Her fingernails clawed at the rope round his neck but it was as tight as a drum … and there should have been a flourish of music because suddenly Rob Anybody was there, right in front of her; he held up a tiny, shiny claymore and looked at her questioningly.
She groaned inwardly. What good are you, Mr Petty? What good have you been? You can’t even hang yourself properly. What good will you ever do? Wouldn’t I be doing the world and you a favour by letting you finish what you began?
That was the thing about thoughts. They thought themselves, and then dropped into your head in the hope that you would think so too. You had to slap them down, thoughts like that; they would take a witch over if she let them. And then it would all break down, and nothing would be left but the cackling.
She had heard it said that, before you could understand anybody, you needed to walk a mile in their shoes, which did not make a whole lot of sense because, probably after you had walked a mile in their shoes you would understand that they were chasing you and accusing you of the theft of a pair of shoes – although, of course, you could probably outrun them owing to their lack of footwear. But she understood what the proverb actually meant, and here was a man one breath away from death. She had no option, no option at all. She had to give him that breath, for the sake of a handful of nettles; something inside the wretched hulk had still managed to be good. It was a tiny spark, but it was there. And there was no argument.
Hating herself deep down for being so soppy, she nodded at the Big Man of the Feegle clan. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Try not to hurt him too much.’
The sword sparkled; and the cut was made with the delicacy of a surgeon, although the surgeon would have washed his hands first.
The rope actually sprang out as the Feegle severed it, and shot away as though it was a serpent. Petty gasped air so hard that the candle flame by the door seemed to flatten for a moment.
Tiffany got up off her knees and brushed herself down. ‘What did you come back for?’ she said. ‘What were you looking for? What did you expect to find?’
Mr Petty lay there. There wasn’t even a grunt in reply. It was hard to hate him now, wheezing on the floor.
Being a witch meant you had to make choices, usually the choices that ordinary people did not want to make or even to know about. So she washed his face with a bit of torn cloth moistened from the pump outside and wrapped the dead child in the rather larger and cleaner bit of cloth that she had brought for the purpose. It wasn’t the best of shrouds, but it was honest and civilized. She reminded herself, in a dreamy kind of way, that she needed to build up her store of makeshift bandages and realized how grateful she should be. ‘Thank you, Rob,’ she said. ‘I don’t I think I could have managed by myself.’
‘I reckon that maybe ye could,’ said Rob Anybody, while they both knew that she couldn’t. ‘It just so happened that I was passing by, ye ken, and not following ye at all. One of them coincidences.’
‘There have been a lot of those coincidences lately,’ said Tiffany.
‘Aye,’ said Rob, grinning, ‘it must be another coincidence.’
It was impossible to embarrass a Feegle. They just couldn’t grasp the idea.
He was watching her. ‘What happens now?’ he said.
That was the question, wasn’t it. A witch needed to make people believe she knew what to do next, even if she didn’t. Petty was going to live, and the poor child was not going to stop being dead. ‘I’ll take care of things,’ she said. ‘It’s what we do.’
Only it’s just me; there is no ‘us’, she thought as she flew through the mists of morning to the place of flowers. I wish, I wish there was.
In the hazel woods there was a clearing of flowers from early spring to late autumn. There was meadowsweet and foxglove and old man’s trousers and Jack-jump-into-bed and ladies’ bonnets and three-times-Charlie and sage and southernwood and pink yarrow and ladies’ bedstraw and cowslips and primroses and two types of orchid.
It was where the old lady that they had called the witch was buried. If you knew where to look, you could see what little was left of her cottage underneath all that greenery, and if you really knew where to look, you could see the place where she had been buried. If you really and truly knew where to look, you could find the spot where Tiffany had buried the old lady’s cat too; there was catnip growing on it.
Once upon a time, the rough music had come for the old woman and her cat, oh yes it had, and the people walking to its drumming had dragged her out into the snow and pulled down the rickety cottage and burned her books because they had pictures of stars in them.
And why? Because the Baron’s son had gone missing and Mrs Snapperly had no family and no teeth and, to be honest, cackled a bit as well. And that made her a witch, and the people of the Chalk didn’t trust witches, so she was pulled out into the snow, and while the fire ate up the thatch of the cottage, page after page of stars crackled and crinkled into the night sky while the men stoned the cat to death. And that winter, after she had hammered on doors that remained closed to her, the old woman died in the snow, and because she had to be buried somewhere, there was a shallow grave where the old cottage used to be.
