A Hat Full Of Sky

‘What?’ snapped Tiffany.

Mistress Weatherwax laughed, to Tiffany’s sudden fury.

‘Yes, you’re a witch to your boots,’ she said. ‘You’re sad, and behind that you’re watching yourself being sad and thinking, Oh, poor me, and behind that you’re angry with me for not going “There, there, poor dear.” Let me talk to those Third Thoughts then, because I want to hear from the girl who went to fight a fairy queen armed with nothin’ but a fryin’ pan, not some child feelin’ sorry for herself and wallowing in misery!’

‘What? I am not wallowing in misery!’ Tiffany shouted, striding up to her until they were inches apart. ‘And what was all that about being nice to people, eh?’ Overhead, leaves fell off the trees.

‘That doesn’t count when it’s another witch, especially one like you!’ Mistress Weatherwax snapped, prodding her in the chest with a finger as hard as wood.

‘Oh? Oh? And what’s that supposed to mean?’ A deer galloped off through the woods. The wind got up.

‘One who’s not paying attention, child!’

‘Why, what have I missed that you’ve seen… old woman?’

‘Old woman I may be, but I’m tellin’ you the hiver is still around! You only threw it out!’ Mistress Weatherwax shouted. Birds rose from the trees in panic.

‘I know!’ screamed Tiffany.

‘Oh yes? Really? And how do you know that?’

‘Because there’s a bit of me still in it! A bit of me I’d rather not know about, thank you! I can feel it out there! Anyway, how do you know!’

‘Because I’m a bloody good witch, that’s why,’ snarled Mistress Weatherwax, as rabbits burrowed deeper to get out of the way. ‘And what do you want me to do about the creature while you sit there snivellin’, eh?’

‘How dare you! How dare you! It’s my responsibility! I’ll deal with it, thank you so very much!’

‘You? A hiver? It’ll take more than a frying pan! They can’t be killed!’

‘I’ll find a way! A witch deals with things!’

‘Hah! I’d like to see you try!’

‘I will!’ shouted Tiffany. It started to rain.

‘Oh? So you know how to attack it, do you?’

‘Don’t be silly! I can’t! It can always keep out of my way! It can even sink into the ground! But it’ll come looking for me, understand? Me, not anyone else! I know it! And this time I’ll be ready!’

‘Will you, indeed?’ said Mistress Weatherwax, folding her arms.

‘Yes!’

‘When?’

‘Now!’

‘No!’

The old witch held up a hand.

‘Peace be on this place,’ she said, quietly. The wind dropped. The rain stopped. ‘No, not yet,’ she went on as peace once again descended. ‘It’s not attackin’ yet. Don’t you think that’s odd? It’d be licking its wounds, if it had a tongue. And you’re not ready yet, whatever you thinks. No, we’ve got somethin’ else to do, haven’t we?’

Tiffany was speechless. The tide of outrage inside her was so hot that it burned her ears. But Mistress Weatherwax was smiling. The two facts did not work well together.

Her first thoughts were: I’ve just had a blazing row with Mistress Weatherwax! They say that if you cut her with a knife she wouldn’t bleed until she wanted to! They say that when some vampires bit her they all started to crave tea and sweet biscuits. She can do anything, be anywhere! And I called her an old woman!

Her Second Thoughts were: Well, she is.

Her Third Thoughts were: Yes, she is Mistress Weatherwax. And she’s keeping you angry. If you’re full of anger, there’s no room left for fear.

‘You hold that anger,’ Mistress Weatherwax said, as if reading all of her mind. ‘Cup it in your heart, remember where it came from, remember the shape of it, save it until you need it. But now the wolf is out there somewhere in the woods, and you need to see to the flock.’

It’s the voice, Tiffany thought. She really does talk to people like Granny Aching talked to sheep, except she hardly cusses at all. But I feel… better.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘And that includes Mr Weavall.’

‘Yes,’ said Tiffany. ‘I know.’

Chapter Ten The Late Bloomer

It was an… interesting day. Everyone in the mountains had heard of Mistress Weatherwax. If you didn’t have respect, she said, you didn’t have anything. Today, she had it all. Some of it even rubbed off on Tiffany.

They were treated like royalty—not the sort who get dragged off to be beheaded or have something nasty done with a red-hot poker, but the other sort, when people walk away dazed, saying, ‘She actually said hello to me, very graciously! I will never wash my hand again!’

Not that many people they dealt with washed their hands at all, Tiffany thought, with the primness of a dairy worker. But people crowded around outside the cottage doors, watching and listening, and people sidled up to Tiffany to say things like, ‘Would she like a cup of tea? I’ve cleaned our cup!’ And in the garden of every cottage they passed, Tiffany noticed, the beehives were suddenly bustling with activity.

She worked away, trying to stay calm, trying to think about what she was doing. You did the doctoring work as neatly as you could, and if it was on something oozy then you just thought about how nice things would be when you’d stopped doing it. She felt Mistress Weatherwax wouldn’t approve of this attitude. But Tiffany didn’t much like hers either. She lied all the—she didn’t tell the truth all the time.

For example, there was the Raddles’ privy. Miss Level had explained carefully to Mr and Mrs Raddle several times that it was far too close to the well, and so the drinking water was full of tiny, tiny creatures that were making their children sick. They’d listened very carefully, every time they heard the lecture, and still they never moved the privy. But Mistress Weatherwax told them it was caused by goblins who were attracted to the smell, and by the time they left that cottage Mr Raddle and three of his friends were already digging a new well the other end of the garden.

‘It really is caused by tiny creatures, you know,’ said Tiffany, who’d once handed over an egg to a travelling teacher so she could line up and look through his ‘**Astounding Mikroscopical Device! A Zoo in Every Drop of Ditchwater!**’ She’d almost collapsed next day from not drinking. Some of those creatures were hairy.

‘Is that so?’ said Mistress Weatherwax sarcastically.

‘Yes. It is. And Miss Level believes in telling them the truth!’

‘Good. She’s a fine, honest woman,’ said Mistress Weatherwax. ‘But what I say is, you have to tell people a