Witches Abroad

stall.
    “Well, all this is—” she began, turning to Mrs. Pleasant.
    Mrs. Pleasant had gone.
    Some people would have bustled off to look for her in the crowds, but Nanny Ogg just stood and thought.
    I asked about magic, she thought, and she brought me here and left me. Because of them walls with ears in, I expect. So maybe I got to do the rest myself.
    She looked around her. There was a very rough tent a little way from the stalls, right by the river. There was no sign outside it, but there was a pot bubbling gently over a fire. Rough clay bowls were stacked beside the pot. Occasionally someone would step out of the crowd, help themselves to a bowlful of whatever was in the pot, and then throw a handful of coins into the plate in front of the tent.
    Nanny wandered over and looked into the pot. Things came to the surface and sank again. The general color was brown. Bubbles formed, grew, and burst stickily with an organic “blop.” Anything could be happening in that pot. Life could be spontaneously creating.
    Nanny Ogg would try anything once. Some things she’d try several thousand times.
    She unhooked the ladle, picked up a bowl, and helped herself.
    A moment later she pushed aside the tent flap and looked into the blackness of the interior.
    A figure was seated cross-legged in the gloom, smoking a pipe.
    “Mind if I step inside?” said Nanny.
    The figure nodded.
    Nanny sat down. After a decent interval she pulled out her own pipe.
    “Mrs. Pleasant’s a friend of yours, I expect.”
    “She knows me.”
    “Ah.”
    From outside, there was the occasional clink as customers helped themselves.
    Blue smoke coiled from Nanny Ogg’s pipe.
    “I don’t reckon,” she said, “that many people goes away without paying.”
    “No.”
    After another pause Nanny Ogg said: “I ’spects some of ’em tries to pay with gold and jewels and scented ungulants and stuff like that?”
    “No.”
    “Amazin’.”
    Nanny Ogg sat in silence for a while, listening to the distant noises of the market and summoning her powers.
    “What’s it called?”
    “Gumbo.”
    “It’s good.”
    “I know.”
    “I reckon anyone who could cook like that could do anything”—Nanny Ogg concentrated—“Mrs…. Gogol.”
    She waited.
    “Pretty near, Mrs. Ogg.”
    The two women stared at one another’s shadowy outline, like plotters who had given the sign and countersign and were waiting to see what would happen next.
    “Where I come from, we call it witchcraft,” said Nanny, under her breath.
    “Where I come from, we call it voodoo,” said Mrs. Gogol.
    Nanny’s wrinkled forehead wrinkled still further.
    “Ain’t that all messin’ with dolls and dead people and stuff?” she said.
    “Ain’t witchcraft all runnin’ around with no clothes on and stickin’ pins in people?” said Mrs. Gogol levelly.
    “Ah,” said Nanny. “I sees what you mean.”
    She shifted uneasily. She was a fundamentally honest woman.
    “I got to admit, though…” she added, “sometimes…maybe just one pin…”
    Mrs. Gogol nodded gravely. “Okay. Sometimes…maybe just one zombie,” she said.
    “But only when there ain’t no alternative.”
    “Sure. When there ain’t no alternative.”
    “When…you know…people ain’t showing respect, like.”
    “When the house needs paintin’.”
    Nanny grinned, toothily. Mrs. Gogol grinned, outnumbering her in teeth by a factor of thirty.
    “My full name’s Gytha Ogg,” she said. “People calls me Nanny.”
    “My full name’s Erzulie Gogol,” said Mrs. Gogol. “People call me Mrs. Gogol.”
    “The way I saw it,” said Nanny, “this is foreign parts, so maybe there’s a different kind of magic. Stands to reason. The trees is different, the people is different, the drinks is different and has got banana in ’em, so the magic’d be different too. Then I thought…Gytha, my girl, you’re never too old to learn.”
    “Sure thing.”
    “There’s something wrong with this city. Felt it as soon as we set foot here.”
    Mrs. Gogol nodded.
    There was no sound for a while but the occasional puffing of a pipe.
    Then there was a clink from outside, followed by a thoughtful pause.
    A voice said, “Gytha Ogg? I know you’re in there.”
    The outline of Mrs. Gogol took its pipe out of its mouth.
    “That’s good,” she said. “Good sense of taste there.”
    The tent flap opened.
    “Hallo, Esme,” said Nanny Ogg.
    “Blessings be on this…tent,” said Granny Weatherwax, peering into