Wintersmith

popular? No. Need is not the same as like. Granny Weatherwax was for when things were serious .
    Tiffany did like her, though, in an odd kind of way. She thought Granny Weatherwax liked her, too. She let Tiffany call her Granny to her face, when all the other young witches had to call her Mistress Weatherwax. Sometimes Tiffany thought that if you were friendly to Granny Weatherwax, she tested you to see how friendly you would stay. Everything about Granny Weatherwax was a test.
    “The new book is called First Flights in Witchcraft ,” she went on, watching the old witch carefully.
    Granny Weatherwax smiled. That is, her mouth went up at the corners.
    “Hah!” she said. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: You can’t learn witchin’ from books. Letice Earwig thinks you can become a witch by goin’ shoppin’.” She gave Tiffany a piercing look, as if she were making up her mind about something. Then she said: “An’ I’ll wager she don’t know how to do this .”
    She picked up her cup of hot tea, curling her hand around it. Then she reached out with her other hand and took Tiffany’s hand.
    “Ready?” said Granny.
    “For wha—” Tiffany began, and then she felt her hand get hot. The heat spread up her arm, warming it to the bone.
    “Feelin’ it?”
    “Yes!”
    The warmth died away. And Granny Weatherwax, still watching Tiffany’s face, turned the teacup upside down.
    The tea dropped out in one lump. It was frozen solid.
    Tiffany was old enough not to say, “How did you do that?” Granny Weatherwax didn’t answer silly questions or, for that matter, many questions at all.
    “You moved the heat,” Tiffany said. “You took the heat out of the tea and moved it through you to me, yes?”
    “Yes, but it never touched me,” said Granny triumphantly. “It’s all about balance, do you see? Balance is the trick. Keep the balance and—” She stopped. “You’ve ridden on a seesaw? One end goes up, one end goes down. But the bit in the middle, right in the middle, that stays where it is. Upness and downness go right through it. Don’t matter how high or low the ends go, it keeps the balance.” She sniffed. “Magic is mostly movin’ stuff around.”
    “Can I learn that?”
    “I daresay. It’s not hard, if you get your mind right.”
    “Can you teach me?”
    “I just have. I showed you.”
    “No, Granny, you just showed me how to do it, not… how to do it!”
    “Can’t tell you that. I know how I do it. How you do it’ll be different. You’ve just got to get your mind right.”
    “How do I do that?”
    “How should I know? It’s your mind,” snapped Granny. “Put the kettle on again, will you? My tea’s gone cold.”
    There was something almost spiteful about all this, but that was Granny. She took the view that if you were capable of learning, you’d work it out. There was no point in making it easy for people. Life wasn’t easy, she said.
    “An’ I see you’re still wearing that trinket,” said Granny. She didn’t like trinkets, a word she used to mean anything metal a witch wore that wasn’t there to hold up, shut, or fasten. That was “shoppin’.”
    Tiffany touched the little silver horse she wore around her neck. It was small and simple, and it meant a lot to her.
    “Yes,” she said calmly. “I still am.”
    “What have you got in that basket?” Granny said now, which was unusually rude. Tiffany’s basket was on the table. It had a present in it, of course. Everyone knew you took a small present along when you went visiting, but the person you were visiting was supposed to be surprised when you gave it to her, and say things like “Oooh, you shouldn’t have.”
    “I brought you something,” said Tiffany, swinging the big black kettle onto the fire.
    “You’ve got no call to be bringing me presents, I’m sure,” said Granny sternly.
    “Yes, well,” said Tiffany, and left it at that.
    She heard Granny lift the lid of the basket. There was a kitten in it.
    “Her mother is Pinky, the Widow Cable’s cat,” said Tiffany, to fill the silence.
    “You shouldn’t have,” growled the voice of Granny Weatherwax.
    “It was no trouble.” Tiffany smiled at the fire.
    “I can’t be havin’ with cats.”
    “She’ll keep the mice down,” said Tiffany, still not turning around.
    “Don’t have mice.”
    Nothing for them to eat, thought Tiffany. Aloud, she said, “Mrs. Earwig’s got six big black cats.” In the basket, the white