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Granny Aching had never been at home with words. She collected silence like other people collected string. But she had a way of saying nothing that said it all.
Admittedly – and it took some admitting – he was a lot less of a twit than he had been. On the other hand, there had been such of lot of twit to begin with.
‘The R is the wrong way roond and you left the A and a Y out of “Anybody”,’ said Jeannie, because it is a wife’s job to stop her husband actually exploding with pride.
She found her way into the kitchen. It was cold and quiet, except for the ticking of a clock on the wall. Both the hands had fallen off the clock face, and lay at the bottom of the glass cover, so while the clock was still measuring time it wasn’t inclined to tell anyone about it.
Things that try too hard to be funny often aren’t. There had been a moth-eaten lion with practically no teeth, a tight-rope walker who was never more than a few feet above the ground, and a knife-thrower who threw a lot of knives at an elderly woman in pink tights on a big spinning wooden disc and completely failed to hit her every time. The only real amusement was afterwards, when a cart ran over the clown.
‘Oh, do you mean Oswald?’ ‘There’s an invisible man called Oswald who can get into my bedroom?’ said Tiffany, horrified. ‘Oh, no. That’s just a name. Oswald isn’t a man, he’s an ondageist. Have you heard of poltergeists?’ ‘Er . . . invisible spirits that throw things around?’ ‘Good,’ said Miss Level. ‘Well, an ondageist is the opposite. They’re obsessive about tidiness. He’s quite handy around the house but he’s absolutely dreadful if he’s in the kitchen when I’m cooking. He keeps putting things away. I think it makes him happy.
Most people didn’t even know about it and just used the traditional method of finding out whether plants were poisonous or useful by testing them on some elderly aunt they didn’t need,
‘It’s a bad case o’ the thinkin’ he’s caught, missus. When a man starts messin’ wi’ the readin’ and the writin’ then he’ll come doon with a dose o’ the thinkin’ soon enough. I’ll fetch some o’ the lads and we’ll hold his heid under water until he stops doin’ it, ’tis the only cure. It can kill a man, the thinkin’.’
A Feegle liked to face enormous odds all by himself, because it meant you didn’t have to look where you were hitting.
‘You can’t not help people just because they’re stupid or forgetful or unpleasant. Everyone’s poor round here. If I don’t help them, who will?’
‘It shouldn’t be like this.’ ‘There isn’t a way things should be. There’s just what happens, and what we do.’
‘Mistress Weatherwax is the head witch, then, is she?’ ‘Oh no!’ said Miss Level, looking shocked. ‘Witches are all equal. We don’t have things like head witches. That’s quite against the spirit of witchcraft.’ ‘Oh, I see,’ said Tiffany. ‘Besides,’ Miss Level added, ‘Mistress Weatherwax would never allow that sort of thing.’
‘Because she likes people,’ said the witch, striding ahead. ‘She cares about ‘em. Even the stupid, mean, dribbling ones, the mothers with the runny babies and no sense, the feckless and the silly and the fools who treat her like some kind of a servant. Now that’s what I call magic – seein’ all that, dealin’ with all that, and still goin’ on.
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!’
‘And I could wish that my Nancy was alive, too, although bein’ as I hopes to be marryin’ another lady that ain’t a sensible wish, maybe. Hah!
AAaargwannawannaaaagongongonaargggaaaa BLOON!’ which is the traditional sound of a very small child learning that with balloons, as with life itself, it is important to know when not to let go of the string. The whole point of balloons is to teach small children this.
You build little worlds, little stories, little shells around your minds and that keeps infinity at bay and allows you to wake up in the morning without screaming!
You showed it the Way, right? Out of pity. Well, I know this path already. You’ll tread it again, no doubt, for some other poor soul, open the door for them as can’t find it. But we don’t talk about it, understand?’
‘It’s a skill. Rain don’t fall on a witch if she doesn’t want it to, although personally I prefer to get wet and be thankful.’ ‘Thankful for what?’ said Tiffany. ‘That I’ll get dry later.’
‘I’m clever enough to know how you manage not to think of a pink rhinoceros if someone says “pink rhinoceros”,’ she managed to say aloud. ‘Ah, that’s deep magic, that is,’ said Granny Weatherwax. ‘No. It’s not. You don’t know what a rhinoceros looks like, do you?’ Sunlight filled the clearing as the old witch laughed, as clear as a downland stream. ‘That’s right!’ she said.
It’s always surprising to be reminded that while you’re watching and thinking about people, all knowing and superior, they’re watching and thinking about you, right back at you.
Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colours. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.
Uffington White Horse,
