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personal. She'd bought it off a pedlar, cheap, because it was last
year's. But, as he said, it had
the same number of days. It also had a lock, a little brass thing on a
leather flap. It had its
own tiny key. It was the lock that had attracted Tiffany. At a certain
age, you see the point of
locks. She wrote down 'Twoshirts', and spent some time thinking before
adding ya bend in the
road'. Miss Tick kept staring at the road. 'Is there something wrong,
Miss Tick?' Tiffany asked
again, looking up. 'I'm... not sure. Is anyone watching us?' Tiffany
looked around. Twoshirts
slept in the heat. There was no one watching. 'No, Miss Tick.' The
teacher removed her hat and
took from inside it a couple of pieces of wood and a reel of black
thread. She rolled up her
sleeves, looking around quickly in case Twoshirts had sprouted a
population, then broke off a
length of the thread and picked up the egg. Egg, thread and fingers
blurred for a few seconds and
there was the egg, hanging from Miss Tick's fingers in a neat little
black net. Tiffany was
impressed. But Miss Tick hadn't finished. She began to draw things
from her pockets, and a witch
generally has a lot of pockets. There were some beads, a couple of
feathers, a glass lens and one
or two strips of coloured paper. These all got threaded into the
tangle of wood and cotton. 'What
is that?' said Tiffany. 'It's a shamble,' said Miss Tick,
concentrating. 'Is it magic?' 'Not
exactly. It's trickery.' Miss Tick lifted her left hand. Feathers and
beads and egg and pocket
junk spun in the web of threads. 'Hmm,' she said. 'Now let me see what
I can see...' She pushed
the fingers of her right hand into the spiderwork of threads and
pulled.. . Egg and glass and
beads and feathers danced through the tangle, and Tiffany was sure
that at one point one thread
had passed straight through another. 'Oh,' she said. 'It's like Cat's
Cradle!' 'You've played
that, have you?' said Miss Tick vaguely, still concentrating. 'I can
do all the common shapes,'
said Tiffany. 'The Jewels and The Cradle and The House and The Flock
and The Three Old Ladies, One
With A Squint, Carrying The Bucket Of Fish To Market When They Meet
The Donkey... although you
need two people for that one, and I only ever did it once, and Betsy
Tupper scratched her nose at
the wrong moment and I had to get some scissors to cut her loose Miss
Tick's fingers worked like a
loom. 'Funny it should be a children's toy now,' she said. 'Aha...'
She stared into the complex
web she had created. 'Can you see anything?' said Tiffany. If I may be
allowed to concentrate,
child? Thank you...' Out in the road the sleeping dog woke, yawned and
pulled itself to its feet.
It ambled over to the bench the two of them were sitting on, gave
Tiffany a reproachful look and
then curled up by her feet. It smelled of old damp carpets. There's...
something...' said Miss
Tick, very quietly. Panic gripped Tiffany. Sunlight reflected off the
white dust of the road and
the stone wall opposite. Bees hummed between the little yellow flowers
that grew on top of the
wall. By Tiffany's feet, the spaniel snorted and farted occasionally.
But it was all wrong. She
could feel the pressure bearing down on her, pushing at her, pushing
at the landscape, squeezing
it under the bright light of day. Miss Tick and her cradle of threads
were motionless beside her,
frozen in the moment of bright horror. Only the threads moved, by
themselves. The egg danced, the
glass glinted, the beads slid and jumped from string to string- The
egg burst. The coach rolled
in. It arrived dragging the world behind it, in a cloud of dust and
noise and hooves. It blotted
out the sun. Doors opened. Harness jingled. Horses steamed. The
spaniel sat up and wagged its tail
hopefully. The pressure went- no, it fled. Beside Tiffany, Miss Tick
pulled out a handkerchief and
started to wipe egg off her dress. The rest of the shamble had
disappeared into a pocket with
remarkable speed. She smiled at Tiffany, and kept the smile as she
spoke, making herself look
slightly mad. 'Don't get up, don't do anything, just be as quiet as a
little mouse,' she said.
Tiffany felt in no state to do anything but sit still; she felt like
you feel when you wake up
after a nightmare. The richer passengers got out of the coach, and the
poorer ones climbed down
from the roof. Grumbling and stamping their feet, trailing road dust
behind them, they
disappeared. 'Now,' said Miss Tick, when the inn door had swung shut,
'we're... we're going to go
for a- a stroll. See that little wood up there? That's where we're
heading. And when Mr Crabber
the carter sees your father tomorrow he'll say he- he dropped you off
here just before the coach
arrived and- and- and everyone will be happy and no one will have
lied. That's important.' 'Miss
Tick?' said Tiffany, picking up the suitcase. 'Yes?' 'What happened
just now?' 'I don't know,'
said the witch. 'Do you feel all right?' 'Er... yes. You've got some
yolk on your hat.' And you're
very nervous, Tiffany thought. That was the most worrying part. 'I'm
sorry about your dress,' she
added. 'It's seen a lot worse,' said Miss Tick. 'Let's go.' 'Miss
Tick?' said Tiffany again as
they trudged away. 'Er, yes?' 'You are very nervous,' said Tiffany.
'If you told me why, that
means there's two of us, which is only half the nervousness each.'
Miss Tick sighed. 'It was
probably nothing,' she said. 'Miss Tick, the egg exploded!' 'Yes. Um.
A shamble, you see, can be
used as a simple magic detector and amplifier. It's actually very
crude, but it's always useful to
make one in times of distress and confusion. I think I... probably
didn't make it right. And
sometimes you do get big discharges of random magic' 'You made it
because you were worried,' said
Tiffany. 'Worried? Certainly not. I am never worried!' snapped Miss
Tick. 'However, since you
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raise the subject, I was concerned. Something was making me uneasy.
Something close, I think. It
was probably nothing. In fact I feel a lot better now we're leaving.'
But you don't look it,
Tiffany thought. And I was wrong. Two people means twice as much
nervousness each. But she was
sure there was nothing magical about Twoshirts. It was just a bend in
the road. Twenty minutes
later the passengers came out to get into the coach. The coachman did
notice that the horses were
sweating, and wondered why he could hear a swarm of flies when there
were no flies to be seen. The
dog that had been lying in the road was found later cowering in one of
the inn's stables,
whimpering. The wood was about half an hour's walk away, with Miss
Tick and Tiffany taking turns
to carry the suitcase. It was nothing special, as woods go, being
mostly full-grown beech,
although once you know that beech drips unpleasant poisons on the
ground beneath it to keep it
clear it's not quite the timber you thought it was. They sat on a log
and waited for sunset. Miss
Tick told Tiffany about shambles. They're not magical then?' said
Tiffany. 'No. They're something
to be magical through.' 'You mean like spectacles help you see but
don't see for you?' 'That's
right, well done! Is a telescope magical? Certainly not. It's just
glass in a tube, but with one
you could count the dragons on the moon. And... well, have you ever
used a bow? No, probably not.
But a shamble can act like a bow, too. A bow stores up muscle power as
the archer draws it, and
sends a heavy arrow much further than the archer could actually throw
it. You can make one out of
anything, so long as it... looks right.' 'And then you can tell if
magic is happening?' 'Yes, if
that's what you're looking for. When you're good at it you can use it
to help you do magic
yourself, to really focus on what you have to do. You can use it for
protection, like a curse-net,
or to send a spell, or... well, it's like those expensive penknives,
you know? The ones with the
tiny saw and the scissors and the toothpick? Except that I don't think
any witch has ever used a
shamble as a toothpick, ha ha. All young witches should learn how to
make a shamble. Miss Level
will help you.' Tiffany looked around the wood. The shadows were
growing longer, but they didn't
worry her. Bits of Miss Tick's teachings floated through her head:
Always face what you fear. Have
just enough money, never too much, and some string. Even if it's not
your fault it's your
responsibility. Witches deal with things. Never stand between two
mirrors. Never cackle. Do what
you must do. Never lie, but you don't always have to be honest. Never
wish. Especially don't wish
upon a star, which is astronomically stupid. Open your eyes, and then
open your eyes again. 'Miss
Level has got long grey hair, has she?' she said. 'Oh, yes.' 'And
she's quite a tall lady, just a
bit fat, and she wears quite a lot of necklaces,' Tiffany went on.
'And glasses on a chain. And
surprisingly high-heeled boots.' Miss Tick wasn't a fool. She looked
around the clearing. 'Where
is she?' she said. 'Standing by the tree over there,' said Tiffany.
Even so, Miss Tick had to
squint. What Tiffany had noticed was that witches filled space. In a
way that was almost
impossible to describe, they seemed to be more real than others around
them. They just showed up
more. But if they didn't want to be seen, they became amazingly hard
to notice. They didn't hide,
they didn't magically fade away, although it might seem like that, but
if you had to describe the
room afterwards you'd swear there hadn't been a witch in it. They just
seemed to let themselves
get lost. 'Ah yes, well done,' said Miss Tick. 'I was wondering when
you'd notice.' Ha! thought
Tiffany. Miss Level got realer as she walked towards them. She was all
in black, but clattered
slightly as she walked because of all the black jewellery she wore,
and she did have glasses, too,
which struck Tiffany as odd for a witch. Miss Level reminded Tiffany
of a happy hen. And she had
two arms, the normal number. 'Ah, Miss Tick,' she said. 'And you must
be Tiffany Aching.' Tiffany
knew enough to bow; witches don't curtsy (unless they want to
embarrass Roland). 'I'd just like to
have a word with Miss Level, Tiffany, if you don't mind,' said Miss
Tick, meaningfully. 'Senior
witch business.' Ha! thought Tiffany again, because she liked the
sound of it. 'I'll just go and
have a look at a tree then, shall I?' she said with what she hoped was
withering sarcasm. I should
use the bushes if I was you, dear,' Miss Level called after her. 'I
don't like stopping once we're
airborne.' There were some holly bushes that made a decent screen, but
after being talked to as
though she were ten years old Tiffany would rather have allowed her
bladder to explode. I beat the
Queen of the Fairies! she thought as she wandered into the wood. All
right, I'm not sure how,
because it's all like a dream now, but I did do it! She was angry at
being sent away like that. A
little respect wouldn't hurt, would it? That's what the old witch
Mistress Weatherwax had said,
wasn't it? 'I show you respect, as you in turn will respect me.'
Mistress Weatherwax, the witch
who all the other witches secretly wanted to be like, had showed her
respect, so you'd think the
others could make a bit of effort in that department. She said: 'See
me.' ... and stepped out of
herself and walked away towards Miss Tick and Miss Level, in her
invisible ghost body. She didn't
dare look down, in case she saw her feet weren't there. When she
turned and looked back at her
solid body, she saw it standing demurely by the holly bushes, clearly
too far away to be listening
to anyone's conversation. As Tiffany stealthily drew nearer she heard
Miss Tick say: '- but quite
frighteningly precocious.' 'Oh dear. I've never got on very well with
clever people,' said Miss
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Level. 'Oh, she's a good child at heart,' said Miss Tick, which
annoyed Tiffany rather more than
'frighteningly precocious' had. 'Of course, you know my situation,'
said Miss Level as the
invisible Tiffany inched closer. 'Yes, Miss Level, but your work does
you great credit. That's why
Mistress Weatherwax suggested you.' 'But I am afraid I'm getting a bit
absent-minded,' Miss Level
worried. 'It was terrible flying down here, because like a big silly I
left my long-distance
spectacles on my other nose...' Her other nose? thought Tiffany. Both
witches froze, at exactly
the same time. I'm without an egg!' said Miss Tick. 'I have a beetle
in a matchbox against just
such an emergency!' squeaked Miss Level. Their hands flew to their
pockets and pulled out string
and feathers and bits of coloured cloth- They know I'm here! thought
Tiffany, and whispered, 'See
me not!' She blinked and rocked on her heels as she arrived back in
the patient little figure by
the holly bushes. In the distance, Miss Level was frantically making a
shamble and Miss Tick was
staring around the wood. 'Tiffany, come here at once!' she shouted.
'Yes, Miss Tick,' said
Tiffany, trotting forward like a good girl. They spotted me somehow,
she thought. Well, they are
witches, after all, even if in my opinion they're not very good ones-
Then the pressure came. It
seemed to squash the wood flat and filled it with the horrible feeling
that something is standing
right behind you. Tiffany sank to her knees with her hands over her
ears and a pain like the worst
earache squeezing her head. 'Finished!' shouted Miss Level. She held
up a shamble. It was quite
different from Miss Tick's, and made up of string and crow feathers
and glittery black beads and,
in the middle, an ordinary matchbox. Tiffany yelled. The pain was like
red-hot needles and her
ears filled with the buzz of flies. The matchbox exploded. And then
there was silence, and
birdsong, and nothing to show that anything had happened apart from a
few pieces of matchbox
spiralling down, along with an iridescent fragment of wing case. 'Oh
dear,' said Miss Level. 'He
was quite a good beetle, as beetles go...' "Tiffany, are you all
right?' said Miss Tick. Tiffany
blinked. The pain had gone as fast as it had arrived, leaving only a
burning memory. She scrambled
to her feet. 'I think so, Miss Tick!' Then a word, if you please!'
said Miss Tick, marching over
to a tree and standing there looking stern. 'Yes, Miss Tick?' said
Tiffany. 'Did you... do
anything?' said Miss Tick. 'You haven't been summoning things, have
you?' 'No! Anyway, I don't
know how to!' said Tiffany. 'It's not your little men then, is it?'
said Miss Tick doubtfully.
'They're not mine, Miss Tick. And they don't do that sort of thing.
They just shout "Crivens!" and
then start kicking people on the ankle. You definitely know it's
them.' 'Well, whatever it was, it
seems to have gone,' said Miss Level. 'And we should go, too,
otherwise we'll be flying all
night.' She reached behind another tree and picked up a bundle of
firewood. At least, it looked
exactly like that, because it was supposed to. 'My own invention,' she
said, modestly. 'One never
knows down here on the plains, does one? And the handle shoots out by
means of this button- Oh,
I'm so sorry, it sometimes does that. Did anyone see where it went?'
The handle was located in a
bush, and screwed back in. Tiffany, a girl who listened to what people
said, watched Miss Level
closely. She definitely had only one nose on her face, and it was sort
of uncomfortable to imagine
where anyone might have another one and what they'd use it for. Then
Miss Level pulled some rope
out of her pocket and passed it to someone who wasn't there. That's
what she did, Tiffany was
sure. She didn't drop it, she didn't throw it, she just held it out
and let go, as though she'd
thought she was hanging it on an invisible hook. It landed in a coil
on the moss. Miss Level
looked down, then saw Tiffany staring at her and laughed nervously.
'Silly me,' she said. 'I
thought I was over there! I'll forget my own head next!' 'Well... if
it's the one on top of your
neck,' said Tiffany cautiously, still thinking about the other nose,
'you've still got it.' The
old suitcase was roped to the bristle end of the broomstick, which now
floated calmly a few feet
above the ground. 'There, that'll make a nice comfy seat,' said Miss
Level, now the bag of nerves
that most people turned into when they felt Tiffany staring at them.
'If you'd just hang on behind
me. Er. That's what I normally do.' 'You normally hang on behind you?'
said Tiffany. 'How can-?'
"Tiffany, I've always encouraged your forthright way of asking
questions,' said Miss Tick loudly.
'And now, please, I would love to congratulate you on your mastery of
silence! Do climb on behind
Miss Level, I'm sure she'll want to leave while you've still got some
daylight.' The stick bobbed
a little as Miss Level climbed onto it. She patted it, invitingly.
'You're not frightened of
heights, are you, dear?' she said as Tiffany climbed on. 'No,' said
Tiffany. 'I shall drop in when
I come up for the Witch Trials,' said Miss Tick as Tiffany felt the
stick rise gently under her.
'Take care!' It turned out that when Miss Level had asked Tiffany if
she was scared of heights, it
had been the wrong question. Tiffany was not afraid of heights at all.
She could walk past tall
trees without batting an eyelid. Looking up at huge towering mountains
didn't bother her a bit.
What she was afraid of, although she hadn't realized it up until this
point, was depths. She was
afraid of dropping such a long way out of the sky that she'd have time
to run out of breath
screaming before hitting the rocks so hard that she'd turn to a sort
of jelly and all her bones
would break into dust. She was, in fact, afraid of the ground. Miss
Level should have thought
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before asking the question. Tiffany clung to Miss Level's belt and
stared at the cloth of her
dress. 'Have you ever flown before, Tiffany?' asked the witch as they
rose. 'Gnf!' squeaked
Tiffany. 'If you like, I could take us round in a little circle,' said
Miss Level. 'We should have
a fine view of your country from up here.' The air was rushing past
Tiffany now. It was a lot
colder. She kept her eyes fixed firmly on the cloth. 'Would you like
that?' said Miss Level,
raising her voice as the wind grew louder. 'It won't take a moment!'
Tiffany didn't have time to
say no, and in any case was sure she'd be sick if she opened her
mouth. The stick lurched under
her and the world went sideways. She didn't want to look, but
remembered that a witch is always
inquisitive to the point of nosiness. To stay a witch, she had to
look. She risked a glance and
saw the world under her. The red-gold light of sunset was flowing
across the land, and down there
were the long shadows of Twoshirts and, further away, the woods and
villages all the way back to
the long curved hill of the Chalk- - which glowed red, and the white
carving of the chalk Horse
burned gold like some giant's pendant. Tiffany stared at it; in the
fading light of the afternoon,
with the shadows racing away from the sliding sun, it looked alive. At
that moment she wanted to
jump off, fly back, get there by closing her eyes and clicking her
heels together, do anything-
No! She 'd bundled those thoughts away, hadn 't she? She had to learn,
and there was no one on the
hills to teach her! But the Chalk was her world. She walked on it
every day. She could feel its
ancient life under her feet. The land was in her bones, just as Granny
Aching had said. It was in
her name, too; in the old language of the Nac Mac Feegle her name
sounded like 'Land Under Wave',
and in the eye of her mind she 'd walked in those deep prehistoric
seas when the Chalk had been
formed, in a million-year rain made of the shells of tiny creatures.
She trod a land made of life,
and breathed it in, and listened to it, and thought its thoughts for
it. To see it now, small,
alone, in a landscape that stretched to the end of the world, was too
much. She had to go back to
it- For a moment the stick wobbled in the air. No! I know I must go!
It jerked back, and there was
a sickening feeling in her stomach as the stick curved away towards
the mountains. 'A little bit
of turbulence there, I think,' said Miss Level over her shoulder. 'By
the way, did Miss Tick warn
you about the thick woolly pants, dear?' Tiffany, still shocked,
mumbled something which managed
to sound like 'no'. Miss Tick had mentioned the pants, and how a
sensible witch wore at least
three pairs to stop ice forming, but she had forgotten about them. 'Oh
dear,' said Miss Level.
'Then we'd better hedge-hop.' The stick dropped like a stone. Tiffany
never forgot that ride,
though she often tried to. They flew just above the ground, which was
the blur just below her
feet. Every time they came to a fence or a hedge Miss Level would jump
it with a cry of 'Here we
go!' or 'Upsadaisy!' which was probably meant to make Tiffany feel
better. It didn't. She threw up
twice. Miss Level flew with her head bent so far down as to be almost
level with the stick, thus
getting the maximum aerodynamic advantage from the pointy hat. It was
quite a stubby one, only
about nine inches high, rather like a clown hat without the bobbles;
Tiffany found out later that
this was so that she didn't have to take it off when entering low-
ceilinged cottages. After a
while- an eternity from Tiffany's point of view- they left the
farmlands behind and started to fly
through foothills. Before long they'd left trees behind, too, and the
stick was flying above the
fast white waters of a wide river, studded with boulders. Spray
splashed over their boots. She
heard Miss Level yell above the roar of the river and the rush of the
wind: 'Would you mind
leaning back? This bit's a little tricky!' Tiffany risked peeking over
the witch's shoulder, and
gasped. There was not much water on the Chalk, except for the little
streams that people called
bournes, which flowed down the valleys in late winter and dried up
completely in the summer. Big
rivers flowed around it, of course, but they were slow and tame. The
water ahead wasn't slow and
tame. It was vertical. The river ran up into the dark blue sky, soared
up to the early stars. The
broom followed it. Tiffany leaned back and screamed, and went on
screaming as the broomstick
tilted in the air and climbed up the waterfall. She'd known the word,
certainly, but the word
hadn't been so big, so wet, and above all it hadn't been so loud. The
mist of it drenched her. The
noise pounded on her ears. She held onto Miss Level's belt as they
climbed through spray and
thunder and felt that she'd slip at any minute- - and then she was
thrown forward, and the noise
of the fall died away behind her as the stick, now once again going
'along' rather than 'up', sped
across the surface of a river that, while still leaping and foaming,
at least had the decency to
do it on the ground. There was a bridge high above, and walls of cold
rock hemmed in the river on
either side, but the walls got lower and the river got slower and the
air got warmer again until
the broomstick skimmed across calm flat water that probably didn't
know what was going to happen
to it. Silver fish zigzagged away as they passed over the surface.
After a while Miss Tick sent
them curving up across new fields, smaller and greener than the ones
at home. There were trees
again, and little woods in deep valleys. But the last of the sunlight
was draining away and, soon,
all there was below was darkness. Tiffany must have dozed off,
clinging onto Miss Level, because
she felt herself jerk awake as the broomstick stopped in mid-air. The
ground was some way below,
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but someone had set out a ring of what turned out to be candle ends,
burning in old jars.
Delicately, turning slowly, the stick settled down until it stopped
just above the grass. At this
point Tiffany's legs decided to untwist, and she fell off. 'Up we
get!' said Miss Level
cheerfully, picking her up. 'You did very well!' 'Sorry about
screaming and being sick...' Tiffany
mumbled, tripping over one of the jars and knocking the candle out.
