She watched this sink in.

'And now let me help you out of the door,' she added.

Weaver was never quite certain about what happened next. Granny, usually so sure on her feet, seemed to trip over one of his sticks as she went through the door, and fell backward, holding his shoulders, and somehow her knee came up and hit a spot on his backbone as she twisted sideways, and there was a click–

'Aargh!'

'Sorry!'

'Me back! Me back!'

Still, Jarge reasoned later, she was an old woman. And she might be getting clumsy and she'd always been daft, but she made good potions. They worked damn' fast, too. He was carrying his sticks by the time he got home.

Granny watched him go, shaking her head.

People were so blind, she reflected. They preferred to believe in gibberish rather than chiropracty.

Of course, it was just as well this was so. She'd much rather they went 'oo' when she seemed to know who was approaching her cottage than work out that it conveniently overlooked a bend in the track, and as for the door‑latch and the trick with the length of black thread...

But what had she done? She'd just tricked a rather dim old man.

She'd faced wizards, monsters and elves... and now she was feeling pleased with herself because she'd fooled Jarge Weaver, a man who'd twice failed to become Village Idiot through being overqualified.

It was the slippery slope. Next thing it'd be cackling and gibbering and luring children into the oven. And it wasn't as if she even liked children.

For years Granny Weatherwax had been contented enough with the challenge that village witchcraft could offer. And then she'd been forced to go travelling, and she'd seen a bit of the world, and it had made her itchy–especially at this time of the year, when the geese were flying overhead and the first frost had mugged innocent leaves in the deeper valleys.