A Hat Full Of Sky

knowing look—‘we currently have very limited supplies of the Zephyr Billow, just in, very rare, black as coal and thin as a shadow. Completely useless for keeping you warm or dry but it looks fabulous in even the slightest breeze. Observe—’

He held up the cloak and blew gently. It billowed out almost horizontally, flapping and twisting like a sheet in a gale.

‘Oh, yes,’ breathed Annagramma.

‘I’ll take it,’ said Tiffany. ‘I shall wear it to the Witch Trials on Saturday.’

‘Well, if you win, be sure to tell everyone you bought it here,’ said Zakzak.

‘When I win I shall tell them I got it at a considerable discount,’ said Tiffany.

‘Oh, I don’t do discounts,’ said Zakzak, as loftily as a dwarf can manage.

Tiffany stared at him, then picked up one of the most expensive wands from the display. It glittered.

‘That’s a Number Six,’ whispered Annagramma. ‘Mrs Earwig has one of those!’

‘I see it’s got runes on it,’ said Tiffany, and something about the way she said it made Zakzak go pale.

‘Well, of course,’ said Annagramma. ‘You’ve got to have runes.’

‘These are in Oggham,’ said Tiffany, smiling nastily at Zakzak. ‘It’s a very ancient language of the dwarfs. Shall I tell you what they say? They say “Oh What A Wally Is Waving This”.’

‘Don’t you take that nasty lying tone with me, young lady!’ said the dwarf. ‘Who’s your mistress? I know your type! Learn one spell and you think you’re Mistress Weatherwax! I’m not standing for this kind of behaviour! Brian!’

There was a rustling from the bead curtains that led to the back of the shop and a wizard appeared.

You could tell he was a wizard. Wizards never wanted you to have to guess. He had long flowing robes, with stars and magical symbols on them; there were even some sequins. His beard would have been long and flowing if indeed he’d been the kind of young man who could really grow a beard. Instead, it was ragged and wispy and not very clean. And the general effect was also spoiled by the fact that he was smoking a cigarette, had a mug of tea in his hand and a face that looked a bit like something that lives under damp logs.

The mug was chipped and on it were the jolly words ‘You Don’t Have to Be Magic to Work Here But It Helps!!!!!’

‘Yeah?’ he said, adding reproachfully, ‘I was on my tea break, you know.’

‘This young… lady is being awkward,’ said Zakzak. ‘Throwing magic about. Talking back and being smart at me. The usual stuff.’

Brian looked at Tiffany. She smiled.

‘Brian’s been to Unseen University,’ said Zakzak with a ‘so there’ smirk. ‘Got a degree. What he doesn’t know about magic could fill a book! These ladies need showing the way out, Brian.’

‘Now then, ladies,’ said Brian nervously, putting down his mug. ‘Do what Mr Stronginthearm says and push off, right? We don’t want trouble, do we? Go on, there’s good kids.’

‘Why do you need a wizard to protect you, with all these magical amulets around the place, Mr Stronginthearm?’ said Tiffany sweetly.

Zakzak turned to Brian. ‘What’re you standing there for?’ he demanded. ‘She’s doing it again! I pay you, don’t I? Put a ‘fluence on ‘em, or something!’

‘Well, er… that one could be a bit of an awkward customer…’ Brian said, nodding towards Tiffany.

‘If you studied wizardry, Brian, then you know about conservation of mass, don’t you?’ she said. ‘I mean, you know what really happens when you try to turn someone into a frog?’

‘Well, er…’ the wizard began.

‘Ha! That’s just a figure of speech!’ snapped Zakzak. ‘I’d like to see you turn someone into a frog!’

‘Wish granted,’ said Tiffany, and waved the wand.

Brian started to say, ‘Look, when I said I’d been to Unseen University I meant—’

But he ended up saying, ‘Erk.’

Take the eye away from Tiffany, up through the shop, high, high about the village until the landscape spreads out in a patchwork of field, woods and mountains.

The magic spreads out like the ripples made when a stone is dropped in water. Within a few miles of the place it makes shambles spin and breaks the threads of curse-nets. As the ripples widen the magic gets fainter, although it never dies, and still can be felt by things far more sensitive than any shamble…

Let the eye move and fall now on this wood, this clearing, this cottage…

There is nothing on the walls but whitewash, nothing on the floor but cold stone. The huge fireplace doesn’t even have a cooking stove. A black tea kettle hangs on a black hook over what can hardly be called a fire at all; it’s just a few little sticks huddling together.

This is the house of a life peeled to the core.

Upstairs, an old woman, all in faded black, is lying on a narrow bed. But you wouldn’t think she was dead, because there is a big card on a string around her neck which reads:

I ATEN’T

DEAD

…and you have to believe it when it’s written down like that.

Her eyes are shut, her hands are crossed on her chest, her mouth is open.

And bees crawl into her mouth, and over her ears, and all over her pillow. They fill the room, flying in and out of the open window, where someone has put a row of saucers filled with sugary water on the sill.

None of the saucers match, of course. A witch never has matching crockery. But the bees work on, coming and going… busy as bees.

When the ripple of magic passes through, the buzz rises to a roar. Bees pour in though the window urgently, as though driven by a gale. They land on the still old woman until her head and shoulders are a boiling mass of tiny brown bodies.

And then, as one insect, they rise in a storm and pour away into the outside air, which is full of whirling seeds from the sycamore trees outside.

Mistress Weatherwax sat bolt upright and said: ‘Bzzzt!’ Then she stuck a finger into her mouth, rootled around a bit and pulled out a struggling bee. She blew on it and shooed it out of the window.

For a moment her eyes seemed to have many facets, just like a bee.

‘So,’ she said. ‘She’s learned how to Borrow, has she? Or she’s been Borrowed!’

Annagramma fainted. Zakzak stared, too afraid to faint.

‘You see,’ said Tiffany, while something in the air went gloop, gloop above them, ‘a frog weighs only a few ounces but Brian weighs, oh, about a hundred and twenty pounds, yes? So, to turn someone big into a frog you’ve got to find something to do with all the bits you can’t fit into a frog, right?’

She bent down and lifted up the pointy wizard’s hat on the floor.

‘Happy, Brian?’ she said.

A small frog, squatting on a heap of clothes, looked up and said, ‘Erk!’

Zakzak didn’t look at the frog. He was looking at the thing that went gloop, gloop. It was like a large pink balloon full of water, quite pretty really, wobbling gently against the