A Hat Full Of Sky

The last sentence took a little working out, and then Tiffany said, ‘You are?’

‘That I am,’ said Mr Weavall, struggling to his feet. ‘She’s a fine woman who bakes a very reasonable steak-and-onion pie and she has all her own teeth. I know that because she showed I. Her youngest son got her a set of fancy store-bought teeth all the way from the big city, and very handsome she looks in ‘em. She was kind enough to loan ‘em to I one day when I had a difficult piece of pork to tackle, and a man doesn’t forget a kindness like that.’

‘Er… you don’t think you ought to think about this, do you?’ said Tiffany.

Mr Weavall laughed. ‘Think? I got no business to be thinking about it, young lady! Who’re you to tell me an old ‘un like I that he ought to be thinking? I’m ninety-one, I am! Got to be up and doing! Besides, I have reason to believe by the twinkle in her eye that the Widow Tussy will not turn up her nose at my suggestion. I’ve seen a fair number of twinkles over the years, and that was a good’un. And I daresay that suddenly having a box of gold will fill in the corners, as my ol’ dad would say.’

It took ten minutes for Mr Weavall to get changed, with a lot of struggling and bad language and no help from Tiffany, who was told to turn her back and put her hands over her ears. Then she had to help him out into the garden, where he threw away one walking stick and waggled a finger at the weeds.

‘And I’ll be chopping down the lot of you tomorrow!’ he shouted triumphantly.

At the garden gate he grasped the post and pulled himself nearly vertical, panting.

‘All right,’ he said, just a little anxiously. ‘It’s now or never. I look OK, does I?’

‘You look fine, Mr Weavall.’

‘Everything clean? Everything done up?’

‘Er… yes,’ said Tiffany.

‘How’s my hair look?’

‘Er… you don’t have any, Mr Weavall,’ she reminded him.

‘Ah, right. Yes, ‘tis true. I’ll have to buy one o’ the whatdyoucallem’s, like a hat made of hair? Have I got enough money for that, d’you think?’

‘A wig? You could buy thousands, Mr Weavall!’

‘Hah! Right.’ His gleaming eyes looked around the garden. ‘Any flowers out? Can’t see too well… Ah… speckatickles, I saw ‘em once, made of glass, makes you see good as new. That’s what I need… have I got enough for speckatickles?’

‘Mr Weavall,’ said Tiffany, ‘you’ve got enough for anything.’

‘Why, bless you!’ said Mr Weavall. ‘But right now I need a bow-kwet of flowers, girl. Can’t go courtin’ without flowers and I can’t see none. Anythin’ left?’

A few roses were hanging on among the weeds and briars in the garden. Tiffany fetched a knife from the kitchen and made them up into a bouquet.

‘Ah, good,’ he said. ‘Late bloomers, just like I!’ He held them tightly in his free hand, then suddenly frowned, fell silent and stood like a statue…

‘I wish my Toby and my Mary was goin’ to be able to come to the weddin’,’ he said quietly. ‘But they’re dead, you know.’

‘Yes,’ said Tiffany. ‘I know, Mr Weavall.’

‘And I could wish that my Nancy was alive, too, although bein’ as I hopes to be marryin’ another lady that ain’t a sensible wish, maybe. Hah! Nearly everyone I knows is dead.’ Mr Weavall stared at the bunch of flowers for a while, and then straightened up again. ‘Still, can’t do nothin’ about that, can we? Not even for a box full of gold!’

‘No, Mr Weavall,” said Tiffany hoarsely.

‘Oh, don’t cry, gel! The sun is shinin’, the birds is singin’ and what’s past can’t be mended, eh?’ said Mr Weavall jovially. ‘And the Widow Tussy is waitin’!’

For a moment he looked panicky, and then he cleared his throat.

‘Don’t smell too bad, do I?’ he said.

‘Er… only of mothballs, Mr Weavall.’

‘Mothballs? Mothballs is OK. Right, then! Time’s a wastin’!’

Using only the one stick, waving his other arm with the flowers in the air to keep his balance, Mr Weavall set off with surprising speed.

‘Well,’ said Mistress Weatherwax as, with jacket flying, he rounded the corner. ‘That was nice, wasn’t it?’

Tiffany looked around quickly. Mistress Weatherwax was still nowhere to be seen, but she was somewhere to be unseen. Tiffany squinted at what was definitely an old wall with some ivy growing up it, and it was only when the old witch moved that she spotted her. She hadn’t done anything to her clothes, hadn’t done any magic as far as Tiffany knew, but she’d simply… faded in.

‘Er, yes,’ said Tiffany, taking out a handkerchief and blowing her nose.

‘But it worries you,’ said the witch. ‘You think it shouldn’t have ended like that, right?’

‘No!’ said Tiffany hotly.

‘It would have been better if he’d been buried in some ol’ cheap coffin paid for by the village, you think?’

‘No!’ Tiffany twisted up her fingers. Mistress Weatherwax was sharper than a field of pins. ‘But… all right, it just doesn’t seem… fair. I mean, I wish the Feegles hadn’t done that. I’m sure I could have… sorted it out somehow, saved up…’

‘It’s an unfair world, child. Be glad you have friends.’

Tiffany looked up at the tree line.

‘Yes,’ said Mistress Weatherwax. ‘But not up there.’

‘I’m going away,’ said Tiffany. ‘I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m going away.’

‘Broomstick?’ said Mistress Weatherwax. ‘It don’t move fast—’

‘No! Where would I fly to? Home? I don’t want to take it there! Anyway, I can’t just fly off with it roaming around! When it… when I meet it, I don’t want to be near people, you understand? I know what I… what it can do if it’s angry! It half-killed Miss Level!’

‘And if it follows you?’

‘Good! I’ll take it up there somewhere!’ Tiffany waved at the mountains.

‘All alone?’

‘I don’t have a choice, do I?’

Mistress Weatherwax gave her a look that went on too long.

‘No,’ she said. ‘You don’t. But neither have I. That’s why I will come with you. Don’t argue, miss. How would you stop me, eh? Oh, that reminds me… them mysterious bruises Mrs Towny gets is because Mr Towny beats her, and the father of Miss Quickly’s baby is young Fred Turvey. You might mention that to Miss Level.’

As she spoke, a bee flew out of her ear.

Bait, thought Tiffany a few hours later, as they walked away from Miss Level’s cottage and up towards the high moors. I wonder if I’m bait, just like in the old days when the hunters would tether a lamb or a baby goat to bring the wolves nearer?

She’s got a plan to kill the hiver. I know it. She’s worked something out. It’ll come for me and she’ll just wave a hand.

She must think I’m stupid.

They had argued, of course. But Mistress Weatherwax had made a nasty personal remark. It was: You’re eleven. Just like that. You’re eleven, and what is Miss Tick going to tell your parents? Sorry about Tiffany, but we let her go off by herself to fight an ancient monster that can’t be killed and what’s left of her is in this jar?

Miss Level had joined in at that part, almost in tears.

If Tiffany hadn’t been a witch, she would have whined about everyone being so unfair!