‘Filling what’s empty and emptying what’s full’ meant wandering round the local villages and the isolated farms and, mostly, doing medicine. There were always bandages to change or expectant mothers to talk to. Witches did a lot of midwifery, which is a kind of ‘emptying what’s full’, but Miss Level, wearing her pointy hat, had only to turn up at a cottage for other people to suddenly come visiting, by sheer accident. And there was an awful lot of gossip and tea-drinking. Miss Level moved in a twitching, iving world of gossip, although Tiffany noticed that she picked up a lot more than she passed on.

  It seemed to be a world made up entirely of women, but occasionally, out in the lanes, a man would strike up a conversation about the weather and somehow, by some sort of code, an ointment or a potion would get handed over.

  Tiffany couldn’t quite work out how Miss Level got paid. Certainly the basket she carried filled up more than it emptied. They’d walk past a cottage and a woman would come scurrying out with a fresh-baked loaf or a jar of pickles, even though Miss Level hadn’t stopped there. But they’d spend an hour somewhere else, stitching up the leg of a farmer who’d been careless with an axe, and get a cup of tea and a stale biscuit. It didn’t seem fair.

  ‘Oh, it evens out,’ said Miss Level, as they walked on through the woods. ‘You do what you can. People give what they can, when they can. Old Slapwick there, with the leg, he’s as mean as a cat, but there’ll be a big cut of beef on my doorstep before the week’s end, you can bet on it. His wife will see to it. And pretty soon people will be killing their pigs for the winter, and I’ll get more brawn, ham, bacon and sausages turning up than a family could eat in a year.’

  ‘You do? What do you do with all that food?’

  ‘Store it,’ said Miss Level.

  ‘But you—’

  ‘I store it in other people. It’s amazing what you can store in other people.’ Miss Level laughed at Tiffany’s expression. ‘I mean, I take what I don’t need round to those who don’t have a pig, or who’re going through a bad patch, or who don’t have anyone to remember them.’

  ‘But that means they’ll owe you a favour!’

  ‘Right! And so it just keeps on going round. It all works out.’

  ‘I bet some people are too mean to pay—’

  ‘Not pay,’ said Miss Level, severely. ‘A witch never expects payment and never asks for it and just hopes she never needs to. But, sadly, you are right.’

  ‘And then what happens?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You stop helping them, do you?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Miss Level, genuinely shocked. ‘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?’

  ‘Granny Aching… that is, my grandmother said someone has to speak up for them as has no voices,’ Tiffany volunteered after a moment.

  ‘Was she a witch?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Tiffany. ‘I think so, but she didn’t know she was. She mostly lived by herself in an old shepherding hut up on the downs.’

  ‘She wasn’t a cackler, was she?’ said Miss Level, and when she saw Tiffany’s expression she said hurriedly, ‘Sorry, sorry. But it can happen, when you’re a witch who doesn’t know it. You’re like a ship with no rudder. But obviously she wasn’t like that, I can tell’

  ‘She lived on the hills and talked to them and she knew more about sheep than anybody!’ said Tiffany hotly.

  ‘I’m sure she did, I’m sure she did—’

  ‘She never cackled!’

  ‘Good, good,’ said Miss Level soothingly. ‘Was she clever at medicine?’

  Tiffany hesitated. ‘Um… only with sheep,’ she said, calming down. ‘But she was very good. Especially if it involved turpentine. Mostly if it involved turpentine, actually. But always she… was… just… there. Even when she wasn’t actually there…’

  ‘Yes,’ said Miss Level.

  ‘You know what I mean?’ said Tiffany.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Miss Level. ‘Your Granny Aching lived down on the uplands—’

  ‘No, up on the downland,’ Tiffany corrected her.

  ‘Sorry, up on the downland, with the sheep, but people would look up sometimes, look up at the hills, knowing she was there somewhere, and say to themselves “What would Granny Aching do?” or “What would Granny Aching say if she found out?” or “Is this the sort of thing Granny Aching would be angry about?” ’ said Miss Level. ‘Yes?’

  Tiffany narrowed her eyes. It was true. She remembered when Granny Aching had hit a pedlar who’d overloaded his donkey and was beating it. Granny usually used only words, and not many of them. The man had been so frightened by her sudden rage that he’d stood there and taken it.

