A Hat Full Of Sky

panic.
    “That didn’t sound like your voice. That sounded like a man! Do you feel all right?”
    “Feel…crowded,” murmured Tiffany.
    “Crowded?” said Miss Level.
    “Strange…memories…help me…”
    Tiffany looked at her arm. It had scales on it. Now it had hair on it. Now it was smooth and brown, and holding—
    “A scorpion sandwich?” she said.
    “Can you hear me?” asked Miss Level, her voice a long way away. “You’re delirious. Are you sure you girls haven’t been playing with potions or anything like that?”
    The broomstick dropped out of the sky and the other part of Miss Level nearly fell off. Without speaking, both of Miss Level got Tiffany onto the stick and part of Miss Level got on behind her.
    It didn’t take long to fly back to the cottage. Tiffany spent the flight with her mind full of hot cotton wool and wasn’t at all certain where she was, although her body did know and threw up again.
    Miss Level helped her off the stick and sat her on the garden seat just outside the cottage door.
    “Now just you wait there,” said Miss Level, who dealt with emergencies by talking incessantly and using the word “just” too often because it’s a calming word, “and I’ll just get you a drink and then we’ll just see what the matter is….” There was a pause, and then the stream of words came out of the house again, dragging Miss Level after them. “…And I’ll just check on…things. Just drink this, please!”
    Tiffany drank the water and, out of the corner of her eye, saw Miss Level weaving string around an egg. She was trying to make a shamble without Tiffany noticing.
    Strange images were floating around Tiffany’s mind. There were scraps of voices, fragments of memories…and one little voice that was her own, small and defiant and getting fainter: You’re not me. You just think you are! Someone help me!
    “Now, then,” said Miss Level, “let’s just see what we can see—”
    The shamble exploded, not just into pieces but into fire and smoke.
    “Oh, Tiffany,” said Miss Level, frantically waving smoke away. “Are you all right?”
    Tiffany stood up slowly. It seemed to Miss Level that she was slightly taller than she remembered.
    “Yes, I think I am,” said Tiffany. “I think I’ve been all wrong, but now I’m all right. And I’ve been wasting my time, Miss Level.”
    “What—” Miss Level began.
    Tiffany pointed a finger at her.
    “I know why you had to leave the circus, Miss Level,” she said. “It had to do with the clown Floppo, the trick ladder, and…some custard ….”
    Miss Level went pale. “How could you possibly know that?”
    “Just by looking at you!” said Tiffany, pushing past her into the dairy. “Watch this, Miss Level!”
    She pointed a finger. A wooden spoon rose an inch from the table. Then it began to spin, faster and faster, until with a cracking sound it broke into splinters. They whirled away across the room.
    “And I can do this !” Tiffany shouted. She grabbed a bowl of curds, tipped them out onto the table, and waved a hand at them. They turned into a cheese.
    “Now that’s what cheese making should be!” she said. “To think that I spent stupid years learning the hard way! That’s how a real witch does it! Why do we crawl in the dirt, Miss Level? Why do we amble around with herbs and bandage smelly old men’s legs? Why do we get paid with eggs and stale cakes? Annagramma is as stupid as a hen, but even she can see it’s wrong. Why don’t we use magic? Why are you so afraid ?”
    Miss Level tried to smile.
    “Tiffany, dear, we all go through this,” she said, and her voice was shaking. “Though not as…explosively as you, I have to say. And the answer is…well, it’s dangerous.”
    “Yes, but that’s what people always say to scare children,” said Tiffany. “We get told stories to frighten us, to keep us scared! Don’t go into the big bad woods help me because it’s full of scary things, that’s what we’re told. But really, the big bad woods should be scared of us ! I’m going out!”
    “I think that would be a good idea,” said Miss Level weakly. “Until you behave.”
    “I don’t have to do things your way,” snarled Tiffany, slamming the door behind her.
    Miss Level’s broomstick was leaning against the wall a little way away. Tiffany stopped and stared at it, her mind on fire.
    She’d tried to keep away from it. Miss Level had wheedled her into a trial flight with Tiffany clinging