A Hat Full Of Sky - Terry Pratchett [72]
“That very valuable bone china was left to me by a very dear friend!” shouted Miss Level. She sprang to her feet and turned toward the sink. With amazing speed for someone who was partly dead, she snatched teapot, cup, and saucer from the surprised pictsies and held them up as high as she could.
“Crivens!” said Rob Anybody, staring at the crockery. “Now that’s what I call hagglin’!”
“I’m sorry to be rude, but they’re of great sentimental value!” said Miss Level.
“Mr. Anybody, you and your men will kindly get away from Miss Level and shut up!” said Mistress Weatherwax quickly. “Pray do not disturb Miss Level while she’s making tea!”
“But she’s holding—” Tiffany began in amazement.
“And let her get on with it without your chatter either, girl!” the witch snapped.
“Aye, but she picked up yon teapot wi’oot—” a voice began.
The old witch’s head spun around. Feegles backed away like trees bending to a gale.
“Daft William,” she said coldly, “there’s room in my well for one more frog, except that you don’t have the brains of one!”
“Ahahaha, that’s wholly correct, mistress,” said Daft Wullie, sticking out his chin with pride. “I fooled you there! I ha’ the brains o’ a beetle!”
Mistress Weatherwax glared at him, then turned back to Tiffany.
“I turned someone into a frog!” Tiffany said. “It was dreadful! He didn’t all fit in, so there was this sort of huge pink—”
“Never mind that right now,” said Mistress Weatherwax in a voice that was suddenly so nice and ordinary that it tinkled like a bell. “I expect you finds things a bit different here than they were at home, eh?”
“What? Well, yes, at home I never turned—” Tiffany began in surprise, then saw that just above her lap the old woman was making frantic circular hand motions that somehow meant keep going as if nothing has happened.
So they chatted madly about sheep, and Mistress Weatherwax said they were very wooly, weren’t they, and Tiffany said that they were, extremely so, and Mistress Weatherwax said extremely wooly was what she’d heard…while every eye in the room watched Miss Level—
—making tea using four arms, two of which did not exist, and not realizing it.
The black kettle sailed across the room and apparently tipped itself into the pot. Cups and saucers and spoons and the sugar bowl floated with a purpose.
Mistress Weatherwax leaned across to Tiffany.
“I hope you’re still feeling…alone?” she whispered.
“Yes, thank you. I mean, I can…sort of…feel them there, but they’re not getting in the way…er…sooner or later she’s going to realize…I mean, isn’t she?”
“Very funny thing, the human mind,” whispered the old woman. “I once had to see to a poor young man who had a tree fall on his legs. Lost both legs from the knee down. Had to have wooden legs made. Still, they were made out of that tree, which I suppose was some comfort, and he gets about pretty well. But I remember him saying, ‘Mistress Weatherwax, I can still feel my toes sometimes.’ It’s like the head don’t accept what’s happened. And it’s not like she’s…your everyday kind of person to start with. I mean, she’s used to havin’ arms she can’t see—”
“Here we are,” said Miss Level, bustling over with three cups and saucers and the sugar bowl. “One for you, one for you, and one for—oh…”
The sugar bowl dropped from an invisible hand and spilled its sugar onto the table. Miss Level stared at it in horror while, in the other hand that wasn’t there, a cup and saucer wobbled without visible means of support.
“Shut your eyes, Miss Level!” And there was something in the voice, some edge or strange tone, that made Tiffany shut her eyes too.
“Right! Now, you know the cup’s there, you can feel your arm,” said Mistress Weatherwax, standing up. “Trust it! Your eyes are not in possession of all the facts! Now put the cup down gently…thaaat’s right. You can open your eyes now, but what I wants you to do, right, as a favor to me, is put the hands that you can see flat down on the table. Right. Good. Now, without takin’ those