Strandpiel 24: Gesprekke met die dooies - conversations with the Dead
How dual nationality works out for one proud user.
Another amateurish, rushed and skimpy thing thrown together in a hurry so as to fulfil a need to keep the tale moving forwards. Lots sketched out, too little time to write. More will follow. Apologies if this looks a little bit scrappy and got to get something out there for Hogswatch as a sort of gift to readers. I will come back and expand or rewrite bits of this. Important right now to get it out there. Happy new Year! Happy hogswatch!
More tidying and picking up the last few scrappy typos. Picking up minor plot points and inconsistencies noted by alert readers and setting up a minor plot point for later (although not so minor for Heidi and Danie).
Piemberg, Rimwards Howondaland:
Bekki gratefully stripped off the outer layer of ushanka, telegroika and valenki. Her Howondalandian family watched with curiosity as she emerged, an imago from a cocoon, in what was perfectly normal, everyday, and not-at-all-strange normal dress of Howondalandian bush khaki. She recovered her sword-belt and pulled it in by a couple of notches to accommodate the undeniable fact that several inches of girth had gone, now the padded and quilted Far Überwaldean overgarments were off.
"Practical. If you're living in three feet of snow. I can see that." Her grandfather noted. "But over-dressed, for around here." Aunt Mariella took up the telegroika tunic and inspected it with interest, feeling the depth of quilting between her fingers and assessing the quality of the stitching. She looked thoughtful. An Assassin considering useful equipment, Bekki thought.
Her grandmother inspected her, smiling warmly.
"I am thinking about how much like your mother you are." she said. "Vorbei, I can see Johanna in you. It is good to look at!"
Bekki went to hug Ouma Agnetha. It was so good to see them again, even if she'd not meant to be here and had arrived completely by accident. She looked over her grandmother's shoulder to the cause of the accident, who had accepted a very small glass of klipdrift.
"I forgive you." she said, to Wee Archie Aff The Midden, the hapless young Feegle whose navigation errors had brought her here. The Feegle grinned up, sheepishly. His supervising Gonnagle glared at him. Words had indeed been spoken concerning the inadvisability of inconveniencing a Hag. A young Hag, admittedly, but one whose journey back to her kin had been delayed by a trainee crawstep navigator who had so far delivered her to the Hublands, to Genua, to Agatea, and finally nearly getting it right. He'd been invited to consider an older red-haired woman, bound by ties of love and blood to Bekki, and to put her where she was. Bekki had meant her mother. Wee Archie had somehow managed to deliver her where her Aunt Mariella, her mother's youngest sister, was. Bekki was inclined to forgive this, as Mariella and her husband were spending Hogswatch at the family plaas in Piemberg. A lot of family were gathered here. For now, Bekki noted, it was the adults only: the children of the family were probably elsewhere under light supervision, probably with adult siblings supervising.
"Mum's expecting to see me sometime today, ouma." Bekki said to her grandmother. "She may worry if I do not arrive."
Ouma Agnetha smiled, understandingly.
"You have time for a few hours here, liewe heksie." she said. "your mother will understand. And I'm sure the little fellows will get you to Ankh-Morpork safely and quickly. They get us there surely enough when we need to visit."
That was true enough. Her grandparents – well, her grandfather – had cottoned on early to what the crawstep could do if Feegle could be persuaded or induced. On that first trip, he'd had witches and Pegasii available to get him to the City, in a way that neatly side-stepped a five or six week voyage by sea, or an expensive few days on a long-haul commercial carpet. Godsmother Irena and Nottie, and their Feegle, had got Bekki's grandparents there just in time. Bekki wasn't sure of the details, but it had apparently been on the night of her birth when great things had happened. Anyway, they came back every year for an annual visit. Mum accommodated , Bekki suspected, but they stayed as guests of her parents.
"Got Feegle here now." her grandfather said. "You might meet some later. Useful people. Respond well to witches, apparently."
Bekki considered this. Then she reflected that her grandmother was the only living member of her family who always called her liewe heksie. This raised the other thing. Bekki looked around the room. She sighed, knowing that she was probably the only one who knew or could see.
