Thelma and Louise do Outer Space Ficathon entry
Title: The Good, the Bad and the Other One
Author: Sarah Ellen Parsons
Rating: PG, gen
Request Answered: Discworld, ANY Discworld.
Recipient: Finisterre No pressure, there.
Summary: Witches are witches, no matter how small.
Author Notes: If this continues to suck, it has nothing to do with the valiant efforts above and beyond the call of machete beta by Kellychenault And some of the very best things in here were her ideas in the first place.
Granny Weatherwax had always reckoned most people were troublesome and vexing creatures who mostly went around making noise and doing things that weren’t good for them. Then they all came back to Granny to ask her to sort it out and make it all better.
While that was, by definition, Granny’s job, sorting out other people’s problems, it didn’t mean she had to be pleased to see people making trouble for themselves and others.
It particularly irritated her when somebody went out of their way to make trouble. Most people just came by trouble naturally, in the normal course of living. But then there were the other ones, the ones that brewed it up like poison in their hearts and then spat it out at passers by.
That seemed to be what she was dealing with now. It had the definite look of deliberate trouble about it, the kind that people with trouble on the brain thought up to harm others.
And if there was one thing that Granny’s sort of witch disliked it was those that spent their time harming when there was so much else that needed doing. You had to have a special kind of time on your hands to waste it thinking up petty bits of nastiness to pull on those around you. There was no good use for people like that.
What Granny always had good use for were goats. Goats were, quite literally, her bread and butter. Or at least her milk, cheese and butter. And right now, hers had quite clearly been hexed. To Granny’s not-inexpert eyes it was quite a workman like job as well.
The goats were, at present, behaving in a quite ungoaty manner. They appeared to be trying their best to have a tea party, near as Granny could figure. They’d set up some old tins on the stump from the elm that had got struck by lightning a few years back on top of some scrap of fabric they’d found somewhere and, while one of them had found some old hat maybe from a scarecrow and was lordin’ it over the others, the rest had tried to fashion hats for themselves and mostly looked like they were wearing haystacks on their heads, cloven hooves not being well set-up for fashioning hats. They were sitting in a circle around the stump and Granny was horrified to see that they’d somehow got ahold of her kettle. One of them was just about to try to pour.
It was more than clear that they’d been hexed good and proper. That was a pretty complicated hex, making something think it was something it wasn’t. Most creatures had a hard time thinking they were what they were. Making something believe something that wasn’t real was real was the next step before you got up to borrowing. It took both power and control to do a hex like that; your average witch couldn’t manage it. She could count on one hand them that knew how in Lancre.
There were a fairly large number of candidates in the Ramtops who had the ability to put a pretty good hex on a goat, but the puzzling thing was who would have directed that kind of a hex at Granny’s goats.
As a rule, and it was a Rule, people knew better than to trouble Granny or Granny’s things. No one local could have done it.
There was really only one way to find out what had happened with the goats. Granny caught the nearest one, a fat mean old nanny that had enough whiskers and few enough teeth that it reminded her well enough of another nanny who lived thereabouts. It started to bleat pitifully, as its sad haystack hat slipped down over its ear. “Ah, quiet, you,” Granny growled and borrowed it.
Now the goat is intelligent enough as animals go, but its main concerns are eating, getting into places it shouldn’t get into in order to find things to eat and eating things it shouldn’t. Granny had to sort through a whole lot of thoughts of apples and herbs and grass and the midden and the occasional kid before she got down to the shape of a human who wasn’t Granny in the nanny goat’s mind.
“Humph,” said Granny, as she let go of the goat. “Best be gettin’ on to town, then.”
She gave the goats a hard stare and released the hex they were under and then strode off to the house to take off her apron and put on her hat.
Nanny Ogg could feel something coming. She had always been one of those women who were known in some places as “sensitives”. And mostly what she was sensitive to was when her neighbors were setting down to tea or a meal where there’d be enough for her and how other people were feeling. And right now, her special sense could tell that something big was coming, striding down from the Ramtops on hobnail boots like a Colossus in a pointed hat.
Granny Weatherwax was in, what might have been termed in lesser women, a tizzy. But in Granny it was much more akin to a full blown thunderstorm with the potential for devastating hail and possibly cluster tornadoes.
And Nanny was worried besides wondering what internal storm was blowing Granny down the path to town, because Greebo hadn’t come home that morning for the third day running. She had absolutely no idea where he could have got to. She’d have to go look for him after she found out what Granny wanted.
Nanny gave a little sigh and took the kettle off the stove just in time for Granny’s knock on the front door.
“Best come in Esme, I can tell you have a powerful lot to say,” Nanny said, putting the kettle on the brass trivet her grandson had sent home from foreign parts.
“So you know about the unfortunate incident, then?” Granny said, in tones so clipped they barely made it out of her mouth at all.
“Not ‘xactly,” Nanny said. “But I reckon it must have been somethin’ serious to bring you all the way down to town when it ain’t even market day.”
“Somebody’s bothered me goats,” Granny said. “But that ain’t the real problem. The problem is that it were done with magic and with more than a fair amount of talent, and by someone I ain’t never seen before.”
“So you’re down here hopin’ to run into this person?” Nanny asked, pouring the contents of the kettle into the pot to steep.
“No, I figgerd I’d save myself some time by just askin’ you who here was diff'rent,” Granny said. “She was too little to have come from far and I know all the children in the villages up by me. That leaves town. And there’s nothin’ in town that you don’t know about.”
“What’re you sayin’, Esme?” Nanny asked. “It were some child that went all the way up to your cottage and did somethin’ to your goats?”
“Yep,” said Granny sitting down at the kitchen table like she owned it, even though hers would never have contained a table cloth trimmed with lace from Uberwald or embroidered with cheerful bluebells like Nanny’s did. She folded her arms across what passed for her chest. “She hexed ‘em. A creditable hex and her nomore than ten or eleven years old.”
“Oh, surely not,” Nanny said. “That’s much too young to be even thinking about witchin’, let alone doin’ something about it. Most ones that age haven’t even noticed boys.”
“All the more time to spend on important things, then,” Granny said primly. “But the question is, have you seen a child like this?”
“Not just one,” Nanny said, putting out the pot and cups. She turned around then and got out the sugar bowl, because she knew that Granny would want to be fortified before she went off to do whatever she was going to do.
“If you tell me ther’re twins, I’ll tell you to pull the other one,” Granny said.
“Nothing like twins,” Nanny told her, sitting down and pouring tea into both cups. “Couldn’t be two more different little girls on the Disc.”
“Then which one looks like the sort that would come all the way up the mountain to hex her some goats?” Granny said, dumping the majority of the sugar bowl into her tea in the vain hope that it would bring on spots or rot a tooth.
“You think the goats was what it was about, do you?”
“’Course not, Gytha,” Granny said. “It was obviously a message. A shot across the bow. A stupid shot.”
“Or maybe it was a cry for help, Esme,” Nanny said quietly.
“To be put out of her mis’ry, you mean?” Granny said raising an eyebrow as she sipped her tea.
“Maybe,” Nanny said, thoughtfully. “If she’s the one I’m thinkin’ she is, that could be a part of it.”
Granny looked thoughtfully into her tea. “That don’t sound too promisin’, Gytha.”
“Promisin’ for what,” Nanny asked, knowing Granny was going to tell her, but also knowing she wasn’t going to tell her without some prompting first.
“Well, hexin’ somebody’s goats is promisin’ somethin’, ain’t it?” Granny said. “And I was figuring that someone who made that kind of a promise should be made to keep it one way or t’other.”
“But now that you know it’s a little girl…” Nanny said suggestively, though there were few enough things Nanny ever said that weren’t suggestive of something or other.
“Children are about the meanest creatures on the disc, Gytha Ogg, as you well know, havin’ had fifteen of them yourself and havin’ been one of the meanest wee lasses in bootleather ‘till you found that getting’ along with folks got you more of what you wanted.” Granny said. “So don’t think I’d be comin’ over all romantic about the sweet innocence of children or somesuch nonsense. I wouldn’t do ‘em harm, o’course, but teachin’ ‘em a needed lesson ain’t harmful.”
“So what makes you think you won’t give her a lesson, then?” Nanny asked.
“I never said I wouldn’t,” Granny told her. “I just think it might need to be a different lesson than the one I’d planned.”
Granny finished her tea and put down the cup. She fixed Nanny with a very Granny Weatherwaxish sort of stare, all steel blue and no nonsense.
“So Gytha, tell me everythin’ you know about these girls.”
Agnes could count on one hand the times when both of them had shown up at her door. Nanny and Granny like a two-headed bad penny turning up inexplicably to tails. Just her luck.
“Would you like to…” Agnes began as Granny pushed past her into the main room of the cottage, stopping in the middle of the floor with her hands on her hips, like she owned it and not Agnes. She and Nanny both had a tendency to do that, witches weren’t, as a rule, terribly concerned about the whole concept of personal property, but at least when Nanny came in she didn’t fill up the whole space until Agnes felt like she wanted to walk outside so it was easier to breathe.
Maybe that was why they always had their meetings up by the standing stones. Outside was the only place big enough to hold Granny Weatherwax.
“Nasty old hag, what does she want?” said Perdita in her head.
“What we’ve got here, Agnes, is a delicate situation,” Granny said, without turning around. “And it’s one that, I think, requires somebody who is… well… who is…eh…”
“Who ain’t Granny or me,” Nanny said helpfully.