  It had frightened Tiffany, too. Granny, who seldom said anything without thinking about it for ten minutes beforehand, had struck the wretched man twice across the face in a brief blur of movement. And then news had got around, all along the Chalk. For a while, at least, people were a little more gentle with their animals… For months after that moment with the pedlar, carters and drovers and farmers all across the downs would hesitate before raising a whip or a stick, and think: Suppose Granny Aching is watching?

  But—

  ‘How did you know that?’ she said.

  ‘Oh, I guessed. She sounds like a witch to me, whatever she thought she was. A good one, too.’

  Tiffany inflated with inherited pride.

  ‘Did she help people?’ Miss Level added.

  The pride deflated a bit. The instant answer ‘yes’ jumped onto her tongue, and yet… Granny Aching hardly ever came down off the hills, except for Hogswatch and the early lambing. You seldom saw her in the village unless the pedlar who sold Jolly Sailor tobacco was late on his rounds, in which case she’d be down in a hurry and a flurry of greasy black skirts to cadge a pipeful off one of the old men.

  But there wasn’t a person on the Chalk, from the Baron down, who didn’t owe something to Granny. And what they owed to her, she made them pay to others. She always knew who was short of a favour or two.

  ‘She made them help one another,’ she said. ‘She made them help themselves.’

  In the silence that followed, Tiffany heard the birds singing by the road. You got a lot of birds here, but she missed the high scream of the buzzards.

  Miss Level sighed. ‘Not many of us are that good,’ she said. ‘If I was that good, we wouldn’t be going to visit old Mr Weavall again.’

  Tiffany said ‘Oh dear’ inside.

  Most days included a visit to Mr Weavall. Tiffany dreaded them.

  Mr Weavall’s skin was paper-thin and yellowish. He was always in the same old armchair, in a tiny room in a small cottage that smelled of old potatoes and was surrounded by a more or less overgrown garden. He’d be sitting bolt upright, his hands on two walking sticks, wearing a suit that was shiny with age, staring at the door.

  ‘I make sure he has something hot every day, although he eats like a bird,’ Miss Level had said. ‘And old Widow Tussy down the lane does his laundry, such as it is. He’s ninety-one, you know.’

  Mr Weavall had very bright eyes and chatted away to and at them as they tidied up the room. The first time Tiffany had met him he’d called her Mary. Sometimes he still did. And he’d grabbed her wrist with surprising force as she walked past… It had been a real shock, that claw of a hand suddenly gripping her. You could see blue veins under the skin.

  ‘I shan’t be a burden on anyone,’ he’d said urgently. ‘I got money put by for when I go. My boy Toby won’t have nothin’ to worry about. I can pay my way! I want the proper funeral show, right? With the black horses and the plumes and the mutes and a knife-and-fork tea for everyone afterwards. I’ve written it all down, fair and square. Check in my box to make sure, will you? That witch woman’s always hanging around here!’

  Tiffany had given Miss Level a despairing look. She’d nodded, and pointed to an old wooden box tucked under Mr Weavall’s chair.

  It had turned out to be full of coins, mostly copper, but there were quite a few silver ones. It looked like a fortune, and for a moment she’d wished she had as much money.

  ‘There’s a lot of coins in here, Mr Weavall,’ she’d said.

  Mr Weavall relaxed. ‘Ah, that’s right,’ he’d said. ‘Then I won’t be a burden.’

  Today Mr Weavall was asleep when they called on him, snoring with his mouth open and his yellow-brown teeth showing. But he awoke in an instant, stared at them and then said, ‘My boy Toby’s coming to see I Sat’day.’

  ‘That’s nice, Mr Weavall,’ said Miss Level, plumping up his cushions. ‘We’ll get the place nice and tidy.’

  ‘He’s done very well for hisself, you know,’ said Mr Weavall, proudly. ‘Got a job indoors with no heavy lifting. He said he’ll see I all right in my old age, but I told him, I told him I’d pay my way when I go—the whole thing, the salt and earth and tuppence for the ferryman, too!’

  Today, Miss Level gave him a shave. His hands shook too much for him to do it himself. (Yesterday she’d cut his toenails, because he couldn’t reach them; it was not a safe spectator sport, especially when one smashed a windowpane.)

