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She bustled around for another hour, dishing out medicaments to person after person, and it was only much later that she realized that although she had fed the cat, obviously, she herself had had nothing to eat or drink since the dawn. So she heated up some pottage – not a great meal, but it filled her up.
Then she lay on her bed for a while, even though sleeping in the daytime was something that only very grand ladies did, and so Granny Weatherwax allowed herself not forty winks but just the one. After all, there were always more people to see and things to do.
Then she pulled herself up, and despite it being now quite late she went out and cleaned the privy. And she scrubbed it. She scrubbed it so hard that she could see her face in it . . .
But somehow, in the shimmering water, her face could also see her, and she sighed and said, ‘Drat, and tomorrow was going to be a much better day.’
fn1 The Feegles believed to a man that they had to be dead, as the world they now lived in was grand, filled as it was with so many opportunities for stealin’ and fightin’ and boozin’. A land fit for dead heroes.
fn2 Sometimes literally, since a kelda usually gave birth to about seven Feegle babies at a time. Jeannie herself had produced a daughter in amongst her first brood.
fn3 Lord Swivel’s father reckoned it was no waste, and that he had thoroughly enjoyed drinking the family fortune. At least, he thought this until he drank so much he fell over and met a gentleman with a decided lack of flesh on his bones and the definitive addition of a scythe a good few years earlier than he should have done.
fn4 He knew, too, that gods could sometimes make inconvenient requests. He had an associate who had chosen to follow the crocodile god Offler and then found he had to keep an aviary of tooth-cleaning birds handy to fulfil his god’s dental whims.
fn5 Very true, but a lot of people came from Fourecks, as is often the case with a Place-That-Nobody-Has-Ever-Heard-Of. They just never bothered to go back again.
fn6 Thus proving that books can teach you much, if only to give you a good name for a devilish smart goat.
fn7 The legend of Pilotus and his son Langas, who wanted to fly like the birds, was known by every well-educated boy. They did indeed build themselves wings by sewing together feathers and thistledown. The boy at least flew a little way, but his elderly and portly father crashed. The moral of the story is: understand what you are doing before you do it.
CHAPTER 2
A Voice in the Darkness
IT WAS A bright sunny day, thought Granny Weatherwax, a perfect day in fact. She had been up all night and cleaned the hall and kitchen in her cottage until everything that could shine was shining – the stove polished, the rag rug shaken and the flagstones scrubbed.
She moved up her corkscrew staircase and concentrated next on the floor in the bedroom. She had made some very good soap this year,fn1 and the jug and little wash basin by the bed were gleaming. The spiders in the corners, who had thought they had tenure unto Doomsday, were carefully shown the window, webs and all. Even the mattress looked clean and wholesome. Every so often You, her cat, appeared to see what was going on, and to lie on the patchwork quilt that was so flat it looked like someone had trodden on a huge tortoise.
Then Granny cleaned the privy once again, just for good measure. Not an errand for a fine day, but Esmerelda Weatherwax was meticulous in these things and the privy yielded to her efforts and, yes, it shone. Amazingly so.
Watching her, the intensity that showed on her cat’s face was remarkable. This was a different day, You sensed. A day not yet experienced. A day that bustled as if there would never be another day, and with the inside of the cottage up to scratch, You now followed Granny into the scullery.
A bucket of water, filled from the pump by the well, did the trick there. Granny smiled. She had always liked the scullery. It smelled of hard work being done properly. Here there were also spiders, mostly hiding around the bottles and jars on the shelves, but she thought scullery spiders didn’t really count. Live and let live.
She went outside next, to the walled paddock at the back of the cottage, to check on her goats. The itinerary of her thinking was declaring that once again all things were in their rightful place.
Satisfied, or as satisfied as a witch ever could be, Granny Weatherwax went to her beehives.
‘You are my bees,’ she said to them. ‘Thank you. You’ve given me all my honey for years, and please don’t be upset when someone new comes. I hope that you will give her as much honey as you have given me. And now, for the last time, I will dance with you.’ But the bees hummed softly and danced for her instead, gently pushing her mind out of their hive. And Granny Weatherwax said, ‘I was younger when I last danced with you. But I am old now. There will be no more dances for me.’
You kept away from the bees, but stalked through the garden, following Granny as she moved through the herbs, touching a frond or a leaf as she passed, and the whole garden seemed to answer he
r, the plants almost nodding their heads in respect.
You narrowed her eyes and looked sideways at the plants with what might be called feline disfavour. An onlooker might swear Granny’s herbs were sapient, as they often moved without the wind blowing. On at least one occasion, to the cat’s horror, they had actually turned round to watch her as she sneaked past on a hunting expedition. She preferred plants that did what they were told, which was mostly to stay dead still so that she could go back to sleep.
At the far end of the herbs, Granny came to the apple tree old Mr Parsons had given her only last year, planting it roughly where anyone else would have a fence around their garden – for no witch’s cottage ever needed an actual fence or wall. Who would cross a witch? The wicked old witch in the woods? Sometimes stories can be useful for a witch without, it must be said, any fence-building skills. Granny eyed the tiny apples appearing on the bough – they had only just begun to grow and, well, time was waiting. And so she walked again back to her cottage door, acknowledging every root, stem and fruit she passed.
She fed the goats, who looked at her askance with their slotted eyes. Their gaze followed her as she turned to the chickens, who always squabbled over their feed. Today, however, they didn’t squabble, but looked at the old witch as if she wasn’t there.
With the animals fed, Granny Weatherwax went into the scullery and came back with a switch of willows. She got to work, teasing every piece of resilient willow into the right place. Then, when the thing she had made was clearly excellent and fit for purpose, Granny Weatherwax left it near the foot of the stairs where it would be noticed, for those with eyes to see.
She tidied the remnants of her work back to the scullery and came out again with a small bag. A white one. And a red ribbon coiled in her other hand. She looked to the sky. Time was wasting.
She walked briskly into the woods, You trailing behind, curious as only a cat can be until at least the first eight of its lives have been used up. Then, her task completed, Granny Weatherwax retraced her steps towards the little stream which ran through the woods close by. It gurgled and tinkled.
She knew the woodlands. Every log. Every bough. Every creature that lived in there. More intimately than anyone not a witch could ever know. When her nose told her there was no one around apart from You, she opened the bag, took out a bar of her soap and undressed.