Her great-aunt smiled lovingly at her. The smile was tinged with a wry and knowing sense of humour.
Nice to be back home, liewe heksie! It was a voice only Bekki could hear. Bekki sighed, and registered the fact her grandfather had already taken a few seasonal drinks, but so far was at the happy-drunk stage. She also registered that Uncle Kurt and Uncle Andreas were both watching him intently, as if they were fully aware, from experience, of what the next stage was going to be. Uncle Horst, fairly new to the family he'd married into, was looking ill at ease. Bekki remembered something Aunt Mariella had told her: that Uncle Horst's father had been pretty much a hopeless drunk who had let the drink get too much for him. A drawback in a man who owned a vineyard, a wine-pressing plant, and a distillery, for that logical next stage, that of turning the wine into something even stronger. The local word for it was klipdrift. Connissuers of these things considered the Lensen klipdrift to be one of the best. so had horst's father, who had taken to quality-controlling too much of his product. Menheer Lensen had died early, the damage too heavy, and the disease too deeply rooted in his head more than in his body, for even Igors to rescue. Uncle Horst now drank abstemiously and only on social occasions, as if he was aware the same might happen to him too if he allowed it. He did not allow this, Aunt Mariella had said, a little love and affection creeping into her voice.
Bekki looked first at Great-Aunt Johanna, who stood unseen in a space of her own, looking to Bekki's eyes as solid and as real as anybody else in the room, but who would be completely invisible to everybody else. Her great-aunt smiled at her again. Bekki looked across to her grandfather, Great-Aunt Johanna's brother, who was here, alive, and totally unaware his long-dead sister was in the room.
She made a decision.
"Ouma?" she said. Her grandmother smiled reassuringly.
"What is it, Rebecka? Is there something that is worrying you?"
"Ouma. Right now, na-now, I really need to talk to you. I really need your advice. And something is happening that you should be aware of. But I'm not sure of the words."
"Ah, ja. Is this a witch thing?" Her grandmother gave her a searching, knowing, look.
"It is, ouma." Bekki looked around her. Aunt Mariella placed a friendly hand on her shoulder.
"And.." Bekki glanced at her grandfather and uncles. Her grandmother and Aunt Mariella followed the direction of her glance. "Somewhere else, ouma? Not here? There is a reason."
Ouma Agnetha nodded again and appeared to realise.
"We should go to the kitchen, I think. You remain here, Andreas. This is womens' talk."
Her grandfather scowled suddenly.
"If a young man is treating you without respect, Rebecka, show him to me. I will make him sorry!"
Bekki coloured slightly.
"No, nothing like that, oupa. But something I need to discuss with ouma. As she says, a womens' matter." Bekki looked around her. "Aunt Mariella? Aunt Nelli? Aunt Agnetha? I would really need you to be present, too."
She heard her grandfather make a big emphatic exhalation of air.
"Eish! Horst, my boy? Pass the bottle. You should know that whenever the women troop off to the kitchen in a committee like that, it is bad news. These things never end well."
Horst Lensen obligingly passed the bottle down, noting Kurt Maaijande and the younger Andreas Smith-Rhodes nodding emphatically. Seeing the looks on their faces, Horst decided it was perhaps time for a drink. They watched their respective wives troop out towards the kitchen with Bekki.
"Wonder what's on her mind?" Barbarossa mused. For just a second he thought he felt a warm hand on his shoulder. It stirred a memory of his sister, who had died just before Hogswatch, many long years ago. A sense of sadness welled up. He fought it down, marvelling that grief never really ends and even over twenty years later it can still come back and kick you hard in the guava, just when you aren't expecting it to. He quietly raised a glass to the iconograph of his sister Johanna, forever young, that hung on the wall. He completely failed to hear the impatient and exasperated voice that said
"I'm standing right over here, you great thick oaf! Eish, brothers!"
The women settled themselves around the kitchen table. Bekki felt reassured to be among people she had respected almost since birth as being older, wiser, sound, and capable.