But the old woman had nothing to do with the loss of the Baron’s son, had she? And soon after, Tiffany had gone all the way to a strange fairyland to bring him back, hadn’t she? And nobody talked about the old lady these days, did they? But when they walked past the place in the summer, the flowers filled the air with delight and bees filled it with the colours of honey.
No one talked about it. After all, what would you say? Rare flowers growing on the grave of the old woman and catnip growing where the Aching girl had buried the cat? It was a mystery, and maybe a judgement, although whose judgement it was, on whom, for what and why, was best not thought about, let alone discussed. Nevertheless, wonderful flowers growing over the remains of the possible witch – how could that happen?
Tiffany didn’t ask that question. The seeds had been expensive to buy and she had had to go all the way to Twoshirts to get them, but she had vowed that every summer the brilliance in the wood would remind people that there had been an old lady they had hounded to death and been buried there. She did not quite know why she thought that was important, but she was certain to the centre of her soul that it was.
When she had finished digging the deep but sad little hole in a patch of love-in-a-hurry, Tiffany looked around to make certain that no early-morning traveller was watching and used both hands to fill the hole with dirt, moving dead leaves and transplanting some forget-me-lots. They weren’t really right here, but they grew fast and that was important because … someone was watching her. It was important not to look round. She knew she couldn’t be seen. In all her life she had met only one person who was better than her at not being seen, and that was Granny Weatherwax. It was still misty too, and she would have heard if anyone had come along the path. It wasn’t a bird or animal, either. They always felt different.
A witch should never have to look around because they should know who was behind them. Usually she could work it out, but every sense she had told her that no one but Tiffany Aching was there, and somehow, in some strange way, it felt wrong.
‘Too much to do, not enough sleep,’ she said aloud, and thought she heard a faint voice say, ‘Yes.’ It was like an echo except there was nothing for it to echo from. She flew away as fast as she could make the broomstick go, which, not being very fast at all, at least served to prevent it looking as though she was running away.
Going nuts. Witches didn’t often talk about it, but they were aware of it all the time.
Going nuts; or, rather not going nuts, was the soul and centre of witchcraft, and this was how it worked. After a while, a witch, who almost always worked by herself in the tradition of witches, had a tendency to go … strange. Of course, it depended on the length of time and the strength of mind of the witch, but sooner or later they tended to get confused about things like right and wrong and good and bad and truth and consequences. That could be very dangerous. So witches had to keep one another normal, or at least what was normal for witches. It didn’t take very much: a tea party, a singsong, a stroll in the woods, and somehow everything balanced up, and they could look at adverts for gingerbread cottages in the builder’s brochure without putting a deposit on one.
On top of everything else Tiffany was worried about going nuts. It was two months since she had last been up into the mountains and three months since she had last seen Miss Tick, the only other witch you ever saw down here. There wasn’t time to go visiting. There was always too much to do. Perhaps that was the trick of it, Tiffany thought. If you kept yourself busy you wouldn’t have time to go nuts.
The sun was well up when she got back to the Feegle mound and she was shocked to see Amber sitting out on the side of the mound, surrounded by Feegles and laughing. The kelda was waiting for Tiffany by the time she had garaged the broomstick in the thorn bushes.
‘I hope ye do not mind,’ she said when she saw Tiffany’s face. ‘The sunshine is a great healer.’
‘Jeannie, it was wonderful of you to put the soothings on her, but I don’t want her to see too much of you. She might tell people.’
‘Oh, it will all seem like a dream tae her, the soothings will see to that,’ said Jeannie calmly, ‘and who will take much heed of a wee girl prattling about the fairies?’
‘She is thirteen!’ said Tiffany. ‘It’s not supposed to happen!’
‘Is she no’ happy?’
‘Well, yes, but …’
There was a steely look in Jeannie’s eye. She had always been very respectful to Tiffany, but respect requires respect in its turn. It was Jeannie’s mound, after all, and probably her land as well.
Tiffany settled for saying, ‘Her mother will be worrying.’
‘Is that so?’ said Jeannie. ‘And did her mam worry when she left the poor thing taking a beating?’
