Wintersmith (26 page)

“Time to dance, Lady. Time to finish the Dance.”

Thoughts leaked out away from Tiffany’s grasp. The eyes of the Wintersmith filled her mind with nothing but whiteness, like a field of pure snow….

“Aaaiiiiieeeee!”

The door of old Miss Treason’s cottage flew open and…something came out, staggering through the snow.

It was a witch. You could not mistake it. She—it was probably a she, but some things are so horrible that worrying about how to address a letter to them is silly—had a hat with a point that curled like a snake. It was on top of dripping strands of mad, greasy hair, which were perched on a nightmare of a face. It was green, like the hands that waved black fingernails that were really terrible claws.

Tiffany stared. The Wintersmith stared. The people stared.

As the horrible screaming, lurching thing drew nearer, the details got clearer, like the brown rotting teeth and the warts. Lots of warts. Even the warts on the warts had warts.

Annagramma had sent off for
everything
. Part of Tiffany wanted to laugh, even now, but the Wintersmith snatched at her hand—

—and the witch grabbed his shoulder.

“Don’t you take hold of her like that! How dare you! I’m a witch, you know!”

Annagramma’s voice wasn’t easy on the ear at the best of times, but when she was frightened or angry, it had a whine that bored right into the head.

“Let go of her, I say,” screamed Annagramma. The Wintersmith looked stunned. Having to listen to Annagramma in a rage was hard for someone who hadn’t had ears for very long.

“Let her go,” she yelled. Then she threw a fireball.

She missed. Possibly she meant to. A ball of flaming gas whizzing nearby usually makes most people stop what they are doing. But most people don’t melt.

The Wintersmith’s leg dropped off.

Later, on the journey through the blizzard, Tiffany wondered how the Wintersmith
worked
. He was made of snow, but he could make it walk and talk. That must mean he had to
think
about it all the time. He had to. Humans didn’t have to think about their bodies all the time, because their bodies knew what to do. But snow doesn’t even know how to stand up straight.

Annagramma was glaring at him as if he’d done something really annoying.

He looked around, as if puzzled, cracks appearing across his chest, and then he was just crumbling snow, collapsing into glittery crystals.

The snow began to pour down now, as if the clouds were being squeezed.

Annagramma pulled the mask to one side and stared first at the heap and then at Tiffany.

“All right,” she said, “what just happened? Was he
supposed
to do that?”

“I was coming to see you and…that’s the Wintersmith!” was all that Tiffany could manage at that point.

“You mean like…the
Wintersmith
?” said Annagramma. “Isn’t he just a story? What is he after
you
for?” she added accusingly.

“It’s…he…I…” Tiffany began, but there was nowhere to start. “He’s real! I’ve got to get away from him!” she said. “I’ve got to get away! It takes too long to explain!”

For a horrible moment she thought Annagramma was still going to demand the whole story, but she reached out and grabbed Tiffany’s hand with a black rubber claw.

“Then get out of here right now! Oh, no, you’ve
still
got Miss Treason’s old broom? Totally useless! Use mine!” She dragged Tiffany toward the cottage, as the snowflakes thickened.

“‘Iron enough to make a nail’!” said Tiffany, trying to keep up. She couldn’t think of anything else to say, and it was suddenly very important. “He thought he was human—”

“I’ve only knocked over his snowman, you fool. He’ll be back!”

“Yes, but iron enough, you see, to—”

A green hand slapped her face, but this hurt less than it might because of the rubber.

“Don’t babble! I thought you were clever! I really don’t know what this is about, but if I had that thing after me, I wouldn’t stand around babbling!” Annagramma pulled across the Wicked Witch De-Luxe Mask With Free Dangling Booger, adjusted the hang of the booger, and turned to the villagers, who’d been rooted to the spot all this time. “What are you all staring at? Haven’t you ever seen a witch before?” she shouted. “Go back home! Oh, and I’ll be down tomorrow with some physic for your little boy, Mrs. Carter!”

They stared at the green face, the rotted teeth, the stinking hair,
and the huge booger, made in fact of glass, and fled.

Still drunk with terror and relief, Tiffany rocked gently, muttering “Iron enough to make a nail!” until Annagramma shook her. The thick flakes were dropping so fast that it was hard to see her face.

“Tiffany, broomstick. Broomstick fly,” said Annagramma. “Fly a long way! Do you hear me! Somewhere safe!”

“But he…the poor thing thinks that…”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure it’s all very important,” said Annagramma, dragging her toward the cottage wall, where her broomstick leaned. She half pushed, half lifted Tiffany onto it and looked up. Snow was pouring out of the sky like a waterfall now.

