Tiffany Aching Complete Collection, page 45
“I do not want a lecture, Mr. Bustle,” Tiffany mumbled. “I do not want you in my head!”
But the memory of Sensibility Bustle had never taken much notice of other people when he was alive and it wasn’t going to begin now. It went on in its self-satisfied squeak: —in that, once it has selected its prey, it will completely ignore other attractive targets—
She could see all the way across the Trials field, and something was coming. It moved through the crowd like the wind through a field of grass. You could plot its progress by the people. Some fainted, some yelped and turned around, some ran. Witches stopped their gossip, chairs were overturned, and the shouting started. But it wasn’t attacking anything. It was only interested in Tiffany.
Like a shark, thought Tiffany. The killer of the sea, where worse things happen.
Tiffany backed away, the panic filling her up. She bumped into witches hurrying toward the commotion and shouted at them:
“You can’t stop it! You don’t know what it is! You’ll flail at it and wave glittery sticks and it will keep coming! It will keep coming!”
She put her hands into her pockets and touched the lucky stone. And the string. And the piece of chalk.
If this was a story, she thought bitterly, I’d trust in my heart and follow my star and all that other stuff and it would all turn out all right, right now, by tinkly Magikkkk. But you’re never in a story when you need to be.
Story, story, story . . .
The third wish. The Third Wish. The Third Wish is the important one.
In stories the genie or the witch or the magic cat . . . offers you three wishes.
Three wishes . . .
She grabbed a hurrying witch and looked into the face of Annagramma, who stared at her in terror and tried to cower away.
“Please don’t do anything to me! Please!” she cried. “I’m your friend, aren’t I?”
“If you like, but that wasn’t me and I’m better now,” said Tiffany, knowing she was lying. It had been her, and that was important. She had to remember that. “Quick, Annagramma! What’s the third wish? Quickly! When you get three wishes, what’s the third wish!”
Annagramma’s face screwed up into the affronted frown she wore when something had the nerve not to be understandable. “But why do—?”
“Don’t think about it, please! Just answer!”
“Well, er . . . it could be anything . . . being invisible or . . . or blond, or anything—” Annagramma burbled, her mind coming apart at the seams.
Tiffany shook her head and let her go. She ran to an old witch who was staring at the commotion.
“Please, mistress, this is important! In stories, what’s the third wish? Don’t ask me why, please! Just remember!”
“Er . . . happiness. It’s happiness, isn’t it?” said the old lady. “Yes, definitely. Health, wealth, and happiness. Now if I was you, I’d—”
“Happiness? Happiness . . . thank you,” said Tiffany, and looked around desperately for someone else. It wasn’t happiness, she knew that in her boots. You couldn’t get happiness by magic, and that was another clue right there.
There was Miss Tick, hurrying between the tents. There was no time for half measures. Tiffany pulled her around and shouted: “HelloMissTickYesI’mFineIHopeYouAreWellTooWhatIsTheThirdWishQuicklyThisIsImportantPleaseDon’tArgueOrAskQuestionThereIsn’tTime!”
Miss Tick, to her credit, hesitated only for a moment or two. “To have a hundred more wishes, isn’t it?” she said.
Tiffany stared at her and then said, “Thank you. It isn’t, but that’s a clue, too.”
“Tiffany, there’s a—” Miss Tick began.
But Tiffany had seen Granny Weatherwax.
She was standing in the middle of the field, in a big square that had been roped off for some reason. No one seemed to notice her. She was watching the frantic witches around the hiver, where there was an occasional flash and sparkle of magic. She had a calm, faraway look.
Tiffany brushed Miss Tick’s arm away, ducked under the rope, and ran up to her.
“Granny!”
The blue eyes turned to her.
“Yes?”
“In stories, where the genie or the magic frog or the fairy godmother gives you three wishes . . . what’s the third wish?”
“Ah, stories,” said Granny. “That’s easy. In any story worth the tellin’, that knows about the way of the world, the third wish is the one that undoes the harm the first two wishes caused.”
