Witches Abroad (Discworld #12)

Witches Abroad (Discworld #12) Page 18

' 'Ere, this mattress is stuffed with straw!'

'You won't have to lie on it for long.'

'It prickles! And I think there's things in it.'

Something bumped against the wall of the house. The witches fell silent.

There was a snuffling noise under the back door.

'You know,' whispered Nanny, as they waited, 'the scullery's terrible. There's no firewood. And there's hardly any food. And there's a jug of milk that's practically on the march -'

Granny sidled quickly across the room to the fireplace, and then back to her station by the front door.

After a moment there was a scrabbling at the latch, as if it was being operated by someone who was unfamiliar either with doors or with fingers.

The door creaked open slowly.

There was an overwhelming smell of musk and wet fur.

Uncertain footsteps tottered across the floor and towards the figure huddling under the bedclothes.

Nanny raised the mob-cap's floppy frill just enough to see out.

'Wotcha,' she said, and then, 'Oh, blimey, I never realized you had teeth that big - '

Granny Weatherwax pushed the door shut and stepped forward briskly. The wolf spun around, a paw raised protectively.

'Nooaaaaaw!'

Granny hesitated for a second, and then hit it very hard on the head with a cast-iron frying pan.

The wolf crumpled.

Nanny Ogg swung her legs out of the bed.

'When it happened over Skund way they said it was a werewolf or something, and I thought, no, werewolves aren't like that,' she said. 'I never thought it was a real wolf. Gave me quite a turn, that.'

'Real wolves don't walk on their hind legs and open doors,' said Granny Weatherwax. 'Come on, help me get it outside.'

'Took me right back, seeing a great big hairy slathering thing heading towards me,' said Nanny, picking up one end of the stunned creature. 'Did you ever meet old Sumpkins?'

It was, indeed, a normal-looking wolf, except that it was a lot thinner than most. Ribs showed plainly under the skin and the fur was matted. Granny hauled a bucket of cloudy water from the well next to the privy and poured it over its head.

Then she sat down on a tree stump and watched it carefully. A few birds sang, high in the branches.

'It spoke,' she said. 'It tried to say “no”.'

'I wondered about that,' said Nanny. 'Then I thought maybe I was imagining things.'

'No point in imagining anything,' said Granny. 'Things are bad enough as they are.'

The wolf groaned. Granny handed the frying pan to Nanny Ogg.

After a while she said, 'I think I'm going to have a look inside its head.'

Nanny Ogg shook her head. 'I wouldn't do that, if I was you.'

'I'm the one who's me, and I've got to know. Just you stand by with the frying pan.'

Nanny shrugged.

Granny concentrated.

It is very difficult to read a human mind. Most humans are

thinking about so many things at any given moment that it

is almost impossible to pick out one stream in the flood.

Animal minds are different. Far less cluttered. Carnivore minds are easiest of all, especially before meals. Colours don't exist in the mental world, but, if they did, a hungry carnivore mind would be hot and purple and sharp as an arrow. And herbivore minds are simple, too - coiled silver springs, poised for flight.

But this wasn't any kind of normal mind. It was two minds.

Granny had sometimes picked up the mind of hunters in the forest, when she was sitting quietly of an evening and letting her mind wander. Just occasionally they felt like this, or at least like a faint shadow of this. Just occasionally, when the hunter was about to make a kill, the random streams of thought came together. But this was different. This was the opposite- this was cracked and crippled attempts at cogitation peeling away from the sleek arrowhead of predatory intent. This was a predatory mind trying to think.

No wonder it was going mad.

She opened her eyes.

Nanny Ogg held the frying pan over her head. Her arm trembled.

'Well,' she said, 'who's there?'

'I could do with a glass of water,' said Granny. Natural caution surfaced through the turmoil of her mind. 'Only not out of that well, mind you.'

Nanny relaxed a little. When a witch started rummaging in someone else's mind, you could never be sure who was coming back. But Granny Weatherwax was the best. Magrat might always be trying to find herself, but Granny didn't even understand the idea of the search. If she couldn't find the way back to her own head, there wasn't a path.

'There's that milk in the cottage,' Nanny volunteered.

'What colour was it again?'

'Well . . . still fairly white.'

'Okay.'

When Nanny Ogg's back was safely turned Granny permitted herself a small shudder.

She stared at the wolf, wondering what she could do for it. A normal wolf wouldn't enter a cottage, even if it could open the door. Wolves didn't come near humans at all, except if there were a lot of them and it was the end of a very hard winter. And they didn't do that because they were big and bad and wicked, but because they were wolves.

This wolf was trying to be human.

There was probably no cure.

'Here's your milk,' said Nanny Ogg.

Granny reached up and took it without looking.

'Someone made this wolf think it was a person,' she said. 'They made it think it was a person and then they didn't think any more about it. It happened a few years ago.'

'How do you know?'

'I've . . . got its memories,' said Granny. And instincts, too, she thought. She knew it'd be some days before she'd stop wanting to chase sledges over the snow.

'Oh.'

'It's stuck between species. In its head.'

'Can we help it?' said Nanny.

Granny shook her head.

'It's gone on for too long. It's habit now. And it's starving. It can't go one way, it can't go t'other. It can't act like a wolf, and it can't manage being a human. And it can't go on like it is.'

She turned to face Nanny for the first time. Nanny took a step back.

