A Hat Full Of Sky Read Online Free PDF Page B

said the toad.
    “Aye, the one wi’ a face like a yard o’ yogurt,” said Big Yan. “An’ you said we wuzna’ to show ourselves, Rob.”
    “Aye, weel, this is different—” Rob Anybody began, but stopped.
    He hadn’t been a husband for very long, but upon marriage men get a whole lot of extra senses bolted into their brain, and one is there to tell a man that he’s suddenly neck deep in real trouble.
    Jeannie was tapping her foot. Her arms were still folded. She had the special smile womenlearn about when they marry too which seems to say “Yes, you’re in big trouble but I’m going to let you dig yourself in even more deeply.”
    “What’s this about the big wee hag?” she said, her voice as small and meek as a mouse trained at the Rodent College of Assassins.
    “Oh, ah, ach, weel, aye…” Rob began, his face falling. “Do ye not bring her to mind, dear? She was at oor wedding, aye. She was oor kelda for a day or two, ye ken. The Old One made her swear to that just afore she went back to the Land o’ the Livin’,” he added, in case mentioning the wishes of the last kelda would deflect whatever storm was coming. “It’s as well tae keep an eye on her, ye ken, her being oor hag and all….”
    Rob Anybody’s voice trailed away in the face of Jeannie’s look.
    “A true kelda has tae marry the Big Man,” said Jeannie. “Just like I married ye, Rob Anybody Feegle, and am I no’ a good wife tae ye?”
    “Oh, fine, fine,” Rob burbled. “But—”
    “And ye canna be married to two wives, because that would be bigamy, would it not?” said Jeannie, her voice dangerously sweet.
    “Ach, it wasna that big,” said Rob Anybody, desperately looking around for a way of escape.“And it wuz only temp’ry, an’ she’s but a lass, an’ she wuz good at thinkin’—”
    “ I’m good at thinking, Rob Anybody, and I am the kelda o’ this clan, am I no’? There can only be one, is that not so? And I am thinking that there will be no more chasin’ after this big wee girl. Shame on ye, anyway. She’ll no’ want the like o’ Big Yan a-gawpin’ at her all the time, I’m sure.”
    Rob Anybody hung his head.
    “Aye…but,” he said.
    “But what?”
    “A hiver’s chasin’ the puir wee lass.”
    There was a long pause before Jeannie said, “Are ye sure?”
    “Aye, kelda,” said Big Yan. “Once you hear that buzzin’, ye never forget it.”
    Jeannie bit her lip. Then, looking a little pale, she said, “Ye said she’s got the makin’s o’ a powerful hag, Rob?”
    “Aye, but nae one in his’try has survived a hiver! Ye canna kill it, ye canna stop it, ye canna—”
    “But wuz ye no’ tellin’ me how the big wee girl even fought the Quin and won?” said Jeannie. “Wanged her wi’ a skillet, ye said. That means she’s good, aye? If she is a true hag, she’llfind a way hersel’. We all ha’ to dree our weird. Whatever’s out there, she’s got to face it. If she canna, she’s no true hag.”
    “Aye, but a hiver’s worse than—” Rob began.
    “She’s off to learn hagglin’ from other hags,” said Jeannie. “An’ I must learn keldarin’ all by myself. Ye must hope she learns as fast as me, Rob Anybody.”

CHAPTER 2

Twoshirts and Two Noses

    T woshirts was just a bend in the road with a name. There was nothing there but an inn for the coaches, a blacksmith’s shop, and a small store with the word SOUVENIRS written optimistically on a scrap of cardboard in the window. And that was it. Around the place, separated by fields and scraps of woodland, were the houses of people for whom Twoshirts was, presumably, the big city. Every world is full of places like Twoshirts. They are places for people to come from, not go to.
    It sat and baked silently in the hot afternoon sunlight. Right in the middle of the road an elderly spaniel, mottled brown and white, dozed in the dust.
    Twoshirts was bigger than the village back home, and Tiffany had never seen souvenirs before. She went