The broomsticks in the present landed just above the treeline, on the edge of the moor. As Agnes had said, it was barely big enough to deserve the term. She could even hear the little mountain brook at the far end.

“I can’t see anything gnarly looking,” said Agnes. She knew it was a stupid thing to say, but the presence of Magrat was getting on her nerves.

Nanny looked up at the sky. The other two followed her gaze.

“You’ve got to get your eye in, but you’ll see it if you watch,” she said. “You can only see it if you stands on the moor.”

Agnes squinted at the overcast.

“Oh…I think I can,” said Magrat.

I bet she doesn’t, said Perdita, I can’t.

And then Agnes did. It was tricky to spot, like a join between two sheets of glass, and it seemed to move away whenever she was certain she could see it, but there was an…inconsistency, flickering in and out on the edge of vision.

Nanny licked a finger and held it up to the wind. Then she pointed.

“This way. An’ shut your eyes.”

“There’s no path,” said Magrat.

“That’s right. You hold on to my hand, Agnes will hold onto yours. I’ve been this way a few times. It ain’t hard.”

“It’s like a children’s story,” said Agnes.

“Yes, we’re down to the bone now, all right,” said Nanny. “And…off we go…”

Agnes felt the heather brush her feet as she stepped forward. She opened her eyes.

Moorland stretched away on every side, even behind them. The air was darker, the clouds heavier, the wind sharper. The mountains looked a long way away. There was a distant thunder of water.

“Where are we now?” said Magrat.

“Still here,” said Nanny. “I remember my dad saying sometimes a deer or somethin’ would run into gnarly ground if it was bein’ hunted.”

“It’d have to be pretty desperate,” said Agnes. The heather was darker here, and scratched so much it was almost thorny. “Everything’s so…nasty looking.”

“Attitude plays a part,” said Nanny. She tapped something with her foot.

It was…well, it had been a standing stone, Agnes thought, but now it was a lying stone. Lichen grew thickly all over it.

“The marker. Hard to get out again if you don’t know about it,” said Nanny. “Let’s head for the mountains. Esme all wrapped up, Magrat? Little Esme, I mean.”

“She’s asleep.”

“Yeah,” said Nanny, in what Agnes thought was an odd tone of voice. “Just as well, really. Let’s go. Oh…I thought we might need these…”

She fumbled in the bottomless storeroom of her knicker leg and produced a couple of pairs of socks so thick that they could have stood up by themselves.

“Lancre wool,” she said. “Our Jason knits ’em of an evenin’ and you know what strong fingers he’s got. You could kick your way through a wall.”

The heather ripped fruitlessly at the wire-like wool as the women hurried over the moor. There was still a sun here, or at least a bright spot in the overcast, but darkness seemed to come up from beneath the ground.

Agnes… said Perdita’s voice, in the privacy of her shared brain.

What? thought Agnes.

Nanny’s worried about something to do with the baby and Granny. Have you noticed?

Agnes thought: I know Nanny keeps looking at little Esme as if she’s trying to make up her mind about something, if that’s what you mean.

Well, I think it’s to do with Borrowing…

She thinks Granny’s using the baby to keep an eye on us?

I don’t know. But something’s happening…

The roar ahead grew louder.

“There’s a little stream, isn’t there?” said Agnes.

“That’s right,” said Nanny. “Just here.”

The moor fell away. They stared into the abyss, which didn’t stare back. It was huge. White water was just visible far below. Cold damp air blew past their faces.

“That can’t be right,” said Magrat. “That’s wider and deeper than Lancre Gorge!”

Agnes looked down into the mist. It’s a couple of feet deep, Perdita told her. I can see every pebble.

“Perdita thinks it’s a…well, an optical illusion,” Agnes said aloud.

“She could be right,” said Nanny. “Gnarly ground, see? Bigger on the inside.”

Magrat picked up a rock and tossed it in. It bounced off the wall a few times, tumbling end over end, and then nothing was left but a stony echo. The river was too far down even to see the splash.

“It’s very realistic, isn’t it,” she said weakly.

“We could use the bridge,” said Nanny, pointing.

