an adder. The boy made a noise like gneeee as he leaped back.
‘Here’s tuppence,’ said Granny Weatherwax.
Tiffany looked at Granny’s hand. The first finger and thumb were held together, but
there did not appear to be any coins between them.
Nevertheless, the young man, grinning horribly, took the total absence of coins
very carefully between his thumb and finger. Granny twitched two tickets out of his
other hand.
‘Thank you, young man,’ she said, and walked into the field. Tiffany ran after her.
‘What did-?’ she began, but Granny Weatherwax raised a finger to her lips, grasped
Tiffany’s shoulder
and swivelled her round.
The ticket-seller was still staring at his fingers. He even rubbed them together. Then he
shrugged, held them over his leather moneybag and let go.
Clink, clink . . .
The crowd around the gate gave a gasp, and one or two of them started to applaud.
The boy looked around with a sick kind of grin, as if of course he’d expected that to
happen.
‘Ah, right,’ said Granny Weatherwax happily. ‘And now I could just do with a cup of
tea and maybe a sweet biscuit.’
‘Granny, there are children here! Not just witches!’
People were looking at them. Granny Weatherwax jerked Tiffany’s chin up so that she
could look into her eyes.
‘Look around, eh? You can’t move down here for amulets and wands and whatnot!
It’ll be bound to keep away, eh?’
Tiffany turned to look. There were sideshows all around the field. A lot of them were
funfair stuff that she’d seen before at agricultural shows around the Chalk: Roll-a-
Penny, Lucky Dip, Bobbing for Piranhas, that sort of thing. The Ducking Stool was
very popular among young children on such a hot day. There wasn’t a fortune-telling
tent, because no fortune-teller would turn up at an event where so many visitors were
qualified to argue and answer back, but there were a number of witch stalls.
Zakzak’s had a huge tent, with a display dummy
outside wearing a Sky Scraper hat and a Zephyr Billow cloak, which had drawn a
crowd of admirers. The other stalls were smaller, but they were thick with things that glittered and tinkled and they were doing a brisk trade amongst the younger witches.
There were whole stalls full of dream-catchers and curse-nets, including the new self-
emptying ones. It was odd to think of witches buying them, though. It was like fish
buying umbrellas.
Surely a hiver wouldn’t come here, with all these witches?
She turned to Granny Weatherwax.
Granny Weatherwax wasn’t there.
It is hard to find a witch at the Witch Trials. That is, it is too easy to find a witch at the Witch Trials, but very hard to find the one you’re looking for, especially if you
suddenly feel lost and all alone and you can feel panic starting to open inside you like a
fern.
Most of the older witches were sitting at trestle tables in a huge roped-off area. They
were drinking tea. Pointy hats bobbed as tongues wagged. Every woman seemed capable
of talking while listening to all the others on the table at the same time, although this talent
isn’t confined to witches. It was no place to search for an old woman in black with a
pointy hat.
The sun was quite high in the sky now. The field was filling up. Witches were circling
to land at the far end, and more and more people were pouring in through the
gateway. The noise was intense.
Everywhere Tiffany turned, black hats were scurrying.
Pushing her way through the throng, she looked desperately for a friendly face, like
Miss Tick or Miss Level or Petulia. If it came to it, an unfriendly one would do – even
Mrs Earwig.
And she tried not to think. She tried not to think that she was terrified and alone in
this huge crowd, and that up on the hill, invisible, the hiver now knew this because
just a tiny part of it was her.
She felt the hiver stir. She felt it begin to move.
Tiffany stumbled through a chattering group of witches, their voices sounding shrill
and unpleasant. She felt ill, as though she’d been in the sun too long. The world was
spinning.
A remarkable thing about a hiver, a reedy voice began, somewhere in the back of her
head, is that its hunting pattern mimics that of the common shark, among other creatures-
‘I do not want a lecture, Mr Bustle,’ Tiffany mumbled. ‘I do not want you in my
head!’