“Yes! That’s it! That’s it!” shouted Tiffany, and the words piling up behind the question poured out. “It’s not evil! It can’t be! It hasn’t got a mind of its own! This is all about wishes! Our wishes! It’s like in the stories, where they—”
“Calm down. Take a deep breath,” said Granny. She took Tiffany by the shoulders so that she faced the panicking crowd.
“You got frightened for a moment, and now it’s comin’ and it’s not going to turn back, not now, ’cuz it’s desperate. It don’t even see the crowd. They don’t mean a thing to it. It’s you it wants. It’s you it’s after. You should be the one who faces it. Are you ready?”
“But supposing I lose—”
“I never got where I am today by supposin’ I was goin’ to lose, young lady. You beat it once—you can do it again!”
“But I could turn into something terrible!”
“Then you’ll face me,” said Granny. “You’ll face me, on my ground. But that won’t happen, will it? You were fed up with grubby babies and silly women? Then this is . . . the other stuff. It’s noon now. They should’ve started the Trials proper, but, hah, it looks as though people have forgotten. Now, then . . . do you have it in you to be a witch by noonlight, far away from your hills?”
“Yes!” There was no other answer, not to Granny Weatherwax.
Granny Weatherwax bowed low and then took a few steps back.
“In your own time, then, madam,” she said.
Wishes, wishes, wishes, thought Tiffany, distracted, fumbling in her pockets for the bits to make a shamble. It’s not evil. It gives us what we think we want! And what do people ask for? More wishes!
You couldn’t say: A monster got into my head and made me do it. She’d wished the money was hers. The hiver just took her at her thought.
You couldn’t say:Yes, but I’d never have really taken it! The hiver used what it found—the little secret wishes, the desires, the moments of rage, all the things that real humans knew how to ignore! It didn’t let you ignore them!
Then, as she fumbled to tie the pieces together, the egg flipped out of her hands, trusted in gravity, and smashed on the toe of her boot.
She stared at it, the blackness of despair darkening the noonlight. Why did I try this? I’ve never made a shamble that worked, so why did I try? Because I believed it had to work this time, that’s why. Like in a story. Suddenly it would all be . . . all right.
But this isn’t a story, and there are no more eggs. . . .
There was a scream, but it was high up and the sound of it took Tiffany home in the bounce of a heartbeat. It was a buzzard, in the eye of the sun, getting bigger in its plunge toward the field.
It soared up again as it passed over Tiffany’s head, fast as an arrow, and as it did so, something small let go its hold on the buzzard’s talons with a cry of “Crivens!”
Rob Anybody dropped like a stone, but there was a thwap! and suddenly a balloon of cloth snapped open above him. Two balloons, in fact, or to put it another way, Rob Anybody had “borrowed” Hamish’s parachute.
He let go of them as soon as they’d slowed him down, and dropped neatly into the shamble.
“Did ye think we’d leave ye?” he shouted, holding on to the strings. “I’m under a geas, me! Get on wi’ it, right noo!”
“What? I can’t!” said Tiffany, trying to shake him off. “Not with you! I’ll kill you! I always crack the eggs! What goose?”
“Dinna argue!” shouted Rob, bouncing up and down in the strings. “Do it! Or ye’re no’ the hag of the hills! An’ I know ye are!”
People were running past now. Tiffany glanced up. She thought she could see the hiver now as a moving shape in the dust.
She looked at the tangle in her hands and at Rob’s grinning face.
The moment twanged.
A witch deals with things, said her Second Thoughts. Get past the “I can’t.”
O-kay . . .
Why hasn’t it ever worked before? Because there was no reason for it to work. I didn’t need it to work.
I need it to help me now. No. I need me to help me.
So think about it. Ignore the noise, ignore the hiver rolling toward me over the trodden grass . . .
She’d used the things she’d had, so that was right. Calm down. Slow down. Look at the shamble. Think about the moment. There were all the things from home . . .
No. Not all the things. Not all the things at all. This time she felt the shape of what wasn’t there—
—and tugged at the silver Horse around her neck, breaking its chain, then hanging it in the threads.