They regarded the bridge. It had a certain negative quality. That is to say, while it was possible at the limits of probability that if they tried to cross the chasm by walking out over thin air this might just work—because of sudden updrafts, or air molecules suddenly all having a crazy idea at the same time—trying to do the same thing via the bridge would clearly be laughable.

There was no mortar in it. The pillars had been piled up out of rocks laid like a drystone wall, and then a series of big flat stones dropped across the top. The result would have been called primitive even by people who were too primitive to have a word yet for “primitive.” It creaked ominously in the wind. They could hear stone grind against stone.

“That’s not right,” said Magrat. “It wouldn’t stand up to a gale.”

“It wouldn’t stand up to a dead calm,” said Agnes. “I don’t think it’s really real.”

“Ah, I can see where that’d make crossing it a bit tricky, then,” said Nanny.

It’s just a slab laid over a ditch, Perdita insisted. I could cart-wheel over it. Agnes blinked.

“Oh, I understand,” she said. “This is some sort of test, is it? It is, isn’t it? We’re worried, so fear makes it a deep gorge. Perdita’s always confident, so she hardly notices it…”

“I’d like to notice it’s there,” said Magrat. “It’s a bridge.”

“We’re wasting time,” said Agnes. She strode out over the slabs of stone and stopped halfway.

“Rocks a bit, but it’s not too bad,” she called back. “You just have to—”

The slab shifted under her, and tipped her off.

She flung out her hands and caught the edge of the stone by sheer luck. But, strong though her fingers were, a lot of Agnes was penduluming underneath.

She looked down. She didn’t want to, but it was a direction occupying a lot of the world.

The water’s about a foot below you, it really is, said Perdita. All you have to do is drop, and you’d be good at that…

Agnes looked down again. The drop was so long that probably no one would hear the splash. It didn’t just look deep, it felt deep. Clammy air rose around her. She could feel the sucking emptiness under her feet.

“Magrat threw a stone down there!” she hissed.

Yes, and I saw it fall a few inches.

“Now, I’m lyin’ flat and Magrat’s holdin’ on to my legs,” said Nanny Ogg conversationally, right above her. “I’m going to grab your wrists and, you know, I reckon if you swings a little sideways you ought to get your foot on one of the stone pillars and you’ll be right as ninepence.”

“You don’t have to talk to me as if I’m some kind of frightened idiot!” snapped Agnes.

“Just tryin’ to be pleasant.”

“I can’t move my hands!’

“Yes, you can. See, I’ve got your arm now.”

“I can’t move my hands!”

“Don’t rush, we’ve got all day,” said Nanny. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Agnes hung for a while. She couldn’t even sense her hands now. That presumably meant that she wouldn’t feel it when her grip slipped.

The stones groaned.

“Er…Nanny?”

“Yep?”

“Can you talk to me a bit more as if I’m some kind of frightened idiot?”

“Okay.”

“Er…why do they say ‘right as ninepence’? As opposed to, say, tenpence?”

“Interestin’. Maybe it’s—”

“And can you speak up? Perdita’s shouting at me that if I drop eighteen inches I’ll be standing in the stream!”

“Do you think she’s right?”

“Not about the eighteen inches!”

The bridge creaked.

“People seldom are,” said Nanny. “Are you getting anywhere, dear? Only I can’t lift you up, you see. And my arms are going numb, too.”

“I can’t reach the pillar!”

“Then let go,” said Magrat, from somewhere behind Nanny.

“Magrat!” snapped Nanny.

“Well, perhaps it is only a little stream to Perdita. Gnarly ground can be two things at the same time, can’t it? So if that’s how she sees it…well, can’t you let her get on with it? Let her sort it out. Can’t you let her take over?”

“She only does that when I’m really under stress! Shut up!”

“I only—”

“Not you, her! Oh no—”

Her left hand, white and almost numb, pulled itself off the stone and out of Nanny’s grip.

“Don’t let her do this to us!” Agnes shrieked. “I’ll fall hundreds of feet onto sharp rocks!”

“Yes, but since you’re going to do that anyway, anything’s worth a try, isn’t it?” said Nanny. “I should shut your eyes, if I was you—”

The right hand came loose.

