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CHAPTER NINE

Green Shoots I t was , a numb dull coldness that could practically freeze the flames on a fire Tiffany let the broo's cottage The snow hadn't drifted much here, but it came up to her knees, and cold had put a crispness on it that crackled like a stale loaf when Tiffany trod it In theory she was out in the woods to get the hang of the Cornucopia, but really she was there to keep it out of the way Nanny Ogg hadn't been too upset about the chickens After all, she noned five hundred hens, which were currently standing around in her shed going werk But the floors were a mess, there were chicken doo-dahs even on the banisters, and as Granny had pointed out (in a whisper), supposing someone had said "sharks"?

The Cornucopia lay on her lap while she sat on a stu snow-covered trees Once the forest had been pretty Noas hateful Dark trunks against snowdrifts, a striped world of black and white, bars against the light She longed for horizons Funny…the Cornucopia was always very slightly warm, even out here, and seerow, I shrink," thought Tiffany And I' that the…the poould drop on her, just like the Cornucopia had done It hadn't There was life under the snow She felt it in her fingertips So the Cornucopia as a scoop, she scraped away at the snow until she reached dead leaves There was life down there in the white webs of fungi and pale, new roots A half-frozen worm crawled sloay and burrowed under a leaf skeleton, fine as lace Beside it was an acorn The woods weren't silent They were holding their breath They were all waiting for her, and she didn't knohat to do I'm not the Summer Lady, she told herself I can never be her I'ht be able to row, but I can never be her She'll walk across the world and oceans of sap will rise in these dead trees and a row in a second Can I do that? No I'm a stupid child with a handful of tricks, that's all I'uilty about the worm, she breathed some warm air on the soil and then pushed the leaves back to cover it As she did so, there was a wet little sound, like the snapping of a frog's fingers, and the acorn split

A white shoot escaped frorew more than half an inch as she watched it Hurriedly she ers, pushed the acorn in, and patted the soil back again So her She stood up and turned around quickly There was no one to be seen, but that didn'taround "Whoever you are!" Her voice echoed a the black trees Even to her it sounded thin and scared She found herself raising the Cornucopia "Show yourself," she quavered, "or--" What? she wondered I'll fill you full of fruit? So her ju at the fall of a handful of snowflakes! A witch ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest, Granny Weatherwax had once told her, because she should be sure in her soul that thein the forest was her She raised the Cornucopia and said, half-heartedly: "Strawberry…"

So shot out of the Cornucopia with a pfut and made a red stain on a tree twenty feet away Tiffany didn't bother to check; it always delivered what you asked for Which waselse, it was her day to visit Annagra too Slowly, astride her broo the trees After a reen shoot thrust up froht of about six inches, and put out two green leaves Footsteps approached They were not as crunchy as footsteps on frozen snow usually are There was a crunch now, though, of so on the frosted leaves A pair of skinny but powerful hands gently dragged and sculpted the snow and leaves together toit and protecting it from the wind like a soldier in a castle A small white kitten tried to nuzzle at it and was carefully lifted out of the way Then Granny Weatheralked back into the woods, leaving no footprints You never teach anyone else everything you know Days went by Annagrale It was hard to teach so she didn't know, so there were conversations like this: "You kno to prepare placebo root, do you?"

"Of course Everyone knows that" And this was not the time to say, "Okay then, show me," because she'd mess around for a while and then say she had a headache This was the tiht," and then do it perfectly And you'd add things like: "As you know, Granny Weatherwax says that practically anything works instead of placebo root, but it's best to use the real thing if you can get it

If prepared in syrup, it's an a remedy for minor illnesses, but of course you already know this" And Annagramma would say: "Of course" A week later, in the forests, it was so cold soht They hadn't seen that for a long time, the older people said It happened when the sap froze, then tried to expand Annagramma was as vain as a canary in a room full ofshe didn't know, but she was sharp at picking things up, and very good at appearing to know more than she really did, which is a valuable talent for a witch Once, Tiffany noticed the Boffo catalogue open on the table with sos circled She asked no questions She was too busy A week after that, wells froze Tiffany went around the villages with Annagramma a few tiot built-in Boffo She was tall and arrogant and acted as if she knew everything even when she didn't have a clue That would get her a long way People listened to her They needed to There were no roads open now; between cottages, people had cut tunnels full of cold blue light

Anything that needed to be moved was moved by broomstick That included old people They were lifted, bedclothes, walking sticks, and all, and ether stayed war one another that, however cold this was, it wasn't as cold as the cold you got when they were young After a while, they stopped saying that Soain That fringed every roof with icicles At the next thaw, they stabbed the ground like daggers Tiffany didn't sleep; at least, she didn't go to bed None of the witches did The snow got trampled down into ice that was like rock, so a few carts could be o around or enough hours in the day There weren't enough hours in the day and the night put together Petulia had fallen asleep on her stick and ended up in a tree two miles away Tiffany slid off once and landed in a snowdrift

Wolves entered the tunnels They ith hunger, and desperate Granny Weatherwax put a stop to them and never told anyone how she'd done it The cold was like being punched, over and over again, day and night All over the snoere little dark dots that were dead birds, frozen out of the air Other birds had found the tunnels and filled the, and people fed the to the world… …because there was food Oh, yes, there was food The Cornucopia ran day and night And Tiffany thought: I should have said no to snowflakes… There was a shack, old and abandoned And there was, in the rotted planks, a nail If the Winters This was the last thing! There had been so much to learn! It had been so hard, so hard! Who would have thought a ases and poisons and metals? But now ice forroaned and squeaked as the ice grew and forced it out It spun gently in the air, and the voice of the Wintersmith could be heard in the wind that froze the treetops: "IRON ENOUGH TO MAKE A MAN!"

High up in the mountains the snow exploded Itunder it, shapes for… Then, as suddenly as it had risen, the snow settled again But now there was a horse there, white as snow, and on its back a rider, glittering with frost If the greatest sculptor the world had ever known had been told to build a snow was still going on The shape of the horse and rew more and more lifelike Details settled Colors crept in, always pale, never bright And there was a horse, and there was a rider, shining in the coht of the midwinter sun The Wintersers Color is, after all, ers took on the color of flesh The Wintersmith spoke That is, there were a variety of noises, fro of the surf on a pebble shore after a wrecking storht

He repeated it, stretched it, stirred it around, and turned it into speech, playing with it until it sounded right He said: "Tasbnlerizwip? Ggokyziofvva? Wiswip? Nananana…Nyip…nap…Ah… Ah! It is to speak!" The Winters the overture to Überwald Winter by the co a roaring gale around the rooftops of an opera house, and had been astonished to find that a hu of dirty water on legs, could have such a wonderful understanding of snow "SNOVA POXOLODALO!" he sang to the freezing sky The only slight error the Wintersh the pine trees, was in singing the instru, and rode like a traveling orchestra, ers, the drums, and the rest of the orchestra all at once To sround! To be solid!

To feel the darkness behind your eyes and knoas you! To be--and know yourself to be--aThere was soat hiround, for exaht took a lot of thinking about And the birds! The Winterswith the flow of the weather, but now they were living things just like hi of the wind, and owned the sky The Wintersmith had never seen before, never felt before, never heard before You could not do those things unless you were…apart, in the dark behind the eyes Before, he hadn't been apart; he'd been a part, a part of the whole universe of tug and pressure, sound and light, flowing, dancing He'd run storainst mountains forever, but he'd never knohat a mountain was until today The dark behind the eyes…what a precious thing It gave you your…you-ness Your hand, with those laughable waggly things on it, gave you touch; the holes on either side of your head let in sound; the holes at the front let in the wonderful s!