Wintersmith (6 page)

You could hear the snow falling. It made a strange little noise, like a faint, cold sizzle.

“Wintersmith!”

There was no reply.

Well, what had she expected? A big booming voice? Mr. Spiky the icicle man? There was nothing but the softness of white snow falling patiently among dark trees.

She felt a bit silly now, but satisfied, too. This was what a witch did! She faced what she was afraid of, and then it held no more fear! She was good at this!

She turned—and saw the Wintersmith.

Remember this, said her Third Thoughts, cutting in. Every little detail is important.

The Wintersmith was……nothing. But the snow outlined him. It flowed around him in lines, as if traveling on an invisible skin. He was just a shape, and nothing more, except perhaps for two tiny pale purple-gray dots in the air, where you might expect to find eyes.

Tiffany stood still, her mind frozen, her body waiting to be told what to do.

The hand made of falling snow was reaching toward her now, but very slowly, as you would reach out toward an animal you do not want to frighten. There was…something, some strange sense of things unsaid because there was no voice to say them, a sense of striving, as if the thing were putting heart and soul into this moment, even if it did not know the meaning of heart or soul.

The hand stopped about a foot away from her. It was formed into a fist, and now it turned over and the fingers opened.

Something gleamed. It was the white horse, made of silver, on a fine silver chain.

Tiffany’s hand flew to her throat. But she’d had it on last night! Before she went…to…watch…the…dance….

It must have come off! And he’d found it!

That’s interesting, said her Third Thoughts that busied themselves with the world in their own way. You can’t see what’s hidden inside an invisible fist. How does that work? And why are those little purple-gray blurs in the air where you’d expect to find eyes?
Why aren’t
they
invisible?

That’s Third Thoughts for you. When a huge rock is going to land on your head, they’re the thoughts that think: Is that an igneous rock, such as granite, or is it sandstone?

That part of Tiffany’s brain that was a little less precise at the moment watched the silver horse dangle on its chain.

Her First Thought was: Take it.

Her Second Thought was: Don’t take it. It’s a trap.

Her Third Thought was: Really don’t take it. It will be colder than you can imagine.

And then the rest of her overruled the Thoughts entirely and said: Take it. It’s part of who you are. Take it. When you hold it, you think of home. Take it!

She held out her right hand.

The horse dropped into it. Instinctively she closed her fingers over it. It was indeed colder than she could have imagined, and it burned.

She screamed. The Wintersmith’s snowy outline became a flurry of flakes. The snow around her feet erupted with a cry of “Crivens!” as a mass of Feegles grabbed her feet and carried her, upright, across the clearing and back in through the cottage’s doorway.

Tiffany forced her hand open and, with trembling fingers, pulled the silver horse off her palm. It left a perfect print, a white horse on pink flesh. It wasn’t a burn, it was a…freeze.

Miss Treason’s chair rumbled around on its wheels.

“Come here, child,” she ordered.

Still clasping her hand, trying to force back the tears, Tiffany walked over to her.

“Stand right here by my chair, this instant!”

Tiffany did so. This was no time to be disobedient.

“I wish to look in your ear,” said Miss Treason. “Brush your hair aside.”

Tiffany held back her hair, and winced when she heard the tickle of mouse whiskers. Then the creature was taken away.

“Ah, I am surprised,” said Miss Treason. “I can see nothing.”

“Er…what were you expecting to see?” Tiffany ventured.

“Daylight!” snapped Miss Treason, so loudly that the mouse scuttled away. “Have you no brains at all, child?”

“Ah dunno if anyone is interested,” said Rob Anybody, “but I think yon Wintersmith has offskied. An’ it’s stopped snowin’.”

No one was listening. When witches row, they concentrate.

“It was mine!”

“A trinket!”

“No!”

“O’ course, this may not be the best time tae tell ye…” Rob went on, miserably.

“You think you need it to be a witch?”

“Yes!”

“A witch needs no devices!”

“You’ve used shambles!”

“Used, yes! Don’t need. Not
need
!”

“Ah mean, it’s quite meltin’ awa—” Rob said, smiling nervously.

Anger grabbed Tiffany’s tongue. How dare this stupid old crone talk about not needing things!

