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“Yes?”
“What would you like to be when you grow up?”
Esk looked blank. “Don't know.”
“Well,” said Granny, her hands still milking, “what do you think you will do when you are grown up?”
“Don't know. Get married, I suppose.”
“Do you want to?”
Esk's lips started to shape themselves around the D, but she caught Granny's eye and stopped, and thought.
“All the grown ups I know are married,” she said at last, and thought some more. “Except you,” she added, cautiously.
“That's true,” said Granny.
“Didn't you want to get married?”
It was Granny's turn to think.
“Never got around to it,” she said at last. “Too many other things to do, you see.”
“Father says you're a witch,” said Esk, chancing her arm.
“I am that.”
Esk nodded. In the Ramtops witches were accorded a status similar to that which other cultures gave to nuns, or tax collectors, or cesspit cleaners. That is to say, they were respected, sometimes admired, generally applauded for doing a job which logically had to be-done, but people never felt quite comfortable in the same room with them.
Granny said, “Would you like to learn the witching?”
“Magic, you mean?” asked Esk, her eyes lighting up.
“Yes, magic. But not firework magic. Real magic.”
“Can you fly?”
“There's better things than flying.”
“And I can learn them?”
“If your parents say yes.”
Esk sighed. “My father won't.”
“Then I shall have a word with him,” said Granny.
“Now you just listen to me, Gordo Smith!”
Smith backed away across his forge, hands half-raised to ward off the old woman's fury. She advanced on him, one finger stabbing the air righteously.
“I brought you into the world, you stupid man, and you've got no more sense in you now than you had then -”
“But -” Smith tried, dodging around the anvil.
“The magic's found her! Wizard magic! Wrong magic, do you understand? It was never intended for her!”
“Yes, but -”