“Oh, that’s why they’re here,” Perdita said. “They need something. Typical.”
“What situation?” Agnes asked.
“We have a situation with a witch,” Nanny said.
“One who ain’t us or one of ours,” Granny added. “One who is, in fact, foreign and filled with a lot of foreign ideas.”
“Foreign ain’t all bad, Esme,” Nanny said. “You quite liked some of it, I recall.”
Granny gave Nanny a hard stare and went on with what she was saying.
“A bit like that Diamanda and the rest of that lot you used to run with, in fact,” Granny sniffed superiorly and looked down her long and rather hooked nose at Agnes, who had long ago put aside her black lace gloves with the fingers cut out in favor of the traditional pointy hat. “Head stuffed with a lot of things found in books, and not just harmless herbs and the like, like all them up there that Magrat and Goodie Whemper used to look at. That ain’t harmful. It don’t twist your head around and put a blight on your soul. But who knows what nonsense you can find in them foreign books. You seen what it done to your friend.”
“And so we need somebody who can talk to somebody like Diamanda was and that ain’t us,” Nanny said.
“Nanny, who are you talking about? There’s nobody around here like that,” Agnes said. “Susan has married Matty Hadcock over from Slice and Violet went off to Ankh-Morpork to become a seamstress, and the rest are all hereabouts being perfectly ordinary. I mean, they saw what the, you know, the Queen and her lot were like and learned their lesson,” Agnes said.
“You been down to town lately?” Nanny asked. “I ain’t seen you.”
“No, it’s been really busy this spring. All sorts of people needing help,” Agnes said. It was still a wonder to Agnes that as soon as she’d put on the pointy hat everyone had come running to her with their sore throats and sprained ankles and marital trouble just like she was a regular witch. Like she was no different than Granny or Nanny or even Magrat before she’d gone to be Queen. But the fact was that even though Agnes had read through as many of Goodie Whemper’s books as she could stomach and had gone with Nanny to a number of births, it wasn’t as though there was anything like a formal training program for witches. Especially as Magrat had given it up before Agnes had ever come on. At least Magrat had apprenticed to Goodie Whemper for several years before she’d had to do it on her own. But Agnes was still all right, just like everyone expected.
While she liked people to trust her and recognize that she was competent, Agnes wasn’t certain that she shouldn’t be resentful of the neglect. But maybe that was just Perdita having more of a sense of importance than Agnes normally did.
“You was born a witch,” Granny said plowing over the part of the conversation she didn’t care about as if it hadn’t happened and, without turning around. “And I think this’un was, too. And some young folks do a bit better when they hear things from other young folks instead of havin’ old ones tellin’ them all the time. Especially the ones that think they know what to do. The ones likely to run off to a whole other city from where they was born to do what they feel the need to do. You know a bit about that, don’t you?”
“Who was born a witch?” Agnes said.
“She’s talking about another witch,” said Perdita, knowing that three was the right number of witches, though Lancre already had more than that. What would another one added to the mix do to the balance?
“Little girl,” Nanny answered. “She came to town two weeks back with that Lord from Sto Helit, the one who’s really a merchant and is tryin’ to find somethin’ to trade with King Verence for.”
“She came to town only two weeks ago and already you’re both interested in her?” Agnes asked. Again she wondered if she ought to be insulted. She’d lived in Lancre all her life and it had taken until she was seventeen and in the opera in Ankh-Morpork for them to notice Agnes. Granny had, once, even told her she didn’t want to be a witch at all.
“More she seems right interested in us,” Granny said. “Came right up to my cottage, she did, bold as brass and put a hex on my goats.”
“She did what?” Agnes said in horror.
“And she’s still alive?” Perdita said.
“Somethin’ like that, you see, needs a delicate touch,” Nanny said. “And Esme and me, neither of us is really known for how delicate we are.”
“Delicate ain’t the word we’re lookin’ for,” Granny said. “Delicate would just make her run off thinkin’ she’d won and none of us was serious. And nobody ever accused Agnes of bein’ delicate.”
Perdita called Granny something that rhymed with witch.
“No, but she’s got a real good personality,” Nanny said consolingly. “And that’s a good asset for a witch to have.”
“No she doesn’t,” Granny frowned. “Or if she does, that doesn’t enter into this. Agnes sees things as they are. And that’s what we need with this. You and me, Gytha, we’re not likely to see this child as she is. We’re gonna see her like we think she should be, witches or no. Children are the hardest people to see, because they aren’t who they’re going to be yet. They’re becoming. Sometimes that needs eyes that are closer to their own age. Eyes like Agnes has.”
“So what do you want me to do exactly?” Agnes asked.
“Well, you could start by makin’ the tea,” Nanny said. “I’m parched as the Klatchian desert.”
Agnes was in two minds about the whole thing. That was her normal state, considering her mind also harbored Perdita. But this time it was Agnes who was of two minds, and Perdita had only one opinion.
Perdita thought that bringing on another witch might be a great opportunity for getting out from under the chores and constant domination of the other two. Perdita, as usual, was living in a dream world. Nanny and Granny were convinced that they had not only the right, but the obligation to dominate the entire world that nothing short of leaving the continent would be likely to get rid of them. After all, even Ankh-Morpork hadn't been far enough to run. Agnes and Perdita both knew that, they'd tried it.
And now it was her assignment to unleash Nanny and Granny on some poor little kid who probably didn't know any better. Who probably thought that being a witch was something cool, not something that you did when you really didn't fit in anywhere else and mostly no one could get along with you.
Agnes had actually gotten into witching as an opportunity to acquire some friends, seeing there had been a group of them at the time. Now that she'd been at it a while, she realized that witches were not friends to each other. Or at least not the kinds of friends Agnes had been wishing for.
Witches were the kinds of friends that, even while they were helping you bury the bodies and scrub the blood out of the floorboards, would be criticizing you for letting it soak in in the first place and choosing to use the axe and quilt to carve up the body when a bone saw and the tub would have worked so much better.
Witches were the sorts of friends who appreciated you for your unique strengths and then went home to figure out a way of making sure that those strengths didn't add up to stronger than their strengths.
If witches were giving you a hand up, you'd better be watching out for the mallet they were holding behind their backs so they could take you down a peg.
Agnes wasn't sure if introducing them to witches was anything that ought to be done to a child, even if the child had hexed Granny's goats and therefore was probably already a witch herself.
Granny had assured her that witching wasn't something somebody grew out of. And Agnes was pretty sure that Granny ought to know, her family having produced generations of the toughest and, some said, darkest witches, the Ramtops had ever seen.
But if the girl was even halfway normal, and as young as they said, witching still seemed, to Agnes, like a pretty radical choice. Granny and Nanny and even, when she thought about it, the Queen, seemed to regard witching as some elite club, but Agnes was still normal enough to know that that wasn’t really how most people felt about it. And she couldn’t help but feel the little girl ought to be able to be old enough to make her own choice and not be having all of them make it for her.
Thus, the two minds, and the horrible nagging feeling of guilt.
Because Agnes knew that she was responsible. That was the one part of witching, as soon as you put on the pointy hat, that could not be avoided. You just had to take responsibility for things. You had to make decisions. You had to make your best judgment, or even sometimes guess, and leap and hope that whatever you did would help things more than hinder them.
Granny and Nanny were counting on her to bring the girl to them. And the girl, though she didn't know it, was counting on Agnes to see whether she was a witch or not and whether she ought to be brought to the two who were waiting up by the stones. And Agnes was caught right there in the middle, having to decide and face the wrath of the whatever high atop the thing if she was wrong. That being, of course, Granny, up in the high meadow by the wandering stones whose natural state seemed to be wrath at something.
Agnes didn't want Granny to happen to her. But, then, she didn't want her happening to this little girl, either. Whoever she was or whatever mischief she'd done, she didn't deserve that.
But there was no use making up her mind before she'd even met the child. So Agnes took a deep breath, put on her hat, and headed out for the castle.
Granny was pacing so much that the standing stone was doing its level best to hide itself in a nearby ditch, just in case she decided to point some of her spare aggravation at it.
Nanny had to admit, that while Esme's vexation might be a trifle uncomfortable for everyone else around her, it was certainly good for Granny Weatherwax.
She had seldom seen her friend in better spirits and looking so well. Nanny had actually been a trifle worried about Esme ever since young Esme had been born and Granny had had to fight off that whole troop of Vampyres from over in Uberwald. That had taken a lot more than nearly all her blood out of Granny, though Granny would be the last one to admit it, and while she'd sprung back sure enough and had been doing all the witchin' that was needed up her way, it was easy enough to tell that it was mostly being done on automatic, like.
Nanny hadn't been worried about Esme exactly, it had been more like waiting for the sound of thunder and not having it appear. It was clear Granny was ok. But ok wasn't good enough for someone like Granny Weatherwax. Ok wore very thin in quicker than a jiffy. And even the acquisition of the newest batch of goats and the seeming steadiness of her friend’s routine had done nothing to reassure Nanny where Granny was concerned.
Granny needed more than routine to keep her anchored. She needed something that required more of her talents than that.
But this... well, it certainly wasn't a threat, but this excitement was better than a tonic to Esme. Even better than the kind of tonic Nanny was partial to brewing. It had her up and pacing and in a real state of agitation. Just like old times.
"Should have thought of bringin' some potatoes up to roast in the fire," Nanny said. "They'd be done by the time the girls got here."