“Boffo!” she shouted. “Boffo, Boffo, Boffo!”

Silence slammed down. After a while Miss Treason looked past Tiffany and said: “Ye wee Feegle schemies! Get oot o’ here right noo! Ah’ll ken it if ye don’t! This is hag business!”

The room filled with a sort of whooshing noise, and the door
to the kitchen slammed shut.

“So,” said Miss Treason, “you know about Boffo, do you?”

“Yes,” said Tiffany, breathing heavily. “I do.”

“Very well. And have you told anyone—?” Miss Treason paused and raised a finger to her lips. Then she banged a stick on the floor. “Ah said get oot, ye scunners! Off intae the woods w’ ye! Check that he’s really gang awa’! I’ll see yer guilt through yer own een if ye defy me!”

From below there was the sound of a lot of potatoes rumbling as the Feegles scrambled out through the little ventilation grill.

“Now they’ve gone,” said Miss Treason. “They’ll stay gone, too. Boffo will see to that.”

Somehow, in the space of a few seconds, Miss Treason had become more human and a lot less scary. Well…slightly less scary.

“How did you find out? Did you go looking for it? Did you go prowling and rummaging?” said Miss Treason.

“No! I’m not like that! I found out by accident one day when you were having a nap!” Tiffany rubbed her hand.

“Does that hurt a lot?” said Miss Treason, leaning forward. She might be blind, but—like all the senior witches who knew what they were doing—she noticed
everything
.

“No, not now. It did, though. Look, I—”

“Then you will learn to listen! Do you think the Wintersmith has gone?”

“He just seemed to vanish—I mean, vanish even more. I think he just wanted to give me back my necklace.”

“Do you think that is the sort of thing the spirit of Winter, who commands the blizzard and the frost, would really do?”

“I don’t know, Miss Treason! He’s the only one I’ve met!”

“You danced with him.”

“I didn’t know I was going to!”

“Nevertheless.”

Tiffany waited, and then said: “Nevertheless what?”

“Just general neverthelessness. The little horse led him to you. But he’s not here now—you’re right about that. I’d know if he was.”

Tiffany walked up to the front door, hesitated for just a moment, and then opened it and went out into the clearing. There was a bit of snow here and there, but the day was turning into just another one of those gray-skyed winter days.

I’d know if he was, too, she thought. And he isn’t. And her Second Thoughts said: Oh? How do you know?

“We’ve both touched the horse,” she said under her breath.

She looked around at the empty branches and the sleeping trees, fiddling with the silver chain in her hand. The forests were curling in on themselves, ready for the winter.

He’s out there, but not close. He must be very busy, with a whole winter to make….

She said, “Thank you!” automatically, because her mother had always said that politeness costs nothing, and went back in. It was very hot inside now, but Miss Treason always had a huge log pile built by the Secret of Boffo. The local woodcutters always kept the pile high. A chilly witch might get nasty.

“I should like a cup of black tea,” said the old woman as Tiffany walked in, looking thoughtful.

She waited until Tiffany was washing out the cup, then said: “Have you heard the stories about me, child?” The voice was kindly. There had been shouts, there had been things said that might have been better put, there had been temper and defiance. But they were there together, with nowhere else to go. The quiet
voice was a peace offering, and Tiffany was glad of it.

“Er, that you have a demon in the cellar?” Tiffany answered, her mind still full of puzzles. “And you eat spiders? And get visited by kings and princes? And that any flower planted in your garden blooms black?”

“Oh, do they say so?” said Miss Treason, looking delighted. “I haven’t heard that last one. How nice. And did you hear that I walk around at night in the dark time of the year and reward those who have been good citizens with a purse of silver? But if they have been bad, I slit open their bellies with my thumbnail like this?”

Tiffany leaped backward as a wrinkled hand twisted her around and Miss Treason’s yellow thumbnail scythed past her stomach. The old woman looked terrifying.

“No! No, I haven’t heard that one!” she gasped, pressing up against the sink.

“What? And it was a wonderful story, with real historical antecedents!” said Miss Treason, her vicious scowl becoming a smile. “And the one about me having a cow’s tail?”

“A cow’s tail? No!”

“Really? How very vexing,” said Miss Treason, lowering her finger. “I fear the art of storytelling has got into a pretty bad way in these parts. I really shall have to do something.”

