A Hat Full of Sky
Chapters - Terry Pratchett, Paul Kidby
Section: Leaving the Chalk
Tiffany Aching, now eleven, prepares to leave the Chalk to train as a witch. She practises a strange ability she calls "see me" - stepping outside her own body to view herself - and visits the remains of Granny Aching's old shepherding hut on the hills to say goodbye. Miss Tick arrives to escort her, posing as a teacher who has found Tiffany a position as maid to an elderly lady in the mountains.
At the village, Roland de Chumsfanleigh, the Baron's son, gives Tiffany a wrapped present before she boards the carrier's cart. Something invisible and buzzing - a creature called a hiver - follows Tiffany's trail, drawn by her power. Big Yan and Hamish spot it and report to the Feegle mound, where Rob Anybody is reluctantly learning to write under the stern direction of his new wife, Kelda Jeannie. Daft Wullie and the toad watch as Rob scratches out his name for the first time. Jeannie, homesick and uncertain but determined, forbids Rob from chasing after Tiffany - she insists the girl must face whatever comes on her own.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Miss Tick, Wentworth Aching, Roland de Chumsfanleigh, Rob Anybody, Daft Wullie, Big Yan, The Toad, Kelda Jeannie, Kelda Jeannie·Mentioned: Granny Aching
Section: Miss Level's Cottage
At the coaching stop in Twoshirts, Miss Tick constructs a shamble - a tangle of string, feathers, beads and a fresh egg used as a magical detector - and senses something following them. The egg explodes with the force of whatever it detects. Tiffany meets Miss Level in a wood at sunset. Miss Level seems oddly nervous and speaks of having a "third pair of hands", but Tiffany sees only two arms.
The broomstick flight to Miss Level's cottage is terrifying - Tiffany discovers she is afraid not of heights but of depths. At the cottage, invisible hands tidy up after Tiffany, bolt and unbolt her door, and move a chest of drawers she pushed against it. In the morning, Miss Level reveals her secret: she is one person with two bodies. Both sit at the kitchen table, finishing each other's sentences. She explains she grew up in a charity home, ran away to join a circus as "Topsy and Tipsy, The Astounding Mind-Reading Act", and eventually became a witch. The invisible tidier is Oswald, an ondageist - the opposite of a poltergeist - who obsessively cleans and organises.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Miss Tick, Miss Level, Oswald, The Hiver
Section: The Apprentice's Life
Tiffany settles into life as Miss Level's apprentice, which turns out to be mostly chores: milking goats, tending bees, harvesting herbs and visiting sick villagers. Miss Level teaches her about the Doctrine of Signatures - plants that carry tiny labels telling you what they cure - and how a witch's work is "filling what's empty and emptying what's full". Tiffany learns that witches are paid in kind, and Miss Level redistributes surplus food to those who need it most.
They regularly visit old Mr Weavall, a ninety-one-year-old man who lives alone, calls Tiffany "Mary" after his dead daughter, and anxiously makes her check the box of coins under his chair every visit - his savings for a proper funeral. His son Toby has been dead fifteen years, though Mr Weavall doesn't remember this. Meanwhile, on the Chalk, the Nac Mac Feegles steal clothes, boots and a beard from villagers to construct a disguise. Rob Anybody has been unable to eat or drink since Tiffany left, consumed by worry about the hiver. Kelda Jeannie, seeing his anguish, first asks him as a wife to stay, then commands him as kelda to go save Tiffany - laying a geas upon him that cannot be broken. She tells him she is expecting seven sons and one daughter.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Rob Anybody, Daft Wullie, Big Yan, Kelda Jeannie, Kelda Jeannie, Miss Level, The Hiver·Mentioned: Granny Aching
Section: The Circle of Young Witches
Daft Wullie leads the Feegles' plan to reach Tiffany: they build a walking scarecrow from stolen clothes, operated by dozens of Feegles inside, and bribe a carter with ancient gold coins to take them to Twoshirts. The "man" terrifies the other stagecoach passengers by arguing with its own knees and trouser buttons and revealing a small blue person peeking out of its flies.
