Witches Abroad

of speakin’,” said Mrs. Gogol.
    “You see, the point is, alligators are—” Granny began, in a loud voice, and then stopped.
    The shack’s door had opened.

    This was another big kitchen. * Once upon a time it had provided employment for half a dozen cooks. Now it was a cave, its far corners shadowy, its hanging saucepans and tureens dulled by dust. The big tables had been pushed to one side and stacked almost ceiling high with ancient crockery; the stoves, which looked big enough to take whole cows and cook for an army, stood cold.
    In the middle of the gray desolation someone had set up a small table by the fireplace. It was on a square of bright carpet. A jam-jar contained flowers that had been arranged by the simple method of grabbing a handful of them and ramming them in. The effect was a little area of slightly soppy brightness in the general gloom.
    Ella shuffled a few things around desperately and then stood looking at Magrat with a sort of defensively shy smile.
    “Silly of me, really. I expect you’re used to this sort of thing,” she said.
    “Um. Yes. Oh, yes. All the time,” said Magrat.
    “It was just that I expected you to be a bit…older? Apparently you were at my christening?”
    “Ah. Yes?” said Magrat. “Well, you see, the thing is—”
    “Still, I expect you can look like whatever you want,” said Ella helpfully.
    “Ah. Yes. Er.”
    Ella looked slightly puzzled for a moment, as if trying to work out why—if Magrat could look like whatever she wanted—she’d chosen to look like Magrat.
    “Well, now,” she said. “What do we do next?”
    “You mentioned tea,” said Magrat, buying time.
    “Oh, sure.” Ella turned to the fireplace, where a blackened kettle hung over what Granny Weatherwax always called an optimist’s fire. *
    “What’s your name?” she said over her shoulder.
    “Magrat,” said Magrat, sitting.
    “That’s a…nice name,” said Ella, politely. “Of course, you know mine. Mind you, I spend so much time cooking over this wretched thing now that Mrs. Pleasant calls me Embers. Silly, isn’t it.”
    Emberella, thought Magrat. I’m fairy godmothering a girl who sounds like something you put up in the rain.
    “It could use a little work,” she conceded.
    “I haven’t the heart to tell her off, she thinks it sounds jolly,” she said. “ I think it sounds like something you put up in the rain.”
    “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” said Magrat. “Uh. Who’s Mrs. Pleasant?”
    “She’s the cook at the palace. She comes around to cheer me up when they’re out…”
    Ella spun around, holding the blackened kettle like a weapon.
    “I’m not going to that ball!” she snapped. “I’m not going to marry the prince! Do you understand?”
    The words came out like steel ingots.
    “Right! Right!” said Magrat, taken aback by their force.
    “He looks slimy. He makes my flesh crawl,” said Embers darkly. “They say he’s got funny eyes. And everyone knows what he does at night!”
    Everyone bar one, Magrat thought. No one ever tells me things like that.
    Aloud, she said: “Well, it shouldn’t be too much to arrange. I mean, normally it’s marrying princes that’s the hard bit.”
    “Not for me it isn’t,” said Embers. “It’s all been arranged. My other godmother says I’ve got to do it. She says it’s my destiny.”
    “Other godmother?” said Magrat.
    “Everyone gets two,” said Ella. “The good one and the bad one. You know that. Which one are you?”
    Magrat’s mind raced.
    “Oh, the good one,” she said. “Definitely.”
    “Funny thing,” said Ella. “That’s just what the other one said, too.”

    Granny Weatherwax sat in her special knees-clenched, elbows-in way that put as little as possible of herself in contact with the outside world.
    “By gor’, this is good stuff,” said Nanny Ogg, polishing her plate with what Granny could only hope was bread. “You ought to try a drop, Esme.”
    “Another helping, Mrs. Ogg?” said Mrs. Gogol.
    “Don’t mind if I do, Mrs. Gogol.” Nanny nudged Granny in the ribs. “It’s really good, Esme. Just like stew.”
    Mrs. Gogol looked at Granny with her head on one side.
    “I think perhaps Mistress Weatherwax isn’t worried about the food,” she said. “I think Mistress Weatherwax is worried about the service.”
    A shadow loomed over Nanny Ogg. A gray hand took her plate away.
    Granny Weatherwax gave a little cough.
    “I’ve got nothing against dead people,” she