let's get moving.' And with
that the witch picked up her blanket and set off as though being
pulled by a string. 'We haven't
even had anything to eat!' said Tiffany, running after her. 'I had a
lot of voles last night,'
said Mistress Weatherwax over her shoulder. 'Yes, but you didn't
actually eat them, did you?' said
Tiffany. 'It was the owl that actually ate them.' 'Technic'ly, yes,'
Mistress Weatherwax admitted.
'But if you think you've been eating voles all night you'd be amazed
how much you don't want to
eat anything next morning. Or ever again.' She nodded at the distant,
departing figure of Petulia.
'Friend of yours?' she said, as they set out. 'Er... if she is, I
don't deserve it,' said Tiffany.
'Hmm,' said Mistress Weatherwax. 'Well, sometimes we get what we don't
deserve.' For an old woman
Mistress Weatherwax could move quite fast. She strode over the moors
as if distance was a personal
insult. But she was good at something else too. She knew about
silence. There was the swish of her
long skirt as it snagged the heathers, but somehow that became part of
the background noise. In
the silence, as she walked, Tiffany could still hear the memories.
There were hundreds of them
left behind by the hiver. Most of them were so faint that they were
nothing more than a slight
uncomfortable feeling in her head, but the ancient tiger still burned
brightly in the back of her
brain, and behind that was the giant lizard. They'd been killing
machines, the most powerful
creatures in their world- once. The hiver had taken them both. And
then they'd died fighting.
Always taking fresh bodies, always driving the owners mad with the
urge for power which would
always end with getting them killed... and just as Tiffany wondered
why, a memory said: Because it
is frightened. Frightened of what? Tiffany thought. It's so powerful!
Who knows? But it's mad with
terror. Completely binkers! 'You're Simplicity Bustle, aren't you,'
said Tiffany, and then her
ears informed her that she'd said this aloud. 'Talkative, ain't he,'
said Mistress Weatherwax. 'He
talked in your sleep the other night. Used to have a very high opinion
of himself. I reckon that's
why his memories held together for so long.' 'He doesn't know binkers
from bonkers, though,' said
Tiffany. 'Well, memory fades,' said Mistress Weatherwax. She stopped
and leaned against a rock.
She sounded out of breath. 'Are you all right, mistress?' said
Tiffany. 'Sound as a bell,' said
Mistress Weatherwax, wheezing slightly. 'Just getting my second wind.
Anyway, it's only another
six miles.' 'I notice you're limping a bit,' said Tiffany. 'Do you,
indeed? Then stop noticing!'
The shout echoed off the cliffs, full of command. Mistress Weatherwax
coughed, when the echo had
died away. Tiffany had gone pale. 'It seems to me,' said the old
witch, 'that I might just've been
a shade on the sharp side there. It was prob'ly the voles.' She
coughed again. 'Them as knows me,
or has earned it one way or the other, calls me Granny Weatherwax. I
shall not take it amiss if
you did the same.' 'Granny Weatherwax?' said Tiffany, shocked out of
her shock by this new shock.
'Not technic'ly,' said Mistress Weatherwax quickly. 'It's what they
call a honorific, like Old
Mother So-and-so, or Goodie Thingy, or Nanny Whatshername. To show
that a witch has... is fully...
has been-' Tiffany didn't know whether to laugh or burst into tears.
'I know,' she said. 'You do?'
'Like Granny Aching,' said Tiffany. 'She was my granny, but everyone
on the Chalk called her
Granny Aching.' 'Mrs Aching' wouldn't have worked, she knew. You
needed a big, warm, billowing,
open kind of word. Granny Aching was therefor everybody. 'It's like
being everyone's grandmother,'
she added. And didn't add: who tells them stories! 'Well, then.
Perhaps so. Granny Weatherwax it
is,' said Granny Weatherwax, and added quickly, 'but not technic'ly.
Now we're best be moving.'
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She straightened up and set off again. Granny Weatherwax. Tiffany
tried it out in her head. She'd
never known her other grandmother, who'd died before she was born.
Calling someone else Granny was
strange but, oddly, it seemed right. And you could have two. The hiver
followed them. Tiffany
could feel it. But it was still keeping its distance. Well, there's a
trick to take to the Trials,
she thought. Granny- her brain tingled as she thought the word- Granny
has got a plan. She must
have. But... things weren't right. There was another thought she
wasn't quite having; it ducked
out of sight every time she thought she had it. The hiver wasn't
acting right. She made sure she
kept up with Granny Weatherwax. As they got nearer to the Trials,
there were clues. Tiffany saw at
least three broomsticks in the air, heading the same way. They reached
a proper track, too, and
groups of people were travelling in the same direction; there were a
few pointy hats amongst them,
which was a definite clue. The track dropped on down through some
woods, came up in a patchwork of
little fields and headed for a tall hedge, from behind which came the
sound of a brass band
playing a medley of Songs from the Shows, although by the sound of it
no two musicians could agree
on what Song or which Show. Tiffany jumped when she saw a balloon sail
up above the trees, catch
the wind and swoop away, but it turned out to be just a balloon and
not a lump of excess Brian.
She could tell this because it was followed by a long scream of rage
mixed with a roar of
complaint: 'AAaargwannawannaaaagongongonaargggaaaa BLOON!' which is
the traditional sound of a
very small child learning that with balloons, as with life itself, it
is important to know when
not to let go of the string. The whole point of balloons is to teach
small children this. However,
on this occasion a broomstick with a pointy-hatted passenger rose
above the trees, caught up with
the balloon and towed it back down to the Trials ground. 'Didn't used
to be like this,' Granny
Weatherwax grumbled as they reached a gate. 'When I was a girl, we
just used to meet up in some
meadow somewhere, all by ourselves. But now, oh no, it has to be a
Grand Day Out For All The
Family. Hah!' There had been a crowd around the gate leading into the
field, but there was
something about that 'Hah!' The crowd parted, as if by magic, and the
women pulled their children
a little closer to them as Granny walked right up to the gate. There
was a boy there, selling
tickets and wishing, now, that he'd never been born. Granny Weatherwax
stared at him. Tiffany saw
his ears go red. 'Two tickets, young man,' said Granny. Little bits of
ice tinkled off her words.
'That'll, er, be, er... one child and one senior citizen?' the young
man quavered. Granny leaned
forward and said: 'What is a senior citizen, young man?' 'It's like...
you know... old folks,' the
boy mumbled. Now his hands were shaking. Granny leaned further
forward. The boy really, really
wanted to step back but his feet were rooted to the ground. All he
could do was bend backwards.
'Young man,' said Granny, 'I am not now, nor shall I ever be, an "old
folk". We'll take two
tickets, which I see on that board there is a penny apiece.' Her hand
shot out, fast as an adder.
The boy made a noise like gneeee as he leaped back. 'Here's tuppence,'
said Granny Weatherwax.
Tiffany looked at Granny's hand. The first finger and thumb were held
together, but there did not
appear to be any coins between them. Nevertheless, the young man,
grinning horribly, took the
total absence of coins very carefully between his thumb and finger.
Granny twitched two tickets
out of his other hand. 'Thank you, young man,' she said, and walked
into the field. Tiffany ran
after her. 'What did-?' she began, but Granny Weatherwax raised a
finger to her lips, grasped
Tiffany's shoulder and swivelled her round. The ticket-seller was
still staring at his fingers. He
even rubbed them together. Then he shrugged, held them over his
leather moneybag and let go.
Clink, clink... The crowd around the gate gave a gasp, and one or two
of them started to applaud.
The boy looked around with a sick kind of grin, as if of course he'd
expected that to happen. 'Ah,
right,' said Granny Weatherwax happily. 'And now I could just do with
a cup of tea and maybe a
sweet biscuit.' 'Granny, there are children here! Not just witches!'
People were looking at them.
Granny Weatherwax jerked Tiffany's chin up so that she could look into
her eyes. 'Look around, eh?
You can't move down here for amulets and wands and whatnot! It'll be
bound to keep away, eh?'
Tiffany turned to look. There were sideshows all around the field. A
lot of them were funfair
stuff that she'd seen before at agricultural shows around the Chalk:
Roll-a- Penny, Lucky Dip,
Bobbing for Piranhas, that sort of thing. The Ducking Stool was very
popular among young children
on such a hot day. There wasn't a fortune-telling tent, because no
fortune-teller would turn up at
an event where so many visitors were qualified to argue and answer
back, but there were a number
of witch stalls. Zakzak's had a huge tent, with a display dummy
outside wearing a Sky Scraper hat
and a Zephyr Billow cloak, which had drawn a crowd of admirers. The
other stalls were smaller, but
they were thick with things that glittered and tinkled and they were
doing a brisk trade amongst
the younger witches. There were whole stalls full of dream-catchers
and curse-nets, including the
new selfemptying ones. It was odd to think of witches buying them,
though. It was like fish buying
umbrellas. Surely a hiver wouldn't come here, with all these witches?