Tiffany struggles with shambles - she cannot make one work, and the egg always cracks. Petulia Gristle, a plump, permanently worried apprentice witch who works with Old Mother Blackcap specialising in pig diseases, invites Tiffany to a young witches' sabbat. There Tiffany meets Annagramma Hawkin, a tall, sharp-tongued girl who dominates the group. Annagramma works with Mrs Earwig, who advocates "Higher MagiK" with wands, crystal balls and proper ceremonies rather than "mumbling in hedgerows". She mocks Tiffany's green dress, her cheese-making and her claim to have fought the Queen of the Fairies. When Tiffany mentions the invisible hat Granny Weatherwax gave her, the other girls cannot see it and laugh. Tiffany goes home humiliated and homesick.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Rob Anybody, Daft Wullie, Big Yan, Annagramma Hawkin, Mrs Earwig, Petulia Gristle, The Hiver·Mentioned: Esmerelda Weatherwax
Section: The Hiver Takes Hold
Alone and miserable in the night, Tiffany uses "see me" to check whether the invisible hat is still there. It is - but the image of herself opens its eyes and says, "We see you. Now we are you." The hiver takes her over. Lightning strikes, the window blows in and the candle dies. On the Chalk, Kelda Jeannie uses an ancient kelda ritual - boiling water through tanned sheepskin with drops from her mother's cauldron - to connect with the river of memory shared by all keldas past and future. She senses the hiver has found Tiffany.
The next morning, Tiffany is changed. She feels full of energy and contempt. She nearly hits Black Meg the goat with a broom. She insults Petulia, calling her fat and stupid, and slams the door. In the dairy, her hand writes "HELP ME" in chalk on the table - a tiny fragment of the real Tiffany fighting from within. Miss Level takes her on rounds, but Tiffany sees visions of tigers, ferns and prehistoric beasts - the hiver's ancient memories bleeding through. She hallucinates scales on her arm and mutters about scorpion sandwiches. Miss Level flies her home on the broomstick.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Kelda Jeannie, Kelda Jeannie, Miss Level, The Hiver
Section: Power Corrupts
The hiver, wearing Tiffany like a suit, flies to Mrs Earwig's house and confronts Annagramma, turning her glass of milk into thistles and lifting her into the air. Then it visits Zakzak Stronginthearm's occult shop with Annagramma and bullies the dwarf shopkeeper into a ninety per cent discount by turning his fake wizard "Brian" into a frog - with the leftover mass of Brian bobbing against the ceiling as a huge pink balloon. It buys a tall Sky Scraper hat, a billowing Zephyr Billow cloak, black dresses, jewellery and a Book of Night.
The pulse of this magic ripples across the landscape. In a cottage far away, Granny Weatherwax lies on her narrow bed with bees crawling over her face - she has been Borrowing, riding the minds of her bees. The magical shockwave rouses her and she sits bolt upright. "So, she's learned how to Borrow, has she? Or she's been Borrowed!" Back at the cottage, Miss Level discovers Mr Weavall's funeral savings have been stolen. The Feegles arrive and Miss Level lures Daft Wullie with whisky, then learns from Rob Anybody and Awf'ly Wee Billy Bigchin what a hiver is: a bodiless parasite from the dawn of creation that seeks powerful minds, takes them over and inevitably drives them mad.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Esmerelda Weatherwax, Rob Anybody, Daft Wullie, Big Yan, Awf'ly Wee Billy Bigchin, Awf'ly Wee Billy Bigchin, Miss Level, Mrs Earwig, The Hiver
Section: Into Tiffany's Mind
The hiver, controlling Tiffany's body, returns to the cottage. In a brief moment of freedom during a "see me" slip, the real Tiffany fights to reclaim herself, but the hiver regains control. When Miss Level confronts it about the stolen money, the hiver strikes - one of Miss Level's two bodies is destroyed in a blast of purple light.