  ‘It’s all in a box under my chair,’ he said as Tiffany nervously wiped the last bits of foam off him. ‘Just check for me, will you, Mary?’

  Oh, yes. That was the ceremony, every day.

  There was the box, and there was the money. He asked every time. There was always the same amount of money.

  ‘Tuppence for the ferryman?’ said Tiffany, as they walked home.

  ‘Mr Weavall remembers all the old funeral traditions,’ said Miss Level. ‘Some people believe that when you die you cross the River of Death and have to pay the ferryman. People don’t seem to worry about that these days. Perhaps there’s a bridge now.’

  ‘He’s always talking about… his funeral.’

  ‘Well, it’s important to him. Sometimes old people are like that. They’d hate people to think that they were too poor to pay for their own funeral. Mr Weavall’d die of shame if he couldn’t pay for his own funeral.’

  ‘It’s very sad, him being all alone like that. Something should be done for him,’ said Tiffany.

  ‘Yes. We’re doing it,’ said Miss Level. ‘And Mrs Tussy keeps a friendly eye on him.’

  ‘Yes, but it shouldn’t have to be us, should it?’

  ‘Who should it have to be?’ said Miss Level.

  ‘Well, what about this son he’s always talking about?’ said Tiffany.

  ‘Young Toby? He’s been dead for fifteen years. And Mary was the old man’s daughter, she died quite young. Mr Weavall is very short-sighted, but he sees better in the past.’

  Tiffany didn’t know what to reply except: ‘It shouldn’t be like this.’

  ‘There isn’t a way things should be. There’s just what happens, and what we do.’

  ‘Well, couldn’t you help him by magic?’

  ‘I see to it that he’s in no pain, yes,’ said Miss Level.

  ‘But that’s just herbs.’

  ‘It’s still magic. Knowing things is magical, if other people don’t know them.’

  ‘Yes, but you know what I mean,’ said Tiffany, who felt she was losing this argument.

  ‘Oh, you mean make him young again?’ said Miss Level. ‘Fill his house with gold? That’s not what witches do.’

  ‘We see to it that lonely old men get a cooked dinner and cut their toenails?’ said Tiffany, just a little sarcastically.

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Miss Level. ‘We do what can be done. Mistress Weatherwax said you’ve got to learn that witchcraft is mostly about doing quite ordinary things.’

  ‘And you have do what she says?’ said Tiffany.

  ‘I listen to her advice,’ said Miss Level, coldly.

  ‘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.’

  Suddenly, things were going missing from the households around the Chalk. This wasn’t the occasional egg or chicken. Clothes were vanishing off washing lines. A pair of boots mysteriously disappeared from under the bed of Nosey Hinds, the oldest man in the village—‘And they was damn good boots, they could walk home from the pub all by themselves if I but pointed they in the right direction,’ he complained to anyone who would listen. ‘And they marched off wi’ my old hat, too. And I’d got he just as I wanted he, all soft and floppy!’

  A pair of trousers and a long coat vanished from a hook belonging to Abiding Swindell, the ferret-keeper, and the coat still had ferrets living in the inside pockets. And who, who climbed through the bedroom window of Clem Doins and shaved off his beard, which had been so long that he could tuck it into his belt? Not a hair was left. He had to go around with a scarf over his face, in case the sight of his poor pink chin frightened the ladies…

  It was probably witches, people agreed, and made a few more curse-nets to hang in their windows.

  However…

  On the far side of the Chalk, where the long green slopes came down to the flat fields of the plain, there were big thickets of bramble and hawthorn. Usually, these were alive with birdsong, but this particular one, the one just here, was alive with cussing.

  ‘Ach, crivens! Will ye no’ mind where ye’re puttin’ yer foot, ye spavie!’

  ‘I cannae help it! It’s nae easy, bein’ a knee!’

  ‘Ye think ye got troubles? Ye wannae be doon here in the boots! That old man Swindell couldnae ha’ washed his feet in years! It’s fair reekin’ doon here!’

  ‘Reekin’, izzit? Well, you try bein’ in this pocket! Them ferrets ne ‘er got oot to gae to the lavie, if you get my meanin’!’

