Wyrd Sisters

this happen,” said Magrat, quickly and loudly. “If this gets about, witches’ll always be old hags with green blusher.”
    “And meddlin’ in the affairs of kings,” said Nanny. “Which we never do, as is well known.”
    “It’s not the meddlin’ I object to,” said Granny Weatherwax, her chin on her hand. “It’s the evil meddling.”
    “And the unkindness to animals,” muttered Magrat. “All that stuff about eye of dog and ear of toad. No one uses that kind of stuff.”
    Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg carefully avoided one another’s faces.
    “Drabe!” said Nanny Ogg bitterly.
    “Witches just aren’t like that,” said Magrat. “We live in harmony with the great cycles of Nature, and do no harm to anyone, and it’s wicked of them to say we don’t. We ought to fill their bones with hot lead.”
    The other two looked at her with a certain amount of surprised admiration. She blushed, although not greenly, and looked at her knees.
    “Goodie Whemper did a recipe,” she confessed. “It’s quite easy. What you do is, you get some lead, and you—”
    “I don’t think that would be appropriate,” said Granny carefully, after a certain amount of internal struggle. “It could give people the wrong idea.”
    “But not for long,” said Nanny wistfully.
    “No, we can’t be having with that sort of thing,” said Granny, a little more firmly this time. “We’d never hear the last of it.”
    “Why don’t we just change the words?” said Magrat. “When they come back on stage we could just put the ’fluence on them so they forget what they’re saying, and give them some new words.”
    “I suppose you’re an expert at theater words?” said Granny sarcastically. “They’d have to be the proper sort, otherwise people would suspect.”
    “Shouldn’t be too difficult,” said Nanny Ogg dismissively. “I’ve been studyin’ it. You go tumpty-tumpty-tumpty.”
    Granny gave this some consideration.
    “There’s more to it than that, I believe,” she said. “Some of those speeches were very good. I couldn’t understand hardly any of it.”
    “There’s no trick to it at all,” Nanny Ogg insisted. “Anyway, half of them are forgetting their lines as it is. It’ll be easy.”
    “We could put words in their mouths?” said Magrat.
    Nanny Ogg nodded. “I don’t know about new words,” she said. “But we can make them forget these words.”
    They both looked at Granny Weatherwax. She shrugged.
    “I suppose it’s worth a try,” she conceded.
    “Witches as yet unborn will thank us for it,” said Magrat ardently.
    “Oh, good,” said Granny.
    “At last! What are you three playing at? We’ve been looking for you everywhere!”
    The witches turned to see an irate dwarf trying to loom over them.
    “Us?” said Magrat. “But we’re not in—”
    “Oh yes you are, remember, we put it in last week. Act Two, Downstage, around the cauldron. You haven’t got to say anything. You’re symbolizing occult forces at work. Just be as wicked as you can. Come on, there’s good lads. You’ve done well so far.”
    Hwel slapped Magrat on the bottom. “Good complexion you’ve got there, Wilph,” he said encouragingly. “But for goodness’ sake use a bit more padding, you’re still the wrong shape. Fine warts there, Billem. I must say,” he added, standing back, “you look as nasty a bunch of hags as a body might hope to clap eyes on. Well done. Shame about the wigs. Now run along. Curtain up in one minute. Break a leg.”
    He gave Magrat another ringing slap on her rump, slightly hurting his hand, and hurried off to shout at someone else.
    None of the witches dared to speak. Magrat and Nanny Ogg found themselves instinctively turning toward Granny.
    She sniffed. She looked up. She looked around. She looked at the brightly lit stage behind her. She brought her hands together with a clap that echoed around the castle, and then rubbed them together.
    “Useful,” she said grimly. “Let’s do the show right here.”
    Nanny squinted sullenly after Hwel. “Break your own leg,” she muttered.

    Hwel stood in the wings and gave the signal for the curtains. And for the thunder.
    It didn’t come.
    “Thunder!” he hissed, in a voice heard by half the audience. “Get on with it!”
    A voice from behind the nearest pillar wailed, “I went and bent the thunder, Hwel! It just goes clonk-clonk!”
    Hwel stood silent for a moment, counting. The company watched him, awestruck but not,