'You can't imagine how it feels,' she said. 'Wandering around for years. Not capable of acting human, and not able to be a wolf. You can't imagine how that feels.'

'I reckon maybe I can,' said Nanny. 'In your face. Maybe I can. Who'd do that to a creature?'

'I've got my suspicions.'

They looked around.

Magrat was approaching, with the child. Beside them walked one of the woodcutters.

'Hah,' said Granny. 'Yes. Of course. There's always got to be' - she spat the words - 'a happy ending.''

A paw tried to grip her ankle.

Granny Weatherwax looked down into the wolf's face.

'Preeees,' it growled. 'Annn enndinggg? Noaaaow?'

She knelt down, and took the paw.

'Yes?' she said.

'Yessss!'

She stood up again, all authority, and beckoned to the approaching trio.

'Mr Woodcutter?' she said. 'A job for you . . .'

The woodcutter never understood why the wolf laid its head on the stump so readily.

Or why the old woman, the one in whom anger roiled like pearl barley in a bubbling stew, insisted afterwards that it be buried properly instead of skinned and thrown in the bushes. She had been very insistent about that.

And that was the end of the big bad wolf.

It was an hour later. Quite a few of the woodcutters had wandered up to the cottage, where there seemed to be a lot of interesting activity going on. Woodcutting is not a job that normally offers much in the way of diversion.

Magrat was washing the floor with as much magical assistance as could be afforded by a bucket of soapy water and a scrubbing brush. Even Nanny Ogg, whose desultory interest in the proud role of housewife had faded completely just as soon as her eldest daughter was old enough to hold a duster, was cleaning the walls. The old grandmother, who wasn't entirely in touch with events, was anxiously following both of them around with a saucer of milk. Spiders who had inherited the ceiling for generations were urged gently but firmly out of the door.

And Granny Weatherwax was walking around the clearing with the head woodcutter, a barrel-chested young man who clearly thought he looked better in his studded leather wristlets than was, in fact, the case.

'It's been around for years, right?' he said. 'Always lurking around the edges of villages and that.'

'And you never tried talking to it?' said Granny.

'Talk to it? It's a wolf, right? You don't talk to wolves. Animals can't talk.'

'Hmm. I see. And what about the old woman? There's a lot of you woodcutters. Did you ever, you know, drop in to see her?'

'Huh? No fear!'

'Why?'

The head woodcutter leaned forward conspiratorially.

'Well, they say she's a witch, right?'

'Really?' said Granny. 'How do you know?'

'She's got all the signs, right?'

'What signs are those?'

The woodcutter was pricked by a slight uneasiness.

'Well . . . she's . . . she lives all by herself in the wood, right?'

'Yes . . . ?'

'And . . . and . . . she's got a hook nose and she's always muttering to herself. . .'

'Yes . . . ?'

'And she's got no teeth, right?'

'Lawks,' said Granny. 'I can see where you wouldn't want to be having with the likes of her, right?'

'Right!' said the woodcutter, relieved.

'Quite likely turn you into just about anything as soon as look at you, right?' Granny stuck her finger in her ear and twiddled it reflectively.

'They can do that, you know.'

'I bet they can. I bet they can,' said Granny. 'Makes me glad there's all you big strong lads around. Teh, tch. Hmm. Can I have a look at your chopper, young man?'

He handed over his axe. Granny sagged dramatically as she grasped it. There were still traces of wolf blood on the blade.

'Deary me, it's a big one,' she said. 'And you're good with this, I expect.'

'Won the silver belt two years running at the forest revels,' said the woodcutter proudly.

'Two years running? Two years running? Lawks. That is good. That's very good. And here's me hardly able to lift it.' Granny grasped the axe in one hand and swung it inexpertly. The woodcutter jumped backwards as the blade whirred past his face and then buried itself a quarter of an inch deep in a tree.

'Sorry about that,' said Granny Weatherwax. 'Aren't I a daft old woman! Never was any good with anything technical!'

He grinned at her, and tried to pull the axe free.

He sank to his knees, his face suddenly white.

Granny leaned down until she was level with his ear.

'You could have seen to the old woman,' she said quietly. 'You could have talked to the wolf. But you didn't, right?'

He tried to speak, but his teeth didn't seem to want to part.

'I can see you're very sorry about all that,' she said. 'I can see you're seein' the error of your ways. I bet you can't wait to be up and repairing her cottage for her, and getting the garden back in good order, and seeing she has fresh milk every day and a good supply of wood, right? In fact I wouldn't be surprised if you wasn't generous enough to build her a new cottage, with a proper well an' all. Somewhere near the village so she don't have to live alone, right? You know, I can see the future sometimes and I just know that's what's goin' to happen, right?'

Sweat ran off his face. Now his lungs didn't seem to be operating, either.

'An' I knows you're goin' to keep your word, and I'm so pleased about it that I'm going to make sure you're especially lucky,' said Granny, her voice still in the same pleasant monotone. 'I knows it can be a dangerous job, woodchoppin'. People can get hurt. Trees can accidentally fall on 'em, or the top of their chopper can suddenly come off and cut their head open.' The woodcutter shuddered as Granny went on: 'So what I'm goin' to do is a little spell to make sure that none of this 'appens to you. On account of me bein' so grateful. Because of you helpin' the old lady. Right? Just nod.'