There was a robin's nest in the kettle, too. The birds had got in through a broken window pane. She carefully took the kettle outside and wedged it over the door so's to be safe from weasels, and boiled up some water in a saucepan.
Then she wound up the clock. Witches didn't have much use for clocks, but she kept it for the tick . . . well, mainly for the tick. It made a place seem lived in. It had belonged to her mother, who'd wound it up every day.
It hadn't come as a surprise to her when her mother died, firstly because Esme Weatherwax was a witch and witches have an insight into the future and secondly because she was already pretty experienced in medicine and knew the signs. So she'd had a chance to prepare herself, and hadn't cried at all until the day afterward, when the clock stopped right in the middle of the funeral lunch. She'd dropped a tray of ham rolls and then had to go and sit by herself in the privy for a while, so that no one would see.
Time to think about that sort of thing, now. Time to think about the past. . .
The clock ticked. The water boiled. Granny Weatherwax fished a bag of tea from the meagre luggage on her broomstick, and swilled out the teapot.
The fire settled down. The clamminess of a room unlived-in for months was gradually dispelled. The shadows lengthened.
Time to think about the past. Witches have an insight into the future. The business she'd have to mind soon enough would be her own. . .
And then she looked out of the window.
Nanny Ogg balanced carefully on a stool and ran a finger along the top of the dresser. Then she inspected the finger. It was spotless.
“Hummph,” she said. “Seems to be moderately clean.”
The daughters-in-law shivered with relief.
“So far,” Nanny added.
The three young women drew together in their mute terror.
Her relationship with her daughters-in-law was the only stain on Nanny Ogg's otherwise amiable character. Sons-in-law were different-she could remember their names, even their birthdays, and they joined the family like overgrown chicks creeping under the wings of a broody bantam. And grandchildren were treasures, every one. But any woman incautious enough to marry an Ogg son might as well resign herself to a life of mental torture and nameless domestic servitude.
Nanny Ogg never did any housework herself, but she was the cause of housework in other people.
She got down from the stool and beamed at them.
“You kept the place quite nice,” she said. “Well done.”
Her smile faded.
“Under the bed in the spare room,” she said. “Haven't looked under there yet, have I?”
Inquisitors would have thrown Nanny Ogg out of their ranks for being too nasty.
She turned as more members of the family filed into the room, and her face contorted into the misty grin with which she always greeted grandchildren.
Jason Ogg pushed his youngest son forward. This was Pewsey Ogg, aged four, who was holding something in his hands.
“What you got there, then?” said Nanny. “You can show your Nan.”
Pewsey held it up.
“My word, you have been a-”
It happened right there, right then, right in front of her.
* * *
And then there was Magrat.
She'd been away eight months.
Now panic was setting in. Technically she was engaged to the king, Verence II. Well . . . not exactly engaged, as such. There was, she was almost sure, a general unspoken understanding that engagement was a definite option. Admittedly she'd kept on telling him that she was a free spirit and definitely didn't want to be tied down in any way, and of course this was the case, more or less, but. . . but. . .