Terry Pratchett: Witches Abroad

"We had one once but the bit you unscrew fell off and got lost," said Old Mother Dismass.

Hurker the poacher shovelled the last of the earth into the hole. He felt he ought to say a few words.

"Well, that's about it, then," he said.

She'd definitely been one of the better witches, he thought, as he wandered back to the cottage in the pre-dawn gloom. Some of the other ones - while of course being wonderful human beings, he added to himself hurriedly, as fine a bunch of women as you could ever hope to avoid - were just a bit overpowering. Mistress Hollow had been a listening kind of person.

On the kitchen table was a long package, a small pile of coins, and an envelope.

He opened the envelope, although it was not addressed to him.

Inside was a smaller envelope, and a note.

The note said: I'm watching you, Albert Hurker. Deliver the packige and the envlope and if you dare take a peek inside something dretful will happen to you. As a profesional Good Farey Godmother I aint allowed to curse anyone but I Predict it would probly involve bein bittern by an enraged wolf and your leg going green and runny and dropping off, dont arsk me how I know anyway you carnt because, I am dead. All the best, Desiderata.

He picked up the package with his eyes shut.

Light travels slowly in the Discworld's vast magical field, which means that time does too. As Nanny Ogg would put it, when it's teatime in Genua it's Tuesday over here...

In fact it was dawn in Genua. Lilith sat in her tower, using a mirror, sending her own image out to scan the world. She was searching.

Wherever there was a sparkle on a wave crest, wherever there was a sheet of ice, wherever there was a mirror or a reflection then Lilith knew she could see out. You didn't need a magic mirror. Any mirror would do, if you knew how to use it. And Lilith, crackling with the power of a million images, knew that very well.

There was just a nagging doubt. Presumably Desiderata would have got rid of it. Her sort were like that. Conscientious. And presumably it would be to that stupid girl with the watery eyes who sometimes visited the cottage, the one with all the cheap jewellery and the bad taste in clothes. She looked just the type.

But Lilith wanted to be sure. She hadn't got where she was today without being sure.

In puddles and windows all over Lancre, the face of Lilith appeared momentarily and then moved on...

And now it was dawn in Lancre. Autumn mists rolled through the forest.

Granny Weatherwax pushed open the cottage door. It wasn't locked. The only visitor Desiderata had been expecting wasn't the sort to be put off by locks.

"She's had herself buried round the back," said a voice behind her. It was Nanny Ogg.

Granny considered her next move. To point out that Nanny had deliberately come early, so as to search the cottage by herself, then raised questions about Granny's own presence. She could undoubtedly answer them, given enough time. On the whole, it was probably best just to get on with things.

"Ah," she said, nodding. "Always very neat in her ways, was Desiderata."

"Well, it was the job," said Nanny Ogg, pushing past her and eyeing the room's contents speculatively. "You got to be able to keep track of things, in a job like hers. By gor', that's a bloody enormous cat."

"It's a lion," said Granny Weatherwax, looking at the stuffed head over the fireplace.

"Must've hit the wall at a hell of a speed, whatever it was," said Nanny Ogg.

"Someone killed it," said Granny Weatherwax, surveying the room.

"Should think so," said Nanny. "If I'd seen something like that eatin' its way through the wall I'd of hit it myself with the poker."

There was of course no such thing as a typical witch's cottage, but if there was such a thing as a non-typical witch's cottage, then this was certainly it. Apart from various glassy-eyed animal heads, the walls were covered in bookshelves and water-colour pictures. There was a spear in the umbrella stand. Instead of the more usual earthenware and china on the dresser there were foreign-looking brass pots and fine blue porcelain. There wasn't a dried herb anywhere in the place but there were a great many books, most of them filled with Desiderata's small, neat handwriting. A whole table was covered with what were probably maps, meticulously drawn.

Granny Weatherwax didn't like maps. She felt instinctively that they sold the landscape short.

"She certainly got about a bit," said Nanny Ogg, picking up a carved ivory fan and flirting coquettishly.

"Well, it was easy for her," said Granny, opening a few drawers. She ran her fingers along the top of the mantelpiece and looked at them critically.

"She could have found time to go over the place with a duster," she said vaguely. "I wouldn't go and die and leave my place in this state."

"I wonder where she left... you know... «?" said Nanny, opening the door of the grandfather clock and peering inside.

"Shame on you, Gytha Ogg," said Granny. "We're not here to look for that."

"Of course not. I was just wondering..." Nanny Ogg tried to stand on tiptoe surreptitiously, in order to see on top of the dresser.

"Gytha! For shame! Go and make us a cup of tea!"

"Oh, all right."

Nanny Ogg disappeared, muttering, into the scullery. After a few seconds there came the creaking of a pump handle.

Granny Weatherwax sidled towards a chair and felt quickly under the cushion.

There was a clatter from the next room. She straightened up hurriedly.

"I shouldn't think it'd be under the sink, neither," she shouted.

Nanny Ogg's reply was inaudible.

Granny waited a moment, and then crept rapidly over to the big chimney. She reached up and felt cautiously around.

"Looking for something, Esme?" said Nanny Ogg behind her.

"The soot up here is terrible," said Granny, standing up quickly. "Terrible soot there is."

"It's not up there, then?" said Nanny Ogg sweetly.

"Don't know what you're talking about."

"You don't have to pretend. Everyone knows she must have had one," said Nanny Ogg. "It goes with the job. It practic'ly is the job."

"Well... maybe I just wanted a look at it," Granny admitted. "Just hold it a while. Not use it. You wouldn't catch me using one of those things. I only ever saw it once or twice. There ain't many of ‘em around these days."

Nanny Ogg nodded. "You can't get the wood," she said.

"You don't think she's been buried with it, do you?"

"Shouldn't think so. I wouldn't want to be buried with it. Thing like that, it's a bit of a responsibility. Anyway, it wouldn't stay buried. A thing like that wants to be used. It'd be rattling around your coffin the whole time. You know the trouble they are."

She relaxed a bit. "I'll sort out the tea things," she said. "You light the fire."

She wandered back into the scullery.

Granny Weatherwax reached along the mantelpiece for the matches, and then realized that there wouldn't be any. Desiderata had always said she was much too busy not to use magic around the house. Even her laundry did itself.

Granny disapproved of magic for domestic purposes, but she was annoyed. She also wanted her tea.

She threw a couple of logs into the fireplace and glared at them until they burst into flame out of sheer embarrassment.

It was then that her eye was caught by the shrouded mirror.

"Coverin' it over?" she murmured. "I didn't know old Desiderata was frightened of thunderstorms."

She twitched aside the cloth.

She stared.

Very few people in the world had more self-control than Granny Weatherwax. It was as rigid as a bar of cast iron. And about as flexible.

She smashed the mirror.

Lilith sat bolt upright in her tower of mirrors. Her?

The face was different, of course. Older. It had been a long time. But eyes don't change, and witches always look at the eyes.