She tried to make out anything
in the dark, but her head was spinning. 'Who lit candles, Miss Level?'
'I did. Let's get inside,
it's getting chilly-' Miss Level began. 'Oh, by magic,' said Tiffany,
still dizzy. 'Well, it can
be done by magic, yes,' said Miss Level. 'But I prefer matches, which
are of course a lot less
effort and quite magical in themselves, when you come to think about
it.' She untied the suitcase
from the stick and said: 'Here we are, then! I do hope you'll like it
here!' There was that
cheerfulness again. Even when she felt sick and dizzy, and quite
interested in knowing where the
privy was as soon as possible, Tiffany still had ears that worked and
a mind that, however much
she tried, wouldn't stop thinking. And it thought: That cheerfulness
has got cracks around the
edges. Something isn't right here.. .
Chapter 3 Latry
There was a cottage, but Tiffany couldn't see much in the gloom. Apple
trees crowded in around it.
Something hanging from a branch brushed against her as, walking
unsteadily, she followed Miss
Level. It swung away with a tinkling sound. There was the sound of
rushing water, too, some way
away. Miss Level was opening a door. It led into a small, brightly lit
and amazingly tidy kitchen.
A fire was burning briskly in the iron stove. 'Urn... I'm supposed to
be the apprentice,' said
Tiffany, still groggy from the flight. 'I'll make something to drink
if you show me where things
are-' 'No!' Miss Level burst out, raising her hands. The shout seemed
to have shocked her, because
she was shaking when she lowered them. 'No -I -I wouldn't dream of
it,' she said in a more normal
voice, trying to smile. 'You've had a long day. I'll show you to your
room and where things are,
and I'll bring you up some stew, and you can be an apprentice
tomorrow. No rush.' Tiffany looked
at the bubbling pot on the iron stove, and the loaf on the table. It
was fresh baked bread, she
could smell that. The trouble with Tiffany was her Third Thoughts.
[First Thoughts are the everyday
thoughts. Everyone has those. Second Thoughts are the thoughts you
think about the way you think.
People who enjoy thinking have those. Third Thoughts are thoughts that
watch the world and think
all by themselves. They're rare, and often troublesome. Listening to
them is part of witchcraft.]
They thought: She lives by herself. Who lit the fire? A bubbling pot
needs stirring from time to
time. Who stirred it? And someone lit the candles. Who? 'Is there
anyone else staying here, Miss
Level?' she said. Miss Level looked desperately at the pot and the
loaf and back to Tiffany. 'No,
there's only me,' she said, and somehow Tiffany knew she was telling
the truth. Or a truth,
anyway. 'In the morning?' said Miss Level, almost pleading. She looked
so forlorn that Tiffany
actually felt sorry for her. She smiled. 'Of course, Miss Level,' she
said. There was a brief tour
by candlelight. There was a privy not far from the cottage; it was a
two-holer, which Tiffany
thought was a bit odd but, of course, maybe other people had lived
here once. There was also a
room just for a bath, a terrible waste of space by the standards of
Home Farm. It had its own pump
and a big boiler for heating the water. This was definitely posh. Her
bedroom was a... nice room.
Nice was a very good word. Everything had frills. Anything that could
have a cover on it was
covered. Some attempt had been made to make the room... jolly, as if
being a bedroom was a jolly
wonderful thing to be. Tiffany's room back on the farm had a rag rug
on the floor, a water jug and
basin on a stand, a big wooden box for clothes, an ancient dolls'
house and some old calico
curtains and that was pretty much it. On the farm, bedrooms were for
shutting your eyes in. This
room had a chest of drawers. The contents of Tiffany's suitcase filled
one drawer easily. The bed
made no sound when Tiffany sat on it. Her old bed had a mattress so
old that it had a comfy hollow
in it, and the springs all made different noises; if she couldn't
sleep she could move various
parts of her body and play The Bells of St Ungulants on the springs-
cling twing glong, gling ping
bloyinnng, dlink plang dyonnng, ding ploink. This room smelled
different, too. It smelled of spare
rooms, and other people's soap. At the bottom of her suitcase was a
small box that Mr Block the
farm's carpenter had made for her. He did not go in for delicate work,
and it was quite heavy. In
it, she kept... keepsakes. There was a piece of chalk with a fossil in
it, which was quite rare,
and her personal butter stamp (which showed a witch on a broomstick)
in case she got a chance to
make butter here, and a dobby stone, which was supposed to be lucky
because it had a hole in it.
(She'd been told that when she was seven, and had picked it up. She
couldn't quite see how the
hole made it lucky, but since it had spent a lot of time in her
pocket, and then safe and sound in
the box, it probably was more fortunate than most stones, which got
kicked around and run over by
carts and so on.) There was also a blue-and-yellow wrapper from an old
packet of Jolly Sailor
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tobacco, and a buzzard feather, and an ancient flint arrowhead wrapped
up carefully in a piece of
sheep's wool. There were plenty of these on the Chalk. The Nac Mac
Feegle used them for spear
points. She lined these up neatly on the top of the chest of drawers,
alongside her diary, but
they didn't make the place look more homely. They just looked lonely.
Tiffany picked up the old
wrapper and the sheep's wool and sniffed them. They weren't quite the
smell of the shepherding
hut, but they were close enough to it to bring tears to her eyes. She
had never spent a night away
from the Chalk before. She knew the word 'homesickness' and wondered
whether this cold, thin
feeling growing inside her was what it felt like- Someone knocked at
the door. 'It's me,' said a
muffled voice. Tiffany jumped off the bed and opened the door. Miss
Level came in with a tray that
held a bowl of beef stew and some bread. She put it down on the little
table by the bed. 'If you
put it outside the door when you're finished, I'll take it down
later,' she said. 'Thank you very
much,' said Tiffany. Miss Level paused at the door. 'It's going to be
so nice having someone to
talk to, apart from myself,' she said. 'I do hope you won't want to
leave, Tiffany.' Tiffany gave
her a happy little smile, then waited until the door had shut and
she'd heard Miss Level's
footsteps go downstairs before tiptoeing to the window and checking
there were no bars in it.
There had been something scary about Miss Level's expression. It was
sort of hungry and hopeful
and pleading and frightened, all at once. Tiffany also checked that
she could bolt the bedroom
door on the inside. The beef stew tasted, indeed, just like beef stew
and not, just to take an
example completely and totally at random, stew made out of the last
poor girl who'd worked here.
To be a witch, you have to have a very good imagination. Just now,
Tiffany was wishing that hers
wasn't quite so good. But Mistress Weatherwax and Miss Tick wouldn't
have let her come here if it
was dangerous, would they? Well, would they? They might. They just
might. Witches didn't believe
in making things too easy. They assumed you used your brains. If you
didn't use your brains, you
had no business being a witch. The world doesn't make things easy,
they'd say. Learn how to learn
fast. But... they'd give her a chance, wouldn't they? Of course they
would. Probably. She'd nearly
finished the not-made-of-people-at-all-honestly stew when something
tried to take the bowl out of
her hand. It was the gentlest of tugs, and when she automatically
pulled it back, the tugging
stopped immediately. O-K, she thought. Another strange thing. Well,
this is a witch's cottage.
Something pulled at the spoon but, again, stopped as soon as she
tugged back. Tiffany put the
empty bowl and spoon back on the tray. 'All right,' she said, hoping
she sounded not scared at
all. I've finished.' The tray rose into the air and drifted gently
towards the door where it
landed with a faint tinkle. Up on the door, the bolt slid back. The
door opened. The tray rose up
and sailed through the doorway. The door shut. The bolt slid across.
Tiffany heard the rattle of
the spoon as, somewhere on the dark landing, the tray moved on. It
seemed to Tiffany that it was
vitally important that she thought before doing anything. And so she
thought: It would be stupid
to run around screaming because your tray had been taken away. After
all, whatever had done it had
even had the decency to bolt the door after itself, which meant that
it respected her privacy,
even while it ignored it. She cleaned her teeth at the washstand, got
into her night-gown and slid
into the bed. She blew out the candle. After a moment she got up, re-
lit the candle and with some
effort dragged the chest of drawers in front of the door. She wasn't
quite certain why, but she
felt better for doing it. She lay back in the dark again. Tiffany was
used to sleeping while,
outside on the downland, sheep baa'd and sheep bells occasionally went
tonk. Up here, there were
no sheep to baa and no bells to tonk and, every time one didn't, she
woke up thinking, What was
that? But she did get to sleep eventually, because she remembered
waking up in the middle of the
night to hear the chest of drawers very slowly slide back to its
original position. Tiffany woke
up, still alive and not chopped up, when the dawn was just turning
grey. Unfamiliar birds were
singing. There were no sounds in the cottage, and she thought: I'm the
apprentice, aren't I? I'm
the one who should be cleaning up and getting the fire lit. I know how
this is supposed to go. She
sat up and looked around the room. Her old clothes had been neatly
folded on top of the chest of
drawers. The fossil and the lucky stone and the other things had gone,
and it was only after a
frantic search that she found them back in the box in her suitcase.
'Now, look,' she said to the
room in general. 'I am a hag, you know. If there are any Nac Mac
Feegle here, step out this
minute!' Nothing happened. She hadn't expected anything to happen. The
Nac Mac Feegle weren't
particularly interested in tidying things up, anyway. As an experiment
she took the candlestick
off the bedside table, put it on the chest of drawers and stood back.
More nothing happened. She
turned to look out of the window and, as she did so, there was a faint
tint noise. When she spun
round, the candlestick was back on the table. Well... today was going
to be a day when she got
answers. Tiffany enjoyed the slightly angry feeling. It stopped her
thinking about how much she
wanted to go home. She went to put her dress on and realized that
there was something soft yet
crackly in a pocket. Oh, how could she have forgotten? But it had been
a busy day, a very busy
day, and maybe she'd wanted to forget, anyway. She pulled out Roland's
present and opened the
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white tissue paper carefully. It was a necklace. It was the Horse.
Tiffany stared at it. Not what
a horse looks like, but what a horse be... It had been carved in the
turf back before history
began, by people who had managed to convey in a few flowing lines
everything a horse was:
strength, grace, beauty and speed, straining to break free of the
hill. And now someone- someone
clever and, therefore, probably also someone expensive- had made it
out of silver. It was flat,
just like it was on the hillside and, just like the Horse on the
hillside, some parts of it were
not joined to the rest of the body. The craftsman, though, had joined
these carefully together
with tiny silver chain, so that when Tiffany held it up in
astonishment it was all there, movingwhile-
standing-still in the morning light. She had to put it on. And...
there was no mirror, not
even a tiny hand one. Oh, well... 'See me,' said Tiffany. And far
away, down on the plains,
something that had lost the trail awoke. Nothing happened for a
moment, and then the mist on the
fields parted as something invisible started to move, making a noise
like a swarm of flies...
Tiffany shut her eyes, took a couple of small steps sideways, a few
steps forward, turned round
and carefully opened her eyes again. There she stood, in front of her,
as still as a picture. The
Horse looked very well on the new dress, silver against green. She
wondered how much it must have
cost Roland. She wondered why. 'See me not,' she said. Slowly she took
the necklace off, wrapped
it up again in its tissue paper and put it in the box with the other
things from home. Then she
found one of the postcards from Twoshirts, and a pencil, and with care
and attention, wrote Roland
a short thank-you note. After a flash of guilt she carefully used the
other postcard to tell her
parents that she was completely still alive. Then, thoughtfully, she
went downstairs. It had been
dark last night, so she hadn't noticed the posters stuck up all down
the stairs. They were from
circuses, and were covered with clowns and animals and that old-
fashioned poster lettering where
no two lines of type are the same. They said things like: Thrills
Galore! Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!
Professor Monty Bladder's Three-Ring Circus Cabinet of Curiosities!!
In His Actual Mouth!!! See
the Horse With His Head Where His Tail Should Be! See the Egress!!!!!
CLOWNS! CLOWNS! CLOWNS! The
Flying Pastrami Brothers will defy Gravity, The Greatest Force in the
Universe without a net!* See
Clarence The Tap-Dancing Mule! Wonder at the * The Astounding Mind
Reading Act * Wonder at Topsy
and Tipsy And so it went on, right down to tiny print. They were
strange, bright things to find in
a little cottage in the woods. She found her way into the kitchen. It
was cold and quiet, except
for the ticking of a clock on the wall. Both the hands had fallen off
the clock face, and lay at
the bottom of the glass cover, so while the clock was still measuring
time it wasn't inclined to
tell anyone about it. As kitchens went, it was very tidy. In the
cupboard drawer beside the sink,
forks, spoons and knives were all in neat sections, which was a bit
worrying. Every kitchen drawer
Tiffany had ever seen might have been meant to be neat but over the
years had been crammed with
things that didn't quite fit, like big ladles and bent bottle-openers,
which meant that they
always stuck unless you knew the trick of opening them. Experimentally
she took a spoon out of the
spoon section, dropped it amongst the forks and shut the drawer. Then
she turned her back. There
was a sliding noise and a tinkle exactly like the tinkle a spoon makes
when it's put back amongst
the other spoons, who have missed it and are anxious to hear its tales
of life amongst the
frighteningly pointy people. This time she put a knife in with the
forks, shut the drawer- and
leaned on it. Nothing happened for a while, and then she heard the
cutlery rattling. The noise got
louder. The drawer began to shake. The whole sink began to tremble-
'All right,' said Tiffany,
jumping back. 'Have it your way!' The drawer burst open, the knife
jumped from section to section
like a fish and the drawer slammed back. Silence. 'Who are you?' said
Tiffany. No one replied. But
she didn't like the feeling in the air. Someone was upset with her
now. It had been a silly trick,
anyway. She went out into the garden, quickly. The rushing noise she
had heard last night had been
made by a waterfall not far from the cottage. A little water-wheel
pumped water into a big stone
cistern, and there was a pipe that led into the house. The garden was
full of ornaments. They were
rather sad, cheap ones- bunny rabbits with mad grins, pottery deer
with big eyes, gnomes with
pointy red hats and expressions that suggested they were on bad
medication. Things hung from the
apple trees or were tied to posts all around the place. There were
some dreamcatchers and cursenets,
which she sometimes saw hanging up outside cottages at home. Other
things looked like big
shambles, spinning and tinkling gently. Some... well, one looked like
a bird made out of old
brushes, but most looked like piles of junk. Odd junk, though. It
seemed to Tiffany that some of
it moved slightly as she went past. When she went back into the
cottage, Miss Level was sitting at
the kitchen table. So was Miss Level. There were, in fact, two of her.
'Sorry,' said the Miss
Level on the right. I thought it was best to get it over with right
now.' The two women were
exactly alike. 'Oh, I see,' said Tiffany. 'You're twins.' 'No,' said
the Miss Level on the left,
I'm not. This might be a little difficult for you to understand,' said
the other Miss Level. 'Let
me see, now. You know how twins are sometimes said to be able to share
thoughts and feelings?'
said the first Miss Level. Tiffany nodded. 'Well,' said the second
Miss Level, 'I'm a bit more
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complicated than that, I suppose, because I'm one person with two
bodies,' said the first Miss
Level, and now they spoke like players in a tennis match, slamming the
words back and forth. 'I
wanted to break this to you gently, because some people get upset by
the idea and find it creepy
or just plain weird.' The two bodies stopped. 'Sorry about that last
sentence,' said the Miss
Level on the left. I only do that when I'm really nervous.' 'Er, do
you mean that you both-'
Tiffany began, but the Miss Level on the right said quickly, There is
no both. There's just me, do
you understand? I know it's hard. But I have a right right hand and a
right left hand and a left
right hand and a left left hand. It's all me. I can go shopping and
stay home at the same time,
Tiffany. If it helps, think of me as one person with four arms and
four legs and four eyes.' All
four of those eyes now watched Tiffany nervously. 'And two noses,'
said Tiffany. 'That's right.
You've got it. My right body is slightly clumsier than my left body,
but I have better eyesight in
my right pair of eyes. I'm human, just like you, except that there's
more of me.' 'But one of youthat
is, one half of you- came all the way to Twoshirts for me,' said
Tiffany. 'Oh yes, I can
split up like that,' said Miss Level. 'I'm quite good at it. But if
there's a gap of more than
twenty miles or so, I get rather clumsy. And now a cup of tea would do
us both good, I think.'
Before Tiffany could move both the Miss Levels stood up and crossed
the kitchen. Tiffany watched
one person make a cup of tea using four arms. There are quite a few
things that need to be done to
make a cup of tea and Miss Level did them all at once. The bodies
stood side by side, passing
things from hand to hand to hand, moving kettle and cups and spoon in
a sort of ballet. 'When I
was child they thought I was twins,' she said over one of her
shoulders. 'And then... they thought
I was evil,' she said over another shoulder. 'Are you?' said Tiffany.
Both of Miss Level turned
round, looking shocked. 'What kind of question is that to ask anyone?'
she said. 'Um... the
obvious one?' said Tiffany. 'I mean, if they said "Yes I am!
Mwahahaha!", that would save a lot of
trouble, wouldn't it?' Four eyes narrowed. 'Mistress Weatherwax was
right,' said Miss Level. 'She
said you were a witch to your boots.' Inside, Tiffany beamed with
pride. 'Well, the thing about
the obvious,' said Miss Level, 'is that it so often isn't... Did
Mistress Weatherwax really take
off her hat to you?' 'Yes.' 'One day perhaps you'll know how much
honour she did you,' said Miss
Level. 'Anyway... no, I'm not evil. But I nearly became evil, I think.
Mother died not long after
I was born, my father was at sea and never came back-' 'Worse things
happen at sea,' said Tiffany.
It was something Granny Aching had told her. 'Yes, right, and probably
they did, or possibly he
never wanted to come back in any case,' said Miss Level dryly. 'And I
was put in a charity home,
bad food, horrible teachers, blah, blah, and I fell into the worst
company possible, which was my
own. It's amazing the tricks you can get up to when you've got two
bodies. Of course, everyone
thought I was twins. In the end I ran away to join the circus. Me! Can
you imagine that?' Topsy
and Tipsy, The Astounding Mind-Reading Act?' said Tiffany. Miss Level
stood stock still, her mouth
open. 'It was on the posters over the stairs,' Tiffany added. Now Miss
Level relaxed. 'Oh, yes. Of
course. Very... quick of you, Tiffany. Yes. You do notice things,
don't you...' 'I know I wouldn't
pay money to see the egress,' said Tiffany. 'It just means "the way
out".' [Knowing the dictionary
all the way through does have some uses.] 'Clever!' said Miss Level.
'Monty put that on a sign to
keep people moving though the Believe-It-or-Not tent. "This way to the
Egress!" Of course, people
thought it was a female eagle or something, so Monty had a big man
with a dictionary outside to
show them they got exactly what they paid for! Have you ever been to a
circus?' Once, Tiffany
admitted. It hadn't been much fun. Things that try too hard to be
funny often aren't. There had
been a moth-eaten lion with practically no teeth, a tightrope walker
who was never more than a few
feet above the ground, and a knifethrower who threw a lot of knives at
an elderly woman in pink
tights on a big spinning wooden disc and completely failed to hit her
every time. The only real
amusement was afterwards, when a cart ran over the clown. 'My circus
was a lot bigger,' said Miss
Level when Tiffany mentioned this. 'Although as I recall our knife-
thrower was also very bad at
aiming. We had elephants and camels and a lion so fierce it bit a
man's arm nearly off.' Tiffany
had to admit that this sounded a lot more entertaining. 'And what did
you do?' she said. 'Well, I
just bandaged him up while I shoo'd the lion off him-' 'Yes, Miss
Level, but I meant in the
circus. Just reading your own mind?' Miss Level beamed at Tiffany.
'That, yes, and nearly
everything else, too,' she said. 'With different wigs on I was the
Stupendous Bohunkus Sisters. I
juggled plates, you know, and wore costumes covered in sequins. And I
helped with the high wire
act. Not walking the wire, of course, but generally smiling and
glittering at the audience.
Everyone assumed I was twins, and circus people don't ask too many
personal questions in any case.
And then what with one thing and another, this and that... I came up
here and became a witch.'
Both of Miss Level watched Tiffany carefully. That was quite a long
sentence, that last sentence,'
said Tiffany. 'Yes, it was, wasn't it,' said Miss Level. 'I can't tell
you everything. Do you
still want to stay? The last three girls didn't. Some people find me
slightly... odd.' 'Urn...
I'll stay,' said Tiffany, slowly. The thing that moves things about is
a bit strange, though.'
year's. But, as he said, it had
the same number of days. It also had a lock, a little brass thing on a
leather flap. It had its
own tiny key. It was the lock that had attracted Tiffany. At a certain
age, you see the point of
locks. She wrote down 'Twoshirts', and spent some time thinking before
adding ya bend in the
road'. Miss Tick kept staring at the road. 'Is there something wrong,
Miss Tick?' Tiffany asked
again, looking up. 'I'm... not sure. Is anyone watching us?' Tiffany
looked around. Twoshirts
slept in the heat. There was no one watching. 'No, Miss Tick.' The
teacher removed her hat and
took from inside it a couple of pieces of wood and a reel of black
thread. She rolled up her
sleeves, looking around quickly in case Twoshirts had sprouted a
population, then broke off a
length of the thread and picked up the egg. Egg, thread and fingers
blurred for a few seconds and
there was the egg, hanging from Miss Tick's fingers in a neat little
black net. Tiffany was
impressed. But Miss Tick hadn't finished. She began to draw things
from her pockets, and a witch
generally has a lot of pockets. There were some beads, a couple of
feathers, a glass lens and one
or two strips of coloured paper. These all got threaded into the
tangle of wood and cotton. 'What
is that?' said Tiffany. 'It's a shamble,' said Miss Tick,
concentrating. 'Is it magic?' 'Not
exactly. It's trickery.' Miss Tick lifted her left hand. Feathers and
beads and egg and pocket
junk spun in the web of threads. 'Hmm,' she said. 'Now let me see what
I can see...' She pushed
the fingers of her right hand into the spiderwork of threads and
pulled.. . Egg and glass and
beads and feathers danced through the tangle, and Tiffany was sure
that at one point one thread
had passed straight through another. 'Oh,' she said. 'It's like Cat's
Cradle!' 'You've played
that, have you?' said Miss Tick vaguely, still concentrating. 'I can
do all the common shapes,'
said Tiffany. 'The Jewels and The Cradle and The House and The Flock
and The Three Old Ladies, One
With A Squint, Carrying The Bucket Of Fish To Market When They Meet
The Donkey... although you
need two people for that one, and I only ever did it once, and Betsy
Tupper scratched her nose at
the wrong moment and I had to get some scissors to cut her loose Miss
Tick's fingers worked like a
loom. 'Funny it should be a children's toy now,' she said. 'Aha...'
