A Hat Full Of Sky

just stood there. You saw her. There weren’t any doors or deserts. There was just her.’

Tiffany sighed. She just felt tired. She just wanted to crawl off somewhere. She just wanted to go home. She’d walk there now if her boots weren’t suddenly so uncomfortable.

While the girls argued, she undid the laces and tugged one off.

Silver-black dust poured out. When it hit the ground it bounced, slowly, curving up into the air again like mist.

The girls turned, watching in silence. Then Petulia reached down and caught some of the dust. When she lifted her hand, the fine stuff flowed between her fingers. It fell as slowly as feathers.

‘Sometimes things go wrong,’ she said, in a faraway voice. ‘Mistress Blackcap told me. Haven’t any of you been there when old folk are dying?’ There were one or two nods, but everyone was watching the dust.

‘Sometimes things go wrong,’ said Petulia again. ‘Sometimes they’re dying but they can’t leave because they don’t know the Way. She said that’s when they need you to be there, close to them, to help them find the door so they don’t get lost in the dark.’

‘Petulia, we’re not supposed to talk about this,’ said Harrieta, gently.

‘No!’ said Petulia, her face red. ‘It is a time to talk about it, just here, just us! Because she said it’s the last thing you can do for someone. She said there’s a dark desert they have to cross, where the sand—’

‘Hah! Mrs Earwig says that sort of thing is black magic,’ said Annagramma, her voice as sharp and sudden as a knife.

‘Does she?’ said Petulia dreamily as the sand poured down. ‘Well, Mistress Blackcap said that sometimes the moon is light and sometimes it’s in shadow but you should always remember it’s the same moon. And… Annagramma?’

‘Yes?’

Petulia took a deep breath.

‘Don’t you ever dare interrupt me again as long as you live. Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare! I mean it.’

Chapter Thirteen The Witch Trials

And then… there were the Trials themselves. That was the point of the day, wasn’t it? But Tiffany, stepping out with the girls around her, sensed the buzz in the air. It said: Was there any point now? After what had happened?

Still, people had put up the rope square again, and a lot of the older witches dragged their chairs to the edge of it, and it seemed that it was going to happen after all. Tiffany wandered up to the rope, found a space and sat down on the grass with Granny Weatherwax’s hat in front of her.

She was aware of the other girls behind her, and also a buzz or susurration of whispering spreading out into the crowd.

‘…She really did do it, too… no, really… all the way to the desert… saw the dust… her boots were full, they say…’

Gossip spreads faster among witches than a bad cold. Witches gossip like starlings.

There were no judges, and no prizes. The Trials weren’t like that, as Petulia had said. The point was to show what you could do, to show what you’d become, so that people would go away thinking things like ‘That Caramella Bottlethwaite, she’s coming along nicely.’ It wasn’t a competition, honestly. No one won.

And if you believed that you’d believe that the moon is pushed around the sky by a goblin called Wilberforce.

What was true was that one of the older witches generally opened the thing with some competent but not surprising trick which everyone had seen before but still appreciated. That broke the ice. This year it was old Goodie Trample and her collection of singing mice.

But Tiffany wasn’t paying attention. On the other side of the roped-off square, sitting on a chair and surrounded by older witches like a queen on her throne, was Granny Weatherwax.

The whispering went on. Maybe opening her eyes had opened her ears, too, because Tiffany felt she could hear the whispers all around the square.

‘…Di’n’t have no trainin’, just did it… did you see that horse?… I never saw no horse!… Di’n’t just open the door, she stepped right in!… Yeah, but who was it fetched her back? Esme Weatherwax, that’s who!… Yes, that’s what I’m sayin’, any little fool could’ve opened the door by luck, but it takes a real witch to bring her back, that’s a winner, that is… fought the thing, left it there!… I didn’t see you doing anything, Violet Pulsimone! That child… Was there a horse or not?… Was going to do my dancing broom trick, but that’d be wasted now, of course… Why did Mistress Weatherwax give the girl her hat, eh? What’s she want us to think? She never takes off her hat to no one!’

You could feel the tension, crackling from pointy hat to pointy hat like summer lightning.

The mice did their best with I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles but it was easy to see that their minds weren’t on it. Mice are highly strung and very temperamental.

Now people were leaning down beside Granny Weatherwax. Tiffany could see some animated conversations going on.

‘You know, Tiffany,’ said Lucy Warbeck, behind her, ‘all you’ve got to do is, like, stand up and admit it. Everyone knows you did it. I mean, no one’s ever, like, done something like that at the Trials!’

‘And it’s about time the old bully lost,’ said Annagramma.

But she’s not a bully, Tiffany thought. She’s tough, and she expects other witches to be tough, because the edge is no place for people who break. Everything with her is a kind of test. And her Third Thoughts handed over the thought that had not quite made it back in the tent: Granny Weatherwax, you knew the hiver would only come for me, didn’t you? You talked to Dr Bustle, you told me. Did you just turn me into your trick for today? How much did you guess? Or know?

‘You’d win,’ said Dimity Hubbub. ‘Even some of the older ones would like to see her taken down a peg. They know big magic happened. There’s not a whole shamble for miles.’

So I’d win because some people don’t like somebody else? Tiffany thought. Oh, yes, that’d really be something to be proud of…

‘You can bet she’ll stand up,’ said Annagramma. ‘You watch. She’ll explain how the poor child got dragged into the Next World by a monster, and she brought her back. That’s what I’d do, if I was her.’

I expect you would, Tiffany thought. But you’re not, and you’re not me, either.

She stared at Granny Weatherwax, who was waving away a couple of elderly witches.

I wonder, she thought, if they’ve been saying things like ‘This girl needs taking down a peg. Mistress Weatherwax.’ And as she thought that, Granny turned back and caught her eye—

The mice stopped singing, mostly in embarrassment. There was a pause, and then people started to clap, because it was the sort of thing you had to do.

A witch, someone Tiffany didn’t know, stepped out into the square, still clapping in that fluttery, hands- held-close-together-at shoulder-height way that people use when they want to encourage the audience to go on applauding just that little bit longer.

‘Very well done, Doris, excellent work, as ever,’ she trilled. ‘They’ve come on marvellously since last year, thank you very much, wonderful, well done… ahem…’