I Shall Wear Midnight

don’t move,’ said the same voice behind her. ‘The place where you are now has been, as we say, cobbled together for this conversation and did not exist until you arrived here, and will cease to exist the moment you leave. Strictly speaking, by the standards of most philosophical disciplines, it cannot be said to have any existence at all.’
    ‘So it’s a magic place, yes? Like the Unreal Estate?’
    ‘Very sensible way of putting it,’ said the voice of Eskarina. ‘Those of us who know about it call it the travelling now. It’s an easy way to talk to you in private; when it closes, you will be exactly where you were and no time will have passed. Do you understand?’
    ‘No!’
    Eskarina sat down on the grass next to her. ‘Thank goodness for that. It would be rather disturbing if you did. You are, you know, an extremely unusual witch. As far as I can tell, you have a natural talent for making cheese, and as talents go, it is a pretty good talent to have. The world needs cheese-makers. A good cheese-maker is worth her weight in, well, cheese. So you were not born with a talent for witchcraft.’
    Tiffany opened her mouth to reply before she had any idea what she was going to say, but that is not unusual among human beings. The first thing to push through the throng of questions was: ‘Hang on, I was holding a burning brand. But now you have brought me here, wherever here is exactly . What happened?’ She looked at the fire. The flames were frozen. ‘People will notice me,’ she said, and then, given the nature of the situation, she added, ‘Won’t they?’
    ‘The answer is no; the reason is complicated. The travelling now is … tame time. It’s time that is on your side. Believe me, there are stranger things in the universe. Right now, Tiffany, we are truly living on borrowed time.’
    The flames were still frozen. Tiffany felt that they should be cold,but she could feel the warmth. And she had time to think too. ‘And when I go back?’
    ‘Nothing will have changed,’ said Eskarina, ‘except the contents of your head, which are, at the moment, very important.’
    ‘And you’ve gone to all this trouble to tell me I have no talent for witchcraft?’ Tiffany said flatly. ‘That was very kind of you.’
    Eskarina laughed. It was her young laugh, which seemed strange when you saw the wrinkles on her face. Tiffany had never seen an old person looking so young. ‘I said you weren’t born with a talent for witchcraft: it didn’t come easily; you worked hard at it because you wanted it. You forced the world to give it to you, no matter the price, and the price is and will always be, high. Have you heard the saying “the reward you get for digging holes is a bigger shovel”?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Tiffany, ‘I heard Granny Weatherwax say it once.’
    ‘She invented it. People say you don’t find witchcraft; witchcraft finds you. But you’ve found it, even if at the time you didn’t know what it was you were finding, and you grabbed it by its scrawny neck and made it work for you.’
    ‘This is all very … interesting ,’ said Tiffany, ‘but I have got things I must be doing.’
    ‘Not in the travelling now,’ said Eskarina firmly. ‘Look, the Cunning Man has found you again.’
    ‘I think he hides in books and pictures,’ Tiffany volunteered. ‘And tapestries.’ She shuddered.
    ‘And mirrors,’ said Eskarina, ‘and puddles, and the glint of light on a piece of broken glass, or the gleam on a knife. How many ways can you think of? How frightened are you prepared to be?’
    ‘I’m going to have to fight him,’ Tiffany said. ‘I think I knew I would have to. He doesn’t seem to me to be someone you can run away from. He’s a bully, isn’t he? He attacks where he thinks he will win, and so I have to find a way to be stronger than he is. I think I can work out a way – after all, he is a bit like the hiver. And that was really quite easy.’
    Eskarina did not shout; she spoke very quietly and in a way that seemed to make more noise than a scream would have done. ‘Will you persist in not recognizing how important this is, Tiffany Aching the cheese-maker? You have a chance to defeat the Cunning Man, and if you fail, witchcraft fails – and falls with you. He will possess your body, your knowledge, your talents and your soul. And for your own good – and for the good of all – your sister witches will settle their differences and take the pair of you into oblivion before