She stared into the complex
web she had created. 'Can you see anything?' said Tiffany. If I may be
allowed to concentrate,
child? Thank you...' Out in the road the sleeping dog woke, yawned and
pulled itself to its feet.
It ambled over to the bench the two of them were sitting on, gave
Tiffany a reproachful look and
then curled up by her feet. It smelled of old damp carpets. There's...
something...' said Miss
Tick, very quietly. Panic gripped Tiffany. Sunlight reflected off the
white dust of the road and
the stone wall opposite. Bees hummed between the little yellow flowers
that grew on top of the
wall. By Tiffany's feet, the spaniel snorted and farted occasionally.
But it was all wrong. She
could feel the pressure bearing down on her, pushing at her, pushing
at the landscape, squeezing
it under the bright light of day. Miss Tick and her cradle of threads
were motionless beside her,
frozen in the moment of bright horror. Only the threads moved, by
themselves. The egg danced, the
glass glinted, the beads slid and jumped from string to string- The
egg burst. The coach rolled
in. It arrived dragging the world behind it, in a cloud of dust and
noise and hooves. It blotted
out the sun. Doors opened. Harness jingled. Horses steamed. The
spaniel sat up and wagged its tail
hopefully. The pressure went- no, it fled. Beside Tiffany, Miss Tick
pulled out a handkerchief and
started to wipe egg off her dress. The rest of the shamble had
disappeared into a pocket with
remarkable speed. She smiled at Tiffany, and kept the smile as she
spoke, making herself look
slightly mad. 'Don't get up, don't do anything, just be as quiet as a
little mouse,' she said.
Tiffany felt in no state to do anything but sit still; she felt like
you feel when you wake up
after a nightmare. The richer passengers got out of the coach, and the
poorer ones climbed down
from the roof. Grumbling and stamping their feet, trailing road dust
behind them, they
disappeared. 'Now,' said Miss Tick, when the inn door had swung shut,
'we're... we're going to go
for a- a stroll. See that little wood up there? That's where we're
heading. And when Mr Crabber
the carter sees your father tomorrow he'll say he- he dropped you off
here just before the coach
arrived and- and- and everyone will be happy and no one will have
lied. That's important.' 'Miss
Tick?' said Tiffany, picking up the suitcase. 'Yes?' 'What happened
just now?' 'I don't know,'
said the witch. 'Do you feel all right?' 'Er... yes. You've got some
yolk on your hat.' And you're
very nervous, Tiffany thought. That was the most worrying part. 'I'm
sorry about your dress,' she
added. 'It's seen a lot worse,' said Miss Tick. 'Let's go.' 'Miss
Tick?' said Tiffany again as
they trudged away. 'Er, yes?' 'You are very nervous,' said Tiffany.
'If you told me why, that
means there's two of us, which is only half the nervousness each.'
Miss Tick sighed. 'It was
probably nothing,' she said. 'Miss Tick, the egg exploded!' 'Yes. Um.
A shamble, you see, can be
used as a simple magic detector and amplifier. It's actually very
crude, but it's always useful to
make one in times of distress and confusion. I think I... probably
didn't make it right. And
sometimes you do get big discharges of random magic' 'You made it
because you were worried,' said
Tiffany. 'Worried? Certainly not. I am never worried!' snapped Miss
Tick. 'However, since you
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raise the subject, I was concerned. Something was making me uneasy.
Something close, I think. It
was probably nothing. In fact I feel a lot better now we're leaving.'
But you don't look it,
Tiffany thought. And I was wrong. Two people means twice as much
nervousness each. But she was
sure there was nothing magical about Twoshirts. It was just a bend in
the road. Twenty minutes
later the passengers came out to get into the coach. The coachman did
notice that the horses were
sweating, and wondered why he could hear a swarm of flies when there
were no flies to be seen. The
dog that had been lying in the road was found later cowering in one of
the inn's stables,
whimpering. The wood was about half an hour's walk away, with Miss
Tick and Tiffany taking turns
to carry the suitcase. It was nothing special, as woods go, being
mostly full-grown beech,
although once you know that beech drips unpleasant poisons on the
ground beneath it to keep it
clear it's not quite the timber you thought it was. They sat on a log
and waited for sunset. Miss
Tick told Tiffany about shambles. They're not magical then?' said
Tiffany. 'No. They're something
to be magical through.' 'You mean like spectacles help you see but
don't see for you?' 'That's
right, well done! Is a telescope magical? Certainly not. It's just
glass in a tube, but with one
you could count the dragons on the moon. And... well, have you ever
used a bow? No, probably not.
But a shamble can act like a bow, too. A bow stores up muscle power as
the archer draws it, and
sends a heavy arrow much further than the archer could actually throw
it. You can make one out of
anything, so long as it... looks right.' 'And then you can tell if
magic is happening?' 'Yes, if
that's what you're looking for. When you're good at it you can use it
to help you do magic
yourself, to really focus on what you have to do. You can use it for
protection, like a curse-net,
or to send a spell, or... well, it's like those expensive penknives,
you know? The ones with the
tiny saw and the scissors and the toothpick? Except that I don't think
any witch has ever used a
shamble as a toothpick, ha ha. All young witches should learn how to
make a shamble. Miss Level
will help you.' Tiffany looked around the wood. The shadows were
growing longer, but they didn't
worry her. Bits of Miss Tick's teachings floated through her head:
Always face what you fear. Have
just enough money, never too much, and some string. Even if it's not
your fault it's your
responsibility. Witches deal with things. Never stand between two
mirrors. Never cackle. Do what
you must do. Never lie, but you don't always have to be honest. Never
wish. Especially don't wish
upon a star, which is astronomically stupid. Open your eyes, and then
open your eyes again. 'Miss
Level has got long grey hair, has she?' she said. 'Oh, yes.' 'And
she's quite a tall lady, just a
bit fat, and she wears quite a lot of necklaces,' Tiffany went on.
'And glasses on a chain. And
surprisingly high-heeled boots.' Miss Tick wasn't a fool. She looked
around the clearing. 'Where
is she?' she said. 'Standing by the tree over there,' said Tiffany.
Even so, Miss Tick had to
squint. What Tiffany had noticed was that witches filled space. In a
way that was almost
impossible to describe, they seemed to be more real than others around
them. They just showed up
more. But if they didn't want to be seen, they became amazingly hard
to notice. They didn't hide,
they didn't magically fade away, although it might seem like that, but
if you had to describe the
room afterwards you'd swear there hadn't been a witch in it. They just
seemed to let themselves
get lost. 'Ah yes, well done,' said Miss Tick. 'I was wondering when
you'd notice.' Ha! thought
Tiffany. Miss Level got realer as she walked towards them. She was all
in black, but clattered
slightly as she walked because of all the black jewellery she wore,
and she did have glasses, too,
which struck Tiffany as odd for a witch. Miss Level reminded Tiffany
of a happy hen. And she had
two arms, the normal number. 'Ah, Miss Tick,' she said. 'And you must
be Tiffany Aching.' Tiffany
knew enough to bow; witches don't curtsy (unless they want to
embarrass Roland). 'I'd just like to
have a word with Miss Level, Tiffany, if you don't mind,' said Miss
Tick, meaningfully. 'Senior
witch business.' Ha! thought Tiffany again, because she liked the
sound of it. 'I'll just go and
have a look at a tree then, shall I?' she said with what she hoped was
withering sarcasm. I should
use the bushes if I was you, dear,' Miss Level called after her. 'I
don't like stopping once we're
airborne.' There were some holly bushes that made a decent screen, but
after being talked to as
though she were ten years old Tiffany would rather have allowed her
bladder to explode. I beat the
Queen of the Fairies! she thought as she wandered into the wood. All
right, I'm not sure how,
because it's all like a dream now, but I did do it! She was angry at
being sent away like that. A
little respect wouldn't hurt, would it? That's what the old witch
Mistress Weatherwax had said,
wasn't it? 'I show you respect, as you in turn will respect me.'
Mistress Weatherwax, the witch
who all the other witches secretly wanted to be like, had showed her
respect, so you'd think the
others could make a bit of effort in that department. She said: 'See
me.' ... and stepped out of
herself and walked away towards Miss Tick and Miss Level, in her
invisible ghost body. She didn't
dare look down, in case she saw her feet weren't there. When she
turned and looked back at her
solid body, she saw it standing demurely by the holly bushes, clearly
too far away to be listening
to anyone's conversation. As Tiffany stealthily drew nearer she heard
Miss Tick say: '- but quite
frighteningly precocious.' 'Oh dear. I've never got on very well with
clever people,' said Miss
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Level. 'Oh, she's a good child at heart,' said Miss Tick, which
annoyed Tiffany rather more than
'frighteningly precocious' had. 'Of course, you know my situation,'
said Miss Level as the
invisible Tiffany inched closer. 'Yes, Miss Level, but your work does
you great credit. That's why
Mistress Weatherwax suggested you.' 'But I am afraid I'm getting a bit
absent-minded,' Miss Level
worried. 'It was terrible flying down here, because like a big silly I
left my long-distance
spectacles on my other nose...' Her other nose? thought Tiffany. Both
witches froze, at exactly
the same time. I'm without an egg!' said Miss Tick. 'I have a beetle
in a matchbox against just
such an emergency!' squeaked Miss Level. Their hands flew to their
pockets and pulled out string
and feathers and bits of coloured cloth- They know I'm here! thought
Tiffany, and whispered, 'See
me not!' She blinked and rocked on her heels as she arrived back in
the patient little figure by
the holly bushes. In the distance, Miss Level was frantically making a
shamble and Miss Tick was
staring around the wood. 'Tiffany, come here at once!' she shouted.
'Yes, Miss Tick,' said
Tiffany, trotting forward like a good girl. They spotted me somehow,
she thought. Well, they are
witches, after all, even if in my opinion they're not very good ones-
Then the pressure came. It
seemed to squash the wood flat and filled it with the horrible feeling
that something is standing
right behind you. Tiffany sank to her knees with her hands over her
ears and a pain like the worst
earache squeezing her head. 'Finished!' shouted Miss Level. She held
up a shamble. It was quite
different from Miss Tick's, and made up of string and crow feathers
and glittery black beads and,
in the middle, an ordinary matchbox. Tiffany yelled. The pain was like
red-hot needles and her
ears filled with the buzz of flies. The matchbox exploded. And then
there was silence, and
birdsong, and nothing to show that anything had happened apart from a
few pieces of matchbox
spiralling down, along with an iridescent fragment of wing case. 'Oh
dear,' said Miss Level. 'He
was quite a good beetle, as beetles go...' "Tiffany, are you all
right?' said Miss Tick. Tiffany
blinked. The pain had gone as fast as it had arrived, leaving only a
burning memory. She scrambled
to her feet. 'I think so, Miss Tick!' Then a word, if you please!'
said Miss Tick, marching over
to a tree and standing there looking stern. 'Yes, Miss Tick?' said
Tiffany. 'Did you... do
anything?' said Miss Tick. 'You haven't been summoning things, have
you?' 'No! Anyway, I don't
know how to!' said Tiffany. 'It's not your little men then, is it?'
said Miss Tick doubtfully.
'They're not mine, Miss Tick. And they don't do that sort of thing.
They just shout "Crivens!" and
then start kicking people on the ankle. You definitely know it's
them.' 'Well, whatever it was, it
seems to have gone,' said Miss Level. 'And we should go, too,
otherwise we'll be flying all
night.' She reached behind another tree and picked up a bundle of
firewood. At least, it looked
exactly like that, because it was supposed to. 'My own invention,' she
said, modestly. 'One never
knows down here on the plains, does one? And the handle shoots out by
means of this button- Oh,
I'm so sorry, it sometimes does that. Did anyone see where it went?'
The handle was located in a
bush, and screwed back in. Tiffany, a girl who listened to what people
said, watched Miss Level
closely. She definitely had only one nose on her face, and it was sort
of uncomfortable to imagine
where anyone might have another one and what they'd use it for. Then
Miss Level pulled some rope
out of her pocket and passed it to someone who wasn't there. That's
what she did, Tiffany was
sure. She didn't drop it, she didn't throw it, she just held it out
and let go, as though she'd
thought she was hanging it on an invisible hook. It landed in a coil
on the moss. Miss Level
looked down, then saw Tiffany staring at her and laughed nervously.
'Silly me,' she said. 'I
thought I was over there! I'll forget my own head next!' 'Well... if
it's the one on top of your
neck,' said Tiffany cautiously, still thinking about the other nose,
'you've still got it.' The
old suitcase was roped to the bristle end of the broomstick, which now
floated calmly a few feet
above the ground. 'There, that'll make a nice comfy seat,' said Miss
Level, now the bag of nerves
that most people turned into when they felt Tiffany staring at them.
'If you'd just hang on behind
me. Er. That's what I normally do.' 'You normally hang on behind you?'
said Tiffany. 'How can-?'
"Tiffany, I've always encouraged your forthright way of asking
questions,' said Miss Tick loudly.
'And now, please, I would love to congratulate you on your mastery of
silence! Do climb on behind
Miss Level, I'm sure she'll want to leave while you've still got some
daylight.' The stick bobbed
a little as Miss Level climbed onto it. She patted it, invitingly.
'You're not frightened of
heights, are you, dear?' she said as Tiffany climbed on. 'No,' said
Tiffany. 'I shall drop in when
I come up for the Witch Trials,' said Miss Tick as Tiffany felt the
stick rise gently under her.
'Take care!' It turned out that when Miss Level had asked Tiffany if
she was scared of heights, it
had been the wrong question. Tiffany was not afraid of heights at all.
She could walk past tall
trees without batting an eyelid. Looking up at huge towering mountains
didn't bother her a bit.
What she was afraid of, although she hadn't realized it up until this
point, was depths. She was
afraid of dropping such a long way out of the sky that she'd have time
to run out of breath
screaming before hitting the rocks so hard that she'd turn to a sort
of jelly and all her bones
would break into dust. She was, in fact, afraid of the ground. Miss
Level should have thought
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before asking the question. Tiffany clung to Miss Level's belt and
stared at the cloth of her
dress. 'Have you ever flown before, Tiffany?' asked the witch as they
rose. 'Gnf!' squeaked
Tiffany. 'If you like, I could take us round in a little circle,' said
Miss Level. 'We should have
a fine view of your country from up here.' The air was rushing past
Tiffany now. It was a lot
colder. She kept her eyes fixed firmly on the cloth. 'Would you like
that?' said Miss Level,
raising her voice as the wind grew louder. 'It won't take a moment!'
Tiffany didn't have time to
say no, and in any case was sure she'd be sick if she opened her
mouth. The stick lurched under
her and the world went sideways. She didn't want to look, but
remembered that a witch is always
inquisitive to the point of nosiness. To stay a witch, she had to
look. She risked a glance and
saw the world under her. The red-gold light of sunset was flowing
across the land, and down there
were the long shadows of Twoshirts and, further away, the woods and
villages all the way back to
the long curved hill of the Chalk- - which glowed red, and the white
carving of the chalk Horse
burned gold like some giant's pendant. Tiffany stared at it; in the
fading light of the afternoon,
with the shadows racing away from the sliding sun, it looked alive. At
that moment she wanted to
jump off, fly back, get there by closing her eyes and clicking her
heels together, do anything-
No! She 'd bundled those thoughts away, hadn 't she? She had to learn,
and there was no one on the
hills to teach her! But the Chalk was her world. She walked on it
every day. She could feel its
ancient life under her feet. The land was in her bones, just as Granny
Aching had said. It was in
her name, too; in the old language of the Nac Mac Feegle her name
sounded like 'Land Under Wave',
and in the eye of her mind she 'd walked in those deep prehistoric
seas when the Chalk had been
formed, in a million-year rain made of the shells of tiny creatures.
She trod a land made of life,
and breathed it in, and listened to it, and thought its thoughts for
it. To see it now, small,
alone, in a landscape that stretched to the end of the world, was too
much. She had to go back to
it- For a moment the stick wobbled in the air. No! I know I must go!
It jerked back, and there was
a sickening feeling in her stomach as the stick curved away towards
the mountains. 'A little bit
of turbulence there, I think,' said Miss Level over her shoulder. 'By
the way, did Miss Tick warn
you about the thick woolly pants, dear?' Tiffany, still shocked,
mumbled something which managed
to sound like 'no'. Miss Tick had mentioned the pants, and how a
sensible witch wore at least
three pairs to stop ice forming, but she had forgotten about them. 'Oh
dear,' said Miss Level.
'Then we'd better hedge-hop.' The stick dropped like a stone. Tiffany
never forgot that ride,
though she often tried to. They flew just above the ground, which was
the blur just below her
feet. Every time they came to a fence or a hedge Miss Level would jump
it with a cry of 'Here we
go!' or 'Upsadaisy!' which was probably meant to make Tiffany feel
better. It didn't. She threw up
twice. Miss Level flew with her head bent so far down as to be almost
level with the stick, thus
getting the maximum aerodynamic advantage from the pointy hat. It was
quite a stubby one, only
about nine inches high, rather like a clown hat without the bobbles;
Tiffany found out later that
this was so that she didn't have to take it off when entering low-
ceilinged cottages. After a
while- an eternity from Tiffany's point of view- they left the
farmlands behind and started to fly
through foothills. Before long they'd left trees behind, too, and the
stick was flying above the
fast white waters of a wide river, studded with boulders. Spray
splashed over their boots. She
heard Miss Level yell above the roar of the river and the rush of the
wind: 'Would you mind
leaning back? This bit's a little tricky!' Tiffany risked peeking over
the witch's shoulder, and
gasped. There was not much water on the Chalk, except for the little
streams that people called
bournes, which flowed down the valleys in late winter and dried up
completely in the summer. Big
rivers flowed around it, of course, but they were slow and tame. The
water ahead wasn't slow and
tame. It was vertical. The river ran up into the dark blue sky, soared
up to the early stars. The
broom followed it. Tiffany leaned back and screamed, and went on
screaming as the broomstick
tilted in the air and climbed up the waterfall. She'd known the word,
certainly, but the word
hadn't been so big, so wet, and above all it hadn't been so loud. The
mist of it drenched her. The
noise pounded on her ears. She held onto Miss Level's belt as they
climbed through spray and
thunder and felt that she'd slip at any minute- - and then she was
thrown forward, and the noise
of the fall died away behind her as the stick, now once again going
'along' rather than 'up', sped
across the surface of a river that, while still leaping and foaming,
at least had the decency to
do it on the ground. There was a bridge high above, and walls of cold
rock hemmed in the river on
either side, but the walls got lower and the river got slower and the
air got warmer again until
the broomstick skimmed across calm flat water that probably didn't
know what was going to happen
to it. Silver fish zigzagged away as they passed over the surface.
After a while Miss Tick sent
them curving up across new fields, smaller and greener than the ones
at home. There were trees
again, and little woods in deep valleys. But the last of the sunlight
was draining away and, soon,
all there was below was darkness. Tiffany must have dozed off,
clinging onto Miss Level, because
she felt herself jerk awake as the broomstick stopped in mid-air. The
ground was some way below,
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but someone had set out a ring of what turned out to be candle ends,
burning in old jars.
Delicately, turning slowly, the stick settled down until it stopped
just above the grass. At this
point Tiffany's legs decided to untwist, and she fell off. 'Up we
get!' said Miss Level
cheerfully, picking her up. 'You did very well!' 'Sorry about
screaming and being sick...' Tiffany
mumbled, tripping over one of the jars and knocking the candle out.
She tried to make out anything
in the dark, but her head was spinning. 'Who lit candles, Miss Level?'
'I did. Let's get inside,
it's getting chilly-' Miss Level began. 'Oh, by magic,' said Tiffany,
still dizzy. 'Well, it can
be done by magic, yes,' said Miss Level. 'But I prefer matches, which
are of course a lot less
effort and quite magical in themselves, when you come to think about
it.' She untied the suitcase
from the stick and said: 'Here we are, then! I do hope you'll like it
here!' There was that
cheerfulness again. Even when she felt sick and dizzy, and quite
interested in knowing where the
privy was as soon as possible, Tiffany still had ears that worked and
a mind that, however much
she tried, wouldn't stop thinking. And it thought: That cheerfulness
has got cracks around the
edges. Something isn't right here.. .
Chapter 3 Latry
There was a cottage, but Tiffany couldn't see much in the gloom. Apple
trees crowded in around it.
Something hanging from a branch brushed against her as, walking
unsteadily, she followed Miss
Level. It swung away with a tinkling sound. There was the sound of
rushing water, too, some way
away. Miss Level was opening a door. It led into a small, brightly lit
and amazingly tidy kitchen.
