Granny Weatherwax was stretched rigid on her bed. Her face was grey, her skin was cold.

People had discovered her like this before, and it always caused embarrassment. So now she reassured visitors but tempted fate by always holding, in her rigid hands, a small handwritten sign which read:

I ATE'NT DEAD.

The window was propped open with a piece of wood.

"Ah," said Nanny, far more for her own benefit than for anyone else's, "I sees you're out. I'll, I'll, I'll just put the kettle on, shall I, and wait 'til you comes back?"

Esme's skill at Borrowing unnerved her. It was all very well entering the minds of animals and such, but too many witches had never come back. For several years Nanny had put out lumps of fat and bacon rind for a bluetit that she was sure was old Granny Postalute, who'd gone out Borrowing one day and never came back. Insofar as a witch could consider things uncanny. Nanny Ogg considered it uncanny.

She went back down to the scullery and lowered a bucket down the well, remembering to fish the newts out this time before she boiled the kettle.

Then she watched the garden.

After a while a small shape flittered across it, heading for the upstairs window.

Nanny poured out the tea. She carefully took one spoonful of sugar out of the sugar basin, tipped the rest of the sugar into her cup, put the spoonful back in the basin, put both cups on a tray, and climbed the stairs.

Granny Weatherwax was sitting up in her bed.

Nanny looked around.

There was a large bat hanging upside down from a beam.

Granny Weatherwax rubbed her ears.

"Shove the po under it, will you, Gytha?" she mumbled. "They're a devil for excusing themselves on the carpet."

Nanny unearthed the shyest article of Granny Weatherwax's bedroom crockery and moved it across the rug with her foot.

"I brought you a cup of tea," she said.

"Good job, too. Mouth tastes of moths," said Granny.