Aunt Nelli smiled a big capable smile. Bekki realised nobody ever gets to have seven children without showing some sort of down-to-earth practicality. The same for Aunt Agnetha, the middle sister between her mother and Aunt Mariella. Aunt Agnetha had six. Aunt Mariella's skills and abilities, so far, did not include motherhood. Ouma Agnetha deplored this. Frequently. But Aunt Mariella was somebody whose opinions Bekki sought and respected. Right now she was sitting opposite Bekki with an encouraging and curious look on her face.
Ouma Agnetha brought out a tray of glasses and a bottle of klipdrift. She started to methodically fill them and pass them out, in what Bekki realised was an unconscious order of seniority: Nelli first, then the younger Agnetha, then Mariella. Her grandmother looked at her, then filled a fifth glass and passed it to Bekki.
"You are doing a grown woman's job, after all." she said. "And doing it very well, from what I hear. So it is right you should have a grown woman's drink."
"Dankie." Bekki said. She noted none of the others was making a move to drink. They were waiting for a cue from Ouma. Which was as it should be. Ouma Agnetha was mevrou here, senior woman of the household. Granted, Nelli and the younger Agnetha were also mevrous, but this was not their household. And Aunt Mariella was working towards being a mevrou, but not in this plaas. Bekki sensed she saw this clearly from having been exposed to the informal hierarchy and pecking order among witches: she wondered if every gathering of strong women was like this.
"Now tell me, liewe heksie. This is something that comes of you being a witch, yesno?"
Bekki nodded. Her grandmother smiled slightly.
"Maar, you are doing a grown woman's job. It is easy for people to forget that the person doing an adult woman's job is herself only fifteen. Therefore you have seen something, or you are aware of something, that the witch sees, but which the fifteen year old girl, who is also the witch, finds hard to understand, because she is still only fifteen. And you wish for guidance, and to discuss it. With older women."
Bekki felt a flood of relief and gratitude.
"Ouma, that is it exactly!"
She looked round at the quietly expectant faces.
"Ouma. There is a situation you should be aware of. My aunts also. I really don't want to be seen as a silly little girl who is just making a story up for attention or so as to feel importance…"
"Bekki. The last words I'd ever use to describe you are "silly little girl." Aunt Mariella said. There was a general expression of agreement. "What's on your mind?"
Bekki took a deep breath.
"Ouma. Aunts. I grew up thinking of my oupa, Barbarossa, as indestructible. That nothing could ever hurt him. Maybe I'm growing up, but today I know better. I know something that could hurt my oupa as badly and as surely as if I put the knife into his heart myself. And I would rather stick that knife into my own heart than do that to my grandfather."
The four women around the table looked intently at her.
"Tell me what you know, liewe heksie." her grandmother invited her. "Is this witch-knowledge, the sight that only witches have?"
"It may be." Bekki paused, and the four older women saw her listening intently as if an unseen sixth person was telling her something very important. Bekki shuddered at one point.
"Oh, that's so sad!" she said, to nobody who was physically there. She blinked away a tear. "Ouma. Sometimes I become aware that I don't know as much about the history of my family as I should. But oupa had a sister, a year or two older than he was. She was called Johanna Francesca Smith-Rhodes. She died, a few weeks before Hogswatch one year…"
"Yes. I remember." Her grandmother said, looking distant and faraway for a moment. "Never married. That was a shame. Your mother was named after her. Family tradition."
"And, ouma. Forgive me if this is wrong. But at this time of year, Grandfather might stop and think of her. And become sad and melancholy."
Her grandmother nodded. So did her older aunts.
"And that's the knife I don't want to stick between his ribs, ouma. But. How can I explain it?"
Bekki paused.
"Ouma, we haven't taken our drinks yet. May I fill four more glasses? I hope I can explain why."
Her grandmother nodded. Bekki took a deep breath and filled four glasses. She intoned a name with each one.
"Johanna van der Kaiboetje Smith-Rhodes. Johanna Cornelia van der Merwe Smith-Rhodes. Johanna Maria Smith-Rhodes. And Johanna Francesca Smith-Rhodes. You are present in this plaas tonight. I cannot welcome you, though I know and respect you and you are always welcome to me. My grandmother, Agnetha van der Graaf Smith-Rhodes, is mevrou here, and any welcome to her home must come from her. I ask her to do so…"
Agnetha Smith-Rhodes blinked in surprise.
