But Tiffany concentrated on the necklace. People wore jewellery to show you something. It always had a meaning, if you concentrated.
‘All right, all right,’ she said, ‘I have just one question: I’m not here to bury you, am I?’
‘My word, you are quick,’ said the woman. ‘You have immediately devised a remarkably interesting narrative and instantly guessed who I am.’ She laughed. The voice was younger than her face. ‘No, Tiffany. Interestingly macabre though your suggestion is, the answer is no. I remember Granny Weatherwax telling me that when you get right down to it, the world is all about stories, and Tiffany Aching is extremely good at endings.’
‘I am?’
‘Oh yes. Classic endings to a romantic story are a wedding or a legacy, and you have been the engineer for one of each. Well done.’
‘You are me, right?’ said Tiffany. ‘That’s what the “you have to help yourself” business was about, yes?’
The older Tiffany grinned, and Tiffany could not help noticing that it was a very nice grin. ‘As a matter of fact, I only interfered in a few small ways. Like, for example, making certain the wind really did blow very hard for you … although, as I recall, a certain colony of little men added their own special excitement to the venture. I’m never quite certain if my memory is good or bad. That’s time travel for you.’
‘You can travel in time?’
‘With some help from our friend Eskarina. And only as a shadow and a whisper. It’s a bit like the don’t-see-me thing that I … that we – You have to persuade time not to take any notice.’
‘But why did you want to talk to me?’ said Tiffany.
‘Well, the infuriating answer is that I remembered that I did,’ said old Tiffany. ‘Sorry, that’s time travel again. But I think I wanted to tell you that it all works out, more or less. It all falls into place. You’ve taken the first step.’
‘There’s a second step?’ said Tiffany.
‘No; there’s another first step. Every step is a first step if it’s a step in the right direction.’
‘But hold on,’ said Tiffany. ‘Won’t I be you one day? And then will I talk to me now, as it were?’
‘Yes, but the you that you talk to won’t exactly be you. I’m very sorry about this, but I am having to talk about time travel in a language that can’t really account for it. But in short, Tiffany, according to the elasticated string theory, throughout the rest of time, somewhere an old Tiffany will be talking to a young Tiffany, and the fascinating thing is that every time they do they will be a little bit different. When you meet your younger self, you will tell her what you think she needs to know.’
‘But I have got a question,’ said Tiffany. ‘And it’s one I want to know the answer to.’
‘Well, do be quick,’ said old Tiffany, ‘The elasticated string thingy, or whatever it is that Eskarina uses, does not allow us very much time.’
‘Well,’ said Tiffany, ‘can you at least tell me. Do I ever get—?’
Old Tiffany faded, smiling into nothingness, but Tiffany heard one word. It sounded like, ‘Listen.’
And then she was in the hall again, as if she’d never left it at all, and people were cheering and there seemed to be Feegles everywhere. And Preston was by her side. It was as if ice had suddenly melted. But when she got her balance back, and stopped asking herself what had just happened, had really happened, Tiffany looked for the other witches, and saw that they were talking amongst themselves, like judges adding up a score.
The huddle broke up, and they came towards her purposefully, led by Granny Weatherwax. When they reached her they bowed and raised their hats, which is a mark of respect in the craft.
Granny Weatherwax looked at her sternly. ‘I see you have burned your hand, Tiffany.’
Tiffany looked down. ‘I didn’t notice,’ she said. ‘Can I ask you now, Granny? Would you all have killed me?’ She saw the expressions of the other witches change.
Granny Weatherwax looked around and paused for a moment.
‘Let us say, young woman, we would have done our best not to. But all in all, Tiffany, it seems to us that you’ve done a woman’s job today. The place where we looks for witches is at the centre of things. Well, we looks around here and we see that you is so central that this steading spins on you. You are your own mistress, nevertheless, and if you don’t start training somebody, that will be a waste. We leave this steading in the best of hands.’
The witches clapped, and some of the other guests joined in, even though they did not understand what those few sentences had meant. What they did recognize, however, was that these were mostly elderly, experienced, important and scary witches. And they were paying their respect to Tiffany Aching, one of them, their witch. And she was a very important witch, and so the Chalk had to be a very important place. Of course, they had known that all along but it was nice to have it acknowledged. They stood a little straighter and felt proud.
