More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
she performs the bits of witchcraft that aren’t sparkly, aren’t fun, don’t involve any kind of wand, and that people seldom ever hear about: she does the unglamorous work of caring for the needy.
When you got married, it was a good idea to have a witch standing by
and when you died there would be a witch there too, to show you the way.
‘Are you trying to tell me that she was too young for a bit of romance, but young enough to be beaten so hard that she bled from places where no one should bleed?’
He looked away. ‘I wish it wasn’t you doing this, Tiff. You’re not sixteen yet and I see you running around nursing people and bandaging people and who knows what chores. You shouldn’t have to be doing all of that.’ ‘Yes, I know,’ said Tiffany. ‘Why?’ he asked again. ‘Because other people don’t, or won’t, or can’t, that’s why.’ ‘But it’s not your business, is it?’ ‘I make it my business. I’m a witch. It’s what we do. When it’s nobody else’s business, it’s my business,’ Tiffany said quickly.
“Feed them as is hungry, clothe them as is naked, and speak up for them as has no voices”?
‘Good morning, ladies! My name is Constable Haddock and I have been told to tell you that you’ve been let go with a warning,’ he said. ‘Although I have to tell you that no one quite knows what to warn you about, as far as I can tell, so if I was you, I’d consider myself generally in the situation of being warned, as it were, in a general and generically non-specific way, and hopefully slightly chastened by the experience, no offence meant, I’m sure.’
The boy was fascinating. It was not often you found somebody who could make nonsense sound wonderfully sensible.
Accurately me
These weren’t cheap modern books; these were books bound in leather, and not just leather, but leather from clever cows who had given their lives for literature after a happy existence in the very best pastures.
‘My mourning clothes,’ she said as the broomstick rose into the soft air. ‘It will be the old Baron’s funeral tomorrow, the poor man. My mother always travels with her funeral clothes. She says you never know when someone is going to drop down dead.’
‘And now will you go and see the Baron?’ He is concerned for me, Tiffany thought. ‘First, I’d like to go and see the old Baron,’ she said. ‘He’s still dead,’ Preston volunteered, looking worried. ‘Well, that’s some comfort anyway,’ said Tiffany. ‘Imagine the embarrassment otherwise.’
The black dress of the average witch was usually only theoretically black. In reality, it was often rather dusty, and quite possibly patched in the vicinity of the knees and somewhat ragged at the hems and, of course, very nearly worn through by frequent washings. It was what it was: working clothes.
people aren’t just people, they are people surrounded by circumstances.
‘There have been times, lately, when I dearly wished that I could change the past. Well, I can’t, but I can change the present, so that when it becomes the past it will turn out to be a past worth having.