"Rebecka, are you telling me that…"
"Ja, ouma. As Johanna Francesca said to me earlier, where do you expect family to be at Hogswatch, other than in the plaas they all helped build?"
Bekki went to the kitchen drawer where she knew her grandmother kept matches. She returned to the table where her grandmother and aunts were watching her intently.
"Please don't consider this as a shocking waste of good klipdrift." She said, lighting a match. "It isn't. It really isn't."
Bekki nodded to the four spectral Smith-Rhodes women, who had gathered in the kitchen. One grinned and remarked that Agnetha looks more like a constipated shrew than usual, poor woman. Take a drink, meisie, and loosen up, for goodness' sake!
Then she set fire to the four glasses. Flickering blue flame ignited.
"May we all drink now, ouma?" Bekki prompted her.
Agnetha Smith-Rhodes smiled slightly.
"I cannot see or hear you." she said. "But if my grand-daughter the witch who is the daughter of a wizard is telling me you are here, then you are here. What can I say? You are family. You are welcome. Let's drink!"
Bekki saw the ghosts of four glasses being raised in reply. She sipped her own and tried not to shudder at the taste. Again she wondered how you actually got a taste for alcoholic things. Sour. Nasty. Uggh.
Then she smiled as the four extra glasses on the table, still smoking slightly, lifted up by a few inches and clinked together. Aunt Nelli jumped. Aunt Agnetha asked Bekki exactly how she was doing that. As Bekki replied "I'm not…", Aunt Mariella, trained by the Guild of Assassins to believe the evidence of her own eyes, said "Well, I'm convinced."
The point having been made, Johanna van der Kaiboetje and her daughter Johana Cornelia allowed the glasses to return to the tabletop. Bekki smiled at them. They lifted the ghostly glasses to her.
Thank you, little witch.
Bekki toasted apparently empty air back. Mariella came to her.
"Something happened just then." Her aunt said. "When you broke off and said "Oh, that's so sad!" and looked like you were choking a tear down. I don't think you were acting that. Nobody's that good an actress."
Bekki shuddered again.
"That was your aunt. Oupa's sister Johanna Francesca. Explaining, and showing to me, exactly how she died."
Mariella patted her on the shoulder.
"I never met her. She died before I was born, pretty much. Your mother knew her a lot better. Then again, your mother is the oldest of us. I came last. The postscript baby."
"Ja." her mother agreed. "Just when I think it's all over, and Danie will be the last child I will ever have. I got Mariella. A late surprise."
Then Agnetha was serious again. "You saw how Johanna Francesca died?"
Bekki nodded, quietly. "Ja, ouma."
"There had been a battle, liewe heksie. A little while after your mother was exiled to Ankh-Morpork. The Zulus crossed the river in strength. My brother Barbarossa fired the signal beacons and gathered such men of the Volkskommando as he could find. I rode with them. Barbarossa was not happy, at that time, for women to fight but there was no way he could have stopped me, and he knew that. Did I mention your mother was indirectly responsible for this? Shortly before she was sent to Ankh-Morpork, your mother led an attack into the Zulu country and killed one of their warlords. Quite emphatically so. This Zulu attack was retaliation. Just as your mother's attack had been retaliation for an earlier attack of theirs into the Transvaal. And so it went at the time. Retaliation and counter-retaliation.
Anyway. Your grandfather did not have the numbers to force a decisive victory. But we pursued and harried and ambushed that Zulu impi for a long way, slowing it, to buy time for reinforcements to arrive from Fort Rapier and from Lawke's Drain, from the regular army. Then there was a decisive battle in which I fought. I was tired and I was aware I was pushing myself a lot further than was wise for my body. But the battle ended and I was riding back here, to home. I was unhurt from fighting Zulus, unwounded. I put the ache and tightness in my chest down to physical tiredness and reasoned I could rest and sleep when I got back here.
I never made it, liewe heksie."