I don't know what you've gone and got in your head, Gytha," Granny said wheeling around on hobnail boots thick enough to kick down your average Troll, as she paced back and forth among the furze, "But this ain't a social call."
"What is it, then?" Nanny said, though she had a pretty good idea. Sometimes, though, it was better to let Granny say things out loud. Because Granny always had a plan. It was a hallmark of Esmeralda Weatherwax that she always knew what she was doing. It was just that sometimes, what she was doing wasn't always the best for either her or everyone else around her. Nanny had seen it hundreds of times in big ways and small. Granny would head off in some direction dragging everyone else along with her and while they all always got somewhere in the end, it was often not without a whole lot of kicking and resistance that might not have had to happen if Granny had just bothered to tell anybody what she was up to.
So Nanny had learned to at least give her the opportunity to think it through out loud. Sometimes that helped.
"This is puttin' someone who needs it straight about a few things," Granny said, managing to not shake a finger at Nanny, though Nanny could tell she dearly wanted to. "Pretty clear from what she done that she has no idea what witches really are, just raw talent and fool foreign notions. Most likely from doin' too much readin'. Turns the head soft, does readin'."
Nanny nodded sagely, but as the author of a book, herself, she really didn't have a leg to stand on in the face of Granny's known dislike for book learning, though Esme was grudgingly literate out of plain fear that somebody would put something over on her if she wasn't. Granny had never missed a trick yet, and literacy was about as tricky as things got. As far as Granny was concerned most things that ever got written down were lies, or fiction, which was just a nicer way of saying the same thing.
"But the talent was considerable," Granny said thoughtfully. "And we needs to see if it ain't just a fluke. 'Cause I only know one child that had that kind of talent her age, and don't go lookin' at me like that Gytha, 'cause it weren't me. It was, you know, the other one. It's ones like that that seem to be playin' with it younger. Ones that feel the pull of the wrong and don't look away like sensible people."
"So you're worried, then," Nanny said. Nanny, herself, hadn't really been worried. At least not until now.
"Not necessarily worried," Granny said. "But it's better to be safe than sorry. And if we don't step in it'll just be trouble for Magrat and Agnes later on. Mostly Agnes, I reckon."
"Why Agnes, in particular," Nanny asked.
"'Cause Agnes ain't Queen," Granny said. "'Cause Agnes might have more power than she knows and quite a lot of vision but maybe not the confidence she'd need if she came up against someone a lot more powerful than herself. And you know as well as I do that if it come down to it and you thought, say, someone you knew was more powerful than you had gone bad and might be headin' down the path that was, say, lined with candy canes and lollipops, you'd still believe that you'd be able to FIND A WAY.”
“And you ain't sure Agnes could say the same,” Nanny said.
“Right,” said Granny. “She'd try. But I don't know if she'd really believe she could. And if a witch can't believe in her own power, then who else can? Not her enemies.”
"Because we won't always be around, and Agnes will be the one who has to face her," Nanny said seriously.
"That's right," Granny nodded. "Better they be friends than t'other. Especially if she's got as much power as I think."
The palace seemed normal enough, despite Shawn not being at the gates. It only took one look out over the fields to see him out there in work clothes with the King and a strange man who was wearing an outfit far too fine for working in. The third man was clearly the new Ambassador.
So if he was around, that meant that the little girls must be as well. Agnes walked into the castle, even though she still felt odd not having a proper door to knock on or assuming that she was welcome everywhere just because she was wearing black and a traditional hat.
It wasn’t hard to find them. She only had to listen carefully and the sound of high-pitched childish voices led her straight to her destination, a small walled garden at the back of the castle.
Agnes stopped in the doorway to see what she could see before going in there. And Nanny had been perfectly right in saying that there couldn’t be two more different children in the world. They absolutely were like night and day.
The one little girl was as blonde and beautiful as sunshine. All ringlets and peaches and cream complexion and brilliant smile full of perfect teeth. She wore a lovely frock that was stylish and spotless as if she hadn’t been in a garden playing at all. She was bent over a doll’s cradle cooing at what Agnes assumed was a special favorite toy, as she seemed so very delighted with it.
The other was as opposite as possible. Her hair was dark and straight and held back in a messy braid. Her dress was dark and stained with grass and dirt at the knees, she had her arms folded and was scowling a scowl that would have done Granny Weatherwax fair credit.
“I don’t think you should be doing that,” the dark one said to the other. “He’s horrid, but he’s a living creature, not a toy.”
“Don’t be silly, he loves me,” the blond one replied with an angelic smile. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Graymalkin!”
She reached into the cradle and pulled out something swaddled in what looked a lot like one of little Esme’s gowns and a frilly bonnet. The thing was clearly alive, though it hung limply from her hands like a sack of meat. It wasn’t until Agnes saw the ratty gray tail emerging from the bottom of the baby dress that she recognized it as Greebo.
She couldn’t imagine anyone being able to stuff Greebo into a dress. Something odd was going on. Granny was right.
“He doesn’t love you. He’s sick!” the dark one said angrily. “He can barely keep his eyes open and he’s not right, I’m telling you! We should get help.”
“No, he’s not! He’s just sleeping, like he was when I found him down in that nasty old cellar. He makes the nicest baby!”
“No, he does not. He smells. And he’s sick. He’s probably dying. He’s a nasty mangy old thing and he probably is sick. You can’t just keep him and play with him like a toy. He’s alive, Regina!”
“He likes dressing up, don’t you, Mr. Grayseys!” the blonde one, Regina said, bouncing Greebo up and down in a way that would have earned her a disemboweling if he’d been healthy or awake.
Nanny would be beside herself when she found out. And Agnes knew that Greebo needed a rescue if ever any creature did. Before he woke up in a frilly baby dress and ripped off the little blonde girl’s face.
“Look, you need to give him to me,” the other one told her, holding out her skinny arms. “I can probably help him. You know I can fix things!”
“A bird with a broken wing is different, Rosa,” Regina said with a superior air. “That’s simple. You can see how it’s supposed to go. You can fix it with sticks. If Mr. Grayseys is really sick, that’s hard. You remember how it was when I had that fever. It took them weeks and weeks to make me better and you couldn’t do anything to help.”
“I was six,” the dark haired girl said. “I didn’t know how to help then.”
“Well, it really doesn’t matter, does it?” Regina said, matter of factly. “I’m sure he’s just a lazybones.”
“That’s Greebo,” Agnes said, stepping through the doorway and into the sunlight, glad for once for the wide brim of her hat seeing it cut the glare down to almost nothing. “And normally he’d be clawing you to pieces for holding onto him like that. He doesn’t like anyone but Nanny Ogg. That’s who he belongs to.”
“The witch from town?” the dark one asked, looking Agnes up and down speculatively.
“Yes,” Agnes said. “Nanny lives in town.”
“And this cat belongs to her,” the girl said, looking at the blonde one with hard green eyes. “He belongs to someone, Regina. You can’t just take him and dress him up and keep him.”
“Who are you?” the blonde one asked. “I haven’t seen you before.”
“My name is Agnes,” Agnes said.
“Who is Perdita, then?” Rosa asked.
“What are you talking about?” said Agnes. “Uh, oh,” said Perdita.
“Because your mouth said Agnes, but you said Perdita,” Rosa said. “And you meant yourself when you said it, too.”
“Look sharp!” Perdita said.
Rosa put her head on one side.
“Perdita’s the other one,” Regina said. “The other one inside. Did you eat her?”
“That’s mean, you shouldn’t have said that!” Rosa said. “Agnes isn’t a cannibal, and now Perdita hates you!”
“Which one of you went up the mountain?” Agnes asked.
“Can you imagine me climbing up there and going near some smelly old goats?” Regina said. “That was Rosalind. I didn’t think she’d do it, or I’d never have dared her in a million years.”
“It’s pretty up there,” Rosalind said. “And you can see practically the whole mountain from the cottage.”
“Yes, you can,” Agnes said. “It makes it easy for Granny to get where she’s needed.”
“Isn’t it hard for people to go up there?” Rosalind said. “I had to walk for ages.”
“But Granny doesn’t take care of the people in town, mostly,” Agnes said. “That’s Nanny’s territory. Granny takes care of people up the mountain and in the villages up around her place.”
“And you and Perdita take care of the people who live the other way, don’t you? The place where Queen Magrat used to live and the people she used to take care of before she started taking care of everybody and being Queen,” Rosalind said with a knowing air.
"Yes," said Agnes. "You seem to know a lot about it."
"People don't think I'm listening. I can learn a lot that way," Rosalind said.
"I don't know why you care, anyway," Regina said. "We're going to go home in a little while and be at a proper court again. I mean, Queen Magrat is very nice, but she's not really royalty, is she? Queen Keli has a much better idea of how to do it, It’s a lot cleaner at home, and there are proper servants instead of just that Shawn and a few cooks and maids. I mean, I daresay Daddy is richer than this whole kingdom."
"I don't see what difference it makes how much money you have," Rosalind said.
"Money makes you a little better than other people because it means the gods like you, but it's really birth that matters," Regina told her, fluffing the lace on Greebo's bonnet. "You never do listen to what Mummy says, do you? You know she's the one that was the real Lady. Daddy just bought his title."
"And you're like her and I’m like him. I know all that," Rosalind said, sounding bored. "I think you might have said it every day of my life. I know Mummy says it whenever she sees me."