A fire was burning briskly in the iron stove. 'Urn... I'm supposed to
be the apprentice,' said
Tiffany, still groggy from the flight. 'I'll make something to drink
if you show me where things
are-' 'No!' Miss Level burst out, raising her hands. The shout seemed
to have shocked her, because
she was shaking when she lowered them. 'No -I -I wouldn't dream of
it,' she said in a more normal
voice, trying to smile. 'You've had a long day. I'll show you to your
room and where things are,
and I'll bring you up some stew, and you can be an apprentice
tomorrow. No rush.' Tiffany looked
at the bubbling pot on the iron stove, and the loaf on the table. It
was fresh baked bread, she
could smell that. The trouble with Tiffany was her Third Thoughts.
[First Thoughts are the everyday
thoughts. Everyone has those. Second Thoughts are the thoughts you
think about the way you think.
People who enjoy thinking have those. Third Thoughts are thoughts that
watch the world and think
all by themselves. They're rare, and often troublesome. Listening to
them is part of witchcraft.]
They thought: She lives by herself. Who lit the fire? A bubbling pot
needs stirring from time to
time. Who stirred it? And someone lit the candles. Who? 'Is there
anyone else staying here, Miss
Level?' she said. Miss Level looked desperately at the pot and the
loaf and back to Tiffany. 'No,
there's only me,' she said, and somehow Tiffany knew she was telling
the truth. Or a truth,
anyway. 'In the morning?' said Miss Level, almost pleading. She looked
so forlorn that Tiffany
actually felt sorry for her. She smiled. 'Of course, Miss Level,' she
said. There was a brief tour
by candlelight. There was a privy not far from the cottage; it was a
two-holer, which Tiffany
thought was a bit odd but, of course, maybe other people had lived
here once. There was also a
room just for a bath, a terrible waste of space by the standards of
Home Farm. It had its own pump
and a big boiler for heating the water. This was definitely posh. Her
bedroom was a... nice room.
Nice was a very good word. Everything had frills. Anything that could
have a cover on it was
covered. Some attempt had been made to make the room... jolly, as if
being a bedroom was a jolly
wonderful thing to be. Tiffany's room back on the farm had a rag rug
on the floor, a water jug and
basin on a stand, a big wooden box for clothes, an ancient dolls'
house and some old calico
curtains and that was pretty much it. On the farm, bedrooms were for
shutting your eyes in. This
room had a chest of drawers. The contents of Tiffany's suitcase filled
one drawer easily. The bed
made no sound when Tiffany sat on it. Her old bed had a mattress so
old that it had a comfy hollow
in it, and the springs all made different noises; if she couldn't
sleep she could move various
parts of her body and play The Bells of St Ungulants on the springs-
cling twing glong, gling ping
bloyinnng, dlink plang dyonnng, ding ploink. This room smelled
different, too. It smelled of spare
rooms, and other people's soap. At the bottom of her suitcase was a
small box that Mr Block the
farm's carpenter had made for her. He did not go in for delicate work,
and it was quite heavy. In
it, she kept... keepsakes. There was a piece of chalk with a fossil in
it, which was quite rare,
and her personal butter stamp (which showed a witch on a broomstick)
in case she got a chance to
make butter here, and a dobby stone, which was supposed to be lucky
because it had a hole in it.
(She'd been told that when she was seven, and had picked it up. She
couldn't quite see how the
hole made it lucky, but since it had spent a lot of time in her
pocket, and then safe and sound in
the box, it probably was more fortunate than most stones, which got
kicked around and run over by
carts and so on.) There was also a blue-and-yellow wrapper from an old
packet of Jolly Sailor
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tobacco, and a buzzard feather, and an ancient flint arrowhead wrapped
up carefully in a piece of
sheep's wool. There were plenty of these on the Chalk. The Nac Mac
Feegle used them for spear
points. She lined these up neatly on the top of the chest of drawers,
alongside her diary, but
they didn't make the place look more homely. They just looked lonely.
Tiffany picked up the old
wrapper and the sheep's wool and sniffed them. They weren't quite the
smell of the shepherding
hut, but they were close enough to it to bring tears to her eyes. She
had never spent a night away
from the Chalk before. She knew the word 'homesickness' and wondered
whether this cold, thin
feeling growing inside her was what it felt like- Someone knocked at
the door. 'It's me,' said a
muffled voice. Tiffany jumped off the bed and opened the door. Miss
Level came in with a tray that
held a bowl of beef stew and some bread. She put it down on the little
table by the bed. 'If you
put it outside the door when you're finished, I'll take it down
later,' she said. 'Thank you very
much,' said Tiffany. Miss Level paused at the door. 'It's going to be
so nice having someone to
talk to, apart from myself,' she said. 'I do hope you won't want to
leave, Tiffany.' Tiffany gave
her a happy little smile, then waited until the door had shut and
she'd heard Miss Level's
footsteps go downstairs before tiptoeing to the window and checking
there were no bars in it.
There had been something scary about Miss Level's expression. It was
sort of hungry and hopeful
and pleading and frightened, all at once. Tiffany also checked that
she could bolt the bedroom
door on the inside. The beef stew tasted, indeed, just like beef stew
and not, just to take an
example completely and totally at random, stew made out of the last
poor girl who'd worked here.
To be a witch, you have to have a very good imagination. Just now,
Tiffany was wishing that hers
wasn't quite so good. But Mistress Weatherwax and Miss Tick wouldn't
have let her come here if it
was dangerous, would they? Well, would they? They might. They just
might. Witches didn't believe
in making things too easy. They assumed you used your brains. If you
didn't use your brains, you
had no business being a witch. The world doesn't make things easy,
they'd say. Learn how to learn
fast. But... they'd give her a chance, wouldn't they? Of course they
would. Probably. She'd nearly
finished the not-made-of-people-at-all-honestly stew when something
tried to take the bowl out of
her hand. It was the gentlest of tugs, and when she automatically
pulled it back, the tugging
stopped immediately. O-K, she thought. Another strange thing. Well,
this is a witch's cottage.
Something pulled at the spoon but, again, stopped as soon as she
tugged back. Tiffany put the
empty bowl and spoon back on the tray. 'All right,' she said, hoping
she sounded not scared at
all. I've finished.' The tray rose into the air and drifted gently
towards the door where it
landed with a faint tinkle. Up on the door, the bolt slid back. The
door opened. The tray rose up
and sailed through the doorway. The door shut. The bolt slid across.
Tiffany heard the rattle of
the spoon as, somewhere on the dark landing, the tray moved on. It
seemed to Tiffany that it was
vitally important that she thought before doing anything. And so she
thought: It would be stupid
to run around screaming because your tray had been taken away. After
all, whatever had done it had
even had the decency to bolt the door after itself, which meant that
it respected her privacy,
even while it ignored it. She cleaned her teeth at the washstand, got
into her night-gown and slid
into the bed. She blew out the candle. After a moment she got up, re-
lit the candle and with some
effort dragged the chest of drawers in front of the door. She wasn't
quite certain why, but she
felt better for doing it. She lay back in the dark again. Tiffany was
used to sleeping while,
outside on the downland, sheep baa'd and sheep bells occasionally went
tonk. Up here, there were
no sheep to baa and no bells to tonk and, every time one didn't, she
woke up thinking, What was
that? But she did get to sleep eventually, because she remembered
waking up in the middle of the
night to hear the chest of drawers very slowly slide back to its
original position. Tiffany woke
up, still alive and not chopped up, when the dawn was just turning
grey. Unfamiliar birds were
singing. There were no sounds in the cottage, and she thought: I'm the
apprentice, aren't I? I'm
the one who should be cleaning up and getting the fire lit. I know how
this is supposed to go. She
sat up and looked around the room. Her old clothes had been neatly
folded on top of the chest of
drawers. The fossil and the lucky stone and the other things had gone,
and it was only after a
frantic search that she found them back in the box in her suitcase.
'Now, look,' she said to the
room in general. 'I am a hag, you know. If there are any Nac Mac
Feegle here, step out this
minute!' Nothing happened. She hadn't expected anything to happen. The
Nac Mac Feegle weren't
particularly interested in tidying things up, anyway. As an experiment
she took the candlestick
off the bedside table, put it on the chest of drawers and stood back.
More nothing happened. She
turned to look out of the window and, as she did so, there was a faint
tint noise. When she spun
round, the candlestick was back on the table. Well... today was going
to be a day when she got
answers. Tiffany enjoyed the slightly angry feeling. It stopped her
thinking about how much she
wanted to go home. She went to put her dress on and realized that
there was something soft yet
crackly in a pocket. Oh, how could she have forgotten? But it had been
a busy day, a very busy
day, and maybe she'd wanted to forget, anyway. She pulled out Roland's
present and opened the
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white tissue paper carefully. It was a necklace. It was the Horse.
Tiffany stared at it. Not what
a horse looks like, but what a horse be... It had been carved in the
turf back before history
began, by people who had managed to convey in a few flowing lines
everything a horse was:
strength, grace, beauty and speed, straining to break free of the
hill. And now someone- someone
clever and, therefore, probably also someone expensive- had made it
out of silver. It was flat,
just like it was on the hillside and, just like the Horse on the
hillside, some parts of it were
not joined to the rest of the body. The craftsman, though, had joined
these carefully together
with tiny silver chain, so that when Tiffany held it up in
astonishment it was all there, movingwhile-
standing-still in the morning light. She had to put it on. And...
there was no mirror, not
even a tiny hand one. Oh, well... 'See me,' said Tiffany. And far
away, down on the plains,
something that had lost the trail awoke. Nothing happened for a
moment, and then the mist on the
fields parted as something invisible started to move, making a noise
like a swarm of flies...
Tiffany shut her eyes, took a couple of small steps sideways, a few
steps forward, turned round
and carefully opened her eyes again. There she stood, in front of her,
as still as a picture. The
Horse looked very well on the new dress, silver against green. She
wondered how much it must have
cost Roland. She wondered why. 'See me not,' she said. Slowly she took
the necklace off, wrapped
it up again in its tissue paper and put it in the box with the other
things from home. Then she
found one of the postcards from Twoshirts, and a pencil, and with care
and attention, wrote Roland
a short thank-you note. After a flash of guilt she carefully used the
other postcard to tell her
parents that she was completely still alive. Then, thoughtfully, she
went downstairs. It had been
dark last night, so she hadn't noticed the posters stuck up all down
the stairs. They were from
circuses, and were covered with clowns and animals and that old-
fashioned poster lettering where
no two lines of type are the same. They said things like: Thrills
Galore! Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!
Professor Monty Bladder's Three-Ring Circus Cabinet of Curiosities!!
In His Actual Mouth!!! See
the Horse With His Head Where His Tail Should Be! See the Egress!!!!!
CLOWNS! CLOWNS! CLOWNS! The
Flying Pastrami Brothers will defy Gravity, The Greatest Force in the
Universe without a net!* See
Clarence The Tap-Dancing Mule! Wonder at the * The Astounding Mind
Reading Act * Wonder at Topsy
and Tipsy And so it went on, right down to tiny print. They were
strange, bright things to find in
a little cottage in the woods. She found her way into the kitchen. It
was cold and quiet, except
for the ticking of a clock on the wall. Both the hands had fallen off
the clock face, and lay at
the bottom of the glass cover, so while the clock was still measuring
time it wasn't inclined to
tell anyone about it. As kitchens went, it was very tidy. In the
cupboard drawer beside the sink,
forks, spoons and knives were all in neat sections, which was a bit
worrying. Every kitchen drawer
Tiffany had ever seen might have been meant to be neat but over the
years had been crammed with
things that didn't quite fit, like big ladles and bent bottle-openers,
which meant that they
always stuck unless you knew the trick of opening them. Experimentally
she took a spoon out of the
spoon section, dropped it amongst the forks and shut the drawer. Then
she turned her back. There
was a sliding noise and a tinkle exactly like the tinkle a spoon makes
when it's put back amongst
the other spoons, who have missed it and are anxious to hear its tales
of life amongst the
frighteningly pointy people. This time she put a knife in with the
forks, shut the drawer- and
leaned on it. Nothing happened for a while, and then she heard the
cutlery rattling. The noise got
louder. The drawer began to shake. The whole sink began to tremble-
'All right,' said Tiffany,
jumping back. 'Have it your way!' The drawer burst open, the knife
jumped from section to section
like a fish and the drawer slammed back. Silence. 'Who are you?' said
Tiffany. No one replied. But
she didn't like the feeling in the air. Someone was upset with her
now. It had been a silly trick,
anyway. She went out into the garden, quickly. The rushing noise she
had heard last night had been
made by a waterfall not far from the cottage. A little water-wheel
pumped water into a big stone
cistern, and there was a pipe that led into the house. The garden was
full of ornaments. They were
rather sad, cheap ones- bunny rabbits with mad grins, pottery deer
with big eyes, gnomes with
pointy red hats and expressions that suggested they were on bad
medication. Things hung from the
apple trees or were tied to posts all around the place. There were
some dreamcatchers and cursenets,
which she sometimes saw hanging up outside cottages at home. Other
things looked like big
shambles, spinning and tinkling gently. Some... well, one looked like
a bird made out of old
brushes, but most looked like piles of junk. Odd junk, though. It
seemed to Tiffany that some of
it moved slightly as she went past. When she went back into the
cottage, Miss Level was sitting at
the kitchen table. So was Miss Level. There were, in fact, two of her.
'Sorry,' said the Miss
Level on the right. I thought it was best to get it over with right
now.' The two women were
exactly alike. 'Oh, I see,' said Tiffany. 'You're twins.' 'No,' said
the Miss Level on the left,
I'm not. This might be a little difficult for you to understand,' said
the other Miss Level. 'Let
me see, now. You know how twins are sometimes said to be able to share
thoughts and feelings?'
said the first Miss Level. Tiffany nodded. 'Well,' said the second
Miss Level, 'I'm a bit more
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complicated than that, I suppose, because I'm one person with two
bodies,' said the first Miss
Level, and now they spoke like players in a tennis match, slamming the
words back and forth. 'I
wanted to break this to you gently, because some people get upset by
the idea and find it creepy
or just plain weird.' The two bodies stopped. 'Sorry about that last
sentence,' said the Miss
Level on the left. I only do that when I'm really nervous.' 'Er, do
you mean that you both-'
Tiffany began, but the Miss Level on the right said quickly, There is
no both. There's just me, do
you understand? I know it's hard. But I have a right right hand and a
right left hand and a left
right hand and a left left hand. It's all me. I can go shopping and
stay home at the same time,
Tiffany. If it helps, think of me as one person with four arms and
four legs and four eyes.' All
four of those eyes now watched Tiffany nervously. 'And two noses,'
said Tiffany. 'That's right.
You've got it. My right body is slightly clumsier than my left body,
but I have better eyesight in
my right pair of eyes. I'm human, just like you, except that there's
more of me.' 'But one of youthat
is, one half of you- came all the way to Twoshirts for me,' said
Tiffany. 'Oh yes, I can
split up like that,' said Miss Level. 'I'm quite good at it. But if
there's a gap of more than
twenty miles or so, I get rather clumsy. And now a cup of tea would do
us both good, I think.'
Before Tiffany could move both the Miss Levels stood up and crossed
the kitchen. Tiffany watched
one person make a cup of tea using four arms. There are quite a few
things that need to be done to
make a cup of tea and Miss Level did them all at once. The bodies
stood side by side, passing
things from hand to hand to hand, moving kettle and cups and spoon in
a sort of ballet. 'When I
was child they thought I was twins,' she said over one of her
shoulders. 'And then... they thought
I was evil,' she said over another shoulder. 'Are you?' said Tiffany.
Both of Miss Level turned
round, looking shocked. 'What kind of question is that to ask anyone?'
she said. 'Um... the
obvious one?' said Tiffany. 'I mean, if they said "Yes I am!
Mwahahaha!", that would save a lot of
trouble, wouldn't it?' Four eyes narrowed. 'Mistress Weatherwax was
right,' said Miss Level. 'She
said you were a witch to your boots.' Inside, Tiffany beamed with
pride. 'Well, the thing about
the obvious,' said Miss Level, 'is that it so often isn't... Did
Mistress Weatherwax really take
off her hat to you?' 'Yes.' 'One day perhaps you'll know how much
honour she did you,' said Miss
Level. 'Anyway... no, I'm not evil. But I nearly became evil, I think.
Mother died not long after
I was born, my father was at sea and never came back-' 'Worse things
happen at sea,' said Tiffany.
It was something Granny Aching had told her. 'Yes, right, and probably
they did, or possibly he
never wanted to come back in any case,' said Miss Level dryly. 'And I
was put in a charity home,
bad food, horrible teachers, blah, blah, and I fell into the worst
company possible, which was my
own. It's amazing the tricks you can get up to when you've got two
bodies. Of course, everyone
thought I was twins. In the end I ran away to join the circus. Me! Can
you imagine that?' Topsy
and Tipsy, The Astounding Mind-Reading Act?' said Tiffany. Miss Level
stood stock still, her mouth
open. 'It was on the posters over the stairs,' Tiffany added. Now Miss
Level relaxed. 'Oh, yes. Of
course. Very... quick of you, Tiffany. Yes. You do notice things,
don't you...' 'I know I wouldn't
pay money to see the egress,' said Tiffany. 'It just means "the way
out".' [Knowing the dictionary
all the way through does have some uses.] 'Clever!' said Miss Level.
'Monty put that on a sign to
keep people moving though the Believe-It-or-Not tent. "This way to the
Egress!" Of course, people
thought it was a female eagle or something, so Monty had a big man
with a dictionary outside to
show them they got exactly what they paid for! Have you ever been to a
circus?' Once, Tiffany
admitted. It hadn't been much fun. Things that try too hard to be
funny often aren't. There had
been a moth-eaten lion with practically no teeth, a tightrope walker
who was never more than a few
feet above the ground, and a knifethrower who threw a lot of knives at
an elderly woman in pink
tights on a big spinning wooden disc and completely failed to hit her
every time. The only real
amusement was afterwards, when a cart ran over the clown. 'My circus
was a lot bigger,' said Miss
Level when Tiffany mentioned this. 'Although as I recall our knife-
thrower was also very bad at
aiming. We had elephants and camels and a lion so fierce it bit a
man's arm nearly off.' Tiffany
had to admit that this sounded a lot more entertaining. 'And what did
you do?' she said. 'Well, I
just bandaged him up while I shoo'd the lion off him-' 'Yes, Miss
Level, but I meant in the
circus. Just reading your own mind?' Miss Level beamed at Tiffany.
'That, yes, and nearly
everything else, too,' she said. 'With different wigs on I was the
Stupendous Bohunkus Sisters. I
juggled plates, you know, and wore costumes covered in sequins. And I
helped with the high wire
act. Not walking the wire, of course, but generally smiling and
glittering at the audience.
Everyone assumed I was twins, and circus people don't ask too many
personal questions in any case.
And then what with one thing and another, this and that... I came up
here and became a witch.'
Both of Miss Level watched Tiffany carefully. That was quite a long
sentence, that last sentence,'
said Tiffany. 'Yes, it was, wasn't it,' said Miss Level. 'I can't tell
you everything. Do you
still want to stay? The last three girls didn't. Some people find me
slightly... odd.' 'Urn...
I'll stay,' said Tiffany, slowly. The thing that moves things about is
a bit strange, though.'
KingSize
Apr 18, 2011, 10:05:12 AM4/18/11
to NCO READING LIST
Miss Level looked surprised, and then said, 'Oh, do you mean Oswald?'
There's an invisible man
called Oswald who can get into my bedroom?' said Tiffany, horrified.
'Oh, no. That's just a name.
Oswald isn't a man, he's an ondageist. Have you heard of
poltergeists?' 'Er... invisible spirits
that throw things around?' 'Good,' said Miss Level. 'Well, an
ondageist is the opposite. They're
obsessive about tidiness. He's quite handy around the house but he's
absolutely dreadful if he's
in the kitchen when I'm cooking. He keeps putting things away. I think
it makes him happy. Sorry,
I should have warned you, but he normally hides if anyone comes to the
cottage. He's shy.' 'And
he's a man? I mean, a male spirit?' 'How would you tell? He's got no
body and he doesn't speak. I
just called him Oswald because I always picture him as a worried
little man with a dustpan and
brush.' The left Miss Level giggled when the right Miss Level said
this. The effect was odd and,
if you thought that way, also creepy. 'Well, we are getting on well,'
said the right Miss Level
nervously. 'Is there anything more you want to know, Tiffany?' 'Yes,
please,' said Tiffany. 'What
do you want me to do? What do you do?' And mostly, it turned out, what
Miss Level did was chores.
Endless chores. You could look in vain for much broomstick tuition,
spelling lessons or pointy-hat
management. They were, mostly, the kind of chores that are just...
chores. There was a small flock
of goats, technically led by Stinky Sam who had a shed of his own and
was kept on a chain, but
really led by Black Meg, the senior nanny, who patiently allowed
Tiffany to milk her and then,
carefully and deliberately, put a hoof in the milk bucket. That's a
goat's idea of getting to know
you. A goat is a worrying thing if you're used to sheep, because a
goat is a sheep with brains.
But Tiffany had met goats before, because a few people in the village
kept them for their milk,
which was very nourishing. And she knew that with goats you had to use
persykology.[Tiffany knew
what psychology was, but it hadn't been a pronunciation dictionary.]
If you got excited, and
shouted, and hit them (hurting your hand, because it's like slapping a
sack full of coat hangers)
then they had Won and sniggered at you in goat language, which is
almost all sniggering anyway. By
day two, Tiffany learned that the thing to do was reach out and grab
Black Meg's hind leg just as
she lifted it up to kick the bucket, and lift it up further. That made
her unbalanced and nervous
and the other goats sniggered at her and Tiffany had Won. Next there
were the bees. Miss Level
kept a dozen hives, for the wax as much as the honey, in a little
clearing that was loud with
buzzing. She made Tiffany wear a veil and gloves before she opened a
hive. She wore some, too. 'Of
course,' she observed, 'if you are careful and sober and well centred
in your life the bees won't
sting. Unfortunately, not all the bees have heard about this theory.
