It is at times like this that the mind finds the oddest jobs to do in order to avoid its primary purpose, i.e., thinking about things. If anyone had been watching they would have been amazed at the sheer dedication with which Granny tackled such tasks as cleaning the teapot stand, rooting ancient nuts out of the fruit bowl on the dresser, and levering fossilised bread crusts out of the cracks in the flagstones with the back of a teaspoon.
Animals had minds. People had minds, although human minds were vague foggy things. Even insects had minds, little pointy bits of light in the darkness of non-mind.
Granny considered herself something of an expert on minds. She was pretty certain things like countries didn’t have minds.
They weren’t even alive, for goodness sake. A country was, well, was—
Hold on. Hold on . . . A thought stole gently into Granny’s mind and sheepishly tried to attract her attention.
There was a way in which those brooding forests could have a mind. Granny sat up, a piece of antique loaf in her hand, and gazed speculatively at the fireplace. Her mind’s eye looked through it, out at the snow-filled aisles of trees. Yes. It had never occurred to her before. Of course, it’d be a mind made up of all the other little minds inside it; plant minds, bird minds, bear minds, even the great slow minds of the trees themselves . . .
She sat down in her rocking chair, which started to rock all by itself.
She’d often thought of the forest as a sprawling creature, but only metterforicaily, as a wizard would put it; drowsy and purring with bumblebees in the summer, roaring and raging in autumn gales, curled in on itself and sleeping in the winter. It occurred to her that in addition to being a collection of other things, the forest was a thing in itself. Alive, only not alive in the way that, say, a shrew was alive.
And much slower.
That would have to be important. How fast did a forest’s heart beat? Once a year, maybe. Yes, that sounded about right. Out there the forest was waiting for the brighter sun and longer days that would pump a million gallons of sap several hundred feet into the sky in one great systolic thump too big and loud to be heard.
And it was at about this point that Granny bit her lip.
She’d just thought the word ‘systolic’, and it certainly wasn’t in her vocabulary.
Somebody was inside her head with her.
Some thing.
Had she just thought all those thoughts, or had they been thought through her?
She glared at the floor, trying to keep her ideas to herself. But her mind was being watched as easily as if her head was made of glass.
Granny Weatherwax got to her feet and opened the curtains.
And they were out there on what – in warmer months -was the lawn. And every single one of them was staring at her.
After a few minutes Granny’s front door opened. This was an event in its own right; like most Ramtoppers Granny lived her life via the back door. There were only three times in your life when it was proper to come through the front door, and you were carried every time.
It opened with considerable difficulty, in a series of painful jerks and thumps. A few flakes of paint fell on to the snowdrift in front of the door, which sagged inward. Finally, when it was about halfway open, the door wedged.
Granny sidled awkwardly through the gap and out on to the hitherto undisturbed snow.
She had put her pointed hat on, and the long black cloak which she wore when she wanted anyone who saw her to be absolutely clear that she was a witch.
There was an elderly kitchen chair half buried in snow. In summer it was a handy place to sit and do whatever hand chores were necessary, while keeping one eye on the track. Granny hauled it out, brushed the snow off the seat, and sat down firmly with her knees apart and her arms folded defiantly. She stuck out her chin.
The sun was well up but the light on this Hogswatchday was still pink and slanting. It glowed on the great cloud of steam that hung over the assembled creatures. They hadn’t moved, although every now and again one of them would stamp a hoof or scratch itself.
Granny looked up at a flicker of movement. She hadn’t noticed before, but every tree around her garden was so heavy with birds that it looked as though a strange brown and black spring had come early.
Occupying the patch where the herbs grew in summer were the wolves, sitting or lolling with their tongues hanging out. A contingent of bears was crouched behind them, with a platoon of deer beside them. Occupying the metterforical stalls was a rabble of rabbits, weasels, vermine, badgers, foxes and miscellaneous creatures who, despite the fact that they live their entire lives in a bloody atmosphere of hunter and hunted, killing or being killed by claw, talon and tooth, are generally referred to as woodland folk.
They rested together on the snow, their normal culinary relationships entirely forgotten, trying to outstare her.
Two things were immediately apparent to Granny. One was that this seemed to represent a pretty accurate cross-section of the forest life.
The other she couldn’t help saying aloud.
‘I don’t know what this spell is,’ she said. ‘But I’ll tell you this for nothing – when it wears off, some of you little buggers had better get moving.’
None of them stirred. There was no sound except for an elderly badger relieving itself with an embarrassed expression.
‘Look,’ said Granny. ‘What can I do about it? It’s no good you coming to me. He’s the new lord. This is his kingdom. I can’t go meddling. It’s not right to go meddling, on account of I can’t interfere with people ruling. It has to sort itself out, good or bad. Fundamental rule of magic, is that. You can’t go round ruling people with spells, because you’d have to use more and more spells all the time.’ She sat back, grateful that long-standing tradition didn’t allow the Crafty and the Wise to rule. She remembered what it had felt like to wear the crown, even for a few seconds.
No, things like crowns had a troublesome effect on clever folk; it was best to leave all the reigning to the kind of people whose eyebrows met in the middle when they tried to think. In a funny sort of way, they were much better at it.
She added, ‘People have to sort it out for themselves. Well-known fact.’
She felt that one of the larger stags was giving her a particularly doubting look.
‘Yes, well, so he killed the old king,’ she conceded. That’s nature’s way, ain’t it? Your lot know all about this. Survival of the wossname. You wouldn’t know what an heir was, unless you thought it was a sort of rabbit.’
She drummed her fingers on her knees.
‘Anyway, the old king wasn’t much of a friend to you, was he? All that hunting, and such.’
Three hundred pairs of dark eyes bored in at her.
‘It’s no good you all looking at me,’ she tried. ‘I can’t go around mucking about with kings just because you don’t like them. Where would it all end? It’s not as if he’s done me any harm.’
She tried to avoid the gaze of a particularly cross-eyed stoat.
‘All right, so it’s selfish,’ she said. ‘That’s what bein’ a witch is all about. Good day to you.’
She stamped inside, and tried to slam the door. It stuck once or twice, which rather spoiled the effect.
Once inside she drew the curtains and sat down in the rocking chair and rocked fiercely.
‘That’s the whole point,’ she said. ‘I can’t go around meddling. That’s the whole point.’
The lattys lurched slowly over the rutted roads, towards yet another little city whose name the company couldn’t quite remember and would instantly forget. The winter sun hung low over the damp, misty cabbage fields of the Sto Plains, and the foggy silence magnified the creaking of the wheels.
Hwel sat with his stubby legs dangling over the backboard of the last latty.
He’d done his best. Vitoller had left the education of Tomjon in his hands; ‘You’re better at all that business,’ he’d said, adding with his usual tact, ‘Besides, you’re more his height.’
But it wasn’t working.
‘Apple,’ he repeated, waving the fruit in the air.
Tomjon grinned at him. He was nearly three years old, and hadn’t said a word anyone could understand. Hwel was harbouring dark suspicions about the witches.
‘But he seems bright enough,’ said Mrs Vitoller, who was travelling inside the latty and darning the chain mail. ‘He knows what things are. He does what he’s told. I just wish you’d speak,’ she said softly, patting the boy on the cheek.