A Hat Full Of Sky

hurt a bit! Keep goin’!”
    Tiffany felt a tingle in her feet. The Horse gleamed as it turned.
    “I dinna want to hurry ye!” said Rob Anybody. “But hurry!”
    I’m far from home, thought Tiffany, in the same clear way, but I have it in my eye. Now I open my eyes. Now I open my eyes again—
    Ahh…
    Can I be a witch away from my hills? Of course I can. I never really leave you, Land Under Wave….

    Shepherds on the Chalk felt the ground shake, like thunder under the turf. Birds scattered from the bushes. The sheep looked up.
    Again, the ground trembled.
    Some people said a shadow crossed the sun. Some people said they heard the sound of hooves.
    And a boy trying to catch hares in the little valley of the Horse said the hillside had burst and a horse had leaped out like a wave as high as the sky, with a mane like the surf of the sea and a coat as white as chalk. He said it had galloped into the air like rising mist, and flown toward the mountains like a storm.
    He got punished for telling stories, of course, but he thought it was worth it.

    The shamble glowed. Silver coursed along the threads. It was coming from Tiffany’s hands, sparking like stars.
    In that light she saw the hiver reach her and spread out until it was all around her, invisibility made visible. It rippled and reflected the light oddly. In those glints and sparkles there were faces, wavering and stretching like reflections in water.
    Time was going slowly. She could see, beyond the wall of hiver, witches staring at her. One had lost her hat in the commotion, but it was hanging in the air. It hadn’t had time to fall yet.
    Tiffany’s fingers moved. The hiver shimmered in the air, disturbed like a pond when a pebble has been dropped into it. Tendrils of it reached toward her. She felt its panic, felt its terror as it found itself caught—
    “Welcome,” said Tiffany.
    Welcome? said the hiver in Tiffany’s own voice.
    “Yes. You are welcome in this place. You are safe here.”
    No! We are never safe!
    “You are safe here,” Tiffany repeated.
    Please! said the hiver. Shelter us!
    “The wizard was nearly right about you,” said Tiffany. “You hid in other creatures. But he didn’t wonder why . What are you hiding from?”
    Everything , said the hiver.
    “I think I know what you mean,” said Tiffany.
    Do you? Do you know what it feels like to be aware of every star, every blade of grass? Yes. You do. You call it “opening your eyes again.” But you do it for a moment. We have done it for eternity. No sleep, no rest, just endless…endless experience, endless awareness. Of everything. All the time. How we envy you, envy you! Lucky humans, who can close your minds to the endless cold deeps of space! You have this thing you call…boredom? That is the rarest talent in the universe! We heard a song—it went “Twinkle twinkle little star….” What power! What wondrous power! You can take a billion trillion tons of flaming matter, a furnace of unimaginable strength, and turn it into a little song for children! You build little worlds, little stories, little shells around your minds, and that keeps infinity at bay and allows you to wake up in the morning without screaming!
    Completely binkers! said a cheerful voice at the back of Tiffany’s memory. You just couldn’t keep Dr. Bustle down.
    Pity us, yes, pity us, said the voices of the hiver. No shield for us, no rest for us, no sanctuary. But you, you withstood us. We saw that in you. You have minds within minds. Hide us!
    “You want silence?” said Tiffany.
    Yes, and more than silence, said the voice of the hiver. You humans are so good at ignoring things. You are almost blind and almost deaf. You look at a tree and see…just a tree, a stiff weed. You don’t see its history, feel the pumping of the sap, hear every insect in the bark, sense the chemistry of the leaves, notice the hundred shades of green, the tiny movements to follow the sun, the subtle growth of the wood…
    “But you don’t understand us,” said Tiffany. “I don’t think any human could survive you. You give us what you think we want, as soon as we want it, just like in fairy stories. And the wishes always go wrong.”
    Yes. We know that now. We have an echo of you now. We have…understanding, said the hiver. So now we come to you with a wish. It is the wish that puts the others right.
    “Yes,” said Tiffany. “That’s always the last wish, the third wish. It’s the one that says ‘Make this not