Good morning, Hive Three,
this is Tiffany, she will be staying with us for a while Tiffany half
expected the whole hive to
pipe up, in some horrible high-pitched buzz, 'Good morning, Tiffany!'
It didn't. 'Why did you tell
them that?' she asked. 'Oh, you have to talk to your bees,' said Miss
Level. It's very bad luck
not to. I generally have a little chat with them most evenings. News
and gossip, that sort of
thing. Every beekeeper knows about "Telling the Bees".' 'And who do
the bees tell?' asked Tiffany.
Both of Miss Level smiled at her. 'Other bees, I suppose,' she said.
'So... if you knew how to
listen to the bees, you'd know everything that was going on, yes?'
Tiffany persisted. 'You know,
it's funny you should say that,' said Miss Level. 'There have been a
few rumours... But you'd have
to learn to think like a swarm of bees. One mind with thousands of
little bodies. Much too hard to
do, even for me.' She exchanged a thoughtful glance with herself.
'Maybe not impossible, though.'
Then there were the herbs. The cottage had a big herb garden, although
it contained very little
that you'd stuff a turkey with, and at this time of year there was
still a lot of work to be done
collecting and drying, especially the ones with important roots.
Tiffany quite enjoyed that. Miss
Level was big on herbs. There is something called the Doctrine of
Signatures. It works like this:
when the Creator of the Universe made helpful plants for the use of
people, he (or in some
versions, she) put little clues on them to give people hints. A plant
useful for toothache would
look like teeth, one to cure earache would look like an ear, one good
for nose problems would drip
green goo and so on. Many people believed this. You had to use a
certain amount of imagination to
be good at it (but not much in the case of Nose Dropwort) and in
Tiffany's world the Creator had
got a little more... creative. Some plants had writing on them, if you
knew where to look. It was
often hard to find and usually difficult to read, because plants can't
spell. Most people didn't
even know about it and just used the traditional method of finding out
whether plants were
poisonous or useful by testing them on some elderly aunt they didn't
need, but Miss Level was
pioneering new techniques that she hoped would mean life would be
better for everyone (and, in the
case of the aunts, often longer, too). This one is False Gentian,' she
told Tiffany when they were
in the long, cool workroom behind the cottage. She was holding up a
weed triumphantly. 'Everyone
thinks it's another toothache cure, but just look at the cut root by
stored moonlight, using my
blue magnifying glass Tiffany tried it, and read: 'GoOD FoR Colds May
cors drowsniss Do nOt oprate
heavE mashinry' 'Terrible spelling, but not bad for a daisy,' said
Miss Level. 'You mean plants
really tell you how to use them?' said Tiffany. 'Well, not all of
them, and you have to know where
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to look,' said Miss Level. 'Look at this, for example, on the common
walnut. You have to use the
green magnifying glass by the light of a taper made from red cotton,
thus...' Tiffany squinted.
The letters were small and hard to read. ' "May contain Nut"?' she
ventured. 'But it's a nutshell.
Of course it'll contain a nut. Er... won't it?' 'Not necessarily,'
said Miss Level. 'It may, for
example, contain an exquisite miniature scene wrought from gold and
many coloured precious stones
depicting a strange and interesting temple set in a far-off land.
Well, it might,' she added,
catching Tiffany's expression. 'There's no actual law against it. As
such. The world is full of
surprises.' That night Tiffany had a lot more to put in her diary. She
kept it on top of her chest
of drawers with a large stone on it. Oswald seemed to get the message
about this, but he had
started to polish the stone. And pull back, and rise above the
cottage, and fly the eye across the
night-time... Miles away, pass invisibly across something that is
itself invisible, but which
buzzes like a swarm of flies as it drags itself over the ground...
Continue, the roads and towns
and trees rushing behind you with zip-zip noises, until you come to
the big city and, near the
centre of the city, the high old tower, and beneath the tower the
ancient magical university, and
in the university the library, and in the library the bookshelves,
and... the journey has hardly
begun. Bookshelves stream past. The books are on chains. Some snap at
you as you pass. And here is
the section of the more dangerous books, the ones that are kept locked
in cages or in vats of iced
water or simply clamped between lead plates. But here is a book,
faintly transparent and glowing
with thaumic radiation, under a glass dome. Young wizards about to
engage in research are
encouraged to go and read it. The title is Hivers: A Dissertation Upon
a Device of Amazing Cunning
by Sensibility Bustle, D.M. Phil., B.El L., Patricius Professor of
Magic. Most of the hand-written
book is about how to construct a large and powerful magical apparatus
to capture a hiver without
harm to the user, but on the very last page Dr Bustle writes, or
wrote: According to the ancient
and famous volume JR.es Centum et Una Quas Magus Facere Totest [*'One
Hundred and One Things a
Wizard Can Do'] hivers are a type of demon (indeed, Professor
Poledread classifies them as such in
Spy Demons, and Cuvee gives them a section under 'wandering spirits'
in LIBER IMMANIS MONSTRORUM
[The Monster Book of Monsters]. However, ancient texts discovered in
the Cave of Jars by the illfated
First Expedition to the Loko Region give quite a different story,
which bears out my own not
inconsiderable research. Hivers were formed in the first seconds of
Creation. They are not alive
but they have, as it were, the shape of life. They have no body, brain
or thoughts of their own
and a naked hiver is a sluggish thing indeed, tumbling gently through
the endless night between
the worlds. According to Poledread, most end up at the bottom of deep
seas, or in the bellies of
volcanoes, or drifting through the hearts of stars. Poledread was a
very inferior thinker compared
to myself, but in this case he is right. Yet a hiver does have the
ability to fear and to crave.
We cannot guess what frightens a hiver, but they seem to take refuge
in bodies that have power of
some sort- great strength, great intellect, great prowess with magic.
In this sense they are like
the common hermit elephant of Howondaland, Elephantus SoUtarms, that
will always seek the
strongest mud hut as its shell. There is no doubt in my mind that
hivers have advanced the cause
of life. Why did fish crawl out of the sea? Why did humanity grasp
such a dangerous thing as fire?
Hivers, I believe, have been behind this, firing outstanding creatures
of various species with the
flame of necessary ambition which drove them onwards and upwards! What
is it that a hiver seeks?
What is it that drives them forward? What is it they want? This I
shall find out! Oh, lesser
wizards warn us that a hiver distorts the mind of its host, curdling
it and inevitably causing an
early death through brain fever. I say, Poppycock! People have always
been afraid of what they do
not understand! But I have understanding. This morning, at two
o'clock, I captured a hiver with my
device! And now it is locked inside my head. I can sense its memories,
the memories of every
creature it has inhabited. Yet, because of my superior intellect, I
control the hiver. It does not
control me. I do not feel that it has changed me in any way. My mind
is as extraordinarily
powerful as it always has been!! At this point the writing is smudgy,
apparently because Bustle
was beginning to dribble. Oh, how they have held me back over the
years, those worms and cravens
that have through sheer luck been allowed to call themselves my
superiors! They laughed at me! BUT
THEY ARE NOT LAUGHING NOW!!! Even those who called themselves my
friends, OH YES, they did nothing
but hinder me. What about the warnings? they said. Why did the jar you
found the plans in have the
words 'Do Not Open in Any Circumstances!' engraved in fifteen ancient
languages on the lid? they
said. Cowards! Socalled 'chums'! Creatures inhabited by a hiver become
paranoid and insane, they
said! Hivers cannot be controlled, they squeaked!! DO ANY OF US
BELIEVE THIS FOR ONE MINUTE??? Oh,
what glories AWAIT!!! Now I have cleansed my life of such
worthlessness!!! And as for those even
now having the DISRESPECT YES DISRESPECT to hammer on my door because
of what I did to the socalled
Archchancellor and the College Council... HOW DARE THEY JUDGE ME!!!!!
Like all insects they
have NO CONCEPT OF GREATNESS!!!!! I WILL SHOW THEM!!!!! But... I
insoleps... blit!!!!!
hammeringggg dfgujf blort... ... And there the writing ends. On a
little card beside the book some
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wizard of former times has written: All that could be found of
Professor Bustle was buried in a
jar in the old Rose Garden. We advise all research students to spend
some time there, and reflect
upon the manner of his death. The moon was on the way to being full. A
gibbous moon, it's called.
It's one of the duller phases of the moon and seldom gets illustrated.
The full moon and the
crescent moon get all the publicity. Rob Anybody sat alone on the
mound, just outside the fake
rabbit hole, staring at the distant mountains where the snow on the
peaks gleamed in the
moonlight. A hand touched him lightly on the shoulder. ' 'Tis not like
ye to let someone creep up
on ye, Rob Anybody' said Jeannie, sitting down beside him. Rob Anybody
sighed. 'Daft Wullie was
telling me ye havenae been eatin' your meals,' said Jeannie,
carefully. Rob Anybody sighed. 'And
Big Yan said when ye wuz out huntin' today ye let a fox go past wi'out
gieing it a good kickin'?'
Rob sighed again. There was a faint pop followed by a glugging noise.
Jeannie held out a tiny
wooden cup. In her other hand was a small leather bottle. Fumes from
the cup wavered in the air.
'This is the last o' the Special Sheep Liniment your big wee hag gave
us at our wedding,' said
Jeannie. I put it safely by for emergencies.' 'She's no' my big wee
hag, Jeannie,' said Rob,
without looking at the cup. 'She's oor big wee hag. An' I'll tell ye,
Jeannie, she has it in her
tae be the hag o' hags. There's power in her she doesnae dream of. But
the hiver smells it.' 'Aye,
well, a drink's a drink whomsoever ye call her,' said Jeannie,
soothingly. She waved the cup under
Rob's nose. He sighed, and looked away. Jeannie stood up quickly.
'Wullie! Big Yan! Come quick!'
she yelled. 'He willnae tak' a drink! I think he's deidY 'Ach, this is
no' the time for strong
licker,' said Rob Anybody. 'My heart is heavy, wumman.' 'Quickly now!'
Jeannie shouted down the
hole... 'He's deid and still talkin'!' 'She's the hag o' these hills,'
said Rob, ignoring her.
'Just like her granny. She tells the hills what they are, every day.
She has them in her bones.
She holds 'em in her heart. Wi'out her, I dinnae like tae think o' the
future.' The other Feegles
had come scurrying out of the hole and were looking uncertainly at
Jeannie. 'Is somethin' wrong?'
said Daft Wullie. 'Aye!' snapped the kelda. 'Rob willnae tak' a drink
o' Special Sheep Liniment!'
Wullie's little face screwed up in instant grief. 'Ach, the Big Man's
deidY he sobbed. 'Oh waily
waily waily-' 'Will ye hush yer gob, ye big mudlin!' shouted Rob
Anybody, standing up. 'I am no'
deid! I'm trying to have a moment o' existential dreed here, right?
Crivens, it's a puir lookout
if a man cannae feel the chilly winds o' Fate lashing aroound his
nethers wi'out folks telling him
he's deid, eh?' 'Ach, and I see ye've been talking to the toad again,
Rob,' said Big Yan. 'He's
the only one arroond here that used them lang words that tak' all day
to walk the length of ...'
He turned to Jeannie. 'It's a bad case o' the thinkin' he's caught,
missus. When a man starts
messin' wi' the readin' and the writin' then he'll come doon with a
dose o' the thinkin' soon
enough. I'll fetch some o' the lads and we'll hold his heid under
water until he stops doin' it,
'tis the only cure. It can kill a man, the thinkin'.' I'll wallop ye
and ten like ye!' yelled Rob
Anybody in Big Yan's face, raising his fists. I'm the Big Man in this
clan and-' 'And I am the
Kelda,' said their kelda, and one of the hiddlins of keldaring is to
use your voice like that:
hard, cold, sharp, cutting the air like a dagger of ice. 'And I tell
you men to go back doon the
hole and dinnae show you faces back up here until I say. Not you, Rob
Anybody Feegle! You stay
here until I tell ye!' 'Oh waily waily-' Daft Wullie began, but Big
Yan clapped a hand over his
mouth and dragged him away quickly. When they were alone, and scraps
of cloud were beginning to
mass around the moon, Rob Anybody hung his head. 'I willnae go,
Jeannie, if you say,' he said.
'Ach, Rob, Rob,' said Jeannie, beginning to cry. 'Ye dinnae
understand. I want no harm to come to
the big wee girl, truly I don't. But I cannae face thinkin' o' you out
there fightin' this monster
that cannae be killed! It's you I'm worried aboot, can ye no' seel'
Rob put his arm around her.
'Aye, I see,' he said. 'I'm your wife, Rob, askin' ye not to go!'
'Aye, aye. I'll stay,' said Rob.
Jeannie looked up to him. Tears shone in the moonlight. 'Ye mean it?'
'I never braked my word
yet,' said Rob. 'Except to polis'men and other o' that kidney, ye ken,
and they dinnae count.'
'Yell stay? Yell abide by my word?' said Jeannie, sniffing. Rob
sighed. 'Aye. I will.' Jeannie was
quiet for a while, and then said, in the sharp cold voice of a kelda:
'Rob Anybody Feegle, I'm
tellin' ye now to go and save the big wee hag.' 'Whut?' said Rob
Anybody, amazed. 'Jus' noo ye
said I was tae stay-' 'That was as your wife, Rob. Now I'm telling you
as your kelda.' Jeannie
stood up, chin out and looking determined. 'If ye dinnae heed the word
o' yer kelda, Rob Anybody
Feegle, ye can be banished fra' the clan. Ye ken that. So you'll
listen t' me guid. Tak' what men
you need afore it's too late, and go to the mountains, and see that
the big wee girl comes tae nae
harm. And come back safe yoursel'. That is an order! Nay, 'tis more'n
an order. 'Tis a geas I'm
laying on ye! That cannae be brake!' 'But I-' Rob began, completely
bewildered. 'I'm the kelda,
Rob,' said Jeannie. 'I cannae run a clan with the Big Man pinin'. And
the hills of our children
need their hag. Everyone knows the land needs someone tae tell it whut
it is.' There was something
about the way Jeannie had said 'children'. Rob Anybody was not the
fastest of thinkers, but he
always got there in the end. 'Aye, Rob,' said Jeannie, seeing his
expression. 'Soon I'll be
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birthing seven sons.' 'Oh,' said Rob Anybody. He didn't ask how she
knew the number. Keldas just
knew. 'That's great!' he said. 'And one daughter, Rob.' Rob blinked.
'A daughter? This soon?'
'Aye,' said Jeannie. 'That's wonderful good luck for a clan!' said
Rob. 'Aye. So you've got
something to come back safe to me for, Rob Anybody. An' I beg ye to
use your heid for somethin'
other than nuttin' folk.' 'I thank ye, Kelda,' said Rob Anybody. 'I'll
do as ye bid. I'll tak'
some lads and find the big wee hag, for the good o' the hills. It
cannae be a good life for the
puir wee big wee thing, all alone and far fra' home, among strangers.'
'Aye,' said Jeannie,
turning her face away. 'I ken that, too.'
Chapter 4 PLAN
At dawn Rob Anybody, watched with awe by his many brothers, wrote the
word: PLN ... on a scrap of
paper bag. Then he held it up. 'Plan, ye ken,' he said to the
assembled Feegles. 'Now we have a
Plan, all we got tae do is work out what tae do. Yes, Wullie?' 'Whut
was that about this geese
Jeannie hit ye with?' said Daft Wullie, lowering his hand. 'Not geese,
geas,' said Rob Anybody. He
sighed. 'I told yez. That means it's serious. It means I got tae bring
back the big wee hag, an'
no excuses, otherwise my soul gaes slam-bang intae the big cludgie in
the sky. It's like a magical
order. 'Tis a heavy thing, tae be under a geas.' 'Well, they're big
birds,' said Daft Wullie.
'Wullie,' said Rob, patiently, 'ye ken I said I would tell ye when
there wuz times you should've
kept your big gob shut?' 'Aye, Rob.' 'Weel, that wuz one o' them
times.' He raised his voice.
'Now, lads, ye ken all aboot hivers. They cannae be killed! But 'tis
oor duty to save the big wee
hag, so this is, like, a sooey-side mission and yell probably all end
up back in the land o' the
living doin' a borin' wee job. So... I'm askin' for volunteers!' Every
Feegle over the age of four
automatically put his hand up. 'Oh, come on,' said Rob. 'You cannae
all come! Look, I'll tak'...
Daft Wullie, Big Yan and... you, Awf'ly Wee Billy Bigchin. An' I'm
takin' no weans, so if yez
under three inches high ye're not comin'! Except for ye, o'course,
Awf'ly Wee Billy. As for the
rest of youse, we'll settle this the traditional Feegle way. I'll tak'
the last fifty men still
standing!' He beckoned the chosen three to a place in the corner of
the mound while the rest of
the crowd squared up cheerfully. A Feegle liked to face enormous odds
all by himself, because it
meant you didn't have to look where you were hitting. 'She's more'n a
hundret miles awa',' said
Rob as the big fight started. 'We cannae run it, 'tis too far. Any of
youse scunners got any
ideas?' 'Hamish can get there on his buzzard,' said Big Yan, stepping
aside as a cluster of
punching, kicking Feegles rolled past. 'Aye, and he'll come wi' us,
but he cannae tak' more'n one
passenger,' shouted Rob over the din. 'Can we swim it?' said Daft
Wullie, ducking as a stunned
Feegle hurtled over his head. The others looked at him. 'Swim it? How
can we swim there fra' here,
yer daftie?' said Rob Anybody. 'It's just worth consid'ring, that's
all,' said Wullie, looking
hurt. 'I wuz just tryin' to make a contribution, ye ken? Just wanted
to show willin'.' 'The big
wee hag left in a cart,' said Big Yan. 'Aye, so what?' said Rob.
'Weel, mebbe we could?' 'Ach,
no!' said Rob. 'Showin' oursels tae hags is one thing, but not to
other folks! You remember what
happened a few years back when Daft Wullie got spotted by that lady
who wuz painting the pretty
pictures doon in the valley? I dinnae want to have them Folklore
Society bigjobs pokin' aroound
again!' 'I have an idea, Mister Rob. It's me, Awf'ly Wee Billy Bigchin
Mac Feegle. We could
disguise oursels.' Awf'ly Wee Billy Bigchin Mac Feegle always
announced himself in full. He seemed
to feel that if he didn't tell people who he was, they'd forget about
him and he'd disappear. When
you're half the size of most grown pictsies you're really short; much
shorter and you'd be a hole
in the ground. He was the new gonnagle. A gonnagle is the clan's bard
and battle poet, but they
don't spend all their lives in the same clan. In fact, they're a sort
of clan all by themselves.
Gonnagles move around among the other clans, making sure the songs and
stories get spread around
all the Feegles. Awf'ly Wee Billy had come with Jeannie from the Long
Lake clan, which often
happens. He was very young for a gonnagle, but as Jeannie had said,
there was no age limit to
gonnagling. If the talent was in you, you gonnagled. And Awf'ly Wee
Billy knew all the songs and
could play the mousepipes so sadly that outside it would start to
rain. 'Aye, lad?' said Rob
Anybody kindly. 'Speak up, then.' 'Can we get hold o' some human
clothes?' said Awf'ly Wee Billy.
'Because there's an old story about the big feud between the Three
Peaks clan and the Windy River
clan and the Windy River boys escaped by making a tattie-bogle walk,
and the men o' Three Peaks
thought it was a bigjob and kept oot o' its way.' The others looked
puzzled, and Awf'ly Wee Billy
remembered that they were men of the Chalk and had probably never seen
a tattie-bogle. 'A
scarecrow?' he said. 'It's like a bigjob made o' sticks, wi' clothes
on, for to frighten away the
birdies fra' the crops? Now, the song says the Windy River's kelda
used magic to make it walk, but
I reckon it was done by cunnin' and strength.' He sang about it. They
listened. He explained how
to make a human that would walk. They looked at one another. It was a
mad, desperate plan, which
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was very dangerous and risky and would require tremendous strength and
bravery to make it work.
Put like that, they agreed to it instantly. Tiffany found that there
was more than chores and the
research, though. There was what Miss Level called 'filling what's
empty and emptying what's
full'. Usually only one of Miss Level's bodies went out at a time.
People thought Miss Level was
twins, and she made sure they continued to do so, but she found it a
little bit safer all round to
keep the bodies apart. Tiffany could see why. You only had to watch
both of Miss Level when she
was eating. The bodies would pass plates to one another without saying
a word, sometimes they'd
eat off one another's forks, and it was rather strange to see one
person burp and the other one
say 'Oops, pardon me'. 'Filling what's empty and emptying what's full'
meant wandering round the
local villages and the isolated farms and, mostly, doing medicine.
There were always bandages to
change or expectant mothers to talk to. Witches did a lot of
midwifery, which is a kind of
'emptying what's full', but Miss Level, wearing her pointy hat, had
only to turn up at a cottage
for other people to suddenly come visiting, by sheer accident. And
there was an awful lot of
gossip and tea-drinking. Miss Level moved in a twitching, living world
of gossip, although Tiffany
noticed that she picked up a lot more than she passed on. It seemed to
be a world made up entirely
of women, but occasionally, out in the lanes, a man would strike up a
conversation about the
weather and somehow, by some sort of code, an ointment or a potion
would get handed over. Tiffany
couldn't quite work out how Miss Level got paid. Certainly the basket
she carried filled up more
than it emptied. They'd walk past a cottage and a woman would come
scurrying out with a freshbaked
loaf or a jar of pickles, even though Miss Level hadn't stopped there.
