A Hat Full Of Sky (22 page)

She put her hands into her pockets and touched the lucky stone. And the string. And the piece of chalk.

If this was a story, she thought bitterly, I’d trust in my heart and follow my star and all that other stuff and it would all turn out all right, right now, by tinkly Magikkkk. But you’re never in a story when you need to be.

Story, story, story…

The third wish. The Third Wish. The Third Wish is the important one.

In stories the genie or the witch or the magic cat…offers you three wishes.

Three wishes…

She grabbed a hurrying witch and looked into the face of Annagramma, who stared at her in terror and tried to cower away.

“Please don’t do anything to me! Please!” she cried. “I’m your
friend
, aren’t I?”

“If you like, but that wasn’t me and I’m better now,” said Tiffany, knowing she was lying. It
had
been her, and that was important. She had to remember that. “Quick, Annagramma! What’s
the third wish? Quickly! When you get three wishes, what’s the third wish!”

Annagramma’s face screwed up into the affronted frown she wore when something had the nerve not to be understandable. “But why do—?”

“Don’t think about it, please! Just answer!”

“Well, er…it could be anything…being invisible or…or blond, or anything—” Annagramma burbled, her mind coming apart at the seams.

Tiffany shook her head and let her go. She ran to an old witch who was staring at the commotion.

“Please, mistress, this is important! In stories, what’s the third wish? Don’t ask me why, please! Just remember!”

“Er…happiness. It’s happiness, isn’t it?” said the old lady. “Yes, definitely. Health, wealth, and happiness. Now if I was you, I’d—”

“Happiness? Happiness…thank you,” said Tiffany, and looked around desperately for someone else. It wasn’t happiness, she knew that in her boots. You couldn’t get happiness by magic, and
that
was another clue right there.

There was Miss Tick, hurrying between the tents. There was no time for half measures. Tiffany pulled her around and shouted:
“HelloMissTickYesI’mFineIHopeYouAre WellTooWhatIsTheThirdWishQuicklyThisIs ImportantPleaseDon’tArgueOrAskQuestion ThereIsn’tTime!”

Miss Tick, to her credit, hesitated only for a moment or two. “To have a hundred more wishes, isn’t it?” she said.

Tiffany stared at her and then said, “Thank you. It isn’t, but that’s a clue, too.”

“Tiffany, there’s a—” Miss Tick began.

But Tiffany had seen Granny Weatherwax.

She was standing in the middle of the field, in a big square that had been roped off for some reason. No one seemed to notice her. She was watching the frantic witches around the hiver, where there was an occasional flash and sparkle of magic. She had a calm, faraway look.

Tiffany brushed Miss Tick’s arm away, ducked under the rope, and ran up to her.

“Granny!”

The blue eyes turned to her.

“Yes?”

“
In stories
, where the genie or the magic frog or the fairy godmother gives you three wishes…what’s the third wish?”

“Ah,
stories
,” said Granny. “That’s easy. In any story worth the tellin’, that knows about the way
of the world,
the third wish is the one that undoes the harm the first two wishes caused
.”

“Yes! That’s it! That’s it!” shouted Tiffany, and the words piling up behind the question poured out. “It’s not evil! It can’t be! It hasn’t got a mind of its own! This is all about wishes!
Our
wishes! It’s like in the stories, where they—”

“Calm down. Take a deep breath,” said Granny. She took Tiffany by the shoulders so that she faced the panicking crowd.

“You got frightened for a moment, and now it’s comin’ and it’s not going to turn back, not now, ’cuz it’s desperate. It don’t even
see
the crowd. They don’t mean a thing to it. It’s you it wants. It’s you it’s after. You should be the one who faces it. Are you ready?”

“But supposing I lose—”

“I never got where I am today by supposin’ I was goin’ to lose, young lady. You beat it once—you can do it again!”

“But I could turn into something terrible!”