Agnes shut her eyes. She fell.

Perdita opened her eyes. She was standing in the stream.

“Damn!” And Agnes would never say “damn,” which was why Perdita did so at every suitable occasion.

She reached up to the slab just above her, got a grip, and hauled herself up. Then, catching sight of Nanny Ogg’s expression, she jerked her hands around into a new position and kicked her legs up.

That stupid Agnes never realizes how strong she is, Perdita thought. There’s all these muscles she’s afraid of using…

She pushed gently until her toes pointed at the sky and she was doing a handstand on the edge. The effect, she felt, was spoilt by her skirt falling over her eyes. “You’ve still got that tear in yer knickers,” said Nanny sharply.

Perdita flicked herself onto her feet.

Magrat had her eyes tight shut. “She didn’t do a handstand on the edge, did she?”

“She did,” said Nanny. “Now then, A—Perdita, stop that showing off, we’ve wasted too much time. Let Agnes have the body back, you know it’s hers really—”

Perdita did a cartwheel. “This body’s wasted on her,” she said. “And you should see the stuff she eats! Do you know she’s still got two shelves full of soft toys? And dolls? And she wonders why she can’t get along with boys!”

“Nothing like being stared at by a teddy bear to put a young man off his stroke,” said Nanny Ogg. “Remember old Mrs. Sleeves, Magrat? Used to need two of us when she had one of her nasty turns.”

“What’s that got to do with toys?” said Perdita suspiciously.

“And what’s it—Oh yes,” said Magrat.

“Now, I recall that old bellringer down in Ohulan,” said Nanny, leading the way. “He had no fewer than seven personalities in his head. Three of ’em were women and four of ’em were men. Poor old chap. He said he was always the odd one out. He said they let him get on with all the work and the breathin’ and eatin’ and they had all the fun. Remember? He said it was hellish when he had a drink and they all started fightin’ for a tastebud. Sometimes he couldn’t hear himself think in his own head, he said—Now! Now! Now!”

Agnes opened her eyes. Her jaw hurt.

Nanny Ogg was peering at her closely, while rubbing some feeling back into her wrist. From a couple of inches away, her face looked like a friendly pile of elderly laundry.

“Yes, that’s Agnes,” she said, standing back. “Her face goes sharper when it’s the other one. See? I told you she’d be the one that came back. She’s got more practice.”

Magrat let go of her arms. Agnes rubbed her chin.

“That hurt,” she said reproachfully.

“Just a bit of tough love,” said Nanny. “Can’t have that Perdita running around at a time like this.”

“You just sort of grabbed the bridge and came right back up,” said Magrat.

“I felt her stand on the ground!” said Agnes.

“And that too, then,” said Nanny. “Come on. Not far now. Sometimes. And let’s just take it easy, shall we? Some of us might have further to fall than others.”

They edged forward, despite an increasingly insistent voice in Agnes’s head that kept telling her she was being a stupid coward and of course she wouldn’t be hurt. She tried to ignore it.

The caves that Agnes remembered hadn’t been much more than rock overhangs. These were caverns. The difference is basically one of rugged and poetic grandeur. These had a lot of both.

“Gnarly ground’s a bit like icebergs,” said Nanny, leading them up a little gully to one of the largest.

“Nine-tenths of it is under water?” said Agnes. Her chin still hurt.

“There’s more to it than meets the eye, I mean.”

“There’s someone there!” said Magrat.

“Oh, that’s the witch,” said Nanny. “She’s not a problem.”

Light from the entrance fell on a hunched figure, sitting among pools of water. Closer to, it looked like a statue, and perhaps not quite as human as the eye at first suggested. Water glistened on it; drops formed on the end of the long hooked nose and fell into a pool with the occasional plink.

“I come up here with a young wizard once, when I was a girl,” said Nanny. “He liked nothing so much as bashing at rocks with his little hammer…well, almost nothing,” she added, with a smile toward the past and then a happy sigh. “He said the witch was just a lot of ol’ stuff from the rocks, left there by the water drippin’. But my granny said it was a witch that sat up here to think about some big spell, and she turned to stone. Person’ly, I keep an open mind.”