She turned to Granny
Weatherwax. Granny Weatherwax wasn't there. It is hard to find a witch
at the Witch Trials. That
is, it is too easy to find a witch at the Witch Trials, but very hard
to find the one you're
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looking for, especially if you suddenly feel lost and all alone and
you can feel panic starting to
open inside you like a fern. Most of the older witches were sitting at
trestle tables in a huge
roped-off area. They were drinking tea. Pointy hats bobbed as tongues
wagged. Every woman seemed
capable of talking while listening to all the others on the table at
the same time, although this
talent isn't confined to witches. It was no place to search for an old
woman in black with a
pointy hat. The sun was quite high in the sky now. The field was
filling up. Witches were circling
to land at the far end, and more and more people were pouring in
through the gateway. The noise
was intense. Everywhere Tiffany turned, black hats were scurrying.
Pushing her way through the
throng, she looked desperately for a friendly face, like Miss Tick or
Miss Level or Petulia. If it
came to it, an unfriendly one would do- even Mrs Earwig. And she tried
not to think. She tried not
to think that she was terrified and alone in this huge crowd, and that
up on the hill, invisible,
the hiver now knew this because just a tiny part of it was her. She
felt the hiver stir. She felt
it begin to move. Tiffany stumbled through a chattering group of
witches, their voices sounding
shrill and unpleasant. She felt ill, as though she'd been in the sun
too long. The world was
spinning. A remarkable thing about a hiver, a reedy voice began,
somewhere in the back of her
head, is that its hunting pattern mimics that of the common shark,
among other creatures- 'I do
not want a lecture, Mr Bustle,' Tiffany mumbled. 'I do not want you in
my head!' But the memory of
Simplicity Bustle had never taken much notice of other people when he
was alive and it wasn't
going to begin now. It went on in its self-satisfied squeak:- in that,
once it has selected its
prey, it will completely ignore other attractive targets- She could
see right across the Trials
field, and something was coming. It moved through the crowd like the
wind through a field of
grass. You could plot its progress by the people. Some fainted, some
yelped and turned round, some
ran. Witches stopped their gossip, chairs were overturned and the
shouting started. But it wasn't
attacking anything. It was only interested in Tiffany. Like a shark,
thought Tiffany. The killer
of the sea, where worse things happened. Tiffany backed away, the
panic filling her up. She bumped
into witches hurrying towards the commotion and shouted at them: 'You
can't stop it! You don't
know what it is! You'll flail at it and wave glittery sticks and it
will keep coming! It will keep
coming!' She put her hands into her pockets and touched the lucky
stone. And the string. And the
piece of chalk. If this was a story, she thought bitterly, I'd trust
in my heart and follow my
star and all that other stuff and it would all turn out all right,
right now, by tinkly Magikkkk.
But you're never in a story when you need to be. Story, story,
story... The third wish. The Third
Wish. The third wish is the important one. In stories the genie or the
witch or the magic cat...
offers you three wishes. Three wishes... She grabbed a hurrying witch
and looked into the face of
Annagramma, who stared at her in terror and tried to cower away.
'Please don't do anything to me!
Please!' she cried. I'm your friend, aren't I?' 'If you like, but that
wasn't me and I'm better
now,' said Tiffany, knowing she was lying. It had been her, and that
was important. She had to
remember that. 'Quick, Annagramma! What's the third wish? Quickly!
When you get three wishes,
what's the third wish!' Annagramma's face screwed up into the
affronted frown she wore when
something had the nerve not to be understandable. 'But why do-?'
'Don't think about it, please!
Just answer!' 'Well, er... it could be anything... being invisible
or... or blonde, or anything-'
Annagramma burbled, her mind coming apart at the seams. Tiffany shook
her head and let her go. She
ran to an old witch who was staring at the commotion. 'Please,
mistress, this is important! In
stories, what's the third wish! Don't ask me why, please! Just
remember!' 'Er... happiness. It's
happiness, isn't it?' said the old lady. 'Yes, definitely. Health,
wealth and happiness. Now if I
was you I'd-' 'Happiness? Happiness... thank you,' said Tiffany, and
looked around desperately for
someone else. It wasn't happiness, she knew that in her boots. You
couldn't get happiness by
magic, and that was another clue right there. There was Miss Tick,
hurrying between the tents.
There was no time for halfmeasures. Tiffany pulled her round and
shouted:
'HelloMissTickYesI'mFinel HopeYouAreWellTooWhatlsTheThirdWishQuickly
ThisIsImportantPleaseDon'tArgueOrAskQuestions Therelsn'tTime!' Miss
Tick, to her credit, hesitated
only for a moment or two. 'To have a hundred more wishes, isn't it?'
she said. Tiffany stared at
her and then said, Thank you. It isn't, but that's a clue, too.'
Tiffany, there's a-' Miss Tick
began. But Tiffany had seen Granny Weatherwax. She was standing in the
middle of the field, in a
big square that had been roped off for some reason. No one seemed to
notice her. She was watching
the frantic witches around the hiver, where there was an occasional
flash and sparkle of magic.
She had a calm, faraway look. Tiffany brushed Miss Tick's arm away,
ducked under the rope and ran
up to her. 'Granny!' The blue eyes turned to her. 'Yes?' 'In stories,
where the genie or the magic
frog or the fairy godmother gives you three wishes... what's the third
wish?' 'Ah, stories,' said
Granny. That's easy. In any story worth the tellin', that knows about
the way of the world, the
third wish is the one that undoes the harm the first two wishes
caused.' 'Yes! That's it! That's
it!' shouted Tiffany, and the words piling up behind the question
poured out. 'It's not evil! It
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can't be! It hasn't got a mind of its own! This is all about wishes!
Our wishes! It's like in the
stories, where they-' 'Calm down. Take a deep breath,' said Granny.
She took Tiffany by the
shoulders so that she faced the panicking crowd. 'You got frightened
for a moment, and now it's
comin' and it's not going to turn back, not now, 'cos it's desperate.
It don't even see the crowd,
they don't mean a thing to it. It's you it wants. It's you it's after.
You should be the one who
faces it. Are you ready?' 'But supposing I lose-' 'I never got where I
am today by supposin' I was
goin' to lose, young lady. You beat it once, you can do it again!'
'But I could turn into
something terrible!' Then you'll face me,' said Granny. 'You'll face
me, on my ground. But that
won't happen, will it? You were fed up with grubby babies and silly
women? Then this is... the
other stuff. It's noon now. They should've started the Trials proper,
but, hah, it looks as though
people have forgotten. Now, then... do you have it in you to be a
witch by noonlight, far away
from your hills?' 'Yes!' There was no other answer, not to Granny
Weatherwax. Granny Weatherwax
bowed low and then took a few steps back. 'In your own time, then,
madam,' she said. Wishes,
wishes, wishes, thought Tiffany, distracted, fumbling in her pockets
for the bits to make a
shamble. It's not evil. It gives us what we think we want! And what do
people ask for? More
wishes! You couldn't say: A monster got into my head and made me do
it. She'd wished the money was
hers. The hiver just took her at her thought. You couldn't say: Yes,
but I'd never have really
taken it! The hiver used what it found- the little secret wishes, the
desires, the moments of
rage, all the things that real humans knew how to ignore! It didn't
let you ignore them! Then, as
she fumbled to tie the pieces together, the egg flipped out of her
hands, trusted in gravity and
smashed on the toe of her boot. She stared at it, the blackness of
despair darkening the
noonlight. Why did I try this? I've never made a shamble that worked,
so why did I try? Because I
believed it had to work this time, that's why. Like in a story.
Suddenly it would all be... all
right. But this isn't a story, and there are no more eggs... There was
a scream but it was high up
and the sound of it took Tiffany home in the bounce of a heartbeat. It
was a buzzard, in the eye
of the sun, getting bigger in its plunge towards the field. It soared
up again as it passed over
Tiffany's head, fast as an arrow, and as it did so, something small
let go its hold on the
buzzard's talons with a cry of 'Crivens!' Rob Anybody dropped like a
stone, but there was a thwap!
and suddenly a balloon of cloth snapped open above him. Two balloons,
in fact, or to put it
another way, Rob Anybody had 'borrowed' Hamish's parachute. He let go
of them as soon as they'd
slowed him down, and dropped neatly into the shamble. 'Did ye think
we'd leave ye?' he shouted,
holding onto the strings. 'I'm under a geas, me! Get on wi' it, right
noo!' 'What? I can't!' said
Tiffany, trying to shake him off. 'Not with you! I'll kill you! I
always crack the eggs! What
goose?' 'Dinnae argue!' shouted Rob, bouncing up and down in the
strings. 'Do it! Or ye're no' the
hag of the hills! An' I know ye are!' People were running past now.
Tiffany glanced up. She
thought she could see the hiver now as a moving shape in the dust. She
looked at the tangle in her
hands and at Rob's grinning face. The moment twanged. A witch deals
with things, said her Second
Thoughts. Get past the 'I can't.' O-K... Why hasn't it ever worked
before? Because there was no
reason for it to work. I didn't need it to work. I need it to help me
now. No. I need me to help
me. So think about it. Ignore the noise, ignore the hiver rolling
towards her over the trodden
grass... She'd use the things she'd had, so that was right. Calm down.
Slow down. Look at the
shamble. Think about the moment. There were all the things from
home... No. Not all the things.
Not all the things at all. This time, she felt the shape of what
wasn't there- - and tugged at the
silver horse around her neck, breaking its chain, then hanging it in
the threads. Suddenly her
thoughts were as cool and clear as ice, as bright and shiny as they
needed to be. Let's see...
that looks better there... and that needs to be pulled this way... The
movement jerked the silver
horse into life. Then it spun gently, passing through the threads and
Rob Anybody, who said,
'Didnae hurt a bit! Keep goin'!' Tiffany felt a tingle in her feet.
