Witches Abroad

"Me? No. We're - we're - " Granny began.

"Fairies," said Magrat.

Granny Weatherwax's mouth dropped open. Such an explanation would never have occurred to her.

"Only my mummy warned me about the wicked witch too," said the girl. She gave Magrat a sharp look. "What kind of fairies?"

"Er. Flower fairies?" said Magrat. "Look, I've got a wand -‘

"Which ones?"

"What?"

"Which flowers?"

"Er," said Magrat. "Well. I'm... Fairy Tulip and that's..." she avoided looking directly at Granny, "... Fairy... Daisy... and this is..."

"Fairy Hedgehog," said Nanny Ogg.

This addition to the supernatural pantheon was given duc consideration.

"You can't be Fairy Hedgehog," said the child, after some thought. "A hedgehog's not a flower."

"How do you know?"

" ‘Cos it's got spikes."

"So's holly. And thistles."

"Oh."

"And I've got a wand," said Magrat. Only now did she risk a look at Fairy Daisy.

"We ought to be getting along," said Granny Weather-wax. "You just stay here with Fairy Tulip, I think it was, and we'll just go and make sure your granny's all right. All right?"

"I bet it's not a real wand," said the child, ignoring her and facing Magrat with a child's unerring ability to find a weak link in any chain. "I bet it can't turn things into things."

"Well - " Magrat began.

"I bet," said the girl, "I bet you can't turn that tree stump over there into... into... into a pumpkin. Haha, bet you anything you can't. Bet you a trillion dollars you can't turn that stump into a pumpkin."

"I can see the two of you are going to get along fine," said Fairy Hedgehog. "We won't be long."

Two broomsticks skimmed low above the forest path.

"Could just be coincidence," said Nanny Ogg.

" ‘T'aint," said Granny. "The child even has a red cloak on!"

"I had a red cloak when I was fifteen," said Nanny.

"Yes, but your granny lived next door. You didn't have to worry about wolves when you visited her," said Granny.

"Except old Sumpkins the lodger."

"Yes, but that was just coincidence."

A trail of blue smoke drifted among the trees ahead of them. Somewhere away to one side there was the sound of a falling tree.

"Woodcutters!" said Nanny. "It's all right if there's woodcutters! One of them rushes in - "

"That's only what children get told," said Granny, as they sped onwards. "Anyway, that's no good to the grandmother, is it? She's already been et!"

"I always hated that story," said Nanny. "No-one ever cares what happens to poor defenceless old women."

The path vanished abruptly on the edge of a glade. Hemmed in by the trees was a straggly kitchen garden, in which a few pathetic stalks fought for what little sun there was. In the middle of the garden was what had to be a thatched cottage because no-one would build a haystack that badly.

They leapt off the broomsticks, leaving them to drift to a halt in the bushes, and hammered on the cottage door.

"We could be too late," said Nanny. "The wolf might - "

After a while there was the muffled sound of someone shuffling across the floor within, and then the door opened a crack. A suspicious eye was visible in the gloom.

"Yes?" said a small and quavering voice from somewhere beneath the eye.

"Are you grandmother?" Granny Weatherwax demanded.

"Are you the taxgatherers, dear?"

"No, ma'am, we're - "

"- fairies," said Fairy Hedgehog quickly.

"I don't open the door to people I don't know, dear," said the voice, and then it took on a slightly petulant tone. " ‘Specially people who never does the washing up even after I leaves out a bowl of nearly fresh milk for ‘em."

"We'd like to talk to you for a few minutes," said Fairy Daisy.

"Yes? Have you got any identification, dear?"

"I know we've got the right grandmother," said Fairy Hedgehog. "There's a family likeness. She's got big ears."

"Look, it's not her that's got the big ears," snapped Fairy Daisy. "It'll be the wolf that's got big ears. That's the whole point. Don't you ever pay attention?"

The grandmother watched them with interest. After a lifetime of believing in them she was seeing fairies for the first time, and it was an experience. Granny Weatherwax caught her perplexed expression.

"Put it like this, ma'am," she said, in a despotically reasonable tone of voice, "how would you like to be eaten alive by a wolf?"

"I don't think I would like that, dear, no," said the hidden grandmother.

"The alternative's us," said Granny.

"Lawks. Are you sure?"

"On our word as fairies," said Fairy Hedgehog.

"Well. Really? All right. You can come in. But none of your tricks. And mind you do the washing up. You haven't got a pot of gold about you, have you?"

"That's pixies, isn't it?"

"No, they're the ones in wells. It's goblins she means."

"Don't be daft. They're the ones you get under bridges."

"That's trolls. Everyone knows that's trolls."

"Not us, anyway."

"Oh," said the grandmother. "I might have known."