Bekki had had a sudden impression of a memory of agonising explosive pain in her chest, and a memory of a voice saying in her ear
JOHANNA FRANCESCA SMITH-RHODES? I AM AFRAID THIS PART OF YOUR TREK STOPS HERE. THIS IS WHERE YOU MAKE LAAGER FOR A WHILE.
The men I was riding with recovered my body and brought me back here. My poor big-hearted great dof of a brother was distraught and could not be consoled. I am afraid he will remember and be sad again tonight."
Bekki related a version of this to the women present. Aunt Nelli nodded and said "Yes. That's how it was. I was here. Helping organise a defence if they got this far. The men brought Johanna's body back. It was a sad Hogswatch that year."
"I miss her." Aunt Agnetha said. "She was funny and frank and said what she thought. Just like your mother, Bekki."
There was a moment of silent reflection. More drinks were poured. Bekki reached for the matches again. Glasses clinked in acknowledgement with nobody seemingly moving them. Then Bekki became relay point for messages from the dead Smith-Rhodes women to the living ones.
"Wellnow." Aunt Agnetha said. "They say talking to the dead involves moving glasses around on a table."
"Of course, Agnetha Klara. This is better than speaking through some silly little woman puffed up on her own self-importance and sense of drama, who does not think to fill the glass first. But Rebecka, our liewe hecksie, learnt this skill from Mrs Cake of Ankh-Morpork. Who is a good spirit medium who knows what is important."
"If I wanted to be sceptical about these things." Mariella said, slowly. "What could you say, through Bekki, that would absolutely convince me you exist and this isn't all being made up? There are people out there who will need convincing."
"A good point, Mariella Elisabet. What if we relay, through Rebecka, things about yourselves that you know and she does not? For instance, your mixed feelings concerning the man who later became your husband, when you saw him naked for the first time…"
Mariella coloured. Her mother looked at her sharply. The others spluttered with laughter. Bekki, in her own voice, protested "I can't say that!", and then went on with "nothing improper, Agnetha. Horst was near death. Mariella and her friend had to nurse him back to health and do all the needful things, such as keeping his body clean. Mariella had feelings of disdain for the man, but it cannot be denied that he had a handsome male body. Still does. She became conflicted between attraction to the male body she saw and revulsion for the personality she had seen associated with it. But he grew up admirably."
Mariella reddened. The Johanna speaking through Bekki kindly added that she would have thought in similar ways had she been young and single and confronted with a good-looking idiot like the younger Horst Lensen. Bekki then described how it had been for Auntie Nelli when she'd arrived, young and very nervous, as the prospective wife of Agnetha and Barbarossa's oldest son, wondering exactly what she was letting herself in for when marrying into this family.
And, by the way. Danie is in for a little present this Hogswatch. The sort of present that is nine months in the making. Heidi is not sure yet, so she has as yet said nothing. But when she is sure, Agnetha, she will tell people. Wait and see!
Bekki, listening whlst the words came from her own mouth, realised what she was saying and felt a thrill of excitement. She saw her grandmother suddenly beam with pleasure and satisfaction. Then she frowned, and looked at Mariella, who failed to meet her mother's eye and looked uncomfortable. Aunts Agnetha and Nelli murmured with excitement.
"Do him good, I think." Aunt Agnetha said.
"Ja. Help him grow up. And Heidi deserves a child. If it isn't a boy, Danie is going to be lost. Nobody to teach how to throw and catch a football." agreed Aunt Nelli.
Then Johanna Francesca was speaking again.
"You've aged well, Agnetha. Being married to my idiot brother hasn't been so bad for you." Bekki suddenly surfaced and said, in her own voice, "I can't say that! Not to my grandmother! About my grandfather!"
Then Bekki cleared her throat.
"Err… ouma. You know I love you. You know I respect you. But Johanna Francesca has just said you become more fun to know when you get the starch out of your knickers and loosen your corsets and take a few drinks. She said you could be really good company after a few drinks."
Bekki's grandmother smiled and her face softened.
"Now that is truly Johanna Francesca talking. Nobody else talks like that. Far too frankly, openly and unwisely. Tell her… no, I'll tell her myself – that naming my firstborn daughter Johanna after her was really asking for trouble. And vorbei, we got trouble with that one! If it wasn't for family tradition we'd have gone with another name. But I will have another drink with her. For old times'sake."