“He’s coming back!” she snapped, and said a few words under her breath. The broomstick shot straight up and disappeared into the fading, snow-filled light.

G
ranny Weatherwax looked up from the saucer of ink, in which a tiny Tiffany was disappearing into the whiteness of the blizzard. She was smiling, but with Granny Weatherwax this did not necessarily mean that something nice was happening.

“We could ha’ taken him doon easy,” said Rob Anybody reproachfully. “Ye should ha’ let us.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps he’d have frozen you solid?” said Granny. “Besides, there’s a bigger task ahead of the Nac Mac Feegles. Your big wee hag needs you to do two things. One of them is hard, the other one is very hard.”

The Feegles cheered up when they heard this. They were everywhere in Mrs. Ogg’s kitchen. Some were perched on Nanny Ogg herself, and Miss Tick looked very uncomfortable surrounded by them. Unlike Miss Tick, Feegles rarely had an opportunity for a bath.

“Firstly,” said Granny, “she will need you to go into the…Underworld, to fetch the Summer Lady.”

The significant pause did not seem to bother the Feegles at all.

“Oh aye, we can do that,” said Rob Anybody. “We can get into anywhere. An’ that’s the verra hard bit, is it?”

“And out again?” said Granny.

“Oh, aye,” said Rob firmly. “Mostly we get thrown oot!”

“The very hard part,” said Granny, “will be finding a Hero.”

“That’s no’ hard,” said Rob. “We’re a’ heroes here!” A cheer went up.

“Really?” said Granny. “Are you frightened to go into the Underworld, Rob Anybody?”

“Me? No!” Rob Anybody looked around at his brothers and grinned hugely.

“Spell the word ‘marmalade,’ then.” Granny Weatherwax pushed a pencil across Nanny Ogg’s table and sat back in her chair. “Go on. Right now. And no one is to help you!”

Rob backed away. Granny Weatherwax was the hag o’ all hags—he knew that. There was no telling what she might do to an errant Feegle.

He picked up the pencil nervously, and placed the pointy end against the wood of the table. Other Feegles clustered around, but under Granny’s frown no one dared to even cheer him on.

Rob stared upward, his lips moving and sweat beading his forehead.

“Mmmmaa…” he said.

“One,” said Granny.

Rob blinked. “Hey? Who’s countin’?” he protested.

“Me,” said Granny. The kitten You leaped onto her lap and curled up.

“Crivens, ye never said there wuz gonna be countin’!”

“Didn’t I? The rules can change at any time! Two!”

Rob scribbled a passable M, hesitated, and then drew an R just as Granny said “Three!”

“There’s gonna have tae be a ‘A’ in there, Rob,” said Billy Bigchin. He looked up defiantly at Granny and added: “I heard tell
the rules can change at any time, right?”

“Certainly. Five!”

Rob scratched in an A and added another M in a burst of creativity.

“Six and a half,” said Granny, calmly stroking the kitten.

“Whut? Ach, crivens,” muttered Rob, and wiped a sweaty hand on his kilt. Then he gripped the pencil again and drew an L. It had a rather wavy foot because the pencil skidded out of his hands and the point broke.

He growled and drew his sword.

“Eight,” said Granny. Wood shavings flew as Rob hacked a rather ragged fresh point out of the pencil.

“Nine.” An A and a D were scribbled by a Rob, whose eyes were now bulging and whose cheeks were red.

“Ten.” Rob stood to attention, looking mostly nervous but slightly proud, beside
MRAMLAD
. The Feegles cheered, and those nearest to him fanned him with their kilts.

“Eleven!”

“Whut? Crivens!” Rob scurried back to the end of the word and plonked down a small e.

“Twelve!”

“Ye can count all ye want tae, mistress,” said Rob, flinging down the pencil, “but that’s all the marmalade there is!” This got another cheer.

“An heroic effort, Mr. Anybody,” said Granny. “The first thing a hero must conquer is his fear, and when it comes to fightin’, the Nac Mac Feegles don’t know the meanin’ of the word.”

“Aye, true enough,” Rob grunted. “We dinna ken the meanin’ o’ thousands o’ wurds!”

“Can you fight a dragon?”

“Oh, aye, bring it on!” He was still angry about the marmalade.

“Run up a high mountain?”

“Nae problemo!”

“Read a book to the very end to save your big wee hag?”

“Oh, aye.” Rob stopped. He looked cornered. He licked his lips. “How many o’ them pagey things would that be?” he said hoarsely.

“Hundreds,” said Granny.

“Wi’ wurds on both sides?”