Suddenly her thoughts were as cool and clear as ice, as bright and shiny as they needed to be. Let’s see . . . that looks better there . . . and that needs to be pulled this way . . .
The movement jerked the silver Horse into life. Then it spun gently, passing through the threads and Rob Anybody, who said “Didna hurt a bit! Keep goin’!”
Tiffany felt a tingle in her feet. The Horse gleamed as it turned.
“I dinna want to hurry ye!” said Rob Anybody. “But hurry!”
I’m far from home, thought Tiffany, in the same clear way, but I have it in my eye. Now I open my eyes. Now I open my eyes again—
Ahh . . .
Can I be a witch away from my hills? Of course I can. I never really leave you, Land Under Wave. . . .
Shepherds on the Chalk felt the ground shake, like thunder under the turf. Birds scattered from the bushes. The sheep looked up.
Again, the ground trembled.
Some people said a shadow crossed the sun. Some people said they heard the sound of hooves.
And a boy trying to catch hares in the little valley of the Horse said the hillside had burst and a horse had leaped out like a wave as high as the sky, with a mane like the surf of the sea and a coat as white as chalk. He said it had galloped into the air like rising mist, and flown toward the mountains like a storm.
He got punished for telling stories, of course, but he thought it was worth it.
The shamble glowed. Silver coursed along the threads. It was coming from Tiffany’s hands, sparking like stars.
In that light she saw the hiver reach her and spread out until it was all around her, invisibility made visible. It rippled and reflected the light oddly. In those glints and sparkles there were faces, wavering and stretching like reflections in water.
Time was going slowly. She could see, beyond the wall of hiver, witches staring at her. One had lost her hat in the commotion, but it was hanging in the air. It hadn’t had time to fall yet.
Tiffany’s fingers moved. The hiver shimmered in the air, disturbed like a pond when a pebble has been dropped into it. Tendrils of it reached toward her. She felt its panic, felt its terror as it found itself caught—
“Welcome,” said Tiffany.
Welcome? said the hiver in Tiffany’s own voice.
“Yes. You are welcome in this place. You are safe here.”
No! We are never safe!
“You are safe here,” Tiffany repeated.
Please! said the hiver. Shelter us!
“The wizard was nearly right about you,” said Tiffany. “You hid in other creatures. But he didn’t wonder why. What are you hiding from?”
Everything, said the hiver.
“I think I know what you mean,” said Tiffany.
Do you? Do you know what it feels like to be aware of every star, every blade of grass? Yes. You do. You call it “opening your eyes again.” But you do it for a moment. We have done it for eternity. No sleep, no rest, just endless . . . endless experience, endless awareness. Of everything. All the time. How we envy you, envy you! Lucky humans, who can close your minds to the endless cold deeps of space! You have this thing you call . . . boredom? That is the rarest talent in the universe! We heard a song—it went “Twinkle twinkle little star. . . .” What power! What wondrous power! You can take a billion trillion tons of flaming matter, a furnace of unimaginable strength, and turn it into a little song for children! You build little worlds, little stories, little shells around your minds, and that keeps infinity at bay and allows you to wake up in the morning without screaming!
Completely binkers! said a cheerful voice at the back of Tiffany’s memory. You just couldn’t keep Dr. Bustle down.
Pity us, yes, pity us, said the voices of the hiver. No shield for us, no rest for us, no sanctuary. But you, you withstood us. We saw that in you. You have minds within minds. Hide us!
“You want silence?” said Tiffany.
Yes, and more than silence, said the voice of the hiver.You humans are so good at ignoring things. You are almost blind and almost deaf. You look at a tree and see . . . just a tree, a stiff weed. You don’t see its history, feel the pumping of the sap, hear every insect in the bark, sense the chemistry of the leaves, notice the hundred shades of green, the tiny movements to follow the sun, the subtle growth of the wood . . .
“But you don’t understand us,” said Tiffany. “I don’t think any human could survive you. You give us what you think we want, as soon as we want it, just like in fairy stories. And the wishes always go wrong.”