“This is just another kind of Boffo, right?” said Tiffany. She wasn’t totally sure. Miss Treason had looked pretty scary with that thumbnail. No wonder girls left so quickly.

“Ah, you do have a brain, after all. Of course it is. Boffo, yes. A good name for it. Boffo, indeed. The art of expectations. Show people what they want to see, show ’em what they think should be there. I have a reputation to keep up, after all.”

Boffo, Tiffany thought. Boffo, Boffo, Boffo.

She went over to the skulls, picked one up, and read the label underneath, just like she’d done a month ago:

Ghastly Skull No. 1 Price $2.99
The Boffo Novelty & Joke Shop
No. 4, Tenth Egg Street, Ankh-Morpork
“If it’s a laugh…it’s a Boffo!”

“Very lifelike, aren’t they,” said Miss Treason, clicking back to her chair, “if you can say that about a skull, of course! The shop sold a wonderful machine for making spiderwebs. You poured in this sticky stuff, d’you see, and with practice quite good webs could be made. Can’t abide creepy-crawlies, but of course I’ve got to have the webs. Did you notice the dead flies?”

“Yes,” said Tiffany, glancing up. “They’re raisins. I thought you had vegetarian spiders.”

“Well done. Nothing wrong with your eyes, at least. I got my hat from there, too. ‘Wicked Old Witch Number Three, A Must for Scary Parties,’ I think it was. I’ve still got their catalogue somewhere, if you’re interested.”

“Do all witches buy from Boffo?” asked Tiffany.

“Only me, at least around here. Oh, and I believe Old Mistress Breathless over in Two Falls used to buy warts from there.”

“But…why?” said Tiffany.

“She couldn’t grow them. Just couldn’t grow them at all, poor woman. Tried everything. Face like a baby’s bottom, her whole life.”

“No, I meant, why do you want to seem so”—Tiffany hesitated, and went on—“awful?”

“I have my reasons,” said Miss Treason.

“But you don’t do those things the stories say you do, do you? Kings and princes don’t come to consult you, do they?”

“No, but they might,” said Miss Treason stoutly. “If they got lost, for example. Oh, I know all about those stories. I made up most of them!”

“You made up stories about
yourself
?”

“Oh, yes. Of course. Why not? I couldn’t leave something as important as that to
amateurs
.”

“But people say you can see a man’s soul!”

Miss Treason chuckled. “Yes. Didn’t make that one up! But I’ll tell you, for some of my parishioners I’d need a magnifying glass! I see what they see, I hear with their ears. I knew their fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers. I know the rumors and the secrets and the stories and the truths. And I am Justice to them, and I am fair. Look at me. See me.”

Tiffany looked—and looked past the black cloak and the skulls and the rubber cobwebs and the black flowers and the blindfold and the stories, and saw a little deaf and blind old lady.

Boffo made the difference…not just the silly party stuff, but Boffo-thinking—the rumors and the stories. Miss Treason had power because people thought she did. It was like the standard witch’s hat. But Miss Treason was taking Boffo much, much further.

“A witch needs no devices, Miss Treason,” Tiffany said.

“Don’t get smart with me, child. Didn’t the girl Weatherwax tell you all this? Oh, yes, you don’t need a wand or a shamble or even a pointy hat to
be
a witch. But it helps a witch to put on a show! People expect it. They’ll believe in you. I didn’t get where I am today by wearing a woolly bobble hat and a gingham apron! I look the part. I—”

There was a crash from outside, in the direction of the dairy.

“Our little blue friends?” said Miss Treason, raising her eyebrows.

“No, they’re absolutely forbidden to go into any dairy I work in,” Tiffany began, heading for the door. “Oh dear, I hope it’s not Horace—”

“I told you he’d be nothing but trouble, did I not?” Miss Treason shouted as Tiffany hurried away.

It
was
Horace. He’d squeezed out of his cage again. He could make himself quite runny when he wanted to.

There was a broken butter dish on the floor, but although it had been full of butter, there was none there now. There was just a greasy patch.

And, from the darkness under the sink, there came a sort of high-speed grumbling noise, a kind of
mnnamnamnam
….