“Yes, indeed. In quite small writing!”

Rob crouched. He always did that when he was cornered, the better to come up fighting. The mass of Feegles held their breath.

“I’ll do it!” he announced grimly, clenching his fists.

“Good,” said Granny. “Of course you would. That would be heroic—for you. But someone must go into the Underworld to find the real Summer Lady. That is a Story. It has happened before. It works. And he must do it in fear and terror like a real Hero should, because a lot of the monsters he must overcome are the ones in his head, the ones he brings in with him. It’s time for spring, and winter and its snow is still with us, so you must find him
now
. You’ve got to find him and set his feet on the path. The Path That Goes Down, Rob Anybody.”

“Aye, we ken that path,” said Rob.

“His name is Roland,” said Granny. “I reckon you should leave as soon as it is light.”

The broomstick barreled through the black blizzard. Sticks usually went where the witches wanted them to go, and Tiffany lay along the broom, tried not to freeze to death, and hoped it was taking her home. She couldn’t see anything except darkness and rushing snow that stung her eyes, so she lay with the hat pulled down to
streamline the stick. Even so, snowflakes struck her like stones and piled up on the stick. She had to flail around every few minutes to stop things from icing up.

She did hear the roar of the falls below and felt the sudden depth of air as the stick glided out over the plains and began to sink. She felt cold to the bone.

She couldn’t fight the Wintersmith, not like Annagramma could. Oh, she could plan to do it, and go to bed determined, but when she saw him…

…
iron enough to make a nail
…. The words hung around in her head as the stick flew on and she remembered the old rhyme she’d heard years ago, when the wandering teachers came to the village. Everyone seemed to know it:

And on, and on…

It was a kind of nonsense, the sort that you never remember being taught but always seem to have known. Girls skipped to it, kids dib-dibbed it to see who was O-U-T out.

And then one day a traveling teacher, who like all the others
would teach for eggs, fresh vegetables, and clean used clothing, found he got more to eat by teaching things that were interesting rather than useful. He talked about how some wizards had once, using very skillful magic, worked out exactly what a human being was made of. It was mostly water, but there were iron and brimstone and soot and a pinch of just about everything else, even a tiny amount of gold, but all cooked up together somehow.

It made as much sense to Tiffany as anything else did. But she was certain of this: If you took all that stuff and put it in a big bowl, it wouldn’t turn into a human no matter how much you shouted at it.

You couldn’t make a picture by pouring a lot of paint into a bucket. If you were human, you knew that.

The Wintersmith wasn’t. The Wintersmith didn’t….

He didn’t know how the song ended, either.

The words went around and around her mind as the borrowed broom plunged onward. At one point Dr. Bustle turned up, with his reedy, self-satisfied voice, and gave her a lecture on the Lesser Elements and how, indeed, humans were made up of nearly all of them but also contained a lot of narrativium, the basic element of stories, which you could detect only by watching the way all the others behaved….

You run, you flee. How do you like this, sheep girl? You stole him from me. Is he all that you hoped for?
The voice came out of the air right beside her.

“I don’t care who
you
are,” muttered Tiffany, too cold to think straight. “Go away….”

Hours went by. The air down here was a bit warmer, and the snow not so fierce, but the cold still got through, no matter how much clothing you wore. Tiffany fought to stay awake. Some
witches could sleep on a broomstick, but she didn’t dare try in case she dreamed she was falling and woke up to find that it was true but soon wouldn’t be.

But now there were lights below, fitful and yellow. It was probably the inn at Twoshirts, an important navigation point.

Witches never stayed at inns if they could help it, because in some areas that could be dangerous, and in any case most of them inconveniently required you to pay them money. But Mrs. Umbridge, who ran the souvenir shop opposite the inn, had an old barn around the back and was what Miss Tick called FTW, or Friendly To Witches. There was even a witch sign, scratched on the barn wall where no one who wasn’t looking for it would find it: a spoon, a pointy hat, and one big schoolmistressy checkmark.

A pile of straw had never seemed more wonderful, and inside two minutes Tiffany was inside the straw. At the other end of the little barn Mrs. Umbridge’s pair of cows kept the air warm and smelling of fermented grass.

It was a dark sleep. She dreamed of Annagramma taking off the De-Luxe Mask and revealing her face, and then taking her face off to show Granny Weatherwax’s face underneath….

And then:
Was it worth a dance, sheep girl? You have taken my power and I am weak. The world will become frost. Was it worth a dance?

She sat up in the pitch-black barn and thought she saw a writhing glow in the air, like a snake. Then she fell back into the darkness and dreamed of the Wintersmith’s eyes.