Agnes felt for Rosalind. She couldn't remember many days before she was a witch where she wasn't told how fat she was by someone like Regina.
"Why have you come, Agnes?" Rosalind asked, finally. "Are you looking for the cat? Greebo, did you say he's called?"
"No, I came looking for you," Agnes said. "Granny wants to see you."
"About the goats," Rosalind said. "How did she know it was me?"
"I think that she will probably explain that," Agnes said.
"You don't want me to go, do you?" asked Regina. "I'm oldest, you know. And more powerful than her."
"At some things," Rosalind said. "You couldn't have done what I did to the goats. You would have just made them look like they weren't goats any more. You couldn't have changed their heads."
“No, I would have done something much harder," Regina said. "I would have changed the heads of everyone who looked at them."
"That isn't harder," Rosalind said. "Is it, Agnes?"
"It's different," Agnes said. "And it isn't the kind of thing I'm used to. We don't do things like that here. We deal with things as they are."
"What's the fun of leaving things as they are?" Regina said, turning Greebo around. He didn't look well at all. He was very limp. "This nasty old cat looked horrid before I cleaned him up. He's much better now that I've changed him. You have to change things to make them better."
"But what if they don't want to change?" Agnes asked.
"Oh, they want to. They just don't know it yet," Regina said, smiling blindingly.
"Rosalind, why don't you take Greebo so we can give him back to Nanny? She's very worried about him," Agnes said, resisting the urge to back slowly out of the room. "And then you and I will go and see Granny about the goats."
"Yes," said Rosalind. She went to her sister and held her arms out for the cat. "You'll have to find something else to play with, Regina. Greebo belongs to someone else."
"I think he likes me better than that old witch," Regina said. "He just doesn't know it yet."
"Still, he belongs to her, not you," Rosalind said sternly. "You don't want to be wrong do you? It's wrong to take things other people own. That's stealing. And stealing isn't noble."
"Well, not stealing cats, anyway," Regina said. "He smells bad, even though I washed him. I guess you can take him back."
Rosalind bent down and took the limp Greebo from her sister's grasp. She righted him up and gave him a squeeze around the middle, causing him to cough weakly. She carried him rapidly toward Agnes, and then pushed past her out the door, through the hall and to the castle yard. She stripped off the baby dress and bonnet and squeezed him hard about the middle, making him cough again and then retch.
"What are you doing?" Agnes said, hurrying after. "You're hurting him!"
"Regina found him down in the store room. He'd eaten something bad. Mummy complained, so they put out poison for the rats, even though there are hardly any of them. I'm sure that's what he did. It's why he's sick, but Regina wouldn't let me touch him until you came, so I couldn't get the poison out," the little girl said, clearly worried.
“You stay here with him and I'll go get the Queen," Agnes said. "She's bound to have something to make him throw it up."
"I will," the girl said. "I'll try to get him to drink water, too."
Agnes hurried off, wishing she'd brought her own bag with her. But it hadn't seemed to be that kind of visit. Fortunately, she knew right were Magrat would be that time of day and moved quickly up the steps to the family solar, which was where the Queen and baby Esme spent their afternoons.
Magrat was just watching Esme pile ever-diminishing-sized rings onto a stick as Agnes burst into the room.
"...it's Greebo!" She got out, somewhat winded from her headlong flight upstairs.
"What's he done now?" Magrat said, sounding a bit irritated. "He hasn't killed something somewhere inconvenient, has he?"
Agnes shook her head.
"Molested someone's pet? Not the Ambassadress's Miss Fluffy?" Magrat said. "She's a dog!"
"No, he's eaten poison. That's what Rosalind says, anyway." Agnes managed.
"You sure she didn't give him the poison?" Magrat said suspiciously. "The Ambassadress has said that Rosalind is quite the little devil, always up to some kind of trouble. And she has power, too. You've noticed, I'm sure, if you've spoken to her. And she's always sullen and mostly won't look you in the eye. Not at all trustworthy, in my opinion."
"You might want to talk to her again, when her Mum isn't there," Agnes said. "It's Regina that's the devil."
"The little blonde one? Why she's charming!" Magrat said, as she hurried to the other room to get her bag of simples.
"I think charming is just the right description for Regina," Agnes said. "As in charm."
"Oh, no! Are you sure?"
"I'm afraid so," Agnes said. "She’s the kind that thinks she can do whatever she likes. She can arrange things to her liking and that’s “making them better.” I haven't the slightest idea what to do with her."
"Acid bath? Long drop into Lancre Gorge? Flamethrower?" Perdita suggested.
"Have you told Granny?" Magrat said.
"No, I only just got here. Why haven't you?" Agnes asked.
"I haven't really spent all that much time with the children," Magrat told her, gathering up her supplies. "Their mother requires quite a lot of entertaining, it seems. Hereditary nobility and all that. And children mostly take care of themselves. At least these two seem to. And Esme's at that age where she needs a lot of stimulation as well. I have my hands full."
"I'm sure," Agnes said. "You could have sent for help. I mean, I know you don't like to bother people, but you are Queen."
"I know I am but it didn't seem necessary," Magrat said, handing her bag to Agnes and hoisting Esme onto one hip. "Where is Greebo now?"
"Down in the yard, with Rosalind," Agnes said.
"Let's go fix him, then," Magrat said, hurrying off.
"If he was awake, I wouldn't put it that way," Agnes told her, following after.
Greebo was quite possibly the sickest he'd ever been. He felt even worse now than when he'd eaten the half-rotted elk and shat putrid meat for a solid week all over the chicken coop where he'd been hiding to avoid Nanny's home-brewed diarrhea remedy.
He thought he might have seen his stomach come out with that last one, and the fact that the stuff making him sick had been given him by Magrat, who had always been tolerant, if not nice to him, had been quite a blow.
But, he had been feeling not himself before Magrat gave him the sick-making stuff. He vaguely remembered being down in the storeroom and seeing a tiny thing in a black robe carrying something sharp that had SQUEAKed at him just before he’d found the tasty steak. Maybe he should have chased it instead, though he mostly didn’t like eating bones. He certainly was sick now.
If he'd felt better, he'd have put his claws in somebody, but the fact was, he mostly wanted to curl up somewhere and sleep.
And someone who was not Nanny was patting him on the head, making it pound. He really shouldn't have to take that, but he was too sick to care.
He threw up again, making sure to aim at the appallingly frilly baby bonnet that happened to be lying nearby. It seemed the only appropriate thing to do.
Rosalind walked all the way up to the standing stones under her own steam, even carrying Greebo in his basket for part of the way, when Agnes’ hands got tired. Agnes had to admire the little girl’s bravery. She seemed quite ready to take whatever consequences Granny was ready to dish out for the incident with the goats.
Perdita thought it wasn’t bravery, but something a lot more like hubris. Like Diamanda had had when the Queen of the Fair Folk had been on her side.
Granny was waiting for them with an expression on her face that could have split paint. Agnes could see that the standing stones were cowering as far away in the clearing as they could go all clustered in a bunch far away from Nanny’s fire.
“Cooee, Girls!” Nanny called, waving her hand above her head from where she was sitting on a log, like she was getting their attention in a crowd.
“Agnes,” Rosalind asked in a quiet voice. “Which one of them is the most dangerous?”
“They both are in their own way,” Agnes said. “All witches are.”
“Like me and Regina,” Rosalind said.
“Right,” Agnes said.
“So it was you,” Nanny said, looking her up and down speculatively. “I thought it probably had been.”
“Yes,” Rosalind said, squaring her narrow shoulders and looking directly at Nanny. “I’m the one that hexed the goats.”
“And come up here bold as brass and admitted as much, eh?” Granny said, coming toward the fire, her eyes shining silver in the fading light.
“Yes,” Rosalind said. “Regina said I should turn them into something, but I just changed their minds, instead. That was good enough to prove I wasn’t afraid.”
“Agnes, do you mind joinin’ me and Nanny for a moment?” Granny said, beckoning Agnes to the other side of the fire. Agnes gave Rosalind a reassuring smile and went to join the other two in a proper huddle.
Rosalind stood firm. She already learned from her sister that if somebody with power saw that you were weak, it would go the worse for you. So it didn’t do to feel sorry for yourself or fret about whatever was on its way. It would be what it was. And you would have to deal with it.
The witches whispered together for several minutes, occasionally breaking their huddle to peer over their shoulders at Rosalind where she stood awaiting judgment and then putting their pointed hats together again for more whispering. She held herself still and straight, even though she desperately wanted to fidget or go over by the fire to look at the little pictures you could sometimes see inside the flames.
Finally, the oldest one, whose goats she’d bothered broke the huddle and strode over to look down her pointed nose at Rosalind.
“You had a proper long time to fret while we was conversin’,” the old woman said. “You scared now?”
While it was clear from her tone that the old woman thought that Rosalind probably should be scared, Rosalind knew that it was unlikely that even this old woman could think up meaner things to do than Regina, so she shook her head.
“Well, it’s a good thing you’re not afraid, because I’ve got some right unpleasant news for you,” Granny said.
“I did it,” Rosalind said firmly. “I’m ready to take responsibility.”
“Good to know,” Granny told her. “Because I’ve got to break it to you right now, Missy…”
Granny looked around from Nanny, to Agnes, and then finally to the little one in the dark dress standing so bravely in front of her ready to face the responsibility.