But the memory of Simplicity Bustle had never taken much notice of other people
when he was alive and it wasn’t going to begin now. It went on in its self-satisfied
squeak: – in that, once it has selected its prey, it will completely ignore other attractive targets-
She could see right across the Trials field, and something was coming. It moved
through the crowd like the wind through a field of grass. You could plot its progress by
the people. Some fainted, some yelped
and turned round, some ran. Witches stopped their gossip, chairs were overturned and
the shouting started. But it wasn’t attacking anything. It was only interested in Tiffany.
Like a shark, thought Tiffany. The killer of the sea, where worse things happened.
Tiffany backed away, the panic filling her up. She bumped into witches hurrying
towards the commotion and shouted at them:
‘You can’t stop it! You don’t know what it is! You’ll flail at it and wave glittery sticks
and it will keep coming! It will keep coming!’
She put her hands into her pockets and touched the lucky stone. And the string. And the
piece of chalk.
If this was a story, she thought bitterly, I’d trust in my heart and follow my star and all
that other stuff and it would all turn out all right, right now, by tinkly Magikkkk. But
you’re never in a story when you need to be.
Story, story, story . . .
The third wish. The Third Wish. The third wish is the important one.
In stories the genie or the witch or the magic cat . . . offers you three wishes.
Three wishes . . .
She grabbed a hurrying witch and looked into the face of Annagramma, who stared at
her in terror and tried to cower away.
‘Please don’t do anything to me! Please!’ she cried. I’m your friend, aren’t I?’
‘If you like, but that wasn’t me and I’m better now,’ said Tiffany, knowing she
was lying. It had been her, and that was important. She had to remember that.
‘Quick, Annagramma! What’s the third wish? Quickly! When you get three wishes,
what’s the third wish!’
Annagramma’s face screwed up into the affronted frown she wore when something
had the nerve not to be understandable. ‘But why do-?’
‘Don’t think about it, please! Just answer!’
‘Well, er . . . it could be anything . . . being invisible or . . . or blonde, or anything-‘
Annagramma burbled, her mind coming apart at the seams.
Tiffany shook her head and let her go. She ran to an old witch who was staring at
the commotion.
‘Please, mistress, this is important! In stories, what’s the third wish! Don’t ask me
why, please! Just remember!’
‘Er . . . happiness. It’s happiness, isn’t it?’ said the old lady. ‘Yes, definitely. Health,
wealth and happiness. Now if I was you I’d-‘
‘Happiness? Happiness . . . thank you,’ said Tiffany, and looked around
desperately for someone else. It wasn’t happiness, she knew that in her boots. You
couldn’t get happiness by magic, and that was another clue right there.
There was Miss Tick, hurrying between the tents. There was no time for half-
measures. Tiffany pulled her round and shouted: ‘HelloMissTickYesI’mFinel
HopeYouAreWellTooWhatlsTheThirdWishQuickly
ThisIsImportantPleaseDon’tArgueOrAskQuestions Therelsn’tTime!’
Miss Tick, to her credit, hesitated only for a moment or two. ‘To have a hundred
more wishes, isn’t it?’ she said.
Tiffany stared at her and then said, Thank you. It isn’t, but that’s a clue, too.’
Tiffany, there’s a-‘ Miss Tick began.
But Tiffany had seen Granny Weatherwax.
She was standing in the middle of the field, in a big square that had been roped off for
some reason. No one seemed to notice her. She was watching the frantic witches
around the hiver, where there was an occasional flash and sparkle of magic. She had a
calm, faraway look.
Tiffany brushed Miss Tick’s arm away, ducked under the rope and ran up to her.
‘Granny!’
The blue eyes turned to her.
‘Yes?’
‘In stories, where the genie or the magic frog or the fairy godmother gives you three
wishes . . . what’s the third wish?’
‘Ah, stories,’ said Granny. That’s easy. In any story worth the tellin’, that knows about
the way of the world, the third wish is the one that undoes the harm the first two wishes
caused.’
‘Yes! That’s it! That’s it!’ shouted Tiffany, and the words piling up behind the question