The Wee Free Men (4 page)

You hardly ever saw Granny Aching indoors in the spring and summer. She spent most of the year sleeping in the old wheeled hut, which could be dragged across the downs after the flocks. But the first time Tiffany could remember seeing the old woman in the farmhouse, she was kneeling in front of the fire, putting a dead lamb in the big black oven.

Tiffany had screamed and screamed. And Granny had gently picked her up, a little awkwardly, and sat her on her lap and shushed her and called her “my little jiggit,” while on the floor her sheepdogs, Thunder and Lightning, watched her in doggish amazement. Granny wasn’t particularly at home around children, because they didn’t baa.

When Tiffany had stopped crying out of sheer lack of breath, Granny had put her down on the rug and opened the oven, and Tiffany had watched the lamb come alive again.

When Tiffany got a little older, she found out that
jiggit
meant “twenty” in the Yan Tan Tethera, the ancient counting language of the shepherds. The older people still used it when they were counting things they thought of
as special. She was Granny Aching’s twentieth grandchild.

And when she was older still, she also understood all about the warming oven, which never got more than, well, warm. Her mother would let the bread dough rise in it, and Ratbag the cat would sleep in it, sometimes on the dough. It was just the place to revive a weak lamb that had been born on a snowy night and was near death from the cold. That was how it worked. No magic at all. But that time it had been magic. And it didn’t stop being magic just because you found out how it was done.

“Good, but still not
exactly
witchcraft,” said Miss Tick, breaking the spell again. “Anyway, you don’t have to have a witch ancestor to be a witch. It helps, of course, because of heredity.”

“You mean like having talents?” said Tiffany, wrinkling her brow.

“Partly, I suppose,” said Miss Tick. “But I was thinking of pointy hats, for example. If you have a grandmother who can pass on her pointy hat to you, that saves a great deal of expense. They are incredibly hard to come by, especially ones strong enough to withstand falling farmhouses. Did Mrs. Aching have anything like that?”

“I don’t think so,” said Tiffany. “She hardly ever wore a hat except in the very cold weather. She wore an old grain sack as a sort of hood. Um…does that count?”

For the first time, Miss Tick looked a little less flinty. “Possibly, possibly,” she said. “Do you have any brothers and sisters, Tiffany?”

“I have six sisters,” said Tiffany. “I’m the youngest. Most of them don’t live with us now.”

“And then you weren’t the baby anymore because you had a dear little brother,” said Miss Tick. “The only boy, too. That must have been a nice surprise.”

Suddenly, Tiffany found Miss Tick’s faint smile slightly annoying.

“How do you know about my brother?” she said.

The smile faded. Miss Tick thought: This child is
sharp
. “Just a guess,” she said. No one likes admitting to spying.

“Are you using persykology on me?” said Tiffany hotly.

“I think you mean psychology,” said Miss Tick.

“Whatever,” said Tiffany. “You think I don’t like him because my parents make a fuss of him and spoil him, yes?”

“Well, it did cross my mind,” said Miss Tick, and gave up worrying about the spying. She was a witch, and that was all there was to it. “I think it was the bit when you used him as bait for a slobbering monster that gave me a hint,” she added.

“He’s just a nuisance!” said Tiffany. “He takes up my time and I’m always having to look after him and he always wants sweets. Anyway,” she added, “I had to think fast.”

“Quite so,” said Miss Tick.

“Granny Aching would have done something about monsters in our river,” said Tiffany, ignoring that. “Even if they are out of books.” And she’d have done something about what happened to old Mrs. Snapperly, she added to herself. She’d have spoken up, and people would have listened…. They always listened when Grannyspoke up. Speak up for those who don’t have voices, she always said.

“Good,” said Miss Tick. “So she should. Witches deal with things. You said the river was very shallow where Jenny leaped up? And the world looked blurred and shaky? Was there a susurrus?”

Tiffany beamed. “Yes, there certainly was!”

“Ah. Something bad is happening.”

Tiffany looked worried.

“Can I stop it?”

