A Hat Full Of Sky
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Apr 18, 2011, 10:03:33 AM4/18/11
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Chapter 1
Leaving
It came crackling over the hills, like an invisible fog. Movement
without a body tired it, and it
drifted very slowly. It wasn 't thinking now. It had been months since
it had last thought,
because the brain that was doing the thinking for it had died. They
always died. So now it was
naked again, and frightened. It could hide in one of the blobby white
creatures that baa 'd
nervously as it crawled over the turf. But they had useless brains,
capable of thinking only about
grass and making other things that went baa. No. They would not do. It
needed, needed something
better, a strong mind, a mind with power, a mind that could keep it
safe. It searched... The new
boots were all wrong. They were stiff and shiny. Shiny boots! That was
disgraceful. Clean boots,
that was different. There was nothing wrong with putting a bit of a
polish on boots to keep the
wet out. But boots had to work for a living. They shouldn't shine.
Tiffany Aching, standing on the
rug in her bedroom, shook her head. She'd have to scuff the things as
soon as possible. Then there
was the new straw hat, with a ribbon on it. She had some doubts about
that, too. She tried to look
at herself in the mirror, which wasn't easy because the mirror was not
much bigger than her hand,
and cracked and blotchy. She had to move it around to try and see as
much of herself as possible
and remember how the bits fitted together. But today... well, she
didn't usually do this sort of
thing in the house, but it was important to look smart today, and
since no one was around... She
put the mirror down on the rickety table by the bed, stood in the
middle of the threadbare rug,
shut her eyes and said: 'See me.' And away on the hills something, a
thing with no body and no
mind but a terrible hunger and a bottomless fear, felt the power. It
would have sniffed the air,
if it had a nose. It searched. It found. Such a strange mind, like a
lot of minds inside one
another, getting smaller and smaller! So strong! So close! It changed
direction slightly, and went
a little faster. As it moved, it made a noise like a swarm of flies.
The sheep, nervous for a
moment about something they couldn 't see, hear or smell, baa 'd.....
and went back to chewing
grass. Tiffany opened her eyes. There she was, a few feet away from
herself. She could see the
back of her own head. Carefully, she moved around the room, not
looking down at the 'her' that was
moving, because she found that if she did that then the trick was
over. It was quite difficult,
moving like that, but at last she was in front of herself and looking
herself up and down. Brown
hair to match brown eyes... there was nothing she could do about that.
At least her hair was clean
and she'd washed her face. She had a new dress on, which improved
things a bit. It was so unusual
to buy new clothes in the Aching family that, of course, it was bought
big so that she'd 'grow
into it'. But at least it was pale green, and it didn't actually touch
the floor. With the shiny
new boots and the straw hat she looked... like a farmer's daughter,
quite respectable, going off
to her first job. It'd have to do. From here she could see the pointy
hat on her head, but she had
to look hard for it. It was like a glint in the air, gone as soon as
you saw it. That's why she'd
been worried about the new straw hat, but it had simply gone through
it as if the new hat wasn't
there. This was because, in a way, it wasn't. It was invisible, except
in the rain. Sun and wind
went straight through, but rain and snow somehow saw it, and treated
it as if it were real. She'd
been given it by the greatest witch in the world, a real witch with a
black dress and a black hat
and eyes that could go through you like turpentine goes through a sick
sheep. It had been a kind
of reward. Tiffany had done magic, serious magic. Before she had done
it she hadn't known that she
could; when she had been doing it she hadn't known that she was; and
after she had done it she
hadn't known how she had. Now she had to learn how. 'See me not,' she
said. The vision of her...
or whatever it was, because she was not exactly sure about this
trick... vanished. It had been a
shock, the first time she'd done this. But she'd always found it easy
to see herself, at least in
her head. All her memories were like little pictures of herself doing
things or watching things,
rather than the view from the two holes in the front of her head.
There was a part of her that was
always watching her. Miss Tick- another witch, but one who was easier
to talk to than the witch
who'd given Tiffany the hat- had said that a witch had to know how to
'stand apart', and that
she'd find out more when her talent grew, so Tiffany supposed the 'see
me' was part of this.
Sometimes Tiffany thought she ought to talk to Miss Tick about 'see
me'. It felt as if she was
stepping out of her body, but still had a sort of ghost body that
could walk around. It all worked
as long as her ghost eyes didn't look down and see that she was just a
ghost body. If that
happened, some part of her panicked and she found herself back in her
solid body immediately.
Tiffany had, in the end, decided to keep this to herself. You didn't
have to tell a teacher
everything. Anyway, it was a good trick for when you didn't have a
mirror. Miss Tick was a sort of
witch-finder. That seemed to be how witchcraft worked. Some witches
kept a magical lookout for
girls who showed promise, and found them an older witch to help them
along. They didn't teach you
how to do it. They taught you how to know what you were doing. Witches
were a bit like cats. They
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didn't much like one another's company, but they did like to know
where all the other witches
were, just in case they needed them. And what you might need them for
was to tell you, as a
friend, that you were beginning to cackle. Witches didn't fear much,
Miss Tick had said, but what
the powerful ones were afraid of, even if they didn't talk about it,
was what they called 'going
to the bad'. It was too easy to slip into careless little cruelties
because you had power and
other people hadn't, too easy to think other people didn't matter
much, too easy to think that
ideas like right and wrong didn't apply to you. At the end of that
road was you dribbling and
cackling to yourself all alone in a gingerbread house, growing warts
on your nose. Witches needed
to know other witches were watching them. And that, Tiffany thought,
was why the hat was there.
She could touch it any time, provided she shut her eyes. It was a kind
of reminder... Tiffany!'
her mother shouted up the stairs. 'Miss Tick's here!' Yesterday,
Tiffany had said goodbye to
Granny Aching... The iron wheels of the old shepherding hut were half
buried in the turf, high up
on the hills. The potbellied stove, which still stood lopsided in the
grass, was red with rust.
The chalk hills were taking them, just like they'd taken the bones of
Granny Aching. The rest of
the hut had been burned on the day she'd been buried. No shepherd
would have dared to use it, let
alone spend the night there. Granny Aching had been too big in
people's minds, too hard to
replace. Night and day, in all seasons, she was the Chalk country: its
best shepherd, its wisest
woman, and its memory. It was as if the green downland had a soul that
walked about in old boots
and a sacking apron and smoked a foul old pipe and dosed sheep with
turpentine. The shepherds said
that Granny Aching had cussed the sky blue. They called the fluffy
little white clouds of summer
'Granny Aching's little lambs'. And although they laughed when they
said these things, part of
them was not joking. No shepherd would have dared presume to live in
that hut, no shepherd at all.
So they had cut the turf and buried Granny Aching in the Chalk,
watered the turf afterwards to
leave no mark, then they burned her hut. Sheep's wool, Jolly Sailor
tobacco and turpentine... ...
had been the smells of the shepherding hut, and the smell of Granny
Aching. Such things have a
hold on people that goes right to the heart. Tiffany only had to smell
them now to be back there,
in the warmth and silence and safety of the hut. It was the place she
had gone to when she was
upset, and the place she had gone to when she was happy. And Granny
Aching would always smile and
make tea and say nothing. And nothing bad could happen in the
shepherding hut. It was a fort
against the world. Even now, after Granny had gone, Tiffany still
liked to go up there. Tiffany
stood there, while the wind blew over the turf and sheep bells clonked
in the distance. 'I've
got...' She cleared her throat. I've got to go away. I... I've got to
learn proper witching, and
there's no one here now to teach me, you see. I've got to... to look
after the hills like you did.
I can... do things but I don't know things, and Miss Tick says what
you don't know can kill you. I
want to be as good as you were. I will come back! I will come back
soon! I promise I will come
back, better than I went!' A blue butterfly, blown off course by a
gust, settled on Tiffany's
shoulder, opened and shut its wings once or twice, then fluttered
away. Granny Aching had never
been at home with words. She collected silence like other people
collected string. But she had a
way of saying nothing that said it all. Tiffany stayed for a while,
until her tears had dried, and
then went off back down the hill, leaving the everlasting wind to curl
around the wheels and
whistle down the chimney of the pot-bellied stove. Life went on. It
wasn't unusual for girls as
young as Tiffany to go 'into service'. It meant working as a maid
somewhere. Traditionally, you
started by helping an old lady who lived by herself; she wouldn't be
able to pay much, but since
this was your first job you probably weren't worth much, either. In
fact Tiffany practically ran
Home Farm's dairy by herself, if someone helped her lift the big milk
churns, and her parents had
been surprised she had wanted to go into service at all. But as
Tiffany said, it was something
everyone did. You got out into the world a little bit. You met new
people. You never knew what it
could lead to. That, rather cunningly, got her mother on her side. Her
mother's rich aunt had gone
off to be a scullery maid, and then a parlour maid, and had worked her
way up until she was a
housekeeper and married to a butler and lived in a fine house. It
wasn't her fine house, and she
only lived in a bit of it, but she was practically a lady. Tiffany
didn't intend to be a lady.
This was all a ruse, anyway. And Miss Tick was in on it. You weren't
allowed to charge money for
the witching, so all witches did some other job as well. Miss Tick was
basically a witch disguised
as a teacher. She travelled around with the other wandering teachers
who went in bands from place
to place teaching anything to anybody in exchange for food or old
clothes. It was a good way to
get around, because people in the chalk country didn't trust witches.
They thought they danced
around on moonlit nights without their drawers on. (Tiffany had made
enquiries about this, and had
been slightly relieved to find out that you didn't have to do this to
be a witch. You could if you
wanted to, but only if you were certain where all the nettles,
thistles and hedgehogs were.) But
if it came to it, people were a bit wary of the wandering teachers,
too. They were said to pinch
chickens and steal away children (which was true, in a way) and they
went from village to village
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with their gaudy carts and wore long robes with leather pads on the
sleeves and strange flat hats
and talked amongst themselves using heathen lingo no one could
understand, like 'Aha jacta esf and
'Quid pro quo'. It was quite easy for Miss Tick to lurk amongst them.
Her pointy hat was a stealth
version, which looked just like a black straw hat with paper flowers
on it until you pressed the
secret spring. Over the last year or so Tiffany's mother had been
quite surprised, and a little
worried, at Tiffany's sudden thirst for education, which people in the
village thought was a good
thing in moderation but if taken unwisely could lead to restlessness.
