More silence from Tiffany…

  ‘Actually, that’s not true,’ Miss Level added. ‘But as a witch I am incredibly inquisitive and would love to know more.’

  That had no effect either. Miss Level sighed and stood up. ‘I’ll leave the soup, but if you let it get too cold Oswald will try to take it away.’

  She went downstairs.

  Nothing stirred in the room for about five minutes, then there was faintest of tinkles as the soup began to move.

  Tiffany’s hand shot out and gripped the tray firmly. That’s the job of Third Thoughts: First and Second Thoughts might understand your current tragedy, but something has to remember that you haven’t eaten since lunch time.

  Afterwards, and after Oswald had speedily taken the empty bowl away, Tiffany lay in the dark, staring at nothing.

  The novelty of this new country had taken all her attention in the past few days, but now that had drained away in the storm of laughter, and homesickness rushed to fill in the empty spaces.

  She missed the sounds and the sheep and the silences of the Chalk. She missed seeing the blackness of the hills from her bedroom window, outlined against the stars. She missed… part of herself…

  But they’d laughed at her. They’d said, ‘What hat?’ and they’d laughed even more when she’d raised her hand to touch the invisible brim and hadn’t found it…

  She’d touched it every day for eighteen months, and now it had gone. And she couldn’t make a shamble. And she just had a green dress, while all the other girls wore black ones. Annagramma had a lot of jewellery, too, in black and silver. All the other girls had shambles, too, beautiful ones. Who cared if they were just for show?

  Perhaps she wasn’t a witch at all. Oh, she’d defeated the Queen, with the help of the little men and the memory of Granny Aching, but she hadn’t used magic. She wasn’t sure, now, what she had used. She’d felt something go down through the soles of the boots, down through the hills and through the years, and come back loud and roaring in a rage that shook the sky:

  …how dare you invade my world, my land, my life…

  But what had the virtual hat done for her? Perhaps the old woman had tricked her, had just made her think there was a hat there. Perhaps she was a bit cracked, like Annagramma had said, and had just got things wrong. Perhaps Tiffany should go home and make Soft Nellies for the rest of her life.

  Tiffany turned round and crawled down the bed and opened her suitcase. She pulled out the rough box, opened it in the dark and closed a hand around the lucky stone.

  She’d hoped that there’d be some kind of spark, some kind of friendliness in it. There was none. There was just the roughness of the outside of the stone, the smoothness on the face where it had split, and the sharpness between the two. And the piece of sheep’s wool did nothing but make her fingers smell of sheep, and this made her long for home and feel even more upset. The silver horse was cold.

  Only someone quite close would have heard the sob. It was quite faint, but it was carried on the dark red wings of misery. She wanted, longed for the hiss of wind in the turf and the feel of centuries under her feet. She wanted that sense, which had never left her before, of being where Achings had lived for thousands of years. She needed blue butterflies and the sounds of sheep and the big empty skies.

  Back home, when she’d felt upset, she’d gone up to the remains of the old shepherding hut and sat there for a while. That had always worked.

  It was a long way away now. Too far. Now, she was full of a horrible, heavy dead feeling, and there was nowhere to leave it. And it wasn’t how things were supposed to go.

  Where was the magic? Oh, she understood that you had learn about the basic, everyday craft, but when did the ‘witch’ part turn up? She’d been trying to learn, she really had, and she was turning into… well, a good worker, a handy girl with potions and a reliable person. Dependable, like Miss Level.

  She’d expected—well, what? Well… to be doing serious witch stuff, you know, broomsticks, magic, guarding the world against evil forces in a noble yet modest way, and then also doing good for poor people because she was a really nice person. And the people she’d seen in the picture had rather less messy ailments and their children didn’t have such runny noses. Mr Weavall’s flying toenails weren’t in it anywhere. Some of them boomeranged.