Later in the evening, Bekki was able to relay Johanna Francesca to her grandfather. He was astonished at first, then a little sad, then reflective, and then laughed with joy. Bekki felt glad she'd been able to perform this small grace for her grandfather and his sister, to bring them together again for a while, albeit indirectly. Barbarossa and Johanna Francesca had exchanged cheerful brother – sister banter verging on abuse for quite a while, and traded shared memories. Bekki, simply the medium for this conversation, had found it warming and enchanting. It made up for the inadvertent horror of sharing Johanna Francesca's death.
Then the other Feegle arrived.
Kelda Kirstie had been a Watchwoman in Ankh-Morpork. She'd had to do with the Pegasus Service and had visited Howondaland several times. She was a friend of Aunt Mariella. When the time had come for Kirstie to heed the call and found a family of her own, she'd asked Bekki's grandparents for permission to found a Clan here. A husband had been found in another Feegle clan, and those of Kirstie's brothers who had plagued Sam Vimes as the informal escort to their sister had craw-stepped with her. And now the Red Stone Clan occupied some old caves out on the fringes of Barbarossa's land, and was thriving.
Kirstie, invited to a Hogswatch drink here, had rounded out with motherhood and now had a growing family of big bonny sons. She, her Big Man and her guard, were clustered in the big living room with drinks and variably saying things like "ta, missus" or "thanking ye, mistress" or "Dankie, mevrou" to Bekki's grandmother.
"Mistress Smith-Rhodes is the mevrou here, the mistress of this place, and Kelda to her folk." Kirstie said to her escort. "We were given this land at her gift and that of Master Barbarossa, and they are our friends and hosts. Ye are to behave with respect." Then she smiled up to Bekki. And stood and bowed. Bekki bowed back.
"Rebecka Smith-Rhodes." Kirstie said. "Ye are growing well to your maturity."
Kirstie turned back to her folk.
"And I tell ye, brothers, sons. This family now has its Hag. And she is here. So behave. For it is not just me who commands this."
Barbarossa, his good humour returned, blinked in surprise, looked at Bekki, and bellowed with laughter.
"Rebecka is a hag?" he demanded. "Maar, the girl is barely fifteen! Some way to go before she becomes a hag! Although she's a bloody good witch!"
Kirstie smiled up.
"Menheer Barbarossa. You are both right and wrong at the same time. Mistress Agnetha tells me this is something you are good at?"
Kirstie turned, and focused on apparently empty air, listened, then bowed acknowledgement. She smiled.
"And so does your sister. And your great-grandmothers. Including that Johanna Smith-Rhodes who is the founder of your clan, and the woman who built this place. She is proud and pleased of what you have made of it from what it was in her day when this land, to your kin, was new."
Bekki tried to stop surprise showing. Of course a Kelda would be able to see into the other worlds. She felt relieved she wasn't the only one.
"A witch is a Hag from the moment of her birth." Kirstie explained. "Maturity and adulthood come early, as you must all have noticed. I will say all old Hags must first be young Hags. Rebecka is, at fifteen, a young Hag. And my people have respect for Hags."
"Wellnow. Not too many people care to argue with her mother." Barbarossa said, thoughtfully. He scratched his head, as he always did when he was being thoughtful. He looked at his wife. "Or with her grandmother." he added. Agnetha glared at him. "So you can say she has it in her blood. To take command. To tell people. Voice of authority. A good thing, for a witch."
"Indeed, menheer." Kirstie said. She looked over at the two Feegle Bekki had brought with her. They and Grindguts the Destroying Demon had been absorbed into the party and they stood out from the local tribe for several reasons. Grindguts, being green, was easy to spot in a crowd. Bekki understood her companion demon had been adopted into the local Feegle clan. But seeing him in a kilt and a tartan sash and answering to the description of "Green Yin!" could still make her boggle. And Howondalandian Feegle were different.
