Terry Pratchett - Wintersmith

Nanny Ogg was good at listening, at least. She listened like a great big ear, and before Tiffany realized it, she was telling her everything. Everything. Nanny sat on the opposite side of the big kitchen table, puffing gently at a pipe with a hedgehog carved on it. Sometimes she'd ask a little question, like "Why was that?" or "And then what happened?" and off they'd go again. Nanny's friendly little smile could drag out of you things you didn't know you knew.

While they talked, Tiffany's Third Thoughts scanned the room out of the corners of her eyes.

It was wonderfully clean and bright, and there were ornaments everywhere—cheap, jolly ones, the sort that have things like "To the World's Best Mum" on them. And where there weren't ornaments, there were pictures of babies and children and families.

Tiffany had thought that only grand folk lived in homes like this. There were oil lamps! There was a bath, made of tin, hanging conveniently on a hook outside the privy! There was a pump actually indoors! But Nanny ambled around in her rather worn black dress, not grand at all.

From the best chair in the room of ornaments, a large gray cat watched Tiffany with a half-open eye that glinted with absolute evil. Nanny had referred to him as "Greebo…don't mind him, he's just a big old softie," which Tiffany knew enough to interpret as "he'll have his claws in your leg if you go anywhere near him."

Tiffany talked as she hadn't talked to anyone before. It must be a kind of magic, her Third Thoughts concluded. Witches soon picked up ways of controlling people with their voices, but Nanny Ogg listened at you.

"This lad Roland who is not your young man," said Nanny, when Tiffany had paused for breath. "Thinking of marrying him, are you?"

Don't lie, her Third Thoughts insisted.

"I…well, your mind comes up with all kinds of things when you're not paying attention, doesn't it?" said Tiffany. "It's not like thinking. Anyway, all the other boys I've met just stare at their stupid feet! Petulia says it's because of the hat."

"Well, taking it off helps," said Nanny Ogg. "Mind you, so did a low-cut bodice, when I was a girl. Stopped 'em lookin' at their stupid feet, I don't mind telling you!"

Tiffany saw the dark eyes locked onto her. She burst out laughing. Mrs. Ogg's face broke into a huge grin that should have been locked up for the sake of public decency, and for some reason Tiffany felt a lot better. She'd passed some kind of test.

"Mind you, that probably wouldn't work with the Wintersmith, of course," said Nanny, and the gloom came down again.

"I didn't mind the snowflakes," said Tiffany. "But the iceberg—I think that was a bit much."

"Showing off in front of the girls," said Nanny, puffing at her hedgehog pipe. "Yes, they do that."

"But he can kill people!"

"He's Winter. It's what he does. But I reckon he's in a bit of a tizzy because he's never been in love with a human before."

"In love?"

"Well, he probably thinks he is."

Once again the eyes watched her carefully.

"He's an elemental, and they're simple, really," Nanny Ogg went on. "But he's trying to be human. And that's complicated. We're packed with stuff he doesn't understand—can't understand, really. Anger, for example. A blizzard is never angry. The storm don't hate the people who die in it. The wind is never cruel. But the more he thinks about you, the more he's having to deal with feelings like this, and there's none can teach him. He's not very clever. He's never had to be. And the interesting thing is that you are changin' too—"

There was a knocking at the door. Nanny Ogg got up and opened it. Granny Weatherwax was there, with Miss Tick peering over her shoulder.

"Blessings be upon this house," said Granny, but in a voice that suggested that if blessings needed to be taken away, she could do that, too.

"Quite probably," said Nanny Ogg.

"It's Ped Fecundis, then?" Granny nodded at Tiffany.

"Looks like a bad case. The floorboards started growing after she walked over them in bare feet."

"Ha! Have you given her anything for it?" said Granny.

"I prescribed a pair of slippers."

"I really don't see how avatarization could be taking place, not when we're talking about elementals, it makes no—" Miss Tick began.

"Do stop wittering, Miss Tick," said Granny Weatherwax. "I notices you witter when things goes wrong, and it is not being a help."

"I don't want to worry the child, that's all," said Miss Tick. She took Tiffany's hand, patted it, and said, "Don't you worry, Tiffany, we'll—"

"She's a witch," said Granny sternly. "We just have to tell her the truth."

"You think I'm turning into a…a goddess?" said Tiffany.

It was worth it to see their faces. The only mouth not in an O was the one belonging to Granny Weatherwax, which was smirking. She looked like someone whose dog has just done a rather good trick.

"How did you work that out?" Granny asked.

Dr. Bustle had a guess: Avatar, an incarnation of a god. But I'm not going to tell you that, Tiffany thought. "Well, am I?" she said.

"Yes," said Granny Weatherwax. "The Wintersmith thinks you are…oh, she's got a lot of names. The Lady of the Flowers is a nice one. Or the Summer Lady. She makes the summertime, just like he makes the winter. He thinks you're her."

"All right," said Tiffany. "But we know he's wrong, don't we?"

"Er…not quite as wrong as we'd like," said Miss Tick.

Most of the Feegles had camped out in Nanny Ogg's barn, where they were holding a council of war, except that it was about something that isn't quite the same thing.

"What we've got here," Rob Anybody pronounced, "is a case o' Romance."

"What's that, Rob?" asked a Feegle.

"Aye, is it like how wee babbies are made?" asked Daft Wullie. "Ye told about that last year. It wuz verra interestin', although a bit far-fetched tae my mind."

"No' exactly," said Rob Anybody. "An' it's kinda hard tae describe. But I reckon yon Wintersmith wants to romance the big wee hag and she disna ken what tae do aboot it."

"So it is like how babbies are made?" said Daft Wullie.

"No, 'cuz even beasties know that but only people know aboot Romancin'," said Rob. "When a bull coo meets a lady coo, he disna have tae say, ‘My heart goes bang-bang-bang when I see your wee face,' 'cuz it's kinda built intae their heads. People have it more difficult. Romancin' is verra important, ye ken. Basically it's a way the boy can get close to the girl wi'oot her attackin' him and scratchin' his eyes oot."

"I dinna see how we can teach her any o' that stuff," said Slightly Mad Angus.

"The big wee hag reads books," said Rob Anybody. "When she sees a book she just canna help herself. An' I," he added proudly, "have a Plan."

The Feegles relaxed. They always felt happier when Rob had a Plan, especially since most plans of his boiled down to screaming and rushing at something.

"Tell us aboot the Plan, Rob," said Big Yan.

"Ah'm glad ye asked me," said Rob. "The Plan is: We'll find her a book aboot Romancin'."

"An' how will we find this book, Rob?" asked Billy Bigchin uncertainly. He was a loyal gonnagle, but he was also bright enough to get nervous whenever Rob Anybody had a Plan.

Rob Anybody airily waved a hand. "Ach," he said, "we ken this trick! A' we need is a big hat an' coat an' a coat hanger an' a broom handle!"

"Oh aye?" said Big Yan. "Well, I'm not bein' doon in the knee again!"

With witches everything is a test. That's why they tested Tiffany's feet.

I bet that I'm the only person in the world about to do this, she thought as she lowered both her feet into a tray of soil that Nanny had hastily shoveled up. Granny Weatherwax and Miss Tick were both sitting on bare wooden chairs, despite the fact that the gray cat Greebo was occupying the whole of one big saggy armchair. You didn't want to wake up Greebo when he wanted to sleep.