  She got sick on broomsticks. Every time. She couldn’t even make a shamble. She was going to spend her days running around after people who, to be honest, could sometimes be doing a bit more for themselves. No magic, no flying, no secrets… just toenails and bogeys.

  She belonged to the Chalk. Every day, she’d told the hills what they were. Every day, they’d told her who she was. But now she couldn’t hear them.

  Outside it began to rain, quite hard, and in the distance Tiffany heard the mutter of thunder.

  What would Granny Aching have done? But even folded in the wings of despair she knew the answer to that.

  Granny Aching never gave up. She’d search all night for a lost lamb…

  She lay looking at nothing for a while, and then lit the candle by the bed and swivelled her legs onto the floor. This couldn’t wait until morning.

  Tiffany had a little trick for seeing the hat. If you moved your hand behind it quickly, there was a slight, brief blurriness to what you saw, as though the light coming through the invisible hat took a little more time.

  It had to be there…

  Well, the candle should give enough light to be sure. If the hat was there, everything would be fine and it wouldn’t matter what other people thought…

  She stood in the middle of the carpet, while lightning danced across the mountains outside, and closed her eyes.

  Down in the garden the apple-tree branches flayed in the wind, the dreamcatchers and curse-nets clashing and jangling…

  ‘See me,’ she said.

  The world went quiet, totally silent. It hadn’t done that before. But Tiffany tiptoed around until she knew she was opposite herself, and opened her eyes again…

  And there she was, and so was the hat, as clear as it had ever been—

  And the image of Tiffany below, a young girl in a green dress, opened its eyes and smiled at her and said:

  ‘We see you. Now we are you.’

  Tiffany tried to shout ‘See me not!’ But there was no mouth to shout…

  Lightning struck somewhere nearby. The window blew in. The candle flame flew out in a streamer of fire, and died.

  And then there was only darkness, and the hiss of the rain.

  Chapter Six

  The Hiver

  Thunder rolled across the Chalk.

  Jeannie carefully opened the package that her mother had given her on the day she left the Long Lake mound. It was a traditional gift, one that every young kelda got when she went away, never to return. Keldas could never go home. Keldas were home.

  The gift was this: memory.

  Inside the bag was a triangle of tanned sheepskin, three wooden stakes, a length of string twisted out of nettle fibres, a tiny leather bottle and a hammer.

  She knew what to do, because she’d seen her mother do it many times. The hammer was used to bang in the stakes around the smouldering fire. The string was used to tie the three corners of the leather triangle to the stakes so that it sagged in the centre, just enough to hold a small bucket of water which Jeannie had drawn herself from the deep well.

  She knelt down and waited until the water very slowly began to seep through the leather, then built up the fire.

  She was aware of all the eyes of the Feegles in the shadowy galleries around and above her. None of them would come near her while she was boiling the cauldron. They’d rather chop their own leg off. This was pure hiddlins.

  And this was what a cauldron really was, back in the days before humans had worked copper or poured iron. It looked like magic. It was supposed to. But if you knew the trick, you could see how the cauldron would boil dry before the leather burned.

  When the water in the skin was steaming, she damped down the fire and added to the water the contents of the little leather bottle, which contained some of the water from her mother’s cauldron. That’s how it had always gone, from mother to daughter, since the very beginning.

  Jeannie waited until the cauldron had cooled some more, then took up a cup, filled it and drank. There was a sigh from the shadowy Feegles.

  She lay back and closed her eyes, waiting. Nothing happened except that the thunder rattled the land and the lightning turned the world black and white.

  And then, so gently that it had already happened before she realized that it was starting to happen, the past caught up with her. There, around her, were all the old keldas, starting with her mother, her grandmothers, their mothers… back until there was no one to remember… one big memory, carried for a while by many, worn and hazy in parts but old as a mountain.

  But all the Feegles knew about that. Only the kelda knew about the real hiddlin, which was this: the river of memory wasn’t a river, it was a sea.

