She’d finished in the kitchen and the scullery, leaving everything so bright that her eyes watered, and then there was nothing for it but to go upstairs. On her hands and knees, with bucket and brush and rags and grease – that is, elbow grease – Tiffany cleaned and cleaned until her knuckles were red and she was satisfied.
But that wasn’t the end of it: there was Granny’s small wardrobe, with its few well-worn and serviceable dresses hanging in there, along with a cloak. All black, of course. Tucked away on a shelf was the Zephyr Billow Cloak Tiffany herself had given Granny – unworn, as far as she could see, but kept carefully, like a special possession. She felt her eyes begin to prickle . . .
Beside the bed were Granny Weatherwax’s boots. Good, serviceable boots, Tiffany thought. And Granny had hated waste. But . . . to actually wear them? She was going to find it hard enough to follow in Granny’s footsteps. She swallowed. She was sure she could find a good home for the boots. In the meantime, well, she poked forward a toe and pushed them out of sight, beneath the bed.
Then of course there was the kitchen garden and, above all, the herbs. Tiffany found a pair of heavy gloves in the scullery – you didn’t go into Granny’s herbs without heavy gloves until they knew you. Granny had foraged, bartered and been given herbs from just about everywhere, and she had Rotating Spinach, and Doubting Plums, Ginny Come Nether, Twirlabout, Tickle My Fancy Root, Jump in the Basin and Jack-go-to-bed-and-never-get-up, Daisy-upsy-Daisy and Old Man Root. There was a clump of Love Lies Oozing by the Jack by Moonlight and a very active Maiden’s Respite. Tiffany did not know what all of them were for; she would have to ask Nanny Ogg. Or Magrat Garlick, who – like her husband Verence, the King of Lancre – was very enthusiastic about herbs.fn1 Though unlike her husband, Magrat did actually know her Troubling Tony from her Multitude Root.
It was never easy being a witch. Oh, the broomstick was great, but to be a witch you needed to be sensible, so sensible that sometimes it hurt. You dealt with the reality – not what people wanted. The reality right now was suddenly You, meowing and banging her head against Tiffany’s legs, demanding food, which she then ignored completely when Tiffany went back into the kitchen and placed a dish of it down for her on the floor.
Tiffany went outdoors again and fed the chickens, let the goats out to graze, had a word with the bees and then thought, I’ve done my bit. The place is spotless, the bees are happy, even the lean-to is clean. If Nanny can come in and feed the animals, keep an eye on You, then I can go back home for a few days . . .
Reaching the Chalk after a flight that was long and, sadly, very wet, since the rain was teeming down,fn2 she flew to the house of young Milly Robinson, the Feegles clinging on behind, under and actually on her in their usual style.
Milly’s two baby boys looked well fed, but the little girl – baby Tiffany – didn’t. Unfortunately Witch Tiffany was used to this sort of thing, especially when the mothers weren’t very clever or had bossy mothers and thought feeding the boys was the main thing in life. It was why, just after the baby’s birth, she had whispered that spell into the baby’s ear. A simple tracking magic, so she would know if any harm befell the little girl. Just a precaution, she had told herself at the time.
There was no use getting nasty about all this, so she took the young woman aside and said, ‘Milly, listen. Yes, your boys have to be straight and strong when they grow up, but my mother always used to say to me: Your son’s your son until he takes a wife, but your daughter is your daughter all of your life. And I think that’s right enough. You help your mother out still, don’t you? And she helps you. So fair shares for the little girl is the right thing to do. Please.’ Then, because the carrot – or in this case, the breast milk – sometimes needed to be accompanied by the stick, she added sternly, the pointy hat making her seem older and wiser than she would otherwise appear, ‘I shall be watching after her interests.’ A little bit of menace often did the trick, she had learned. And, of course, she would watch.
Then there was only one person she wanted to talk to; and the rain was getting harder still as her stick drifted down towards the Feegle mound on the hill, Rob and the other Feegles toppling off as she approached. Daft Wullie made a spectacularly bad landing, head first into the gorse, and a rabble of young Feegles rushed up joyously to unscrew him.
There were a couple of Rob’s older sons lounging around outside the entrance. They were scrawny, even by Feegle standards, with barely a wisp of beard hair between them and impractically low-slung spogs knocking about their knees, their kilts hung low on their skinny hips. To Tiffany’s amazement, she could see the top bands of coloured pants riding high above them. Pants? On a Feegle? The times were indeed changing.