Mrs Proust removed her hat again, and said, ‘Please don’t be afraid to come back to the city again, Miss Aching. I think I can promise you a thirty per cent discount on all Boffo products, except for perishables or consumables, an offer not to be sneezed at.’
The group of witches raised their hats in unison again and walked back into the crowd.
‘You know all that just now was organizing people’s lives for them,’ said Preston behind her, but as she spun round he backed away laughing and added, ‘But in a good way. You are the witch, Tiffany. You are the witch!’
And people drank a toast and there was more food, and more dancing and laughter and friendship and tiredness, and at midnight Tiffany Aching lay alone on her broomstick high above the chalk hills and looked up at the universe, and then down on the bit of it that belonged to her. She was the witch, floating high over everything but, it must be said, with the leather strap carefully buckled.
The stick rose and fell gently as warm breezes took it and as tiredness and darkness took her, she stretched out her arms to the dark and, just for a moment, as the world turned, Tiffany Aching wore midnight.
She didn’t come down until the sun was crusting the horizon with light. And she woke up to birdsong. All across the Chalk the larks were rising as they did every morning in a symphony of liquid sound. They did indeed sing melodious. They streamed up past the stick, paying it no attention at all, and Tiffany listened, entranced, until the last bird had got lost in the brilliant sky.
She landed, made breakfast for an old lady who was bed-bound, fed her cat, and went to see how Trivial Boxer’s30 broken leg was doing. She was stopped halfway there by the neighbour of old Miss Swivel, who had apparently become suddenly unable to walk overnight, but Tiffany was fortunately able to point out that she had regrettably put both feet through one knicker leg.
Then she went down into the castle to see what else needed doing. After all, she was the witch.
30 Mr and Mrs Boxer had been slightly more educated than was good for them, and thought that ‘trivial’ was a good name for their third child.
Epilogue
MIDNIGHT BY DAY
IT WAS THE scouring fair again, the same noisy hurdy-gurdy, the bobbing for frogs, the fortune-telling, the laughter, the pick-pockets (though never of a witch’s pocket), but this year, by common consent, no cheese rolling. Tiffany walked through it all, nodding at people she knew, which was everybody, and generally enjoying the sunshine. Had it been a year? So much had happened, it all swam together, like the sounds of the fair.
‘Good afternoon, miss.’
And there was Amber, with her boy – with her husband …
‘Nearly didn’t recognize you, miss,’ said Amber cheerfully, ‘what with you not having your pointy hat on, if you see what I mean.’
‘I thought I’d just be Tiffany Aching today,’ said Tiffany. ‘It is a holiday after all.’
‘But you are still the witch?’
‘Oh yes, I’m still the witch, but I’m not necessarily the hat.’
Amber’s husband laughed. ‘I know what you mean, miss! Sometimes I swear that people think I’m a pair of hands!’ Tiffany looked him up and down. They had met properly when she had married him to Amber, of course, and she had been impressed; he was what they called a steady lad and as sharp as his needles. He would go far, and take Amber with him. And after Amber finished her training under the kelda, who knows where she would take him?
Amber hung on his arm as if it was an oak. ‘My William done a little present for you, miss,’ she said. ‘Go on, William, show her!’
The young man proffered the package he had been carrying, and cleared his throat. ‘I don’t know if you keep up with the fashions, miss, but they are doing wonderful fabrics now down in the big city, so when Amber suggested this to me I thought of them. But it also has to be washable, for a start, with perhaps a split skirt for the broomstick and leg-of-mutton sleeves, which are all the go this season, and with buttons tight at the wrists to keep them out of the way, and pockets on the inside and styled to be hardly noticeable. I hope it fits, miss. I’m good at measuring without a tape. It’s a knack.’
Amber bounced up and down at his side. ‘Put it on, miss! Go on, miss! Put it on!’
‘What? In front of all these people?’ said Tiffany, embarrassed and intrigued at the same time.
Amber was not to be denied. ‘There’s the mother-and-baby tent, miss! No men in there, miss, no fear! They’d be afraid that they would have to burp somebody, miss!’