“From now on,” Granny said, “You’re going to have to be the good one.”
Author: Sarah Ellen Parsons
Rating: PG, gen
Request Answered: Discworld, ANY Discworld.
Recipient: Finisterre No pressure, there.
Summary: Witches are witches, no matter how small.
Author Notes: If this continues to suck, it has nothing to do with the valiant efforts above and beyond the call of machete beta by Kellychenault And some of the very best things in here were her ideas in the first place.
Granny Weatherwax had always reckoned most people were troublesome and vexing creatures who mostly went around making noise and doing things that weren’t good for them. Then they all came back to Granny to ask her to sort it out and make it all better.
While that was, by definition, Granny’s job, sorting out other people’s problems, it didn’t mean she had to be pleased to see people making trouble for themselves and others.
It particularly irritated her when somebody went out of their way to make trouble. Most people just came by trouble naturally, in the normal course of living. But then there were the other ones, the ones that brewed it up like poison in their hearts and then spat it out at passers by.
That seemed to be what she was dealing with now. It had the definite look of deliberate trouble about it, the kind that people with trouble on the brain thought up to harm others.
And if there was one thing that Granny’s sort of witch disliked it was those that spent their time harming when there was so much else that needed doing. You had to have a special kind of time on your hands to waste it thinking up petty bits of nastiness to pull on those around you. There was no good use for people like that.
What Granny always had good use for were goats. Goats were, quite literally, her bread and butter. Or at least her milk, cheese and butter. And right now, hers had quite clearly been hexed. To Granny’s not-inexpert eyes it was quite a workman like job as well.
The goats were, at present, behaving in a quite ungoaty manner. They appeared to be trying their best to have a tea party, near as Granny could figure. They’d set up some old tins on the stump from the elm that had got struck by lightning a few years back on top of some scrap of fabric they’d found somewhere and, while one of them had found some old hat maybe from a scarecrow and was lordin’ it over the others, the rest had tried to fashion hats for themselves and mostly looked like they were wearing haystacks on their heads, cloven hooves not being well set-up for fashioning hats. They were sitting in a circle around the stump and Granny was horrified to see that they’d somehow got ahold of her kettle. One of them was just about to try to pour.
It was more than clear that they’d been hexed good and proper. That was a pretty complicated hex, making something think it was something it wasn’t. Most creatures had a hard time thinking they were what they were. Making something believe something that wasn’t real was real was the next step before you got up to borrowing. It took both power and control to do a hex like that; your average witch couldn’t manage it. She could count on one hand them that knew how in Lancre.
There were a fairly large number of candidates in the Ramtops who had the ability to put a pretty good hex on a goat, but the puzzling thing was who would have directed that kind of a hex at Granny’s goats.
As a rule, and it was a Rule, people knew better than to trouble Granny or Granny’s things. No one local could have done it.
There was really only one way to find out what had happened with the goats. Granny caught the nearest one, a fat mean old nanny that had enough whiskers and few enough teeth that it reminded her well enough of another nanny who lived thereabouts. It started to bleat pitifully, as its sad haystack hat slipped down over its ear. “Ah, quiet, you,” Granny growled and borrowed it.
Now the goat is intelligent enough as animals go, but its main concerns are eating, getting into places it shouldn’t get into in order to find things to eat and eating things it shouldn’t. Granny had to sort through a whole lot of thoughts of apples and herbs and grass and the midden and the occasional kid before she got down to the shape of a human who wasn’t Granny in the nanny goat’s mind.
“Humph,” said Granny, as she let go of the goat. “Best be gettin’ on to town, then.”
She gave the goats a hard stare and released the hex they were under and then strode off to the house to take off her apron and put on her hat.
Nanny Ogg could feel something coming. She had always been one of those women who were known in some places as “sensitives”. And mostly what she was sensitive to was when her neighbors were setting down to tea or a meal where there’d be enough for her and how other people were feeling. And right now, her special sense could tell that something big was coming, striding down from the Ramtops on hobnail boots like a Colossus in a pointed hat.
Granny Weatherwax was in, what might have been termed in lesser women, a tizzy. But in Granny it was much more akin to a full blown thunderstorm with the potential for devastating hail and possibly cluster tornadoes.
And Nanny was worried besides wondering what internal storm was blowing Granny down the path to town, because Greebo hadn’t come home that morning for the third day running. She had absolutely no idea where he could have got to. She’d have to go look for him after she found out what Granny wanted.
Nanny gave a little sigh and took the kettle off the stove just in time for Granny’s knock on the front door.
“Best come in Esme, I can tell you have a powerful lot to say,” Nanny said, putting the kettle on the brass trivet her grandson had sent home from foreign parts.
“So you know about the unfortunate incident, then?” Granny said, in tones so clipped they barely made it out of her mouth at all.
“Not ‘xactly,” Nanny said. “But I reckon it must have been somethin’ serious to bring you all the way down to town when it ain’t even market day.”
“Somebody’s bothered me goats,” Granny said. “But that ain’t the real problem. The problem is that it were done with magic and with more than a fair amount of talent, and by someone I ain’t never seen before.”
“So you’re down here hopin’ to run into this person?” Nanny asked, pouring the contents of the kettle into the pot to steep.
“No, I figgerd I’d save myself some time by just askin’ you who here was diff'rent,” Granny said. “She was too little to have come from far and I know all the children in the villages up by me. That leaves town. And there’s nothin’ in town that you don’t know about.”
“What’re you sayin’, Esme?” Nanny asked. “It were some child that went all the way up to your cottage and did somethin’ to your goats?”
“Yep,” said Granny sitting down at the kitchen table like she owned it, even though hers would never have contained a table cloth trimmed with lace from Uberwald or embroidered with cheerful bluebells like Nanny’s did. She folded her arms across what passed for her chest. “She hexed ‘em. A creditable hex and her nomore than ten or eleven years old.”
“Oh, surely not,” Nanny said. “That’s much too young to be even thinking about witchin’, let alone doin’ something about it. Most ones that age haven’t even noticed boys.”
“All the more time to spend on important things, then,” Granny said primly. “But the question is, have you seen a child like this?”
“Not just one,” Nanny said, putting out the pot and cups. She turned around then and got out the sugar bowl, because she knew that Granny would want to be fortified before she went off to do whatever she was going to do.
“If you tell me ther’re twins, I’ll tell you to pull the other one,” Granny said.
“Nothing like twins,” Nanny told her, sitting down and pouring tea into both cups. “Couldn’t be two more different little girls on the Disc.”
“Then which one looks like the sort that would come all the way up the mountain to hex her some goats?” Granny said, dumping the majority of the sugar bowl into her tea in the vain hope that it would bring on spots or rot a tooth.
“You think the goats was what it was about, do you?”
“’Course not, Gytha,” Granny said. “It was obviously a message. A shot across the bow. A stupid shot.”
“Or maybe it was a cry for help, Esme,” Nanny said quietly.
“To be put out of her mis’ry, you mean?” Granny said raising an eyebrow as she sipped her tea.
“Maybe,” Nanny said, thoughtfully. “If she’s the one I’m thinkin’ she is, that could be a part of it.”
Granny looked thoughtfully into her tea. “That don’t sound too promisin’, Gytha.”
“Promisin’ for what,” Nanny asked, knowing Granny was going to tell her, but also knowing she wasn’t going to tell her without some prompting first.
“Well, hexin’ somebody’s goats is promisin’ somethin’, ain’t it?” Granny said. “And I was figuring that someone who made that kind of a promise should be made to keep it one way or t’other.”
“But now that you know it’s a little girl…” Nanny said suggestively, though there were few enough things Nanny ever said that weren’t suggestive of something or other.
“Children are about the meanest creatures on the disc, Gytha Ogg, as you well know, havin’ had fifteen of them yourself and havin’ been one of the meanest wee lasses in bootleather ‘till you found that getting’ along with folks got you more of what you wanted.” Granny said. “So don’t think I’d be comin’ over all romantic about the sweet innocence of children or somesuch nonsense. I wouldn’t do ‘em harm, o’course, but teachin’ ‘em a needed lesson ain’t harmful.”
“So what makes you think you won’t give her a lesson, then?” Nanny asked.
“I never said I wouldn’t,” Granny told her. “I just think it might need to be a different lesson than the one I’d planned.”
Granny finished her tea and put down the cup. She fixed Nanny with a very Granny Weatherwaxish sort of stare, all steel blue and no nonsense.
“So Gytha, tell me everythin’ you know about these girls.”
Agnes could count on one hand the times when both of them had shown up at her door. Nanny and Granny like a two-headed bad penny turning up inexplicably to tails. Just her luck.
“Would you like to…” Agnes began as Granny pushed past her into the main room of the cottage, stopping in the middle of the floor with her hands on her hips, like she owned it and not Agnes. She and Nanny both had a tendency to do that, witches weren’t, as a rule, terribly concerned about the whole concept of personal property, but at least when Nanny came in she didn’t fill up the whole space until Agnes felt like she wanted to walk outside so it was easier to breathe.
Maybe that was why they always had their meetings up by the standing stones. Outside was the only place big enough to hold Granny Weatherwax.
“Nasty old hag, what does she want?” said Perdita in her head.
“What we’ve got here, Agnes, is a delicate situation,” Granny said, without turning around. “And it’s one that, I think, requires somebody who is… well… who is…eh…”
“Who ain’t Granny or me,” Nanny said helpfully.
