A Blink of the Screen

might have thought it just another shadow in the wreck of fallen rocks. Then she was in it, facing that sucking silence of all caves everywhere.
    And there, in the shadows, was the Witch.
    Granny bowed to her – witches never curtsy – and edged past, and on into the caves.
    She hadn’t been up here for … what? Ten years?
    The caves wound everywhere under the mountains, and because of the high magical potential in the Ramtops they did not necessarily confine their ramblings to the normal four dimensions. If you entered some of them, it was rumoured, you would never be seen again. At least, not here. And not now.
    But Granny headed directly for one quite near this entrance. It had a particular quality that she felt she needed. Perhaps it was something to do with its shape, or the little crystalline specks that glinted in its walls, but this cave was impervious to thought.
    Thought couldn’t get in, or out.
    She sat down on the sandy floor, alone with her own thoughts.
    After a while, they turned up.
    There’d been that man down in Sparkle, the one that’d killed those little kids. The people’d sent for her and she’d looked at him and seen the guilt writhing in his head like a red worm, and then she’d taken them to his farm and showed them where to dig, and he’d thrown himself down and asked her for mercy, because he said he’d been drunk and it’d all been done in alcohol.
    Her words came back to her. She’d said, in sobriety: end it in hemp.
    And they’d dragged him off and hanged him and she’d gone to watch because she owed him that much, and he’d cursed, which was unfair because hanging is a clean death, or at least cleaner than the one he’d have got if the villagers had dared defy her, and she’d seen the shadow of Death come for him, and then behind Death came the smaller, brighter figures, and then –
    In the darkness, she rocked.
    The villagers had said justice had been done, and she’d lost patience and told them to go home, then, and pray to whatever gods they believed in that it was never done to them. Because the smug face of virtue triumphant could be almost as horrible as wickedness revealed.
    The odd thing was, quite a lot of villagers had turned up to his funeral, and there had been mutterings on the lines of, yes, well, but overall he wasn’t such a bad chap … and anyway, maybe she made him say it. And she’d got the dark looks.
    Supposing there was justice for all, after all? For every unheeded beggar, every harsh word, every neglected duty, every slight …
    Who’d come to her funeral when she died?
    Other memories jostled. Other figures marched out into the darkness of the cave.
    She’d done things and been places, and found ways to turn anger outwards that had surprised even her. She’d faced down others far more powerful than she was, if only she’d allowed them to believe it. She’d given up so much, but she’d earned a lot. And she’d never, never declare that she doubted her choices. And yet … if, all those years ago, she’d made the other choices … she wouldn’t have known. She’d have led a quiet life. She was certain of this, because sometimes she could sense those other selves, off in the alternatives of time. After all, if you could read minds at a distance, you should certainly be able to pick up your own. A nice quiet life, and then death.
    But she’d never set out to be nice. When you went up against some of the opponents she’d met, nice people would finish last, or not even finish.
    In truth, deep down, she was aware of a dark desire. Sometimes, the world really had it coming, and endeavouring to see that it didn’t get it was a white-knuckle task, every day of her life. Letice would never know that she had been an inch away from … from something very, very unpleasant happening to her. But it was an inch that Esme Weatherwax had spent a lifetime constructing, and she’d thought it was tougher than steel. Knowing how bad you could be is a great encouragement to be good.
    So she’d been good. She was good at justice. She was good at medicine, particularly that type of medicine which started in the head. She was good at winning. She was good, though she said it herself, at most of the things she set her mind at.
    But not nice. She had to admit it. And it seemed that people preferred nice to good.
    And there was a terrible temptation. Better witches than her had succumbed. The more you faced the light the brighter it grew, and one day