Terry Pratchett - A Hat Full Of Sky

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.’

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 story they can understand. Right now I reckon you’d have to change quite a lot of the world, and maybe bang Mr Raddle’s stupid fat head against the wall a few times, before he’d believe that you can be sickened by drinking tiny invisible beasts. And while you’re doing that, those kids of theirs will get sicker. But goblins, now, they makes sense today . A story gets things done. And when I see Miss Tick tomorrow I’ll tell her it’s about time them wandering teachers started coming up here.’

‘All right,’ said Tiffany reluctantly, ‘but you told Mr Umbril the shoemaker that his chest pains will clear up if he walks to the waterfall at Tumble Crag every day for a month and throws three shiny pebbles into the pool for the water sprites! That’s not doctoring!’

‘No, but he thinks it is. The man spends too much time sitting hunched up. A five-mile walk in the fresh air every day for a month will see him as right as rain,’ said Mistress Weatherwax.

‘Oh,’ said Tiffany. ‘Another story?’

‘If you like,’ said Mistress Weatherwax, her eyes twinkling. ‘And you never know, maybe the water sprites will be grateful for the pebbles.’

She glanced sidelong at Tiffany’s expression, and patted her on the shoulder.

‘Never mind, miss,’ she said. ‘Look at it this way. Tomorrow, your job is to change the world into a better place. Today, my job is to see that everyone gets there.’

‘Well, I think—’ Tiffany began, then stopped. She looked up at the line of woods between the small fields of the valleys and the steep meadows of the mountains.

‘It’s still there,’ she said.

‘I know,’ said Mistress Weatherwax.

‘It’s moving around but it’s keeping away from us.’

‘I know,’ said Mistress Weatherwax.

‘What does it think it’s doing?’

‘It’s got a bit of you in it. What do you think it’s doing?’

Tiffany tried to think. Why wouldn’t it attack? Oh, she’d be better prepared this time, but it was strong.

‘Maybe it’s waiting until I’m upset again,’ she said. ‘But I keep having a thought. It makes no sense. I keep thinking about… three wishes.’

‘Wishes for what?’

‘I don’t know. It sounds silly.’

Mistress Weatherwax stopped. ‘No, it’s not,’ she said. ‘It’s a deep part of you trying to send yourself a message. Just remember it. Because now—’

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

No dragon’s cave was ever approached as carefully as the cottage in the overgrown garden.

Tiffany paused at the gate and looked back, but Mistress Weatherwax had diplomatically vanished. Probably she’s found someone to give her a cup of tea and a sweet biscuit, she thought. She lives on them!

She opened the gate and walked up the path.

You couldn’t say: It’s not my fault. You couldn’t say: It’s not my responsibility.

You could say: I will deal with this.

You didn’t have to want to. But you had to do it.

Tiffany took a deep breath and stepped into the dark cottage.

Mr Weavall, in his chair, was just inside the door and fast asleep, showing the world an open mouth full of yellow teeth.

‘Um… hello, Mr Weavall,’ Tiffany quavered, but perhaps not quite loud enough. ‘Just, er, here to see that you, that everything is… is all right…’

There was a snort nonetheless, and he woke, smacking his lips to get the sleep out of his mouth.

‘Oh, ‘tis you,’ he said. ‘Good afternoon to ye.’ He eased himself more upright and started to stare out of the doorway, ignoring her.

Maybe he won’t ask, she thought as she washed up and dusted and plumped the cushions and, not to put too fine a point on it, emptied the commode. But she nearly yelped when the arm shot out and grabbed her wrist and the old man gave her his pleading look.

‘Just check the box, Mary, will you? Before you go? Only I heard clinking noises last night, see. Could be one o’ the sneaky thieves got in.’