Then a month ago, the
message had come: Be ready. Miss Tick, in her flowery hat, had visited
the farm and had explained
to Mr and Mrs Aching that an elderly lady up in the mountains had
heard of Tiffany's excellent
prowess with cheese and was willing to offer her the post of maid at
four dollars a month, one day
off a week, her own bed and a week's holiday at Hogswatch. Tiffany
knew her parents. Three dollars
a month was a bit low, and five dollars would be suspiciously high,
but prowess with cheese was
worth the extra dollar. And a bed all to yourself was a very nice
perk. Before most of Tiffany's
sisters had left home, sleeping two sisters to a bed had been normal.
It was a good offer. Her
parents had been impressed and slightly scared of Miss Tick, but they
had been brought up to
believe that people who knew more than you and used long words were
quite important, so they'd
agreed. Tiffany accidentally heard them discussing it after she had
gone to bed that night. It's
quite easy to accidentally overhear people talking downstairs if you
hold an upturned glass to the
floorboards and accidentally put your ear to it. She heard her father
say that Tiffany didn't have
to go away at all. She heard her mother say that all girls wondered
what was out there in the
world, so it was best to get it out of her system. Besides, she was a
very capable girl with a
good head on her shoulders. Why, with hard work there was no reason
why one day she couldn't be a
servant to someone quite important, like Aunt Hetty had been, and live
in a house with an inside
privy. Her father said she'd find that scrubbing floors was the same
everywhere. Her mother said,
well, in that case she'd get bored and come back home after the year
was up and, by the way, what
did 'prowess' mean? 'Superior skill', thought Tiffany to herself. They
did have an old dictionary
in the house, but her mother never opened it because the sight of all
those words upset her.
Tiffany had read it all the way through. And that was it, and suddenly
here she was, a month
later, wrapping her old boots, which'd been worn by all her sisters
before her, in a piece of
clean rag and putting them in the second-hand suitcase her mother had
bought her, which looked as
if it was made of bad cardboard or pressed grape pips mixed with ear
wax, and had to be held
together with string. There were goodbyes. She cried a bit, and her
mother cried a lot, and her
little brother Wentworth cried as well just in case he could get a
sweet for doing so. Tiffany's
father didn't cry but gave her a silver dollar and rather gruffly told
her to be sure to write
home every week, which is a man's way of crying. She said goodbye to
the cheeses in the dairy and
the sheep in the paddock and even to Ratbag the cat. Then everyone
apart from the cheeses and the
cat stood at the gate and waved to her and Miss Tick -well, except for
the sheep, too- until
they'd gone nearly all the way down the chalky-white lane to the
village. And then there was
silence except for the sound of their boots on the flinty surface and
the endless song of the
skylarks overhead. It was late August, and very hot, and the new boots
pinched. 'I should take
them off, if I was you,' said Miss Tick after a while. Tiffany sat
down by the side of the lane
and got her old boots out of the case. She didn't bother to ask how
Miss Tick knew about the tight
new boots. Witches paid attention. The old boots, even though she had
to wear several pairs of
socks with them, were much more comfortable and really easy to walk
in. They had been walking
since long before Tiffany was born, and knew how to do it. 'And are we
going to see any... little
men today?' Miss Tick went on, once they were walking again. 'I don't
know, Miss Tick,' said
Tiffany. 'I told them a month ago I was leaving. They're very busy at
this time of year. But
there's always one or two of them watching me.' Miss Tick looked
around quickly. 'I can't see
anything,' she said. 'Or hear anything.' 'No, that's how you can tell
they're there,' said
Tiffany. 'It's always a bit quieter if they're watching me. But they
won't show themselves while
you're with me. They're a bit frightened of hags- that's their word
for witches,' she added
quickly. 'It's nothing personal.' Miss Tick sighed. 'When I was a
little girl I'd have loved to
see the pictsies,' she said. 'I used to put out little saucers of
milk. Of course, later on I
realized that wasn't quite the thing to do.' 'No, you should have used
strong licker,' said
Tiffany. She glanced at the hedge and thought she saw, just for the
snap of a second, a flash of
red hair. And she smiled, a little nervously. Tiffany had been, if
only for a few days, the
nearest a human being can be to a queen of the fairies. Admittedly,
she'd been called a kelda
rather than a queen, and the Nac Mac Feegle should only be called
fairies to their face if you
were looking for a fight. On the other hand the Nac Mac Feegle were
always looking for a fight, in
a cheerful sort of way, and when they had no one to fight they fought
one another, and if one was
all by himself he'd kick his own nose just to keep in practice.
Technically, they had lived in
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Fairyland, but had been thrown out, probably for being drunk. And now,
because if you'd ever been
their kelda they never forgot you . .. ... they were always there.
There was always one somewhere
on the farm, or circling on a buzzard high over the chalk downs. And
they watched her, to help and
protect her, whether she wanted them to or not. Tiffany had been as
polite as possible about this.
She'd hidden her diary right at the back of a drawer and blocked up
the cracks in the privy with
wadded paper, and done her best with the gaps in her bedroom
floorboards, too. They were little
men, after all. She was sure they tried to remain unseen so as not to
disturb her, but she'd got
very good at spotting them. They granted wishes- not the magical
fairytale three wishes, the ones
that always go wrong in the end, but ordinary, everyday ones. The Nac
Mac Feegle were immensely
strong and fearless and incredibly fast, but they weren't good at
understanding that what people
said often wasn't what they meant. One day, in the dairy, Tiffany had
said, I wish I had a sharper
knife to cut this cheese,' and her mother's sharpest knife was
quivering in the table beside her
almost before she'd got the words out. 'I wish this rain would clear
up' was probably OK, because
the Feegles couldn't do actual magic, but she had learned to be
careful not to wish for anything
that might be achievable by some small, determined, strong, fearless
and fast men who were also
not above giving someone a good kicking if they felt like it. Wishes
needed thought. She was never
likely to say, out loud, 'I wish that I could marry a handsome
prince,' but knowing that if you
did you'd probably open the door to find a stunned prince, a tied-up
priest and a Nac Mac Feegle
grinning cheerfully and ready to act as Best Man definitely made you
watch what you said. But they
could be helpful, in a haphazard way, and she'd taken to leaving out
for them things that the
family didn't need but might be useful to little people, like tiny
mustard spoons, pins, a soup
bowl that would make a nice bath for a Feegle and, in case they didn't
get the message, some soap.
They didn't steal the soap. Her last visit to the ancient burial mound
high on the chalk down
where the pictsies lived had been to attend the wedding of Rob
Anybody, the Big Man of the clan,
to Jeannie of the Long Lake. She was going to be the new kelda and
spend most of the rest of her
life in the mound, having babies like a queen bee. Feegles from other
clans had all turned up for
the celebration, because if there's one thing a Feegle likes more than
a party, it's a bigger
party, and if there's anything better than a bigger party, it's a
bigger party with someone else
paying for the drink. To be honest, Tiffany had felt a bit out of
place, being ten times as tall
as the next tallest person there, but she'd been treated very well and
Rob Anybody had made a long
speech about her, calling her 'our fine big wee young hag' before
falling face first into the
pudding. It had all been very hot, and very loud, but she'd joined in
the cheer when Jeannie had
carried Rob Anybody over a tiny broomstick that had been laid on the
floor. Traditionally, both
the bride and the groom should jump over the broomstick but, equally
traditionally, no
selfrespecting Feegle would be sober on his wedding day. She'd been
warned that it would be a good
idea to leave then, because of the traditional fight between the
bride's clan and the groom's
clan, which could take until Friday. Tiffany had bowed to Jeannie,
because that's what hags did,
and had a good look at her. She was small and sweet and very pretty.
She also had a glint in her
eye and a certain proud lift to her chin. Nac Mac Feegle girls were
very rare and they grew up
knowing they were going to be keldas one day, and Tiffany had a
definite feeling that Rob Anybody
was going to find married life trickier than he thought. She was going
to be sorry to leave them
behind, but not terribly sorry. They were nice in a way but they
could, after a while, get on your
nerves. Anyway, she was eleven now, and had a feeling that after a
certain age you shouldn't slide
down holes in the ground to talk to little men. Besides, the look that
Jeannie had given her, just
for a moment, had been pure poison. Tiffany had read its meaning
without having to try. Tiffany
had been the kelda of the clan, even if it was only for a short time.
She had also been engaged to
be married to Rob Anybody, even if that had only been a sort of
political trick. Jeannie knew all
that. And the look had said: He is mine. This place is mine. I do not
want you here! Keep out! A
pool of silence followed Tiffany and Miss Tick down the lane, since
the usual things that rustle
in hedges tended to keep very quiet when the Nac Mac Feegle were
around. They reached the little
village green and sat down to wait for the carrier's cart that went
just a bit faster than walking
pace and would take five hours to get to the village of Twoshirts,
where- Tiffany's parents
thought- they'd get the big coach that ran all the way to the distant
mountains and beyond.
Tiffany could actually see it coming up the road when she heard the
hoofbeats across the green.
She turned, and her heart seemed to leap and sink at the same time. It
was Roland, the Baron's
son, on a fine black horse. He leaped down before the horse had
stopped, and then stood there
looking embarrassed. 'Ah, I see a very fine and interesting example of
a... a... a big stone over
there,' said Miss Tick in a sticky-sweet voice. I'll just go and have
a look at it, shall I?'
Tiffany could have pinched her for that. 'Er, you're going, then,'
said Roland as Miss Tick
hurried away. 'Yes,' said Tiffany. Roland looked as though he was
going to explode with
nervousness. I got this for you,' he said. 'I had it made by a man,
er, over in Yelp.' He held out
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a package wrapped in soft paper. Tiffany took it and put it carefully
in her pocket. Thank you,'
she said, and dropped a small curtsy. Strictly speaking that's what
you had to do when you met a
nobleman, but it just made Roland blush and stutter. 'O-open it later
on,' said Roland. 'Er, I
hope you'll like it.' 'Thank you,' said Tiffany sweetly. 'Here's the
cart. Er... you don't want to
miss it.' 'Thank you,' said Tiffany, and curtsied again, because of
the effect it had. It was a
little bit cruel, but sometimes you had to be. Anyway, it would be
very hard to miss the cart. If
you ran fast, you could easily overtake it. It was so slow that 'stop'
never came as a surprise.
There were no seats. The carrier went around the villages every other
day, picking up packages
and, sometimes, people. You just found a place where you could get
comfortable among the boxes of
fruit and rolls of cloth. Tiffany sat on the back of the cart, her old
boots dangling over the
edge, swaying backwards and forwards as the cart lurched away on the
rough road. Miss Tick sat
beside her, her black dress soon covered in chalk dust to the knees.
Tiffany noticed that Roland
didn't get back on his horse until the cart was nearly out of sight.