“Then you’ll face me,” said Granny. “You’ll face me, on my ground. But that won’t happen, will it? You were fed up with grubby babies and silly women? Then this is…the other stuff. It’s noon now. They should’ve started the Trials proper, but, hah, it looks as though people have
forgotten. Now, then…do you have it in you to be a witch by noonlight, far away from your hills?”

“Yes!” There was no other answer, not to Granny Weatherwax.

Granny Weatherwax bowed low and then took a few steps back.

“In your own time, then, madam,” she said.

Wishes, wishes, wishes, thought Tiffany, distracted, fumbling in her pockets for the bits to make a shamble. It’s not evil.
It gives us what we think we want!
And what do people ask for? More wishes!

You couldn’t say: A monster got into my head and made me do it. She’d wished the money was hers. The hiver just took her at her thought.

You couldn’t say: Yes, but I’d
never
have really taken it! The hiver used what it found—the little secret wishes, the desires, the moments of rage, all the things that real humans knew how to ignore! It didn’t let you ignore them!

Then, as she fumbled to tie the pieces together, the egg flipped out of her hands, trusted in gravity, and smashed on the toe of her boot.

She stared at it, the blackness of despair darkening the noonlight. Why did I try this? I’ve
never made a shamble that worked, so why did I try? Because I believed it had to work this time, that’s why. Like in a story. Suddenly it would all be…all right.

But this isn’t a story, and there are no more eggs….

There was a scream, but it was high up and the sound of it took Tiffany home in the bounce of a heartbeat. It was a buzzard, in the eye of the sun, getting bigger in its plunge toward the field.

It soared up again as it passed over Tiffany’s head, fast as an arrow, and as it did so, something small let go its hold on the buzzard’s talons with a cry of “Crivens!”

Rob Anybody dropped like a stone, but there was a
thwap!
and suddenly a balloon of cloth snapped open above him. Two balloons, in fact, or to put it another way, Rob Anybody had “borrowed” Hamish’s parachute.

He let go of them as soon as they’d slowed him down, and dropped neatly into the shamble.

“Did ye think we’d leave ye?” he shouted, holding on to the strings. “I’m under a geas, me! Get on wi’ it, right noo!”

“What? I can’t!” said Tiffany, trying to shake him off. “Not with you! I’ll kill you! I always crack the eggs! What goose?”

“Dinna argue!” shouted Rob, bouncing up and down in the strings. “Do it! Or ye’re no’ the hag of the hills! An’ I know ye are!”

People were running past now. Tiffany glanced up. She thought she could
see
the hiver now as a moving shape in the dust.

She looked at the tangle in her hands and at Rob’s grinning face.

The moment twanged.

A witch deals with things, said her Second Thoughts. Get past the “I can’t.”

O-kay…

Why
hasn’t it ever worked before? Because there was no reason for it to work. I didn’t
need
it to work.

I need it to help me now. No. I need
me
to help me.

So
think
about it. Ignore the noise, ignore the hiver rolling toward me over the trodden grass…

She’d used the things she’d had, so that was right. Calm down. Slow down. Look at the shamble. Think about the moment. There were all the things from home…

No. Not all the things. Not all the things at all. This time she felt the shape of what wasn’t there—

—and tugged at the silver Horse around her
neck, breaking its chain, then hanging it in the threads.

Suddenly her thoughts were as cool and clear as ice, as bright and shiny as they needed to be. Let’s see…that looks better there…and that needs to be pulled
this
way…

The movement jerked the silver Horse into life. Then it spun gently, passing through the threads
and
Rob Anybody, who said “Didna hurt a bit! Keep goin’!”

Tiffany felt a tingle in her feet. The Horse gleamed as it turned.

“I dinna want to hurry ye!” said Rob Anybody. “But hurry!”

I’m far from home, thought Tiffany, in the same clear way, but I have it in my eye. Now I open my eyes. Now I open my eyes again—

Ahh…

Can I be a witch away from my hills? Of course I can. I never really leave you, Land Under Wave….

Shepherds on the Chalk felt the ground shake, like thunder under the turf. Birds scattered from the bushes. The sheep looked up.