  Keldas yet to be born would remember, one day. On nights yet to come, they’d lie by their cauldron and become, for a few minutes, part of the eternal sea. By listening to unborn keldas remembering their past, you remember your future…

  You needed skill to find those faint voices, and Jeannie did not have all of it yet, but something was there.

  As lightning turned the world to black and white again she sat bolt upright.

  ‘It’s found her,’ she whispered… ‘Oh, the puir wee thing!’

  Rain had soaked into the rug when Tiffany woke up. Damp daylight spilled into the room.

  She got up and closed the window. A few leaves had blown in.

  O-K.

  It hadn’t been a dream. She was certain of that. Something… strange had happened. The tips of her fingers were tingling. She felt… different. But not, now she took stock, in a bad way. No. Last night she’d felt awful, but now, now she felt… full of life.

  Actually, she felt happy. She was going to take charge. She was going to take control of her life. Get-up-and-go had got up and come.

  The green dress was rumpled and really it needed a wash. She’d got her old blue one in the chest of drawers but, somehow, it didn’t seem right to wear it now. She’d have to make do with the green until she could get another one.

  She went to put on her boots, then stopped and stared at them.

  They just wouldn’t do, not now. She got the new shiny ones out of her case and wore them instead.

  She found both of Miss Level was out in the wet garden in her nighties, sadly picking up bits of dreamcatcher and fallen apples. Even some of the garden ornaments had been smashed, although the madly grinning gnomes had unfortunately escaped destruction.

  Miss Level brushed her hair out of one pair of her eyes and said: ‘Very, very strange. All the curse-nets seem to have exploded. Even the boredom stones are discharged! Did you notice anything?’

  ‘No, Miss Level,’ said Tiffany meekly.

  ‘And all the old shambles in the workroom are in pieces! I mean, I know they are really only ornamental and have next to no power left, but something really strange must have happened.’

  Both of her gave Tiffany a look that Miss Level probably thought was very sly and cunning, but it made her look slightly ill.

  ‘The storm seemed a touch magical to me. I suppose you girls weren’t doing anything… odd last night, were you, dear?’ she said.

  ‘No, Miss Level. I thought they were a bit silly.’

  ‘Because, you see, Oswald seems to have gone,’ said Miss Level. ‘He’s very sensitive to atmospheres…’

  It took Tiffany a moment to understand what she was talking about. Then she said: ‘But he’s always here!’

  ‘Yes, ever since I can remember!’ said Miss Level.

  ‘Have you tried putting a spoon in the knife drawer?’

  ‘Yes, of course! Not so much as a rattle!’

  ‘Dropped an apple core? He always—’

  ‘That was the first thing I tried!’

  ‘How about the salt and sugar trick?’

  Miss Level hesitated. ‘Well, no…’ She brightened up. ‘He does love that one, so he’s bound to turn up, yes?’

  Tiffany found the big bag of salt and another of sugar, and poured both of them into a bowl. Then she stirred up the fine white crystals with her hand.

  She’d found this was the ideal away of keeping Oswald occupied while they did the cooking. Sorting the salt and sugar grains back into the right bags could take him an entire happy afternoon. But now the mixture just lay there, Oswaldless.

  ‘Oh, well… I’ll search the house,’ said Miss Level, as if that was a good way of finding an invisible person. ‘Go and see to the goats, will you, dear? And then we’ll have to try to remember how to do the washing up!’

  Tiffany let the goats out of the shed. Usually, Black Meg immediately went and stood on the milking platform and gave her an expectant look as if to say: I’ve thought up a new trick.

  But not today. When Tiffany looked inside the shed the goats were huddled in the dark at the far end. They panicked, nostrils flaring, and scampered around as she went towards them, but she managed to grab Black Meg by her collar. The goat twisted and fought her as she dragged it out towards the milking stand. It climbed up because it was either that or having its head pulled off, then stood there snorting and bleating.

