Equal Rites

magic. You just had to learn to ignore them.

    Granny woke with bright sunlight skewering into her eyes. She was slumped against the door, and her whole body felt as though it had toothache.
    She reached out blindly with one hand, found the edge of the washstand, and pulled herself into a sitting position. She was not really surprised to see that the jug and basin looked just the same as they had always done; in fact sheer curiosity overcame her aches and she gave a quick glance under the bed to check that, yes, things were as normal.
    The eagle was still hunched on the bedpost. In the bed Esk was asleep, and Granny saw that it was a true sleep and not the stillness of a vacant body.
    All she had to do now was hope that Esk wouldn’t wake up with an irresistible urge to pounce on rabbits.
    She carried the unresisting bird downstairs and let it free outside the back door. It flew heavily up into the nearest tree, where it settled to rest. It had a feeling it ought to have a grudge against somebody, but for the life of it, it couldn’t remember why.

    Esk opened her eyes and stared for a long time at the ceiling. Over the months she had grown familiar with every lump and crack of the plaster, which created a fantastic upside-down landscape that she had peopled with a private and complex civilization.
    Her mind thronged with dreams. She pulled an arm out from under the sheets and stared at it, wondering why it wasn’t covered with feathers. It was all very puzzling.
    She pushed the covers back, swung her legs to the edge of the bed, spread her wings into the rush of the wind and glided out into the world…
    The thump on the bedroom floor brought Granny scurrying up the stairs, to take her in her arms and hold her tight as the terror hit her. She rocked back and forth on her heels, making meaningless soothing noises.
    Esk looked up at her through a mask of horror.
    “I could feel myself vanishing!”
    “Yes, yes. Better now,” murmured Granny.
    “You don’t understand! I couldn’t even remember my name!” Esk shrieked.
    “But you can remember now.”
    Esk hesitated, checking. “Yes,” she said, “Yes, of course. Now.”
    “So no harm done.”
    “But—”
    Granny sighed. “You have learned something,” she said, and thought it safe to insert a touch of sternness into her voice. “They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it is not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.”
    “But what happened ?”
    “You thought that Borrowing wasn’t enough. You thought it would be a fine thing to steal another’s body. But you must know that a body is like—like a jelly mold. It sets a shape on its contents, d’you see? You can’t have a girl’s mind in an eagle’s body. Not for long, at any rate.”
    “I became an eagle?”
    “Yes.”
    “Not me at all?”
    Granny thought for a while. She always had to pause when conversations with Esk led her beyond the reaches of a decent person’s vocabulary.
    “No,” she said at last, “not in the way you mean. Just an eagle with maybe some strange dreams sometimes. Like when you dream you’re flying, perhaps it would remember walking and talking.”
    “Urgh.”
    “But it’s all over now,” said Granny, treating her to a thin smile. “You’re your true self again and the eagle has got its mind back. It’s sitting in the big beech by the privy; I should like you to put out some food for it.”
    Esk sat back on her heels, staring at a point past Granny’s head.
    “There were some strange things,” she said conversationally. Granny spun around.
    “I meant, in a sort of dream I saw things,” said Esk. The old woman’s shock was so visible that she hesitated, frightened that she had said something wrong.
    “What kind of things?” said Granny flatly.
    “Sort of big creatures, all sorts of shapes. Just sitting around.”
    “Was it dark? I mean, these Things, were they in the dark?”
    “There were stars, I think. Granny?”
    Granny Weatherwax was staring at the wall.
    “Granny?” Esk repeated.
    “Mmph? Yes? Oh.” Granny shook herself. “Yes. I see. Now I would like you to go downstairs and get the bacon that is in the pantry and put it out for the bird, do you understand? It would be a good idea to thank it, too. You never know.”
    When Esk returned Granny was buttering bread. She pulled her stool up to the table, but the old woman waved the breadknife at her.
    “First things first. Stand up. Face me.”
    Esk did so, puzzled. Granny