“And now I’m slightly impressed,” said Miss Tick. “You said, ‘Can I stop it?’ and not ‘Can anyone stop it?’ or ‘Can we stop it?’ That’s good. You accept responsibility. That’s a good start. And you keep a cool head. But no, you can’t stop it.”

“I walloped Jenny Green-Teeth!”

“Lucky hit,” said Miss Tick. “There are worse than her on the way, believe me. I believe an incursion of major proportions is going to start here, and clever though you are, my girl, you have as much chance as one of your lambs on a snowy night. You keep clear. I’ll try to fetch help.”

“What, from the Baron?”

“Good gracious, no. He’d be no use at all.”

“But he protects us,” said Tiffany. “That’s what my mother says.”

“Does he?” said Miss Tick. “Who from? I mean, from whom?”

“Well, from, you know…attack, I suppose. From other barons, my father says.”

“Has he got a big army?”

“Well, er, he’s got Sergeant Roberts, and Kevin and Neville and Trevor,” said Tiffany. “We all know them. They mostly guard the castle.”

“Any of them got magical powers?” said Miss Tick.

“I saw Neville do card tricks once,” said Tiffany.

“A wow at parties, but probably not much use even against something like Jenny,” said Miss Tick. “Are there no oth—Are there no witches here at all?”

Tiffany hesitated.

“There was old Mrs. Snapperly,” she said. Oh, yes. She’d lived all alone in a strange cottage, all right….

“Good name,” said Miss Tick. “Can’t say I’ve heard it before,
though. Where is she?”

“She died in the snow last winter,” said Tiffany slowly.

“And now tell me what you’re not telling me,” said Miss Tick, sharp as a knife.

“Er…she was begging, people think, but no one opened their doors to her and, er…it was a cold night, and…she died.”

“And she was a witch, was she?”

“Everyone
said
she was a witch,” said Tiffany. She really did not want to talk about this. No one in the villages around here wanted to talk about it. No one went near the ruins of the cottage in the woods, either.

“You don’t think so?”

“Um…” Tiffany squirmed. “You see…the Baron had a son called Roland. He was only twelve, I think. And he went riding in the woods by himself last summer and his dogs came back without him.”

“Mrs. Snapperly lived in those woods?” said Miss Tick.

“Yes.”

“And people think she killed him?” said Miss Tick. She sighed. “They probably think she cooked him in the oven, or something.”

“They never actually
said
,” said Tiffany. “But I think it was something like that, yes.”

“And did his horse turn up?” said Miss Tick.

“No,” said Tiffany. “And that was strange, because if it’d turned up anywhere along the hills, the people would have noticed it….”

Miss Tick folded her hands, sniffed, and smiled a smile with no humor in it at all.

“Easily explained,” she said. “Mrs. Snapperly must have had a really
big
oven, eh?”

“No, it was really quite small,” said Tiffany. “Only ten inches deep.”

“I bet Mrs. Snapperly had no teeth and talked to herself, right?” said Miss Tick.

“Yes. And she had a cat. And a squint,” said Tiffany. And it all came out in a rush: “And so after he vanished, they went to her cottage and they looked in the oven and they dug up her garden and they threw stones at her old cat until it died and they turned her out of her cottage and piled up all her old books in the middle of the room and set fire to them and burned the place to the ground and everyone said she was an old witch.”

“They burned the books,” said Miss Tick in a flat voice.

“Because they said they had old writing in them,” said Tiffany. “And pictures of stars.”

“And when you went to look, did they?” said Miss Tick.

Tiffany suddenly felt cold. “How did you know?” she said.

“I’m good at listening. Well, did they?”

Tiffany sighed. “Yes, I went to the cottage next day, and some of the pages, you know, had kind of floated up in the heat? And I found a part of one, and it had all old lettering and gold and blue edging. And I buried her cat.”

“You buried the cat?”

“Yes! Someone had to!” said Tiffany hotly.

“And you measured the oven,” said Miss Tick. “I know you did, because you just told me what size it was.” And you measure soup plates, Miss Tick added to herself. What
have
I found here?

“Well, yes. I did. I mean…it was tiny! And if she could magic away a boy and a whole horse, why didn’t she magic away the men who came for her? It didn’t make any sense!”