“Oh, that’s why they’re here,” Perdita said. “They need something. Typical.”
“What situation?” Agnes asked.
“We have a situation with a witch,” Nanny said.
“One who ain’t us or one of ours,” Granny added. “One who is, in fact, foreign and filled with a lot of foreign ideas.”
“Foreign ain’t all bad, Esme,” Nanny said. “You quite liked some of it, I recall.”
Granny gave Nanny a hard stare and went on with what she was saying.
“A bit like that Diamanda and the rest of that lot you used to run with, in fact,” Granny sniffed superiorly and looked down her long and rather hooked nose at Agnes, who had long ago put aside her black lace gloves with the fingers cut out in favor of the traditional pointy hat. “Head stuffed with a lot of things found in books, and not just harmless herbs and the like, like all them up there that Magrat and Goodie Whemper used to look at. That ain’t harmful. It don’t twist your head around and put a blight on your soul. But who knows what nonsense you can find in them foreign books. You seen what it done to your friend.”
“And so we need somebody who can talk to somebody like Diamanda was and that ain’t us,” Nanny said.
“Nanny, who are you talking about? There’s nobody around here like that,” Agnes said. “Susan has married Matty Hadcock over from Slice and Violet went off to Ankh-Morpork to become a seamstress, and the rest are all hereabouts being perfectly ordinary. I mean, they saw what the, you know, the Queen and her lot were like and learned their lesson,” Agnes said.
“You been down to town lately?” Nanny asked. “I ain’t seen you.”
“No, it’s been really busy this spring. All sorts of people needing help,” Agnes said. It was still a wonder to Agnes that as soon as she’d put on the pointy hat everyone had come running to her with their sore throats and sprained ankles and marital trouble just like she was a regular witch. Like she was no different than Granny or Nanny or even Magrat before she’d gone to be Queen. But the fact was that even though Agnes had read through as many of Goodie Whemper’s books as she could stomach and had gone with Nanny to a number of births, it wasn’t as though there was anything like a formal training program for witches. Especially as Magrat had given it up before Agnes had ever come on. At least Magrat had apprenticed to Goodie Whemper for several years before she’d had to do it on her own. But Agnes was still all right, just like everyone expected.
While she liked people to trust her and recognize that she was competent, Agnes wasn’t certain that she shouldn’t be resentful of the neglect. But maybe that was just Perdita having more of a sense of importance than Agnes normally did.
“You was born a witch,” Granny said plowing over the part of the conversation she didn’t care about as if it hadn’t happened and, without turning around. “And I think this’un was, too. And some young folks do a bit better when they hear things from other young folks instead of havin’ old ones tellin’ them all the time. Especially the ones that think they know what to do. The ones likely to run off to a whole other city from where they was born to do what they feel the need to do. You know a bit about that, don’t you?”
“Who was born a witch?” Agnes said.
“She’s talking about another witch,” said Perdita, knowing that three was the right number of witches, though Lancre already had more than that. What would another one added to the mix do to the balance?
“Little girl,” Nanny answered. “She came to town two weeks back with that Lord from Sto Helit, the one who’s really a merchant and is tryin’ to find somethin’ to trade with King Verence for.”
“She came to town only two weeks ago and already you’re both interested in her?” Agnes asked. Again she wondered if she ought to be insulted. She’d lived in Lancre all her life and it had taken until she was seventeen and in the opera in Ankh-Morpork for them to notice Agnes. Granny had, once, even told her she didn’t want to be a witch at all.
“More she seems right interested in us,” Granny said. “Came right up to my cottage, she did, bold as brass and put a hex on my goats.”
“She did what?” Agnes said in horror.
“And she’s still alive?” Perdita said.
“Somethin’ like that, you see, needs a delicate touch,” Nanny said. “And Esme and me, neither of us is really known for how delicate we are.”
“Delicate ain’t the word we’re lookin’ for,” Granny said. “Delicate would just make her run off thinkin’ she’d won and none of us was serious. And nobody ever accused Agnes of bein’ delicate.”
Perdita called Granny something that rhymed with witch.
“No, but she’s got a real good personality,” Nanny said consolingly. “And that’s a good asset for a witch to have.”
“No she doesn’t,” Granny frowned. “Or if she does, that doesn’t enter into this. Agnes sees things as they are. And that’s what we need with this. You and me, Gytha, we’re not likely to see this child as she is. We’re gonna see her like we think she should be, witches or no. Children are the hardest people to see, because they aren’t who they’re going to be yet. They’re becoming. Sometimes that needs eyes that are closer to their own age. Eyes like Agnes has.”
“So what do you want me to do exactly?” Agnes asked.
“Well, you could start by makin’ the tea,” Nanny said. “I’m parched as the Klatchian desert.”
Agnes was in two minds about the whole thing. That was her normal state, considering her mind also harbored Perdita. But this time it was Agnes who was of two minds, and Perdita had only one opinion.
Perdita thought that bringing on another witch might be a great opportunity for getting out from under the chores and constant domination of the other two. Perdita, as usual, was living in a dream world. Nanny and Granny were convinced that they had not only the right, but the obligation to dominate the entire world that nothing short of leaving the continent would be likely to get rid of them. After all, even Ankh-Morpork hadn't been far enough to run. Agnes and Perdita both knew that, they'd tried it.
And now it was her assignment to unleash Nanny and Granny on some poor little kid who probably didn't know any better. Who probably thought that being a witch was something cool, not something that you did when you really didn't fit in anywhere else and mostly no one could get along with you.
Agnes had actually gotten into witching as an opportunity to acquire some friends, seeing there had been a group of them at the time. Now that she'd been at it a while, she realized that witches were not friends to each other. Or at least not the kinds of friends Agnes had been wishing for.
Witches were the kinds of friends that, even while they were helping you bury the bodies and scrub the blood out of the floorboards, would be criticizing you for letting it soak in in the first place and choosing to use the axe and quilt to carve up the body when a bone saw and the tub would have worked so much better.
Witches were the sorts of friends who appreciated you for your unique strengths and then went home to figure out a way of making sure that those strengths didn't add up to stronger than their strengths.
If witches were giving you a hand up, you'd better be watching out for the mallet they were holding behind their backs so they could take you down a peg.
Agnes wasn't sure if introducing them to witches was anything that ought to be done to a child, even if the child had hexed Granny's goats and therefore was probably already a witch herself.
Granny had assured her that witching wasn't something somebody grew out of. And Agnes was pretty sure that Granny ought to know, her family having produced generations of the toughest and, some said, darkest witches, the Ramtops had ever seen.
But if the girl was even halfway normal, and as young as they said, witching still seemed, to Agnes, like a pretty radical choice. Granny and Nanny and even, when she thought about it, the Queen, seemed to regard witching as some elite club, but Agnes was still normal enough to know that that wasn’t really how most people felt about it. And she couldn’t help but feel the little girl ought to be able to be old enough to make her own choice and not be having all of them make it for her.
Thus, the two minds, and the horrible nagging feeling of guilt.
Because Agnes knew that she was responsible. That was the one part of witching, as soon as you put on the pointy hat, that could not be avoided. You just had to take responsibility for things. You had to make decisions. You had to make your best judgment, or even sometimes guess, and leap and hope that whatever you did would help things more than hinder them.
Granny and Nanny were counting on her to bring the girl to them. And the girl, though she didn't know it, was counting on Agnes to see whether she was a witch or not and whether she ought to be brought to the two who were waiting up by the stones. And Agnes was caught right there in the middle, having to decide and face the wrath of the whatever high atop the thing if she was wrong. That being, of course, Granny, up in the high meadow by the wandering stones whose natural state seemed to be wrath at something.
Agnes didn't want Granny to happen to her. But, then, she didn't want her happening to this little girl, either. Whoever she was or whatever mischief she'd done, she didn't deserve that.
But there was no use making up her mind before she'd even met the child. So Agnes took a deep breath, put on her hat, and headed out for the castle.
Granny was pacing so much that the standing stone was doing its level best to hide itself in a nearby ditch, just in case she decided to point some of her spare aggravation at it.
Nanny had to admit, that while Esme's vexation might be a trifle uncomfortable for everyone else around her, it was certainly good for Granny Weatherwax.
She had seldom seen her friend in better spirits and looking so well. Nanny had actually been a trifle worried about Esme ever since young Esme had been born and Granny had had to fight off that whole troop of Vampyres from over in Uberwald. That had taken a lot more than nearly all her blood out of Granny, though Granny would be the last one to admit it, and while she'd sprung back sure enough and had been doing all the witchin' that was needed up her way, it was easy enough to tell that it was mostly being done on automatic, like.
Nanny hadn't been worried about Esme exactly, it had been more like waiting for the sound of thunder and not having it appear. It was clear Granny was ok. But ok wasn't good enough for someone like Granny Weatherwax. Ok wore very thin in quicker than a jiffy. And even the acquisition of the newest batch of goats and the seeming steadiness of her friend’s routine had done nothing to reassure Nanny where Granny was concerned.
Granny needed more than routine to keep her anchored. She needed something that required more of her talents than that.
But this... well, it certainly wasn't a threat, but this excitement was better than a tonic to Esme. Even better than the kind of tonic Nanny was partial to brewing. It had her up and pacing and in a real state of agitation. Just like old times.
"Should have thought of bringin' some potatoes up to roast in the fire," Nanny said. "They'd be done by the time the girls got here."
