Wyrd Sisters

Granny swept imperiously past him. ‘Come, Magrat,’ she commanded.

The din inside hovered around the pain threshold. Nanny Ogg got around the Hogswatchnight tradition by inviting the whole village in, and the air in the room was already beyond the reach of pollution controls. Granny navigated through the press of bodies by the sound of a cracked voice explaining to the world at large that, compared to an unbelievable variety of other animals, the hedgehog was quite fortunate.

Nanny Ogg was sitting in a chair by the fire with a quart mug in one hand, and was conducting the reprise with a cigar. She grinned when she saw Granny’s face.

‘What ho, my old boiler,’ she screeched above the din. ‘See you turned up, then. Have a drink. Have two. Wotcher, Magrat. Pull up a chair and call the cat a bastard.’

Greebo, who was curled up in the inglenook and watching the festivities with one slit yellow eye, flicked his tail once or twice.

Granny sat down stiffly, a ramrod figure of decency.

‘We’re not staying,’ she said, glaring at Magrat, who was tentatively reaching out towards a bowl of peanuts. ‘I can see you’re busy. We just wondered whether you might have noticed—anything. Tonight. A little while ago.’

Nanny Ogg wrinkled her forehead.

‘Our Darron’s eldest was sick,’ she said. ‘Been at his dad’s beer.’

‘Unless he was extremely ill,’ said Granny, ‘I doubt if it was what I was referring to.’ She made a complex occult sign in the air, which Nanny totally ignored.

‘Someone tried to dance on the table,’ she said. ‘Fell into our Reet’s pumpkin dip. We had a good laugh.’

Granny waggled her eyebrows and placed a meaningful finger alongside her nose.

‘I was alluding to things of a different nature,’ she hinted darkly.

Nanny Ogg peered at her.

‘Something wrong with your eye, Esme?’ she hazarded.

Granny Weatherwax sighed.

‘Extremely worrying developments of a magical tendency are even now afoot,’ she said loudly.

The room went quiet. Everyone stared at the witches, except for Darron’s eldest, who took advantage of the opportunity to continue his alcoholic experiments. Then, swiftly as they had fled, several dozen conversations hurriedly got back into gear.

‘It might be a good idea if we can go and talk somewhere more private,’ said Granny, as the comforting hubbub streamed over them again.

They ended up in the washhouse, where Granny tried to give an account of the mind she had encountered.

‘It’s out there somewhere, in the mountains and the high forests,’ she said. ‘And it is very big.’

‘I thought it was looking for someone,’ said Magrat. ‘It put me in mind of a large dog. You know, lost. Puzzled.’

Granny thought about this. Now she came to think of it …

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Something like that. A big dog.’

‘Worried,’ said Magrat.

‘Searching,’ said Granny.

‘And getting angry,’ said Magrat.

‘Yes,’ said Granny, staring fixedly at Nanny.

‘Could be a troll,’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘I left best part of a pint in there, you know,’ she added reproachfully.

‘I know what a troll’s mind feels like, Gytha,’ said Granny. She didn’t snap the words out. In fact it was the quiet way she said them that made Nanny hesitate.

‘They say there’s really big trolls up towards the Hub,’ said Nanny slowly. ‘And ice giants, and big hairy wossnames that live above the snowline. But you don’t mean anything like that, do you?’

‘No.’

‘Oh.’

Magrat shivered. She told herself that a witch had absolute control over her own body, and the goose-pimples under her thin nightdress were just a figment of her own imagination. The trouble was, she had an excellent imagination.

Nanny Ogg sighed.

‘We’d better have a look, then,’ she said, and took the lid off the copper.

Nanny Ogg never used her washhouse, since all her washing was done by the daughters-in-law, a tribe of grey-faced, subdued women whose names she never bothered to remember. It had become, therefore, a storage place for dried-up old bulbs, burnt-out cauldrons and fermenting jars of wasp jam. No fire had been lit under the copper for ten years. Its bricks were crumbling, and rare ferns grew around the firebox. The water under the lid was inky black and, according to rumour, bottomless; the Ogg grandchildren were encouraged to believe that monsters from the dawn of time dwelt in its depths, since Nanny believed that a bit of thrilling and pointless terror was an essential ingredient of the magic of childhood.

In summer she used it as a beer cooler.

‘It’ll have to do. I think perhaps we should join hands,’ she said. ‘And you, Magrat, make sure the door’s shut.’

‘What are you going to try?’ said Granny. Since they were on Nanny’s territory, the choice was entirely up to her.

‘I always say you can’t go wrong with a good Invocation,’ said Nanny. ‘Haven’t done one for years.’

Granny Weatherwax frowned. Magrat said, ‘Oh, but you can’t. Not here. You need a cauldron, and a magic sword. And an octogram. And spices, and all sorts of stuff.’

Granny and Nanny exchanged glances.