A Blink of the Screen

Gytha, you know that. I don’t have to do no frills or fancy labels.’
    Nanny sighed. Of course, it was true. Granny was an old-fashioned witch. She didn’t do good for people, she did right by them. But Nanny knew that people don’t always appreciate right. Like old Pollitt the other day, when he fell off his horse. What he wanted was a painkiller. What he needed was the few seconds of agony as Granny popped the joint back into place. The trouble was, people remembered the pain.
    You got on a lot better with people when you remembered to put frills round it, and took an interest, and said things like, ‘How are you?’ Esme didn’t bother with that kind of stuff because she knew already. Nanny Ogg knew too, but also knew that letting on you knew gave people the serious willies.
    She put her head on one side. Granny’s foot was still tapping.
    ‘You planning anything, Esme? I know you. You’ve got that look.’
    ‘What look, pray?’
    ‘That look you had when that bandit was found naked up a tree and cryin’ all the time and goin’ on about the horrible thing that was after him. Funny thing, we never found any pawprints. That look.’
    ‘He deserved more’n that for what he done.’
    ‘Yeah … well, you had that look just before ole Hoggett was found beaten black and blue in his own pigsty and wouldn’t talk about it.’
    ‘You mean old Hoggett the wife beater? Or old Hoggett who won’t never lift his hand to a woman no more?’ said Granny. The thing her lips had pursed into may have been called a smile.
    ‘And it’s the look you had the time all the snow slid down on ole Millson’s house just after he called you an interfering old baggage …’ said Nanny.
    Granny hesitated. Nanny was pretty sure that had been natural causes, and also that Granny knew she suspected this, and that pride was fighting a battle with honesty—
    ‘That’s as may be,’ said Granny, noncommittally.
    ‘Like someone who might go along to the Trials and … do something,’ said Nanny.
    Her friend’s glare should have made the air sizzle.
    ‘Oh? So that’s what you think of me? That’s what we’ve come to, have we?’
    ‘Letice thinks we should move with the times—’
    ‘Well? I moves with the times. We ought to move with the times. No one said we ought to give them a push. I expect you’ll be wanting to be going, Gytha. I want to be alone with my thoughts!’
    Nanny’s own thoughts, as she scurried home in relief, were that Granny Weatherwax was not an advertisement for witchcraft. Oh, she was one of the best at it, no doubt about that. At a certain kind, certainly. But a girl starting out in life might well say to herself, ‘Is this it? You worked hard and denied yourself things and what you got at the end of it was hard work and self-denial?’
    Granny wasn’t exactly friendless, but what she commanded mostly was respect. People learned to respect stormclouds, too. They refreshed the ground. You needed them. But they weren’t nice.
    Nanny Ogg went to bed in three flannelette nightdresses, because sharp frosts were already pricking the autumn air. She was also in a troubled frame of mind.
    Some sort of war had been declared, she knew. Granny could do some terrible things when roused, and the fact that they’d been done to those who richly deserved them didn’t make them any the less terrible. She’d be planning something pretty dreadful, Nanny Ogg was certain.
    She herself didn’t like winning things. Winning was a habit that was hard to break and brought you a dangerous status that was hard to defend. You’d walk uneasily through life, always on the lookout for the next girl with a better broomstick and a quicker hand on the frog.
    She turned over under the mountain of eiderdowns.
    In Granny Weatherwax’s worldview there was no place for second place. You won, or you were a loser. There was nothing wrong with being a loser except for the fact that, of course, you weren’t the winner. Nanny had always pursued the policy of being a good loser. People liked you when you almost won, and bought you drinks. ‘She only just lost’ was a much better compliment than ‘she only just won’.
    Runners-up had more fun, she reckoned. But it wasn’t a word Granny had much time for.
    In her own darkened cottage, Granny Weatherwax sat and watched the fire die.
    It was a grey-walled room, the colour that old plaster gets not so much from dirt as from age. There was not a thing in it that wasn’t useful,