I don't know what you've gone and got in your head, Gytha," Granny said wheeling around on hobnail boots thick enough to kick down your average Troll, as she paced back and forth among the furze, "But this ain't a social call."
"What is it, then?" Nanny said, though she had a pretty good idea. Sometimes, though, it was better to let Granny say things out loud. Because Granny always had a plan. It was a hallmark of Esmeralda Weatherwax that she always knew what she was doing. It was just that sometimes, what she was doing wasn't always the best for either her or everyone else around her. Nanny had seen it hundreds of times in big ways and small. Granny would head off in some direction dragging everyone else along with her and while they all always got somewhere in the end, it was often not without a whole lot of kicking and resistance that might not have had to happen if Granny had just bothered to tell anybody what she was up to.
So Nanny had learned to at least give her the opportunity to think it through out loud. Sometimes that helped.
"This is puttin' someone who needs it straight about a few things," Granny said, managing to not shake a finger at Nanny, though Nanny could tell she dearly wanted to. "Pretty clear from what she done that she has no idea what witches really are, just raw talent and fool foreign notions. Most likely from doin' too much readin'. Turns the head soft, does readin'."
Nanny nodded sagely, but as the author of a book, herself, she really didn't have a leg to stand on in the face of Granny's known dislike for book learning, though Esme was grudgingly literate out of plain fear that somebody would put something over on her if she wasn't. Granny had never missed a trick yet, and literacy was about as tricky as things got. As far as Granny was concerned most things that ever got written down were lies, or fiction, which was just a nicer way of saying the same thing.
"But the talent was considerable," Granny said thoughtfully. "And we needs to see if it ain't just a fluke. 'Cause I only know one child that had that kind of talent her age, and don't go lookin' at me like that Gytha, 'cause it weren't me. It was, you know, the other one. It's ones like that that seem to be playin' with it younger. Ones that feel the pull of the wrong and don't look away like sensible people."
"So you're worried, then," Nanny said. Nanny, herself, hadn't really been worried. At least not until now.
"Not necessarily worried," Granny said. "But it's better to be safe than sorry. And if we don't step in it'll just be trouble for Magrat and Agnes later on. Mostly Agnes, I reckon."
"Why Agnes, in particular," Nanny asked.
"'Cause Agnes ain't Queen," Granny said. "'Cause Agnes might have more power than she knows and quite a lot of vision but maybe not the confidence she'd need if she came up against someone a lot more powerful than herself. And you know as well as I do that if it come down to it and you thought, say, someone you knew was more powerful than you had gone bad and might be headin' down the path that was, say, lined with candy canes and lollipops, you'd still believe that you'd be able to FIND A WAY.”
“And you ain't sure Agnes could say the same,” Nanny said.
“Right,” said Granny. “She'd try. But I don't know if she'd really believe she could. And if a witch can't believe in her own power, then who else can? Not her enemies.”
"Because we won't always be around, and Agnes will be the one who has to face her," Nanny said seriously.
"That's right," Granny nodded. "Better they be friends than t'other. Especially if she's got as much power as I think."
The palace seemed normal enough, despite Shawn not being at the gates. It only took one look out over the fields to see him out there in work clothes with the King and a strange man who was wearing an outfit far too fine for working in. The third man was clearly the new Ambassador.
So if he was around, that meant that the little girls must be as well. Agnes walked into the castle, even though she still felt odd not having a proper door to knock on or assuming that she was welcome everywhere just because she was wearing black and a traditional hat.
It wasn’t hard to find them. She only had to listen carefully and the sound of high-pitched childish voices led her straight to her destination, a small walled garden at the back of the castle.
Agnes stopped in the doorway to see what she could see before going in there. And Nanny had been perfectly right in saying that there couldn’t be two more different children in the world. They absolutely were like night and day.
The one little girl was as blonde and beautiful as sunshine. All ringlets and peaches and cream complexion and brilliant smile full of perfect teeth. She wore a lovely frock that was stylish and spotless as if she hadn’t been in a garden playing at all. She was bent over a doll’s cradle cooing at what Agnes assumed was a special favorite toy, as she seemed so very delighted with it.
The other was as opposite as possible. Her hair was dark and straight and held back in a messy braid. Her dress was dark and stained with grass and dirt at the knees, she had her arms folded and was scowling a scowl that would have done Granny Weatherwax fair credit.
“I don’t think you should be doing that,” the dark one said to the other. “He’s horrid, but he’s a living creature, not a toy.”
“Don’t be silly, he loves me,” the blond one replied with an angelic smile. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Graymalkin!”
She reached into the cradle and pulled out something swaddled in what looked a lot like one of little Esme’s gowns and a frilly bonnet. The thing was clearly alive, though it hung limply from her hands like a sack of meat. It wasn’t until Agnes saw the ratty gray tail emerging from the bottom of the baby dress that she recognized it as Greebo.
She couldn’t imagine anyone being able to stuff Greebo into a dress. Something odd was going on. Granny was right.
“He doesn’t love you. He’s sick!” the dark one said angrily. “He can barely keep his eyes open and he’s not right, I’m telling you! We should get help.”
“No, he’s not! He’s just sleeping, like he was when I found him down in that nasty old cellar. He makes the nicest baby!”
“No, he does not. He smells. And he’s sick. He’s probably dying. He’s a nasty mangy old thing and he probably is sick. You can’t just keep him and play with him like a toy. He’s alive, Regina!”
“He likes dressing up, don’t you, Mr. Grayseys!” the blonde one, Regina said, bouncing Greebo up and down in a way that would have earned her a disemboweling if he’d been healthy or awake.
Nanny would be beside herself when she found out. And Agnes knew that Greebo needed a rescue if ever any creature did. Before he woke up in a frilly baby dress and ripped off the little blonde girl’s face.
“Look, you need to give him to me,” the other one told her, holding out her skinny arms. “I can probably help him. You know I can fix things!”
“A bird with a broken wing is different, Rosa,” Regina said with a superior air. “That’s simple. You can see how it’s supposed to go. You can fix it with sticks. If Mr. Grayseys is really sick, that’s hard. You remember how it was when I had that fever. It took them weeks and weeks to make me better and you couldn’t do anything to help.”
“I was six,” the dark haired girl said. “I didn’t know how to help then.”
“Well, it really doesn’t matter, does it?” Regina said, matter of factly. “I’m sure he’s just a lazybones.”
“That’s Greebo,” Agnes said, stepping through the doorway and into the sunlight, glad for once for the wide brim of her hat seeing it cut the glare down to almost nothing. “And normally he’d be clawing you to pieces for holding onto him like that. He doesn’t like anyone but Nanny Ogg. That’s who he belongs to.”
“The witch from town?” the dark one asked, looking Agnes up and down speculatively.
“Yes,” Agnes said. “Nanny lives in town.”
“And this cat belongs to her,” the girl said, looking at the blonde one with hard green eyes. “He belongs to someone, Regina. You can’t just take him and dress him up and keep him.”
“Who are you?” the blonde one asked. “I haven’t seen you before.”
“My name is Agnes,” Agnes said.
“Who is Perdita, then?” Rosa asked.
“What are you talking about?” said Agnes. “Uh, oh,” said Perdita.
“Because your mouth said Agnes, but you said Perdita,” Rosa said. “And you meant yourself when you said it, too.”
“Look sharp!” Perdita said.
Rosa put her head on one side.
“Perdita’s the other one,” Regina said. “The other one inside. Did you eat her?”
“That’s mean, you shouldn’t have said that!” Rosa said. “Agnes isn’t a cannibal, and now Perdita hates you!”
“Which one of you went up the mountain?” Agnes asked.
“Can you imagine me climbing up there and going near some smelly old goats?” Regina said. “That was Rosalind. I didn’t think she’d do it, or I’d never have dared her in a million years.”
“It’s pretty up there,” Rosalind said. “And you can see practically the whole mountain from the cottage.”
“Yes, you can,” Agnes said. “It makes it easy for Granny to get where she’s needed.”
“Isn’t it hard for people to go up there?” Rosalind said. “I had to walk for ages.”
“But Granny doesn’t take care of the people in town, mostly,” Agnes said. “That’s Nanny’s territory. Granny takes care of people up the mountain and in the villages up around her place.”
“And you and Perdita take care of the people who live the other way, don’t you? The place where Queen Magrat used to live and the people she used to take care of before she started taking care of everybody and being Queen,” Rosalind said with a knowing air.
"Yes," said Agnes. "You seem to know a lot about it."
"People don't think I'm listening. I can learn a lot that way," Rosalind said.
"I don't know why you care, anyway," Regina said. "We're going to go home in a little while and be at a proper court again. I mean, Queen Magrat is very nice, but she's not really royalty, is she? Queen Keli has a much better idea of how to do it, It’s a lot cleaner at home, and there are proper servants instead of just that Shawn and a few cooks and maids. I mean, I daresay Daddy is richer than this whole kingdom."
"I don't see what difference it makes how much money you have," Rosalind said.
"Money makes you a little better than other people because it means the gods like you, but it's really birth that matters," Regina told her, fluffing the lace on Greebo's bonnet. "You never do listen to what Mummy says, do you? You know she's the one that was the real Lady. Daddy just bought his title."
"And you're like her and I’m like him. I know all that," Rosalind said, sounding bored. "I think you might have said it every day of my life. I know Mummy says it whenever she sees me."
