'What?' she said.
'Sort of an 'urk' noise?'
'No.'
Granny spun around.
'Over there,' she said. 'I definitely heard it this time. Something like 'cock-a-doo- arrgh'.'
'Can't say I did, Esme,' said Nanny, smiling at the sky. 'Lancre Bridge up ahead.'
'And over there! Right down there! It was a definite squawk!'
'Dawn chorus, Esme, I expect. Look, only half a mile to go.'
Granny glared at the back of her colleague's head.
'There's something going on here,' she said.
'Search me, Esme.'
'Your shoulders are shaking!'
'Lost my shawl back there. I'm a bit chilly. Look, we're nearly there.'
Granny glared ahead, her mind a maze of suspicions. She was going to get to the bottom of this. When she had time.
The damp logs of Lancre's main link to the outside world drifted gently underneath them. From the chicken farm half a mile away came a chorus of strangled squawks and a thud.
'And that? What was that, then?' demanded Granny.
'Fowl pest. Careful, I'm bringing us down.'
'Are you laughing at me?'
'Just pleased for you, Esme. You'll go down in history for this, you know.'
They drifted between the timbers of the bridge. Granny Weatherwax alighted cautiously on the greasy planking and adjusted her dress.
'Yes. Well,' she added, nonchalantly.
'Better than Black Aliss, everyone'll say,' Nanny Ogg went on.
'Some people will say anything,' said Granny. She peered over the parapet at the foaming torrent far below, and then up at the distant outcrop on which stood Lancre Castle.
'Do you think they will?' she added, nonchalantly.
'Mark my words.'
'Hmm.'
'But you've got to complete the spell, mind.'
Granny Weatherwax nodded. She turned to face the dawn, raised her arms, and completed the spell.
It is almost impossible to convey the sudden passage of fifteen years and two months in words.
It's a lot easier in pictures, when you just use a calendar with lots of pages blowing off, or a clock with hands moving faster and faster until they blur, or trees bursting into blossom and fruiting in a matter of
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