A Hat Full of Sky

The second book in Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching series, set on the fantastical flat planet known as Discworld, follows young Tiffany Aching as she leaves her home on the Chalk, a region of rolling downland, to begin an apprenticeship in witchcraft. An ancient, bodiless creature called a hiver, formed in the first seconds of Creation, drifts across the hills in search of a powerful mind to inhabit and senses Tiffany's latent abilities.

Tiffany is a farmer's daughter who, in a previous adventure, defeated the Queen of the Fairies and briefly served as kelda, or queen, of a clan of Nac Mac Feegle, six-inch-tall, blue-skinned fairy folk who are immensely strong and perpetually drunk. As a reward, Mistress Weatherwax, the most respected witch in the world, gave Tiffany an invisible pointy hat. Before leaving, Tiffany visits the remains of her late Granny Aching's shepherding hut on the hilltop and promises to return. Granny Aching was the Chalk's legendary shepherdess and its soul, and Tiffany feels compelled to fill the void she left. Tiffany's departure is arranged as a cover story by Miss Tick, a witch disguised as a wandering teacher. At the village green, Roland, the baron's son, nervously gives Tiffany a wrapped gift she pockets without opening.

At the Nac Mac Feegle's underground mound, Rob Anybody, the clan's Big Man, learns that a hiver is following Tiffany, but his new wife, Jeannie, the kelda from the Long Lake clan, forbids pursuit. Jealous of Tiffany's prior role as kelda, Jeannie insists a true witch must face threats alone.

Tiffany travels with Miss Tick to the mountains, where she meets her new mistress, Miss Level. At the remote cottage, Tiffany uncovers its secrets: an invisible spirit called Oswald, an ondageist (the opposite of a poltergeist), obsessively tidies everything, and Miss Level is not twins but one person with two bodies sharing a single mind. She was born this way and ran away from persecution to join a circus. Tiffany's daily work consists of mundane chores: milking goats, gathering herbs, and accompanying Miss Level on rounds to treat villagers. She visits 91-year-old Mr. Weavall daily, a man living alone who obsessively checks his funeral savings. Tiffany struggles repeatedly to make a shamble, a crude magical device assembled from random objects and something alive, the basic witchcraft tool other apprentices manage easily.

When Tiffany opens Roland's gift, she finds a silver necklace shaped like the White Horse, the ancient chalk carving near her home. Petulia Gristle, a kind apprentice to Old Mother Blackcap, invites Tiffany to a gathering of young witches dominated by Annagramma Hawkin, whose mistress, Mrs. Earwig, advocates formal rituals and expensive equipment. When asked about her abilities, Tiffany blurts out a cheese name, drawing snickers. She claims Mistress Weatherwax gave her an invisible hat and reaches up to touch it, but the hat has vanished. The girls laugh. Tiffany returns devastated, consumed by self-doubt.

Rob Anybody's distress moves Jeannie to reverse her decision. She places a geas, a binding magical obligation, on Rob to find Tiffany and keep her safe, revealing she is expecting seven sons and one daughter. Rob selects a small team, including Daft Wullie and the young gonnagle (battle poet) Awf'ly Wee Billy Bigchin, and the Feegles set off inside a walking scarecrow assembled from stolen clothes and operated by dozens of Feegles working different body parts.

On a stormy night, Tiffany performs her secret trick of stepping outside her own body to check for the hat. She sees herself, and the hat is there, but the image of her body opens its eyes and says, "We see you. Now we are you" (150). The hiver enters her unattended body. Miss Level later realizes Tiffany's trick was a form of Borrowing, an advanced skill that left her body empty and defenseless.

The hiver amplifies Tiffany's suppressed resentments while erasing her compassion. She cruelly insults Petulia, makes cheese by magic and scorns honest craft, steals Mr. Weavall's funeral savings, and terrorizes a shopkeeper into selling her witch finery at a 90% discount. A tiny part of Tiffany persists: The words "HELP Me" appear in chalk, and fragments of her real voice cry out before the hiver suppresses them. When Miss Level confronts the hiver, it destroys one of her two bodies with a blast of power. The Feegles arrive at the cottage and find Tiffany unconscious.

Rob leads the Feegles into Tiffany's mind, where they find the Chalk landscape under a sinking sun that represents her remaining self. They discover Granny Aching's shepherding hut with chalked words on the door: "SHEEPS WOOL / TURPENTINE / JOLLY SAILOR." These are the hut's scents, and Tiffany, hiding deep within her own mind, is sending instructions. The scents are placed under Tiffany's physical nose, drawing the hiver into the deepest part of her mind. There, the land itself rises: The Chalk takes the form of a giant girl, seizes the hiver in a massive hand, and frightens it away. Three booming knocks sound from outside the mental world: Someone is at Miss Level's door.

Mistress Weatherwax has arrived. She anchors Tiffany in her identity through physical tasks and sharp commands, calling her back whenever she speaks in the voice of a dead host. The crucial moment comes when Granny asks what Tiffany's name means in the old Feegle language. Tiffany remembers: "Land Under Wave." This deep identity breaks through the hiver's residual voices.

Tiffany can still feel the hiver in the woods. When she breaks down, horrified that the hiver's cruelty came from her own suppressed thoughts, Granny delivers a speech about the soul of witchcraft: sitting up all night with the dying, helping ungrateful people, and doing it again the next day. The mundane work anchors a witch and prevents the slide into madness witches call "cackling."

Granny insists they attend the annual Witch Trials, a gathering of over 300 witches. There, she vanishes into the crowd. The hiver charges toward the isolated Tiffany. Tiffany realizes the hiver is not evil: It gives people what they think they want, like wishes in fairy tales, and the wishes always go wrong. The third wish, Granny tells her, undoes the harm the first two caused. Rob Anybody drops from a buzzard into Tiffany's shamble, serving as its living component. With the silver Horse necklace anchoring her to the Chalk's power, the shamble finally works.

Tiffany traps the hiver and welcomes it. The hiver reveals it has existed since Creation, endlessly aware of everything, with no capacity to sleep or forget. It envies humans their ability to build mental shells against infinity and sought hosts not to conquer but to shelter from unbearable awareness. It asks Tiffany to teach it how to die. Tiffany names it "Arthur," giving it identity and the capacity to choose to stop, and opens a black door into Death's domain. The hiver departs, but the door closes behind Tiffany. Death tells her the door was a way in, not out. Just as despair sets in, Granny Weatherwax opens a door from the living world and pulls Tiffany through, telling her that showing the dead the Way is part of what witches do, though they never speak of it.

Tiffany collapses and wakes at the Trials, where she learns Granny gave Tiffany her own hat as a mark of honor. Petulia finds unexpected courage, describing what witches do for the dying and silencing Annagramma for the first time. Tiffany and Granny sit on opposite sides of the field, neither performing. When the Trials close, they rise simultaneously and bow to each other. Later, Tiffany returns Granny's hat, explaining that everyone must find their own. Granny tests Tiffany by ordering her to drop the Horse necklace into a well. Tiffany refuses, and Granny smiles: Knowing when to be a human being is knowing when to be a witch.

In late February, Tiffany returns to the Chalk for lambing season, accepted as its witch, Granny Aching's granddaughter. She climbs to the ruins of the shepherding hut, shouts that she has come back better than she went, and hurls the shop-bought starry hat into the wind, where it vanishes. The only hat worth wearing is one you make yourself. Tiffany makes a hat out of the sky and sits on the old stove as the Feegles creep from their mound to join her. The sun sets, and the hat fills up with stars.