Miss Tick waved her into silence. “And then what happened?”

“Then the Baron said no one was to have anything to do with her,” said Tiffany. “He said
any
witches found in the country would
be tied up and thrown in the pond. Er, you could be in danger,” she added, uncertainly.

“I can untie knots with my teeth and I have a Gold Swimming Certificate from the Quirm College for Young Ladies,” said Miss Tick. “All that practice at jumping into the swimming pool with my clothes on was time well spent.” She leaned forward.

“Let me guess what happened to Mrs. Snapperly,” she said. “She lived from the summer until the snow, right? She stole food from barns, and probably women gave her food at the back door if the men weren’t around? I expect the bigger boys threw things at her if they saw her.”

“How do you
know
all this?” said Tiffany.

“It doesn’t take a huge leap of imagination, believe me,” said Miss Tick. “And she wasn’t a witch, was she?”

“I think she was just a sick old lady who was no use to anyone and smelled a bit and looked odd because she had no teeth,” said Tiffany. “She just looked like a witch in a story. Anyone with half a mind could see that.”

Miss Tick sighed. “Yes. But sometimes it’s so hard to find half a mind when you need one.”

“Can’t you teach me what I need to know to be a witch?” said Tiffany.

“Tell me why you
still
want to be a witch, bearing in mind what happened to Mrs. Snapperly.”

“So that sort of thing doesn’t happen again,” said Tiffany.

She even buried the old witch’s cat, thought Miss Tick. What kind of child is this?

“Good answer. You might make a decent witch one day,” she said. “But I don’t teach people to
be
witches. I teach people
abou
t witches. Witches learn in a special school. I just show them the
way, if they’re any good. All witches have special interests, and I like children.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re much easier to fit in the oven,” said Miss Tick.

But Tiffany wasn’t frightened, just annoyed.

“That was a nasty thing to say,” she said.

“Well, witches don’t have to be
nice
,” said Miss Tick, pulling a large black bag from under the table. “I’m glad to see you pay attention.”

“There really is a school for witches?” said Tiffany.

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” said Miss Tick.

“Where?”

“Very close.”

“It is magical?”

“Very magical.”

“A wonderful place?”

“There’s nowhere quite like it.”

“Can I go there by magic? Does, like, a unicorn turn up to carry me there or something?”

“Why should it? A unicorn is nothing more than a big horse that comes to a point, anyway. Nothing to get so excited about,” said Miss Tick. “And that will be one egg, please.”

“Exactly where can I find the school?” said Tiffany, handing over the egg.

“Aha. A root vegetable question, I think,” said Miss Tick. “Two carrots, please.”

Tiffany handed them over.

“Thank you. Ready? To find the school for witches, go to a high place near here, climb to the top, open your eyes…” Miss Tick hesitated.

“Yes?”

“…and then open your eyes again.”

“But—” Tiffany began.

“Got any more eggs?”

“No, but—”

“No more education, then. But I have a question to ask you.”

“Got any eggs?” said Tiffany, instantly.

“Hah! Did you see anything
else
by the river, Tiffany?”

Silence suddenly filled the tent. The sound of bad spelling and erratic geography filtered through from outside as Tiffany and Miss Tick stared into each other’s eyes.

“No,” lied Tiffany.

“Are you sure?” said Miss Tick.

“Yes.”

They continued the staring match. But Tiffany could outstare a cat.

“I
see
,” said Miss Tick, looking away. “Very well. In that case, please tell me…when you stopped outside my tent just now, you said ‘aha’ in what I considered to be a smug tone of voice. Were you thinking, ‘This is a strange little black tent with a mysterious little sign on the door, so going inside could be the start of an adventure,’
or
were you thinking, ‘This could be the tent of some wicked witch like they thought Mrs. Snapperly was, who’ll put some horrible spell on me as soon as I go in’? It’s all right, you can stop staring now. Your eyes are watering.”

“I thought both those things,” said Tiffany, blinking.

“But you came in anyway. Why?”

“To find out.”

“Good answer. Witches are naturally nosy,” said Miss Tick, standing up. “Well, I must go. I hope we shall meet again. I will give
you some free advice, though.”