Witches Abroad

running—what’s that she’s running, Gytha?” said Granny.
    “Self-defense classes,” said Nanny.
    “But she’s a witch,” Gammer Brevis pointed out.
    “I told her that,” said Granny Weatherwax, who had walked nightly without fear in the bandit-haunted forests of the mountains all her life in the certain knowledge that the darkness held nothing more terrible than she was. “She said that wasn’t the point. Wasn’t the point . That’s what she said.”
    “No one goes to them, anyway,” said Nanny Ogg.
    “ I thought she was going to get married to the king,” said Gammer Brevis.
    “Everyone did,” said Nanny. “But you know Magrat. She tends to be open to ideas. Now she says she refuses to be a sex object.”
    They all thought about this. Finally Gammer Brevis said, slowly, in the manner of one surfacing from the depths of fascinated cogitation, “But she’s never been a sex object.”
    “I’m pleased to say I don’t even know what a sex object is ,” said Granny Weatherwax firmly.
    “I do,” said Nanny Ogg.
    They looked at her.
    “Our Shane brought one home from foreign parts once.”
    They carried on looking at her.
    “It was brown and fat and had beads on and a face and two holes for the string.”
    This didn’t seem to avert their gaze.
    “Well, that’s what he said it was,” said Nanny.
    “I think you’re talking about a fertility idol,” said Gammer Brevis helpfully.
    Granny shook her head.
    “Doesn’t sound much like Magrat to me—” she began.
    “You can’t tell me that’s worth tuppence,” said Old Mother Dismass, from whatever moment of time she was currently occupying.
    No one was ever quite sure which it was.
    It was an occupational hazard for those gifted with second sight. The human mind isn’t really designed to be sent rocketing backward and forward along the great freeway of time and can become, as it were, detached from its anchorage, seeing randomly into the past and the future and only occasionally into the present. Old Mother Dismass was temporally unfocused. This meant that if you spoke to her in August she was probably listening to you in March. It was best just to say something now and hope she’d pick it up next time her mind was passing through.
    Granny waved her hands experimentally in front of Old Mother Dismass’s unseeing eyes.
    “She’s gone again,” she said.
    “Well, if Magrat can’t take it on there’s Millie Hopgood from over Slice way,” said Gammer Brevis. “She’s a hard-working girl. Mind you, she’s got a worse squint than Magrat.”
    “Nothing wrong with that. A squint looks good on a witch,” said Granny Weatherwax.
    “But you have to know how to use it,” said Nanny Ogg. “Old Gertie Simmons used to have a squint and she was always putting the evil influence on the end of her own nose. We can’t have people thinkin’ that if you upset a witch she curses and mutters and then her own nose drops off.”
    They all stared at the fire again.
    “I suppose Desiderata wouldn’t have chosen her own successor?” said Gammer Brevis.
    “Can’t go doin’ that,” said Granny Weatherwax. “That’s not how we do things in these parts.”
    “Yes, but Desiderata didn’t spend much time in these parts. It was the job. She was always going off to foreign parts.”
    “I can’t be having with foreign parts,” said Granny Weatherwax.
    “You’ve been to Ankh-Morpork,” said Nanny mildly. “That’s foreign.”
    “No it’s not. It’s just a long way off. That’s not the same as foreign. Foreign’s where they gabble at you in heathen lingo and eat foreign muck and worship, you know, objects ,” said Granny Weatherwax, goodwill diplomat. “Foreign can be quite close too, if you’re not careful. Huh,” she added witheringly. “Yes, she could bring back just about anything from foreign parts.”
    “She brought me back a nice blue and white plate once,” said Nanny Ogg.
    “That’s a point,” said Gammer Brevis. “Someone’d better go and see to her cottage. She had quite a lot of good stuff there. It’d be dreadful to think of some thief getting in there and having a rummage.”
    “Can’t imagine any thief’d want to break into a witch’s—” Granny began, and then stopped abruptly.
    “Yes,” she said meekly. “Good idea. I’ll see to it directly.”
    “No, I’ll see to it,” said Nanny Ogg, who’d also had time to work something out. “It’s right on my way home. No problem.”
    “No,