a heartbeat.
Her own heart felt as if it was clenched like a fist –
– because of the day she’d found Granny Aching in the hut. She was lying peacefully on the
narrow iron bed, but Tiffany had known something was wrong as soon as she had stepped inside-
Boom.
Tiffany counted to three.
Boom.
Well, it was a heartbeat.
Very slowly, like a twig growing, a stiff hand moved. It slid like a glacier into a pocket,
and came up holding a large piece of card on which was written:
I Ain’t Dead,
Tiffany decided she wasn’t going to argue. But she pulled the blanket over the old
woman and wrapped her own around herself.
By moonlight, she tried again with her shamble.
Surely she should be able to make it do something. Maybe if-
By moonlight, she very, very carefully-
Pod
The egg cracked. The egg always cracked, and now there was only one left. Tiffany
didn’t dare try it with a beetle, even if she could find one. It would be too cruel.
She sat back and looked across the landscape of silver and black, and her Third
Thoughts thought: It’s not going to come near.
Why?
She thought, I’m not sure why I know. But I know. It’s keeping away. It knows Mistress
Weatherwax is with me.
She thought: How can it know that? It’s not got a mind. It doesn’t know what a
Mistress Weatherwax is\
Still thinking, thought her Third Thoughts.
Tiffany slumped against the rock.
Sometimes her head was too . . . crowded .. .
And then it was morning, and sunlight, and dew on her hair, and mist coming off
the ground like smoke . . . and an eagle sitting on the rock where the owl had been,
eating something furry. She could see every feather on its wing.
It swallowed, glared at Tiffany with its mad bird eyes and flapped away, making the
mist swirl.
Beside her, Mistress Weatherwax began to snore again, which Tiffany took to mean
that she was in
her body. She gave the old woman a nudge, and the sound that had been a regular
gnaaaargrgrgrgrg suddenly became blort.
The old woman sat up, coughing, and waved a hand irritably at Tiffany to pass her
the tea bottle. She didn’t speak until she’d gulped half of it.
‘Ah, say what you like, but rabbit tastes a lot better cooked,’ she gasped, shoving the
cork back in. ‘And without the fur on!’
‘You took- borrowed the eagle?’ said Tiffany.
‘O’course. I couldn’t expect the poor ol’ owl to fly around after daybreak, just to see
who’s about. It was hunting voles all night and, believe me, raw rabbit’s better’n voles.
Don’t eat voles.’
‘I won’t,’ said Tiffany, and meant it. ‘Mistress Weatherwax, I think I know what the
hiver’s doing. It’s thinking.’
‘I thought it had no brains!’
Tiffany let her thoughts speak for themselves.
‘But there’s an echo of me in it, isn’t there? There must be. It has an echo of
everyone it’s . . . been. There must be a bit of me in it. I know it’s out there, and it
knows I’m here with you. And it’s keeping away.’
‘Oh? Why’s that, then?’
‘Because it’s frightened of you, I think.’
‘Huh! And why’s that?’
‘Yes,’ said Tiffany simply. ‘It’s because I am. A bit.’
‘Oh dear. Are you?’
‘Yes,’ said Tiffany again. ‘It’s like a dog that’s been
beaten but won’t run away. It doesn’t understand what it’s done wrong. But. .. there’s
something about it that.. . there’s a thought that I’m nearly having
Mistress Weatherwax said nothing. Her face went blank.
‘Are you all right?’ said Tiffany. ‘I was just leavin’ you time to have that thought,’ said
Mistress Weatherwax.
‘Sorry. It’s gone now. But. . . we’re thinking about the hiver in the wrong way.’ ‘Oh,
yes? And why’s that?’
‘Because . . .’ Tiffany struggled with the idea. ‘I think it’s because we don’t want to
think about it the right way. It’s something to do with . . . the third wish. And I don’t
know what that means.’
The witch said, ‘Keep picking at that thought,’ and then looked up and added, ‘We’ve
got company.’
It took Tiffany several seconds to spot what Mistress Weatherwax had seen – a
shape at the edge of the woods, small and dark. It was coming closer, but rather
uncertainly.