The horse gleamed as it
turned. 'I dinnae want to hurry ye!' said Rob Anybody. 'But hurry!'
I'm far from home, thought
Tiffany, in the same clear way, but I have it in my eye. Now I open my
eyes. Now I open my eyes
again- Ahh... Can I be a witch away from my hills? Of course I can. I
never really leave you, Land
Under Wave... Shepherds on the Chalk felt the ground shake, like
thunder under the turf. Birds
scattered from the bushes. The sheep looked up. Again, the ground
trembled. Some people said a
shadow crossed the sun. Some people said they heard the sound of
hooves. And a boy trying to catch
hares in the little valley of the Horse said the hillside had burst
and a horse had leaped out
like a wave as high as the sky, with a mane like the wave of the sea
and a coat as white as chalk.
He said it had galloped into the air like rising mist, and flew
towards the mountains like a
storm. He got punished for telling stories, of course, but he thought
it was worth it. The shamble
glowed. Silver coursed along the threads. It was coming from Tiffany's
hands, sparking like stars.
In that light, she saw the hiver reach her and spread out until it was
all around her,
invisibility made visible. It rippled and reflected the light oddly.
In those glints and sparkles
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there were faces, wavering and stretching like reflections in water.
Time was going slowly. She
could see, beyond the wall of hiver, witches staring at her. One had
lost her hat in the
commotion, but it was hanging in the air. It hadn't had time to fall
yet. Tiffany's fingers moved.
The hiver shimmered in the air, disturbed like a pond when a pebble
has been dropped into it.
Tendrils of it reached towards her. She felt its panic, felt its
terror as it found itself caught-
'Welcome,' said Tiffany. Welcome? said the hiver in Tiffany's own
voice. 'Yes. You are welcome in
this place. You are safe here.' No! We are never safe! 'You are safe
here,' Tiffany repeated.
Please! said the hiver. Shelter us! The wizard was nearly right about
you,' said Tiffany. 'You hid
in other creatures. But he didn't wonder why. What are you hiding
from?' Everything, said the
hiver. 'I think I know what you mean,' said Tiffany. Do you? Do you
know what it feels like to be
aware of every star, every blade of grass? Yes. You do. You call it
'opening your eyes again'. But
you do it for a moment. We have done it for eternity. No sleep, no
rest, just endless... endless
experience, endless awareness. Of everything. All the time. How we
envy you, envy you! Lucky
humans, who can close your minds to the endless cold deeps of space!
You have this thing you
call... boredom? That is the rarest talent in the universe! We heard a
song, it went 'Twinkle
twinkle little star...' What power! What wondrous power! You can take
a billion trillion tons of
flaming matter, a furnace of unimaginable strength, and turn it into a
little song for children!
You build little worlds, little stories, little shells around your
minds and that keeps infinity
at bay and allows you to wake up in the morning without screaming!
Completely binkers! said a
cheerful voice at the back of Tiffany's memory. You just couldn't keep
Dr Bustle down. Pity us,
yes, pity us, said the voices of the hiver. No shield for us, no rest
for us, no sanctuary. But
you, you withstood us. We saw that in you. You have minds within
minds. Hide us! 'You want
silence?' said Tiffany. Yes, and more than silence, said the voice of
the hiver. You humans are so
good at ignoring things. You are almost blind and almost deaf You look
at a tree and see... just a
tree, a stiff weed. You don't see its history, feel the pumping of the
sap, hear every insect in
the bark, sense the chemistry of the leaves, notice the hundred shades
of green, the tiny
movements to follow the sun, the subtle growth of the wood... 'But you
don't understand us,' said
Tiffany. 'I don't think any human could survive you. You give us what
you think we want, as soon
as we want it, just like in fairy stories. And the wishes always go
wrong.' Yes. We know that now.
We have an echo of you now. We have... understanding, said the hiver.
So now we come to you with a
wish. It is the wish that puts the others right. 'Yes,' said Tiffany.
'That's always the last
wish, the third wish. It's the one that says "Make this not have
happened".' Teach us the way to
die, said the voices of the hiver. 'I don't know it!' All humans know
the way, said the voices of
the hiver. You walk it every day of your short, short lives. You know
it. We envy you your
knowledge. You know how to end. You are very talented. I must know how
to die, Tiffany thought.
Somewhere deep down. Let me think. Let me get past the 'I can't'...
She held up the glittering
shamble. Shafts of light still spun off it, but she didn't need it any
more. She could hold the
power in the centre of herself. It was all a matter of balance. The
light died. Rob Anybody was
still hanging in the threads, but all his hair had come unplaited and
stood out from his head in a
great red ball. He looked stunned. 'I could just murrrder a kebab,' he
said. Tiffany lowered him
to the ground, where he swayed slightly, then she put the rest of the
shamble in her pocket.
'Thank you, Rob,' she said. 'But I want you to go now. It could get...
serious.' It was, of
course, the wrong thing to say. 'I'm no' leavin'!' he snapped. 'I
promised Jeannie to keep ye
safe! Let's get on wi' it!' There was no arguing. Rob was standing in
that half-crouch of his,
fists bunched, chin out, ready for anything and burning with defiance.
'Thank you,' said Tiffany,
and straightened up. Death is right behind us, she thought. Life ends,
and there's death, waiting.
So... it must be close. Very close. It would be... a door. Yes. An old
door, old wood. Dark, too.
She turned. Behind her, there was a black door in the air. The hinges
would creak, she thought.
When she pushed it open, they did. So-oo... she thought, this isn't
exactly real. I'm telling
myself a story I can understand, about doors, and I'm fooling myself
just enough for it all to
work. I just have to keep balanced on that edge for it to go on
working, too. And that's as hard
as not thinking about a pink rhinoceros. And if Granny Weatherwax can
do that, I can too. Beyond
the door, black sand stretched away under a sky of pale stars. There
were some mountains on the
distant horizon. You must help us through, said the voices of the
hiver. 'If you'll tak' my
advice, you'll no' do that,' said Rob Anybody from Tiffany's ankle. 'I
dinnae trust the scunner
one wee bitty!' 'There's part of me in there. I trust that,' she said.
'I did say you don't have
to come, Rob.' 'Oh, aye? An' I'm ta' see you go through there alone,
am I? Yell not find me
leavin' you now!' 'You've got a clan and a wife, Rob!' 'Aye, an' so I
willnae dishonour them by
lettin' yer step across Death's threshold alone,' said Rob Anybody
firmly. So, thought Tiffany as
she stared through the doorway, this is what we do. We live on the
edges. We help those who can't
find the way... She took a deep breath and stepped across. Nothing
much changed. The sand felt
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gritty underfoot and crunched when she walked over it, as she
expected, but when it was kicked up
it fell back as slowly as thistledown, and she hadn't expected that.
The air wasn't cold, but it
was thin and prickly to breathe. The door shut softly behind her.
Thank you, said the voices of
the hiver. What do we do now? Tiffany looked around her, and up at the
stars. They weren't ones
that she recognized. 'You die, I think,' she said. But there is no
'me' to die, said the voices of
the hiver. There is only us. Tiffany took a deep breath. This was
about words, and she knew about
words. 'Here is a story to believe,' she said. 'Once we were blobs in
the sea, and then fishes,
and then lizards and rats and then monkeys, and hundreds of things in
between. This hand was once
a fin, this hand once had claws! In my human mouth I have the pointy
teeth of a wolf and the
chisel teeth of a rabbit and the grinding teeth of a cow! Our blood is
as salty as the sea we used
to live in! When we're frightened the hair on our skins stands up,
just like it did when we had
fur. We are history! Everything we've ever been on the way to becoming
us, we still are. Would you
like the rest of the story?' Tell us, said the hiver. 'I'm made up of
the memories of my parents
and grandparents, all my ancestors. They're in the way I look, in the
colour of my hair. And I'm
made up of everyone I've ever met who's changed the way I think. So
who is "me"?' The piece that
just told us that story, said the hiver. The piece that's truly you.
'Well... yes. But you must
have that too. You know you say you're "us"- who is it saying it? Who
is saying you're not you?
You're not different from us. We're just much, much better at
forgetting. And we know when not to
listen to the monkey.' You 've just puzzled us, said the hiver. 'The
old bit of our brains that
wants to be head monkey, and attacks when it's surprised,' said
Tiffany. It reacts. It doesn't
think. Being human is knowing when not to be the monkey or the lizard
or any of the other old
echoes. But when you take people over, you silence the human part. You
listen to the monkey. The
monkey doesn't know what it needs, only what it wants. No, you are not
an "us". You are an "I".'
I, me, said the hiver. I. Who am I? 'Do you want a name? That helps.'
Yes. A name... I've always
liked Arthur, as a name.' Arthur, said the hiver. I like Arthur, too.
And if I am, I can stop.
What happens next? 'The creatures you... took over, didn't they die?'
