Later that evening, once she had made her little bed in the hut, she went out to collect some kindling. The white cat, You, followed close behind.
The little tracks of the Chalk were very familiar to Tiffany. She had walked along them with Granny Aching years ago. And as she reached the wood at the top of the rise, Tiffany thought she saw somebody walking through the dusky shadows under the trees.
Not just one person alone. There seemed to be two figures, both strangely familiar. Beside them, alert to every gesture, every nod, every whistle, trotted two sheepdogs.
Granny Weatherwax, Tiffany thought. Side by side with Granny Aching, Thunder and Lightning at their heels. And the little words in her head came unbidden: You are the shepherd’s crown, jigget. You are the shepherd’s crown.
One of the figures looked over and gave her a brief nod, whilst the other paused and bowed her head. Tiffany bowed back, solemnly, respectfully.
And then the figures were gone.
On the way back to the hut, Tiffany looked down at the cat and, on a sudden impulse, spoke to it.
‘Where is Granny Weatherwax, You?’
There was a pause, and the cat made a long meow, which appeared to end, ‘Meow . . . vrywhere.’ And then purred, just like any other cat, and rubbed her hard little head against Tiffany’s leg.
Tiffany thought of the little spot in the woods where Granny Weatherwax lay. Remembered.
And knew that You had been right. Granny Weatherwax was indeed here. And there. She was, in fact, and always would be, everywhere.
There was a long stream of visitors to the shepherding hut once it became known that Tiffany was back on the Chalk for good.
Joe Aching came up to deliver some messages – and a new letter, from Preston! – and bring Tiffany some things her mother had decided she needed. He looked around the neat little hut with approval. Tiffany had made the space very comfortable. He looked at the books on the shelf and smiled. Tiffany had left Granny Aching’s Diseases of the Sheep at the farm, but both Flowers of the Chalk and The Goode Childe’s Booke of Faerie Tales had their place by the little shepherd’s crown he had given her. On the back of the door was a wooden peg on which hung her witch’s hat.
‘I reckon ye’ll find some use for this too,’ her father said as he took a bottle of Special Sheep’s Liniment (made according to Granny Aching’s recipe) out of his pocket and placed it on the shelf.
Tiffany laughed and hoped her father hadn’t heard the cry of ‘Crivens!’ from the roof of the hut.
He looked up as some dust fell down from where Big Yan sat on Daft Wullie to silence him. ‘I hope ye haven’t got woodworm already, Tiff.’
She laughed again as she gave him a hug to say goodbye.
Mr Block was an early visitor too. He puffed his way up the hill and found her settled in with You the cat sitting on her lap while she sorted rags.
Tiffany watched nervously as the old carpenter looked around and under the hut with a professional eye. When he had finished, she gave him a cup of tea and asked him what he thought.
‘You’ve done well, lass. Very well. I have never seen a boy apprentice take to carpentry as quickly as this, and you are a girl.’
‘Not a girl,’ Tiffany said. ‘I’m a witch.’ And she looked down to the little cat beside her and said, ‘That’s so, isn’t it, You?’
Mr Block looked at her suspiciously for a moment. ‘So did you use magic to make the hut, miss?’
‘I didn’t have to,’ said Tiffany. ‘The magic was already here.’
The End.
1948–2015
AFTERWORD
The Shepherd’s Crown is Terry Pratchett’s final novel. It was written in his last year before he finally succumbed in early 2015 to the ‘embuggerance’ of posterior cortical atrophy. Terry had been diagnosed back in 2007, the year that he wrote Nation. At that time, Terry thought he might have less than two years to live and that brought a new urgency to his writing. He had never been a slouch in this respect but now things were measured by the cost in writing time. If demands for his presence took him away from writing, it had to be really worthwhile, such as feeding the chickens or attending to his tortoises. He had so many more books he wanted to write.