Granny turned it over in her hands and regarded it carefully.
“Inside this hat,” she said solemnly, “is one of the secrets of witchcraft. If you cannot tell me what it is, then I might as well teach you no more, because once you learn the secret of the hat there is no going back. Tell me what you know about the hat.”
“Can I hold it?”
“Be my guest.”
Esk peered inside the hat. There was some wire stiffening to give it a shape, and a couple of hatpins. That was all.
There was nothing particularly strange about it, except that no one in the village had one like it. But that didn't make it magical. Esk bit her lip; she had a vision of herself being sent home in disgrace.
It didn't feel strange, and there were no hidden pockets. It was just a typical witch's hat. Granny always wore it when she went into the village, but in the forest she just wore a leather hood.
She tried to recall the bits of lessons that Granny grudgingly doled out. It isn't what you know, it's what other people don't know. Magic can be something right in the wrong place, or something wrong in the right place. It can be
Granny always wore it to the village. And the big black cloak, which certainly wasn't magical, because for most of the winter it had been a goat blanket and Granny washed it in the spring.
Esk began to feel the shape of the answer and she didn't like it much. It was like a lot of Granny's answers. Just a word trick. She just said things you knew all the time, but in a different way so they sounded important.
“I think I know,” she said at last.
“Out with it, then.”
“It's in sort of two parts.”
“Well?”
“It's a witch's hat because you wear it. But you're a witch because you wear the hat. Um.”
“So -”prompted Granny.
“So people see you coming in the hat and the cloak and they know you're a witch and that's why your magic works?” said Esk.
“That's right,” said Granny. “It's called headology.” She tapped her silver hair, which was drawn into a tight bun that could crack rocks.
“But it's not real!” Esk protested. “That's not magic, it's it's -”
“Listen,” said Granny, “If you give someone a bottle of red jollop for their wind it may work, right, but if you want it to work for sure then you let their mind make it work for them. Tell 'em it's moonbeams bottled in fairy wine or something. Mumble over it a bit. It's the same with cursing.”
“Cursing?” said Esk, weakly.
“Aye, cursing, my girl, and no need to look so shocked! You'll curse, when the need comes. When you're alone, and there's no help to hand, and -”
She hesitated and, uncomfortably aware of Esk's questioning eyes, finished lamely: “- and people aren't showing respect. Make it loud, make it complicated, make it long, and make it up if you have to, but it'll work all right. Next day, when they hit their thumb or they fall off a ladder or their dog drops dead, they'll remember you. They'll behave better next time.”
“But it still doesn't seem like magic,” said Esk, scuffing the dust with her feet.
“I saved a man's life once,” said Granny. “Special medicine, twice a day. Boiled water with a bit of berry juice in it. Told him I'd bought it from the dwarves. That's the biggest part of doct'rin, really. Most people'll get over most things if they put their minds to it, you just have to give them an interest.”
She patted Esk's hand as nicely as possible. “You're a bit young for this,” she said, “but as you grow older you'll find most people don't set foot outside their own heads much. You too,” she added gnomically.
“I don't understand.”
“I'd be very surprised if you did,” said Granny briskly, “but you can tell me five herbs suitable for dry coughs.”
Spring began to unfold in earnest. Granny started taking Esk on long walks that took all day, to hidden ponds or high on to the mountain scree to collect rare plants. Esk enjoyed that, high on the hills where the sun beat down strongly but the air was nevertheless freezing cold. Plants grew thickly and hugged the ground. From some of the highest peaks she could see all the way to the Rim Ocean that ran around the edge of the world; in the other direction the Ramtops marched into the distance, wrapped in eternal winter. They went all the way to the hub of the world where, it was generally agreed, the Gods lived on a ten-mile high mountain of rock and ice.
“Gods are all right,” said Granny, as they ate their lunch and looked at the view. “You don't bother gods, and gods don't come bothering you.”
“Do you know many gods?”
“I've seen the thundergods a few times,” said Granny, “and Hoki, of course.”
“Hold? ”
Granny chewed a crustless sandwich. “Oh, he's a nature god,” she said. “Sometimes he manifests himself as an oak tree, or half a man and half a goat, but mainly I see him in his aspect as a bloody nuisance. You only find him in the deep woods, of course. He plays the flute. Very badly, if you must know.”
Esk lay on her stomach and looked out across the lands below while a few hardy, self-employed bumblebees patrolled the thyme clusters. The sun was warm on her back but, up here, there were still drifts of snow on the hubside of rocks.
“Tell me about the lands down there,” she said lazily.
Granny peered disapprovingly at ten thousand miles of landscape.
“They're just other places,” she said. “Just like here, only different.”
“Are there cities and things?”