But they'd spend an
hour somewhere else, stitching up the leg of a farmer who'd been
careless with an axe, and get a
cup of tea and a stale biscuit. It didn't seem fair. 'Oh, it evens
out,' said Miss Level, as they
walked on through the woods. 'You do what you can. People give what
they can, when they can. Old
Slapwick there, with the leg, he's as mean as a cat, but there'll be a
big cut of beef on my
doorstep before the week's end, you can bet on it. His wife will see
to it. And pretty soon people
will be killing their pigs for the winter, and I'll get more brawn,
ham, bacon and sausages
turning up than a family could eat in a year.' 'You do? What do you do
with all that food?' 'Store
it,' said Miss Level. 'But you-' 'I store it in other people. It's
amazing what you can store in
other people.' Miss Level laughed at Tiffany's expression. 'I mean, I
take what I don't need round
to those who don't have a pig, or who're going through a bad patch, or
who don't have anyone to
remember them.' 'But that means they'll owe you a favour!' 'Right! And
so it just keeps on going
round. It all works out.' 'I bet some people are too mean to pay-'
'Not pay,' said Miss Level,
severely. 'A witch never expects payment and never asks for it and
just hopes she never needs to.
But, sadly, you are right.'
And then what happens?' 'What do you mean?' 'You stop helping them, do
you?' 'Oh, no,' said Miss
Level, genuinely shocked. 'You can't not help people just because
they're stupid or forgetful or
unpleasant. Everyone's poor round here. If I don't help them, who
will?' 'Granny Aching... that
is, my grandmother said someone has to speak up for them as has no
voices,' Tiffany volunteered
after a moment. 'Was she a witch?' I'm not sure,' said Tiffany. 'I
think so, but she didn't know
she was. She mostly lived by herself in an old shepherding hut up on
the downs.' 'She wasn't a
cackler, was she?' said Miss Level, and when she saw Tiffany's
expression she said hurriedly,
'Sorry, sorry. But it can happen, when you're a witch who doesn't know
it. You're like a ship with
no rudder. But obviously she wasn't like that, I can tell.' 'She lived
on the hills and talked to
them and she knew more about sheep than anybody!' said Tiffany hotly.
'I'm sure she did, I'm sure
she did-' 'She never cackled!' 'Good, good,' said Miss Level
soothingly. 'Was she clever at
medicine?' Tiffany hesitated. 'Urn... only with sheep,' she said,
calming down. 'But she was very
good. Especially if it involved turpentine. Mostly if it involved
turpentine, actually. But always
she... was... just... there. Even when she wasn't actually there
'Yes,' said Miss Level. 'You know
what I mean?' said Tiffany. 'Oh, yes,' said Miss Level. 'Your Granny
Aching lived down on the
uplands-' 'No, up on the downland,' Tiffany corrected her. 'Sorry, up
on the downland, with the
sheep, but people would look up sometimes, look up at the hills,
knowing she was there somewhere,
and say to themselves "What would Granny Aching do?" or "What would
Granny Aching say if she found
out?" or "Is this the sort of thing Granny Aching would be angry
about?"' said Miss Level. 'Yes?'
Tiffany narrowed her eyes. It was true. She remembered when Granny
Aching had hit a pedlar who'd
overloaded his donkey and was beating it. Granny usually used only
words, and not many of them.
The man had been so frightened by her sudden rage that he'd stood
there and taken it. It had
frightened Tiffany, too. Granny, who seldom said anything without
thinking about it for ten
minutes beforehand, had struck the wretched man twice across the face
in a brief blur of movement.
And then news had got around, all along the Chalk. For a while, at
least, people were a little
more gentle with their animals... For months after that moment with
the pedlar, carters and
drovers and farmers all across the downs would hesitate before raising
a whip or a stick, and
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think: Suppose Granny Aching is watching? But- 'How did you know
that?' she said. 'Oh, I guessed.
She sounds like a witch to me, whatever she thought she was. A good
one, too.' Tiffany inflated
with inherited pride. 'Did she help people?' Miss Level added. The
pride deflated a bit. The
instant answer 'yes' jumped onto her tongue, and yet... Granny Aching
hardly ever came down off
the hills, except for Hogswatch and the early lambing. You seldom saw
her in the village unless
the pedlar who sold Jolly Sailor tobacco was late on his rounds, in
which case she'd be down in a
hurry and a flurry of greasy black skirts to cadge a pipeful off one
of the old men. But there
wasn't a person on the Chalk, from the Baron down, who didn't owe
something to Granny. And what
they owed to her, she made them pay to others. She always knew who was
short of a favour or two.
'She made them help one another' she said. 'She made them help
themselves.' In the silence that
followed, Tiffany heard the birds singing by the road. You got a lot
of birds here, but she missed
the high scream of the buzzards. Miss Level sighed. 'Not many of us
are that good,' she said. 'If
I was that good, we wouldn't be going to visit old Mr Weavall again.'
Tiffany said 'Oh dear'
inside. Most days included a visit to Mr Weavall. Tiffany dreaded
them. Mr Weavall's skin was
paper-thin and yellowish. He was always in the same old armchair, in a
tiny room in a small
cottage that smelled of old potatoes and was surrounded by a more or
less overgrown garden. He'd
be sitting bolt upright, his hands on two walking sticks, wearing a
suit that was shiny with age,
staring at the door. 'I make sure he has something hot every day,
although he eats like a bird,'
Miss Level had said. 'And old Widow Tussy down the lane does his
laundry, such as it is. He's
ninety-one, you know.' Mr Weavall had very bright eyes and chatted
away to and at them as they
tidied up the room. The first time Tiffany had met him he'd called her
Mary. Sometimes he still
did. And he'd grabbed her wrist with surprising force as she walked
past... It had been a real
shock, that claw of a hand suddenly gripping her. You could see blue
veins under the skin. 'I
shan't be a burden on anyone' he'd said urgently. 'I got money put by
for when I go. My boy Toby
won't have nothin' to worry about. I can pay my way! I want the proper
funeral show, right? With
the black horses and the plumes and the mutes and a knife-and-fork tea
for everyone afterwards.
I've written it all down, fair and square. Check in my box to make
sure, will you? That witch
woman's always hanging around here!' Tiffany had given Miss Level a
despairing look. She'd nodded,
and pointed to an old wooden box tucked under Mr Weavall's chair. It
had turned out to be full of
coins, mostly copper, but there were quite a few silver ones. It
looked like a fortune, and for a
moment she'd wished she had as much money. There's a lot of coins in
here, Mr Weavall,' she'd
said. Mr Weavall relaxed. 'Ah, that's right,' he'd said. 'Then I won't
be a burden.' Today Mr
Weavall was asleep when they called on him, snoring with his mouth
open and his yellow-brown teeth
showing. But he awoke in an instant, stared at them and then said, 'My
boy Toby's coming to see I
Sat'day.' 'That's nice, Mr Weavall,' said Miss Level, plumping up his
cushions. 'We'll get the
place nice and tidy.' 'He's done very well for hisself, you know,'
said Mr Weavall, proudly. 'Got
a job indoors with no heavy lifting. He said he'll see I all right in
my old age, but I told him,
I told him I'd pay my way when I go- the whole thing, the salt and
earth and tuppence for the
ferryman, too!' Today, Miss Level gave him a shave. His hands shook
too much for him to do it
himself. (Yesterday she'd cut his toenails, because he couldn't reach
them; it was not a safe
spectator sport, especially when one smashed a windowpane.) 'It's all
in a box under my chair,' he
said as Tiffany nervously wiped the last bits of foam off him. 'Just
check for me, will you,
Mary?' Oh, yes. That was the ceremony, every day. There was the box,
and there was the money. He
asked every time. There was always the same amount of money. 'Tuppence
for the ferryman?' said
Tiffany, as they walked home. 'Mr Weavall remembers all the old
funeral traditions,' said Miss
Level. 'Some people believe that when you die you cross the River of
Death and have to pay the
ferryman. People don't seem to worry about that these days. Perhaps
there's a bridge now.' 'He's
always talking about... his funeral.' 'Well, it's important to him.
Sometimes old people are like
that. They'd hate people to think that they were too poor to pay for
their own funeral. Mr
Weavall'd die of shame if he couldn't pay for his own funeral.' It's
very sad, him being all alone
like that. Something should be done for him,' said Tiffany. 'Yes.
We're doing it,' said Miss
Level. 'And Mrs Tussy keeps a friendly eye on him.' 'Yes, but it
shouldn't have to be us, should
it?' 'Who should it have to be?' said Miss Level. 'Well, what about
this son he's always talking
about?' said Tiffany. 'Young Toby? He's been dead for fifteen years.
And Mary was the old man's
daughter, she died quite young. Mr Weavall is very short-sighted, but
he sees better in the past.'
Tiffany didn't know what to reply except: 'It shouldn't be like this.'
'There isn't a way things
should be. There's just what happens, and what we do.' 'Well, couldn't
you help him by magic?' 'I
see to it that he's in no pain, yes,' said Miss Level. 'But that's
just herbs.' 'It's still magic.
Knowing things is magical, if other people don't know them.' 'Yes, but
you know what I mean,' said
Tiffany, who felt she was losing this argument. 'Oh, you mean make him
young again?' said Miss
Level. 'Fill his house with gold? That's not what witches do.' 'We see
to it that lonely old men
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get a cooked dinner and cut their toenails?' said Tiffany, just a
little sarcastically. 'Well,
yes,' said Miss Level. 'We do what can be done. Mistress Weatherwax
said you've got to learn that
witchcraft is mostly about doing quite ordinary things.' 'And you have
do what she says?' said
Tiffany. 'I listen to her advice' said Miss Level, coldly. 'Mistress
Weatherwax is the head witch,
then, is she?' 'Oh no!' said Miss Level, looking shocked. 'Witches are
all equal. We don't have
things like head witches. That's quite against the spirit of
witchcraft.' 'Oh, I see,' said
Tiffany. 'Besides,' Miss Level added, 'Mistress Weatherwax would never
allow that sort of thing.'
Suddenly, things were going missing from the households around the
Chalk. This wasn't the
occasional egg or chicken. Clothes were vanishing off washing lines. A
pair of boots mysteriously
disappeared from under the bed of Nosey Hinds, the oldest man in the
village- 'And they was damn
good boots, they could walk home from the pub all by themselves if I
but pointed they in the right
direction,' he complained to anyone who would listen. 'And they
marched off wi' my old hat, too.
And I'd got he just as I wanted he, all soft and floppy!' A pair of
trousers and a long coat
vanished from a hook belonging to Abiding Swindell, the ferret-keeper,
and the coat still had
ferrets living in the inside pockets. And who, who climbed through the
bedroom window of Clem
Doins and shaved off his beard, which had been so long that he could
tuck it into his belt? Not a
hair was left. He had to go around with a scarf over his face, in case
the sight of his poor pink
chin frightened the ladies... It was probably witches, people agreed,
and made a few more cursenets
to hang in their windows. However... On the far side of the Chalk,
where the long green
slopes came down to the flat fields of the plain, there were big
thickets of bramble and hawthorn.
Usually, these were alive with birdsong, but this particular one, the
one just here, was alive
with cussing. 'Ach, crivens! Will ye no' mind where ye 're puttin' yer
foot, ye spavie!' 'I cannae
help it! It's nae easy, bein' a knee!' ' Ye think ye got troubles? Ye
wannae be doon here in the
boots! That old man Swindell couldnae ha' washed his feet in years!
It's fair reekin' doon here!'
'Reekin', izzit? Well, you try bein' in this pocket! Them ferrets ne
'er got oot to gae to the
lavie, if you get my meanin'!' 'Crivens! Will ye dafties no' shut up?'
'Oh, aye? Hark at him! Just
'cuzye're up in the held, you think you know everythin'? Fra' doon
here ye're nothing but dead
weight, pal!' 'Aye, right! I'm wi' the elbows on this one! Where'dyou
be if it wuzn'tfor us
carryin' ye aroound? Who's ye think ye are?' 'I'm Rob Anybody Feegle,
as you ken well enough, an'
I've had enough o' the lot o' yezf 'OK, Rob, but it's real stuffy in
here!' 'Ach, an' I'm fed up
wi' the stomach complainin', too!' 'Gentlemen.' This was the voice of
the toad; no one else would
dream of calling the Nac Mac Feegle gentlemen. 'Gentlemen, time is of
the essence. The cart will
be here soon! You must not miss it!' 'We need more time to practise,
Toad! We're walkin' like a
feller wi' nae bones and a serious case o' the trots!' said a voice a
little higher up than the
rest. 'At least you are walking. That's good enough. I wish you luck,
gentlemen.' There was a cry
from further along the thickets, where a lookout had been watching the
road. 'The cart's comin'
doon the hill!' 'OK, lads!' shouted Rob Anybody. 'Toad, you look after
Jeannie, y'hear? She'll
need a thinkin' laddie to rely on while I'm no' here! Right, ye
scunners! It's do or die! Ye ken
what to do! Ye lads on the ropes, pull us up noo!' The bushes shook.
'Right! Pelvis, are ye
ready?' 'Aye, Rob!' 'Knees? Knees? I said, knees?' 'Aye, Rob, but-'
'Feets?' 'Aye, Rob!' The
bushes shook again. 'Right! Remember: right, left, right, left!
Pelvis, knee, foot on the groond!
Keep a spring in the step, feets! Are you ready? Altogether, boys...
walk!' It was a big surprise
for Mr Crabber the carter. He'd been staring vaguely at nothing,
thinking only of going home, when
something stepped out of the bushes and into the road. It looked human
or, rather, looked slightly
more human than it looked like anything else. But it seemed to be
having trouble with its knees,
and walked as though they'd been tied together. However, the carter
didn't spend too much time
thinking about that because, clutched in one gloved hand that was
waving vaguely in the air, was
something gold. This immediately identified the stranger, as far as
the carter was concerned. He
was not, as first sight might suggest, some old tramp to be left by
the roadside, but an obvious
gentleman down on his luck, and it was practically the carter's duty
to help him. He slowed the
horse to a standstill. The stranger didn't really have a face. There
was nothing much to see
between the droopy hat brim and the turned-up collar of the coat
except a lot of beard. But from
somewhere within the beard a voice said: '... Shudupshudup... will ye
all shudup while I'm
talkin'... Ahem. Good day ta' ye, carter fellow my ol' fellowy fellow!
If ye'll gie us- me a lift
as far as ye are goin', we- I'll gie ye this fine shiny golden coin!'
The figure lurched forward
and thrust its hand in front of Mr Crabber's face. It was quite a
large coin. And it was certainly
gold. It had come from the treasure of the old dead king who was
buried in the main part of the
Feegles' mound. Oddly enough, the Feegles weren't hugely interested in
gold once they'd stolen it,
because you couldn't drink it and it was difficult to eat. In the
mound, they mostly used the old
coins and plates to reflect candlelight and give the place a nice
glow. It was no hardship to give
some away. The carter stared at it. It was more money than he had ever
seen in his life. 'If...
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sir... would like to... hop on the back of the cart, sir,' he said,
carefully taking it. 'Ach,
right you are, then,' said the bearded mystery man after a pause.
'Just a moment, this needs a wee
bitty organizin'... OK, youse hands, you just grab the side o' the
cart, and' you leftie leg, ye
gotta kinda sidle along... ach, crivens! Ye gotta bend! Bend! C'mon,
get it right!' The hairy face
turned to the carter. 'Sorry aboot this,' it said. 'I talk to my
knees, but they dinnae listen to
me.' 'Is that right?' said the carter weakly. 'I have trouble with my
knees in the wet weather.
Goose grease works.' 'Ah, weel, these knees is gonna get more'n a
greasin' if I ha' to get doon
there an' sort them oot!' snarled the hairy man. The carter heard
various bangs and grunts behind
him as the man hauled himself onto the tail of the cart. 'OK, let's
gae,' said a voice. 'We'
havenae got all day. And youse knees, you're sacked! Crivens, I'm
walkin' like I got a big touch
of the stoppies! You gae up to the stomach and send doon a couple of
good knee men!' The carter
bit the coin thoughtfully as he urged the horse into a walk. It was
such pure gold that he left
toothmarks. That meant his passenger was very, very rich. That was
becoming very important at this
point. 'Can ye no' go a wee bitty faster, my good man, my good man?'
said the voice behind him,
after they had gone a little way. 'Ah, well, sir,' said the carter,
'see them boxes and crates?
I've got a load of eggs, and those apples mustn't be bruised, sir, and
then there's those jugs of-
' There were some bangs and crashes behind him, including the sploosh
that a large crate of eggs
makes when it hits a road. 'Ye can gae faster noo, eh?' said the
voice. 'Hey, that was my-' Mr
Crabber began. 'I've got another one o' they big wee gold coins for
ye!' And a heavy and smelly
arm landed on the carter's shoulder. Dangling from the glove on the
end of it was, indeed, another
coin. It was ten times what the load had been worth. 'Oh, well...'
said the carter, carefully
taking the coin. 'Accidents do happen, eh, sir?' 'Aye, especially if I
dinnae think I'm goin' fast
enough,' said the voice behind him. 'We- I mean I'm in a big hurry tae
get tae yon mountains, ye
ken!' 'But I'm not a stagecoach, sir,' said the carter reproachfully
as he urged his old horse
into a trot. 'Stagecoach, eh? What's one o' them things?' 'That's what
you'll need to catch to
take you up into the mountains, sir. You can catch one in Twoshirts,
sir. I never go any further
than Twoshirts, sir. But you won't be able to get the stage today,
sir.' 'Why not?' 'I've got to
make stops at the other villages, sir, and it's a long way, and on
Wednesdays it runs early, sir,
and this cart can only go so fast, sir, and-' 'If we- I dinnae catch
yon coach today I'll gi'e ye
the hidin' o' yer life,' growled the passenger. 'But if I do catch yon
coach today, I'll gie ye
five o' them gold coins.' Mr Crabber took a deep breath, and yelled:
'Hi! Hyah! Giddyup, Henry!'
All in all, it seemed to Tiffany, most of what witches did really was
very similar to work. Dull
work. Miss Level didn't even use her broomstick very much. That was a
bit depressing. It was all a
bit... well, goody-goody. Obviously that was better than being baddy-
baddy, but a little more...
excitement would be nice. Tiffany wouldn't like anyone to think she'd
expected to be issued with a
magic wand on Day One but, well, the way Miss Level talked about
magic, the whole point of
witchcraft lay in not using any. Mind you, Tiffany thought she would
be depressingly good at not
using any. It was doing the simplest magic that was hard. Miss Level
patiently showed her how to
make a shamble, which could more or less be made of anything that
seemed a good idea at the time
provided it also contained something alive, like a beetle or a fresh
egg. Tiffany couldn't even
get the hang of it. That was... annoying. Didn't she have the virtual
hat? Didn't she have First
Sight and Second Thoughts? Miss Tick and Miss Level could throw a
shamble together in seconds, but
Tiffany just got a tangle, dripping with egg. Over and over again. I
know I'm doing it right but
it just twists up!' Tiffany complained. 'What can I do?' 'We could
make an omelette?' said Miss
Level cheerfully. 'Oh, please, Miss Level!' Tiffany wailed. Miss Level
patted her on the back.
'It'll happen. Perhaps you're trying too hard. One day it'll come. The
power does come, you know.
You just have to put yourself in its path-' 'Couldn't you make one
that I could use for a while,
to get the hang of it?' 'I'm afraid I can't,' said Miss Level. 'A
shamble is a very tricky thing.
You can't even carry one around, except as an ornament. You have to
make it for yourself, there
and then, right where and when you want to use it.' 'Why?' said
Tiffany. 'To catch the moment,'
said the other part of Miss Level, coming in. The way you tie the
knots, the way the string runs
the freshness of the egg, perhaps, and the moisture in the air -' said
the first Miss Level. '-
the tension of the twigs and the kind of things that you just happen
to have in your pocket at
that moment even the way the wind is blowing,' the first Miss Level
concluded. 'All these things
make a kind of... of picture of the here-and-now when you move them
right. And I can't even tell
you how to move them, because I don't know.' 'But you do move them,'
said Tiffany, getting lost.
'I saw you-' 'I do it but I don't know how I do,' said Miss Level,
picking up a couple of twigs
and taking a length of thread. Miss Level sat down at the table
opposite Miss Level, and all four
hands started to put a shamble together. 'This reminds me of when I
was in the circus,' she said.
I was walking out for a while with Marco and Falco, the Flying
Pastrami Brothers,' the other part
of Miss Level went on. 'They would do triple somersaults fifty feet up
with no safety net. What
There's an invisible man
called Oswald who can get into my bedroom?' said Tiffany, horrified.
'Oh, no. That's just a name.
Oswald isn't a man, he's an ondageist. Have you heard of
poltergeists?' 'Er... invisible spirits
that throw things around?' 'Good,' said Miss Level. 'Well, an
ondageist is the opposite. They're
obsessive about tidiness. He's quite handy around the house but he's
absolutely dreadful if he's
in the kitchen when I'm cooking. He keeps putting things away. I think
it makes him happy. Sorry,
I should have warned you, but he normally hides if anyone comes to the
cottage. He's shy.' 'And
he's a man? I mean, a male spirit?' 'How would you tell? He's got no
body and he doesn't speak. I
just called him Oswald because I always picture him as a worried
little man with a dustpan and
brush.' The left Miss Level giggled when the right Miss Level said
this. The effect was odd and,
if you thought that way, also creepy. 'Well, we are getting on well,'
said the right Miss Level
nervously. 'Is there anything more you want to know, Tiffany?' 'Yes,
please,' said Tiffany. 'What
do you want me to do? What do you do?' And mostly, it turned out, what
Miss Level did was chores.
