Wintersmith

Page 29

When you were an elemental, everything happened all together, inside and outside, in one big…thing. Thing. That was a useful word…thing. Thing was anything the Wintersmith couldn't describe. Everything was…things, and they were exciting. It was good to be a man! Oh, he was mostly made of dirty ice, but that was just better-organized dirty water, after all. Yes, he was human. It was so easy. It was just a matter of organizing things. He had senses, he could move among humans, he could…search. That was how to search for humans. You became one! It was so hard to do it as an elemental; it was hard even to recognize a human in the churning thing-ness of the physical world. But a human could talk to other humans with the holes for the sound. He could talk to them and they would not suspect! And now that he was human, there would be no going back. King Winter! All he needed was a queen. Tiffany woke up because someone was shaking her. "Tiffany!"
She'd gone to sleep in Nanny Ogg's cottage with her head against the Cornucopia. From somewhere close there was a strange pif noise, like a dry drip. Pale-blue snowlight filled the room. As she opened her eyes, Granny Weatherwax was gently pushing her back into her chair. "You've been sleeping since nine o'clock, my girl," she said. "Time to go home, I think." Tiffany looked around. "I am here, aren't I?" she said, feeling dizzy. "No, this is Nanny Ogg's house. And this is a bowl of soup—" Tiffany woke up. There was a blurry bowl of soup in front of her. It looked…familiar. "When did you last sleep in a bed?" said a wavering, shadowy figure. Tiffany yawned. "What day is this?"
"Tuesday," said Granny Weatherwax. "Mmm…what's a Tuesday?" Tiffany woke up for the third time and was grabbed and pulled upright. "There," said the voice of Granny Weatherwax. "This time stay awake. Drink soup. Get warm. You need to go home." This time Tiffany's stomach took control of a hand and a spoon and, by degrees, Tiffany warmed up. Granny Weatherwax sat opposite, the kitten You on her lap, watching Tiffany until the soup was gone. "I expected too much from you," she said. "I'd hoped that as the days grew longer, you'd find more power. That ain't no fault of yours." The pif noises were getting more frequent. Tiffany looked down and saw barley dripping out of the Cornucopia. The number of grains increased even as she watched. "You set it on barley before you fell asleep," said Granny. "It slows right down when you're tired. Just as well, really, otherwise we'd have been eaten alive by chickens."
"It's about the only thing I've got right," said Tiffany. "Oh, I don't know. Annagramma Hawkin seems to be showing promise. Lucky in her friends, from what I hears." If Miss Treason had tried to play poker against Granny Weatherwax's face, she would have lost. The patter of the new grains suddenly became much louder in the silence. "Look, I—" Tiffany began. Granny sniffed. "I'm sure no one has to explain themselves to me," she said virtuously. "Will you promise me that you'll go home? A couple of coaches got through this morning, and I hear it's not too bad yet, down on the plains. You go back to your Chalk country. You're the only witch they've got." Tiffany sighed. She did want to go home, more than anything. But it would be like running away. "It might be like running to," said Granny, picking up her old habit of replying to something that hadn't actually been said. "I'll go tomorrow then," said Tiffany. "Good." Granny stood up. "Come with me.
I wants to show you something." Tiffany followed her through a snow tunnel that came out near the edge of the forest. The snow had been packed down here by people dragging firewood home, and once you got a little way from the edge of the forest, the drifts weren't too bad; a lot of snow hung in the trees, filling the air with cold blue shadows. "What are we looking for?" asked Tiffany. Granny Weatherwax pointed. There was a splash of green in the white and gray. It was young leaves on an oak sapling a couple of feet high. When Tiffany crunched her way through the snow crust and reached out to touch it, the air felt warm. "Do you know how you managed that?" asked Granny. "No!"
"Me neither. I couldn't do it. You did, girl. Tiffany Aching."
"It's just one tree," said Tiffany. "Ah, well. You have to start small, with oak trees." They stared in silence at the tree for a few moments. The green seemed to reflect off the snow around it. Winter stole color, but the tree glowed. "And now we've all got things to do," said Granny, breaking the spell. "You, I believe, would normally be heading for Miss Treason's old place about now. I'd expect no less of you…." There was a coaching inn. It was busy, even at this time in the morning. The Fast Mail coach had made a quick stop for fresh horses after the long haul into the mountains, and another one, bound for down on the plains, was waiting for the passengers. The breath of horses filled the air with steam. Drivers stamped their feet. Sacks and packages were being loaded.
Men bustled around with nosebags. Some bandy-legged men just hung around, smoking and gossiping. In fifteen minutes the inn's yard would be empty again, but for now everyone was too busy to pay much attention to one more stranger. Afterward they all told different stories, contradicting one another at the tops of their voices. Probably the most accurate account came from Miss Dymphnia Stoot, the innkeeper's daughter, who was helping her father serve breakfast: "Well, he, like, came in, and right there I could see he was odd. He walked funny, you know, lifting his legs like a trotting horse does. Also, he was kind of like shiny. But we get all sorts here, and it does not pay to make pers'nal remarks. We had a bunch of werewolves in here last week and they were just like you and me except we had to put their plates on the floor…. All right, yes, this man…well, he sat down at a table and said: 'I am a human just like you!'
