Equal Rites

Gra

She arrived back at the cottage in the pale shank of the night. Her body, at least, was rested after its slumber in the hay, and Gra

The staff was leaning against the wall, by the dresser.

Gra

“I see", she said at last. “So that’s the way of it, is it? In my own house, too?”

Moving very slowly, she walked over to the inglenook, threw a couple of split logs on to the embers of the fire, and pumped the bellows until the flames roared up the chimney.

When she was satisfied she turned, muttered a few precautionary protective spells under her breath, and grabbed the staff. It didn’t resist; she nearly fell over. But now she had it in her hands, and felt the tingle of it, the distinctive thunderstorm crackle of the magic in it, and she laughed.

It was as simple as this, then. There was no fight in it now.

Calling down a curse upon wizards and all their works she raised the staff above her head and brought it down with a clang across the firedogs, over the hottest part of the fire.

Esk screamed. The sound bounced down through the bedroom floorboards and scythed through the dark cottage.

Gra

Esk was sitting up in the narrow bed, unsinged but shrieking. Gra

Finally she settled the child down, tucked her in, and crept quietly down stairs.

The staff was back against the wall. She was not surprised to see that the fire hadn’t marked it at all.

Gra

Presently the chair began to rock, of its own accord. It was the only sound in a silence that thickened and spread and filled the room like a terrible dark fog.

Next morning, before Esk got up, Gra

Esk ate her breakfast and drank a pint of goat’s milk without the least sign of the events of the last twenty-four hours. It was the first time she had been inside Gra

She found that life in the cottage wasn’t entirely straightforward. There was the matter of the goats’ names, for example.

“But they’ve got to have names!” she said. “Everything’s got a name.”

Gra

“I daresay they’ve got names in Goat,” she said vaguely. “What do they want names in Human for?”

“Well,” said Esk, and stopped. She thought for a bit. “How do you make them do what you want, then?”

“They just do, and when they want me they holler.”

Esk gravely gave the head goat a wisp of hay. Gra

“Esk? " she said, making up her mind.

“Yes?”

“What would you like to be when you grow up?”

Esk looked blank. “Don’t know.”

“Well,” said Gra

“Don’t know. Get married, I suppose.”

“Do you want to?”

Esk’s lips started to shape themselves around the D, but she caught Gra

“All the grown ups I know are married,” she said at last, and thought some more. “Except you,” she added, cautiously.

“That’s true,” said Gra

“Didn’t you want to get married?”

It was Gra

“Never got around to it,” she said at last. “Too many other things to do, you see.”

“Father says you’re a witch,” said Esk, chancing her arm.

“I am that.”

Esk nodded. In the Ramtops witches were accorded a status similar to that which other cultures gave to nuns, or tax collectors, or cesspit cleaners. That is to say, they were respected, sometimes admired, generally applauded for doing a job which logically had to be-done, but people never felt quite comfortable in the same room with them.

Gra

“Magic, you mean?” asked Esk, her eyes lighting up.

“Yes, magic. But not firework magic. Real magic.”

“Can you fly?”

“There’s better things than flying.”

“And I can learn them?”

“If your parents say yes.”

Esk sighed. “My father won’t.”

“Then I shall have a word with him,” said Gra

“Now you just listen to me, Gordo Smith!”

Smith backed away across his forge, hands half-raised to ward off the old woman’s fury. She advanced on him, one finger stabbing the air righteously.

“I brought you into the world, you stupid man, and you’ve got no more sense in you now than you had then—”

“But—” Smith tried, dodging around the anvil.

“The magic’s found her! Wizard magic! Wrong magic, do you understand? It was never intended for her!”

“Yes, but—”

“Have you any idea of what it can do?”

Smith sagged. “No.”

Gra

“No,” she repeated, more softly. “No, you wouldn’t.”

She sat down on the anvil and tried to think calm thoughts.

“Look. Magic has a sort of—life of its own. That doesn’t matter, because—anyway, you see, wizard magic—” she looked up at his big, blank expression and tried again. “Well, you know cider?”

Smith nodded. He felt he was on firmer ground here, but he wasn’t certain of where it was going to lead.

“And then there’s the ticker. Applejack,” said the witch. The smith nodded. Everyone in Bad Ass made applejack in the winter, by leaving cider tubs outside overnight and taking out the ice until a tiny core of alcohol was left.

“Well, you can drink lots of cider and you just feel better and that’s it, isn’t it?”

The smith nodded again.

“But applejack, you drink that in little mugs and you don’t drink a lot and you don’t drink it often, because it goes right to your head?”

The smith nodded again and, aware that he wasn’t making a major contribution to the dialogue, added, “That’s right.”

“That’s the difference,” said Gra

“The difference from what?”

Gra