Endless chores. You could look in vain for much broomstick tuition,
spelling lessons or pointy-hat
management. They were, mostly, the kind of chores that are just...
chores. There was a small flock
of goats, technically led by Stinky Sam who had a shed of his own and
was kept on a chain, but
really led by Black Meg, the senior nanny, who patiently allowed
Tiffany to milk her and then,
carefully and deliberately, put a hoof in the milk bucket. That's a
goat's idea of getting to know
you. A goat is a worrying thing if you're used to sheep, because a
goat is a sheep with brains.
But Tiffany had met goats before, because a few people in the village
kept them for their milk,
which was very nourishing. And she knew that with goats you had to use
persykology.[Tiffany knew
what psychology was, but it hadn't been a pronunciation dictionary.]
If you got excited, and
shouted, and hit them (hurting your hand, because it's like slapping a
sack full of coat hangers)
then they had Won and sniggered at you in goat language, which is
almost all sniggering anyway. By
day two, Tiffany learned that the thing to do was reach out and grab
Black Meg's hind leg just as
she lifted it up to kick the bucket, and lift it up further. That made
her unbalanced and nervous
and the other goats sniggered at her and Tiffany had Won. Next there
were the bees. Miss Level
kept a dozen hives, for the wax as much as the honey, in a little
clearing that was loud with
buzzing. She made Tiffany wear a veil and gloves before she opened a
hive. She wore some, too. 'Of
course,' she observed, 'if you are careful and sober and well centred
in your life the bees won't
sting. Unfortunately, not all the bees have heard about this theory.
Good morning, Hive Three,
this is Tiffany, she will be staying with us for a while Tiffany half
expected the whole hive to
pipe up, in some horrible high-pitched buzz, 'Good morning, Tiffany!'
It didn't. 'Why did you tell
them that?' she asked. 'Oh, you have to talk to your bees,' said Miss
Level. It's very bad luck
not to. I generally have a little chat with them most evenings. News
and gossip, that sort of
thing. Every beekeeper knows about "Telling the Bees".' 'And who do
the bees tell?' asked Tiffany.
Both of Miss Level smiled at her. 'Other bees, I suppose,' she said.
'So... if you knew how to
listen to the bees, you'd know everything that was going on, yes?'
Tiffany persisted. 'You know,
it's funny you should say that,' said Miss Level. 'There have been a
few rumours... But you'd have
to learn to think like a swarm of bees. One mind with thousands of
little bodies. Much too hard to
do, even for me.' She exchanged a thoughtful glance with herself.
'Maybe not impossible, though.'
Then there were the herbs. The cottage had a big herb garden, although
it contained very little
that you'd stuff a turkey with, and at this time of year there was
still a lot of work to be done
collecting and drying, especially the ones with important roots.
Tiffany quite enjoyed that. Miss
Level was big on herbs. There is something called the Doctrine of
Signatures. It works like this:
when the Creator of the Universe made helpful plants for the use of
people, he (or in some
versions, she) put little clues on them to give people hints. A plant
useful for toothache would
look like teeth, one to cure earache would look like an ear, one good
for nose problems would drip
green goo and so on. Many people believed this. You had to use a
certain amount of imagination to
be good at it (but not much in the case of Nose Dropwort) and in
Tiffany's world the Creator had
got a little more... creative. Some plants had writing on them, if you
knew where to look. It was
often hard to find and usually difficult to read, because plants can't
spell. Most people didn't
even know about it and just used the traditional method of finding out
whether plants were
poisonous or useful by testing them on some elderly aunt they didn't
need, but Miss Level was
pioneering new techniques that she hoped would mean life would be
better for everyone (and, in the
case of the aunts, often longer, too). This one is False Gentian,' she
told Tiffany when they were
in the long, cool workroom behind the cottage. She was holding up a
weed triumphantly. 'Everyone
thinks it's another toothache cure, but just look at the cut root by
stored moonlight, using my
blue magnifying glass Tiffany tried it, and read: 'GoOD FoR Colds May
cors drowsniss Do nOt oprate
heavE mashinry' 'Terrible spelling, but not bad for a daisy,' said
Miss Level. 'You mean plants
really tell you how to use them?' said Tiffany. 'Well, not all of
them, and you have to know where
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to look,' said Miss Level. 'Look at this, for example, on the common
walnut. You have to use the
green magnifying glass by the light of a taper made from red cotton,
thus...' Tiffany squinted.
The letters were small and hard to read. ' "May contain Nut"?' she
ventured. 'But it's a nutshell.
Of course it'll contain a nut. Er... won't it?' 'Not necessarily,'
said Miss Level. 'It may, for
example, contain an exquisite miniature scene wrought from gold and
many coloured precious stones
depicting a strange and interesting temple set in a far-off land.
Well, it might,' she added,
catching Tiffany's expression. 'There's no actual law against it. As
such. The world is full of
surprises.' That night Tiffany had a lot more to put in her diary. She
kept it on top of her chest
of drawers with a large stone on it. Oswald seemed to get the message
about this, but he had
started to polish the stone. And pull back, and rise above the
cottage, and fly the eye across the
night-time... Miles away, pass invisibly across something that is
itself invisible, but which
buzzes like a swarm of flies as it drags itself over the ground...
Continue, the roads and towns
and trees rushing behind you with zip-zip noises, until you come to
the big city and, near the
centre of the city, the high old tower, and beneath the tower the
ancient magical university, and
in the university the library, and in the library the bookshelves,
and... the journey has hardly
begun. Bookshelves stream past. The books are on chains. Some snap at
you as you pass. And here is
the section of the more dangerous books, the ones that are kept locked
in cages or in vats of iced
water or simply clamped between lead plates. But here is a book,
faintly transparent and glowing
with thaumic radiation, under a glass dome. Young wizards about to
engage in research are
encouraged to go and read it. The title is Hivers: A Dissertation Upon
a Device of Amazing Cunning
by Sensibility Bustle, D.M. Phil., B.El L., Patricius Professor of
Magic. Most of the hand-written
book is about how to construct a large and powerful magical apparatus
to capture a hiver without
harm to the user, but on the very last page Dr Bustle writes, or
wrote: According to the ancient
and famous volume JR.es Centum et Una Quas Magus Facere Totest [*'One
Hundred and One Things a
Wizard Can Do'] hivers are a type of demon (indeed, Professor
Poledread classifies them as such in
Spy Demons, and Cuvee gives them a section under 'wandering spirits'
in LIBER IMMANIS MONSTRORUM
[The Monster Book of Monsters]. However, ancient texts discovered in
the Cave of Jars by the illfated
First Expedition to the Loko Region give quite a different story,
which bears out my own not
inconsiderable research. Hivers were formed in the first seconds of
Creation. They are not alive
but they have, as it were, the shape of life. They have no body, brain
or thoughts of their own
and a naked hiver is a sluggish thing indeed, tumbling gently through
the endless night between
the worlds. According to Poledread, most end up at the bottom of deep
seas, or in the bellies of
volcanoes, or drifting through the hearts of stars. Poledread was a
very inferior thinker compared
to myself, but in this case he is right. Yet a hiver does have the
ability to fear and to crave.
We cannot guess what frightens a hiver, but they seem to take refuge
in bodies that have power of
some sort- great strength, great intellect, great prowess with magic.
In this sense they are like
the common hermit elephant of Howondaland, Elephantus SoUtarms, that
will always seek the
strongest mud hut as its shell. There is no doubt in my mind that
hivers have advanced the cause
of life. Why did fish crawl out of the sea? Why did humanity grasp
such a dangerous thing as fire?
Hivers, I believe, have been behind this, firing outstanding creatures
of various species with the
flame of necessary ambition which drove them onwards and upwards! What
is it that a hiver seeks?
What is it that drives them forward? What is it they want? This I
shall find out! Oh, lesser
wizards warn us that a hiver distorts the mind of its host, curdling
it and inevitably causing an
early death through brain fever. I say, Poppycock! People have always
been afraid of what they do
not understand! But I have understanding. This morning, at two
o'clock, I captured a hiver with my
device! And now it is locked inside my head. I can sense its memories,
the memories of every
creature it has inhabited. Yet, because of my superior intellect, I
control the hiver. It does not
control me. I do not feel that it has changed me in any way. My mind
is as extraordinarily
powerful as it always has been!! At this point the writing is smudgy,
apparently because Bustle
was beginning to dribble. Oh, how they have held me back over the
years, those worms and cravens
that have through sheer luck been allowed to call themselves my
superiors! They laughed at me! BUT
THEY ARE NOT LAUGHING NOW!!! Even those who called themselves my
friends, OH YES, they did nothing
but hinder me. What about the warnings? they said. Why did the jar you
found the plans in have the
words 'Do Not Open in Any Circumstances!' engraved in fifteen ancient
languages on the lid? they
said. Cowards! Socalled 'chums'! Creatures inhabited by a hiver become
paranoid and insane, they
said! Hivers cannot be controlled, they squeaked!! DO ANY OF US
BELIEVE THIS FOR ONE MINUTE??? Oh,
what glories AWAIT!!! Now I have cleansed my life of such
worthlessness!!! And as for those even
now having the DISRESPECT YES DISRESPECT to hammer on my door because
of what I did to the socalled
Archchancellor and the College Council... HOW DARE THEY JUDGE ME!!!!!
Like all insects they
have NO CONCEPT OF GREATNESS!!!!! I WILL SHOW THEM!!!!! But... I
insoleps... blit!!!!!
hammeringggg dfgujf blort... ... And there the writing ends. On a
little card beside the book some
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wizard of former times has written: All that could be found of
Professor Bustle was buried in a
jar in the old Rose Garden. We advise all research students to spend
some time there, and reflect
upon the manner of his death. The moon was on the way to being full. A
gibbous moon, it's called.
It's one of the duller phases of the moon and seldom gets illustrated.
The full moon and the
crescent moon get all the publicity. Rob Anybody sat alone on the
mound, just outside the fake
rabbit hole, staring at the distant mountains where the snow on the
peaks gleamed in the
moonlight. A hand touched him lightly on the shoulder. ' 'Tis not like
ye to let someone creep up
on ye, Rob Anybody' said Jeannie, sitting down beside him. Rob Anybody
sighed. 'Daft Wullie was
telling me ye havenae been eatin' your meals,' said Jeannie,
carefully. Rob Anybody sighed. 'And
Big Yan said when ye wuz out huntin' today ye let a fox go past wi'out
gieing it a good kickin'?'
Rob sighed again. There was a faint pop followed by a glugging noise.
Jeannie held out a tiny
wooden cup. In her other hand was a small leather bottle. Fumes from
the cup wavered in the air.
'This is the last o' the Special Sheep Liniment your big wee hag gave
us at our wedding,' said
Jeannie. I put it safely by for emergencies.' 'She's no' my big wee
hag, Jeannie,' said Rob,
without looking at the cup. 'She's oor big wee hag. An' I'll tell ye,
Jeannie, she has it in her
tae be the hag o' hags. There's power in her she doesnae dream of. But
the hiver smells it.' 'Aye,
well, a drink's a drink whomsoever ye call her,' said Jeannie,
soothingly. She waved the cup under
Rob's nose. He sighed, and looked away. Jeannie stood up quickly.
'Wullie! Big Yan! Come quick!'
she yelled. 'He willnae tak' a drink! I think he's deidY 'Ach, this is
no' the time for strong
licker,' said Rob Anybody. 'My heart is heavy, wumman.' 'Quickly now!'
Jeannie shouted down the
hole... 'He's deid and still talkin'!' 'She's the hag o' these hills,'
said Rob, ignoring her.
'Just like her granny. She tells the hills what they are, every day.
She has them in her bones.
She holds 'em in her heart. Wi'out her, I dinnae like tae think o' the
future.' The other Feegles
had come scurrying out of the hole and were looking uncertainly at
Jeannie. 'Is somethin' wrong?'
said Daft Wullie. 'Aye!' snapped the kelda. 'Rob willnae tak' a drink
o' Special Sheep Liniment!'
Wullie's little face screwed up in instant grief. 'Ach, the Big Man's
deidY he sobbed. 'Oh waily
waily waily-' 'Will ye hush yer gob, ye big mudlin!' shouted Rob
Anybody, standing up. 'I am no'
deid! I'm trying to have a moment o' existential dreed here, right?
Crivens, it's a puir lookout
if a man cannae feel the chilly winds o' Fate lashing aroound his
nethers wi'out folks telling him
he's deid, eh?' 'Ach, and I see ye've been talking to the toad again,
Rob,' said Big Yan. 'He's
the only one arroond here that used them lang words that tak' all day
to walk the length of ...'
He turned to Jeannie. 'It's a bad case o' the thinkin' he's caught,
missus. When a man starts
messin' wi' the readin' and the writin' then he'll come doon with a
dose o' the thinkin' soon
enough. I'll fetch some o' the lads and we'll hold his heid under
water until he stops doin' it,
'tis the only cure. It can kill a man, the thinkin'.' I'll wallop ye
and ten like ye!' yelled Rob
Anybody in Big Yan's face, raising his fists. I'm the Big Man in this
clan and-' 'And I am the
Kelda,' said their kelda, and one of the hiddlins of keldaring is to
use your voice like that:
hard, cold, sharp, cutting the air like a dagger of ice. 'And I tell
you men to go back doon the
hole and dinnae show you faces back up here until I say. Not you, Rob
Anybody Feegle! You stay
here until I tell ye!' 'Oh waily waily-' Daft Wullie began, but Big
Yan clapped a hand over his
mouth and dragged him away quickly. When they were alone, and scraps
of cloud were beginning to
mass around the moon, Rob Anybody hung his head. 'I willnae go,
Jeannie, if you say,' he said.
'Ach, Rob, Rob,' said Jeannie, beginning to cry. 'Ye dinnae
understand. I want no harm to come to
the big wee girl, truly I don't. But I cannae face thinkin' o' you out
there fightin' this monster
that cannae be killed! It's you I'm worried aboot, can ye no' seel'
Rob put his arm around her.
'Aye, I see,' he said. 'I'm your wife, Rob, askin' ye not to go!'
'Aye, aye. I'll stay,' said Rob.
Jeannie looked up to him. Tears shone in the moonlight. 'Ye mean it?'
'I never braked my word
yet,' said Rob. 'Except to polis'men and other o' that kidney, ye ken,
and they dinnae count.'
'Yell stay? Yell abide by my word?' said Jeannie, sniffing. Rob
sighed. 'Aye. I will.' Jeannie was
quiet for a while, and then said, in the sharp cold voice of a kelda:
'Rob Anybody Feegle, I'm
tellin' ye now to go and save the big wee hag.' 'Whut?' said Rob
Anybody, amazed. 'Jus' noo ye
said I was tae stay-' 'That was as your wife, Rob. Now I'm telling you
as your kelda.' Jeannie
stood up, chin out and looking determined. 'If ye dinnae heed the word
o' yer kelda, Rob Anybody
Feegle, ye can be banished fra' the clan. Ye ken that. So you'll
listen t' me guid. Tak' what men
you need afore it's too late, and go to the mountains, and see that
the big wee girl comes tae nae
harm. And come back safe yoursel'. That is an order! Nay, 'tis more'n
an order. 'Tis a geas I'm
laying on ye! That cannae be brake!' 'But I-' Rob began, completely
bewildered. 'I'm the kelda,
Rob,' said Jeannie. 'I cannae run a clan with the Big Man pinin'. And
the hills of our children
need their hag. Everyone knows the land needs someone tae tell it whut
it is.' There was something
about the way Jeannie had said 'children'. Rob Anybody was not the
fastest of thinkers, but he
always got there in the end. 'Aye, Rob,' said Jeannie, seeing his
expression. 'Soon I'll be
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birthing seven sons.' 'Oh,' said Rob Anybody. He didn't ask how she
knew the number. Keldas just
knew. 'That's great!' he said. 'And one daughter, Rob.' Rob blinked.
'A daughter? This soon?'
'Aye,' said Jeannie. 'That's wonderful good luck for a clan!' said
Rob. 'Aye. So you've got
something to come back safe to me for, Rob Anybody. An' I beg ye to
use your heid for somethin'
other than nuttin' folk.' 'I thank ye, Kelda,' said Rob Anybody. 'I'll
do as ye bid. I'll tak'
some lads and find the big wee hag, for the good o' the hills. It
cannae be a good life for the
puir wee big wee thing, all alone and far fra' home, among strangers.'
'Aye,' said Jeannie,
turning her face away. 'I ken that, too.'
Chapter 4 PLAN
At dawn Rob Anybody, watched with awe by his many brothers, wrote the
word: PLN ... on a scrap of
paper bag. Then he held it up. 'Plan, ye ken,' he said to the
assembled Feegles. 'Now we have a
Plan, all we got tae do is work out what tae do. Yes, Wullie?' 'Whut
was that about this geese
Jeannie hit ye with?' said Daft Wullie, lowering his hand. 'Not geese,
geas,' said Rob Anybody. He
sighed. 'I told yez. That means it's serious. It means I got tae bring
back the big wee hag, an'
no excuses, otherwise my soul gaes slam-bang intae the big cludgie in
the sky. It's like a magical
order. 'Tis a heavy thing, tae be under a geas.' 'Well, they're big
birds,' said Daft Wullie.
'Wullie,' said Rob, patiently, 'ye ken I said I would tell ye when
there wuz times you should've
kept your big gob shut?' 'Aye, Rob.' 'Weel, that wuz one o' them
times.' He raised his voice.
'Now, lads, ye ken all aboot hivers. They cannae be killed! But 'tis
oor duty to save the big wee
hag, so this is, like, a sooey-side mission and yell probably all end
up back in the land o' the
living doin' a borin' wee job. So... I'm askin' for volunteers!' Every
Feegle over the age of four
automatically put his hand up. 'Oh, come on,' said Rob. 'You cannae
all come! Look, I'll tak'...
Daft Wullie, Big Yan and... you, Awf'ly Wee Billy Bigchin. An' I'm
takin' no weans, so if yez
under three inches high ye're not comin'! Except for ye, o'course,
Awf'ly Wee Billy. As for the
rest of youse, we'll settle this the traditional Feegle way. I'll tak'
the last fifty men still
standing!' He beckoned the chosen three to a place in the corner of
the mound while the rest of
the crowd squared up cheerfully. A Feegle liked to face enormous odds
all by himself, because it
meant you didn't have to look where you were hitting. 'She's more'n a
hundret miles awa',' said
Rob as the big fight started. 'We cannae run it, 'tis too far. Any of
youse scunners got any
ideas?' 'Hamish can get there on his buzzard,' said Big Yan, stepping
aside as a cluster of
punching, kicking Feegles rolled past. 'Aye, and he'll come wi' us,
but he cannae tak' more'n one
passenger,' shouted Rob over the din. 'Can we swim it?' said Daft
Wullie, ducking as a stunned
Feegle hurtled over his head. The others looked at him. 'Swim it? How
can we swim there fra' here,
yer daftie?' said Rob Anybody. 'It's just worth consid'ring, that's
all,' said Wullie, looking
hurt. 'I wuz just tryin' to make a contribution, ye ken? Just wanted
to show willin'.' 'The big
wee hag left in a cart,' said Big Yan. 'Aye, so what?' said Rob.
'Weel, mebbe we could?' 'Ach,
no!' said Rob. 'Showin' oursels tae hags is one thing, but not to
other folks! You remember what
happened a few years back when Daft Wullie got spotted by that lady
who wuz painting the pretty
pictures doon in the valley? I dinnae want to have them Folklore
Society bigjobs pokin' aroound
again!' 'I have an idea, Mister Rob. It's me, Awf'ly Wee Billy Bigchin
Mac Feegle. We could
disguise oursels.' Awf'ly Wee Billy Bigchin Mac Feegle always
announced himself in full. He seemed
to feel that if he didn't tell people who he was, they'd forget about
him and he'd disappear. When
you're half the size of most grown pictsies you're really short; much
shorter and you'd be a hole
in the ground. He was the new gonnagle. A gonnagle is the clan's bard
and battle poet, but they
don't spend all their lives in the same clan. In fact, they're a sort
of clan all by themselves.
Gonnagles move around among the other clans, making sure the songs and
stories get spread around
all the Feegles. Awf'ly Wee Billy had come with Jeannie from the Long
Lake clan, which often
happens. He was very young for a gonnagle, but as Jeannie had said,
there was no age limit to
gonnagling. If the talent was in you, you gonnagled. And Awf'ly Wee
Billy knew all the songs and
could play the mousepipes so sadly that outside it would start to
rain. 'Aye, lad?' said Rob
Anybody kindly. 'Speak up, then.' 'Can we get hold o' some human
clothes?' said Awf'ly Wee Billy.
'Because there's an old story about the big feud between the Three
Peaks clan and the Windy River
clan and the Windy River boys escaped by making a tattie-bogle walk,
and the men o' Three Peaks
thought it was a bigjob and kept oot o' its way.' The others looked
puzzled, and Awf'ly Wee Billy
remembered that they were men of the Chalk and had probably never seen
a tattie-bogle. 'A
scarecrow?' he said. 'It's like a bigjob made o' sticks, wi' clothes
on, for to frighten away the
birdies fra' the crops? Now, the song says the Windy River's kelda
used magic to make it walk, but
I reckon it was done by cunnin' and strength.' He sang about it. They
listened. He explained how
to make a human that would walk. They looked at one another. It was a
mad, desperate plan, which
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was very dangerous and risky and would require tremendous strength and
bravery to make it work.
Put like that, they agreed to it instantly. Tiffany found that there
was more than chores and the
research, though. There was what Miss Level called 'filling what's
empty and emptying what's
full'. Usually only one of Miss Level's bodies went out at a time.