  Tiffany stared at the goat. Her bones felt as though they were itching. She wanted to… do things, climb the highest mountain, leap into the sky, run around the world. And she thought: This is silly, I start every day with a battle of wits with an animal!

  Well, let’s show this creature who is in charge…

  She picked up the broom that was used for sweeping out the milking parlour. Black Meg’s slot eyes widened in fear, and wham! went the broom.

  It hit the milking stand. Tiffany hadn’t intended to miss like that. She’d wanted to give Meg the wallop the creature richly deserved but, somehow, the stick had twisted in her hand. She raised it again, but the look in her eye and the whack on the wood had achieved the right effect. Meg cowered.

  ‘No more games!’ hissed Tiffany, lowering the stick.

  The goat stood as still as a log. Tiffany milked her out, took the pail back into the dairy, weighed it, chalked up the amount on the slate by the door, and tipped the milk into a big bowl.

  The rest of the goats were nearly as bad, but a herd learns fast.

  Altogether they gave three gallons, which was pretty pitiful for ten goats. Tiffany chalked this up without enthusiasm and stood staring at it, fiddling with the chalk. What was the point of this? Yesterday she’d been full of plans for experimental cheeses, but now cheese was dull.

  Why was she here, doing silly chores, helping people too stupid to help themselves? She could be doing… anything!

  She looked down at the scrubbed wooden table.

  Help Me

  Someone had written on the wood in chalk. And the piece of chalk was still in her hand—

  ‘Petulia’s come to see you, dear,’ said Miss Level, behind her.

  Tiffany quickly shifted a milking bucket over the words and turned round guiltily.

  ‘What?’ she said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Just to see if you’re all right, I think,’ said Miss Level, watching Tiffany carefully.

  The dumpy girl stood very nervously on the doorstep, her pointy hat in her hands.

  ‘Um, I just thought I ought to see how you, um, are…’ she muttered, looking Tiffany squarely in the boots. ‘Um, I don’t think anyone really wanted to be unkind…’

  ‘You’re not very clever and you’re too fat,’ said Tiffany. She stared at the round pink face for a moment and knew things. ‘And you still have a teddy bear help me and you believe in fairies.’

  She slammed the door, went back to the dairy and stared at the bowls of milk and curds as if she were seeing them for the first time.

  Good with Cheese. That was one of the things everyone remembered about her: Tiffany Aching, brown hair, Good with Cheese. But now the dairy looked all wrong and unfamiliar.

  She gritted her teeth. Good with Cheese. Was that really what she wanted to be? Of all the things people could be in the world, did she want to be known just as a dependable person to have around rotted milk? Did she really want to spend all day scrubbing slabs and washing pails and plates and… and… and that weird wire thing just there, that—

  …cheese-cutter…

  –that cheese-cutter? Did she want her whole life to—

  Hold on…

  ‘Who’s there?’ said Tiffany. ‘Did someone just say “cheese-cutter”?’

  She peered around the room, as if someone could be hiding behind the bundles of dried herbs. It couldn’t have been Oswald. He’d gone, and he never spoke in any case.

  Tiffany grabbed the pail, spat on her hand and rubbed out the chalked

  Help me

  –tried to rub it out. But her hand gripped the edge of the table and held it firmly, no matter how much she pulled. She flailed with her left hand, managing to knock over a pail of milk, which washed across the letters… and her right hand let go suddenly…

  The door was pushed open. Both of Miss Level was there. When she pulled herself together like that, standing side by side, it was because she felt she had something important to say.

  ‘I have to say. Tiffany, that I think—’

  ‘—you were very nasty to Petulia just—’

  ‘—now. She went off crying.’

  She stared at Tiffany’s face. ‘Are you all right, child?’

  Tiffany shuddered. ‘Er… yes. Fine. Feel a bit odd. Heard a voice in my head. Gone now.’

  Miss Level looked at her with her heads on one side, right and left in different directions.