And she knew Miss Tick. By
now she would be just bursting to ask a question, because witches hate
not knowing things. And,
sure enough, when the village was left behind, Miss Tick said, after a
lot of shifting and
clearing her throat: 'Aren't you going to open it?' 'Open what?' said
Tiffany, not looking at her.
'He gave you a present,' said Miss Tick. 'I thought you were examining
an interesting stone, Miss
Tick,' said Tiffany accusingly. 'Well, it was only fairly
interesting,' said Miss Tick, completely
unembarrassed. 'So... are you?' 'I'll wait until later,' said Tiffany.
She didn't want a
discussion about Roland at this point or, really, at all. She didn't
actually dislike him. She'd
found him in the land of the Queen of the Fairies and had sort of
rescued him, although he had
been unconscious most of the time. A sudden meeting with the Nac Mac
Feegle when they're feeling
edgy can do that to a person. Of course, without anyone actually
lying, everyone at home had come
to believe that he had rescued her. A nine-year-old girl armed with a
frying pan couldn't possibly
have rescued a thirteen-year-old boy who'd got a sword. Tiffany hadn't
minded that. It stopped
people asking too many questions she didn't want to answer or even
know how to. But he'd taken
to... hanging around. She kept accidentally running into him on walks
more often than was really
possible, and he always seemed to be at the same village events she
went to. He was always polite,
but she couldn't stand the way he kept looking like a spaniel that had
been kicked. Admittedlyand
it took some admitting- he was a lot less of a twit than he had been.
On the other hand, there
had been such of lot of twit to begin with. And then she thought,
Horse, and wondered why until
she realized that her eyes had been watching the landscape while her
brain stared at the past...
'I've never seen that before,' said Miss Tick. Tiffany welcomed it as
an old friend. The Chalk
rose out of the plains quite suddenly on this side of the hills. There
was a little valley cupped
into the fall of the down, and there was a carving in the curve it
made. Turf had been cut away in
long flowing lines so that the bare chalk made the shape of an animal.
'It's the White Horse,'
said Tiffany. 'Why do they call it that?' said Miss Tick. Tiffany
looked at her. 'Because the
chalk is white?' she suggested, trying not to suggest that Miss Tick
was being a bit dense. 'No, I
meant why do they call it a horse? It doesn't look like a horse. It's
just... flowing lines...'
... that look as if they're moving, Tiffany thought. It had been cut
out of the turf right back in
the old days, people said, by the folk who'd built the stone circles
and buried their kind in big
earth mounds. And they'd cut out the Horse at one end of this little
green valley, ten times
bigger than a real horse and, if you didn't look at it with your mind
right, the wrong shape, too.
Yet they must have known horses, owned horses, seen them every day,
and they weren't stupid people
just because they lived a long time ago. Tiffany had once asked her
father about the look of the
Horse, when they'd come all the way over here for a sheep fair, and he
told her what Granny Aching
had told him, too, when he was a little boy. He passed on what she
said word for word, and Tiffany
did the same now. "Taint what a horse looks like,' said Tiffany. It's
what a horse be.' 'Oh,' said
Miss Tick. But because she was a teacher as well as a witch, and
probably couldn't help herself,
she added, The funny thing is, of course, that officially there is no
such thing as a white horse.
They're called grey.' [She had to say that, because she was a witch
and a teacher and that's a
terrible combination. They want things to be right. They like things
to be correct. If you want to
upset a witch you don't have to mess around with charms and spells,
you just have to put her in a
room with a picture that's hung slightly crooked and watch her
squirm.] 'Yes, I know,' said
Tiffany. This one's white,' she added, flatly. That quietened Miss
Tick down, for a while, but she
seemed to have something on her mind. 'I expect you're upset about
leaving the Chalk, aren't you?'
she said as the cart rattled on. 'No,' said Tiffany. It's OK to be,'
said Miss Tick. Thank you,
but I'm not really,' said Tiffany. 'If you want to have a bit of a
cry, you don't have to pretend
you've got some grit in your eye or anything-' I'm all right,
actually,' said Tiffany. 'Honestly.'
'You see, if you bottle that sort of thing up it can cause terrible
damage later on.' 'I'm not
bottling, Miss Tick.' In fact, Tiffany was a bit surprised at not
crying, but she wasn't going to
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tell Miss Tick that. She left a sort of space in her head to burst
into tears in, but it wasn't
filling up. Perhaps it was because she'd wrapped up all those feelings
and doubts and left them up
on the hill by the pot-bellied stove. 'And if of course you were
feeling a bit downcast at the
moment, I'm sure you could open the present he-' Miss Tick tried.
'Tell me about Miss Level,'
Tiffany said quickly. The name and address was all she knew about the
lady she was going to stay
with, but an address like 'Miss Level, Cottage in the Woods near the
dead oak tree in Lost Man's
Lane, High Overhang, If Out Leave Letters in Old Boot by Door' sounded
promising. 'Miss Level,
yes,' said Miss Tick, defeated. 'Er, yes. She's not really very old
but she says she'll be happy
to have a third pair of hands around the place.' You couldn't slip
words past Tiffany, not even if
you were Miss Tick. 'So there's someone else there already?' she said.
'Er... no. Not exactly,'
said Miss Tick. 'Then she's got four arms?' said Tiffany. Miss Tick
had sounded like someone
trying to avoid a subject. Miss Tick sighed. It was difficult to talk
to someone who paid
attention all the time. It put you off. 'It's best if you wait until
you meet her,' she said.
'Anything I tell you will only give you the wrong idea. I'm sure
you'll get along with her. She's
very good with people, and in her spare time she's a research witch.
She keeps bees- and goats,
the milk of which, I believe, is very good indeed owing to homogenized
fats.' 'What does a
research witch do?' Tiffany asked. 'Oh, it's a very ancient craft. She
tries to find new spells by
learning how old ones were really done. You know all that stuff about
"ear of bat and toe of
frog"? They never work, but Miss Level thinks it's because we don't
know exactly what kind of
frog, or which toe-' 'I'm sorry, but I'm not going to help anyone chop
up innocent frogs and
bats,' said Tiffany firmly. 'Oh, no, she never kills any!' said Miss
Tick hurriedly. 'She only
uses creatures that have died naturally or been run over or committed
suicide. Frogs can get quite
depressed at times.' The cart rolled on, down the white, dusty road,
until it was lost from view.
Nothing happened. Skylarks sang, so high up they were invisible. Grass
seeds filled the air. Sheep
baa'd, high up on the Chalk. And then something came along the road.
It moved like a little slow
whirlwind, so it could be seen only by the dust it stirred up. As it
went past, it made a noise
like a swarm of flies. Then it, too, disappeared down the hill...
After a while a voice, low down
in the long grass, said: 'Ach, crivensl And it's on her trail, right
enough!' A second voice said:
'Surely the old hag will spot it?' 'Whut? The teachin' hag? She's nae
a proper hag!' 'She's got
the pointy hat under all them flowers, Big Yan,' said the second
voice, a bit reproachfully. 'I
seen it. She presses a wee spring an' the point comes up!' 'Oh, aye,
Hamish, an' I daresay she
does the readin' and the writin' well enough, but she disnae ken aboot
stuff that's no' in books.
An' I'm no' showin' meself while she's aroond. She's the kind of a
body that'd write things doon
about a man! C'mon, let's go and find the kelda!' The Nac Mac Feegle
of the Chalk hated writing
for all kinds of reasons, but the biggest one was this: writing stays.
It fastens words down. A
man can speak his mind and some nasty wee scuggan will write it down
and who knows what he'll do
with those words? Ye might as weel nail a man's shadow tae the wall!
But now they had a new kelda,
and a new kelda brings new ideas. That's how it's supposed to work. It
stopped a clan getting too
set in its ways. Kelda Jeannie was from the Long Lake clan, up in the
mountains- and they did
write things down. She didn't see why her husband shouldn't, either.
And Rob Anybody was finding
out that Jeannie was definitely a kelda. Sweat was dripping off his
forehead. He'd once fought a
wolf all by himself, and he'd cheerfully do it again with his eyes
shut and one hand tied behind
him rather than do what he was doing now. He had mastered the first
two rules of writing, as he
understood them. 1) Steal some paper. 2) Steal a pencil. Unfortunately
there was more to it than
that. Now he held the stump of pencil in front of him in both hands,
and leaned backwards as two
of his brothers pushed him towards the piece of paper pinned up on the
chamber wall (it was an old
bill for sheep bells, stolen from the farm). The rest of the clan
watched, in fascinated horror,
from the galleries around the walls. 'Mebbe I could kind o' ease my
way inta it gently,' he
protested as his heels left little grooves in the packed-earth floor
of the mound. 'Mebbe I could
just do one o' they commeras or full stoppies-' 'You're the Big Man,
Rob Anybody, so it's fittin'
ye should be the first tae do the writin',' said Jeannie. 'I canna hae
a husband who canna even
write his ain name. I showed you the letters, did I not?' 'Aye,
wumman, the nasty, loopy, bendy
things!' growled Rob. 'I dinnae trust that Q, that's a letter that has
it in for a man. That's a
letter with a sting, that one!' 'You just hold the pencil on the paper
and I'll tell ye what marks
to make,' said Jeannie, folding her arms. 'Aye, but 'tis a bushel of
trouble, writin',' said Rob.
'A word writ doon can hang a man!' 'Wheest, now, stop that! 'Tis
easy!' snapped Jeannie. 'Bigjob
babbies can do it, and you're a full growed Feegle!' 'An' writin' even
goes on sayin' a man's
wurds after he's deid' said Rob Anybody, waving the pencil as if
trying to ward off evil spirits.
'Ye cannae tell me that's right!' 'Oh, so you're afeared o' the
letters, is that it?' said
Jeannie, artfully. 'Ach, that's fine. All big men fear something. Take
the pencil off'f him,
Wullie. Ye cannae ask a man to face his fears.' There was silence in
the mound as Daft Wullie
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nervously took the pencil stub from his brother. Every beady eye was
turned to Rob Anybody. His
hands opened and shut. He started to breathe heavily, still glaring at
the blank paper. He stuck
out his chin. 'Ach, ye're a harrrrd wumman, Jeannie Mac Feegle!' he
said at last. He spat on his
hands and snatched back the pencil stub from Daft Wullie. 'Gimme that
tool o' perdition! Them
letters won't know whut's hit them!' 'There's my brave lad!' said
Jeannie as Rob squared up to the
paper. 'Right, then. The first letter is an R. That's the one that
looks like a fat man walking,
remember?' The assembled pictsies watched as Rob Anybody, grunting
fiercely and with his tongue
sticking out of the corner of his mouth, dragged the pencil through
the curves and lines of the
letters. He looked at the kelda expectantly after each one. That's
it,' she said, at last. 'A
bonny effort!' Rob Anybody stood back and looked critically at the
paper. 'That's it?' he said.
