Wintersmith - Terry Pratchett [103]
But he knew she’d touched it. She felt his shock.
She went to the door. As she opened it, a few snowflakes fell, but as if suddenly happy to have an audience, more began to pour down until—with no sound but a hiss—the night turned white. She held out her hand to catch some flakes and looked at them very closely. Little icy Tiffanys melted away.
Oh, yes. He had found her.
Her mind went cold, but crystal wheels of thought spun fast.
She could take a horse?…No, she’d not get far on a night like this. She should’ve kept that broomstick!
She shouldn’t have danced.
There was nowhere to run to. She’d have to face him again, and face him here, and stop him dead. In the mountains, with their black forests, endless winter was hard to imagine. It was easier here, and because it was easier it was worse, because he was bringing winter into her heart. She could feel it growing colder.
But the snow was inches deep already, in this short time. She was a shepherd’s daughter before she was a witch, and at this time, in this place, there were more immediate things to do.
She went into the golden warmth and light of the kitchen and said: “Dad, we must see to the flock.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Crown of Ice
That was then. This is now.
“Ach, crivens,” moaned Wee Dangerous Spike, on the roof of the cart shed.
The fire went out. The snow that had filled the sky began to thin. Wee Dangerous Spike heard a scream high overhead and knew exactly what to do. He raised his arms in the air and shut his eyes just as the buzzard swooped out of the white sky and snatched him up.
He liked this bit. When he opened his eyes, the world was swinging beneath him and a voice nearby said, “Get up here quick, laddie!”
He grabbed the thin leather harness above him and pulled, and the talons gently released their grip. Then, hand over hand in the wind of the flight, he dragged himself across the bird’s feathers until he could grab the belt of Hamish the aviator.
“Rob says ye’re old enough tae come doon intae the Underworld,” said Hamish over his shoulder. “Rob’s gone tae fetch the Hero. Ye are a lucky wee laddie!”
The bird banked.
Below, the snow…fled. There was no more melting, it simply drew back from the lambing pen like the tide going out or a deep breath being taken, with no more sound than a sigh.
Morag skimmed over the lambing field, where men were looking around in puzzlement. “One deid ship and a dozen deid lambs,” said Hamish, “but no big wee hag! He’s taken her.”
“Where to?”
Hamish steered Morag up in a big wide circle. Around the farm the snow had stopped falling. But up on the downs it was still dropping like hammers.
And then it took a shape.
“Up there,” he said.
All right, I’m alive. I’m pretty sure about that.
Yes.
And I can feel the cold all around me, but I don’t feel cold, which would be pretty hard to explain to anyone else.
And I can’t move. Not at all.
White all around me. And inside my head, all white.
Who am I?
I can remember the name Tiffany. I hope that was me.
White all around me. That happened before. It was a kind of dream or memory or something else I don’t have a word for. And all around me, whiteness falling. And building up around me, and lifting me up. It was…the chalk lands being built, silently, under ancient seas.
That’s what my name means.
It means Land Under Wave.
And, like a wave, color came flooding back into her mind. It was mostly the redness of rage.
How dare he!
To kill the lambs!
Granny Aching wouldn’t have allowed that. She never lost a lamb. She could bring them back to life.
I should never have left here in the first place, Tiffany thought. Perhaps I should have stayed and tried to learn things by myself. But if I hadn’t gone, would I still be me? Know what I know? Would I have been as strong as my grandmother, or would I just be a cackler? Well, I’ll be strong now.
When the killing weather was blind nature, you could only cuss; but if it was walking about on two legs…then it was war. And there would