Witches Abroad

"Should think so," said Nanny. "If I'd seen something like that eatin' its way through the wall I'd of hit it myself with the poker."

There was of course no such thing as a typical witch's cottage, but if there was such a thing as a non-typical witch's cottage, then this was certainly it. Apart from various glassy-eyed animal heads, the walls were covered in bookshelves and water-colour pictures. There was a spear in the umbrella stand. Instead of the more usual earthenware and china on the dresser there were foreign-looking brass pots and fine blue porcelain. There wasn't a dried herb anywhere in the place but there were a great many books, most of them filled with Desiderata's small, neat handwriting. A whole table was covered with what were probably maps, meticulously drawn.

Granny Weatherwax didn't like maps. She felt instinctively that they sold the landscape short.

"She certainly got about a bit," said Nanny Ogg, picking up a carved ivory fan and flirting coquettishly.

"Well, it was easy for her," said Granny, opening a few drawers. She ran her fingers along the top of the mantelpiece and looked at them critically.

"She could have found time to go over the place with a duster," she said vaguely. "I wouldn't go and die and leave my place in this state."

"I wonder where she left... you know... «?" said Nanny, opening the door of the grandfather clock and peering inside.

"Shame on you, Gytha Ogg," said Granny. "We're not here to look for that."

"Of course not. I was just wondering..." Nanny Ogg tried to stand on tiptoe surreptitiously, in order to see on top of the dresser.

"Gytha! For shame! Go and make us a cup of tea!"

"Oh, all right."

Nanny Ogg disappeared, muttering, into the scullery. After a few seconds there came the creaking of a pump handle.

Granny Weatherwax sidled towards a chair and felt quickly under the cushion.

There was a clatter from the next room. She straightened up hurriedly.

"I shouldn't think it'd be under the sink, neither," she shouted.

Nanny Ogg's reply was inaudible.

Granny waited a moment, and then crept rapidly over to the big chimney. She reached up and felt cautiously around.

"Looking for something, Esme?" said Nanny Ogg behind her.

"The soot up here is terrible," said Granny, standing up quickly. "Terrible soot there is."

"It's not up there, then?" said Nanny Ogg sweetly.

"Don't know what you're talking about."

"You don't have to pretend. Everyone knows she must have had one," said Nanny Ogg. "It goes with the job. It practic'ly is the job."

"Well... maybe I just wanted a look at it," Granny admitted. "Just hold it a while. Not use it. You wouldn't catch me using one of those things. I only ever saw it once or twice. There ain't many of ‘em around these days."

Nanny Ogg nodded. "You can't get the wood," she said.

"You don't think she's been buried with it, do you?"

"Shouldn't think so. I wouldn't want to be buried with it. Thing like that, it's a bit of a responsibility. Anyway, it wouldn't stay buried. A thing like that wants to be used. It'd be rattling around your coffin the whole time. You know the trouble they are."

She relaxed a bit. "I'll sort out the tea things," she said. "You light the fire."

She wandered back into the scullery.

Granny Weatherwax reached along the mantelpiece for the matches, and then realized that there wouldn't be any. Desiderata had always said she was much too busy not to use magic around the house. Even her laundry did itself.

Granny disapproved of magic for domestic purposes, but she was annoyed. She also wanted her tea.

She threw a couple of logs into the fireplace and glared at them until they burst into flame out of sheer embarrassment.

It was then that her eye was caught by the shrouded mirror.

"Coverin' it over?" she murmured. "I didn't know old Desiderata was frightened of thunderstorms."

She twitched aside the cloth.

She stared.

Very few people in the world had more self-control than Granny Weatherwax. It was as rigid as a bar of cast iron. And about as flexible.

She smashed the mirror.

Lilith sat bolt upright in her tower of mirrors. Her?

The face was different, of course. Older. It had been a long time. But eyes don't change, and witches always look at the eyes.

Her!

Magrat Garlick, witch, was also standing in front of a mirror. In her case it was totally unmagical. It was also still in one piece, but there had been one or two close calls.

She frowned at her reflection, and then consulted the small, cheaply-woodcut leaflet that had arrived the previous day.

She mouthed a few words under her breath, straightened up, extended her hands in front of her, punched the air vigorously and said: "HAAAAiiiiieeeeeeehgh! Um."

Magrat would be the first to admit that she had an open mind. It was as open as a field, as open as the sky. No mind could be more open without special surgical implements. And she was always waiting for something to fill it up.

What it was currently filling up with was the search for inner peace and cosmic harmony and the true essence of Being.