'She never sent the castle to sleep,' said Granny. 'That's just an old wives' tale,' she added, glaring at Nanny. 'She just stirred up time a little. It's not as hard as people think. Everyone does it all the time. It's like rubber, is time. You can stretch it to suit yourself.'
Magrat was about to say, that's not right, time is time, every second lasts a second, that's what it's for, that's its job . . .
And then she recalled weeks that had flown past and afternoons that had lasted forever. Some minutes had lasted hours, some hours had gone past so quickly she hadn't been aware they'd gone past at all . . .
'But that's just people's perception,' she said. 'Isn't it?'
'Oh, yes,' said Granny, 'of course it is. It all is. What difference does that make?'
'A hundred years'd be over-egging it, mind,' said Nanny.
'I reckon fifteen'd be a nice round number,' said Granny. 'That means the lad will be eighteen at the finish. We just do the spell, go and fetch him, he can manifest his destiny, and everything will be nice and neat.'
Magrat didn't comment on this, because it had occurred to her that destinies sounded easy enough when you talked about them but were never very bankable where real human beings were concerned. But Nanny Ogg sat back and tipped another generous measure of apple brandy in her tea.
'Could work out nice,' she said. 'A bit of peace and quiet for fifteen years. If I recall the spell, after you say it you have to fly around the castle before cock crow.'
'I wasn't thinking about that,' said Granny. 'It wouldn't be right. Felmet would still be king all that time. The kingdom would still get sick. No, what I was thinking of doing was moving the whole kingdom.'
She beamed at them.
'The whole of Lancre?' said Nanny.
'Yes.'
'Fifteen years into the future?'
'Yes.'
Nanny looked at Granny's broomstick. It was a well-made thing, built to last, apart from the occasional starting problem. But there were limits.
'You'll never do it,' she said. 'Not around the whole kingdom in that. That's all the way up to Powderknife and down to Drumlin's Fell. You just couldn't carry enough magic.'
'I've thought of that,' said Granny.
She beamed again. It was terrifying.
She explained the plan. It was dreadful.
A minute later the moor was deserted, as the witches hurried to their tasks. It was silent for a while, apart from the squeak of bats and the occasional rustle of the wind in the heather.
Then there was a bubbling from the nearby peat bog. Very slowly, crowned with a thicket of sphagnum moss, the standing stone surfaced and peered around the landscape with an air of deep distrust.
Greebo was really enjoying this. At first he thought his new friend was taking him to Magrat's cottage, but for some reason he'd wandered off the path in the dark and was taking a stroll in the forest. In one of the more interesting bits, Greebo had always felt. It was a hummocky area, rich in hidden potholes and small, intense swamps, full of mist even in fine weather. Greebo often came up here on the offchance that a wolf was lying up for the day.
'I thought cats could find their own way home,' the Fool muttered.
He cursed himself under his breath. It would have been easy to take this wretched creature back to Nanny Ogg's house, which was only a few streets away, almost in the shadow of the castle. But then he'd had the idea of delivering it to Magrat. It would impress her, he thought. Witches were very keen on cats. And then she'd be bound to ask him in, for a cup of tea or something . . .
He put his foot in another water-filled hole. Something wriggled underneath it. The Fool groaned, and stepped back on to a tumescent mushroom.
'Look, cat,' he said. 'You've got to come down, right? And then you can find your way home and I'll follow you. Cats are good at seeing in the dark and finding their own way home,' he added hopefully.
He reached up. Greebo sank his claws into his arm as a friendly warning, and found to his surprise that this had no effect on chain mail.
'There's a good cat,' said the Fool, and lowered him to the ground. 'Go on, find your way home. Any home will do.'
Greebo's grin gradually faded, until there was nothing left but the cat. This was nearly as spooky as the opposite way round.