A Hat Full Of Sky

faint pencil underline under the words ‘Plongeon: a small curtsy, about one-third as deep as the traditional one. No longer used.’ Alone in her bedroom, she’d blushed. It’s always surprising to be reminded that while you’re watching and thinking about people, all knowing and superior, they’re watching and thinking about you, right back at you.

She written it down in her diary, which was a lot thicker now, what with all the pressed herbs and extra notes and bookmarks. It had been trodden on by cows, struck by lightning and dropped in tea. And it didn’t have an eye on it. An eye would have got knocked off on day one. It was a real witch’s diary.

Tiffany had stopped wearing the hat, except in public, because it kept getting bent by low doorways and completely crushed by her bedroom ceiling. She was wearing it today, though, clutching it occasionally whenever a gust tried to snatch it off her head.

She reached the place where four rusty iron wheels were half buried in the turf and a pot-bellied stove stood up from the grass. It made a useful seat.

Silence spread out around Tiffany, a living silence, while the sheep danced with their lambs and the world turned.

Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colours. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.

The words ran through Tiffany’s mind as she watched the sheep, and she found herself fill up with joy—at the new lambs, at life, at everything. Joy is to fun what the deep sea is to a puddle. It’s a feeling inside that can hardly be contained. It came out as laughter.

‘I’ve come back!’ she announced, to the hills. ‘Better than I went!’

She snatched off the hat with stars on it. It wasn’t a bad hat, for show, although the stars made it look like a toy. But it was never her hat. It couldn’t be. The only hat worth wearing was the one you made for yourself, not one you bought, not one you were given. Your own hat, for your own head. Your own future, not someone else’s.

She hurled the starry hat up as high as she could. The wind there caught it neatly. It tumbled for a moment and then was lifted by a gust and, swooping and spinning, sailed away across the downs and vanished for ever.

Then Tiffany made a hat out of the sky and sat on the old pot-bellied stove, listening to the wind around the horizons while the sun went down.

As the shadows lengthened, many small shapes crept out of the nearby mound and joined her in the sacred place, to watch.

The sun set, which is everyday magic, and warm night came.

The hat filled up with stars…

Author’s Note

The Doctrine of Signatures mentioned on page 90 really exists in this world, although now it’s better known by historians than doctors. For hundreds of years, perhaps thousands, people believed that God, who of course had made everything, had ‘signed’ each thing in a way that showed humanity what it could be used for. For example, goldenrod is yellow so ‘must’ be good for jaundice, which turns the skin yellow (a certain amount of guesswork was involved, but sometimes patients survived).

By an amazing coincidence, the Horse carved on the Chalk is remarkably similar to the Uffington White Horse, which in this world is carved on the downlands near the village of Uffington in southwest Oxfordshire. It’s 374 feet long, several thousand years old and carved on the hill in such a way that you can only see all of it in one go from the air. This suggests that:

a) it was carved for the gods to see; or,

b) flying was invented a lot earlier that we thought; or,

c) people used to be much, much taller.

Oh, and this world had Witch Trials, too. They were not fun.

,

1. She had to say that, because she was a witch and a teacher, and that’s a terrible combination. They want things to be right. They like things to be correct. If you want to upset a witch, you don’t have to mess around with charms and spells– you just have to put her in a room with a picture that’s hung slightly crooked and watch her squirm.

2. First Thoughts are the everyday thoughts. Everyone has those. Second Thoughts are the thoughts you think about the way you think. People who enjoy thinking have those. Third Thoughts are thoughts that watch the world and think all by themselves. They’re rare, and often troublesome. Listening to them is part of witchcraft.

3. Knowing the dictionary all the way through does have some uses.

4. Tiffany knew what psychology was, but it hadn’t been a pronunciation dictionary.

5. “One Hundred and One Things a Wizard Can Do”

6. The Monster Book of Monsters

7. The hermit elephant of Howondaland has a very thin hide, except on its head, and young ones will often move into a small mud hut while the owners are out. It is far too shy to harm anyone, but most people quit their huts pretty soon after an elephant moves in. For one thing, it lifts the hut off the ground and carries it away on its back across the veldt, settling it down over any patch of nice grass that it finds. This makes housework very unpredictable. Nevertheless, an entire village of hermit elephants moving across the plains is one of the finest sights on the continent.

8. If anyone knew what this meant, they’d know a lot more about the Nac Mac Feegles’ way of travelling.