A Hat Full Of Sky

were grazing nearby. If you wondered why the goats weren’t eating the garden, it was because you’d forgotten who lived here. There was a well. And, of course, a cottage.
    Mrs. Earwig would definitely have objected to the cottage. It was out of a storybook. The walls leaned against one another for support, the thatched roof was slipping off like a bad wig, and the chimneys were corkscrewed. If you thought a gingerbread cottage would be too fattening, this was the next worst thing.
    In a cottage deep in the forest lived the Wicked Old Witch….
    It was a cottage out of the nastier kind of fairy tale.
    Granny Weatherwax’s beehives were tucked away down one side of the cottage. Some were the old straw kind, most were patched-up wooden ones. They thundered with activity, even this late in the year.
    Tiffany turned aside to look at them, and the bees poured out in a dark stream. They swarmed toward Tiffany, formed a column, and—
    She laughed. They’d made a witch of bees in front of her, thousands of them all holding station in the air. She raised her right hand. With a rise in the level of buzzing, the bee-witch raised its right hand. She turned around. It turned around, the bees carefully copying every swirl and flutter of her dress, the ones on the very edge buzzing desperately because they had farthest to fly.
    She carefully put down the big sack and reached out toward the figure. With another roar of wings it went shapeless for a moment, then re-formed a little way away, but with a hand outstretched toward her. The bee that was the tip of its forefinger hovered just in front of Tiffany’s fingernail.
    “Shall we dance?” said Tiffany.
    In the clearing full of spinning seeds, she circled the swarm. It kept up pretty well, moving fingertip to buzzing tip, turning when she turned, although there were always a few bees racing to catch up.
    Then it raised both its arms and twirled in the opposite direction, the bees in the “skirt” spreading out again as it spun. It was learning.
    Tiffany laughed and did the same thing. Swarm and girl whirled across the clearing.
    She felt happy and wondered if she’d ever felt this happy before. The gold light, the falling seeds, the dancing bees…it was all one thing. This was the opposite of the dark desert. Here, light was everywhere and filled her up inside. She could feel herself here but see herself from above, twirling with a buzzing shadow that sparkled golden as the light struck the bees. Moments like this paid for it all.
    Then the witch made of bees leaned closer to Tiffany, as if staring at her with its thousands of little jeweled eyes. There was a faint piping noise from inside the figure and the bee-witch exploded into a spreading, buzzing cloud of insects that raced away across the clearing and disappeared. The only movement now was the whirring fall of the sycamore seeds.
    Tiffany breathed out.
    “Now, some people would have found that scary,” said a voice behind her.
    Tiffany didn’t turn around immediately. First she said, “Good afternoon, Granny Weatherwax.” Then she turned around. “Have you ever done this?” she demanded, still half drunk with delight.
    “It’s rude to start with questions. You’d better come in and have a cup of tea,” said Granny Weatherwax.
    You’d barely know that anyone lived in the cottage. There were two chairs by the fire, one of them a rocking chair, and by the table were two chairs that didn’t rock but did wobble because of the uneven stone floor. There was a dresser, and a rag rug in front of the huge hearth. A broomstick leaned against the wall in one corner, next to something mysterious and pointy, under a cloth. There was a very narrow and dark flight of stairs. And that was it. There was nothing shiny, nothing new, and nothing unnecessary.
    “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” said Granny Weatherwax, taking a sooty black kettle off the fire and filling an equally black teapot.
    Tiffany opened the sack she had brought with her.
    “I’ve come to bring you your hat back,” she said.
    “Ah,” said Granny Weatherwax. “Have you? And why?”
    “Because it’s your hat,” said Tiffany, putting it on the table. “Thank you for the loan of it, though.”
    “I daresay there’s plenty of young witches who’d give their high teeth for an ol’ hat of mine,” said Granny, lifting up the battered hat.
    “There are,” said Tiffany, and did not add, “and it’s eye teeth, actually.”