A Hat Full Of Sky

have happened.’”
    Teach us the way to die , said the voices of the hiver.
    “I don’t know it!”
    All humans know the way, said the voices of the hiver. You walk it every day of your short, short lives. You know it. We envy you your knowledge. You know how to end. You are very talented.
    I must know how to die, Tiffany thought. Somewhere deep down. Let me think. Let me get past the “I can’t.”…
    She held up the glittering shamble. Shafts of light still spun off it, but she didn’t need it anymore. She could hold the power in the center of herself. It was all a matter of balance.
    The light died. Rob Anybody was still hanging in the threads, but all his hair had come unplaited and stood out from his head in a great red ball. He looked stunned.
    “I could just murrrder a kebab,” he said.
    Tiffany lowered him to the ground, where he swayed slightly; then she put the rest of the shamble in her pocket.
    “Thank you, Rob,” she said. “But I want you to go now. It could get…serious.”
    It was, of course, the wrong thing to say.
    “I’m no’ leavin’!” he snapped. “I promised Jeannie to keep ye safe! Let’s get on wi’ it!”
    There was no arguing. Rob was standing in that half crouch of his, fists bunched, chin out, ready for anything and burning with defiance.
    “Thank you,” said Tiffany, and straightened up.
    Death is right behind us, she thought. Life ends, and there’s death, waiting. So…it must be close. Very close.
    It would be…a door. Yes. An old door, old wood. Dark, too.
    She turned. Behind her, there was a black door in the air.
    The hinges would creak, she thought.
    When she pushed it open, they did.
    So-oo…she thought, this isn’t exactly real . I’m telling myself a story I can understand, about doors, and I’m fooling myself just enough for it all to work. I just have to keep balanced on that edge for it to go on working, too. That’s as hard as not thinking about a pink rhinoceros. And if Granny Weatherwax can do that, I can too.
    Beyond the door, black sand stretched away under a sky of pale stars. There were some mountains on the distant horizon.
    You must help us through , said the voices of the hiver.
    “If you’ll tak’ my advice, you’ll no’ do that,” said Rob Anybody from Tiffany’s ankle. “I dinna trust the scunner one wee bitty!”
    “There’s part of me in there. I trust that,” she said. “I did say you don’t have to come, Rob.”
    “Oh, aye? An’ I’m tae see ye go through there alone, am I? Ye’ll not find me leavin’ ye now!”
    “You’ve got a clan and a wife, Rob!”
    “Aye, an’ so I willna dishonor them by lettin’ yer step across Death’s threshold alone,” said Rob Anybody firmly.
    So, thought Tiffany as she stared through the doorway, this is what we do. We live on the edges. We help those who can’t find the way….
    She took a deep breath and stepped across.
    Nothing much changed. The sand felt gritty underfoot and crunched when she walked over it, as she expected, but when it was kicked up, it fell back as slowly as thistledown, and she hadn’t expected that. The air wasn’t cold, but it was thin and prickly to breathe.
    The door shut softly behind her.
    Thank you , said the voices of the hiver. What do we do now?
    Tiffany looked around her, and up at the stars. They weren’t ones that she recognized.
    “You die, I think,” she said.
    But there is no “me” to die, said the voices of the hiver. There is only us.
    Tiffany took a deep breath. This was about words, and she knew about words. “Here is a story to believe,” she said. “Once we were blobs in the sea, and then fishes, and then lizards and rats, and then monkeys, and hundreds of things in between. This hand was once a fin, this hand once had claws! In my human mouth I have the pointy teeth of a wolf and the chisel teeth of a rabbit and the grinding teeth of a cow! Our blood is as salty as the sea we used to live in! When we’re frightened, the hair on our skin stands up, just like it did when we had fur. We are history! Everything we’ve ever been on the way to becoming us, we still are. Would you like the rest of the story?”
    Tell us , said the hiver.
    “I’m made up of the memories of my parents and grandparents, all my ancestors. They’re in the way I look, in the color of my hair. And I’m made up of everyone I’ve ever met who’s changed the way I think. So who is ‘me’?”
    The piece that just told us that story , said