The thirty-second Discworld book is also the second Tiffany Aching book. She’s a bit older now; eleven instead of nine, but she still has a lot to learn as an aspiring witch, so Miss Tick arranges for her be trained by another of their number outside of the chalk where Tiffany lives.
As Tiffany and Miss Tick are leaving the chalk, Roland, the son of the baron whom she had rescued in The Wee Free Men presents her with a tissue paper wrapped gift. She doesn’t open it immediately despite Miss Tick’s inquiry, but we find out later that it’s a rather nice silver necklace, based on the chalk formation known as the horse. Her relationship with Roland is a fun one, with Roland often being embarrassed by Tiffany’s reactions to his gestures towards her.
Something is chasing after Tiffany and follows them as they leave the chalk. It appears that this thing that the Nac Mac Feegles call a hiver has taken an interest in the young witch. Tiffany had been practicing her own variation of what witches call borrowing, where she can essentially see herself from the outside, and the hiver picked up on this untrained but powerful ability. The Nac Mac Feegle can sense this dangerous being, and their new Kelda, Jeannie places her new husband Rob Anybody under a geas to help the young witch, so he and a swarm of volunteers set out to help, using a ludicrous human disguise, and a copious use of ancient gold coins, to accelerate their journey.
A quick side note on borrowing: Granny Weatherwax has used borrowing many times in other Discworld books, where she usually uses it to ride along inside the mind of an animal. She can then use the animal's senses and even guide it to a degree. She always makes sure to reward that animal as a kind of recompense for doing so. In Equal Rites, Eskarina tried to take full control and nearly lost herself completely, requiring Granny’s help to return to her human body. Tiffany mostly uses it to look at herself as she lacks a large mirror, which is unfortunate as the hiver takes advantage of this to essentially borrow her!
We soon meet Miss Level, both of her. She’s an interesting witch in that she doesn’t have a twin, but she has two bodies that share the same mind. There’s also a spirit named Oswald that dwells in Miss Level’s cottage, too. He’s an ondageist, the opposite of a poltergeist in that he insists everything is neat and orderly, making it difficult at times to cook, but the silverware drawer is always well organized.
Shortly after Tiffany is settling into being an apprentice witch, she meets Petulia Gristle, another young witch in training, who takes Tiffany to a kind of junior coven meeting where she meets other young witches that are essentially led by Annagramma, who is not as agreeable as Petulia is. This meeting does not go well for Tiffany, and it gets worse after she returns to Miss Level’s cottage and while using her ability to essentially leave her body to check on herself, the hiver leaps inside.
Thanks to the unusual being inhabiting her body, Tiffany acts arrogant, belligerent, and downright criminal. She was always a bit sarcastic and intolerant of stupidity, but while the real her is trying to fight against this possession, she causes all kinds of trouble, and displays a degree of magical power that we rarely see on the Disc. The wrongs she commits here while being controlled do not sit well with her, although the Nac Mac Feegles helps smooth over some of the rougher edges of the things the hiver made her do.
The Nac Mac Feegle arrive to help, and despite the fact that their main method of handling things is to either steal or headbutt something, they are also important to Tiffany, and able to get inside her mind, since they are of course fairies of a sort. Their aid, and the timely arrival of one Granny Weatherwax, are critical to helping our young witch fight back against the strange being inhabiting her mind and body.
The resolution of the hiver’s presence and effect on Tiffany was interesting. It’s a strange being to be sure, and once we know more about it, you can almost sympathize with it. Almost. I found that I really liked Petulia, who was not only extremely nice and far braver than one may expect from a nervous fourteen-year-old aspiring witch, but she grew as a character right in front of our eyes. Something the more aggressive and less sympathetic Annagramma failed to do.
I find this second Tiffany Aching novel to be significantly more enjoyable than her first novel. Tiffany, Miss Tick, and the Nac Mac Feegles are great in both volumes, but the overall premise and story here just come off better than The Wee Free Men. Where that book was more of a slightly silly and altered classic fairy tale, this is more of its own thing. Granny Weatherwax having a larger role here may help as well, although we don’t get much of nanny Ogg, which is sad as she’s one of my favorite characters in any Discworld book. In a book focused on so many witches, I wish we got more Nanny and at least a little Agnes Nitt as well.
My main complaint with this one is that the acts that Tiffany did while being controlled were waved away too easily. We can understand that Miss Level and Petulia are more in the know over what happened since they’re witches and can understand such things, but other people who only encountered her in her possessed state seem to just blow it off and move on. It was just a bit too convenient for me.
A fun read and a great second look at a young witch that feels like she will very much be like Granny Weatherwax as she gets older, which is one of the greatest compliments once can give to a Discworld witch. It’s not as funny as I generally prefer from my Discworld books, but it still has some moments of amusement that work well. The Nac Mac Feegles really do help with the funny bits, but there are other moments of great chuckling to be had elsewhere in this book.
3.5 Magical hats out of 4.
Some fun quotes:
There's always a story. It's all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything's got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.
Witches were a bit like cats. They didn’t much like one another’s company, but they did like to know where all the other witches were, just in case they needed them.
If you don't know when to be a human being, you don't know when to be a witch.
Morella is a Gen Xer who likes strange things a bit too much.
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