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Some things start before other things. It was a summer shower but didn’t appear to know it, and it was pouring rain as fast as a winter storm.
She’d read the dictionary all the way through. No one told her you weren’t supposed to.
This is Tiffany, walking back home. Start with the boots. They are big and heavy boots, much repaired by her father, and they belonged to various sisters before her; she wears several pairs of socks to keep them on. They are big. Tiffany sometimes feels she is nothing more than a way of moving boots around. Then there is the dress. It has been owned by many sisters as well and has been taken up, taken out, taken down, and taken in by her mother so many times that it really ought to have been taken away.
And finally there was The Goode Childe’s Booke of Faerie Tales, so old that it belonged to an age when there were far more e’s around.
Miss Tick was running up the dusty road. Witches don’t like to be seen running. It looks unprofessional.
They went to sleep under the stars, which the math teachers would count, the astronomy teachers would measure, and the literature teachers would name. The geography teachers got lost in the woods and fell into bear traps.
“I would like a question answered today,” said Tiffany. “Provided it’s not the one about how you get baby hedgehogs,” said the man. “No,” said Tiffany patiently. “It’s about zoology.” “Zoology, eh? That’s a big word, isn’t it.” “No, actually it isn’t,” said Tiffany. “Patronizing is a big word. Zoology is really quite short.”
“I can see we’re going to get along like a house on fire,” said Miss Tick. “There may be no survivors.”
You want to be a witch, am I right? You probably want to fly on a broomstick, yes?” “Oh, yes!” She’d often dreamed of flying. Miss Tick’s next words brought her down to earth. “Really? You like having to wear really, really thick pants? Believe me, if I’ve got to fly, I wear two pairs of woolen ones and a canvas pair on the outside which, I may tell you, are not very feminine no matter how much lace you sew on. It can get cold up there. People forget that. And then there’s the bristles. Don’t ask me about the bristles. I will not talk about the bristles.”
And all the stories had, somewhere, the witch. The wicked old witch. And Tiffany had thought, Where’s the evidence? The stories never said why she was wicked. It was enough to be an old woman, enough to be all alone, enough to look strange because you had no teeth. It was enough to be called a witch.
Who was Granny Aching? People would start asking that now. And the answer was: What Granny Aching was, was there. She was always there. It seemed that the lives of all the Achings revolved around Granny Aching. Down in the village decisions were made, things were done, life went on in the knowledge that in her old wheeled shepherding hut on the hills Granny Aching was there, watching. And she was the silence of the hills. Perhaps that’s why she liked Tiffany, in her awkward, hesitant way. Her older sisters chattered, and Granny didn’t like noise. Tiffany didn’t make noise when she was up at
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That was how it worked. No magic at all. But that time it had been magic. And it didn’t stop being magic just because you found out how it was done.
She’d have spoken up, and people would have listened. . . . They always listened when Granny spoke up. Speak up for those who don’t have voices, she always said.
“She’s clearly got First Sight and Second Thoughts. That’s a powerful combination.” “She’s a little know-it-all,” said Miss Tick. “Right. Just like you. She impressed you, right? I know she did because you were quite nasty to her, and you always do that to people who impress you.” “Do you want to be turned into a frog?” “Well, now, let me see . . .” said the toad sarcastically. “Better skin, better legs, likelihood of being kissed by a princess one hundred percent improved . . . why, yes. Whenever you’re ready, madam.”
There was a lot of mist around, but a few stars were visible overhead and there was a gibbous moon in the sky. Tiffany knew it was gibbous because she’d read in the Almanack that gibbous meant what the moon looked like when it was just a bit fatter than half full, and so she made a point of paying attention to it around those times just so that she could say to herself: “Ah, I see the moon’s very gibbous tonight. . . .” It’s possible that this tells you more about Tiffany than she would want you to know.
“Are you brownies?” she said. The air blurred. Milk splashed across the floor, and the saucer spun around and around. “I’ll take that as a no, then,” said Tiffany. “So what are you?” There were unlimited supplies of no answer at all.
Nothing’s louder than the end of a song that’s always been there.
That’s the trouble with a brain—it thinks more than you sometimes want it to.
That was how it worked. No magic at all. But that time it had been magic. And it didn’t stop being magic just because you found out how it was done. . . .
“Them as can do has to do for them as can’t. And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices.”
This is a dream, after all, Tiffany told herself. It doesn’t have to make sense, or be nice. It’s a dream, not a daydream. People who say things like “May all your dreams come true” should try living in one for five minutes.
She’d always thought that the lighthouse was full of light, on the basis that on the farm the cowshed was full of cows and the woodshed was full of wood.
“Now I know why I never cried for Granny,” she said. “She has never left me.”
“The secret is not to dream,” she whispered. “The secret is to wake up. Waking up is harder. I have woken up and I am real. I know where I come from and I know where I’m going. You cannot fool me anymore. Or touch me. Or anything that is mine.”
No wonder we dream our way through our lives. To be awake, and see it all as it really is . . . no one could stand that for long.
This is how we always feel, she thought. We sleepwalk through our lives, because how could we live if we were always this awake?
Tiffany wondered if the witch could read minds. “Minds? No,” said Mistress Weatherwax, climbing onto her broomstick. “Faces, yes. Come here, young lady.”
“The thing about witchcraft,” said Mistress Weatherwax, “is that it’s not like school at all. First you get the test, and then afterward you spend years findin’ out how you passed it. It’s a bit like life in that respect.”
“Come, sisters, we must away,” said Miss Tick, who had climbed on the other broomstick behind Mrs. Ogg. “There’s no need for that sort of talk,” said Mrs. Ogg. “That’s theater talk, that is. Cheerio, Tiff. We’ll see you again.”