Tiffany gave in. The package had a rich feel to it; it felt soft, like a glove. Mothers and babies watched her as she slid into the dress and she heard the envious sighs that interspersed burps.
Amber, on fire with enthusiasm, pushed her way in through the flap, and gasped.
‘Oh, miss, oh, miss, it does suit you so! Oh, miss! If only you could see yourself, miss! Do come and show William, miss, he’ll be as proud as a king! Oh, miss!’
You couldn’t disappoint Amber. You just couldn’t. It would be like, well, kicking a puppy.
Tiffany felt different without the hat. Lighter, perhaps. And William gasped and said, ‘I wish my master was here, Miss Aching, because you are a masterpiece. I just wish you could see yourself … miss?’
And just for a moment, because people shouldn’t get too suspicious, Tiffany stood outside herself and watched herself twirl the beautiful dress as black as a cat full of sixpences, and she thought: I shall wear midnight, and I will be good at it …
She hurried back to her body and shyly thanked the young tailor. ‘It’s wonderful, William, and I will happily fly over to show your master. The cuffs are wonderful!’
Amber was jumping up and down again. ‘We’d better hurry if we’re going to see the tug-of-war, miss – it’s Feegles versus humans! It’s going to be fun!’
And in fact, they could hear the roar of the Feegles warming up, though they had made a slight alteration to their traditional chant: ‘Nae king, nae quin, nae laird! One baron – and underrr mutually ag-rreeeed arrr-angement, ye ken!’
‘You go on ahead,’ said Tiffany. ‘I’m waiting for somebody.’ Amber paused for a moment. ‘Don’t wait too long, miss, don’t wait too long!’
Tiffany walked slowly in the wonderful dress, wondering if she would dare wear it every day and … hands came past her ears and covered her eyes.
A voice behind her said, ‘A nosegay for the pretty lady? You never know, it might help you find your beau.’
She spun round. ‘Preston!’
They talked as they strolled away from the noise, and Tiffany listened to news about the bright young lad that Preston had trained to take over as the school’s new teacher; and about exams and doctors and the Lady Sybil Free Hospital who had – and this was the really important part – just taken on one new apprentice, this being Preston, possibly because since he could talk the hind leg off a donkey, he might have a talent for surgery.
‘I don’t reckon I’ll get many holidays,’ he said. ‘You don’t get many when you’re an apprentice and I shall have to sleep under the autoclave every night and look after all the saws and scalpels, but I know all the bones by heart!’
‘Well, it’s not too far by broomstick, after all,’ said Tiffany.
Preston’s expression changed as he reached into his pocket and pulled out something wrapped in fine tissue, which he handed to her without saying a word.
Tiffany unwrapped it, knowing – absolutely knowing – that it would be the golden hare. There was no possibility in the world that it wouldn’t have been. She tried to find the words, but Preston always had an adequate supply.
He said, ‘Miss Tiffany, the witch … would you be so good as to tell me: what is the sound of love?’
Tiffany looked at his face. The noise from the tug-of-war was silenced. The birds stopped singing. In the grass, the grasshoppers stopped rubbing their legs together and looked up. The earth moved slightly as even the chalk giant (perhaps) strained to hear, and the silence flowed over the world until all there was was Preston, who was always there.
And Tiffany said, ‘Listen.’
A FEEGLE GLOSSARY
adjusted for those of a delicate disposition
(A Work In Progress By Miss Perspicacia Tick, witch)
Bigjobs:
human beings
Big Man:
chief of the clan (usually the husband of the kelda)
Blethers:
rubbish, nonsense
Boggin:
to be desperate, as in ‘I’m boggin for a cup of tea’
Bunty:
a weak person
Carlin:
old woman
Cludgie:
the privy
Crivens!:
a general exclamation that can mean anything from ‘My goodness!’ to ‘I’ve just lost my temper and there is going to be trouble’
Dree your/my/his/her weird:
facing the fate that is in store for you/me/him/her
Een:
eyes
Eldritch:
weird, strange; sometimes means oblong too, for some reason
Fash:
worry, upset
Geas:
a very important obligation, backed up by tradition and magic. Not a bird
Gonnagle:
the bard of the clan, skilled in musical instruments, poems, stories and songs
