Terry Pratchett - A Hat Full Of Sky

‘Why? It’s a long way down to the tree line to get the firewood, and there’ll be a fine half-moon up in twenty minutes. Your friend’s keeping his distance and there nothing else that’ll attack us up here.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I walk safely in my mountains,’ said Mistress Weatherwax.

‘But aren’t there trolls and wolves and things?’

‘Oh, yes. Lots.’

‘And they don’t try to attack you?’

‘Not any more,’ said a self-satisfied voice in the dark. ‘Pass me the biscuits, will you?’

‘Here you are. Would you like some pickles?’

‘Pickles gives me the wind something awful.’

‘In that case—’

‘Oh, I wasn’t saying no ,’ said Mistress Weatherwax, taking two large pickled cucumbers.

Oh, good , Tiffany thought.

She’d brought three fresh eggs with her. Getting the hang of a shamble was taking too long. It was stupid. All the other girls were able to use them. She was sure she was doing everything right.

She’d filled her pocket with random things. Now she pulled them out without looking, wove the thread around the egg like she’d done a hundred times before, grasped the pieces of wood and moved them so that…

Poc!

The egg cracked, and oozed.

‘I told you,’ said Mistress Weatherwax, who’d opened one eye. ‘They’re toys. Sticks and stones.’

‘Have you ever used one?’ said Tiffany.

‘No. Couldn’t get the hang of them. They got in the way.’ Mistress Weatherwax yawned, wrapped the blanket around her, made a couple of mnup, mnup noises as she tried to get comfortable against the rock and, after a while, her breathing became deeper.

Tiffany waited in silence, her blanket around her, until the moon came up. She’d expected that to make things better, but it didn’t. Before, there had just been darkness. Now there were shadows.

There was a snore beside her. It was one of those good solid ones, like ripping canvas.

Silence happened. It came across the night on silver wings, noiseless as the fall of a feather, silence made into a bird, which alighted on a rock close by. It swivelled its head to look at Tiffany.

There was more than just the curiosity of a bird in that look.

The old woman snored again. Tiffany reached out, still staring at the owl, and shook her gently. When that didn’t work, she shook her hardly.

There was a sound like three pigs colliding and Mistress Weatherwax opened one eye and said, ‘Whoo?’

‘There’s an owl watching us! It’s right up close!’

Suddenly the owl blinked, looked at Tiffany as if amazed to see her, spread its wings and glided off into the night.

Mistress Weatherwax gripped her throat, coughed once or twice, and then said hoarsely, ‘Of course it was an owl, child! It took me ten minutes to lure it this close! Now just you be quiet while I starts again, otherwise I shall have to make do with a bat, and when I goes out on a bat for any time at all I ends up thinkin’ I can see with my ears, which is no way for a decent woman to behave!’

‘But you were snoring!’

‘I was not snoring! I was just resting gently while I tickled an owl closer! If you hadn’t shaken me and scared it away, I’d have been up there with this entire moor under my eye.’

‘You… take over its mind?’ said Tiffany nervously.

‘No! I’m not one of your hivers! I just… borrows a lift from it, I just… nudges it now and again, it don’t even know I’m there. Now try to rest!’

‘But what if the hiver—?’

‘If it comes anywhere near it’ll be me that tells you!’ Mistress Weatherwax hissed, and lay back. Then her head jerked up one more time. ‘And I do not snore!’ she added.

After half a minute, she started to snore again.

Minutes after that the owl came back, or perhaps it was a different owl. It glided onto the same rock, settled there for a while and then sped away. The witch stopped snoring. In fact, she stopped breathing.

Tiffany leaned closer and finally lowered an ear to the skinny chest to see if there was a heartbeat.

Her own heart felt as if it was clenched like a fist—

– because of the day she’d found Granny Aching in the hut. She was lying peacefully on the narrow iron bed, but Tiffany had known something was wrong as soon as she had stepped inside –

Boom .

Tiffany counted to three.

Boom .

Well, it was a heartbeat.

Very slowly, like a twig growing, a stiff hand moved. It slid like a glacier into a pocket, and came up holding a large piece of card on which was written:

I ATEN’T

DEAD

Tiffany decided she wasn’t going to argue. But she pulled the blanket over the old woman and wrapped her own around herself.

By moonlight, she tried again with her shamble.

Surely she should be able to make it do something. Maybe if—

By moonlight, she very, very carefully—

Poc!

The egg cracked. The egg always cracked, and now there was only one left. Tiffany didn’t dare try it with a beetle, even if she could find one. It would be too cruel.

She sat back and looked across the landscape of silver and black, and her Third Thoughts thought: It’s not going to come near .

Why?

She thought, I’m not sure why I know. But I know. It’s keeping away. It knows Mistress Weatherwax is with me .

She thought: How can it know that? It’s not got a mind. It doesn’t know what a Mistress Weatherwax is!

Still thinking , thought her Third Thoughts.

Tiffany slumped against the rock.

Sometimes her head was too… crowded…

And then it was morning, and sunlight, and dew on her hair, and mist coming off the ground like smoke… and an eagle sitting on the rock where the owl had been, eating something furry. She could see every feather on its wing.

It swallowed, glared at Tiffany with its mad bird eyes and flapped away, making the mist swirl.

Beside her, Mistress Weatherwax began to snore again, which Tiffany took to mean that she was in her body. She gave the old woman a nudge, and the sound that had been a regular gnaaaargrgrgrgrg suddenly became blort .

The old woman sat up, coughing, and waved a hand irritably at Tiffany to pass her the tea bottle. She didn’t speak until she’d gulped half of it.

‘Ah, say what you like, but rabbit tastes a lot better cooked,’ she gasped, shoving the cork back in. ‘And without the fur on!’

‘You took— borrowed the eagle?’ said Tiffany.

‘O’course. I couldn’t expect the poor ol’ owl to fly around after daybreak, just to see who’s about. It was hunting voles all night and, believe me, raw rabbit’s better’n voles. Don’t eat voles.’

‘I won’t,’ said Tiffany, and meant it. ‘Mistress Weatherwax, I think I know what the hiver’s doing. It’s thinking.’

‘I thought it had no brains!’

Tiffany let her thoughts speak for themselves.

‘But there’s an echo of me in it, isn’t there? There must be. It has an echo of everyone it’s… been. There must be a bit of me in it. I know it’s out there, and it knows I’m here with you. And it’s keeping away.’

‘Oh? Why’s that, then?’

‘Because it’s frightened of you, I think.’

‘Huh! And why’s that?’

‘Yes,’ said Tiffany simply. ‘It’s because I am. A bit.’

‘Oh dear. Are you?’

‘Yes,’ said Tiffany again. ‘It’s like a dog that’s been beaten but won’t run away. It doesn’t understand what it’s done wrong. But… there’s something about it that… there’s a thought that I’m nearly having…’