'Aye,' said Jeannie. 'Ye've writ your ain name, Rob Anybody!' Rob
stared at the letters again.
'I'm gonna go to pris'n noo?' he said. There was a polite cough from
beside Jeannie. It had
belonged to the Toad. He had no other name, because toads don't go in
for names. Despite sinister
forces that would have people think differently, no toad has ever been
called Tommy the Toad, for
example. It's just not something that happens. This toad had once been
a lawyer (a human lawyer;
toads manage without them) who'd been turned into a toad by a fairy
godmother who'd intended to
turn him into a frog but had been a bit hazy on the difference. Now he
lived in the Feegle mound,
where he ate worms and helped them out with the difficult thinking.
I've told you, Mr Anybody,
that just having your name written down is no problem at all,' he
said. There's nothing illegal
about the words "Rob Anybody". Unless, of course,' and the toad gave a
little legal laugh, It's
meant as an instruction!' None of the Feegles laughed. They liked
their humour to be a bit, well,
funnier. Rob Anybody stared at his very shaky writing. 'That's my
name, aye?' 'It certainly is, Mr
Anybody.' 'An' no thin' bad's happenin' at a',' Rob noted. He looked
closer. 'How can you tell
it's my name?' 'Ah, that'll be the readin' side o' things,' said
Jeannie. 'That's where the
lettery things make a sound in yer heid?' said Rob. 'That's the
bunny,' said the toad. 'But we
thought you'd like to start with the more physical aspect of the
procedure.' 'Could I no' mebbe
just learn the writin' and leave the readin' to someone else?' Rob
asked, without much hope. 'No,
my man's got to do both,' said Jeannie, folding her arms. When a
female Feegle does that, there's
no hope left. 'Ach, it's a terrible thing for a man when his wumman
gangs up on him wi' a toad,'
said Rob, shaking his head. But, when he turned to look at the grubby
paper, there was just a hint
of pride in his face. 'Still, that's my name, right?' he said,
grinning. Jeannie nodded. 'Just
there, all by itself and no' on a Wanted poster or anything. My name,
drawn by me.' 'Yes, Rob,'
said the kelda. 'My name, under my thumb. No scunner can do anythin'
aboot it? I've got my name,
nice and safe?' Jeannie looked at the toad, who shrugged. It was
generally held by those who knew
them that most of the brains in the Nac Mac Feegle clans ended up in
the women. 'A man's a man o'
some standin' when he's got his own name where no one can touch it,'
said Rob Anybody. 'That's
serious magic, that is-' 'The R is the wrong way roond and you left
the A and a Y out of
"Anybody",' said Jeannie, because it is a wife's job to stop her
husband actually exploding with
pride. 'Ach, wumman, I didna' ken which way the fat man wuz walking','
said Rob, airily waving a
hand. 'Ye canna trust the fat man. That's the kind of thing us nat'ral
writin' folk knows about.
One day he might walk this way, next day he might walk that way.' He
beamed at his name: ROB NybO
D 'And I reckon you got it wrong wi' them Y's,' he went on. 'I reckon
it should be N E Bo D.
That's Enn... eee... bor... dee, see? That's senseY He stuck the
pencil into his hair, and gave
her a defiant look. Jeannie sighed. She'd grown up with seven hundred
brothers and knew how they
thought, which was often quite fast while being totally in the wrong
direction. And if they
couldn't bend their thinking around the world, they bent the world
around their thinking. Usually,
her mother had told her, it was best not to argue. Actually, only half
a dozen Feegles in the Long
Lake clan could read and write very well. They were considered odd,
strange hobbies. After all,
what -when you got out of bed in the morning- were they good for? You
didn't need to know them to
wrestle a trout or mug a rabbit or get drunk. The wind couldn't be
read and you couldn't write on
water. But things written down lasted. They were the voices of Feegles
who'd died long ago, who'd
seen strange things, who'd made strange discoveries. Whether you
approved of that depended on how
creepy you thought it was. The Long Lake clan approved. Jeannie wanted
the best for her new clan,
too. It wasn't easy, being a young kelda. You came to a new clan, with
only a few of your brothers
as a bodyguard, where you married a husband and ended up with hundreds
of brothers-inlaw. It could
be troubling if you let your mind dwell on it. At least back on the
island in the Long Lake she'd
had her mother to talk to, but a kelda never went home again. Except
for her bodyguard brothers, a
kelda was all alone. Jeannie was homesick and lonely and frightened of
the future, which is why
she was about to get things wrong... 'Rob!' Hamish and Big Yan came
tumbling through the fake
rabbit hole that was the entrance to the mound. Rob Anybody glared at
them. 'We wuz engaged in a
lit'try enterprise,' he said. 'Yes, Rob, but we watched the big wee
young hag safe awa', like you
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said, but there's a hiver after her!' Hamish blurted out. 'Are ye
sure?' said Rob, dropping his
pencil. 'I never heard o' one of them in this world!' 'Oh, aye,' said
Big Yan. 'Its buzzin' fair
made my teeths ache!' 'So did you no' tell her, ye daftie?' said Rob.
'There's that other hag wi'
her, Rob,' said Big Yan. The educatin' hag.' 'Miss Tick?' said the
toad. 'Aye, the one wi' a face
like a yard o' yoghurt,' said Big Yan. 'An' you said we wuzna' to show
ourselves, Rob.' 'Aye,
weel, this is different-' Rob Anybody began, but stopped. He hadn't
been a husband for very long,
but upon marriage men get a whole lot of extra senses bolted into
their brain, and one is there to
tell a man that he's suddenly neck deep in real trouble. Jeannie was
tapping her foot. Her arms
were still folded. She had the special smile women learn about when
they marry, too, which seems
to say 'Yes, you're in big trouble but I'm going to let you dig
yourself in even more deeply.'
'What's this about the big wee hag?' she said, her voice as small and
meek as a mouse trained at
the Rodent College of Assassins. 'Oh, ah, ach, weel, aye...' Rob
began, his face falling. 'Do ye
not bring her to mind, dear? She was at oor wedding, aye. She was oor
kelda for a day or two, ye
ken. The Old One made her swear to that just afore she went back to
the Land o' the Livin',' he
added, in case mentioning the wishes of the last kelda would deflect
whatever storm was coming.
'It's as well tae keep an eye on her, ye ken, her being oor hag and
a'...' Rob Anybody's voice
trailed away in the face of Jeannie's look. 'A true kelda has tae
marry the Big Man,' said
Jeannie. 'Just like I married ye, Rob Anybody Feegle, and am I no' a
good wife tae ye?' 'Oh, fine,
fine,' Rob burbled. 'But-' 'And ye cannae be married to two wives,
because that would be bigamy,
would it not?' said Jeannie, her voice dangerously sweet. 'Ach, it
wasnae that big,' said Rob
Anybody, desperately looking around for a way of escape. 'And it wuz
only temp'ry, an' she's but a
lass, an' she wuz good at thinkin'-' 'I'm good at thinking, Rob
Anybody, and I am the kelda o'
this clan, am I no'? There can only be one, is that not so? And I am
thinking that there will be
no more chasin' after this big wee girl. Shame on ye, anyway. She'll
no' want the like o' Big Yan
agawpin' at her all the time, I'm sure.' Rob Anybody hung his head.
'Aye... but...,' he said. 'But
what?' 'A hiver's chasin' the puir wee lass.' There was a long pause
before Jeannie said, 'Are ye
sure?' 'Aye, Kelda,' said Big Yan. 'Once you hear that buzzin' ye
never forget it.' Jeannie bit
her lip. Then, looking a little pale, she said, 'Ye said she's got the
makin's o' a powerful hag,
Rob?' 'Aye, but nae one in his'try has survived a hiver! Ye cannae
kill it, ye cannae stop it, ye
cannae-' 'But wuz ye no' tellin' me how the big wee girl even fought
the Quin and won?' said
Jeannie. "Wanged her wi' a skillet, ye said. That means she's good,
aye? If she is a true hag,
she'll find a way hersel'. We all ha' to dree our weird. Whatever's
out there, she's got to face
it. If she cannae, she's no true hag.' 'Aye, but a hiver's worse
than-' Rob began. 'She's off to
learn hagglin' from other hags,' said Jeannie. 'An' I must learn
keldarin' all by myself. Ye must
hope she learns as fast as me, Rob Anybody.'
Chapter 2 Twoshirts and Two Noses
Twoshirts was just a bend in the road, with a name. There was nothing
there but an inn for the
coaches, a blacksmith's shop, and a small store with the word
SOUVENIRS written optimistically on
a scrap of cardboard in the window. And that was it. Around the place,
separated by fields and
scraps of woodland, were the houses of people for whom Twoshirts was,
presumably, the big city.
Every world is full of places like Twoshirts. They are places for
people to come from, not go to.
It sat and baked silently in the hot afternoon sunlight. Right in the
middle of the road an
elderly spaniel, mottled brown and white, dozed in the dust. Twoshirts
was bigger than the village
back home and Tiffany had never seen souvenirs before. She went into
the store and spent half a
penny on a small wood carving of two shirts on a washing line, and two
postcards entitled 'View of
Twoshirts' which showed the souvenir shop and what was quite probably
the same dog sleeping in the
road. The little old lady behind the counter called her 'young lady'
and said that Twoshirts was
very popular later in the year, when people came from up to a mile
around for the Cabbage-
Macerating Festival. When Tiffany came out she found Miss Tick
standing next to the sleeping dog,
frowning back the way they'd come. Is there something the matter?'
said Tiffany. 'What?' said Miss
Tick, as if she'd forgotten that Tiffany existed. 'Oh... no. I just...
