Maskerade

It’d make the other jobs a bit more difficult, but there was no help for that. You couldn’t magic iron. And you couldn’t grab a sword without being hurt. If that wasn’t true, the world’d be all over the place.
    Granny made herself some tea, and then boiled up the kettle again. She took a handful of herbs out of a box on the dresser, and dropped them in a bowl with the steaming water. She took a length of clean bandage out of a drawer and set it carefully on the table beside the bowl. She threaded an extremely sharp needle and laid needle and thread beside the bandage. She scooped a fingerful of greenish ointment out of a small tin, and smeared it on a square of lint.
    That seemed to be it.
    She sat down, and rested her arm on the table, palm-up.
    “Well,” she said, to no one in particular, “I reckon I’ve got time now.”

    The privy had to be moved. It was a job Granny preferred to do for herself. There was something incredibly satisfying in digging a very deep hole. It was uncomplicated . You knew where you were with a hole in the ground. Dirt didn’t get strange ideas, or believe that people were honest because they had a steady gaze and a firm handshake. It just lay there, waiting for you to move it. And, after you’d done it, you could sit there in the lovely warm knowledge that it’d be months before you had to do it again.
    It was while she was at the bottom of the hole that a shadow fell across it.
    “Afternoon, Perdita,” she said without looking up.
    She lifted another shovelful to head-height and flung it over the edge.
    “Come home for a visit, have you?” she said.
    She rammed the shovel into the clay at the bottom of the hole again, winced, and forced it down with her foot.
    “Thought you were doing very well in the opera,” she went on. “’Course, I’m not an expert in these things. Good to see young people seeking their fortune in the big city, though.”
    She looked up with a bright, friendly smile.
    “I see you’ve lost a bit of weight, too.” Innocence hung from her words like loops of toffee.
    “I’ve been…taking exercise,” said Agnes.
    “Exercise is a fine thing, certainly,” said Granny, getting back to her digging. “Though they do say you can have too much of it. When are you going back?”
    “I…haven’t decided.”
    “Weeelll, it doesn’t pay to be always planning. Don’t tie yourself down the whole time, I’ve always said that. Staying with your ma, are you?”
    “Yes,” said Agnes.
    “Ah? Only Magrat’s old cottage is still empty. You’d be doing everyone a favor if you aired it out a bit. You know…as long as you’re here.”
    Agnes said nothing. She couldn’t think of anything to say.
    “Funny ole thing,” said Granny, hacking around a particularly troublesome tree root. “I wouldn’t tell everyone, but I was only thinking the other day, about when I was younger and called myself Endemonidia…”
    “You did ? When?”
    Granny rubbed her forehead with her bandaged hand, leaving a clay-red smudge.
    “Oh, for about three, four hours,” she said. “Some names don’t have the stayin’ power. Never pick yourself a name you can’t scrub the floor in.”
    She threw her shovel out of the hole. “Give me a hand up, will you?”
    Agnes did so. Granny brushed the dirt and leaf mold off her apron and tried to stamp the clay off her boots.
    “Time for a cup of tea, eh?” she said. “My, you are looking well. It’s the fresh air. Too much stuffy air in that Opera House, I thought.”
    Agnes tried in vain to detect anything in Granny Weatherwax’s eyes other than transparent honesty and goodwill.
    “Yes. I thought so, too,” she said. “Er…you’ve hurt your hand?”
    “It’ll heal. A lot of things do.”
    She shouldered her shovel and headed toward the cottage; and then, halfway up the path, turned and looked back.
    “This is just me askin’, you understand, in a kind neighborly way, takin’ an interest sort of thing, wouldn’t be human if I didn’t—”
    Agnes sighed. “Yes?”
    “…you got much to do with your evenin’s these days?”
    There was just enough rebellion left in Agnes to put a sarcastic edge on her voice. “Oh? Are you offering to teach me something?”
    “Teach? No,” said Granny. “Ain’t got the patience for teaching. But I might let you learn.”

    “When shall we three meet again?”
    “We haven’t met once , yet.”
    “O’ course we have. I’ve person’ly known you for at