Wyrd Sisters

hovering.
    “It does that, yes.”
    “But I shall be strong,” said Magrat.
    “So I should think,” said Granny, her expression suddenly curiously wooden. “What’s Gytha doing?”
    “She’s giving the baby a wash in the sink,” said Magrat vaguely. “How can we hide something like this? What’d happen if we buried it really deeply somewhere?”
    “A badger’d dig it up,” said Granny wearily. “Or someone’d go prospecting for gold or something. Or a tree’d tangle its roots around it and then be blown over in a storm, and then someone’d pick it up and put it on—”
    “Unless they were as strong-minded as us,” Magrat pointed out.
    “Unless that, of course,” said Granny, staring at her fingernails. “Though the thing with crowns is, it isn’t the putting them on that’s the problem, it’s the taking them off.”
    Magrat picked it up and turned it over in her hands.
    “It’s not as though it even looks much like a crown,” she said.
    “You’ve seen a lot, I expect,” said Granny. “You’d be an expert on them, naturally.”
    “Seen a fair few. They’ve got a lot more jewels on them, and cloth bits in the middle,” said Magrat defiantly. “This is just a thin little thing—”
    “Magrat Garlick!”
    “I have. When I was being trained up by Goodie Whemper—”
    “—maysherestinpeace—”
    “—maysherestinpeace, she used to take me over to Razorback or into Lancre whenever the strolling players were in town. She was very keen on the theater. They’ve got more crowns than you can shake a stick at although, mind—” she paused—” Goodie did say they’re made of tin and paper and stuff. And just glass for the jewels. But they look more realler than this one. Do you think that’s strange?”
    “Things that try to look like things often do look more like things than things. Well-known fact,” said Granny. “But I don’t hold with encouraging it. What do they stroll about playing, then, in these crowns?”
    “You don’t know about the theater?” said Magrat.
    Granny Weatherwax, who never declared her ignorance of anything, didn’t hesitate. “Oh, yes,” she said. “It’s one of them style of things, then, is it?”
    “Goodie Whemper said it held a mirror up to life,” said Magrat. “She said it always cheered her up.”
    “I expect it would,” said Granny, striking out. “Played properly, at any rate. Good people, are they, these theater players?”
    “I think so.”
    “And they stroll around the country, you say?” said Granny thoughtfully, looking toward the scullery door.
    “All over the place. There’s a troupe in Lancre now, I heard. I haven’t been because, you know.” Magrat looked down. “’Tis not right, a woman going into such places by herself.”
    Granny nodded. She thoroughly approved of such sentiments so long as there was, of course, no suggestion that they applied to her.
    She drummed her fingers on Magrat’s tablecloth.
    “Right,” she said. “And why not? Go and tell Gytha to wrap the baby up well. It’s a long time since I heard a theater played properly.”

    Magrat was entranced, as usual. The theater was no more than some lengths of painted sacking, a plank stage laid over a few barrels, and half a dozen benches set out in the village square. But at the same time it had also managed to become The Castle, Another Part of the Castle, The Same Part A Little Later, The Battlefield and now it was A Road Outside the City. The afternoon would have been perfect if it wasn’t for Granny Weatherwax.
    After several piercing glares at the three-man orchestra to see if she could work out which instrument the theater was, the old witch had finally paid attention to the stage, and it was beginning to become apparent to Magrat that there were certain fundamental aspects of the theater that Granny had not yet grasped.
    She was currently bouncing up and down on her stool with rage.
    “He’s killed him,” she hissed. “Why isn’t anyone doing anything about it? He’s killed him! And right up there in front of everyone!”
    Magrat held on desperately to her colleague’s arm as she struggled to get to her feet.
    “It’s all right,” she whispered. “He’s not dead!”
    “Are you calling me a liar, my girl?” snapped Granny. “I saw it all!”
    “Look, Granny, it’s not really real, d’you see?”
    Granny Weatherwax subsided a little, but still grumbled under her breath. She was beginning to feel that things were