“It’s a long way to bring someone,” said Agnes.

“Oh, there was a lot of us kids at home and it was rainin’ a lot and you need a lot of privacy for really good geology,” said Nanny vaguely. “I think his hammer’s still around here somewhere. He quite forgot about it after a while. Mind how you tread, the rocks is very slippery. How’s young Esme doing, Magrat?”

“Oh, gurgling away. I’ll have to feed her soon.”

“We’ve got to look after her,” said Nanny.

“Well, yes. Of course.”

Nanny clapped her hands together and pulled them apart gently. The glow between them wasn’t the showy light that wizards made, but a grainy graveyard glimmer. It was just enough to ensure that no one fell down a hole.

“Probably some dwarfs in a place like this,” said Magrat, as they picked their way along a tunnel.

“Shouldn’t think so. They don’t like places that don’t stay the same. No one comes up here now but animals and Granny when she wants to be alone with her thoughts.”

“And you when you were banging rocks,” said Magrat.

“Hah! But it was different then. There was flowers on the moor and the bridge was just stepping stones. That’s ’cos I was in love.”

“You mean it really does change because of the way you feel?” said Agnes.

“You spotted it. It’s amazing how high and rocky the bridge can be if you’re in a bad mood, I know that.”

“I wonder how high it was for Granny, then?”

“Probably clouds could go underneath, girl.”

Nanny stopped where the path forked, and then pointed.

“I reckon she’s gone this way. Hold on—”

She thrust out an arm. Stone groaned, and a slab of roof thudded down, throwing up spray and pebbles.

“So we’ll just have to climb over this bit, then,” Nanny went on, in the same matter-of-fact tone of voice.

“Something’s trying to push us out,” said Agnes.

“But it won’t,” said Nanny. “And I don’t think it’ll harm us.”

“That was a big slab!” said Agnes.

“Yeah. But it missed us, didn’t it.”

There was an underground river farther on, sheer white water blurred with speed. It poured around and almost over a dam of driftwood, topped by an inviting long log.

“Look, this isn’t safe for the baby!” said Agnes. “Do you both see that? You’re her mother, Magrat!”

“Yes, I know, I was there,” said Magrat, with infuriating calm. “But this doesn’t feel unsafe. Granny’s here somewhere.”

“That’s right,” said Nanny. “Really close now, I think.”

“Yes, but she can’t control rivers and rocks—” Agnes began.

“Here? Dunno. Very…responsive place, this.”

They inched their way across the log, passing the baby from one to the other.

Agnes leaned against the stone wall. “How much farther?”

“Well, tecnic’ly a few inches,” said Nanny. “That’s helpful to know, isn’t it?”

“Is it just me,” said Magrat, “or is it getting warmer?”

“Now that,” said Agnes, pointing ahead, “I don’t believe.”

At the end of a slope a crevasse has opened in the rock. Red light spilled out of it. As they stared at it, a ball of flame rolled up and burst across the ceiling.

“Oh deary deary me,” said Nanny, who had taken a turn to carry the baby. “An’ it’s not even as if there’s any volcanoes anywhere near here. What can she be thinking?” She headed purposefully toward the fire.

“Careful!” Agnes shouted. “Perdita says it’s real!”

“What’s that got to do with the price of fish?” said Nanny, and stepped into the fire.

The flames snapped out.

The other two stood in the chilly, damp gloom.

Magrat shuddered. “Nanny, you are carrying the baby.”

“The harm you come to here is what you brings with you,” said Nanny. “And it’s Granny’s thoughts that are shaping this place. But she wouldn’t raise a hand to a child. Couldn’t do it. Hasn’t got it in her.”

“This place is reacting to what she’s thinking?” said Agnes.

“I reckon so,” said Nanny, setting off again.

“I’d hate to be inside her head!”

“You nearly are,” said Nanny. “Come on. We’ve passed the fire. I don’t think there’ll be anything else.”

They found her in a cavern. It had sand on the floor, smooth and unmarked by anything except one set of footprints. Her hat had been placed neatly beside her. Her head rested on a rolled up sack. She held a card in stiff hands.

