Wintersmith

pulling at the cork on the bottle. “It wiggles away there and I laughs at it.” The cork popped out. Suddenly, the room smelled of apples.
    “It’s gettin’ big,” said Nanny. “Mistress Weatherwax will be along tonight to take it away.”
    “Right you are, missus,” said the old man, filling a mug to the brim.
    “Try not to shoot her, all right? It only makes her mad.”
    It was snowing again when they stepped out of the cottage, big feathery flakes that meant business.
    “I reckon that’s it for today,” Nanny announced. “I’ve got things to see to over in Slice, but we’ll take the stick tomorrow.”
    “That arrow he fired at us—” said Tiffany.
    “Imaginary,” said Nanny Ogg, smiling.
    “It looked real for a moment!”
    Nanny Ogg chuckled. “It’s amazing what Esme Weatherwax can make people imagine!”
    “Like traps for Death?”
    “Oh, yes. Well, it gives the old boy an interest in life. He’s on his way to the Door. But at least Esme’s seen to it that there’s no pain.”
    “Because it’s floating over his shoulder?” said Tiffany.
    “Yep. She put it just outside his body for him, so it don’t hurt,” said Nanny, the snow crunching under her feet.
    “I didn’t know you could do that!”
    “I can do it for small stuff, toothaches and the like. Esme’s the champion for it, though. We’re none of us too proud to call her in. Y’know, she’s very good at people. Funny, really, ’cuz she doesn’t like ’em much.”
    Tiffany glanced at the sky, and Nanny was the kind of inconvenient person who notices everything .
    “Wondering if lover boy is goin’ to drop in?” she said with a big grin.
    “Nanny! Really!”
    “But you are, aren’t you?” said Nanny, who knew no shame. “O’ course, he’s always around, when you think about it. You’re walking through him, you feel him on your skin, you stamp him off your boots when you go indoors—”
    “Just don’t talk like that, please?” said Tiffany.
    “Besides, what’s time to an elemental?” Nanny chattered. “And I suppose snowflakes don’t just make themselves, especially when you’ve got to get the arms and legs right….”
    She’s looking at me out of the corner of her eye to see if I’m going red, Tiffany thought. I know it.
    Then Nanny nudged her in the ribs and laughed one of her laughs that would make a rock blush.
    “Good for you!” she said. “I’ve had a few boyfriends myself that I’d have loved to stamp off my boots!”

    Tiffany was just getting ready for bed that night when she found a book under her pillow.
    The title, in fiery red letters, was Passion’s Plaything by Marjory J. Boddice, and in smaller print were the words: Gods and Men said their love was not to be, but they would not listen!! A tortured tale of a tempestuous romance by the author of Sundered Hearts !!!
    The cover showed, up close, a young woman with dark hair and clothes that were a bit on the skimpy side in Tiffany’s opinion, both hair and clothes blowing in the wind. She looked desperately determined, and also a bit chilly. A young man on a horse was watching her some distance away. It appeared that a thunderstorm was blowing up.
    Strange. There was a library stamp inside, and Nanny didn’t use the library. Well, it wouldn’t hurt to read a bit before blowing the candle out.
    Tiffany turned to page one. And then to page two. When she got to page nineteen she went and fetched the Unexpurgated Dictionary.
    She had older sisters and she knew some of this, she told herself. But Marjory J. Boddice had got some things laughably wrong. Girls on the Chalk didn’t often run away from a young man who was rich enough to own his own horse—or not for long and not without giving him a chance to catch up. And Megs, the heroine of the book, clearly didn’t know a thing about farming. No young man would be interested in a woman who couldn’t dose a cow or carry a piglet. What kind of help would she be around the place? Standing around with lips like cherries wouldn’t get the cows milked or the sheep sheared!
    And that was another thing. Did Marjory J. Boddice know anything about sheep? This was a sheep farm in the summertime, wasn’t it? So when did they shear the sheep? The second most important occasion in a sheep farm’s year and it wasn’t worth mentioning?
    Of course, they might have a breed like Habbakuk Polls or Lowland Cobbleworths that didn’t need shearing, but these were rare and any sensible author