A Hat Full Of Sky

dry later.” Granny Weatherwax put down the cup and saucer. “Child, you’ve come here to learn what’s true and what’s not, but there’s little I can teach you that you don’t already know. You just don’t know you know it, and you’ll spend the rest of your life learning what’s already in your bones. And that’s the truth.”
    She stared at Tiffany’s hopeful face and sighed.
    “Come outside then,” she said. “I’ll give you lesson one. It’s the only lesson there is. It don’t need writing down in no book with eyes on it.”
    She led the way to the well in her back garden, looked around on the ground, and picked up a stick.
    “Magic wand,” she said. “See?” A green flame leaped out of it, making Tiffany jump. “Now you try.”
    It didn’t work for Tiffany, no matter how much she shook it.
    “Of course not,” said Granny. “It’s a stick. Now, maybe I made a flame come out of it, or maybe I made you think one did. That don’t matter. It was me is what I’m sayin’, not the stick. Get your mind right and you can make a stick your wand and the sky your hat and a puddle your magic…your magic…er, what’re them fancy cups called?”
    “Er…goblet,” said Tiffany.
    “Right. Magic goblet. Things aren’t important. People are.” Granny Weatherwax looked sidelong at Tiffany. “And I could teach you how to run across those hills of yours with the hare, I could teach you how to fly above them with the buzzard. I could tell you the secrets of the bees. I could teach you all this and much more besides, if you’d do just one thing, right here and now. One simple thing, easy to do.”
    Tiffany nodded, eyes wide.
    “You understand, then, that all the glittery stuff is just toys, and toys can lead you astray?”
    “Yes!”
    “Then take off that shiny horse you wear around your neck, girl, and drop it in the well.”
    Obediently, half hypnotized by the voice, Tiffany reached behind her neck and undid the clasp.
    The pieces of the silver Horse shone as she held it over the water.
    She stared at it as if she was seeing it for the first time. And then…
    She tests people, she thought. All the time.
    “Well?” said the old witch.
    “No,” said Tiffany. “I can’t.”
    “Can’t or won’t?” said Granny sharply.
    “Can’t,” said Tiffany and stuck out her chin. “ And won’t!”
    She drew her hand back and refastened the necklace, glaring defiantly at Granny Weatherwax.
    The witch smiled.
    “Well done,” she said quietly. “If you don’t know when to be a human being, you don’t know when to be a witch. And if you’re too afraid of goin’ astray, you won’t go anywhere. May I see it, please?”
    Tiffany looked into those blue eyes. Then she undid the clasp again and handed over the necklace. Granny held it up.
    “Funny, ain’t it, that it seems to gallop when the light hits it,” said the witch, watching it twist this way and that. “Well-made thing. O’ course, it’s not what a horse looks like, but it’s certainly what a horse is .”
    Tiffany stared at her with her mouth open. For a moment Granny Aching stood there grinning, and then Granny Weatherwax was back. Did she do that, she wondered, or did I do it myself? And do I dare find out?
    “I didn’t just come to bring the hat back,” she managed to say. “I brought you a present, too.”
    “I’m sure there’s no call for anyone to bring me a present,” said Granny Weatherwax, sniffing.
    Tiffany ignored this, because her mind was still spinning. She fetched her sack again and handed over a small, soft parcel, which moved as it changed shape in her hands.
    “I took most of the stuff back to Mr. Stronginthearm,” she said. “But I thought you might have a…a use for this.”
    The old woman slowly unwrapped the white paper. The Zephyr Billow cloak unrolled itself under her fingers and filled the air like smoke.
    “It’s lovely, but I couldn’t wear it,” said Tiffany as the cloak shaped itself over the gentle currents of the clearing. “You need gravitas to carry off a cloak like that.”
    “What’s gravitarse?” said Granny Weatherwax sharply.
    “Oh…dignity. Seniority. Wisdom. Those sorts of things,” said Tiffany.
    “Ah,” said Granny, relaxing a little. She stared at the gently rippling cloak and sniffed. It really was a wonderful creation. The wizards had got at least one thing right when they had made it. It was one of those things that fill a hole in your life that you