A Hat Full Of Sky - Terry Pratchett [42]
Downstairs there was some muffled conversation between Petulia and Miss Level and then the sound of the door closing as Petulia left.
After a while there was a scraping noise as Tiffany’s boots were dragged across the floor and arranged neatly under the bed. Oswald was never off duty.
After another while the laughter died down, although she was sure it’d never go completely.
Tiffany could feel the hat. At least, she had been able to feel it. The virtual hat, on her real head. But no one could see it, and Petulia had even waved a hand back and forth over Tiffany’s head and encountered a complete absence of hat.
The worst part—and it was hard to find the worst part, so humiliatingly bad had it been—was hearing Annagramma say, “No, don’t laugh at her. That’s too cruel. She’s just foolish, that’s all. I told you the old woman messes with people’s heads!”
Tiffany’s First Thoughts were running around in circles. Her Second Thoughts were caught up in the storm. Only her Third Thoughts, which were very weak, came up with: Even though your world is completely and utterly ruined and can never be made better, no matter what, and you’re completely inconsolable, it would be nice if you heard someone bringing some soup upstairs….
The Third Thoughts got Tiffany off the bed and over to the door, where they guided her hand to slide the bolt back. Then they let her fling herself on the bed again.
A few minutes later there was a creak of footsteps on the landing. It’s nice to be right.
Miss Level knocked, then came in after a decent pause. Tiffany heard the tray go down on the table, then felt the bed move as a body sat down on it.
“Petulia is a capable girl, I’ve always thought,” said Miss Level after a while. “She’ll make some village a very serviceable witch one day.”
Tiffany stayed silent.
“She told me all about it,” said Miss Level. “Miss Tick never mentioned the hat, but if I was you, I wouldn’t have told her about it anyway. It sounds the sort of thing Mistress Weatherwax would do. You know, sometimes it helps to talk about these things.”
More silence from Tiffany.
“Actually, that’s not true,” Miss Level added. “But as a witch I am incredibly inquisitive and would love to know more.”
That had no effect either. Miss Level sighed and stood up. “I’ll leave the soup, but if you let it get too cold, Oswald will try to take it away.”
She went downstairs.
Nothing stirred in the room for about five minutes. Then there was faintest of tinkles as the soup began to move.
Tiffany’s hand shot out and gripped the tray firmly. That’s the job of Third Thoughts: First and Second Thoughts might understand your current tragedy, but something has to remember that you haven’t eaten since lunchtime.
Afterward, and after Oswald had speedily taken the empty bowl away, Tiffany lay in the dark, staring at nothing.
The novelty of this new country had taken all her attention in the past few days, but now that had drained away in the storm of laughter, and homesickness rushed to fill in the empty spaces.
She missed the sounds and the sheep and the silences of the Chalk. She missed seeing the blackness of the hills from her bedroom window, outlined against the stars. She missed…part of herself….
But they’d laughed at her. They’d said “What hat?” and they’d laughed even more when she’d raised her hand to touch the invisible brim and hadn’t found it….
She’d touched it every day for eighteen months, and now it had gone. And she couldn’t make a shamble. And she just had a green dress, while all the other girls wore black ones. Annagramma had a lot of jewelry, too, in black and silver. All the other girls had shambles, too, beautiful ones. Who cared if they were just for show?
Perhaps she wasn’t a witch at all. Oh, she’d defeated the Queen, with the help of the little men and the memory of Granny Aching, but she hadn’t used magic. She wasn’t sure, now, what she had used.