‘I wish my Toby and my Mary was goin’ to be able to come to the weddin’,’ he said quietly. ‘But they’re dead, you know.’

‘Yes,’ said Tiffany. ‘I know, Mr Weavall.’

‘And I could wish that my Nancy was alive, too, although bein’ as I hopes to be marryin’ another lady that ain’t a sensible wish, maybe. Hah! Nearly everyone I knows is dead.’ Mr Weavall stared at the bunch of flowers for a while, and then straightened up again. ‘Still, can’t do nothin’ about that, can we? Not even for a box full of gold!’

‘No, Mr Weavall,” said Tiffany hoarsely.

‘Oh, don’t cry, gel! The sun is shinin’, the birds is singin’ and what’s past can’t be mended, eh?’ said Mr Weavall jovially. ‘And the Widow Tussy is waitin’!’

For a moment he looked panicky, and then he cleared his throat.

‘Don’t smell too bad, do I?’ he said.

‘Er… only of mothballs, Mr Weavall.’

‘Mothballs? Mothballs is OK. Right, then! Time’s a wastin’!’

Using only the one stick, waving his other arm with the flowers in the air to keep his balance, Mr Weavall set off with surprising speed.

‘Well,’ said Mistress Weatherwax as, with jacket flying, he rounded the corner. ‘That was nice, wasn’t it?’

Tiffany looked around quickly. Mistress Weatherwax was still nowhere to be seen, but she was somewhere to be unseen. Tiffany squinted at what was definitely an old wall with some ivy growing up it, and it was only when the old witch moved that she spotted her. She hadn’t done anything to her clothes, hadn’t done any magic as far as Tiffany knew, but she’d simply… faded in.

‘Er, yes,’ said Tiffany, taking out a handkerchief and blowing her nose.

‘But it worries you,’ said the witch. ‘You think it shouldn’t have ended like that, right?’

‘No!’ said Tiffany hotly.

‘It would have been better if he’d been buried in some ol’ cheap coffin paid for by the village, you think?’

‘No!’ Tiffany twisted up her fingers. Mistress Weatherwax was sharper than a field of pins. ‘But… all right, it just doesn’t seem… fair. I mean, I wish the Feegles hadn’t done that. I’m sure I could have… sorted it out somehow, saved up…’

‘It’s an unfair world, child. Be glad you have friends.’

Tiffany looked up at the tree line.

‘Yes,’ said Mistress Weatherwax. ‘But not up there.’

‘I’m going away,’ said Tiffany. ‘I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m going away.’

‘Broomstick?’ said Mistress Weatherwax. ‘It don’t move fast—’

‘No! Where would I fly to? Home? I don’t want to take it there! Anyway, I can’t just fly off with it roaming around! When it… when I meet it, I don’t want to be near people, you understand? I know what I… what it can do if it’s angry! It half-killed Miss Level!’

‘And if it follows you?’

‘Good! I’ll take it up there somewhere!’ Tiffany waved at the mountains.

‘All alone?’

‘I don’t have a choice, do I?’

Mistress Weatherwax gave her a look that went on too long.

‘No,’ she said. ‘You don’t. But neither have I. That’s why I will come with you. Don’t argue, miss. How would you stop me, eh? Oh, that reminds me… them mysterious bruises Mrs Towny gets is because Mr Towny beats her, and the father of Miss Quickly’s baby is young Fred Turvey. You might mention that to Miss Level.’

As she spoke, a bee flew out of her ear.

Bait, thought Tiffany a few hours later, as they walked away from Miss Level’s cottage and up towards the high moors. I wonder if I’m bait, just like in the old days when the hunters would tether a lamb or a baby goat to bring the wolves nearer?

She’s got a plan to kill the hiver. I know it. She’s worked something out. It’ll come for me and she’ll just wave a hand.

She must think I’m stupid.

They had argued, of course. But Mistress Weatherwax had made a nasty personal remark. It was: You’re eleven. Just like that. You’re eleven, and what is Miss Tick going to tell your parents? Sorry about Tiffany, but we let her go off by herself to fight an ancient monster that can’t be killed and what’s left of her is in this jar?

Miss Level had joined in at that part, almost in tears.

If Tiffany hadn’t been a witch, she would have whined about everyone being so unfair!

In fact they were being fair. She knew they were being fair. They were not thinking just of her, but of other people, and Tiffany hated herself—well, slightly—because she hadn’t. But it was sneaky of them to choose this moment to be fair. That was unfair.

No one had told her she was only nine when she went into Fairyland armed with just a frying pan. Admittedly, no one else had known she was going, except the Nac Mac Feegle, and she was much taller than they were. Would she have gone if she’d known what was in there? she wondered.

Yes. I would.

And you’re going to face the hiver even though you don’t know how to beat it?

Yes. I am. There’s part of me still in it. I might be able to do something—

But aren’t you just ever so slightly glad that Mistress Weatherwax and Miss Level won the argument and now you’re going off very bravely but you happen to be accompanied, completely against your will, by the most powerful witch alive?

Tiffany sighed. It was dreadful when your own thoughts tried to gang up on you.

The Feegles hadn’t objected to her going to find the hiver. They did object to not being allowed to come with her. They’d been insulted, she knew. But, as Mistress Weatherwax had said, this was true haggling and there was no place in it for Feegles. If the hiver came, out there, not in a dream but for real, it’d have nothing about it that could be kicked or head-butted.

Tiffany had tried to make a little speech, thanking them for their help, but Rob Anybody had folded his arms and turned his back. It had all gone wrong. But the old witch had been right. They could get hurt. The trouble was, explaining to a Feegle how dangerous things were going to be only got them more enthusiastic.

She left them arguing with one another. It had not gone well.

But now that was all behind her, in more ways that one. The trees beside the track were less bushy and more pointy or, if Tiffany had known more about trees, she would have said that the oaks were giving way to evergreens.

She could feel the hiver. It was following them, but a long way back.

If you had to imagine a head witch, you wouldn’t imagine Mistress Weatherwax. You might imagine Mrs Earwig, who glided across the floor as though she was on wheels, and had a dress as black as the darkness in a deep cellar, but Mistress Weatherwax was just an old woman with a lined face and rough hands in a dress as black as night, which is never as black as people think. It was dusty and ragged round the hem, too.

On the other hand, thought her Second Thoughts, you once bought Granny Aching a china shepherdess, remember? All blue and white and sparkly?

Her First Thoughts thought: Well, yes, but I was a lot younger then.

Her Second Thoughts thought: Yes, but which one was the real shepherdess? The shiny lady in the nice clean dress and buckled shoes, or the old woman who stumped around in the snow with boots filled with straw and a sack across her shoulders?

At which point, Mistress Weatherwax stumbled. She caught her balance very quickly.

‘Dangerously loose stones on this path,’ she said. ‘Watch out for them.’

Tiffany looked down. There weren’t that many stones and they didn’t seem very dangerous or particularly loose.

How old was Mistress Weatherwax? That was another question she wished she hadn’t asked. She was skinny and wiry, just like Granny Aching, the kind of person who goes on and on—but one day Granny Aching had gone to bed and had never got up again, just like that…