Witches Abroad

stifling air, causing the coat to flap gently.
    Greebo remembered a day when he’d chased a rat into the village windmill and had suddenly found that what had seemed merely a room with odd furniture in it was a great big machine which would, if he put a paw wrong, crush him utterly.
    The air sizzled gently. He could feel his fur standing on end.
    Greebo turned and stalked away haughtily, until he judged himself out of sight, whereupon his legs spun so fast that his paws skidded.
    Then he went and grinned at some alligators, but his heart wasn’t in it.
    In the clearing, the coat moved gently again and then was still. Somehow, that was worse.
    Legba watched. The air grew heavier, just as it does before a storm.

    “This used to be a great old city. A happy place. No one tried to make it happy. It just happened, all by itself,” said Mrs. Gogol. “That was when the old Baron was alive. But he was murdered.”
    “Who done it?” said Nanny Ogg.
    “Everyone knows it was the Duc,” said Mrs. Gogol.
    The witches looked at one another. Royal intrigues were obviously a bit different in foreign parts.
    “Pecked to death, was he?” said Nanny.
    “A foul deed?” said Granny.
    “The Duc is a title, not a bird,” said Mrs. Gogol patiently. “The Baron was poisoned. It was a terrible night. And, in the morning, the Duc was in the palace. Then there was the matter of the will.”
    “Don’t tell me,” said Granny. “I bet there was a will leaving everything to this Duc. I bet the ink was still wet.”
    “How did you know that?” said Mrs. Gogol.
    “Stands to reason,” said Granny loftily.
    “The Baron had a young daughter,” said Mrs. Gogol.
    “She’d be still alive, I reckon,” said Granny.
    “You surely know a lot of things, lady,” said Mrs. Gogol. “Why’d you think that, then?”
    “Well…” said Granny. She was about to say: because I know how the stories work. But Nanny Ogg interrupted.
    “If this Baron was as great as you say, he must have had a lot of friends in the city, right?” she said.
    “That is so. The people liked him.”
    “Well, if I was a Duc with no more claim on things than a smudgy will and a little bottle of ink with the cork still out, I’d be lookin’ for any chance to make things a bit more official,” said Nanny. “Marryin’ the real heir’d be favorite. He could thumb his nose at everyone, then. I bet she don’t know who she really is, eh?”
    “That’s right,” said Mrs. Gogol. “The Duc’s got friends, too. Or keepers, maybe. Not people you’d want to cross. They’ve brought her up, and they don’t let her out much.”
    The witches sat in silence for a while.
    Granny thought: no. That’s not quite right. That’s how it’d appear in a history book. But that’s not the story .
    Then Granny said, “’Scuse me, Mrs. Gogol, but where do you come in all this? No offense, but I reckon that out here in the swamp it’d be all the same whoever was doing the rulin’.”
    For the first time since they’d met her, Mrs. Gogol looked momentarily uneasy.
    “The Baron was…a friend of mine,” she said.
    “Ah,” said Granny understandingly.
    “He wasn’t keen on zombies, mark you. He said he thought the dead should be allowed their rest. But he never insisted. Whereas this new one…
    “Not keen on the Interestin’ Arts?” said Nanny.
    “Oh, I reckon he is,” said Granny. “He’d have to be. Not your magic, maybe, but I bet he’s got a lot of magic around him.”
    “Why d’you say that, lady?” said Mrs. Gogol.
    “Well,” said Nanny, “I can see that you, being a lady o’ spirit, wouldn’t put up with this if you didn’t have to. There’s lots of ways to sort matters out, I ’spect. I ’spect, if you dint like someone, their legs might unexpectedly drop off, or they might find mysterious snakes in their boots…”
    “Alleygators under their bed,” suggested Granny.
    “Yes. He’s got protection,” said Mrs. Gogol.
    “Ah.”
    “Powerful magic.”
    “More powerful’n you?” said Granny.
    There was a long and difficult pause.
    “Yes.”
    “Ah.”
    “For now,” Mrs. Gogol added.
    There was another pause. No witch ever liked admitting to less than near-absolute power, or even hearing another witch doing so.
    “You’re biding your time, I expect,” said Granny kindly.
    “Wifing your strength,” said Nanny.
    “It’s powerful protection,” said Mrs. Gogol.
    Granny sat back in her chair. When she spoke next, it was as