Yes, said the Arthur. But webut
I didn't see what happened. They just stopped being here. Tiffany
looked around at the endless
sand. She couldn't see anybody, but there was something out there that
suggested movement. It was
the occasional change in the light, perhaps, as if she was catching
glimpses of something she was
not supposed to see. 'I think,' she said, 'that you have to cross the
desert.' What's on the other
side? said Arthur. Tiffany hesitated. 'Some people think you go to a
better world,' she said.
'Some people think you come back to this one in a different body. And
some think there's just
nothing. They think you just stop.' And what do you think? Arthur
asked. 'I think that there are
no words to describe it,' said Tiffany. Is that true? said Arthur. 'I
think that's why you have to
cross the desert,' said Tiffany. 'To find out.' I will look forward to
it. Thank you. 'Goodbye...
Arthur.' She felt the hiver fall away. There wasn't much sign of it- a
movement of a few sand
grains, a sizzle in the air- but it slid away slowly across the black
sand. 'An' bad cess an' good
riddance ta' ye!' Rob Anybody shouted after it. 'No,' said Tiffany.
'Don't say that.' 'Aye, but it
killed folk to stay alive.' 'It didn't want to. It didn't know how
people work.' 'That was a fine
load of o' blethers ye gave it, at any rate,' said Rob admiringly.
'Not even a gonnagle could make
up a load o' blethers like that.' Tiffany wondered if it had been.
Once, when the wandering
teachers had come to the village, she had paid half a dozen eggs for a
morning's education on
***Wonders of the Univers!!*** That was expensive, for education, but
it had been thoroughly worth
it. The teacher had been a little bit crazy, even for a teacher, but
what he'd said had seemed to
make absolute sense. One of the most amazing things about the
universe, he had said, was that,
sooner or later, everything is made of everything else, although it'll
probably take millions and
millions of years for this to happen. The other children had giggled
or argued, but Tiffany knew
that what had once been tiny living creatures was now the chalk of the
hills. Everything went
round, even stars. That had been a very good morning, especially since
she'd been refunded half an
egg for pointing out that 'Universe' had been spelled wrong. Was it
true? Maybe that didn't
matter. Maybe it just had to be true enough for Arthur. Her eyes, the
inner eyes that opened
twice, were beginning to close. She could feel the power draining
away. You couldn't stay in that
state for long. You became so aware of the universe that you stopped
being aware of you. How
clever of humans to have learned how to close their minds. Was there
anything so amazing in the
universe as boredom? She sat down, just for a moment, and picked up a
handful of the sand. It rose
above her hand, twisting like smoke, reflecting the starlight, then
settled back as if it had all
the time in the world. She had never felt this tired. She still heard
the inner voices. The hiver
had left memories behind, just a few. She could remember when there
had been no stars and when
there had been no such thing as 'yesterday'. She knew what was beyond
the sky and beneath the
grass. But she couldn't remember when she had last slept, properly
slept, in a bed. Being
unconscious didn't count. She closed her eyes, and closed her eyes
again- Someone kicked her hard
a strange thought to keep
in your head: We're trying to find a way of killing a terrible
creature, but at least we won't be
covered in crumbs. There was a bottle of cold tea, too, and a bag of
biscuits. Miss Level knew
Mistress Weatherwax. 'Shouldn't we light a fire?' Tiffany suggested.
'Why? It's a long way down to
the tree line to get the firewood, and there'll be a fine half-moon up
in twenty minutes. Your
friend's keeping his distance and there nothing else that'll attack us
up here.' 'Are you sure?'
'I walk safely in my mountains,' said Mistress Weatherwax. 'But aren't
there trolls and wolves and
things?' 'Oh, yes. Lots.' 'And they don't try to attack you?' 'Not any
more,' said a selfsatisfied
voice in the dark. 'Pass me the biscuits, will you?' 'Here you are.
Would you like some
pickles?' Tickles gives me the wind something awful' 'In that case-'
'Oh, I wasn't saying no,'
said Mistress Weatherwax, taking two large pickled cucumbers. Oh,
good, Tiffany thought. She'd
brought three fresh eggs with her. Getting the hang of a shamble was
taking too long. It was
stupid. All the other girls were able to use them. She was sure she
was doing everything right.
She'd filled her pocket with random things. Now she pulled them out
without looking, wove the
thread around the egg like she'd done a hundred times before, grasped
the pieces of wood and moved
them so that... Pod The egg cracked, and oozed. 'I told you,' said
Mistress Weatherwax, who'd
opened one eye. 'They're toys. Sticks and stones.' 'Have you ever used
one?' said Tiffany. 'No.
Couldn't get the hang of them. They got in the way.' Mistress
Weatherwax yawned, wrapped the
blanket around her, made a couple of mnup, mnup noises as she tried to
get comfortable against the
rock and, after a while, her breathing became deeper. Tiffany waited
in silence, her blanket
around her, until the moon came up. She'd expected that to make things
better, but it didn't.
Before, there had just been darkness. Now there were shadows. There
was a snore beside her. It was
one of those good solid ones, like ripping canvas. Silence happened.
It came across the night on
silver wings, noiseless as the fall of a feather, silence made into a
bird, which alighted on a
rock close by. It swivelled its head to look at Tiffany. There was
more than just the curiosity of
a bird in that look. The old woman snored again. Tiffany reached out,
still staring at the owl,
and shook her gently. When that didn't work, she shook her hardly.
There was a sound like three
pigs colliding and Mistress Weatherwax opened one eye and said,
'Whoo?' 'There's an owl watching
us! It's right up close!' Suddenly the owl blinked, looked at Tiffany
as if amazed to see her,
spread its wings and glided off into the night. Mistress Weatherwax
gripped her throat, coughed
once or twice, and then said hoarsely, 'Of course it was an owl,
child! It took me ten minutes to
lure it this close! Now just you be quiet while I starts again,
otherwise I shall have to make do
with a bat, and when I goes out on a bat for any time at all I ends up
thinkin' I can see with my
ears, which is no way for a decent woman to behave!' 'But you were
snoring!' 'I was not snoring! I
was just resting gently while I tickled an owl closer! If you hadn't
shaken me and scared it away,
I'd have been up there with this entire moor under my eye.' 'You...
take over its mind?' said
Tiffany nervously. 'No! I'm not one of your hivers! I just... borrows
a lift from it, I just...
nudges it now and again, it don't even know I'm there. Now try to
rest!' 'But what if the hiver-?'
'If it comes anywhere near it'll be me that tells you' Mistress
Weatherwax hissed, and lay back.
Then her head jerked up one more time. 'And I do not snore!' she
added. After half a minute, she
started to snore again. Minutes after that the owl came back, or
perhaps it was a different owl.
It glided onto the same rock, settled there for a while and then sped
away. The witch stopped
snoring. In fact, she stopped breathing. Tiffany leaned closer and
finally lowered an ear to the
skinny chest to see if there was a heartbeat. Her own heart felt as if
it was clenched like a fist-
- because of the day she'd found Granny Aching in the hut. She was
lying peacefully on the narrow
iron bed, but Tiffany had known something was wrong as soon as she had
stepped inside- Boom.
Tiffany counted to three. Boom. Well, it was a heartbeat. Very slowly,
like a twig growing, a
stiff hand moved. It slid like a glacier into a pocket, and came up
holding a large piece of card
on which was written: I Ain't Dead, Tiffany decided she wasn't going
to argue. But she pulled the
blanket over the old woman and wrapped her own around herself. By
moonlight, she tried again with
her shamble. Surely she should be able to make it do something. Maybe
if- By moonlight, she very,
very carefully- Pod The egg cracked. The egg always cracked, and now
there was only one left.
Tiffany didn't dare try it with a beetle, even if she could find one.
It would be too cruel. She
sat back and looked across the landscape of silver and black, and her
Third Thoughts thought: It's
not going to come near. Why? She thought, I'm not sure why I know. But
I know. It's keeping away.
It knows Mistress Weatherwax is with me. She thought: How can it know
that? It's not got a mind.
It doesn't know what a Mistress Weatherwax is! Still thinking, thought
her Third Thoughts. Tiffany
slumped against the rock. Sometimes her head was too... crowded... And
then it was morning, and
sunlight, and dew on her hair, and mist coming off the ground like
smoke... and an eagle sitting
on the rock where the owl had been, eating something furry. She could
see every feather on its
wing. It swallowed, glared at Tiffany with its mad bird eyes and
flapped away, making the mist
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swirl. Beside her, Mistress Weatherwax began to snore again, which
Tiffany took to mean that she
was in her body. She gave the old woman a nudge, and the sound that
had been a regular
gnaaaargrgrgrgrg suddenly became blort. The old woman sat up,
coughing, and waved a hand irritably
at Tiffany to pass her the tea bottle. She didn't speak until she'd
gulped half of it. 'Ah, say
what you like, but rabbit tastes a lot better cooked,' she gasped,
shoving the cork back in. 'And
without the fur on!' 'You took- borrowed the eagle?' said Tiffany.
'O'course. I couldn't expect
the poor ol' owl to fly around after daybreak, just to see who's
about. It was hunting voles all
night and, believe me, raw rabbit's better'n voles. Don't eat voles.'
'I won't,' said Tiffany, and
meant it. 'Mistress Weatherwax, I think I know what the hiver's doing.