It read:

GOE AWAY

“That is not very helpful,” said Magrat, and sat down with the baby across her lap. “After all this, too.”

“Can’t we wake her up?” said Agnes.

“That’s dangerous,” said Nanny Ogg. “Trying to call her back when she ain’t ready to come? Tricky.”

“Well, can we at least take her out of here?”

“She won’t bend round corners but, hah, maybe we could use her as a bridge,” said Nanny. “No, she came here for a reason…”

She pulled the sack out from under Granny’s head, which did not move, and opened it.

“Wrinkly apple, bottle of water and a cheese sandwich you could bend horseshoes round,” she said. “And her old box.”

She set it down on the floor between them.

“What is in there?” said Agnes.

“Oh, keepsakes. Memorororabililia, like I said. That sort of thing,” said Nanny. “She always says it’s full of things she’s got no further use for.” She drummed her fingers on the box as if accompanying a thought on the piano, and then picked it up.

“Should you do that?” said Agnes.

“No,” said Nanny. She lifted out a bundle of papers tied with ribbon and put them on one side.

They all saw the light shining up from underneath. Nanny reached in and took out a small glass medicine bottle, tightly corked, and held it up. A little glow inside was quite bright in the gloom of the cave.

“Seen this bottle before,” said Nanny. “She’s got all kinds of odds and ends in here. Never noticed it glowing, though.”

Agnes took the bottle. Inside there was what looked like a piece of fern, or…no, it was a feather, quite black except for the very tip which was as yellow and bright as a candle flame.

“Do you know what it is?”

“No. She’s always pickin’ up stuff. She’s had the bottle a long time, ’cos I’ve seen it in there—”

“I faw her fick it uff—” Magrat removed a safety pin from her mouth. “I saw her pick that thing up years ago,” she tried again. “It was around this time of year, too. We were walking back through the woods and there was a shooting star and this sort of light fell off it and we went to look and there it was. It looked like a flame but she was able to pick it up.”

“Sounds like a firebird feather,” said Nanny. “There used to be old stories about them. They pass through here. But if you touch their feathers, you’d better be damn sure of yourself, because the old stories say they burn in the presence of evil—”

“Firebird? You mean a phoenix?” said Agnes. “Hodgesaargh was going on about one.”

“Haven’t seen one go over for years,” said Nanny. “Sometimes you’d see two or three at a time when I was girl, just lights flying high up in the sky.”

“No, no, the phoenix…there’s only one of it, that’s the whole point,” said Agnes.

“One of anything’s no bloody use,” said Nanny.

Granny Weatherwax smacked her lips, like someone emerging from a very deep sleep. Her eyelids flickered.

“Ah, I knew opening her box’d work,” said Nanny happily.

Granny Weatherwax’s eyes opened. She stared straight up for a moment, and then swiveled them toward Nanny Ogg.

“W’t’r,” she mumbled. Agnes hastily passed her the water bottle. She touched Granny’s fingers, and they were as chilly as stone.

The old witch took a gulp.

“Oh. It’s you three,” she whispered. “Why did you come here?”

“You told us to,” said Agnes.

“No I didn’t!” Granny snapped. “Wrote you a note, did I?”

“No, but the stuff—” Agnes stopped. “Well, we thought you wanted us to.”

“Three witches?” said Granny. “Well, no reason why not. The maiden, the mother and the—”

“Go carefully,” Nanny Ogg warned.

“—the other one,” said Granny. “That’s up to you, I’m sure. It’s not something about which I would venture any sort of opinion. So I expect you’ve got some dancin’ to be doing, and good day to you. I’ll have my pillow back, thank you very much.”

“You know there’s vampires in Lancre?” Nanny demanded.

“Yes. They got invited.”

“You know they’re taking over?”

“Yes!”

“So why did you run away up here?” said Agnes.

The temperature of a deep cave should remain constant, but suddenly this one was a lot colder.

“I can go where I like,” said Granny.

“Yes, but you ought—” Agnes began. She wished she could bite the word back, but it was too late.

