Wintersmith

"Hah! Well, I suppose that at least we can say we tried. You know, I used to think Annagramma was really clever because she knew a lot of words and could do sparkly spells? But show her a sick pig and she's useless!"

Tiffany told her about Mrs. Stumper's pig and Petulia looked shocked.

"We can't have that sort of thing," she said. "In a tree? Perhaps I'll try to drop in this afternoon then." She hesitated. "You know Granny Weatherwax won't be happy about this? Do we want to be caught between her and Mrs. Earwig?"

"Are we doing the right thing or not?" said Tiffany. "Anyway, what's the worst she could do to us?"

Petulia gave a short laugh with no humor in it at all. "Well," she said, "first, she could make our—"

"She won't."

"I wish I was as sure as you," said Petulia. "All right, then. For Mrs. Stumper's pig."

Tiffany flew above the treetops, and the occasional high twig brushed against her boots. There was just enough winter sunshine to make the snow crisp and glittery, like a frosted cake.

It had been a busy morning. The coven hadn't been very interested in helping Annagramma. The coven itself seemed a long time ago. It had been a busy winter.

"All we did was muck about while Annagramma bossed us around," Dimity Hubbub had said, while grinding minerals and very carefully tipping them, a bit at a time, into a tiny pot being heated by a candle. "I'm too busy to mess around with magic. It never did anything useful. You know her trouble? She thinks you can be a witch by buying enough things."

"She just needs to learn how to deal with people," said Tiffany.

At this point, the pot exploded.

"Well, I think we can safely say that wasn't your everyday toothache cure," said Dimity, picking bits of pot out of her hair. "All right, I can spare the odd day, if Petulia's doing it. But it won't do much good."

Lucy Warbeck was lying full length and fully clothed in a tin bath full of water when Tiffany came by. Her head was all the way under the surface, but when she saw Tiffany peering in, she held up a sign saying I'M NOT DROWNING! Miss Tick had said she would make a good witch finder, so she was training hard.

"I don't see why we should help Annagramma," she said as Tiffany helped her get dry. "She just likes putting people down with that sarcastic voice of hers. Anyway, what's it to you? You know she doesn't like you."

"I thought we've always got on…more or less," said Tiffany.

"Really? You can do stuff she can't even attempt! Like that thing where you go invisible…you do it and you make it look easy! But you come along to the meetings and act like the rest of us and help clear up afterward, and that drives her mad!"

"Look, I don't understand what you're going on about."

Lucy picked up another towel. "She can't stand the idea that someone's better than her but doesn't crow about it."

"Why should I do that?" said Tiffany, bewildered.

"Because that's what she'd do, if she was you," said Lucy, carefully pushing the knife and fork back into her piled-up hair.

It was much colder the next morning, a numb dull coldness that could practically freeze the flames on a fire.

Tiffany let the broomstick settle between the trees a little way from Nanny Ogg's cottage. The snow hadn't drifted much here, but it came up to her knees, and cold had put a crispness on it that crackled like a stale loaf when Tiffany trod it.

In theory she was out in the woods to get the hang of the Cornucopia, but really she was there to keep it out of the way. Nanny Ogg hadn't been too upset about the chickens. After all, she now owned five hundred hens, which were currently standing around in her shed going werk. But the floors were a mess, there were chicken doo-dahs even on the banisters, and as Granny had pointed out (in a whisper), supposing someone had said "sharks"?

The Cornucopia lay on her lap while she sat on a stump among snow-covered trees. Once the forest had been pretty. Now it was hateful. Dark trunks against snowdrifts, a striped world of black and white, bars against the light. She longed for horizons.

Funny…the Cornucopia was always very slightly warm, even out here, and seemed to know in advance what size it ought to be. "I grow, I shrink," thought Tiffany. And I'm feeling pretty small.

What next? What now? She'd kept hoping that the…the power would drop on her, just like the Cornucopia had done. It hadn't.

There was life under the snow. She felt it in her fingertips. Somewhere down there, out of reach, was the real Summer. Using the Cornucopia as a scoop, she scraped away at the snow until she reached dead leaves. There was life down there in the white webs of fungi and pale, new roots. A half-frozen worm crawled slowly away and burrowed under a leaf skeleton, fine as lace. Beside it was an acorn.

The woods weren't silent. They were holding their breath. They were all waiting for her, and she didn't know what to do.