I thought I... look, shall
we go and have something to eat?' It took a while to find someone in
the inn, but Miss Tick
wandered into the kitchens and found a woman who promised them some
scones and a cup of tea. She
was actually quite surprised she'd promised that, since she hadn't
intended to, it strictly
speaking being her afternoon free until the coach came, but Miss Tick
had a way of asking
questions that got the answers she wanted. Miss Tick also asked for a
fresh egg, not cooked, in
its shell. Witches were also good at asking questions that weren't
followed by the other person
saying 'Why?' They sat and ate in the sun, on the bench outside the
inn. Then Tiffany took out her
diary. She had one in the dairy too, but that was for cheese and
butter records. This one was
Leaving
It came crackling over the hills, like an invisible fog. Movement
without a body tired it, and it
drifted very slowly. It wasn 't thinking now. It had been months since
it had last thought,
because the brain that was doing the thinking for it had died. They
always died. So now it was
naked again, and frightened. It could hide in one of the blobby white
creatures that baa 'd
nervously as it crawled over the turf. But they had useless brains,
capable of thinking only about
grass and making other things that went baa. No. They would not do. It
needed, needed something
better, a strong mind, a mind with power, a mind that could keep it
safe. It searched... The new
boots were all wrong. They were stiff and shiny. Shiny boots! That was
disgraceful. Clean boots,
that was different. There was nothing wrong with putting a bit of a
polish on boots to keep the
wet out. But boots had to work for a living. They shouldn't shine.
Tiffany Aching, standing on the
rug in her bedroom, shook her head. She'd have to scuff the things as
soon as possible. Then there
was the new straw hat, with a ribbon on it. She had some doubts about
that, too. She tried to look
at herself in the mirror, which wasn't easy because the mirror was not
much bigger than her hand,
and cracked and blotchy. She had to move it around to try and see as
much of herself as possible
and remember how the bits fitted together. But today... well, she
didn't usually do this sort of
thing in the house, but it was important to look smart today, and
since no one was around... She
put the mirror down on the rickety table by the bed, stood in the
middle of the threadbare rug,
shut her eyes and said: 'See me.' And away on the hills something, a
thing with no body and no
mind but a terrible hunger and a bottomless fear, felt the power. It
would have sniffed the air,
if it had a nose. It searched. It found. Such a strange mind, like a
lot of minds inside one
another, getting smaller and smaller! So strong! So close! It changed
direction slightly, and went
a little faster. As it moved, it made a noise like a swarm of flies.
The sheep, nervous for a
moment about something they couldn 't see, hear or smell, baa 'd.....
and went back to chewing
grass. Tiffany opened her eyes. There she was, a few feet away from
herself. She could see the
back of her own head. Carefully, she moved around the room, not
looking down at the 'her' that was
moving, because she found that if she did that then the trick was
over. It was quite difficult,
moving like that, but at last she was in front of herself and looking
herself up and down. Brown
hair to match brown eyes... there was nothing she could do about that.
At least her hair was clean
and she'd washed her face. She had a new dress on, which improved
things a bit. It was so unusual
to buy new clothes in the Aching family that, of course, it was bought
big so that she'd 'grow
into it'. But at least it was pale green, and it didn't actually touch
the floor. With the shiny
new boots and the straw hat she looked... like a farmer's daughter,
quite respectable, going off
to her first job. It'd have to do. From here she could see the pointy
hat on her head, but she had
to look hard for it. It was like a glint in the air, gone as soon as
you saw it. That's why she'd
been worried about the new straw hat, but it had simply gone through
it as if the new hat wasn't
there. This was because, in a way, it wasn't. It was invisible, except
in the rain. Sun and wind
went straight through, but rain and snow somehow saw it, and treated
it as if it were real. She'd
been given it by the greatest witch in the world, a real witch with a
black dress and a black hat
and eyes that could go through you like turpentine goes through a sick
sheep. It had been a kind
of reward. Tiffany had done magic, serious magic. Before she had done
it she hadn't known that she
could; when she had been doing it she hadn't known that she was; and
after she had done it she
hadn't known how she had. Now she had to learn how. 'See me not,' she
said. The vision of her...
or whatever it was, because she was not exactly sure about this
trick... vanished. It had been a
shock, the first time she'd done this. But she'd always found it easy
to see herself, at least in
her head. All her memories were like little pictures of herself doing
things or watching things,
rather than the view from the two holes in the front of her head.
There was a part of her that was
always watching her. Miss Tick- another witch, but one who was easier
to talk to than the witch
who'd given Tiffany the hat- had said that a witch had to know how to
'stand apart', and that
she'd find out more when her talent grew, so Tiffany supposed the 'see
me' was part of this.
Sometimes Tiffany thought she ought to talk to Miss Tick about 'see
me'. It felt as if she was
stepping out of her body, but still had a sort of ghost body that
could walk around. It all worked
as long as her ghost eyes didn't look down and see that she was just a
ghost body. If that
happened, some part of her panicked and she found herself back in her
solid body immediately.
Tiffany had, in the end, decided to keep this to herself. You didn't
have to tell a teacher
everything. Anyway, it was a good trick for when you didn't have a
mirror. Miss Tick was a sort of
witch-finder. That seemed to be how witchcraft worked. Some witches
kept a magical lookout for
girls who showed promise, and found them an older witch to help them
along. They didn't teach you
how to do it. They taught you how to know what you were doing. Witches
were a bit like cats. They
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didn't much like one another's company, but they did like to know
where all the other witches
were, just in case they needed them. And what you might need them for
was to tell you, as a
friend, that you were beginning to cackle. Witches didn't fear much,
Miss Tick had said, but what
the powerful ones were afraid of, even if they didn't talk about it,
was what they called 'going
to the bad'. It was too easy to slip into careless little cruelties
because you had power and
other people hadn't, too easy to think other people didn't matter
much, too easy to think that
ideas like right and wrong didn't apply to you. At the end of that
road was you dribbling and
cackling to yourself all alone in a gingerbread house, growing warts
on your nose. Witches needed
to know other witches were watching them. And that, Tiffany thought,
was why the hat was there.
She could touch it any time, provided she shut her eyes. It was a kind
of reminder... Tiffany!'
her mother shouted up the stairs. 'Miss Tick's here!' Yesterday,
Tiffany had said goodbye to
Granny Aching... The iron wheels of the old shepherding hut were half
buried in the turf, high up
on the hills. The potbellied stove, which still stood lopsided in the
grass, was red with rust.
The chalk hills were taking them, just like they'd taken the bones of
Granny Aching. The rest of
the hut had been burned on the day she'd been buried. No shepherd
would have dared to use it, let
alone spend the night there. Granny Aching had been too big in
people's minds, too hard to
replace. Night and day, in all seasons, she was the Chalk country: its
best shepherd, its wisest
woman, and its memory. It was as if the green downland had a soul that
walked about in old boots
and a sacking apron and smoked a foul old pipe and dosed sheep with
turpentine. The shepherds said
that Granny Aching had cussed the sky blue. They called the fluffy
little white clouds of summer
'Granny Aching's little lambs'. And although they laughed when they
said these things, part of
them was not joking. No shepherd would have dared presume to live in
that hut, no shepherd at all.
So they had cut the turf and buried Granny Aching in the Chalk,
watered the turf afterwards to
leave no mark, then they burned her hut. Sheep's wool, Jolly Sailor
tobacco and turpentine... ...
had been the smells of the shepherding hut, and the smell of Granny
Aching. Such things have a
hold on people that goes right to the heart. Tiffany only had to smell
them now to be back there,
in the warmth and silence and safety of the hut. It was the place she
had gone to when she was
upset, and the place she had gone to when she was happy. And Granny
Aching would always smile and
make tea and say nothing. And nothing bad could happen in the
shepherding hut. It was a fort
against the world. Even now, after Granny had gone, Tiffany still
liked to go up there. Tiffany
stood there, while the wind blew over the turf and sheep bells clonked
in the distance. 'I've
got...' She cleared her throat. I've got to go away. I... I've got to
learn proper witching, and
there's no one here now to teach me, you see. I've got to... to look
after the hills like you did.
I can... do things but I don't know things, and Miss Tick says what
you don't know can kill you. I
want to be as good as you were. I will come back! I will come back
soon! I promise I will come
back, better than I went!' A blue butterfly, blown off course by a
gust, settled on Tiffany's
shoulder, opened and shut its wings once or twice, then fluttered
away. Granny Aching had never
been at home with words. She collected silence like other people
collected string. But she had a
way of saying nothing that said it all. Tiffany stayed for a while,
until her tears had dried, and
then went off back down the hill, leaving the everlasting wind to curl
around the wheels and
whistle down the chimney of the pot-bellied stove. Life went on. It
wasn't unusual for girls as
young as Tiffany to go 'into service'. It meant working as a maid
somewhere. Traditionally, you
started by helping an old lady who lived by herself; she wouldn't be
able to pay much, but since
this was your first job you probably weren't worth much, either. In
fact Tiffany practically ran
Home Farm's dairy by herself, if someone helped her lift the big milk
churns, and her parents had
been surprised she had wanted to go into service at all. But as
Tiffany said, it was something
everyone did. You got out into the world a little bit. You met new
people. You never knew what it
could lead to. That, rather cunningly, got her mother on her side. Her
mother's rich aunt had gone
off to be a scullery maid, and then a parlour maid, and had worked her
way up until she was a
housekeeper and married to a butler and lived in a fine house. It
wasn't her fine house, and she
only lived in a bit of it, but she was practically a lady. Tiffany
didn't intend to be a lady.
This was all a ruse, anyway. And Miss Tick was in on it. You weren't
allowed to charge money for
the witching, so all witches did some other job as well. Miss Tick was
basically a witch disguised
as a teacher. She travelled around with the other wandering teachers
who went in bands from place
to place teaching anything to anybody in exchange for food or old
clothes. It was a good way to
get around, because people in the chalk country didn't trust witches.
They thought they danced
around on moonlit nights without their drawers on. (Tiffany had made
enquiries about this, and had
been slightly relieved to find out that you didn't have to do this to
be a witch. You could if you
wanted to, but only if you were certain where all the nettles,
thistles and hedgehogs were.) But
if it came to it, people were a bit wary of the wandering teachers,
too. They were said to pinch
chickens and steal away children (which was true, in a way) and they
went from village to village
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with their gaudy carts and wore long robes with leather pads on the
sleeves and strange flat hats
and talked amongst themselves using heathen lingo no one could
understand, like 'Aha jacta esf and
'Quid pro quo'. It was quite easy for Miss Tick to lurk amongst them.
Her pointy hat was a stealth
version, which looked just like a black straw hat with paper flowers
on it until you pressed the
secret spring. Over the last year or so Tiffany's mother had been
quite surprised, and a little
worried, at Tiffany's sudden thirst for education, which people in the
village thought was a good
thing in moderation but if taken unwisely could lead to restlessness.
