Witches Abroad

god-daughter up and down. She was the most attractive young woman Magrat had ever seen—skin as brown as a nut, hair so blond as to be almost white, a combination not totally unusual in such an easygoing city as Genua had once been.
    What were you supposed to say at a time like this?
    She removed a piece of potato peel from her nose.
    “I’m your fairy godmother,” she said. “Funny thing, it sounds silly now I come to tell someone—”
    Ella peered at her.
    “ You? ”
    “Um. Yes. I’ve got the wand, and everything.” Magrat waggled the wand, in case this helped. It didn’t.
    Ella put her head on one side.
    “I thought you people were supposed to appear in a shower of glittering little lights and a twinkly noise,” she said suspiciously.
    “Look, you just get the wand,” said Magrat desperately. “You don’t get a whole book of instructions.”
    Ella gave her another searching look. Then she said, “I suppose you’d better come in, then. You’re just in time. I was making a cup of tea, anyway.”

    The iridescent women got into an open-topped carriage. Beautiful as they were, Granny noted, they walked awkwardly.
    Well, they would. They wouldn’t be used to legs.
    She also noticed the way people didn’t look at the carriage. It wasn’t that they didn’t see it. It was simply that they wouldn’t let their gaze dwell on it, as if merely recognizing it would lead them into trouble.
    And she noticed the coach horses. They had better senses than the humans did. They knew what was behind them, and they didn’t like it at all.
    She followed them as they trotted, flat-eared and wild-eyed, through the streets. Eventually they were driven into the driveway of a big and dilapidated house near the palace.
    Granny lurked by the wall and noted the details. Plaster was dropping off the house walls, and even the knocker had fallen off the door.
    Granny Weatherwax did not believe in atmospheres. She did not believe in psychic auras. Being a witch, she’d always thought, depended more on what you didn’t believe. But she was prepared to believe that there was something very unpleasant in that house. Not evil . The two not-exactly-women weren’t evil, in the same way that a dagger or a sheer cliff isn’t evil. Being evil means being able to make choices. But the hand wielding a dagger or pushing a body over a cliff could be evil, and something like that was going on.
    She really wished that she didn’t know who was behind it.

    People like Nanny Ogg turn up everywhere. It’s as if there’s some special morphic generator dedicated to the production of old women who like a laugh and aren’t averse to the odd pint, especially of some drink normally sold in very small glasses. You find them all over the place, often in pairs. *
    They tend to attract one another. Possibly they broadcast inaudible signals indicating that here is someone who could be persuaded to go “Ooo” at pictures of other people’s grandchildren.
    Nanny Ogg had found a friend. Her name was Mrs. Pleasant, she was a cook, and she was the first black person Nanny had ever spoken to. * She was also a cook of that very superior type who spends most of the time holding court in a chair in the center of the kitchen, apparently taking very little heed of the activity going on around her.
    Occasionally she’d give an order. And they’d only need to be occasionally, because she’d seen to it over the years that people either did things her way or not at all. Once or twice, with some ceremony, she’d get up, taste something, and maybe add a pinch of salt.
    Such people are always ready to chat to any wandering peddlers, herbalists, or little old women with cats on their shoulders. Greebo rode on Nanny’s shoulder as though he’d just eaten the parrot.
    “You be a-comin’ here for Fat Lunchtime, then?” said Mrs. Pleasant.
    “Helping a friend with a bit of business,” said Nanny. “My, these biscuits are tasty.”
    “I means, I see by your eye,” said Mrs. Pleasant, pushing the plate nearer to her, “that you are of a magical persuasion.”
    “Then you sees a lot further than most people in these parts,” said Nanny. “Y’know, what’d improve these biscuits no end’d be something to dip ’em in, what d’you think?”
    “How ’bout something with bananas in it?”
    “Bananas would be just the thing,” said Nanny happily. Mrs. Pleasant waved imperiously at one of the maids, who set to work.
    Nanny sat on her chair,