It's thinking.' 'I thought
it had no brains!' Tiffany let her thoughts speak for themselves. 'But
there's an echo of me in
it, isn't there? There must be. It has an echo of everyone it's...
been. There must be a bit of me
in it. I know it's out there, and it knows I'm here with you. And it's
keeping away.' 'Oh? Why's
that, then?' 'Because it's frightened of you, I think.' 'Huh! And
why's that?' 'Yes,' said Tiffany
simply. 'It's because I am. A bit.' 'Oh dear. Are you?' 'Yes,' said
Tiffany again. 'It's like a
dog that's been beaten but won't run away. It doesn't understand what
it's done wrong. But...
there's something about it that... there's a thought that I'm nearly
having Mistress Weatherwax
said nothing. Her face went blank. 'Are you all right?' said Tiffany.
'I was just leavin' you time
to have that thought,' said Mistress Weatherwax. 'Sorry. It's gone
now. But... we're thinking
about the hiver in the wrong way.' 'Oh, yes? And why's that?'
'Because...' Tiffany struggled with
the idea. 'I think it's because we don't want to think about it the
right way. It's something to
do with... the third wish. And I don't know what that means.' The
witch said, 'Keep picking at
that thought,' and then looked up and added, 'We've got company.' It
took Tiffany several seconds
to spot what Mistress Weatherwax had seen- a shape at the edge of the
woods, small and dark. It
was coming closer, but rather uncertainly. It resolved itself into the
figure of Petulia, flying
slowly and nervously a few feet above the heather. Sometimes she
jumped down and wrenched the
stick in a slightly different direction. She got off again when she
reached Tiffany and Mistress
Weatherwax, grabbed the broom hastily and aimed it at a big rock. It
hit it gently and hung there,
trying to fly through stone. 'Urn, sorry,' she panted. 'But I can't
always stop it, and this is
better than having an anchor... Urn.' She started to bob a curtsy to
Mistress Weatherwax,
remembered she was a witch and tried to turn it into a bow halfway
down, which was an event you'd
pay money to see. She ended up bent double, and from somewhere in
there came the little voice,
'Urn, can someone help, please? I think my Octogram of Trimontane has
got caught up on my Pouch of
Nine Herbs...' There was a tricky minute while they untangled her,
with Mistress Weatherwax
muttering Toys, just toys' as they unhooked bangles and necklaces.
Petulia stood upright, red in
the face. She saw Mistress Weatherwax's expression, whipped off her
pointy hat and held it in
front on her. This was a mark of respect, but it did mean that a two-
foot, sharp, pointy thing was
being aimed at them. 'Urn... I went to see Miss Level and she said
you'd come up here after some
horrible thing,' she said. 'Um... so I thought I'd better see how you
were.' 'Um... that was very
kind of you,' said Tiffany, but her treacherous Second Thoughts
thought: And what would you have
done if it had attacked us? She had a momentary picture of Petulia
standing in front of some
horrible raging thing, but it wasn't as funny as she'd first thought.
Petulia would stand in front
of it, shaking with terror, her useless amulets clattering, scared
almost out of her mind... but
not backing away. She'd thought there might be people facing something
horrible here, and she'd
come anyway. 'What's your name, my girl?' said Mistress Weatherwax.
'Urn, Petulia Gristle,
mistress. I'm learning with Gwinifer Blackcap.' 'Old Mother Blackcap?'
said Mistress Weatherwax.
'Very sound. A good woman with pigs. You did well to come here.'
Petulia looked nervously at
Tiffany. 'Urn, are you all right? Miss Level said you'd been... ill.'
'I'm much better now, but
thank you very much for asking, anyway,' said Tiffany wretchedly.
'Look, I'm sorry about-' 'Well,
you were ill,' said Petulia. And that was another thing about Petulia.
She always wanted to think
the best of everybody. This was sort of worrying if you knew that the
person she was doing her
best to think nice thoughts about was you. 'Are you going to go back
to the cottage before the
Trials?' Petulia went on. 'Trials?' said Tiffany, suddenly lost. 'The
Witch Trials,' said Mistress
Weatherwax. 'Today,' said Petulia. 'I'd forgotten all about them!'
said Tiffany. 'I hadn't,' said
the old witch calmly. 'I never miss a Trial. Never missed a Trial in
sixty years. Would you do a
poor old lady a favour, Miss Gristle, and ride that stick of yours
back to Miss Level's place and
tell her that Mistress Weatherwax presents her compliments and intends
to head directly to the
Trials. Was she well?' 'Urn, she was juggling balls without using her
hands' said Petulia in
wonderment. 'And, d'you know what? I saw a. fairy in her garden! A
blue one!' 'Really?' said
Tiffany, her heart sinking. 'Yes! It was rather scruffy, though. And
when I asked it if it really
was a fairy, it said it was... um... "the big stinky horrible spiky
iron stinging nettle fairy
from the Land o' Tinkle", and called me a "scunner". Do you know what
that means?' Tiffany looked
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into that round, hopeful face. She opened her mouth to say, 'It means
someone who likes fairies,'
but stopped in time. That just wouldn't be fair. She sighed. 'Petulia,
you saw a Nac Mac Feegle,'
she said. 'It is a kind of fairy, but they're not the sweet kind. I'm
sorry. They're good... well,
more or less... but they're not entirely nice. And "scunner" is a kind
of swearword. I don't think
it's a particularly bad one though.' Petulia's expression didn't
change for a while. Then she
said: 'So it was a fairy, then?' 'Well, yes. Technically.' The round
pink face smiled. 'Good, I
did wonder, because it was, um, you know... having a wee up against
one of Miss Level's garden
gnomes?' 'Definitely a Feegle,' said Tiffany. 'Oh well, I suppose the
big stinky horrible spiky
iron stinging nettle needs a fairy, just like every other plant,' said
Petulia.
Chapter
When Petulia had gone, Mistress Weatherwax stamped her feet and said,
'Let's go, young lady. It's
about eight miles to Sheercliff. They'll have started before we get
there.' 'What about the
hiver?' 'Oh, it can come if it likes.' Mistress Weatherwax smiled.
'Oh, don't frown like that.
There'll be more'n three hundred witches at the Trials, and they're
right out in the country.
It'll be as safe as anything. Or do you want to meet the hiver now? We
could probably do that. It
don't seem to move fast.' 'No!' said Tiffany, louder than she'd
intended. 'No, because... things
aren't what they seem. We'd do things wrong. Er... I can't explain it.
It's because of the third
wish.' 'Which you don't know what it is?' 'Yes. But I will soon, I
hope.' The witch stared at her.
'Yes, I hope so, too,' she said. 'Well, no point in standing around.
Let's get moving.' And with
that the witch picked up her blanket and set off as though being
pulled by a string. 'We haven't
even had anything to eat!' said Tiffany, running after her. 'I had a
lot of voles last night,'
said Mistress Weatherwax over her shoulder. 'Yes, but you didn't
actually eat them, did you?' said
Tiffany. 'It was the owl that actually ate them.' 'Technic'ly, yes,'
Mistress Weatherwax admitted.
'But if you think you've been eating voles all night you'd be amazed
how much you don't want to
eat anything next morning. Or ever again.' She nodded at the distant,
departing figure of Petulia.
'Friend of yours?' she said, as they set out. 'Er... if she is, I
don't deserve it,' said Tiffany.
'Hmm,' said Mistress Weatherwax. 'Well, sometimes we get what we don't
deserve.' For an old woman
Mistress Weatherwax could move quite fast. She strode over the moors
as if distance was a personal
insult. But she was good at something else too. She knew about
silence. There was the swish of her
long skirt as it snagged the heathers, but somehow that became part of
the background noise. In
the silence, as she walked, Tiffany could still hear the memories.
There were hundreds of them
left behind by the hiver. Most of them were so faint that they were
nothing more than a slight
uncomfortable feeling in her head, but the ancient tiger still burned
brightly in the back of her
brain, and behind that was the giant lizard. They'd been killing
machines, the most powerful
creatures in their world- once. The hiver had taken them both. And
then they'd died fighting.
Always taking fresh bodies, always driving the owners mad with the
urge for power which would
always end with getting them killed... and just as Tiffany wondered
why, a memory said: Because it
is frightened. Frightened of what? Tiffany thought. It's so powerful!
Who knows? But it's mad with
terror. Completely binkers! 'You're Simplicity Bustle, aren't you,'
said Tiffany, and then her
ears informed her that she'd said this aloud. 'Talkative, ain't he,'
said Mistress Weatherwax. 'He
talked in your sleep the other night. Used to have a very high opinion
of himself. I reckon that's
why his memories held together for so long.' 'He doesn't know binkers
from bonkers, though,' said
Tiffany. 'Well, memory fades,' said Mistress Weatherwax. She stopped
and leaned against a rock.
She sounded out of breath. 'Are you all right, mistress?' said
Tiffany. 'Sound as a bell,' said
Mistress Weatherwax, wheezing slightly. 'Just getting my second wind.
Anyway, it's only another
six miles.' 'I notice you're limping a bit,' said Tiffany. 'Do you,
indeed? Then stop noticing!'
The shout echoed off the cliffs, full of command. Mistress Weatherwax
coughed, when the echo had
died away. Tiffany had gone pale. 'It seems to me,' said the old
witch, 'that I might just've been
a shade on the sharp side there. It was prob'ly the voles.' She
coughed again. 'Them as knows me,
or has earned it one way or the other, calls me Granny Weatherwax. I
shall not take it amiss if
you did the same.' 'Granny Weatherwax?' said Tiffany, shocked out of
her shock by this new shock.
