Wyrd Sisters

‘I left the rock on the kitchen table,’ said Nanny. ‘I couldn’t stand it any more.’

‘I don’t see why,’ said Magrat. ‘He seemed very pleasant. For a ghost.’

‘Oh, he was all right. It was the others,’ said Nanny.

‘Others?’

‘“Pray carry a stone out of the palace so’s I can haunt it, good mother,” he says,’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘“It’s bloody boring in here, Mistress Ogg, excuse my Klatchian,” he says, so of course I did. I reckon they was all listening. Ho yes, they all thinks, all aboard, time for a bit of a holiday. I’ve nothing against ghosts. Especially royal ghosts,’ she added loyally. ‘But my cottage isn’t the place for them. I mean, there’s some woman in a chariot yelling her head off in the washhouse. I ask you. And there’s a couple of little kiddies in the pantry, and men without heads all over the place, and someone screaming under the sink, and there’s this little hairy man wandering around looking lost and everything. It’s not right.’

‘Just so long as he’s not here,’ said Granny. ‘We don’t want any men around.’

‘He’s a ghost, not a man,’ said Magrat.

‘We don’t have to go into details,’ Granny said icily.

‘But you can’t put the old king back on the throne,’ said Magrat. ‘Ghosts can’t rule. You’d never get the crown to stay on. It’d drop through.’

‘We’re going to replace him with his son,’ said Granny. ‘Proper succession.’

‘Oh, we’ve been through all that,’ said Nanny, dismissively. ‘In about fifteen years’ time, perhaps, but—’

‘Tonight,’ said Granny.

‘A child on the throne? He wouldn’t last five minutes.’

‘Not a child,’ said Granny quietly. ‘A grown man. Remember Aliss Demurrage?’

There was silence. Then Nanny Ogg sat back.

‘Bloody hell,’ she whispered. ‘You ain’t going to try that, are you?’

‘I mean to have a go.’

‘Bloody hell,’ said Nanny again, very quietly, and added, ‘you’ve been thinking about this, have you?’

‘Yes.’

‘See here, Esme. I mean, Black Aliss was one of the best.^{38} I mean, you’re very good at, well, headology and thinking and that. I mean, Black Aliss, well, she just upped and went at it.’

‘You saying I couldn’t do it, are you?’

‘Excuse me,’ said Magrat.

‘No. No. Of course not,’ said Nanny, ignoring her.

‘Right.’

‘Only … well, she was a, you know, a hoyden of witches, like the king said.’

‘Doyenne,’ said Granny, who had looked it up. ‘Not hoyden.’

‘Excuse me,’ said Magrat, louder this time. ‘Who was Black Aliss? And,’ she added quickly, ‘none of this exchanging meaningful glances and talking over my head. There’s three witches in this coven, remember?’

‘She was before your time,’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘Before mine, really. She lived over Skund way. Very powerful witch.’

‘If you listen to rumour,’ said Granny.

‘She turned a pumpkin into a royal coach once,’ said Nanny.

‘Showy,’ said Granny Weatherwax. ‘That’s no help to anyone, turning up at a ball smelling like a pie. And that business with the glass slipper. Dangerous, to my mind.’

‘But the biggest thing she ever did,’ said Nanny, ignoring the interruption, ‘was to send a whole palace to sleep for a hundred years until …’ She hesitated. ‘Can’t remember. Was there rose bushes involved, or was it spinning wheels in that one? I think some princess had to finger … no, there was a prince. That was it.’

‘Finger a prince?’ said Magrat, uneasily.

‘No … he had to kiss her. Very romantic, Black Aliss was. There was always a bit of romance in her spells. She liked nothing better than Girl meets Frog.’

‘Why did they call her Black Aliss?’

‘Fingernails,’ said Granny.

‘And teeth,’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘She had a sweet tooth. Lived in a real gingerbread cottage. Couple of kids shoved her in her own oven at the end. Shocking.’

‘And you’re going to send the castle to sleep?’ said Magrat.

‘She never sent the castle to sleep,’ said Granny. ‘That’s just an old wives’ tale,’ she added, glaring at Nanny. ‘She just stirred up time a little. It’s not as hard as people think. Everyone does it all the time. It’s like rubber, is time. You can stretch it to suit yourself.’

Magrat was about to say, that’s not right, time is time, every second lasts a second, that’s what it’s for, that’s its job …

And then she recalled weeks that had flown past and afternoons that had lasted for ever. Some minutes had lasted hours, some hours had gone past so quickly she hadn’t been aware they’d gone past at all …

‘But that’s just people’s perception,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Granny, ‘of course it is. It all is. What difference does that make?’

‘A hundred years’d be over-egging it, mind,’ said Nanny.

‘I reckon fifteen’d be a nice round number,’ said Granny. ‘That means the lad will be eighteen at the finish. We just do the spell, go and fetch him, he can manifest his destiny, and everything will be nice and neat.’

Magrat didn’t comment on this, because it had occurred to her that destinies sounded easy enough when you talked about them but were never very bankable where real human beings were concerned. But Nanny Ogg sat back and tipped another generous measure of apple brandy in her tea.