"Are ye surprised, Rebecka?" Kirstie asked. "There are few plants here that make the blue dye we use for tattoos. We had to find an alternative. And the tattoos come from that which grows in the earth. The clan tattoos mark that we belong to our earth. They are not just symbolic or for art."
The local Feegle were red. Or at least red-orange-brown. It took some getting used to.
"They use Rooibuis." Agnetha said. "Very clever fellows."
Red-bush Feegle. Bekki tried not to stare.
"And ye have a problem, Rebecka."
Kirstie smiled to the visiting Feegle.
"Gonnagle Angus. And Wee Archie Aff The Midden. Of the High Hog clan of Pork Scratching in Lancre. Where Peigi is Kelda."
"Indeed, Kelda." Angus said, politely. "The boy is nae too clever at the crawstep and brought us here. Among other places."
Kirstie smiled, tolerantly. "If you will permit, Gonnagle. Rebecka is with kin here and is welcome and she is loved and safe, but her own mother expects her home and will be worrying."
"Yes. This is true." Agnetha Smith-Rhodes agreed. "You can get her there, Kirstie?"
"I could." Kirstie agreed. "I know the Way and Rebecka's mother and kin are known to me. But it is perhaps best if Wee Archie Aff The Midden leads her there."
Kirstie reached out and took Wee Archie by the hands. He jumped and yelped, then went silent. She looked the young Feegle full in the eye.
"Much though I would like to see Ankh-Morpork again and speak with Johanna and Ponder, you will guide her. And now ye will guide her true."
She released his hands, then turned to Bekki. "I know you are worried for your kin here once you depart. But I can speak to your forebears and bring together the living here, and those who continue to live in a different world. They will still have a voice, through me."
She's right, liewe hecksie. Go now to your mother. We can speak to Barbarossa and Agnetha and the younger girls through the Kelda. Enjoy your Hogswatch, and we can catch up with you there, perhaps?
A little later, Bekki straddled her broomstick again and departed with the love of her family as her last memory of Howondaland. After exchanging Hogswatch greetings with a four-sided triangle, she blinked as broomstick and passengers popped into existence again in an achingly familiar living room, one with weapons displayed on all four walls.
"Thank you, Wee Archie." she said, as Claude the butler looked over to her in mild surprise, as if this sort of thing was nothing new. (1)
"Did you have a pleasant and untroubled journey, Miss Rebecka?" he asked. "And may I offer you a cup of tea?"
A little after that she and her parents embraced joyously.
"See you made it home, then." her mother said, laconically.
"Catch me staying away." Bekki replied.
And Bekki was Home. Twice, in fact: both Homes, in the same day. She felt thankful and appreciative.
To be continued
(1) Guild of Butlers and Gentlemens' Gentlemen, training course 23(a): You may be in the employment of the magically gifted and psychically enabled. Do not express surprise if your employer dematerialises or materialises randomly. This is only to be expected. Friends at Unseen University advise us that dematerialisation and instant translocation are physically tiring and burn energy. Be sure to offer a hot beverage with lots of sugar in these moments. There is a reason why witches drink tea with large quantities of sugar in it, after all.
Notes Dump:
Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being spotted and rescued.
The New Year's Honours' list is a British institutional tradition, in which the monarch (notionally) bestows favours and social preferment on those thought worthy. I'm pretty sure Ankh-Morpork has the Patrician's New Year's Honours List, in which Vetinari hands out barbed prizes and ticking time-bombs to those he wishes to acknowledge and/or punish... who will feature and why? Watch this space or a soon-to-come space...
General comment: in downtime at work today I sketched out a way of bringing this story to its natural (for now) end; it will take eight more chapters and will follow Bekki to the age of eighteen. So - three years and possibly another 40,000 meandering words to go yet! Getting Famke to graduation as an Assassin may be in the pipeline, as well as what form her "Rivka ben-Divorah", best friend and borderline sociopath, will take. And a few ideas are emerging as to which life-direction Ruth Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons will follow. If one sister must, by the laws of heredity, go into Magic and one must go into Assassination, the third is therefore free to take a direction all of her own. She will, too. I have ideas for Shauna, too, who is too good a creation (or memorable) to waste. Alison the female Jester will reappear, naturally.