'She did,' said Nanny. 'Now then, A- Perdita, stop that showing off, we've wasted too much time. Let Agnes have the body back, you know it's hers really.'
Perdita did a cartwheel. 'This body's wasted on her,' she said. 'And you should see the stuff she eats! Do you know she's still got two shelves full of soft toys? And dolls? And she wonders why she can't get along with boys!'
'Nothing like being stared at by a teddybear to put a young man off his stroke,' said Nanny Ogg. 'Remember old Mrs Sleeves, Magrat? Used to need two of us when she had one of her nasty turns.'
'What's that got to do with toys?' said Perdita suspiciously.
'And what's it- Oh, yes,' said Magrat.
'Now, I recall that old bellringer down in Ohulan,' said Nanny, leading the way. 'He had no fewer than seven personalities in his head. Three of 'em were women and four of 'em were men. Poor old chap. He said he was always the odd one out. He said they let him get on with all the work and the breathin' and eatin' and they had all the fun. Remember? He said it was hellish when he had a drink and they all started fightin' for a tastebud. Sometimes he couldn't hear himself think in his own head, he said- Now! Now! Now!'
Agnes opened her eyes. Her jaw hurt.
Nanny Ogg was peering at her closely, while rubbing some feeling back into her wrist. From a couple of inches away her face looked like a friendly pile of elderly laundry.
'Yes, that's Agnes,' she said, standing back. 'Her face goes sharper when it's the other one. See? I told you she'd be the one that came back. She's got more practice.'
Magrat let go of her arms. Agnes rubbed her chin.
'That hurt,' she said reproachfully.
'Just a bit of tough love,' said Nanny. 'Can't have that Perdita running around at a time like this.'
'You just sort of grabbed the bridge and came right back up,' said Magrat.
'I felt her stand on the ground!' said Agnes.
'And that too, then,' said Nanny. 'Come on. Not far now. Sometimes. And let's just take it easy, shall we? Some of us might have further to fall than others.'
They edged forward, despite an increasingly insistent voice in Agnes's head that kept telling her she was being a stupid coward and of course she wouldn't be hurt. She tried to ignore it.
The caves that Agnes remembered hadn't been much more than rock overhangs. These were caverns. The difference is basically one of rugged and poetic grandeur. These had a lot of both.
'Gnarly ground's a bit like icebergs,' said Nanny, leading them up a little gully to one of the largest.
'Nine-tenths of it is under water?' said Agnes. Her chin still hurt.
'There's more to it than meets the eye, I mean.'
'There's someone there!' said Magrat.
'Oh, that's the witch,' said Nanny. 'She's not a problem.'
Light from the entrance fell on a hunched figure, sitting among pools of water. Closer to, it looked like a statue, and perhaps not quite as human as the eye at first suggested. Water glistened on it; drops formed on the end of the long hooked nose and fell into a pool with the occasional plink.
'I come up here with a young wizard once, when I was a girl,' said Nanny. 'He liked nothing so much as bashing at rocks with his little hammer... well, almost nothing,' she added, with a smile towards the past and then a happy sigh. 'He said the witch was just a lot of of stuff from the rocks, left there by the water drippin'. But my granny said it was a witch that sat up here to think about some big spell, and she turned to stone. Person'ly, I keep an open mind.'
'It's a long way to bring someone,' said Agnes.
'Oh, there was a lot of us kids at home and it was rainin' a lot and you need a lot of privacy for really good geology,' said Nanny vaguely. 'I think his hammer's still around here somewhere. He quite forgot about it after a while. Mind how you tread, the rocks is very slippery. How's young Esme doing, Magrat?'
'Oh, gurgling away. I'll have to feed her soon.'
'We've got to look after her,' said Nanny.
'Well, yes. Of course.'
Nanny clapped her hands together and pulled them apart gently. The glow between them wasn't the showy light that wizards made, but a grainy graveyard glimmer. It was just enough to ensure that no one fell down a hole.