Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett

magical ambience,’ she explained. Granny shrugged, but said nothing, even in the face of the extreme provocation. All witches did their magic in their own way, and this was Magrat’s house.
    â€˜What’re we going to give him, then?’ said Nanny.
    â€˜We was just discussing it,’ said Granny.
    â€˜I know what he’ll want,’ said Nanny. She made a suggestion, which was received in frozen silence.
    â€˜I don’t see what use
that
would be,’ said Magrat, eventually. ‘Wouldn’t it be rather uncomfortable?’
    â€˜He’ll thank us when he grows up, you mark my words,’ said Nanny. ‘My first husband, he always said—’
    â€˜Something a bit less physical is generally the style of things,’ interrupted Granny, glaring at Nanny Ogg. ‘There’s no need to go and spoil everything, Gytha. Why do you always have to—’
    â€˜Well, at least I can say that I—’ Nanny began.
    Both voices faded to a mutter. There was a long edgy silence.
    â€˜I think,’ said Magrat, with brittle brightness, ‘that perhaps it would be a good idea if we all go back to our little cottages and do it in our own way. You know. Separately. It’s been a long day and we’re all rather tired.’
    â€˜Good idea,’ said Granny firmly, and stood up. ‘Come, Nanny Ogg,’ she snapped. ‘It’s been a long day and we’re all rather tired.’
    Magrat heard them bickering as they wandered down the path.
    She sat rather sadly amidst the coloured candles, holding a small bottle of extremely thaumaturgical incense that she had ordered from a magical supplies emporium in faraway Ankh-Morpork. She had been rather looking forward to trying it. Sometimes, she thought, it would be nice if people could be a bit kinder . . .
    She stared at the ball.
    Well, she could make a start.
    â€˜He will make friends easily,’ she whispered. It wasn’t much, she knew, but it was something she’d never been able to get the hang of.
    Nanny Ogg, sitting alone in her kitchen with her huge tomcat curled up on her lap, poured herself a nightcap and through the haze tried to remember the words of verse seventeen of the Hedgehog song. There was something about goats, she recalled, but the details eluded her. Time abraded memory.
    She toasted the invisible presence.
    â€˜A bloody good memory is what he ought to have,’ she said. ‘He’ll always remember the words.’
    And Granny Weatherwax, striding home alonethrough the midnight forest, wrapped her shawl around her and considered. It had been a long day, and a trying one. The theatre had been the worst part. All people pretending to be other people, things happening that weren’t real, bits of countryside you could put your foot through . . . Granny liked to know where she stood, and she wasn’t certain she stood for that sort of thing. The world seemed to be changing all the time.
    It didn’t use to change so much. It was bewildering.
    She walked quickly through the darkness with the frank stride of someone who was at least certain that the forest, on this damp and windy night, contained strange and terrible things and she was it.
    â€˜Let him be whoever he thinks he is,’ she said. ‘That’s all anybody could hope for in this world.’
    Like most people, witches
are
unfocused in time. The difference is that they dimly realize it, and make use of it. They cherish the past because part of them is still living there, and they can see the shadows the future casts before it.
    Granny could feel the shape of the future, and it had knives in it.
    It began at five the next morning. Four men rode through the woods near Granny’s cottage, tethered the horses out of earshot, and crept very cautiously through the mists.
    The sergeant in charge was not happy in his work. He was a Ramtops man, and wasn’t at all certain about how you went about