Wintersmith

search for humans. You became one! It was so hard to do it as an elemental; it was hard even to recognize a human in the churning thing-ness of the physical world. But a human could talk to other humans with the holes for the sound. He could talk to them and they would not suspect!
    And now that he was human, there would be no going back. King Winter!
    All he needed was a queen.

    Tiffany woke up because someone was shaking her.
    “Tiffany!”
    She’d gone to sleep in Nanny Ogg’s cottage with her head against the Cornucopia. From somewhere close there was a strange pif noise, like a dry drip. Pale-blue snowlight filled the room.
    As she opened her eyes, Granny Weatherwax was gently pushing her back into her chair.
    “You’ve been sleeping since nine o’clock, my girl,” she said. “Time to go home, I think.”
    Tiffany looked around. “I am here, aren’t I?” she said, feeling dizzy.
    “No, this is Nanny Ogg’s house. And this is a bowl of soup—”
    Tiffany woke up. There was a blurry bowl of soup in front of her. It looked…familiar.
    “When did you last sleep in a bed?” said a wavering, shadowy figure.
    Tiffany yawned. “What day is this?”
    “Tuesday,” said Granny Weatherwax.
    “Mmm…what’s a Tuesday?”
    Tiffany woke up for the third time and was grabbed and pulled upright.
    “There,” said the voice of Granny Weatherwax. “This time stay awake. Drink soup. Get warm. You need to go home.”
    This time Tiffany’s stomach took control of a hand and a spoon and, by degrees, Tiffany warmed up.
    Granny Weatherwax sat opposite, the kitten You on her lap, watching Tiffany until the soup was gone.
    “I expected too much from you,” she said. “I’d hoped that as the days grew longer, you’d find more power. That ain’t no fault of yours.”
    The pif noises were getting more frequent. Tiffany looked down and saw barley dripping out of the Cornucopia. The number of grains increased even as she watched.
    “You set it on barley before you fell asleep,” said Granny. “It slows right down when you’re tired. Just as well, really, otherwise we’d have been eaten alive by chickens.”
    “It’s about the only thing I’ve got right,” said Tiffany.
    “Oh, I don’t know. Annagramma Hawkin seems to be showing promise. Lucky in her friends, from what I hears.” If Miss Treason had tried to play poker against Granny Weatherwax’s face, she would have lost.
    The patter of the new grains suddenly became much louder in the silence.
    “Look, I—” Tiffany began.
    Granny sniffed. “I’m sure no one has to explain themselves to me ,” she said virtuously. “Will you promise me that you’ll go home? A couple of coaches got through this morning, and I hear it’s not too bad yet, down on the plains. You go back to your Chalk country. You’re the only witch they’ve got.”
    Tiffany sighed. She did want to go home, more than anything. But it would be like running away.
    “It might be like running to,” said Granny, picking up her old habit of replying to something that hadn’t actually been said.
    “I’ll go tomorrow then,” said Tiffany.
    “Good.” Granny stood up. “Come with me. I wants to show you something.”
    Tiffany followed her through a snow tunnel that came out near the edge of the forest. The snow had been packed down here by people dragging firewood home, and once you got a little way from the edge of the forest, the drifts weren’t too bad; a lot of snow hung in the trees, filling the air with cold blue shadows.
    “What are we looking for?” asked Tiffany.
    Granny Weatherwax pointed.
    There was a splash of green in the white and gray. It was young leaves on an oak sapling a couple of feet high. When Tiffany crunched her way through the snow crust and reached out to touch it, the air felt warm.
    “Do you know how you managed that?” asked Granny.
    “No!”
    “Me neither. I couldn’t do it. You did, girl. Tiffany Aching.”
    “It’s just one tree,” said Tiffany.
    “Ah, well. You have to start small, with oak trees.”
    They stared in silence at the tree for a few moments. The green seemed to reflect off the snow around it. Winter stole color, but the tree glowed.
    “And now we’ve all got things to do,” said Granny, breaking the spell. “You, I believe, would normally be heading for Miss Treason’s old place about now. I’d expect no less of you….”

    There was a coaching inn. It was busy, even at this time in the morning. The Fast Mail