Equal Rites

under her complicated strata of vests and petticoats there was some skin, that didn’t mean to say she approved of it.
    The tree finished its monologue.
    Granny waited until she was quite sure that it wasn’t going to add anything, and said, That’s witchcraft, is it?
    Its theoretical basis, yes .
    You wizards certainly get some funny ideas .
    The tree said, Not a wizard any more, just a tree .
    Granny ruffled her feathers.
    Well, just you listen to me, Mr. so-called Theoretical Basis Tree, if women were meant to be wizards they’d be able to grow long white beards and she is not going to be a wizard, is that quite clear, wizardry is not the way to use magic, do you hear, it’s nothing but lights and fire and meddling with power and she’ll be having no part of it and good night to you.
    The owl swooped away from the branch. It was only because it would interfere with the flying that Granny wasn’t shaking with rage. Wizards! They talked too much and pinned spells down in books like butterflies but, worst of all, they thought theirs was the only magic worth practicing.
    Granny was absolutely certain of one thing. Women had never been wizards, and they weren’t about to start now.

    She arrived back at the cottage in the pale shank of the night. Her body, at least, was rested after its slumber in the hay, and Granny had hoped to spend a few hours in the rocking chair, putting her thoughts in order. This was the time, when night wasn’t quite over but day hadn’t quite begun, when thoughts stood out bright and clear and without disguise. She…
    The staff was leaning against the wall, by the dresser.
    Granny stood quite still.
    “I see,” she said at last. “So that’s the way of it, is it? In my own house, too?”
    Moving very slowly, she walked over to the inglenook, threw a couple of split logs on to the embers of the fire, and pumped the bellows until the flames roared up the chimney.
    When she was satisfied she turned, muttered a few precautionary protective spells under her breath, and grabbed the staff. It didn’t resist; she nearly fell over. But now she had it in her hands, and felt the tingle of it, the distinctive thunderstorm crackle of the magic in it, and she laughed.
    It was as simple as this, then. There was no fight in it now.
    Calling down a curse upon wizards and all their works she raised the staff above her head and brought it down with a clang across the firedogs, over the hottest part of the fire.
    Esk screamed. The sound bounced down through the bedroom floorboards and scythed through the dark cottage.
    Granny was old and tired and not entirely clear about things after a long day, but to survive as a witch requires an ability to jump to very large conclusions and as she stared at the staff in the flames and heard the scream her hands were already reaching for the big black kettle. She upended it over the fire, dragged the staff out of the cloud of steam, and ran upstairs, dreading what she might see.
    Esk was sitting up in the narrow bed, unsinged but shrieking. Granny took the child in her arms and tried to comfort her; she wasn’t sure how one went about it, but a distracted patting on the back and vague reassuring noises seemed to work, and the screams became wails and, eventually, sobs. Here and there Granny could pick out words like “fire” and “hot,” and her mouth set in a thin, bitter line.
    Finally she settled the child down, tucked her in, and crept quietly down stairs.
    The staff was back against the wall. She was not surprised to see that the fire hadn’t marked it at all.
    Granny turned her rocking chair to face it, and sat down with her chin in her hand and an expression of grim determination.
    Presently the chair began to rock, of its own accord. It was the only sound in a silence that thickened and spread and filled the room like a terrible dark fog.

    Next morning, before Esk got up, Granny hid the staff in the thatch, well out of harm’s way.
    Esk ate her breakfast and drank a pint of goat’s milk without the least sign of the events of the last twenty-four hours. It was the first time she had been inside Granny’s cottage for more than a brief visit, and while the old woman washed the dishes and milked the goats she made the most of her implied license to explore.
    She found that life in the cottage wasn’t entirely straightforward. There was the matter of the goats’ names, for example.
    “But they’ve got to have names!” she said.