A Hat Full Of Sky

for me, and Tiffany’ll know the way.”
    “Well, indeed, I do feel…somewhat shaken,” said Miss Level, absentmindedly brushing her hair out of her eyes with an invisible hand. “Let me see…you could just drop in on Mr. Umbril, and Mistress Turvy, and the young Raddle boy, and check on Mrs. Towney’s bruise, and take some Number 5 ointment to Mr. Drover, and pay a call on old Mrs. Hunter at Saucy Corner, and…now, who have I forgotten?”
    Tiffany realized she was holding her breath. It had been a horrible day, and a dreadful night, but what was looming and lining up for its place on Miss Level’s tongue was, somehow, going to be worse than either.
    “…Ah, yes, have a word with Miss Quickly at Uttercliff, and then probably you’ll need to talk to Mrs. Quickly, too, and there’re a few packages to be dropped off on the way, they’re in my basket, all marked up. And I think that’s it…. Oh, no, silly me, I almost forgot…and you need to drop in on Mr. Weavall, too.”
    Tiffany breathed out. She really didn’t want to. She’d rather not breathe ever again than face Mr. Weavall and open an empty box.
    “Are you sure you’re…totally yourself, Tiffany?” said Miss Level, and Tiffany leaped at this lifesaving excuse not to go.
    “Well, I do feel a bit—” she began, but Mistress Weatherwax interrupted with, “She’s fine, Miss Level, apart from the echoes. The hiver has gone away from this house, I can assure you.”
    “Really?” said Miss Level. “I don’t mean to be rude, but how can you be so certain?”
    Mistress Weatherwax pointed down.
    Grain by grain, the spilled sugar was rolling across the tabletop and leaping into the sugar bowl.
    Miss Level clasped her hands together.
    “Oh, Oswald ,” she said, her face one huge smile, “you’ve come back!”

    Miss Level, and possibly Oswald, watched them go from the gate.
    “She’ll be fine with your little men keeping her company,” said Mistress Weatherwax as she and Tiffany turned away and took the lane through the woods. “It could be the making of her, you know, being half dead.”
    Tiffany was shocked. “How can you be so cruel?”
    “She’ll get some respect when people see her moving stuff through the air. Respect is meat and drink to a witch. Without respect, you ain’t got a thing. She doesn’t get much respect, our Miss Level.”
    That was true. People didn’t respect Miss Level. They liked her, in an unthinking sort of way, and that was it. Mistress Weatherwax was right, and Tiffany wished she wasn’t.
    “Why did you and Miss Tick send me to her, then?” she said.
    “Because she likes people,” said the witch, striding ahead. “She cares about ’em. Even the stupid, mean, drooling ones, the mothers with the runny babies and no sense, the feckless and the silly and the fools who treat her like some kind of a servant. Now that’s what I call magic—seein’ all that, dealin’ with all that, and still goin’ on. It’s sittin’ up all night with some poor old man who’s leavin’ the world, taking away such pain as you can, comfortin’ their terror, seein’ ’em safely on their way…and then cleanin’ ’em up, layin’ ’em out, making ’em neat for the funeral, and helpin’ the weeping widow strip the bed and wash the sheets—which is, let me tell you, no errand for the fainthearted—and stayin’ up the next night to watch over the coffin before the funeral, and then going home and sitting down for five minutes before some shouting angry man comes bangin’on your door ’cuz his wife’s havin’ difficulty givin’ birth to their first child and the midwife’s at her wits’ end and then getting up and fetching your bag and going out again…. We all do that, in our own way, and she does it better’n me, if I was to put my hand on my heart. That is the root and heart and soul and center of witchcraft, that is. The soul and center!” Mistress Weatherwax smacked her fist into her hand, hammering out her words. “The…soul…and… center !”
    Echoes came back from the trees in the sudden silence. Even the grasshoppers by the side of the track had stopped sizzling.
    “And Mrs. Earwig,” said Mistress Weatherwax, her voice sinking to a growl, “ Mrs. Earwig tells her girls it’s about cosmic balances and stars and circles and colors and wands and…and toys, nothing but toys !” She sniffed. “Oh, I daresay they’re all very well as decoration , somethin’ nice to look at while