  ‘Crivens! Will ye dafties no’ shut up?’

  ‘Oh, aye? Hark at him! Just ‘cuzye’re up in the heid, you think you know everythin’? Fra’ doon here ye’re nothing but dead weight, pal!’

  ‘Aye, right! I’m wi’ the elbows on this one! Where’d you be if it wuzn’t for us carryin’ ye aroound? Who’s ye think ye are?’

  ‘I’m Rob Anybody Feegle, as you ken well enough, an’ I’ve had enough o’ the lot o’ yez!’

  ‘OK, Rob, but it’s real stuffy in here!’

  ‘Ach, an’ I’m fed up wi’ the stomach complainin’, too!’

  ‘Gentlemen.’ This was the voice of the toad; no one else would dream of calling the Nac Mac Feegle gentlemen. ‘Gentlemen, time is of the essence. The cart will be here soon! You must not miss it!’

  ‘We need more time to practise, Toad! We’re walkin’ like a feller wi’ nae bones and a serious case o’ the trots!’ said a voice a little higher up than the rest.

  ‘At least you are walking. That’s good enough. I wish you luck, gentlemen.’

  There was a cry from further along the thickets, where a lookout had been watching the road.

  ‘The cart’s comin’ doon the hill!’

  ‘OK, lads!’ shouted Rob Anybody. ‘Toad, you look after Jeannie, y’hear? She’ll need a thinkin’ laddie to rely on while I’m no’ here! Right, ye scunners! It’s do or die! Ye ken what to do! Ye lads on the ropes, pull us up noo!’ The bushes shook. ‘Right! Pelvis, are ye ready?’

  ‘Aye, Rob!’

  ‘Knees? Knees? I said, knees!’

  ‘Aye, Rob, but—’

  ‘Feets?’

  ‘Aye, Rob!’

  The bushes shook again.

  ‘Right! Remember: right, left, right, left! Pelvis, knee, foot on the groond! Keep a spring in the step, feets! Are you ready? Altogether, boys… walk!’

  It was a big surprise for Mr Crabber the carter. He’d been staring vaguely at nothing, thinking only of going home, when something stepped out of the bushes and into the road. It looked human or, rather, looked slightly more human than it looked like anything else. But it seemed to be having trouble with its knees, and walked as though they’d been tied together.

  However, the carter didn’t spend too much time thinking about that because, clutched in one gloved hand that was waving vaguely in the air, was something gold.

  This immediately identified the stranger, as far as the carter was concerned. He was not, as first sight might suggest, some old tramp to be left by the roadside, but an obvious gentleman down on his luck, and it was practically the carter’s duty to help him. He slowed the horse to a standstill.

  The stranger didn’t really have a face. There was nothing much to see between the droopy hat brim and the turned-up collar of the coat except a lot of beard. But from somewhere within the beard a voice said:

  ‘…Shudupshudup… will ye all shudup while I’m talkin’… Ahem. Good day ta’ ye, carter fellow my ol’ fellowy fellow! If ye’ll gie us—me a lift as far as ye are goin’, we—I’ll gie ye this fine shiny golden coin!’

  The figure lurched forward and thrust its hand in front of Mr Crabber’s face.

  It was quite a large coin. And it was certainly gold. It had come from the treasure of the old dead king who was buried in the main part of the Feegles’ mound. Oddly enough, the Feegles weren’t hugely interested in gold once they’d stolen it, because you couldn’t drink it and it was difficult to eat. In the mound, they mostly used the old coins and plates to reflect candlelight and give the place a nice glow. It was no hardship to give some away.

  The carter stared at it. It was more money than he had ever seen in his life.

  ‘If… sir… would like to… hop on the back of the cart, sir,’ he said, carefully taking it.

  ‘Ach, right you are, then,’ said the bearded mystery man after a pause. ‘Just a moment, this needs a wee bitty organizin’… OK, youse hands, you just grab the side o’ the cart, and’ you leftie leg, ye gotta kinda sidle along… ach, crivens! Ye gotta bend! Bend! C’mon, get it right!’ The hairy face turned to the carter. ‘Sorry aboot this,’ it said. ‘I talk to my knees, but they dinnae listen to me.’