Branches thrashed high in the trees.
Granny and Nanny strode through the forest. At least, Granny Weatherwax strode. Nanny Ogg scurried.
“The Lords and Ladies are trying to find a way,” said Granny. “And there's something else. Something's already come through. Some kind of animal from the other side. Scrope chased a deer into the circle and the thing must have been there, and they always used to say something can come through if something goes the other way-”
“What thing?”
“You know what a bat's eyesight is like. Just a big shape is all it saw. Something killed old Scrope. It's still around. Not an . . . not one o' the Lords and Ladies,” said Granny, “but something from El . . . that place.”
Nanny looked at the shadows. There are a lot of shadows in a forest at night.
•“Ain't you scared?” she said.
Granny cracked her knuckles.
“No. But I hope it is.”
“Ooo, it's true what they say. You're a prideful one, Esmerelda Weatherwax.”
“Who says that?”
“Well, you did. Just now.”
“I wasn't feeling well.”
Other people would probably say: I wasn't myself. But Granny Weatherwax didn't have anyone else to be.
The two witches hurried on through the gale.
From the shelter of a thorn thicket, the unicorn watched them go.
Diamanda Tockley did indeed wear a floppy black velvet hat. It had a veil, too.
Perdita Nitt, who had once been merely Agnes Nitt before she got witchcraft, wore a black hat with a veil too, because Diamanda did. Both of them were seventeen. And she wished she was naturally skinny, like Diamanda, but if you can't be skinny you can at least look unhealthy. So she wore so much thick white make-up in order to conceal her naturally rosy complexion that if she turned around suddenly her face would probably end up on the back of her head.
They'd done the Raising of the Cone of Power, and some candle magic, and some scrying. Now Diamanda was showing them how to do the cards.
She said they contained the distilled wisdom of the Ancients. Perdita had found herself treacherously wondering who these Ancients were - they clearly weren't the same as old people, who were stupid, Diamanda said, but she wasn't quite clear why they were wiser than, say, modem people.
Also, she didn't understand what the Feminine Principle was. And she wasn't too clear about this Inner Self business. She was coming to suspect that she didn't have one.
And she wished she could do her eyes like Diamanda did.
And she wished she could wear heels like Diamanda did.
Amanita DeVice had told her that Diamanda slept in a real coffin.
She wished she had the nerve to have a dagger-and-skull tattoo on her arm like Amanita did, even if it was only in ordinary ink and she had to wash it off every night in case her mother saw it.
A tiny, nasty voice from Perdita's inner self suggested that Amanita wasn't a good choice of name.
Or Perdita, for that matter.
And it said that maybe Perdita shouldn't meddle with things she didn't understand.
The trouble was, she knew, that this meant nearly everything.
She wished she could wear black lace like Diamanda did.