The Feegles carry the surviving Miss Level upstairs to where Tiffany lies unconscious on the floor, cold and sweating. Rob Anybody convinces the dazed, half-dead Miss Level (whom he tells he is a fairy from "the land o' Tinkle") to advise them on treating shock. Inside Tiffany's mind, Rob leads an expedition through a dark mental landscape of rolling chalk downs under a black sky. Awf'ly Wee Billy recognises this as the soul and centre of Tiffany - a representation of Granny Aching's shepherding hut, the place where Tiffany always felt safest. But the sun in this inner world is sinking: the hiver is winning.
Tiny thorn trees sprout across the mental turf - the hiver encroaching like a forest reclaiming open land. Rob stays behind to fight while Daft Wullie leads a raiding party back to the real world to steal sheep's wool, turpentine and Jolly Sailor tobacco - the three smells of the shepherding hut that might anchor Tiffany's identity.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Rob Anybody, Daft Wullie, Big Yan, Miss Level, The Hiver·Mentioned: Granny Aching
Section: Granny Weatherwax Arrives
The Feegles' broomstick raid to collect the three smells is chaotic: they steal wool from a sheep, turpentine from a farmhouse (where young Mildred Pusher sees them and is told she is dreaming), and Jolly Sailor tobacco from a pub where the walking-scarecrow disguise literally tears itself in half. Awf'ly Wee Billy shames the brawling Feegles back to duty with a furious gonnagle's speech and the sad song The Bonny Flowers.
The three smells are placed beneath Tiffany's nose. The scents reach deep into her mind, drawing the hiver into the shepherding hut in her mental landscape where Rob Anybody waits. The land rises - the chalk hills themselves take the shape of a giant girl sitting up, and an enormous hand made of turf and stone picks up the hiver. Three heavy thumps echo from outside the mental world: someone is knocking on the cottage door.
Granny Weatherwax arrives and takes charge. She slaps Tiffany awake but the girl's mind is cluttered with the hiver's residual memories - echoes of everyone it has ever possessed, including the ancient wizard Sensibility Bustle and a desert queen. Granny uses her voice like a sheepdog handler, sharp and commanding, calling Tiffany back to herself. She makes Tiffany milk the goats, work in the dairy and remember her own name: "Land Under Wave" in the old Feegle tongue. Miss Level, now with only one body, discovers she can still move things with her phantom arms - Oswald has also returned.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Esmerelda Weatherwax, Rob Anybody, Daft Wullie, Big Yan, Miss Level, Oswald, The Hiver
Section: The Soul and Centre
Granny Weatherwax takes Tiffany on Miss Level's daily rounds. She teaches by example: she tells the Raddles their illness is caused by goblins attracted to the privy smell (rather than Miss Level's truthful explanation about tiny creatures in the water), because a story people can understand gets results today. She sends Mr Umbril on a five-mile daily walk to a waterfall to throw pebbles for "water sprites", knowing the exercise will cure his chest pains.
Tiffany dreads visiting Mr Weavall, certain his box will be empty. But the Feegles have replaced the stolen coins with ancient gold from the dead king's barrow in their mound. Overwhelmed, Mr Weavall declares the gold is far too much for a funeral - it is enough to get married on. He dresses in his best suit and sets off to propose to the Widow Tussy, who has lent him her store-bought teeth for a difficult piece of pork.
Granny Weatherwax delivers the book's central speech: the soul and centre of witchcraft is sitting up all night with the dying, cleaning them up, helping the weeping widow, then going straight out to a difficult birth. "Stars is easy, people is hard." Tiffany tells Granny she can feel the hiver still out there - a piece of her is in it and it is frightened. She keeps thinking about "three wishes" but cannot grasp the thought.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Esmerelda Weatherwax, Rob Anybody, Daft Wullie, Miss Level, The Hiver·Mentioned: Granny Aching
Section: Night on the Mountain
Tiffany and Granny Weatherwax head into the high mountains, camping among boulders above the tree line. Tiffany tries and fails to make a shamble - the last egg cracks. Granny Borrows an owl to scout the darkness, then an eagle at dawn. She invites Tiffany to call her "Granny" - an honour given to very few. The hiver follows but keeps its distance, afraid of Granny Weatherwax because Tiffany is afraid of her.