Again, the ground trembled.

Some people said a shadow crossed the sun. Some people said they heard the sound of hooves.

And a boy trying to catch hares in the little valley of the Horse said the hillside had burst and a horse had leaped out like a wave as high as the sky, with a mane like the surf of the sea and a coat as white as chalk. He said it had galloped into the air like rising mist, and flown toward the mountains like a storm.

He got punished for telling stories, of course, but he thought it was worth it.

The shamble glowed. Silver coursed along the threads. It was coming from Tiffany’s hands, sparking like stars.

In that light she saw the hiver reach her and spread out until it was all around her, invisibility made visible. It rippled and reflected the light oddly. In those glints and sparkles there were faces, wavering and stretching like reflections in water.

Time was going slowly. She could see, beyond the wall of hiver, witches staring at her. One had lost her hat in the commotion, but it was hanging in the air. It hadn’t had time to fall yet.

Tiffany’s fingers moved. The hiver shimmered in the air, disturbed like a pond when a pebble has been dropped into it. Tendrils of it reached toward her. She felt its panic, felt its terror as it found itself caught—

“Welcome,” said Tiffany.

Welcome?
said the hiver in Tiffany’s own voice.

“Yes. You are welcome in this place. You are safe here.”

No! We are never safe!

“You are safe here,” Tiffany repeated.

Please!
said the hiver.
Shelter us!

“The wizard was nearly right about you,” said Tiffany. “You hid in other creatures. But he didn’t wonder
why
. What are you hiding from?”

Everything
, said the hiver.

“I
think
I know what you mean,” said Tiffany.

Do you? Do you know what it feels like to be aware of every star, every blade of grass? Yes. You do. You call it “opening your eyes again.” But you do it for a moment. We have done it for eternity. No sleep, no rest, just endless…endless experience, endless awareness. Of everything.
All the time.
How we envy you,
envy
you! Lucky humans, who can close your minds to the endless cold deeps of space! You have this thing you call…boredom? That is the rarest talent in the universe! We heard a song—it went “Twinkle twinkle little star….” What power! What wondrous power! You can take a billion trillion tons of flaming matter, a furnace of unimaginable strength, and turn it into a little song for children! You build little worlds, little stories, little shells around your minds, and that
keeps infinity at bay and allows you to wake up in the morning without screaming!

Completely binkers!
said a cheerful voice at the back of Tiffany’s memory. You just couldn’t keep Dr. Bustle down.

Pity us, yes, pity us,
said the voices of the hiver.
No shield for us, no rest for us, no sanctuary. But you, you withstood us. We saw that in you. You have minds within minds. Hide us!

“You want silence?” said Tiffany.

Yes, and more than silence,
said the voice of the hiver.
You humans are so good at ignoring things. You are almost blind and almost deaf. You look at a tree and see…just a tree, a stiff weed. You don’t see its history, feel the pumping of the sap, hear every insect in the bark, sense the chemistry of the leaves, notice the hundred shades of green, the tiny movements to follow the sun, the subtle growth of the wood…

“But you don’t understand us,” said Tiffany. “I don’t think any human could survive you. You give us what you think we want, as soon as we want it, just like in fairy stories. And the wishes always go wrong.”

Yes. We know that now. We have an echo of you now. We have…understanding,
said the hiver.
So now we come to you with a wish. It is the wish that puts the others right.

“Yes,” said Tiffany. “That’s always the last wish, the third wish. It’s the one that says ‘Make this not have happened.’”

Teach us the way to die
, said the voices of the hiver.

“I don’t know it!”

All humans know the way,
said the voices of the hiver.
You walk it every day of your short, short lives. You know it. We envy you your knowledge. You know how to end. You are very talented.

I
must
know how to die, Tiffany thought. Somewhere deep down. Let me think. Let me get past the “I can’t.”…

She held up the glittering shamble. Shafts of light still spun off it, but she didn’t need it anymore. She could hold the power in the center of herself. It was all a matter of balance.