A Hat Full Of Sky

And ‘scunner’ is a kind of swear word. I don’t think it’s a particularly bad one, though.”
    Petulia’s expression didn’t change for a while. Then she said: “So it was a fairy, then?”
    “Well, yes. Technically.”
    The round pink face smiled.
    “Good, I did wonder, because it was, um, you know…having a wee up against one of Miss Level’s garden gnomes?”
    “ Definitely a Feegle,” said Tiffany.
    “Oh well, I suppose the big stinky horrible spiky iron stinging nettle needs a fairy, just like every other plant,” said Petulia.

CHAPTER 11
    Arthur
    W hen Petulia had gone, Mistress Weatherwax stamped her feet and said, “Let’s go, young lady. It’s about eight miles to Sheercliff. They’ll have started before we get there.”
    “What about the hiver?”
    “Oh, it can come if it likes.” Mistress Weatherwax smiled. “Oh, don’t frown like that. There’ll be more’n three hundred witches at the Trials, and they’re way out in the country. It’ll be as safe as anything. Or do you want to meet the hiver now ? We could probably do that. It don’t seem to move fast.”
    “No!” said Tiffany, louder than she’d intended. “No, because…things aren’t what they seem. We’d do things wrong. Er…I can’t explain it. It’s because of the third wish.”
    “Which you don’t know what it is?”
    “Yes. But I will soon, I hope.”
    The witch stared at her. “Yes, I hope so, too,” she said. “Well, no point in standing around. Let’s get moving.” And with that the witch picked up her blanket and set off as though being pulled by a string.
    “We haven’t even had anything to eat!” said Tiffany, running after her.
    “I had a lot of voles last night,” said Mistress Weatherwax over her shoulder.
    “Yes, but you didn’t actually eat them, did you?” said Tiffany. “It was the owl that actually ate them.”
    “Technic’ly, yes,” Mistress Weatherwax admitted. “But if you think you’ve been eating voles all night, you’d be amazed how much you don’t want to eat anything the next morning. Or ever again.”
    She nodded at the distant, departing figure of Petulia.
    “Friend of yours?” she said, as they set out.
    “Er…if she is, I don’t deserve it,” said Tiffany.
    “Hmm,” said Mistress Weatherwax. “Well, sometimes we get what we don’t deserve.”
    For an old woman Mistress Weatherwax could move quite fast. She strode over the moors as if distance was a personal insult. But she was good at something else too.
    She knew about silence. There was the swish of her long skirt as it snagged the heathers, but somehow that became part of the background noise.
    In the silence, as she walked, Tiffany could still hear the memories. There were hundreds of them left behind by the hiver. Most of them were so faint that they were nothing more than a slight uncomfortable feeling in her head, but the ancient tiger still burned brightly in the back of her brain, and behind that was the giant lizard. They’d been killing machines, the most powerful creatures in their world—once. The hiver had taken them both. And then they’d died fighting.
    Always taking fresh bodies, always driving the owners mad with the urge for power, which would always end with getting them killed…and just as Tiffany wondered why , a memory said: Because it is frightened .
    Frightened of what? Tiffany thought. It’s so powerful!
    Who knows? But it’s mad with terror. Completely binkers!
    “You’re Sensibility Bustle, aren’t you?” said Tiffany, and then her ears informed her that she’d said this aloud.
    “Talkative, ain’t he,” said Mistress Weatherwax. “He talked in your sleep the other night. Used to have a very high opinion of himself. I reckon that’s why his memories held together for so long.”
    “He doesn’t know binkers from bonkers, though,” said Tiffany.
    “Well, memory fades,” said Mistress Weatherwax. She stopped and leaned against a rock. She sounded out of breath.
    “Are you all right, mistress?” said Tiffany.
    “Sound as a bell,” said Mistress Weatherwax, wheezing slightly. “Just getting my second wind. Anyway, it’s only another six miles.”
    “I notice you’re limping a bit,” said Tiffany.
    “Do you, indeed? Then stop noticing!”
    The shout echoed off the cliffs, full of command.
    Mistress Weatherwax coughed when the echo had died away. Tiffany had gone pale.
    “It seems to me,” said the old witch, “that I might just’ve been a