Petulia flies up on her badly steered broomstick to check on them, having come despite the danger. Granny Weatherwax approves of the girl's courage. They head for the Witch Trials at Sheercliff, where hundreds of witches and their families gather for a grand fair with sideshows, Zakzak's merchandise tent and a rope square for demonstrations. Granny pays for tickets with invisible coins that materialise in the seller's money bag.
In the crowd, the hiver senses Tiffany's fear and charges. The memory of Sensibility Bustle explains in her head that a hiver hunts like a shark, ignoring everything except its chosen prey. Tiffany desperately asks people what the third wish is in fairy tales. An old woman says happiness. Miss Tick says a hundred more wishes. Granny Weatherwax gives the right answer: the third wish undoes the harm the first two caused.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Esmerelda Weatherwax, Miss Tick, The Hiver·Mentioned: Nanny Ogg
Section: The Third Wish
The hiver rolls across the Trials field towards Tiffany, scattering witches in panic. Rob Anybody drops from a buzzard on Hamish's paradrawers and lands in Tiffany's shamble, becoming the living thing at its centre. With Rob in the strings and the silver horse necklace from Roland hanging in the threads, the shamble finally works - power flows through it like starlight. Far away on the Chalk, the White Horse carved in the turf leaps from the hillside.
Tiffany welcomes the hiver instead of fighting it. She understands now: it is not evil, it is terrified. It has existed since the first seconds of creation, endlessly aware of every star and blade of grass, with no way to shut out the overwhelming experience of the universe. It craves the shelter of a mind that can ignore things - the human talent for boredom and selective attention. It begs for sanctuary.
Tiffany tells the hiver the third wish: "Make this not have happened." The hiver asks to be taught how to die. She names it Arthur and opens a dark door onto a desert of black sand under pale stars - the threshold of death. She walks through with Rob Anybody at her ankle, helps Arthur across, and watches it slide away across the black sand towards distant mountains.
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Rob Anybody, Esmerelda Weatherwax, The Hiver·Mentioned: Roland de Chumsfanleigh
Section: A Hat Full of Sky
The door behind Tiffany vanishes, trapping her and Rob Anybody in the desert of Death. Death himself appears - a tall figure in black with a scythe and glowing blue eye sockets - and tells Tiffany the way out requires crossing the desert, but only the dead may walk it. Granny Weatherwax opens a door from the living side, rams her boot in the jamb before it can close, and hauls them back.
Tiffany wakes in the First Aid tent at the Trials, surrounded by young witches. Black sand pours from her boots. Petulia recognises the sand and speaks about the secret duty of helping the dying find their way - the thing witches do not talk about. She silences Annagramma with a fierce command never to interrupt her again.
At the Trials proper, Granny Weatherwax and Tiffany watch from opposite sides of the ring. Neither stands up to perform. Petulia does the pig trick - without a pig, using only a sausage - and earns thunderous applause. Other witches demonstrate their skills. Granny and Tiffany bow to each other across the field. A week later, Tiffany visits Granny's cottage, dances with a swarm of bees shaped like a witch, returns the old hat ("everyone has to find their own"), and gives Granny the Zephyr Billow cloak. Granny tests her one last time, asking her to throw the silver horse necklace down the well. Tiffany refuses. "Well done," says Granny. "If you don't know when to be a human being, you don't know when to be a witch."
POV: Tiffany Aching·On page: Rob Anybody, Death, Esmerelda Weatherwax, The Hiver·Mentioned: Nanny Ogg