'Not technic'ly,' said Mistress Weatherwax quickly. 'It's what they
call a honorific, like Old
Mother So-and-so, or Goodie Thingy, or Nanny Whatshername. To show
that a witch has... is fully...
has been-' Tiffany didn't know whether to laugh or burst into tears.
'I know,' she said. 'You do?'
'Like Granny Aching,' said Tiffany. 'She was my granny, but everyone
on the Chalk called her
Granny Aching.' 'Mrs Aching' wouldn't have worked, she knew. You
needed a big, warm, billowing,
open kind of word. Granny Aching was therefor everybody. 'It's like
being everyone's grandmother,'
she added. And didn't add: who tells them stories! 'Well, then.
Perhaps so. Granny Weatherwax it
is,' said Granny Weatherwax, and added quickly, 'but not technic'ly.
Now we're best be moving.'
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She straightened up and set off again. Granny Weatherwax. Tiffany
tried it out in her head. She'd
never known her other grandmother, who'd died before she was born.
Calling someone else Granny was
strange but, oddly, it seemed right. And you could have two. The hiver
followed them. Tiffany
could feel it. But it was still keeping its distance. Well, there's a
trick to take to the Trials,
she thought. Granny- her brain tingled as she thought the word- Granny
has got a plan. She must
have. But... things weren't right. There was another thought she
wasn't quite having; it ducked
out of sight every time she thought she had it. The hiver wasn't
acting right. She made sure she
kept up with Granny Weatherwax. As they got nearer to the Trials,
there were clues. Tiffany saw at
least three broomsticks in the air, heading the same way. They reached
a proper track, too, and
groups of people were travelling in the same direction; there were a
few pointy hats amongst them,
which was a definite clue. The track dropped on down through some
woods, came up in a patchwork of
little fields and headed for a tall hedge, from behind which came the
sound of a brass band
playing a medley of Songs from the Shows, although by the sound of it
no two musicians could agree
on what Song or which Show. Tiffany jumped when she saw a balloon sail
up above the trees, catch
the wind and swoop away, but it turned out to be just a balloon and
not a lump of excess Brian.
She could tell this because it was followed by a long scream of rage
mixed with a roar of
complaint: 'AAaargwannawannaaaagongongonaargggaaaa BLOON!' which is
the traditional sound of a
very small child learning that with balloons, as with life itself, it
is important to know when
not to let go of the string. The whole point of balloons is to teach
small children this. However,
on this occasion a broomstick with a pointy-hatted passenger rose
above the trees, caught up with
the balloon and towed it back down to the Trials ground. 'Didn't used
to be like this,' Granny
Weatherwax grumbled as they reached a gate. 'When I was a girl, we
just used to meet up in some
meadow somewhere, all by ourselves. But now, oh no, it has to be a
Grand Day Out For All The
Family. Hah!' There had been a crowd around the gate leading into the
field, but there was
something about that 'Hah!' The crowd parted, as if by magic, and the
women pulled their children
a little closer to them as Granny walked right up to the gate. There
was a boy there, selling
tickets and wishing, now, that he'd never been born. Granny Weatherwax
stared at him. Tiffany saw
his ears go red. 'Two tickets, young man,' said Granny. Little bits of
ice tinkled off her words.
'That'll, er, be, er... one child and one senior citizen?' the young
man quavered. Granny leaned
forward and said: 'What is a senior citizen, young man?' 'It's like...
you know... old folks,' the
boy mumbled. Now his hands were shaking. Granny leaned further
forward. The boy really, really
wanted to step back but his feet were rooted to the ground. All he
could do was bend backwards.
'Young man,' said Granny, 'I am not now, nor shall I ever be, an "old
folk". We'll take two
tickets, which I see on that board there is a penny apiece.' Her hand
shot out, fast as an adder.
The boy made a noise like gneeee as he leaped back. 'Here's tuppence,'
said Granny Weatherwax.
Tiffany looked at Granny's hand. The first finger and thumb were held
together, but there did not
appear to be any coins between them. Nevertheless, the young man,
grinning horribly, took the
total absence of coins very carefully between his thumb and finger.
Granny twitched two tickets
out of his other hand. 'Thank you, young man,' she said, and walked
into the field. Tiffany ran
after her. 'What did-?' she began, but Granny Weatherwax raised a
finger to her lips, grasped
Tiffany's shoulder and swivelled her round. The ticket-seller was
still staring at his fingers. He
even rubbed them together. Then he shrugged, held them over his
leather moneybag and let go.
Clink, clink... The crowd around the gate gave a gasp, and one or two
of them started to applaud.
The boy looked around with a sick kind of grin, as if of course he'd
expected that to happen. 'Ah,
right,' said Granny Weatherwax happily. 'And now I could just do with
a cup of tea and maybe a
sweet biscuit.' 'Granny, there are children here! Not just witches!'
People were looking at them.
Granny Weatherwax jerked Tiffany's chin up so that she could look into
her eyes. 'Look around, eh?
You can't move down here for amulets and wands and whatnot! It'll be
bound to keep away, eh?'
Tiffany turned to look. There were sideshows all around the field. A
lot of them were funfair
stuff that she'd seen before at agricultural shows around the Chalk:
Roll-a- Penny, Lucky Dip,
Bobbing for Piranhas, that sort of thing. The Ducking Stool was very
popular among young children
on such a hot day. There wasn't a fortune-telling tent, because no
fortune-teller would turn up at
an event where so many visitors were qualified to argue and answer
back, but there were a number
of witch stalls. Zakzak's had a huge tent, with a display dummy
outside wearing a Sky Scraper hat
and a Zephyr Billow cloak, which had drawn a crowd of admirers. The
other stalls were smaller, but
they were thick with things that glittered and tinkled and they were
doing a brisk trade amongst
the younger witches. There were whole stalls full of dream-catchers
and curse-nets, including the
new selfemptying ones. It was odd to think of witches buying them,
though. It was like fish buying
umbrellas. Surely a hiver wouldn't come here, with all these witches?
She turned to Granny
Weatherwax. Granny Weatherwax wasn't there. It is hard to find a witch
at the Witch Trials. That
is, it is too easy to find a witch at the Witch Trials, but very hard
to find the one you're
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looking for, especially if you suddenly feel lost and all alone and
you can feel panic starting to
open inside you like a fern. Most of the older witches were sitting at
trestle tables in a huge
roped-off area. They were drinking tea. Pointy hats bobbed as tongues
wagged. Every woman seemed
capable of talking while listening to all the others on the table at
the same time, although this
talent isn't confined to witches. It was no place to search for an old
woman in black with a
pointy hat. The sun was quite high in the sky now. The field was
filling up. Witches were circling
to land at the far end, and more and more people were pouring in
through the gateway. The noise
was intense. Everywhere Tiffany turned, black hats were scurrying.
Pushing her way through the
throng, she looked desperately for a friendly face, like Miss Tick or
Miss Level or Petulia. If it
came to it, an unfriendly one would do- even Mrs Earwig. And she tried
not to think. She tried not
to think that she was terrified and alone in this huge crowd, and that
up on the hill, invisible,
the hiver now knew this because just a tiny part of it was her. She
felt the hiver stir. She felt
it begin to move. Tiffany stumbled through a chattering group of
witches, their voices sounding
shrill and unpleasant. She felt ill, as though she'd been in the sun
too long. The world was
spinning. A remarkable thing about a hiver, a reedy voice began,
somewhere in the back of her
head, is that its hunting pattern mimics that of the common shark,
among other creatures- 'I do
not want a lecture, Mr Bustle,' Tiffany mumbled. 'I do not want you in
my head!' But the memory of
Simplicity Bustle had never taken much notice of other people when he
was alive and it wasn't
going to begin now. It went on in its self-satisfied squeak:- in that,
once it has selected its
prey, it will completely ignore other attractive targets- She could
see right across the Trials
field, and something was coming. It moved through the crowd like the
wind through a field of
grass. You could plot its progress by the people. Some fainted, some
yelped and turned round, some
ran. Witches stopped their gossip, chairs were overturned and the
shouting started. But it wasn't
attacking anything. It was only interested in Tiffany. Like a shark,
thought Tiffany. The killer
of the sea, where worse things happened. Tiffany backed away, the
panic filling her up. She bumped
into witches hurrying towards the commotion and shouted at them: 'You
can't stop it! You don't
know what it is! You'll flail at it and wave glittery sticks and it
will keep coming! It will keep
coming!' She put her hands into her pockets and touched the lucky
stone. And the string. And the
piece of chalk. If this was a story, she thought bitterly, I'd trust
in my heart and follow my
star and all that other stuff and it would all turn out all right,
right now, by tinkly Magikkkk.
But you're never in a story when you need to be. Story, story,
story... The third wish. The Third
Wish. The third wish is the important one. In stories the genie or the
witch or the magic cat...
offers you three wishes. Three wishes... She grabbed a hurrying witch
and looked into the face of
Annagramma, who stared at her in terror and tried to cower away.
'Please don't do anything to me!