Then a month ago, the
message had come: Be ready. Miss Tick, in her flowery hat, had visited
the farm and had explained
to Mr and Mrs Aching that an elderly lady up in the mountains had
heard of Tiffany's excellent
prowess with cheese and was willing to offer her the post of maid at
four dollars a month, one day
off a week, her own bed and a week's holiday at Hogswatch. Tiffany
knew her parents. Three dollars
a month was a bit low, and five dollars would be suspiciously high,
but prowess with cheese was
worth the extra dollar. And a bed all to yourself was a very nice
perk. Before most of Tiffany's
sisters had left home, sleeping two sisters to a bed had been normal.
It was a good offer. Her
parents had been impressed and slightly scared of Miss Tick, but they
had been brought up to
believe that people who knew more than you and used long words were
quite important, so they'd
agreed. Tiffany accidentally heard them discussing it after she had
gone to bed that night. It's
quite easy to accidentally overhear people talking downstairs if you
hold an upturned glass to the
floorboards and accidentally put your ear to it. She heard her father
say that Tiffany didn't have
to go away at all. She heard her mother say that all girls wondered
what was out there in the
world, so it was best to get it out of her system. Besides, she was a
very capable girl with a
good head on her shoulders. Why, with hard work there was no reason
why one day she couldn't be a
servant to someone quite important, like Aunt Hetty had been, and live
in a house with an inside
privy. Her father said she'd find that scrubbing floors was the same
everywhere. Her mother said,
well, in that case she'd get bored and come back home after the year
was up and, by the way, what
did 'prowess' mean? 'Superior skill', thought Tiffany to herself. They
did have an old dictionary
in the house, but her mother never opened it because the sight of all
those words upset her.
Tiffany had read it all the way through. And that was it, and suddenly
here she was, a month
later, wrapping her old boots, which'd been worn by all her sisters
before her, in a piece of
clean rag and putting them in the second-hand suitcase her mother had
bought her, which looked as
if it was made of bad cardboard or pressed grape pips mixed with ear
wax, and had to be held
together with string. There were goodbyes. She cried a bit, and her
mother cried a lot, and her
little brother Wentworth cried as well just in case he could get a
sweet for doing so. Tiffany's
father didn't cry but gave her a silver dollar and rather gruffly told
her to be sure to write
home every week, which is a man's way of crying. She said goodbye to
the cheeses in the dairy and
the sheep in the paddock and even to Ratbag the cat. Then everyone
apart from the cheeses and the
cat stood at the gate and waved to her and Miss Tick -well, except for
the sheep, too- until
they'd gone nearly all the way down the chalky-white lane to the
village. And then there was
silence except for the sound of their boots on the flinty surface and
the endless song of the
skylarks overhead. It was late August, and very hot, and the new boots
pinched. 'I should take
them off, if I was you,' said Miss Tick after a while. Tiffany sat
down by the side of the lane
and got her old boots out of the case. She didn't bother to ask how
Miss Tick knew about the tight
new boots. Witches paid attention. The old boots, even though she had
to wear several pairs of
socks with them, were much more comfortable and really easy to walk
in. They had been walking
since long before Tiffany was born, and knew how to do it. 'And are we
going to see any... little
men today?' Miss Tick went on, once they were walking again. 'I don't
know, Miss Tick,' said
Tiffany. 'I told them a month ago I was leaving. They're very busy at
this time of year. But
there's always one or two of them watching me.' Miss Tick looked
around quickly. 'I can't see
anything,' she said. 'Or hear anything.' 'No, that's how you can tell
they're there,' said
Tiffany. 'It's always a bit quieter if they're watching me. But they
won't show themselves while
you're with me. They're a bit frightened of hags- that's their word
for witches,' she added
quickly. 'It's nothing personal.' Miss Tick sighed. 'When I was a
little girl I'd have loved to
see the pictsies,' she said. 'I used to put out little saucers of
milk. Of course, later on I
realized that wasn't quite the thing to do.' 'No, you should have used
strong licker,' said
Tiffany. She glanced at the hedge and thought she saw, just for the
snap of a second, a flash of
red hair. And she smiled, a little nervously. Tiffany had been, if
only for a few days, the
nearest a human being can be to a queen of the fairies. Admittedly,
she'd been called a kelda
rather than a queen, and the Nac Mac Feegle should only be called
fairies to their face if you
were looking for a fight. On the other hand the Nac Mac Feegle were
always looking for a fight, in
a cheerful sort of way, and when they had no one to fight they fought
one another, and if one was
all by himself he'd kick his own nose just to keep in practice.
Technically, they had lived in
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Fairyland, but had been thrown out, probably for being drunk. And now,
because if you'd ever been
their kelda they never forgot you . .. ... they were always there.
There was always one somewhere
on the farm, or circling on a buzzard high over the chalk downs. And
they watched her, to help and
protect her, whether she wanted them to or not. Tiffany had been as
polite as possible about this.
She'd hidden her diary right at the back of a drawer and blocked up
the cracks in the privy with
wadded paper, and done her best with the gaps in her bedroom
floorboards, too. They were little
men, after all. She was sure they tried to remain unseen so as not to
disturb her, but she'd got
very good at spotting them. They granted wishes- not the magical
fairytale three wishes, the ones
that always go wrong in the end, but ordinary, everyday ones. The Nac
Mac Feegle were immensely
strong and fearless and incredibly fast, but they weren't good at
understanding that what people
said often wasn't what they meant. One day, in the dairy, Tiffany had
said, I wish I had a sharper
knife to cut this cheese,' and her mother's sharpest knife was
quivering in the table beside her
almost before she'd got the words out. 'I wish this rain would clear
up' was probably OK, because
the Feegles couldn't do actual magic, but she had learned to be
careful not to wish for anything
that might be achievable by some small, determined, strong, fearless
and fast men who were also
not above giving someone a good kicking if they felt like it. Wishes
needed thought. She was never
likely to say, out loud, 'I wish that I could marry a handsome
prince,' but knowing that if you
did you'd probably open the door to find a stunned prince, a tied-up
priest and a Nac Mac Feegle
grinning cheerfully and ready to act as Best Man definitely made you
watch what you said. But they
could be helpful, in a haphazard way, and she'd taken to leaving out
for them things that the
family didn't need but might be useful to little people, like tiny
mustard spoons, pins, a soup
bowl that would make a nice bath for a Feegle and, in case they didn't
get the message, some soap.
They didn't steal the soap. Her last visit to the ancient burial mound
high on the chalk down
where the pictsies lived had been to attend the wedding of Rob
Anybody, the Big Man of the clan,
to Jeannie of the Long Lake. She was going to be the new kelda and
spend most of the rest of her
life in the mound, having babies like a queen bee. Feegles from other
clans had all turned up for
the celebration, because if there's one thing a Feegle likes more than
a party, it's a bigger
party, and if there's anything better than a bigger party, it's a
bigger party with someone else
paying for the drink. To be honest, Tiffany had felt a bit out of
place, being ten times as tall
as the next tallest person there, but she'd been treated very well and
Rob Anybody had made a long
speech about her, calling her 'our fine big wee young hag' before
falling face first into the
pudding. It had all been very hot, and very loud, but she'd joined in
the cheer when Jeannie had
carried Rob Anybody over a tiny broomstick that had been laid on the
floor. Traditionally, both
the bride and the groom should jump over the broomstick but, equally
traditionally, no
selfrespecting Feegle would be sober on his wedding day. She'd been
warned that it would be a good
idea to leave then, because of the traditional fight between the
bride's clan and the groom's
clan, which could take until Friday. Tiffany had bowed to Jeannie,
because that's what hags did,
and had a good look at her. She was small and sweet and very pretty.
She also had a glint in her
eye and a certain proud lift to her chin. Nac Mac Feegle girls were
very rare and they grew up
knowing they were going to be keldas one day, and Tiffany had a
definite feeling that Rob Anybody
was going to find married life trickier than he thought. She was going
to be sorry to leave them
behind, but not terribly sorry. They were nice in a way but they
could, after a while, get on your
nerves. Anyway, she was eleven now, and had a feeling that after a
certain age you shouldn't slide
down holes in the ground to talk to little men. Besides, the look that
Jeannie had given her, just
for a moment, had been pure poison. Tiffany had read its meaning
without having to try. Tiffany
had been the kelda of the clan, even if it was only for a short time.
She had also been engaged to
be married to Rob Anybody, even if that had only been a sort of
political trick. Jeannie knew all
that. And the look had said: He is mine. This place is mine. I do not
want you here! Keep out! A
pool of silence followed Tiffany and Miss Tick down the lane, since
the usual things that rustle
in hedges tended to keep very quiet when the Nac Mac Feegle were
around. They reached the little
village green and sat down to wait for the carrier's cart that went
just a bit faster than walking
pace and would take five hours to get to the village of Twoshirts,
where- Tiffany's parents
thought- they'd get the big coach that ran all the way to the distant
mountains and beyond.
Tiffany could actually see it coming up the road when she heard the
hoofbeats across the green.
She turned, and her heart seemed to leap and sink at the same time. It
was Roland, the Baron's
son, on a fine black horse. He leaped down before the horse had
stopped, and then stood there
looking embarrassed. 'Ah, I see a very fine and interesting example of
a... a... a big stone over
there,' said Miss Tick in a sticky-sweet voice. I'll just go and have
a look at it, shall I?'
Tiffany could have pinched her for that. 'Er, you're going, then,'
said Roland as Miss Tick
hurried away. 'Yes,' said Tiffany. Roland looked as though he was
going to explode with
nervousness. I got this for you,' he said. 'I had it made by a man,
er, over in Yelp.' He held out
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a package wrapped in soft paper. Tiffany took it and put it carefully
in her pocket. Thank you,'
she said, and dropped a small curtsy. Strictly speaking that's what
you had to do when you met a
nobleman, but it just made Roland blush and stutter. 'O-open it later
on,' said Roland. 'Er, I
hope you'll like it.' 'Thank you,' said Tiffany sweetly. 'Here's the
cart. Er... you don't want to
miss it.' 'Thank you,' said Tiffany, and curtsied again, because of
the effect it had. It was a
little bit cruel, but sometimes you had to be. Anyway, it would be
very hard to miss the cart. If
you ran fast, you could easily overtake it. It was so slow that 'stop'
never came as a surprise.
There were no seats. The carrier went around the villages every other
day, picking up packages
and, sometimes, people. You just found a place where you could get
comfortable among the boxes of
fruit and rolls of cloth. Tiffany sat on the back of the cart, her old
boots dangling over the
edge, swaying backwards and forwards as the cart lurched away on the
rough road. Miss Tick sat
beside her, her black dress soon covered in chalk dust to the knees.
Tiffany noticed that Roland
didn't get back on his horse until the cart was nearly out of sight.
