A Hat Full Of Sky

desperate plan, which was very dangerous and risky and would require tremendous strength and bravery to make it work.
    Put like that, they agreed to it instantly.

    Tiffany found that there was more than chores and the research, though. There was what Miss Level called “filling what’s empty and emptying what’s full.”
    Usually only one of Miss Level’s bodies went out at a time. People thought Miss Level was twins, and she made sure they continued to do so, but she found it a little bit safer all around to keep the bodies apart. Tiffany could see why. You only had to watch both of Miss Level when she was eating. The bodies would pass plates to one another without saying a word, sometimes they’d eat off one another’s forks, and it was rather strange to see one person burp and the other one say “Oops, pardon me.”
    “Filling what’s empty and emptying what’s full” meant wandering around the local villages and the isolated farms and, mostly, doing medicine. There were always bandages to change or expectant mothers to talk to. Witches did a lot of midwifery, which is a kind of “emptying what’s full,” but Miss Level wearing her pointy hat had only to turn up at a cottage for other people to suddenly come visiting, by sheer accident. And there was an awful lot of gossip and tea drinking. Miss Level moved in a twitching, living world of gossip, although Tiffany noticed that she picked up a lot more than she passed on.
    It seemed to be a world made up entirely of women, but occasionally, out in the lanes, a man would strike up a conversation about the weather and somehow, by some sort of code, an ointment or a potion would get handed over.
    Tiffany couldn’t quite work out how Miss Level got paid. Certainly the basket she carried filled up more than it emptied. They’d walk past a cottage and a woman would come scurrying out with a fresh-baked loaf or a jar of pickles, even though Miss Level hadn’t stopped there. But they’d spend an hour somewhere else, stitching up the leg of a farmer who’d been careless with an axe, and get a cup of tea and a stale biscuit. It didn’t seem fair.
    “Oh, it evens out,” said Miss Level, as they walked on through the woods. “You do what you can. People give what they can, when they can. Old Slapwick there, with the leg, he’s as mean as a cat, but there’ll be a big cut of beef on my doorstep before the week’s end, you can bet on it. His wife will see to it. And pretty soon people will be killing their pigs for the winter, and I’ll get more lard, ham, bacon, and sausages turning up than a family could eat in a year.”
    “You will? What do you do with all that food?”
    “Store it,” said Miss Level.
    “But you—”
    “I store it in other people. It’s amazing what you can store in other people.” Miss Level laughed at Tiffany’s expression. “I mean, I take what I don’t need around to those who don’t have a pig, or who’re going through a bad patch, or who don’t have anyone to remember them.”
    “But that means they’ll owe you a favor!”
    “Right! And so it just keeps on going around. It all works out.”
    “I bet some people are too mean to pay—”
    “Not pay ,” said Miss Level, severely. “A witch never expects payment and never asks for it and just hopes she never needs to. But sadly, you are right.”
    “And then what happens?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You stop helping them, do you?”
    “Oh, no,” said Miss Level, genuinely shocked. “You can’t not help people just because they’re stupid or forgetful or unpleasant. Everyone’s poor around here. If I don’t help them, who will?”
    “Granny Aching…that is, my grandmother said someone has to speak up for them as has no voices,” Tiffany volunteered after a moment.
    “Was she a witch?”
    “I’m not sure,” said Tiffany. “I think so, but she didn’t know she was. She mostly lived by herself in an old shepherding hut up on the downs.”
    “She wasn’t a cackler, was she?” said Miss Level, and when she saw Tiffany’s expression she said hurriedly, “Sorry, sorry. But it can happen, when you’re a witch who doesn’t know it. You’re like a ship with no rudder. But obviously she wasn’t like that, I can tell.”
    “She lived on the hills and talked to them, and she knew more about sheep than anybody!” said Tiffany hotly.
    “I’m sure she did, I’m sure she did—”
    “She never cackled!”
    “Good, good,” said Miss Level