Please!' she cried. I'm your friend, aren't I?' 'If you like, but that
wasn't me and I'm better
now,' said Tiffany, knowing she was lying. It had been her, and that
was important. She had to
remember that. 'Quick, Annagramma! What's the third wish? Quickly!
When you get three wishes,
what's the third wish!' Annagramma's face screwed up into the
affronted frown she wore when
something had the nerve not to be understandable. 'But why do-?'
'Don't think about it, please!
Just answer!' 'Well, er... it could be anything... being invisible
or... or blonde, or anything-'
Annagramma burbled, her mind coming apart at the seams. Tiffany shook
her head and let her go. She
ran to an old witch who was staring at the commotion. 'Please,
mistress, this is important! In
stories, what's the third wish! Don't ask me why, please! Just
remember!' 'Er... happiness. It's
happiness, isn't it?' said the old lady. 'Yes, definitely. Health,
wealth and happiness. Now if I
was you I'd-' 'Happiness? Happiness... thank you,' said Tiffany, and
looked around desperately for
someone else. It wasn't happiness, she knew that in her boots. You
couldn't get happiness by
magic, and that was another clue right there. There was Miss Tick,
hurrying between the tents.
There was no time for halfmeasures. Tiffany pulled her round and
shouted:
'HelloMissTickYesI'mFinel HopeYouAreWellTooWhatlsTheThirdWishQuickly
ThisIsImportantPleaseDon'tArgueOrAskQuestions Therelsn'tTime!' Miss
Tick, to her credit, hesitated
only for a moment or two. 'To have a hundred more wishes, isn't it?'
she said. Tiffany stared at
her and then said, Thank you. It isn't, but that's a clue, too.'
Tiffany, there's a-' Miss Tick
began. But Tiffany had seen Granny Weatherwax. She was standing in the
middle of the field, in a
big square that had been roped off for some reason. No one seemed to
notice her. She was watching
the frantic witches around the hiver, where there was an occasional
flash and sparkle of magic.
She had a calm, faraway look. Tiffany brushed Miss Tick's arm away,
ducked under the rope and ran
up to her. 'Granny!' The blue eyes turned to her. 'Yes?' 'In stories,
where the genie or the magic
frog or the fairy godmother gives you three wishes... what's the third
wish?' 'Ah, stories,' said
Granny. That's easy. In any story worth the tellin', that knows about
the way of the world, the
third wish is the one that undoes the harm the first two wishes
caused.' 'Yes! That's it! That's
it!' shouted Tiffany, and the words piling up behind the question
poured out. 'It's not evil! It
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can't be! It hasn't got a mind of its own! This is all about wishes!
Our wishes! It's like in the
stories, where they-' 'Calm down. Take a deep breath,' said Granny.
She took Tiffany by the
shoulders so that she faced the panicking crowd. 'You got frightened
for a moment, and now it's
comin' and it's not going to turn back, not now, 'cos it's desperate.
It don't even see the crowd,
they don't mean a thing to it. It's you it wants. It's you it's after.
You should be the one who
faces it. Are you ready?' 'But supposing I lose-' 'I never got where I
am today by supposin' I was
goin' to lose, young lady. You beat it once, you can do it again!'
'But I could turn into
something terrible!' Then you'll face me,' said Granny. 'You'll face
me, on my ground. But that
won't happen, will it? You were fed up with grubby babies and silly
women? Then this is... the
other stuff. It's noon now. They should've started the Trials proper,
but, hah, it looks as though
people have forgotten. Now, then... do you have it in you to be a
witch by noonlight, far away
from your hills?' 'Yes!' There was no other answer, not to Granny
Weatherwax. Granny Weatherwax
bowed low and then took a few steps back. 'In your own time, then,
madam,' she said. Wishes,
wishes, wishes, thought Tiffany, distracted, fumbling in her pockets
for the bits to make a
shamble. It's not evil. It gives us what we think we want! And what do
people ask for? More
wishes! You couldn't say: A monster got into my head and made me do
it. She'd wished the money was
hers. The hiver just took her at her thought. You couldn't say: Yes,
but I'd never have really
taken it! The hiver used what it found- the little secret wishes, the
desires, the moments of
rage, all the things that real humans knew how to ignore! It didn't
let you ignore them! Then, as
she fumbled to tie the pieces together, the egg flipped out of her
hands, trusted in gravity and
smashed on the toe of her boot. She stared at it, the blackness of
despair darkening the
noonlight. Why did I try this? I've never made a shamble that worked,
so why did I try? Because I
believed it had to work this time, that's why. Like in a story.
Suddenly it would all be... all
right. But this isn't a story, and there are no more eggs... There was
a scream but it was high up
and the sound of it took Tiffany home in the bounce of a heartbeat. It
was a buzzard, in the eye
of the sun, getting bigger in its plunge towards the field. It soared
up again as it passed over
Tiffany's head, fast as an arrow, and as it did so, something small
let go its hold on the
buzzard's talons with a cry of 'Crivens!' Rob Anybody dropped like a
stone, but there was a thwap!
and suddenly a balloon of cloth snapped open above him. Two balloons,
in fact, or to put it
another way, Rob Anybody had 'borrowed' Hamish's parachute. He let go
of them as soon as they'd
slowed him down, and dropped neatly into the shamble. 'Did ye think
we'd leave ye?' he shouted,
holding onto the strings. 'I'm under a geas, me! Get on wi' it, right
noo!' 'What? I can't!' said
Tiffany, trying to shake him off. 'Not with you! I'll kill you! I
always crack the eggs! What
goose?' 'Dinnae argue!' shouted Rob, bouncing up and down in the
strings. 'Do it! Or ye're no' the
hag of the hills! An' I know ye are!' People were running past now.
Tiffany glanced up. She
thought she could see the hiver now as a moving shape in the dust. She
looked at the tangle in her
hands and at Rob's grinning face. The moment twanged. A witch deals
with things, said her Second
Thoughts. Get past the 'I can't.' O-K... Why hasn't it ever worked
before? Because there was no
reason for it to work. I didn't need it to work. I need it to help me
now. No. I need me to help
me. So think about it. Ignore the noise, ignore the hiver rolling
towards her over the trodden
grass... She'd use the things she'd had, so that was right. Calm down.
Slow down. Look at the
shamble. Think about the moment. There were all the things from
home... No. Not all the things.
Not all the things at all. This time, she felt the shape of what
wasn't there- - and tugged at the
silver horse around her neck, breaking its chain, then hanging it in
the threads. Suddenly her
thoughts were as cool and clear as ice, as bright and shiny as they
needed to be. Let's see...
that looks better there... and that needs to be pulled this way... The
movement jerked the silver
horse into life. Then it spun gently, passing through the threads and
Rob Anybody, who said,
'Didnae hurt a bit! Keep goin'!' Tiffany felt a tingle in her feet.
The horse gleamed as it
turned. 'I dinnae want to hurry ye!' said Rob Anybody. 'But hurry!'
I'm far from home, thought
Tiffany, in the same clear way, but I have it in my eye. Now I open my
eyes. Now I open my eyes
again- Ahh... Can I be a witch away from my hills? Of course I can. I
never really leave you, Land
Under Wave... Shepherds on the Chalk felt the ground shake, like
thunder under the turf. Birds
scattered from the bushes. The sheep looked up. Again, the ground
trembled. Some people said a
shadow crossed the sun. Some people said they heard the sound of
hooves. And a boy trying to catch
hares in the little valley of the Horse said the hillside had burst
and a horse had leaped out
like a wave as high as the sky, with a mane like the wave of the sea
and a coat as white as chalk.
He said it had galloped into the air like rising mist, and flew
towards the mountains like a
storm. He got punished for telling stories, of course, but he thought
it was worth it. The shamble
glowed. Silver coursed along the threads. It was coming from Tiffany's
hands, sparking like stars.
In that light, she saw the hiver reach her and spread out until it was
all around her,
invisibility made visible. It rippled and reflected the light oddly.
In those glints and sparkles
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there were faces, wavering and stretching like reflections in water.
Time was going slowly. She
could see, beyond the wall of hiver, witches staring at her. One had
lost her hat in the
commotion, but it was hanging in the air. It hadn't had time to fall
yet. Tiffany's fingers moved.
The hiver shimmered in the air, disturbed like a pond when a pebble
has been dropped into it.
Tendrils of it reached towards her. She felt its panic, felt its
terror as it found itself caught-
'Welcome,' said Tiffany. Welcome? said the hiver in Tiffany's own
voice. 'Yes. You are welcome in
this place. You are safe here.' No! We are never safe! 'You are safe
here,' Tiffany repeated.
Please! said the hiver. Shelter us! The wizard was nearly right about
you,' said Tiffany. 'You hid
in other creatures. But he didn't wonder why. What are you hiding
from?' Everything, said the
hiver. 'I think I know what you mean,' said Tiffany. Do you? Do you
know what it feels like to be
aware of every star, every blade of grass? Yes. You do. You call it
'opening your eyes again'. But
you do it for a moment. We have done it for eternity. No sleep, no
rest, just endless... endless
experience, endless awareness. Of everything. All the time. How we
envy you, envy you! Lucky
humans, who can close your minds to the endless cold deeps of space!
You have this thing you
call... boredom? That is the rarest talent in the universe! We heard a
song, it went 'Twinkle
twinkle little star...' What power! What wondrous power! You can take
a billion trillion tons of
flaming matter, a furnace of unimaginable strength, and turn it into a
little song for children!
