“Come on, Esme!”
“No. I ain't been thinking clear enough, but I am now. There's some things I don't have to run from.”
The white shape bulleted down the avenue of trees, a thousand pounds of muscle behind twelve inches of glistening horn. Steam swirled behind it.
“Esme!”
Circle time was ending. Besides, she knew now why her mind had felt so unravelled, and that was a help. She couldn't hear the ghostly thoughts of all the other Esme Weatherwaxes anymore.
Perhaps some lived in a world ruled by elves. Or had died long ago. Or were living what they thought were happy lives. Granny Weatherwax seldom wished for anything, because wishing was soppy, but she felt a tiny regret that she'd never be able to meet them.
Perhaps some were going to die, now, here on this path. Everything you did meant that a million copies of you did something else. Some were going to die. She'd sensed their future deaths . . . the deaths of Esme Weatherwax. And couldn't save them, because chance did not work like that.
On a million hillsides the girl ran, on a million bridges the girl chose, on a million paths the woman stood. . .
All different, all one.
All she could do for all of them was be herself, here and now, as hard as she could.
She stuck out a hand.
A few yards away the unicorn hit an invisible wall. Its legs flailed as it tried to stop, its body contorted in pain, and it slid the rest of the way to Granny's feet on its back.
“Gytha,” said Granny, as the beast tried to get upright, “you'll take off your stockings and knot 'em into a halter and pass it to me carefully.”
“Esme. . .”
“What?”
“Ain't got no stockings on, Esme.”
“What about the lovely red and white pair I gave you on Hogswatchnight? I knitted 'em myself. You know how I hates knitting.”
“Well, it's a warm night. I likes to, you know, let the air circulate.”
“I had the devil of a time with the heels.”
“Sorry, Esme.”
“At least you'll be so good as to run up to my place and bring everything that's in the bottom of the dresser.”
“Yes, Esme.”
“But before that you'll call in at your Jason's and tell him to get the forge good and hot.”
Nanny Ogg stared down at the struggling unicorn. It seemed to be stuck, terrified of Granny but at the same time quite unable to escape.
“Oh, Esme, you're never going to ask our Jason to-”
“I won't ask him to do anything. And I ain't asking you, neither.”
Granny Weatherwax removed her hat, skimming it into the bushes. Then, her eyes never leaving the animal, she reached up to the iron-grey bun of her hair and removed a few crucial pins.
The bun uncoiled a waking snake of fine hair, which unwound down to her waist when she shook her head a couple of times.
Nanny watched in paralysed fascination as she reached up again and broke a single hair at its root.
Granny Weatherwax's hands made a complicated motion in the air as she made a noose out of something almost too thin to see. She ignored the thrashing horn and dropped it over the unicorn's neck. Then she pulled.