And she knew Miss Tick. By
now she would be just bursting to ask a question, because witches hate
not knowing things. And,
sure enough, when the village was left behind, Miss Tick said, after a
lot of shifting and
clearing her throat: 'Aren't you going to open it?' 'Open what?' said
Tiffany, not looking at her.
'He gave you a present,' said Miss Tick. 'I thought you were examining
an interesting stone, Miss
Tick,' said Tiffany accusingly. 'Well, it was only fairly
interesting,' said Miss Tick, completely
unembarrassed. 'So... are you?' 'I'll wait until later,' said Tiffany.
She didn't want a
discussion about Roland at this point or, really, at all. She didn't
actually dislike him. She'd
found him in the land of the Queen of the Fairies and had sort of
rescued him, although he had
been unconscious most of the time. A sudden meeting with the Nac Mac
Feegle when they're feeling
edgy can do that to a person. Of course, without anyone actually
lying, everyone at home had come
to believe that he had rescued her. A nine-year-old girl armed with a
frying pan couldn't possibly
have rescued a thirteen-year-old boy who'd got a sword. Tiffany hadn't
minded that. It stopped
people asking too many questions she didn't want to answer or even
know how to. But he'd taken
to... hanging around. She kept accidentally running into him on walks
more often than was really
possible, and he always seemed to be at the same village events she
went to. He was always polite,
but she couldn't stand the way he kept looking like a spaniel that had
been kicked. Admittedlyand
it took some admitting- he was a lot less of a twit than he had been.
On the other hand, there
had been such of lot of twit to begin with. And then she thought,
Horse, and wondered why until
she realized that her eyes had been watching the landscape while her
brain stared at the past...
'I've never seen that before,' said Miss Tick. Tiffany welcomed it as
an old friend. The Chalk
rose out of the plains quite suddenly on this side of the hills. There
was a little valley cupped
into the fall of the down, and there was a carving in the curve it
made. Turf had been cut away in
long flowing lines so that the bare chalk made the shape of an animal.
'It's the White Horse,'
said Tiffany. 'Why do they call it that?' said Miss Tick. Tiffany
looked at her. 'Because the
chalk is white?' she suggested, trying not to suggest that Miss Tick
was being a bit dense. 'No, I
meant why do they call it a horse? It doesn't look like a horse. It's
just... flowing lines...'
... that look as if they're moving, Tiffany thought. It had been cut
out of the turf right back in
the old days, people said, by the folk who'd built the stone circles
and buried their kind in big
earth mounds. And they'd cut out the Horse at one end of this little
green valley, ten times
bigger than a real horse and, if you didn't look at it with your mind
right, the wrong shape, too.
Yet they must have known horses, owned horses, seen them every day,
and they weren't stupid people
just because they lived a long time ago. Tiffany had once asked her
father about the look of the
Horse, when they'd come all the way over here for a sheep fair, and he
told her what Granny Aching
had told him, too, when he was a little boy. He passed on what she
said word for word, and Tiffany
did the same now. "Taint what a horse looks like,' said Tiffany. It's
what a horse be.' 'Oh,' said
Miss Tick. But because she was a teacher as well as a witch, and
probably couldn't help herself,
she added, The funny thing is, of course, that officially there is no
such thing as a white horse.
They're called grey.' [She had to say that, because she was a witch
and a teacher and that's a
terrible combination. They want things to be right. They like things
to be correct. If you want to
upset a witch you don't have to mess around with charms and spells,
you just have to put her in a
room with a picture that's hung slightly crooked and watch her
squirm.] 'Yes, I know,' said
Tiffany. This one's white,' she added, flatly. That quietened Miss
Tick down, for a while, but she
seemed to have something on her mind. 'I expect you're upset about
leaving the Chalk, aren't you?'
she said as the cart rattled on. 'No,' said Tiffany. It's OK to be,'
said Miss Tick. Thank you,
but I'm not really,' said Tiffany. 'If you want to have a bit of a
cry, you don't have to pretend
you've got some grit in your eye or anything-' I'm all right,
actually,' said Tiffany. 'Honestly.'
'You see, if you bottle that sort of thing up it can cause terrible
damage later on.' 'I'm not
bottling, Miss Tick.' In fact, Tiffany was a bit surprised at not
crying, but she wasn't going to
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tell Miss Tick that. She left a sort of space in her head to burst
into tears in, but it wasn't
filling up. Perhaps it was because she'd wrapped up all those feelings
and doubts and left them up
on the hill by the pot-bellied stove. 'And if of course you were
feeling a bit downcast at the
moment, I'm sure you could open the present he-' Miss Tick tried.
'Tell me about Miss Level,'
Tiffany said quickly. The name and address was all she knew about the
lady she was going to stay
with, but an address like 'Miss Level, Cottage in the Woods near the
dead oak tree in Lost Man's
Lane, High Overhang, If Out Leave Letters in Old Boot by Door' sounded
promising. 'Miss Level,
yes,' said Miss Tick, defeated. 'Er, yes. She's not really very old
but she says she'll be happy
to have a third pair of hands around the place.' You couldn't slip
words past Tiffany, not even if
you were Miss Tick. 'So there's someone else there already?' she said.
'Er... no. Not exactly,'
said Miss Tick. 'Then she's got four arms?' said Tiffany. Miss Tick
had sounded like someone
trying to avoid a subject. Miss Tick sighed. It was difficult to talk
to someone who paid
attention all the time. It put you off. 'It's best if you wait until
you meet her,' she said.
'Anything I tell you will only give you the wrong idea. I'm sure
you'll get along with her. She's
very good with people, and in her spare time she's a research witch.
She keeps bees- and goats,
the milk of which, I believe, is very good indeed owing to homogenized
fats.' 'What does a
research witch do?' Tiffany asked. 'Oh, it's a very ancient craft. She
tries to find new spells by
learning how old ones were really done. You know all that stuff about
"ear of bat and toe of
frog"? They never work, but Miss Level thinks it's because we don't
know exactly what kind of
frog, or which toe-' 'I'm sorry, but I'm not going to help anyone chop
up innocent frogs and
bats,' said Tiffany firmly. 'Oh, no, she never kills any!' said Miss
Tick hurriedly. 'She only
uses creatures that have died naturally or been run over or committed
suicide. Frogs can get quite
depressed at times.' The cart rolled on, down the white, dusty road,
until it was lost from view.
Nothing happened. Skylarks sang, so high up they were invisible. Grass
seeds filled the air. Sheep
baa'd, high up on the Chalk. And then something came along the road.
It moved like a little slow
whirlwind, so it could be seen only by the dust it stirred up. As it
went past, it made a noise
like a swarm of flies. Then it, too, disappeared down the hill...
After a while a voice, low down
in the long grass, said: 'Ach, crivensl And it's on her trail, right
enough!' A second voice said:
'Surely the old hag will spot it?' 'Whut? The teachin' hag? She's nae
a proper hag!' 'She's got
the pointy hat under all them flowers, Big Yan,' said the second
voice, a bit reproachfully. 'I
seen it. She presses a wee spring an' the point comes up!' 'Oh, aye,
Hamish, an' I daresay she
does the readin' and the writin' well enough, but she disnae ken aboot
stuff that's no' in books.
An' I'm no' showin' meself while she's aroond. She's the kind of a
body that'd write things doon
about a man! C'mon, let's go and find the kelda!' The Nac Mac Feegle
of the Chalk hated writing
for all kinds of reasons, but the biggest one was this: writing stays.
It fastens words down. A
man can speak his mind and some nasty wee scuggan will write it down
and who knows what he'll do
with those words? Ye might as weel nail a man's shadow tae the wall!
But now they had a new kelda,
and a new kelda brings new ideas. That's how it's supposed to work. It
stopped a clan getting too
set in its ways. Kelda Jeannie was from the Long Lake clan, up in the
mountains- and they did
write things down. She didn't see why her husband shouldn't, either.
And Rob Anybody was finding
out that Jeannie was definitely a kelda. Sweat was dripping off his
forehead. He'd once fought a
wolf all by himself, and he'd cheerfully do it again with his eyes
shut and one hand tied behind
him rather than do what he was doing now. He had mastered the first
two rules of writing, as he
understood them. 1) Steal some paper. 2) Steal a pencil. Unfortunately
there was more to it than
that. Now he held the stump of pencil in front of him in both hands,
and leaned backwards as two
of his brothers pushed him towards the piece of paper pinned up on the
chamber wall (it was an old
bill for sheep bells, stolen from the farm). The rest of the clan
watched, in fascinated horror,
from the galleries around the walls. 'Mebbe I could kind o' ease my
way inta it gently,' he
protested as his heels left little grooves in the packed-earth floor
of the mound. 'Mebbe I could
just do one o' they commeras or full stoppies-' 'You're the Big Man,
Rob Anybody, so it's fittin'
ye should be the first tae do the writin',' said Jeannie. 'I canna hae
a husband who canna even
write his ain name. I showed you the letters, did I not?' 'Aye,
wumman, the nasty, loopy, bendy
things!' growled Rob. 'I dinnae trust that Q, that's a letter that has
it in for a man. That's a
letter with a sting, that one!' 'You just hold the pencil on the paper
and I'll tell ye what marks
to make,' said Jeannie, folding her arms. 'Aye, but 'tis a bushel of
trouble, writin',' said Rob.
'A word writ doon can hang a man!' 'Wheest, now, stop that! 'Tis
easy!' snapped Jeannie. 'Bigjob
babbies can do it, and you're a full growed Feegle!' 'An' writin' even
goes on sayin' a man's
wurds after he's deid' said Rob Anybody, waving the pencil as if
trying to ward off evil spirits.
'Ye cannae tell me that's right!' 'Oh, so you're afeared o' the
letters, is that it?' said
Jeannie, artfully. 'Ach, that's fine. All big men fear something. Take
the pencil off'f him,
Wullie. Ye cannae ask a man to face his fears.' There was silence in
the mound as Daft Wullie
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nervously took the pencil stub from his brother. Every beady eye was
turned to Rob Anybody. His
hands opened and shut. He started to breathe heavily, still glaring at
the blank paper. He stuck
out his chin. 'Ach, ye're a harrrrd wumman, Jeannie Mac Feegle!' he
said at last. He spat on his
hands and snatched back the pencil stub from Daft Wullie. 'Gimme that
tool o' perdition! Them
letters won't know whut's hit them!' 'There's my brave lad!' said
Jeannie as Rob squared up to the
paper. 'Right, then. The first letter is an R. That's the one that
looks like a fat man walking,
remember?' The assembled pictsies watched as Rob Anybody, grunting
fiercely and with his tongue
sticking out of the corner of his mouth, dragged the pencil through
the curves and lines of the
letters. He looked at the kelda expectantly after each one. That's
it,' she said, at last. 'A
bonny effort!' Rob Anybody stood back and looked critically at the
paper. 'That's it?' he said.