Tiffany wished the kelda wasn’t so astute. People used to tell Tiffany that she was so sharp she would cut herself, but the kelda’s steady grey gaze could chop iron nails.
‘Well, Amber’s mother is … she’s not very … clever.’
‘So I hear,’ said Jeannie, ‘but most beasts is short on brains, and yet still the doe will stand her ground to defend her fawn, and a fox for her cub will face down the dog.’
‘Humans are more complicated,’ said Tiffany.
‘So it seems,’ said the kelda, her voice chilly just for that moment.
‘Well, the soothings is working fine, so maybe the girl needs to be back in your complicated world?’
Where her father is still alive, Tiffany reminded herself. I know he is. He was bruised, but he was breathing, and I hope to goodness he sobers up. And is this problem ever going to end? It has to be sorted out! I’ve got other things to do! And I’ve got to go and see the Baron this afternoon!
Tiffany’s father met them when they walked into the farmyard; Tiffany generally left the broomstick tied to a tree just outside, in theory because flying overhead frightened the chickens, but mostly because she was never able to land very gracefully and certainly didn’t want an audience.
He looked from Amber to his daughter. ‘Is she all right? She looks a bit … dreamy.’
‘She’s had something to calm her down and make her feel better,’ said Tiffany, ‘and she shouldn’t run around.’
‘Her mum has been in a dreadful state, you know,’ Tiffany’s father went on reproachfully, ‘but I told her you were looking after Amber in a very safe place.’
There was more than a hint of ‘You are sure about that, aren’t you?’ in the way he spoke, and Tiffany was careful to ignore it, and simply said, ‘I was.’ She tried to imagine Mrs Petty in a dreadful state, and it didn’t work. Every time she had ever seen the woman she had a look of baffled apprehension, as if life had too many puzzles and you just had to wait until the next one hit you.
Tiffany’s father pulled his daughter to one side and lowered his voice. ‘Petty came back in the night,’ he hissed, ‘and they say that someone tried to kill him!’
‘What?’
‘True as I’m standing here.’
Tiffany turned to Amber. The girl was staring at the sky as if hoping patiently for something interesting to happen.
‘Amber,’ she said carefully, ‘you know how to feed chickens, don’t you?’
‘Oh yes, miss.’
‘Well, go and feed ours, will you? There’s grain in the barn.’
‘Your mum fed them hours ago—’ her father began, but Tiffany dragged him away quickly.
‘When did this happen?’ she asked, watching Amber walking obediently into the barn.
‘Some time last night. Mrs Petty told me. He was beaten badly. In that rackety old barn. Right where we were sitting last night.’
‘Mrs Petty went back? After everything that happened? What does she see in him?’
Mr Aching gave a shrug. ‘He is her husband.’
‘But everyone knows he beats her up!’
Her father looked a bit embarrassed. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I suppose to some women any husband is better than none.’
Tiffany opened her mouth to reply, looked into her father’s eyes and saw the truth of what he had said. She had seen some of them up in the mountains, worn out by too many children and not enough money. Of course, if they knew Nanny Ogg, something could be done about the children at least, but you still found the families who sometimes, in order to put food on the table, had to sell the chairs. And there was never anything you could do about it.
‘Mr Petty wasn’t beaten up, Dad, although it wouldn’t be such a bad idea if he was. I found him trying to hang himself, and I cut him down.’
‘He’s got two broken ribs, and bruises all over him.’
‘It was a long way down, Dad – he was choking to death! What should I have done? Let him swing? He has lived to see another day, whether he deserves to or not! It’s not my job to be an executioner! There was a bouquet, Dad! Weeds and nettles! His hands were swollen with nettle stings! There’s at least some part of him that deserves to live, do you see?’
‘But you did steal the baby away.’
‘No, Dad, I stole away with the baby. Listen, Dad, do get it right. I buried the child, which was dead. I saved the man who was dying. I did those things, Dad. People might not understand – might make up stories. I don’t care. You do the job that is in front of you.’
There was a clucking, and Amber walked across the yard with the chickens following her in a line. The clucking was being done by Amber, and as Tiffany and her father watched, the chickens marched back and forth as if under the command of a drill sergeant. The girl was giggling to herself in between clucks, and after managing to get the chickens to walk solemnly in a circle she looked up at Tiffany and her father as if nothing had happened and led the fowls back into the barn.