You build little worlds, little stories, little shells around your
minds and that keeps infinity
at bay and allows you to wake up in the morning without screaming!
Completely binkers! said a
cheerful voice at the back of Tiffany's memory. You just couldn't keep
Dr Bustle down. Pity us,
yes, pity us, said the voices of the hiver. No shield for us, no rest
for us, no sanctuary. But
you, you withstood us. We saw that in you. You have minds within
minds. Hide us! 'You want
silence?' said Tiffany. Yes, and more than silence, said the voice of
the hiver. You humans are so
good at ignoring things. You are almost blind and almost deaf You look
at a tree and see... just a
tree, a stiff weed. You don't see its history, feel the pumping of the
sap, hear every insect in
the bark, sense the chemistry of the leaves, notice the hundred shades
of green, the tiny
movements to follow the sun, the subtle growth of the wood... 'But you
don't understand us,' said
Tiffany. 'I don't think any human could survive you. You give us what
you think we want, as soon
as we want it, just like in fairy stories. And the wishes always go
wrong.' Yes. We know that now.
We have an echo of you now. We have... understanding, said the hiver.
So now we come to you with a
wish. It is the wish that puts the others right. 'Yes,' said Tiffany.
'That's always the last
wish, the third wish. It's the one that says "Make this not have
happened".' Teach us the way to
die, said the voices of the hiver. 'I don't know it!' All humans know
the way, said the voices of
the hiver. You walk it every day of your short, short lives. You know
it. We envy you your
knowledge. You know how to end. You are very talented. I must know how
to die, Tiffany thought.
Somewhere deep down. Let me think. Let me get past the 'I can't'...
She held up the glittering
shamble. Shafts of light still spun off it, but she didn't need it any
more. She could hold the
power in the centre of herself. It was all a matter of balance. The
light died. Rob Anybody was
still hanging in the threads, but all his hair had come unplaited and
stood out from his head in a
great red ball. He looked stunned. 'I could just murrrder a kebab,' he
said. Tiffany lowered him
to the ground, where he swayed slightly, then she put the rest of the
shamble in her pocket.
'Thank you, Rob,' she said. 'But I want you to go now. It could get...
serious.' It was, of
course, the wrong thing to say. 'I'm no' leavin'!' he snapped. 'I
promised Jeannie to keep ye
safe! Let's get on wi' it!' There was no arguing. Rob was standing in
that half-crouch of his,
fists bunched, chin out, ready for anything and burning with defiance.
'Thank you,' said Tiffany,
and straightened up. Death is right behind us, she thought. Life ends,
and there's death, waiting.
So... it must be close. Very close. It would be... a door. Yes. An old
door, old wood. Dark, too.
She turned. Behind her, there was a black door in the air. The hinges
would creak, she thought.
When she pushed it open, they did. So-oo... she thought, this isn't
exactly real. I'm telling
myself a story I can understand, about doors, and I'm fooling myself
just enough for it all to
work. I just have to keep balanced on that edge for it to go on
working, too. And that's as hard
as not thinking about a pink rhinoceros. And if Granny Weatherwax can
do that, I can too. Beyond
the door, black sand stretched away under a sky of pale stars. There
were some mountains on the
distant horizon. You must help us through, said the voices of the
hiver. 'If you'll tak' my
advice, you'll no' do that,' said Rob Anybody from Tiffany's ankle. 'I
dinnae trust the scunner
one wee bitty!' 'There's part of me in there. I trust that,' she said.
'I did say you don't have
to come, Rob.' 'Oh, aye? An' I'm ta' see you go through there alone,
am I? Yell not find me
leavin' you now!' 'You've got a clan and a wife, Rob!' 'Aye, an' so I
willnae dishonour them by
lettin' yer step across Death's threshold alone,' said Rob Anybody
firmly. So, thought Tiffany as
she stared through the doorway, this is what we do. We live on the
edges. We help those who can't
find the way... She took a deep breath and stepped across. Nothing
much changed. The sand felt
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gritty underfoot and crunched when she walked over it, as she
expected, but when it was kicked up
it fell back as slowly as thistledown, and she hadn't expected that.
The air wasn't cold, but it
was thin and prickly to breathe. The door shut softly behind her.
Thank you, said the voices of
the hiver. What do we do now? Tiffany looked around her, and up at the
stars. They weren't ones
that she recognized. 'You die, I think,' she said. But there is no
'me' to die, said the voices of
the hiver. There is only us. Tiffany took a deep breath. This was
about words, and she knew about
words. 'Here is a story to believe,' she said. 'Once we were blobs in
the sea, and then fishes,
and then lizards and rats and then monkeys, and hundreds of things in
between. This hand was once
a fin, this hand once had claws! In my human mouth I have the pointy
teeth of a wolf and the
chisel teeth of a rabbit and the grinding teeth of a cow! Our blood is
as salty as the sea we used
to live in! When we're frightened the hair on our skins stands up,
just like it did when we had
fur. We are history! Everything we've ever been on the way to becoming
us, we still are. Would you
like the rest of the story?' Tell us, said the hiver. 'I'm made up of
the memories of my parents
and grandparents, all my ancestors. They're in the way I look, in the
colour of my hair. And I'm
made up of everyone I've ever met who's changed the way I think. So
who is "me"?' The piece that
just told us that story, said the hiver. The piece that's truly you.
'Well... yes. But you must
have that too. You know you say you're "us"- who is it saying it? Who
is saying you're not you?
You're not different from us. We're just much, much better at
forgetting. And we know when not to
listen to the monkey.' You 've just puzzled us, said the hiver. 'The
old bit of our brains that
wants to be head monkey, and attacks when it's surprised,' said
Tiffany. It reacts. It doesn't
think. Being human is knowing when not to be the monkey or the lizard
or any of the other old
echoes. But when you take people over, you silence the human part. You
listen to the monkey. The
monkey doesn't know what it needs, only what it wants. No, you are not
an "us". You are an "I".'
I, me, said the hiver. I. Who am I? 'Do you want a name? That helps.'
Yes. A name... I've always
liked Arthur, as a name.' Arthur, said the hiver. I like Arthur, too.
And if I am, I can stop.
What happens next? 'The creatures you... took over, didn't they die?'
Yes, said the Arthur. But webut
I didn't see what happened. They just stopped being here. Tiffany
looked around at the endless
sand. She couldn't see anybody, but there was something out there that
suggested movement. It was
the occasional change in the light, perhaps, as if she was catching
glimpses of something she was
not supposed to see. 'I think,' she said, 'that you have to cross the
desert.' What's on the other
side? said Arthur. Tiffany hesitated. 'Some people think you go to a
better world,' she said.
'Some people think you come back to this one in a different body. And
some think there's just
nothing. They think you just stop.' And what do you think? Arthur
asked. 'I think that there are
no words to describe it,' said Tiffany. Is that true? said Arthur. 'I
think that's why you have to
cross the desert,' said Tiffany. 'To find out.' I will look forward to
it. Thank you. 'Goodbye...
Arthur.' She felt the hiver fall away. There wasn't much sign of it- a
movement of a few sand
grains, a sizzle in the air- but it slid away slowly across the black
sand. 'An' bad cess an' good
riddance ta' ye!' Rob Anybody shouted after it. 'No,' said Tiffany.
'Don't say that.' 'Aye, but it
killed folk to stay alive.' 'It didn't want to. It didn't know how
people work.' 'That was a fine
load of o' blethers ye gave it, at any rate,' said Rob admiringly.
'Not even a gonnagle could make
up a load o' blethers like that.' Tiffany wondered if it had been.
Once, when the wandering
teachers had come to the village, she had paid half a dozen eggs for a
morning's education on
***Wonders of the Univers!!*** That was expensive, for education, but
it had been thoroughly worth
it. The teacher had been a little bit crazy, even for a teacher, but
what he'd said had seemed to
make absolute sense. One of the most amazing things about the
universe, he had said, was that,
sooner or later, everything is made of everything else, although it'll
probably take millions and
millions of years for this to happen. The other children had giggled
or argued, but Tiffany knew
that what had once been tiny living creatures was now the chalk of the
hills. Everything went
round, even stars. That had been a very good morning, especially since
she'd been refunded half an
egg for pointing out that 'Universe' had been spelled wrong. Was it
true? Maybe that didn't
matter. Maybe it just had to be true enough for Arthur. Her eyes, the
inner eyes that opened
twice, were beginning to close. She could feel the power draining
away. You couldn't stay in that
state for long. You became so aware of the universe that you stopped
being aware of you. How
clever of humans to have learned how to close their minds. Was there
anything so amazing in the
universe as boredom? She sat down, just for a moment, and picked up a
handful of the sand. It rose
above her hand, twisting like smoke, reflecting the starlight, then
settled back as if it had all
the time in the world. She had never felt this tired. She still heard
the inner voices. The hiver
had left memories behind, just a few. She could remember when there
had been no stars and when
there had been no such thing as 'yesterday'. She knew what was beyond
the sky and beneath the
grass. But she couldn't remember when she had last slept, properly
slept, in a bed. Being
unconscious didn't count. She closed her eyes, and closed her eyes
again- Someone kicked her hard
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