Yes. We know that now. We have an echo of you now. We have . . . understanding, said the hiver. So now we come to you with a wish. It is the wish that puts the others right.
“Yes,” said Tiffany. “That’s always the last wish, the third wish. It’s the one that says ‘Make this not have happened.’”
Teach us the way to die, said the voices of the hiver.
“I don’t know it!”
All humans know the way, said the voices of the hiver.You walk it every day of your short, short lives. You know it. We envy you your knowledge. You know how to end. You are very talented.
I must know how to die, Tiffany thought. Somewhere deep down. Let me think. Let me get past the “I can’t.” . . .
She held up the glittering shamble. Shafts of light still spun off it, but she didn’t need it anymore. She could hold the power in the center of herself. It was all a matter of balance.
The light died. Rob Anybody was still hanging in the threads, but all his hair had come unplaited and stood out from his head in a great red ball. He looked stunned.
“I could just murrrder a kebab,” he said.
Tiffany lowered him to the ground, where he swayed slightly; then she put the rest of the shamble in her pocket.
“Thank you, Rob,” she said. “But I want you to go now. It could get . . . serious.”
It was, of course, the wrong thing to say.
“I’m no’ leavin’!” he snapped. “I promised Jeannie to keep ye safe! Let’s get on wi’ it!”
There was no arguing. Rob was standing in that half crouch of his, fists bunched, chin out, ready for anything and burning with defiance.
“Thank you,” said Tiffany, and straightened up.
Death is right behind us, she thought. Life ends, and there’s death, waiting. So . . . it must be close. Very close.
It would be . . . a door. Yes. An old door, old wood. Dark, too.
She turned. Behind her, there was a black door in the air.
The hinges would creak, she thought.
When she pushed it open, they did.
So-oo . . . she thought, this isn’t exactly real. I’m telling myself a story I can understand, about doors, and I’m fooling myself just enough for it all to work. I just have to keep balanced on that edge for it to go on working, too. That’s as hard as not thinking about a pink rhinoceros. And if Granny Weatherwax can do that, I can too.
Beyond the door, black sand stretched away under a sky of pale stars. There were some mountains on the distant horizon.
You must help us through, said the voices of the hiver.
“If you’ll tak’ my advice, you’ll no’ do that,” said Rob Anybody from Tiffany’s ankle. “I dinna trust the scunner one wee bitty!”
“There’s part of me in there. I trust that,” she said. “I did say you don’t have to come, Rob.”
“Oh, aye? An’ I’m tae see ye go through there alone, am I? Ye’ll not find me leavin’ ye now!”
“You’ve got a clan and a wife, Rob!”
“Aye, an’ so I willna dishonor them by lettin’ yer step across Death’s threshold alone,” said Rob Anybody firmly.
So, thought Tiffany as she stared through the doorway, this is what we do. We live on the edges. We help those who can’t find the way. . . .
She took a deep breath and stepped across.
Nothing much changed. The sand felt gritty underfoot and crunched when she walked over it, as she expected, but when it was kicked up, it fell back as slowly as thistledown, and she hadn’t expected that. The air wasn’t cold, but it was thin and prickly to breathe.
The door shut softly behind her.
Thank you, said the voices of the hiver. What do we do now?
Tiffany looked around her, and up at the stars. They weren’t ones that she recognized.
“You die, I think,” she said.
But there is no “me” to die, said the voices of the hiver. There is only us.
Tiffany took a deep breath. This was about words, and she knew about words. “Here is a story to believe,” she said. “Once we were blobs in the sea, and then fishes, and then lizards and rats, and then monkeys, and hundreds of things in between. This hand was once a fin, this hand once had claws! In my human mouth I have the pointy teeth of a wolf and the chisel teeth of a rabbit and the grinding teeth of a cow! Our blood is as salty as the sea we used to live in! When we’re frightened, the hair on our skin stands up, just like it did when we had fur. We are history! Everything we’ve ever been on the way to becoming us, we still are. Would you like the rest of the story?”