He came out with it, just like that! "Of course, no one else paid attention, but I told him I was glad to hear it and what did he want to eat, because the sausages was particular fine this morning, and he said he could only eat cold food, which was funny 'cuz everyone was grumbling about how cold it was in the room now, and it's not like there wasn't a big fire burning. Anyway…actually we did have some cold sausage left in the pantry and they were a bit on the turn, if you know what I mean, so I gave them to him, and he chewed one for a bit and then he says, with his mouth full if you please, '
This is not what I expected. What do I do now?' and I said you swallow and he said, 'Swallow?' and I said, yes, you swallow it down into your stomach, right, and he said, spraying bits of sausage all over the place, 'Oh, a hollow bit!' and sort of like wavers and then he says, 'Ah, I am a human. I have successfully eaten human sausages!' and I said there was no need to be like that, they were made of mostly pig, same as always. "Then he says what is he supposed to do with them now and I says it's not my place to tell him and that will be two pennies please and he puts down a gold coin so I curtsy because, well, you never know. Then he says, 'I am a human just like you. Where are the pointy humans who fly through the sky?' which was a funny way of putting it to my mind, but I told him if it was witches he wanted, there was plenty of 'em over the Lancre Bridge, and he said, 'Name of Treason?' and I said I heard she was dead but with witches who can say.
And off he went. All the time he had this, like, smile, all shiny and a bit worrying. Something wrong with his clothes, too, like they were stuck to him or something. But you can't be too choosy in this business. We had some trolls in here yesterday. They can't eat our food, you know, being kind of like walking rocks, but we gave them a slap-up meal of broken cups and grease. But he was a rum 'un. The place got a lot warmer after he left, too." Expect no less of you… The words kept Tiffany warm as she flew over the trees. The fire in her head burned with pride but contained one or two big crackly logs of anger. Granny had known! Had she planned it? Because it looked good, didn't it? All the witches would know. Mrs. Earwig's pupil couldn't cope, but Tiffany Aching organized all the other girls to help out and didn't tell anyone. Of course, among witches, not telling anyone was a sure way of getting things found out.
Witches were very good at listening to what you weren't saying. So Annagramma held on to her cottage, and Mrs. Earwig was embarrassed and Granny would be smug. All that work and rushing around, to let Granny feel smug. Well, and for Mrs. Stumper's pig and everyone else, of course. That made it complicated. If you could, you did what needed to be done. Poking your nose in was basic witchcraft. She knew it. Granny knew she knew it. So Tiffany had scurried around like a little clockwork mouse…. There would be a reckoning! The clearing was full of snow in great icy drifts, but a path had been worn to the cottage, she was pleased to see. There was something new. There were people standing by Miss Treason's grave, and some of the snow had been scraped off. Oh no, Tiffany thought as she circled down, please say she hasn't gone looking for the skulls! It turned out to be, in some ways, worse. She recognized the people around the grave.
They were villagers, and they gave Tiffany the defiant, worried stares of people scared half to death by the small but possibly angry pointy hat in front of them. And there was something about the very deliberate way they weren't looking at the mound that instantly drew her attention to it. It was covered in little torn scraps of paper, pinned down with sticks. They fluttered in the wind. She snatched up a couple: Miss Treason please keep my boy Joe save at see. Miss treason, Im goin bald pleas help. Miss Treason, please find our Girl Becky what run away Im sorry. There were more. And just as she was about to speak sharply to the villagers for still bothering Miss Treason, she remembered the packets of Jolly Sailor tobacco that the shepherds even now left on the turf where the old shepherding hut had been. They didn't write their petitions down, but they were there all the same, floating in the air: "Granny Aching, who herds the clouds in the blue sky, please watch my sheep."
"Granny Aching, cure my son."
"Granny Aching, find my lambs." They were the prayers of small people, too afraid to bother the gods in their high places. They trusted in what they knew. They weren't right or wrong. They were just…hopeful. Well, Miss Treason, she thought, you're a myth now, as sure as anything. You might even make it to goddess. It's not much fun, I can tell you. "And has Becky been found?" she said, turning to the people. A man avoided her gaze as he said: "I reckon Miss Treason'll understand why the girl won't be wantin' to come home anytime soon." Oh, thought Tiffany, one of those reasons. "Any news of the boy, then?" she said. "Ah, that one worked," said a woman. "His mum got a letter yesterday sayin' he'd been in a dreadful shipwreck but was picked up alive, which only goes to show." Tiffany didn't ask what it was that it went to show. It was enough that it had gone to show it. "Well, that's good," she said. "But lots of poor seamen got drownded," the woman went on. "They hit an iceberg in the fog. A big floating mountain of ice shaped like a woman, they said. What d'you think of that?"
"I expect if they'd been at sea long enough, anything would look like a woman, eh?" said the man, and chuckled. The women gave him a Look. "He didn't say who she—if she looked like, you know…anyone?" said Tiffany, trying to sound nonchalant. "Depends where they were looking—" the man began cheerfully. "You ought to wash your brain out with soap and water," said the woman, prodding him sharply in the chest. "Er, no, miss," he said, looking down at his feet. "He just said her head was all covered with seagull— poo, miss." This time, Tiffany tried not to sound relieved. She looked down at the fluttering bits of paper on the grave and back to the woman, who was trying to hide what might be a fresh request behind her back. "Do you believe in this stuff, Mrs. Carter?" The woman suddenly looked flustered. "Oh no, miss, of course not. But it's just that…well, you know…." It makes you feel better, thought Tiffany. It's something you can do when there's nothing more to be done. And who knows, it might work. Yes, I know. It's— Her hand itched. And now she realized that it had been itching for a while. "Oh yes?" she said under her breath. "You dare?"