People thought Miss Level was
twins, and she made sure they continued to do so, but she found it a
little bit safer all round to
keep the bodies apart. Tiffany could see why. You only had to watch
both of Miss Level when she
was eating. The bodies would pass plates to one another without saying
a word, sometimes they'd
eat off one another's forks, and it was rather strange to see one
person burp and the other one
say 'Oops, pardon me'. 'Filling what's empty and emptying what's full'
meant wandering round the
local villages and the isolated farms and, mostly, doing medicine.
There were always bandages to
change or expectant mothers to talk to. Witches did a lot of
midwifery, which is a kind of
'emptying what's full', but Miss Level, wearing her pointy hat, had
only to turn up at a cottage
for other people to suddenly come visiting, by sheer accident. And
there was an awful lot of
gossip and tea-drinking. Miss Level moved in a twitching, living world
of gossip, although Tiffany
noticed that she picked up a lot more than she passed on. It seemed to
be a world made up entirely
of women, but occasionally, out in the lanes, a man would strike up a
conversation about the
weather and somehow, by some sort of code, an ointment or a potion
would get handed over. Tiffany
couldn't quite work out how Miss Level got paid. Certainly the basket
she carried filled up more
than it emptied. They'd walk past a cottage and a woman would come
scurrying out with a freshbaked
loaf or a jar of pickles, even though Miss Level hadn't stopped there.
But they'd spend an
hour somewhere else, stitching up the leg of a farmer who'd been
careless with an axe, and get a
cup of tea and a stale biscuit. It didn't seem fair. 'Oh, it evens
out,' said Miss Level, as they
walked on through the woods. 'You do what you can. People give what
they can, when they can. Old
Slapwick there, with the leg, he's as mean as a cat, but there'll be a
big cut of beef on my
doorstep before the week's end, you can bet on it. His wife will see
to it. And pretty soon people
will be killing their pigs for the winter, and I'll get more brawn,
ham, bacon and sausages
turning up than a family could eat in a year.' 'You do? What do you do
with all that food?' 'Store
it,' said Miss Level. 'But you-' 'I store it in other people. It's
amazing what you can store in
other people.' Miss Level laughed at Tiffany's expression. 'I mean, I
take what I don't need round
to those who don't have a pig, or who're going through a bad patch, or
who don't have anyone to
remember them.' 'But that means they'll owe you a favour!' 'Right! And
so it just keeps on going
round. It all works out.' 'I bet some people are too mean to pay-'
'Not pay,' said Miss Level,
severely. 'A witch never expects payment and never asks for it and
just hopes she never needs to.
But, sadly, you are right.'
And then what happens?' 'What do you mean?' 'You stop helping them, do
you?' 'Oh, no,' said Miss
Level, genuinely shocked. 'You can't not help people just because
they're stupid or forgetful or
unpleasant. Everyone's poor round here. If I don't help them, who
will?' 'Granny Aching... that
is, my grandmother said someone has to speak up for them as has no
voices,' Tiffany volunteered
after a moment. 'Was she a witch?' I'm not sure,' said Tiffany. 'I
think so, but she didn't know
she was. She mostly lived by herself in an old shepherding hut up on
the downs.' 'She wasn't a
cackler, was she?' said Miss Level, and when she saw Tiffany's
expression she said hurriedly,
'Sorry, sorry. But it can happen, when you're a witch who doesn't know
it. You're like a ship with
no rudder. But obviously she wasn't like that, I can tell.' 'She lived
on the hills and talked to
them and she knew more about sheep than anybody!' said Tiffany hotly.
'I'm sure she did, I'm sure
she did-' 'She never cackled!' 'Good, good,' said Miss Level
soothingly. 'Was she clever at
medicine?' Tiffany hesitated. 'Urn... only with sheep,' she said,
calming down. 'But she was very
good. Especially if it involved turpentine. Mostly if it involved
turpentine, actually. But always
she... was... just... there. Even when she wasn't actually there
'Yes,' said Miss Level. 'You know
what I mean?' said Tiffany. 'Oh, yes,' said Miss Level. 'Your Granny
Aching lived down on the
uplands-' 'No, up on the downland,' Tiffany corrected her. 'Sorry, up
on the downland, with the
sheep, but people would look up sometimes, look up at the hills,
knowing she was there somewhere,
and say to themselves "What would Granny Aching do?" or "What would
Granny Aching say if she found
out?" or "Is this the sort of thing Granny Aching would be angry
about?"' said Miss Level. 'Yes?'
Tiffany narrowed her eyes. It was true. She remembered when Granny
Aching had hit a pedlar who'd
overloaded his donkey and was beating it. Granny usually used only
words, and not many of them.
The man had been so frightened by her sudden rage that he'd stood
there and taken it. It had
frightened Tiffany, too. Granny, who seldom said anything without
thinking about it for ten
minutes beforehand, had struck the wretched man twice across the face
in a brief blur of movement.
And then news had got around, all along the Chalk. For a while, at
least, people were a little
more gentle with their animals... For months after that moment with
the pedlar, carters and
drovers and farmers all across the downs would hesitate before raising
a whip or a stick, and
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think: Suppose Granny Aching is watching? But- 'How did you know
that?' she said. 'Oh, I guessed.
She sounds like a witch to me, whatever she thought she was. A good
one, too.' Tiffany inflated
with inherited pride. 'Did she help people?' Miss Level added. The
pride deflated a bit. The
instant answer 'yes' jumped onto her tongue, and yet... Granny Aching
hardly ever came down off
the hills, except for Hogswatch and the early lambing. You seldom saw
her in the village unless
the pedlar who sold Jolly Sailor tobacco was late on his rounds, in
which case she'd be down in a
hurry and a flurry of greasy black skirts to cadge a pipeful off one
of the old men. But there
wasn't a person on the Chalk, from the Baron down, who didn't owe
something to Granny. And what
they owed to her, she made them pay to others. She always knew who was
short of a favour or two.
'She made them help one another' she said. 'She made them help
themselves.' In the silence that
followed, Tiffany heard the birds singing by the road. You got a lot
of birds here, but she missed
the high scream of the buzzards. Miss Level sighed. 'Not many of us
are that good,' she said. 'If
I was that good, we wouldn't be going to visit old Mr Weavall again.'
Tiffany said 'Oh dear'
inside. Most days included a visit to Mr Weavall. Tiffany dreaded
them. Mr Weavall's skin was
paper-thin and yellowish. He was always in the same old armchair, in a
tiny room in a small
cottage that smelled of old potatoes and was surrounded by a more or
less overgrown garden. He'd
be sitting bolt upright, his hands on two walking sticks, wearing a
suit that was shiny with age,
staring at the door. 'I make sure he has something hot every day,
although he eats like a bird,'
Miss Level had said. 'And old Widow Tussy down the lane does his
laundry, such as it is. He's
ninety-one, you know.' Mr Weavall had very bright eyes and chatted
away to and at them as they
tidied up the room. The first time Tiffany had met him he'd called her
Mary. Sometimes he still
did. And he'd grabbed her wrist with surprising force as she walked
past... It had been a real
shock, that claw of a hand suddenly gripping her. You could see blue
veins under the skin. 'I
shan't be a burden on anyone' he'd said urgently. 'I got money put by
for when I go. My boy Toby
won't have nothin' to worry about. I can pay my way! I want the proper
funeral show, right? With
the black horses and the plumes and the mutes and a knife-and-fork tea
for everyone afterwards.
I've written it all down, fair and square. Check in my box to make
sure, will you? That witch
woman's always hanging around here!' Tiffany had given Miss Level a
despairing look. She'd nodded,
and pointed to an old wooden box tucked under Mr Weavall's chair. It
had turned out to be full of
coins, mostly copper, but there were quite a few silver ones. It
looked like a fortune, and for a
moment she'd wished she had as much money. There's a lot of coins in
here, Mr Weavall,' she'd
said. Mr Weavall relaxed. 'Ah, that's right,' he'd said. 'Then I won't
be a burden.' Today Mr
Weavall was asleep when they called on him, snoring with his mouth
open and his yellow-brown teeth
showing. But he awoke in an instant, stared at them and then said, 'My
boy Toby's coming to see I
Sat'day.' 'That's nice, Mr Weavall,' said Miss Level, plumping up his
cushions. 'We'll get the
place nice and tidy.' 'He's done very well for hisself, you know,'
said Mr Weavall, proudly. 'Got
a job indoors with no heavy lifting. He said he'll see I all right in
my old age, but I told him,
I told him I'd pay my way when I go- the whole thing, the salt and
earth and tuppence for the
ferryman, too!' Today, Miss Level gave him a shave. His hands shook
too much for him to do it
himself. (Yesterday she'd cut his toenails, because he couldn't reach
them; it was not a safe
spectator sport, especially when one smashed a windowpane.) 'It's all
in a box under my chair,' he
said as Tiffany nervously wiped the last bits of foam off him. 'Just
check for me, will you,
Mary?' Oh, yes. That was the ceremony, every day. There was the box,
and there was the money. He
asked every time. There was always the same amount of money. 'Tuppence
for the ferryman?' said
Tiffany, as they walked home. 'Mr Weavall remembers all the old
funeral traditions,' said Miss
Level. 'Some people believe that when you die you cross the River of
Death and have to pay the
ferryman. People don't seem to worry about that these days. Perhaps
there's a bridge now.' 'He's
always talking about... his funeral.' 'Well, it's important to him.
Sometimes old people are like
that. They'd hate people to think that they were too poor to pay for
their own funeral. Mr
Weavall'd die of shame if he couldn't pay for his own funeral.' It's
very sad, him being all alone
like that. Something should be done for him,' said Tiffany. 'Yes.
We're doing it,' said Miss
Level. 'And Mrs Tussy keeps a friendly eye on him.' 'Yes, but it
shouldn't have to be us, should
it?' 'Who should it have to be?' said Miss Level. 'Well, what about
this son he's always talking
about?' said Tiffany. 'Young Toby? He's been dead for fifteen years.
And Mary was the old man's
daughter, she died quite young. Mr Weavall is very short-sighted, but
he sees better in the past.'
Tiffany didn't know what to reply except: 'It shouldn't be like this.'
'There isn't a way things
should be. There's just what happens, and what we do.' 'Well, couldn't
you help him by magic?' 'I
see to it that he's in no pain, yes,' said Miss Level. 'But that's
just herbs.' 'It's still magic.
Knowing things is magical, if other people don't know them.' 'Yes, but
you know what I mean,' said
Tiffany, who felt she was losing this argument. 'Oh, you mean make him
young again?' said Miss
Level. 'Fill his house with gold? That's not what witches do.' 'We see
to it that lonely old men
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get a cooked dinner and cut their toenails?' said Tiffany, just a
little sarcastically. 'Well,
yes,' said Miss Level. 'We do what can be done. Mistress Weatherwax
said you've got to learn that
witchcraft is mostly about doing quite ordinary things.' 'And you have
do what she says?' said
Tiffany. 'I listen to her advice' said Miss Level, coldly. 'Mistress
Weatherwax is the head witch,
then, is she?' 'Oh no!' said Miss Level, looking shocked. 'Witches are
all equal. We don't have
things like head witches. That's quite against the spirit of
witchcraft.' 'Oh, I see,' said
Tiffany. 'Besides,' Miss Level added, 'Mistress Weatherwax would never
allow that sort of thing.'
Suddenly, things were going missing from the households around the
Chalk. This wasn't the
occasional egg or chicken. Clothes were vanishing off washing lines. A
pair of boots mysteriously
disappeared from under the bed of Nosey Hinds, the oldest man in the
village- 'And they was damn
good boots, they could walk home from the pub all by themselves if I
but pointed they in the right
direction,' he complained to anyone who would listen. 'And they
marched off wi' my old hat, too.
And I'd got he just as I wanted he, all soft and floppy!' A pair of
trousers and a long coat
vanished from a hook belonging to Abiding Swindell, the ferret-keeper,
and the coat still had
ferrets living in the inside pockets. And who, who climbed through the
bedroom window of Clem
Doins and shaved off his beard, which had been so long that he could
tuck it into his belt? Not a
hair was left. He had to go around with a scarf over his face, in case
the sight of his poor pink
chin frightened the ladies... It was probably witches, people agreed,
and made a few more cursenets
to hang in their windows. However... On the far side of the Chalk,
where the long green
slopes came down to the flat fields of the plain, there were big
thickets of bramble and hawthorn.
Usually, these were alive with birdsong, but this particular one, the
one just here, was alive
with cussing. 'Ach, crivens! Will ye no' mind where ye 're puttin' yer
foot, ye spavie!' 'I cannae
help it! It's nae easy, bein' a knee!' ' Ye think ye got troubles? Ye
wannae be doon here in the
boots! That old man Swindell couldnae ha' washed his feet in years!
It's fair reekin' doon here!'
'Reekin', izzit? Well, you try bein' in this pocket! Them ferrets ne
'er got oot to gae to the
lavie, if you get my meanin'!' 'Crivens! Will ye dafties no' shut up?'
'Oh, aye? Hark at him! Just
'cuzye're up in the held, you think you know everythin'? Fra' doon
here ye're nothing but dead
weight, pal!' 'Aye, right! I'm wi' the elbows on this one! Where'dyou
be if it wuzn'tfor us
carryin' ye aroound? Who's ye think ye are?' 'I'm Rob Anybody Feegle,
as you ken well enough, an'
I've had enough o' the lot o' yezf 'OK, Rob, but it's real stuffy in
here!' 'Ach, an' I'm fed up
wi' the stomach complainin', too!' 'Gentlemen.' This was the voice of
the toad; no one else would
dream of calling the Nac Mac Feegle gentlemen. 'Gentlemen, time is of
the essence. The cart will
be here soon! You must not miss it!' 'We need more time to practise,
Toad! We're walkin' like a
feller wi' nae bones and a serious case o' the trots!' said a voice a
little higher up than the
rest. 'At least you are walking. That's good enough. I wish you luck,
gentlemen.' There was a cry
from further along the thickets, where a lookout had been watching the
road. 'The cart's comin'
doon the hill!' 'OK, lads!' shouted Rob Anybody. 'Toad, you look after
Jeannie, y'hear? She'll
need a thinkin' laddie to rely on while I'm no' here! Right, ye
scunners! It's do or die! Ye ken
what to do! Ye lads on the ropes, pull us up noo!' The bushes shook.
'Right! Pelvis, are ye
ready?' 'Aye, Rob!' 'Knees? Knees? I said, knees?' 'Aye, Rob, but-'
'Feets?' 'Aye, Rob!' The
bushes shook again. 'Right! Remember: right, left, right, left!
Pelvis, knee, foot on the groond!
Keep a spring in the step, feets! Are you ready? Altogether, boys...
walk!' It was a big surprise
for Mr Crabber the carter. He'd been staring vaguely at nothing,
thinking only of going home, when
something stepped out of the bushes and into the road. It looked human
or, rather, looked slightly
more human than it looked like anything else. But it seemed to be
having trouble with its knees,
and walked as though they'd been tied together. However, the carter
didn't spend too much time
thinking about that because, clutched in one gloved hand that was
waving vaguely in the air, was
something gold. This immediately identified the stranger, as far as
the carter was concerned. He
was not, as first sight might suggest, some old tramp to be left by
the roadside, but an obvious
gentleman down on his luck, and it was practically the carter's duty
to help him. He slowed the
horse to a standstill. The stranger didn't really have a face. There
was nothing much to see
between the droopy hat brim and the turned-up collar of the coat
except a lot of beard. But from
somewhere within the beard a voice said: '... Shudupshudup... will ye
all shudup while I'm
talkin'... Ahem. Good day ta' ye, carter fellow my ol' fellowy fellow!
If ye'll gie us- me a lift
as far as ye are goin', we- I'll gie ye this fine shiny golden coin!'
The figure lurched forward
and thrust its hand in front of Mr Crabber's face. It was quite a
large coin. And it was certainly
gold. It had come from the treasure of the old dead king who was
buried in the main part of the
Feegles' mound. Oddly enough, the Feegles weren't hugely interested in
gold once they'd stolen it,
because you couldn't drink it and it was difficult to eat. In the
mound, they mostly used the old
coins and plates to reflect candlelight and give the place a nice
glow. It was no hardship to give
some away. The carter stared at it. It was more money than he had ever
seen in his life. 'If...
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sir... would like to... hop on the back of the cart, sir,' he said,
carefully taking it. 'Ach,
right you are, then,' said the bearded mystery man after a pause.
'Just a moment, this needs a wee
bitty organizin'... OK, youse hands, you just grab the side o' the
cart, and' you leftie leg, ye
gotta kinda sidle along... ach, crivens! Ye gotta bend! Bend! C'mon,
get it right!' The hairy face
turned to the carter. 'Sorry aboot this,' it said. 'I talk to my
knees, but they dinnae listen to
me.' 'Is that right?' said the carter weakly. 'I have trouble with my
knees in the wet weather.
Goose grease works.' 'Ah, weel, these knees is gonna get more'n a
greasin' if I ha' to get doon
there an' sort them oot!' snarled the hairy man. The carter heard
various bangs and grunts behind
him as the man hauled himself onto the tail of the cart. 'OK, let's
gae,' said a voice. 'We'
havenae got all day. And youse knees, you're sacked! Crivens, I'm
walkin' like I got a big touch
of the stoppies! You gae up to the stomach and send doon a couple of
good knee men!' The carter
bit the coin thoughtfully as he urged the horse into a walk. It was
such pure gold that he left
toothmarks. That meant his passenger was very, very rich. That was
becoming very important at this
point. 'Can ye no' go a wee bitty faster, my good man, my good man?'
said the voice behind him,
after they had gone a little way. 'Ah, well, sir,' said the carter,
'see them boxes and crates?
I've got a load of eggs, and those apples mustn't be bruised, sir, and
then there's those jugs of-
' There were some bangs and crashes behind him, including the sploosh
that a large crate of eggs
makes when it hits a road. 'Ye can gae faster noo, eh?' said the
voice. 'Hey, that was my-' Mr
Crabber began. 'I've got another one o' they big wee gold coins for
ye!' And a heavy and smelly
arm landed on the carter's shoulder. Dangling from the glove on the
end of it was, indeed, another
coin. It was ten times what the load had been worth. 'Oh, well...'
said the carter, carefully
taking the coin. 'Accidents do happen, eh, sir?' 'Aye, especially if I
dinnae think I'm goin' fast
enough,' said the voice behind him. 'We- I mean I'm in a big hurry tae
get tae yon mountains, ye
ken!' 'But I'm not a stagecoach, sir,' said the carter reproachfully
as he urged his old horse
into a trot. 'Stagecoach, eh? What's one o' them things?' 'That's what
you'll need to catch to
take you up into the mountains, sir. You can catch one in Twoshirts,
sir. I never go any further
than Twoshirts, sir. But you won't be able to get the stage today,
sir.' 'Why not?' 'I've got to
make stops at the other villages, sir, and it's a long way, and on
Wednesdays it runs early, sir,
and this cart can only go so fast, sir, and-' 'If we- I dinnae catch
yon coach today I'll gi'e ye
the hidin' o' yer life,' growled the passenger. 'But if I do catch yon
coach today, I'll gie ye
five o' them gold coins.' Mr Crabber took a deep breath, and yelled:
'Hi! Hyah! Giddyup, Henry!'
All in all, it seemed to Tiffany, most of what witches did really was
very similar to work. Dull
work. Miss Level didn't even use her broomstick very much. That was a
bit depressing. It was all a
bit... well, goody-goody. Obviously that was better than being baddy-
baddy, but a little more...
excitement would be nice. Tiffany wouldn't like anyone to think she'd
expected to be issued with a
magic wand on Day One but, well, the way Miss Level talked about
magic, the whole point of
witchcraft lay in not using any. Mind you, Tiffany thought she would
be depressingly good at not
using any. It was doing the simplest magic that was hard. Miss Level
patiently showed her how to
make a shamble, which could more or less be made of anything that
seemed a good idea at the time
provided it also contained something alive, like a beetle or a fresh
egg. Tiffany couldn't even
get the hang of it. That was... annoying. Didn't she have the virtual
hat? Didn't she have First
Sight and Second Thoughts? Miss Tick and Miss Level could throw a
shamble together in seconds, but
Tiffany just got a tangle, dripping with egg. Over and over again. I
know I'm doing it right but
it just twists up!' Tiffany complained. 'What can I do?' 'We could
make an omelette?' said Miss
Level cheerfully. 'Oh, please, Miss Level!' Tiffany wailed. Miss Level
patted her on the back.
'It'll happen. Perhaps you're trying too hard. One day it'll come. The
power does come, you know.
You just have to put yourself in its path-' 'Couldn't you make one
that I could use for a while,
to get the hang of it?' 'I'm afraid I can't,' said Miss Level. 'A
shamble is a very tricky thing.
You can't even carry one around, except as an ornament. You have to
make it for yourself, there
and then, right where and when you want to use it.' 'Why?' said
Tiffany. 'To catch the moment,'
said the other part of Miss Level, coming in. The way you tie the
knots, the way the string runs
the freshness of the egg, perhaps, and the moisture in the air -' said
the first Miss Level. '-
the tension of the twigs and the kind of things that you just happen
to have in your pocket at
that moment even the way the wind is blowing,' the first Miss Level
concluded. 'All these things
make a kind of... of picture of the here-and-now when you move them
right. And I can't even tell
you how to move them, because I don't know.' 'But you do move them,'
said Tiffany, getting lost.
'I saw you-' 'I do it but I don't know how I do,' said Miss Level,
picking up a couple of twigs
and taking a length of thread. Miss Level sat down at the table
opposite Miss Level, and all four
hands started to put a shamble together. 'This reminds me of when I
was in the circus,' she said.
I was walking out for a while with Marco and Falco, the Flying
Pastrami Brothers,' the other part
of Miss Level went on. 'They would do triple somersaults fifty feet up
with no safety net. What
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