It resolved itself into the figure of Petulia, flying slowly and nervously a few feet
above the heather. Sometimes she jumped down and wrenched the stick in a slightly
different direction.
She got off again when she reached Tiffany and Mistress Weatherwax, grabbed the
broom hastily and aimed it at a big rock. It hit it gently and hung there, trying to fly
through stone.
‘Urn, sorry,’ she panted. ‘But I can’t always stop it, and this is better than having an
anchor . . . Urn.’
She started to bob a curtsy to Mistress Weatherwax, remembered she was a witch
and tried to turn it into a bow halfway down, which was an event you’d pay money to
see. She ended up bent double, and from somewhere in there came the little voice,
‘Urn, can someone help, please? I think my Octogram of Trimontane has got
caught up on my Pouch of Nine Herbs . . .’
There was a tricky minute while they untangled her, with Mistress Weatherwax
muttering Toys, just toys’ as they unhooked bangles and necklaces.
Petulia stood upright, red in the face. She saw Mistress Weatherwax’s expression,
whipped off her pointy hat and held it in front on her. This was a mark of respect,
but it did mean that a two-foot, sharp, pointy thing was being aimed at them.
‘Urn . . . I went to see Miss Level and she said you’d come up here after some horrible thing,’ she said. ‘Um . . . so I thought I’d better see how you were.’
‘Um . . . that was very kind of you,’ said Tiffany, but her treacherous Second
Thoughts thought: And what would you have done if it had attacked us? She had a
momentary picture of Petulia standing in front of some horrible raging thing, but it
wasn’t as funny as she’d first thought. Petulia would stand in front of it, shaking with
terror, her useless amulets clattering, scared almost out of her mind . . . but not backing
away. She’d thought there might be people facing something horrible here, and she’d
come anyway.
‘What’s your name, my girl?’ said Mistress Weatherwax.
‘Urn, Petulia Gristle, mistress. I’m learning with Gwinifer Blackcap.’
‘Old Mother Blackcap?’ said Mistress Weatherwax. ‘Very sound. A good woman with
pigs. You did well to come here.’
Petulia looked nervously at Tiffany. ‘Urn, are you all right? Miss Level said you’d
been . . . ill.’
‘I’m much better now, but thank you very much for asking, anyway,’ said Tiffany
wretchedly. ‘Look, I’m sorry about-‘
‘Well, you were ill,’ said Petulia.
And that was another thing about Petulia. She always wanted to think the best of
everybody. This was sort of worrying if you knew that the person she was doing her best to
think nice thoughts about was you.
‘Are you going to go back to the cottage before the Trials?’ Petulia went on.
‘Trials?’ said Tiffany, suddenly lost.
‘The Witch Trials,’ said Mistress Weatherwax.
‘Today,’ said Petulia.
‘I’d forgotten all about them!’ said Tiffany.
‘I hadn’t,’ said the old witch calmly. ‘I never miss a Trial. Never missed a Trial in sixty
years. Would you do a poor old lady a favour, Miss Gristle, and ride that stick of yours
back to Miss Level’s place and tell her that Mistress Weatherwax presents her compli-
ments and intends to head directly to the Trials. Was she well?’
‘Urn, she was juggling balls without using her handsV said Petulia in wonderment.
‘And, d’you know what? I saw a. fairy in her garden! A blue one!’
‘Really?’ said Tiffany, her heart sinking.
‘Yes! It was rather scruffy, though. And when I asked it if it really was a fairy, it
said it was . . . um . .. “the big stinky horrible spiky iron stinging nettle fairy from the
Land o’ Tinkle”, and called me a “scunner”. Do you know what that means?’
Tiffany looked into that round, hopeful face. She opened her mouth to say, ‘It means
someone who likes fairies,’ but stopped in time. That just wouldn’t be fair. She sighed.
‘Petulia, you saw a Nac Mac Feegle,’ she said. ‘It is a kind of fairy, but they’re not the
sweet kind. I’m sorry. They’re good . . . well, more or less . . . but they’re not entirely
nice. And “scunner” is a kind of swearword. I don’t think it’s a particularly bad one
though.’
Petulia’s expression didn’t change for a while. Then she said: ‘So it was a fairy,
then?’