“Idaresay.”
“Haven't you ever been to look?”
Granny sat back, gingerly arranging her skirt to expose several inches of respectable flannelette to the sun, and let the heat caress her old bones.
“No,” she said. “There's quite enough troubles around here without going to look for them in forn parts.”
“I dreamed of a city once,” said Esk. “It had hundreds of people in it, and there was this building with big gates, and they were magical gates -”
A sound like tearing cloth came from behind her. Granny had fallen asleep.
“Granny! ”
“Mhnf?”
Esk thought for a moment. “Are you having a good time?” she said artfully.
“Mnph.”
“You said you'd show me some real magic, all in good time,” said Esk, “and this is a good time.”
“Mnph.”
Granny Weatherwax opened her eyes and looked straight up at the sky; it was darker up here, more purple than blue. She thought: why not? She's a quick learner. She knows more herblore than I do. At her age old Gammer Tumult had me Borrowing and Shifting and Sending all the hours of the day. Maybe I'm being too cautious.
“Just a bit?” pleaded Esk.
Granny turned it over in her mind. She couldn't think of any more excuses. I'm surely going to regret this, she told herself, displaying considerable foresight.
“All right,” she said shortly.
“Real magic?” said Esk. “Not more herbs or headology?”
“Real magic, as you call it, yes.”
“A spell?”
“No. A Borrowing.”
Esk's face was a picture of expectation. She looked more alive, it seemed to Granny, than she had ever been before.
Granny looked over the valleys stretching out before them until she found what she was after. A grey eagle was circling lazily over a distant blue-hazed patch of forest. Its mind was currently at ease. It would do nicely.
She Called it gently, and it began to circle towards them.
“The first thing to remember about Borrowing is that you must be comfortable and somewhere safe,” she said, smoothing out the grass behind her. “Bed's best.”
“But what is Borrowing?”
“Lie down and hold my hand. Do you see the eagle up there?”
Esk squinted into the dark, hot sky.
There were . . . two doll figures on the grass below as she pivoted on the wind ....
She could feel the whip and wire of the air through her feathers. Because the eagle was not hunting, but simply enjoying the feel of the sun on its wings, the land below was a mere unimportant shape. But the air, the air was a complex, changing three-dimensional thing, an interlocked pattern of spirals and curves that stretched away into the distance, a switchback of currents built around thermal pillars. She . . .
. . . felt a gentle pressure restraining her.
“The next thing to remember, ” said Granny's voice, very close, “is not to upset the owner. If you let it know you're there it'll either fight you or panic, and you won't stand a chance either way. It's had a lifetime of being an eagle, and you haven't.”
Esk said nothing.
“You're not frightened, are you?” said Granny. “It can take you that way the first time, and -”
“I'm not frightened,” said Esk, and “How do I control it?”
“You don't. Not yet. Anyway, controlling a truly wild creature isn't easily learned. You have to - sort of suggest to it that it might feel inclined to do things. With a tame animal, of course, it's all different. But you can't make any creature do anything that is totally against its nature. Now try and find the eagle's mind.”
Esk could sense Granny as a diffuse silver cloud at the back of her own mind. After some searching she found the eagle. She almost missed it. Its mind was small, sharp and purple, like an arrowhead. It was concentrating entirely on flying, and took no notice of her.
“Good,” said Granny approvingly. “We're not going to go far. If you want to make it turn, you must -”
“Yes, yes,” said Esk. She flexed her fingers, wherever they were, and the bird leaned against the air and turned.
“Very good,” said Granny, taken aback. “How did you do that?”
“I - don't know. It just seemed obvious.”
“Hmph.” Granny gently tested the tiny eagle mind. It was still totally oblivious of its passengers. She was genuinely impressed, a very rare occurrence.
They floated over the mountain, while Esk excitedly explored the eagle's senses. Granny's voice droned through her consciousness, giving instructions and guidance and warnings. She listened with half an ear. It sounded far too complicated. Why couldn't she take over the eagle's mind? It wouldn't hurt it.
She could see how to do it, it was just a knack, like snapping your fingers - which in fact she had never managed to achieve - and then she'd be able to experience flying for real, not at second hand.
Then she could
“Don't,” said Granny calmly. “No good will come of it.”
“What?”
“Do you really think you're the first, my girl? Do you think we haven't all thought what a fine thing it would be, to take on another body and tread the wind or breathe the water? And do you really think it would be as easy as that?”
Esk glowered at her.
“No need to look like that,” said Granny. “You'll thank me one day. Don't you start playing around before you know what you're about, eh? Before you get up to tricks you've got to learn what to do if things go wrong. Don't try to walk before you can run.”
“I can feel how to do it, Granny.”