Agnes felt for Rosalind. She couldn't remember many days before she was a witch where she wasn't told how fat she was by someone like Regina.
"Why have you come, Agnes?" Rosalind asked, finally. "Are you looking for the cat? Greebo, did you say he's called?"
"No, I came looking for you," Agnes said. "Granny wants to see you."
"About the goats," Rosalind said. "How did she know it was me?"
"I think that she will probably explain that," Agnes said.
"You don't want me to go, do you?" asked Regina. "I'm oldest, you know. And more powerful than her."
"At some things," Rosalind said. "You couldn't have done what I did to the goats. You would have just made them look like they weren't goats any more. You couldn't have changed their heads."
“No, I would have done something much harder," Regina said. "I would have changed the heads of everyone who looked at them."
"That isn't harder," Rosalind said. "Is it, Agnes?"
"It's different," Agnes said. "And it isn't the kind of thing I'm used to. We don't do things like that here. We deal with things as they are."
"What's the fun of leaving things as they are?" Regina said, turning Greebo around. He didn't look well at all. He was very limp. "This nasty old cat looked horrid before I cleaned him up. He's much better now that I've changed him. You have to change things to make them better."
"But what if they don't want to change?" Agnes asked.
"Oh, they want to. They just don't know it yet," Regina said, smiling blindingly.
"Rosalind, why don't you take Greebo so we can give him back to Nanny? She's very worried about him," Agnes said, resisting the urge to back slowly out of the room. "And then you and I will go and see Granny about the goats."
"Yes," said Rosalind. She went to her sister and held her arms out for the cat. "You'll have to find something else to play with, Regina. Greebo belongs to someone else."
"I think he likes me better than that old witch," Regina said. "He just doesn't know it yet."
"Still, he belongs to her, not you," Rosalind said sternly. "You don't want to be wrong do you? It's wrong to take things other people own. That's stealing. And stealing isn't noble."
"Well, not stealing cats, anyway," Regina said. "He smells bad, even though I washed him. I guess you can take him back."
Rosalind bent down and took the limp Greebo from her sister's grasp. She righted him up and gave him a squeeze around the middle, causing him to cough weakly. She carried him rapidly toward Agnes, and then pushed past her out the door, through the hall and to the castle yard. She stripped off the baby dress and bonnet and squeezed him hard about the middle, making him cough again and then retch.
"What are you doing?" Agnes said, hurrying after. "You're hurting him!"
"Regina found him down in the store room. He'd eaten something bad. Mummy complained, so they put out poison for the rats, even though there are hardly any of them. I'm sure that's what he did. It's why he's sick, but Regina wouldn't let me touch him until you came, so I couldn't get the poison out," the little girl said, clearly worried.
“You stay here with him and I'll go get the Queen," Agnes said. "She's bound to have something to make him throw it up."
"I will," the girl said. "I'll try to get him to drink water, too."
Agnes hurried off, wishing she'd brought her own bag with her. But it hadn't seemed to be that kind of visit. Fortunately, she knew right were Magrat would be that time of day and moved quickly up the steps to the family solar, which was where the Queen and baby Esme spent their afternoons.
Magrat was just watching Esme pile ever-diminishing-sized rings onto a stick as Agnes burst into the room.
"...it's Greebo!" She got out, somewhat winded from her headlong flight upstairs.
"What's he done now?" Magrat said, sounding a bit irritated. "He hasn't killed something somewhere inconvenient, has he?"
Agnes shook her head.
"Molested someone's pet? Not the Ambassadress's Miss Fluffy?" Magrat said. "She's a dog!"
"No, he's eaten poison. That's what Rosalind says, anyway." Agnes managed.
"You sure she didn't give him the poison?" Magrat said suspiciously. "The Ambassadress has said that Rosalind is quite the little devil, always up to some kind of trouble. And she has power, too. You've noticed, I'm sure, if you've spoken to her. And she's always sullen and mostly won't look you in the eye. Not at all trustworthy, in my opinion."
"You might want to talk to her again, when her Mum isn't there," Agnes said. "It's Regina that's the devil."
"The little blonde one? Why she's charming!" Magrat said, as she hurried to the other room to get her bag of simples.
"I think charming is just the right description for Regina," Agnes said. "As in charm."
"Oh, no! Are you sure?"
"I'm afraid so," Agnes said. "She’s the kind that thinks she can do whatever she likes. She can arrange things to her liking and that’s “making them better.” I haven't the slightest idea what to do with her."
"Acid bath? Long drop into Lancre Gorge? Flamethrower?" Perdita suggested.
"Have you told Granny?" Magrat said.
"No, I only just got here. Why haven't you?" Agnes asked.
"I haven't really spent all that much time with the children," Magrat told her, gathering up her supplies. "Their mother requires quite a lot of entertaining, it seems. Hereditary nobility and all that. And children mostly take care of themselves. At least these two seem to. And Esme's at that age where she needs a lot of stimulation as well. I have my hands full."
"I'm sure," Agnes said. "You could have sent for help. I mean, I know you don't like to bother people, but you are Queen."
"I know I am but it didn't seem necessary," Magrat said, handing her bag to Agnes and hoisting Esme onto one hip. "Where is Greebo now?"
"Down in the yard, with Rosalind," Agnes said.
"Let's go fix him, then," Magrat said, hurrying off.
"If he was awake, I wouldn't put it that way," Agnes told her, following after.
Greebo was quite possibly the sickest he'd ever been. He felt even worse now than when he'd eaten the half-rotted elk and shat putrid meat for a solid week all over the chicken coop where he'd been hiding to avoid Nanny's home-brewed diarrhea remedy.
He thought he might have seen his stomach come out with that last one, and the fact that the stuff making him sick had been given him by Magrat, who had always been tolerant, if not nice to him, had been quite a blow.
But, he had been feeling not himself before Magrat gave him the sick-making stuff. He vaguely remembered being down in the storeroom and seeing a tiny thing in a black robe carrying something sharp that had SQUEAKed at him just before he’d found the tasty steak. Maybe he should have chased it instead, though he mostly didn’t like eating bones. He certainly was sick now.
If he'd felt better, he'd have put his claws in somebody, but the fact was, he mostly wanted to curl up somewhere and sleep.
And someone who was not Nanny was patting him on the head, making it pound. He really shouldn't have to take that, but he was too sick to care.
He threw up again, making sure to aim at the appallingly frilly baby bonnet that happened to be lying nearby. It seemed the only appropriate thing to do.
Rosalind walked all the way up to the standing stones under her own steam, even carrying Greebo in his basket for part of the way, when Agnes’ hands got tired. Agnes had to admire the little girl’s bravery. She seemed quite ready to take whatever consequences Granny was ready to dish out for the incident with the goats.
Perdita thought it wasn’t bravery, but something a lot more like hubris. Like Diamanda had had when the Queen of the Fair Folk had been on her side.
Granny was waiting for them with an expression on her face that could have split paint. Agnes could see that the standing stones were cowering as far away in the clearing as they could go all clustered in a bunch far away from Nanny’s fire.
“Cooee, Girls!” Nanny called, waving her hand above her head from where she was sitting on a log, like she was getting their attention in a crowd.
“Agnes,” Rosalind asked in a quiet voice. “Which one of them is the most dangerous?”
“They both are in their own way,” Agnes said. “All witches are.”
“Like me and Regina,” Rosalind said.
“Right,” Agnes said.
“So it was you,” Nanny said, looking her up and down speculatively. “I thought it probably had been.”
“Yes,” Rosalind said, squaring her narrow shoulders and looking directly at Nanny. “I’m the one that hexed the goats.”
“And come up here bold as brass and admitted as much, eh?” Granny said, coming toward the fire, her eyes shining silver in the fading light.
“Yes,” Rosalind said. “Regina said I should turn them into something, but I just changed their minds, instead. That was good enough to prove I wasn’t afraid.”
“Agnes, do you mind joinin’ me and Nanny for a moment?” Granny said, beckoning Agnes to the other side of the fire. Agnes gave Rosalind a reassuring smile and went to join the other two in a proper huddle.
Rosalind stood firm. She already learned from her sister that if somebody with power saw that you were weak, it would go the worse for you. So it didn’t do to feel sorry for yourself or fret about whatever was on its way. It would be what it was. And you would have to deal with it.
The witches whispered together for several minutes, occasionally breaking their huddle to peer over their shoulders at Rosalind where she stood awaiting judgment and then putting their pointed hats together again for more whispering. She held herself still and straight, even though she desperately wanted to fidget or go over by the fire to look at the little pictures you could sometimes see inside the flames.
Finally, the oldest one, whose goats she’d bothered broke the huddle and strode over to look down her pointed nose at Rosalind.
“You had a proper long time to fret while we was conversin’,” the old woman said. “You scared now?”
While it was clear from her tone that the old woman thought that Rosalind probably should be scared, Rosalind knew that it was unlikely that even this old woman could think up meaner things to do than Regina, so she shook her head.
“Well, it’s a good thing you’re not afraid, because I’ve got some right unpleasant news for you,” Granny said.
“I did it,” Rosalind said firmly. “I’m ready to take responsibility.”
“Good to know,” Granny told her. “Because I’ve got to break it to you right now, Missy…”
Granny looked around from Nanny, to Agnes, and then finally to the little one in the dark dress standing so bravely in front of her ready to face the responsibility.
“From now on,” Granny said, “You’re going to have to be the good one.”