Three steps back, Nanny thought. Else there won’t be anything left but bones. Any minute now ...

“Oh, I wouldn’t like anyone to think I was spoiling anything,” said Granny. She sighed and stood up. “I’ll be off home ...”

“No you won’t!” snapped Nanny Ogg, pushing her back down on to the chair. “What do you think of this, Beryl Dismass? And you, Letty Parkin?”

“They’re all —” Letice began.

“I weren’t talking to you!”

The witches behind Mrs Earwig avoided Nanny’s gaze. “Well, it’s not that ... I mean, we don’t think ... “ began Beryl awkwardly. “That is ... I’ve always had a lot of respect for ... but ... well, it is for everyone ...”

Her voice trailed off. Letice looked triumphant.

“Really? I think we had better be going after all, then,” said Nanny sourly. “I don’t like the comp’ny in these parts.” She looked around. “Agnes? You give me a hand to get Granny home ...”

“I really don’t need ...” Granny began, but the other two each took an arm and gently propelled her through the crowd, which parted to let them through and turned to watch them go.

“Probably the best for all concerned, in the circumstances,” said Letice. Several of the witches tried not to look at her face.

There were scraps of material all over the floor in Granny’s kitchen, and gouts of congealed jam had dripped off the edge of the table and formed an immovable mound on the floor. The jam saucepan had been left in the stone sink to soak, although it was clear that the iron would rust away before the jam ever softened.

There was a row of empty pickle jars as well.

Granny sat down and folded her hands in her lap.

“Want a cup of tea, Esme?” said Nanny Ogg.

“No, dear, thank you. You get on back to the Trials. Don’t you worry about me.”

“You sure?”

“I’ll just sit here quiet. Don’t you worry.”

“I’m not going back!” Agnes hissed, as they left. “I don’t like the way Letice smiles ...”

“You once told me you didn’t like the way Esme frowns,” said Nanny.

“Yes, but you can trust a frown. Er ... you don’t think she’s losing it, do you?”

“No one’ll be able to find it if she has,” said Nanny. “No, you come on back with me. I’m sure she’s planning ... something.” I wish the hell I knew what it is, she thought. I’m not sure I can take any more waiting.

She could feel the mounting tension before they reached the field. Of course, there was always tension, that was part of the Trials, but this kind had a sour, unpleasant taste. The sideshows were still going on but ordinary folk were leaving, spooked by sensations they couldn’t put their finger on which nevertheless had them under their thumb. As for the witches themselves, they had that look worn by actors about two minutes from the end of a horror movie, when they know the monster is about to make its final leap and now it’s only a matter of which door.

Letice was surrounded by witches. Nanny could hear raised voices. She nudged another witch, who was watching gloomily.

“What’s happening, Winnie?”

“Oh, Reena Trump made a pig’s ear of her piece and her friends say she ought to have another go because she was so nervous.”

“That’s a shame.”

“And Virago Johnson ran off ’cos her weather spell went wrong.”

“Left under a bit of a cloud, did she?”

“And I was all thumbs when I had a go. You could be in with a chance, Gytha.”

“Oh, I’ve never been one for prizes, Winnie, you know me. It’s the fun of taking part that counts.”

The other witch gave her a skewed look.

“You almost made that sound believable,” she said.

Gammer Beavis hurried over. “On you go, Gytha”, she said. “Do your best, eh? The only contender so far is Mrs Weavitt and her whistling frog, and it wasn’t as if it could even carry a tune. Poor thing was a bundle of nerves.”

Nanny Ogg shrugged, and walked out into the roped-off area. Somewhere in the distance someone was having hysterics, punctuated by an occasional worried whistle.

Unlike the magic of wizards, the magic of witches did not usually involve the application of much raw power. The difference is between hammers and levers. Witches generally tried to find the small point where a little changes made a lot of result. To make an avalanche you can either shake the mountain, or maybe you can just find exactly the right place to drop a snowflake.

This year Nanny had been idly working on the Man of Straw. It was an ideal trick for her. It got a laugh, it was a bit suggestive, it was a lot easier than it looked but showed she was joining in, and it was unlikely to win.

Damn! She’d been relying on that frog to beat her. She’d heard it whistling quite beautifully on the summer evenings.

She concentrated.

Pieces of straw rustled through the stubble. All she had to do was use the little bits of wind that drifted across the field, allowed to move here and here, spiral up and —

She tried to stop her hands from shaking. She’d done this a hundred times, she could tie the damn stuff in knots by now. She kept seeing the face of Esme Weatherwax, and the way she’d just sat there, looking puzzled and hurt, while for a few seconds Nanny had been ready to kill —

For a moment she managed to get the legs right, and a suggestion of arms and head. There was a smattering of applause from the watchers. Then an errant eddy caught the thing before she could concentrate on its first step, and it spun down, just a lot of useless straw.

She made some frantic gestures to get it to rise again. It flopped about, tangled itself, and lay still.

There was a bit more applause, nervous and sporadic.

“Sorry ... don’t seem to be able to get the hang of it today,” she muttered, walking off the field.

The judges went into a huddle.

“I reckon that frog did really well,” said Nanny, more loudly than was necessary.

The wind, so contrary a little while ago, blew sharper now. What might be called the psychic darkness of the event was being enhanced by real twilight.

The shadow of the bonfire loomed on the far side of the field. No one as yet had the heart to light it. Almost all the non-witches had gone home. Anything good about the day had long drained away.

The circle of judges broke up and Mrs Earwig advanced on the nervous crowd, her smile only slightly waxen at the corners.

“Well, what a difficult decision it has been,” she said brightly. “But what a marvellous turnout, too! It really has been a most tricky choice —”

Between me and a frog that lost its whistle and got its foot stuck in its banjo, thought Nanny. She looked sidelong at the faces of her sister witches. She’d known some of them for sixty years. If she’d ever read books, she’d have been able to read the faces just like one.

“We all know who won, Mrs Earwig,” she said, interrupting the flow.

“What do you mean, Mrs Ogg?”

“There’s not a witch here who could get her mind right today,” said Nanny. “And most of ’em have bought lucky charms, too. Witches? Buying lucky charms?” Several women stared at the ground.

“I don’t know why everyone seems so afraid of Miss Weatherwax! I certainly am not! You think she’s put a spell on you, then?”

“A pretty sharp one, by the feel of it,” said Nanny. “Look, Mrs Earwig, no one’s won, not with the stuff we’ve managed today. We all know it. So let’s just all go home, eh?”

“Certainly not! I paid ten dollars for this cup and I mean to present it —”

The dying leaves shivered on the trees.

The witches drew together.

Branches rattled.

“It’s the wind,” said Nanny Ogg. “That’s all ...”

And then Granny was simply there. It was as if they’d just not noticed that she’d been there all the time. She had the knack of fading out of the foreground.