“Oh, ought, is it? Where does it say ought? I don’t remember it saying ought anywhere. Anyone going to tell me where it says ought? There’s lots of things that ought, I dare say. But they ain’t.”

“You know a magpie stole your invite?” said Nanny. “Shawn delivered it okay, but them thieving devils had it away and into a nest.”

She flourished the crumpled, smudged yet gold-laden invitation.

In the moment of silence Agnes fancied she could hear the stalactites grow.

“Yes, of course I did,” said Granny. “Worked that out first thing.” But the moment had been just slightly too long, and just slightly too quiet.

“And you know Verence got an Omnian priest in to do the naming of young Esme?”

Again…fractionally too long, infinitesimally too silent.

“You know I put my mind to business,” said Granny. She glanced at the baby sitting on Magrat’s lap.

“Why’s she got a pointy head?” she said.

“It’s the little hood Nanny knitted for her,” said Magrat. “It’s meant to look like that. Would you like to hold her?”

“She looks comfortable where she is,” said Granny diffidently.

She didn’t know the baby’s name! Perdita whispered. I told you! Nanny thinks Granny’s been in the baby’s mind, I can tell by the way she’s been looking at her, but if she did she’d know the name and she doesn’t, I swear. She wouldn’t do anything that might hurt a child…

Granny shook herself. “Anyway, if there’s a problem, well, you’ve got your three witches. It doesn’t say anywhere that one of them ought,” she nodded at Agnes, “to be Granny Weatherwax. You sort it out. I’ve been witching in these parts for altogether too long and it’s time to…move on…do something else…”

“You’re going to hide up here?” said Magrat.

“I’m not going to keep on repeating myself, my girl. People aren’t going to tell me what I ought to do no more. I know what’s ought and what’s not. Your husband invited vampires into the country, did he? That’s modern for you. Well, everyone else knows that a vampire don’t have no power over you ’less you invite it in, and if it’s a king as does the inviting, then they’ve got their teeth into the whole country. And I’m an ol’ woman living in the woods and I’ve got to make it all better? When there’s three of you? I’ve had a lifetime of ought from can to can’t and now it’s over, and I’ll thank you for gettin’ out of my cave. And that’s an end of it.”

Nanny glanced at the other two and shrugged.

“Come on, then,” she said. “If we get a wiggle on we can be back at the broomsticks before dark.”

“Is that all?” said Magrat.

“Things come to an end,” said Granny. “I’m going to rest up here and then I’m on my way. Plenty of places to go.”

Now get her to tell you the truth, said Perdita. Agnes bit down. Ought had been bad enough.

“So we’ll be getting along,” said Nanny. “Come on.”

“But—”

“But me no buts,” said Nanny. “As Granny would have said.”

“That’s right!” said Granny, lying back.

As they filed back into the caves Agnes heard Perdita start counting.

Magrat patted her pockets. Nanny patted her knickerlegs.

Magrat said, “Oh, I must have le—”

“Blow, I left my pipe back there,” said Nanny, so quickly that the sentence overtook the one in front.

Five seconds, said Perdita. “I didn’t see you take it out,” said Agnes.

Nanny gave her a piercing look. “Really? Then I’d better go and leave it there, hadn’t I. Was there something you’d left too, Magrat? Never mind, I’ll be sure to look for it, whatever it was going to be.”

“Well!” said Magrat, as Nanny darted back.

“Granny was certainly not telling the truth,” said Agnes.

“Of course she wasn’t, she never does,” said Magrat. “She expects you to work it out for yourself.”

“But she’s right about us being three witches.”

“Yes, but I never intended to come back to it, I’ve got other things to do. Oh, perhaps when Esme’s older I thought, maybe, a bit of part-time aromatherapy or something, but not serious full time witching. This power-of-three business is…well, it’s very old-fashioned…”

And what have we got now? Perdita chimed in. The knowing but technically inexperienced young woman, the harassed young mother and the silver-haired golden ager…doesn’t exactly sound mythic, does it? But Magrat just bundled up her little baby as soon as she heard Granny was in trouble and she didn’t even stop to worry about her husband…

“Wait a moment…listen,” said Agnes.

“What for?”

“Just listen…the sound echoes in these caves…”