'Aye,' said Jeannie. 'Ye've writ your ain name, Rob Anybody!' Rob
stared at the letters again.
'I'm gonna go to pris'n noo?' he said. There was a polite cough from
beside Jeannie. It had
belonged to the Toad. He had no other name, because toads don't go in
for names. Despite sinister
forces that would have people think differently, no toad has ever been
called Tommy the Toad, for
example. It's just not something that happens. This toad had once been
a lawyer (a human lawyer;
toads manage without them) who'd been turned into a toad by a fairy
godmother who'd intended to
turn him into a frog but had been a bit hazy on the difference. Now he
lived in the Feegle mound,
where he ate worms and helped them out with the difficult thinking.
I've told you, Mr Anybody,
that just having your name written down is no problem at all,' he
said. There's nothing illegal
about the words "Rob Anybody". Unless, of course,' and the toad gave a
little legal laugh, It's
meant as an instruction!' None of the Feegles laughed. They liked
their humour to be a bit, well,
funnier. Rob Anybody stared at his very shaky writing. 'That's my
name, aye?' 'It certainly is, Mr
Anybody.' 'An' no thin' bad's happenin' at a',' Rob noted. He looked
closer. 'How can you tell
it's my name?' 'Ah, that'll be the readin' side o' things,' said
Jeannie. 'That's where the
lettery things make a sound in yer heid?' said Rob. 'That's the
bunny,' said the toad. 'But we
thought you'd like to start with the more physical aspect of the
procedure.' 'Could I no' mebbe
just learn the writin' and leave the readin' to someone else?' Rob
asked, without much hope. 'No,
my man's got to do both,' said Jeannie, folding her arms. When a
female Feegle does that, there's
no hope left. 'Ach, it's a terrible thing for a man when his wumman
gangs up on him wi' a toad,'
said Rob, shaking his head. But, when he turned to look at the grubby
paper, there was just a hint
of pride in his face. 'Still, that's my name, right?' he said,
grinning. Jeannie nodded. 'Just
there, all by itself and no' on a Wanted poster or anything. My name,
drawn by me.' 'Yes, Rob,'
said the kelda. 'My name, under my thumb. No scunner can do anythin'
aboot it? I've got my name,
nice and safe?' Jeannie looked at the toad, who shrugged. It was
generally held by those who knew
them that most of the brains in the Nac Mac Feegle clans ended up in
the women. 'A man's a man o'
some standin' when he's got his own name where no one can touch it,'
said Rob Anybody. 'That's
serious magic, that is-' 'The R is the wrong way roond and you left
the A and a Y out of
"Anybody",' said Jeannie, because it is a wife's job to stop her
husband actually exploding with
pride. 'Ach, wumman, I didna' ken which way the fat man wuz walking','
said Rob, airily waving a
hand. 'Ye canna trust the fat man. That's the kind of thing us nat'ral
writin' folk knows about.
One day he might walk this way, next day he might walk that way.' He
beamed at his name: ROB NybO
D 'And I reckon you got it wrong wi' them Y's,' he went on. 'I reckon
it should be N E Bo D.
That's Enn... eee... bor... dee, see? That's senseY He stuck the
pencil into his hair, and gave
her a defiant look. Jeannie sighed. She'd grown up with seven hundred
brothers and knew how they
thought, which was often quite fast while being totally in the wrong
direction. And if they
couldn't bend their thinking around the world, they bent the world
around their thinking. Usually,
her mother had told her, it was best not to argue. Actually, only half
a dozen Feegles in the Long
Lake clan could read and write very well. They were considered odd,
strange hobbies. After all,
what -when you got out of bed in the morning- were they good for? You
didn't need to know them to
wrestle a trout or mug a rabbit or get drunk. The wind couldn't be
read and you couldn't write on
water. But things written down lasted. They were the voices of Feegles
who'd died long ago, who'd
seen strange things, who'd made strange discoveries. Whether you
approved of that depended on how
creepy you thought it was. The Long Lake clan approved. Jeannie wanted
the best for her new clan,
too. It wasn't easy, being a young kelda. You came to a new clan, with
only a few of your brothers
as a bodyguard, where you married a husband and ended up with hundreds
of brothers-inlaw. It could
be troubling if you let your mind dwell on it. At least back on the
island in the Long Lake she'd
had her mother to talk to, but a kelda never went home again. Except
for her bodyguard brothers, a
kelda was all alone. Jeannie was homesick and lonely and frightened of
the future, which is why
she was about to get things wrong... 'Rob!' Hamish and Big Yan came
tumbling through the fake
rabbit hole that was the entrance to the mound. Rob Anybody glared at
them. 'We wuz engaged in a
lit'try enterprise,' he said. 'Yes, Rob, but we watched the big wee
young hag safe awa', like you
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said, but there's a hiver after her!' Hamish blurted out. 'Are ye
sure?' said Rob, dropping his
pencil. 'I never heard o' one of them in this world!' 'Oh, aye,' said
Big Yan. 'Its buzzin' fair
made my teeths ache!' 'So did you no' tell her, ye daftie?' said Rob.
'There's that other hag wi'
her, Rob,' said Big Yan. The educatin' hag.' 'Miss Tick?' said the
toad. 'Aye, the one wi' a face
like a yard o' yoghurt,' said Big Yan. 'An' you said we wuzna' to show
ourselves, Rob.' 'Aye,
weel, this is different-' Rob Anybody began, but stopped. He hadn't
been a husband for very long,
but upon marriage men get a whole lot of extra senses bolted into
their brain, and one is there to
tell a man that he's suddenly neck deep in real trouble. Jeannie was
tapping her foot. Her arms
were still folded. She had the special smile women learn about when
they marry, too, which seems
to say 'Yes, you're in big trouble but I'm going to let you dig
yourself in even more deeply.'
'What's this about the big wee hag?' she said, her voice as small and
meek as a mouse trained at
the Rodent College of Assassins. 'Oh, ah, ach, weel, aye...' Rob
began, his face falling. 'Do ye
not bring her to mind, dear? She was at oor wedding, aye. She was oor
kelda for a day or two, ye
ken. The Old One made her swear to that just afore she went back to
the Land o' the Livin',' he
added, in case mentioning the wishes of the last kelda would deflect
whatever storm was coming.
'It's as well tae keep an eye on her, ye ken, her being oor hag and
a'...' Rob Anybody's voice
trailed away in the face of Jeannie's look. 'A true kelda has tae
marry the Big Man,' said
Jeannie. 'Just like I married ye, Rob Anybody Feegle, and am I no' a
good wife tae ye?' 'Oh, fine,
fine,' Rob burbled. 'But-' 'And ye cannae be married to two wives,
because that would be bigamy,
would it not?' said Jeannie, her voice dangerously sweet. 'Ach, it
wasnae that big,' said Rob
Anybody, desperately looking around for a way of escape. 'And it wuz
only temp'ry, an' she's but a
lass, an' she wuz good at thinkin'-' 'I'm good at thinking, Rob
Anybody, and I am the kelda o'
this clan, am I no'? There can only be one, is that not so? And I am
thinking that there will be
no more chasin' after this big wee girl. Shame on ye, anyway. She'll
no' want the like o' Big Yan
agawpin' at her all the time, I'm sure.' Rob Anybody hung his head.
'Aye... but...,' he said. 'But
what?' 'A hiver's chasin' the puir wee lass.' There was a long pause
before Jeannie said, 'Are ye
sure?' 'Aye, Kelda,' said Big Yan. 'Once you hear that buzzin' ye
never forget it.' Jeannie bit
her lip. Then, looking a little pale, she said, 'Ye said she's got the
makin's o' a powerful hag,
Rob?' 'Aye, but nae one in his'try has survived a hiver! Ye cannae
kill it, ye cannae stop it, ye
cannae-' 'But wuz ye no' tellin' me how the big wee girl even fought
the Quin and won?' said
Jeannie. "Wanged her wi' a skillet, ye said. That means she's good,
aye? If she is a true hag,
she'll find a way hersel'. We all ha' to dree our weird. Whatever's
out there, she's got to face
it. If she cannae, she's no true hag.' 'Aye, but a hiver's worse
than-' Rob began. 'She's off to
learn hagglin' from other hags,' said Jeannie. 'An' I must learn
keldarin' all by myself. Ye must
hope she learns as fast as me, Rob Anybody.'
Chapter 2 Twoshirts and Two Noses
Twoshirts was just a bend in the road, with a name. There was nothing
there but an inn for the
coaches, a blacksmith's shop, and a small store with the word
SOUVENIRS written optimistically on
a scrap of cardboard in the window. And that was it. Around the place,
separated by fields and
scraps of woodland, were the houses of people for whom Twoshirts was,
presumably, the big city.
Every world is full of places like Twoshirts. They are places for
people to come from, not go to.
It sat and baked silently in the hot afternoon sunlight. Right in the
middle of the road an
elderly spaniel, mottled brown and white, dozed in the dust. Twoshirts
was bigger than the village
back home and Tiffany had never seen souvenirs before. She went into
the store and spent half a
penny on a small wood carving of two shirts on a washing line, and two
postcards entitled 'View of
Twoshirts' which showed the souvenir shop and what was quite probably
the same dog sleeping in the
road. The little old lady behind the counter called her 'young lady'
and said that Twoshirts was
very popular later in the year, when people came from up to a mile
around for the Cabbage-
Macerating Festival. When Tiffany came out she found Miss Tick
standing next to the sleeping dog,
frowning back the way they'd come. Is there something the matter?'
said Tiffany. 'What?' said Miss
Tick, as if she'd forgotten that Tiffany existed. 'Oh... no. I just...
I thought I... look, shall
we go and have something to eat?' It took a while to find someone in
the inn, but Miss Tick
wandered into the kitchens and found a woman who promised them some
scones and a cup of tea. She
was actually quite surprised she'd promised that, since she hadn't
intended to, it strictly
speaking being her afternoon free until the coach came, but Miss Tick
had a way of asking
questions that got the answers she wanted. Miss Tick also asked for a
fresh egg, not cooked, in
its shell. Witches were also good at asking questions that weren't
followed by the other person
saying 'Why?' They sat and ate in the sun, on the bench outside the
inn. Then Tiffany took out her
diary. She had one in the dairy too, but that was for cheese and
butter records. This one was
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