Witches Abroad

everything—wishing, sub-vocalizing and even, when she’d thought the other witches were out of earshot, banging it against things and shouting, “Anything but pumpkins!”
    “You don’t know how to do it really, do you,” stated the child.
    “Tell me,” said Magrat, “you said your mummy knows about the big bad wolf in the woods, didn’t you?”
    “That’s right.”
    “But nevertheless she sent you out by yourself to take those goodies to your granny?”
    “That’s right. Why?”
    “Nothing. Just thinking. And you owe me a million trillion zillion squillion dollars.”

    There’s a certain freemasonry about grandmothers, with the added benefit that no one has to stand on one leg or recite any oaths in order to join. Once inside the cottage, and with a kettle on the boil, Nanny Ogg was quite at home. Greebo stretched out in front of the meager fire and dozed off as the witches tried to explain.
    “I don’t see how a wolf can get in here, dear,” said the grandmother kindly. “I mean, they’re wolves . They can’t open doors.”
    Granny Weatherwax twitched aside a rag of curtain and glared out at the clearing.
    “We know,” she said.
    Nanny Ogg nodded toward the little bed in an alcove by the fireplace.
    “Is that where you always sleep?” she said.
    “When I’m feeling poorly, dear. Other times I sleeps in the attic.”
    “I should get along up there now, if I was you. And take my cat up with you, will you? We don’t want him getting in the way.”
    “Is this the bit where you clean the house and do all the washing for a saucer of milk?” said the grandmother hopefully.
    “Could be. You never know.”
    “Funny, dear. I was expecting you to be shorter—”
    “We get out in the fresh air a lot,” said Nanny. “Off you go now.”
    That left the two of them. Granny Weatherwax looked around the cave-like room. The rushes on the floor were well on the way to composthood. Soot encrusted the cobwebs on the ceiling.
    The only way housework could be done in this place was with a shovel or, for preference, a match.
    “Funny, really,” said Nanny, when the old woman had climbed the rickety stairs. “She’s younger’n me. Mind you, I take exercise.”
    “You never took exercise in your life,” said Granny Weatherwax, still watching the bushes. “You never did anything you didn’t want to do.”
    “That’s what I mean,” said Nanny happily. “Look, Esme, I still say this could all be just—”
    “It ain’t! I can feel the story. Someone’s been making stories happen in these parts, I know it.”
    “And you know who, too. Don’t you, Esme?” said Nanny slyly.
    She saw Granny look around wildly at the grubby walls.
    “I reckon she’s too poor to afford a mirror,” said Nanny. “I ain’t blind, Esme. And I know mirrors and fairy godmothers go together. So what’s going on?”
    “I ain’t saying. I don’t want to look a fool if I’m wrong. I’m not going to—there’s something coming!”
    Nanny Ogg pressed her nose against the dirty window.
    “Can’t see anything.”
    “The bushes moved. Get into the bed!”
    “Me? I thought it was you who was going into the bed!”
    “Can’t imagine why you’d think that.”
    “No. Come to think of it, neither can I,” said Nanny wearily. She picked up the floppy mob-cap from the bedpost, put it on, and slid under the patchwork quilt.
    “’Ere, this mattress is stuffed with straw!”
    “You won’t have to lie on it for long.”
    “It prickles! And I think there’s things in it.”
    Something bumped against the wall of the house. The witches fell silent.
    There was a snuffling noise under the back door.
    “You know,” whispered Nanny, as they waited, “the scullery’s terrible. There’s no firewood. And there’s hardly any food. And there’s a jug of milk that’s practically on the march—”
    Granny sidled quickly across the room to the fireplace, and then back to her station by the front door.
    After a moment there was a scrabbling at the latch, as if it was being operated by someone who was unfamiliar either with doors or with fingers.
    The door creaked open slowly.
    There was an overwhelming smell of musk and wet fur.
    Uncertain footsteps tottered across the floor and toward the figure huddling under the bedclothes.
    Nanny raised the mob-cap’s floppy frill just enough to see out.
    “Wotcha,” she said, and then, “Oh, blimey, I never realized you had teeth that big—”
    Granny Weatherwax pushed