Présentation de l'éditeur
'Crivens!'
Tiffany Aching put one foot wrong, made just one little mistake . . .
And now the spirit of winter is in love with her. He gives her roses and icebergs and showers her with snowflakes, which is tough when you're thirteen, but also just a little bit . . . cool.
And if Tiffany doesn't work out how to deal with him, there will never be another springtime . . .
Crackling with energy and humour,
Wintersmith is the third tale in a sequence about Tiffany Aching and the Wee Free Men - the Nac Mac Feegles who are determined to help Tiffany, whether she wants it or not.
'An extraordinary achievement'
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'A characteristically entertaining mix'
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'One of the best and one of the funniest English authors alive'
Independent
Extrait
It had to be the wintersmith, Tiffany Aching told herself, standing in front of her father in the freezing farmhouse. She could feel it out there. This wasn't normal weather even for midwinter, and this was springtime. It was a challenge. Or perhaps it was just a game. It was hard to tell, with the wintersmith.
Only it can't be a game because the lambs are dying. I'm only just thirteen, and my father, and a lot of other people older than me, want me to do something. And I can't. The wintersmith has found me again. He is here now, and I'm too weak.
It would be easier if they were bullying me, but no, they're begging. My father's face is grey with worry and he's begging.
My father is begging me.
Oh no, he's taking his hat off. He's
taking off his hat to speak to speak to me!
They think magic comes free, when I snap my fingers. But if I can't do this for them, now, what good am I? I can't let them see I'm afraid. Witches aren't allowed to be afraid.
And this is my fault. I: I started all this. I must finish it.
Mr Aching cleared his throat.
'. . . And, er, if you could . . . er, magic it away, uh, or something? For us . . . ?'
Everything in the room was grey, because the light from the windows was coming through snow. No one had wasted time digging the horrible stuff away from the houses. Every person who could hold a shovel was needed elsewhere, and still there were not enough of them. As it was, most people had been up all night, walking the flocks of yearlings, trying to keep the new lambs safe . . . in the dark, in the snow . . .
Her snow. It was a message to her. A challenge. A summons.
'All right,' she said. 'I'll see what I can do.'
'Good girl,' said her father, grinning with relief. No, not a good girl, thought Tiffany. I brought this on us.
'You'll have to make a big fire, up by the sheds,' she said aloud. 'I mean a big fire, do you understand? Make it out of anything that will burn and you must keep it going. It'll keep trying to go out, but you must keep it going. Keep piling on the fuel, whatever happens.
The fire must not go out!'
She made sure that the 'not!' was loud and frightening. She didn't want people's minds to wander. She put on the heavy brown woollen cloak that Miss Treason had made for her and grabbed the black pointy hat that hung on the back of the farmhouse door. There was a sort of communal grunt from the people who'd crowded into the kitchen, and some of them backed away. We want a witch now, we need a witch now, but - we'll back away now, too.
That was the magic of the pointy hat. It was what Miss Treason called 'boffo'.
Tiffany Aching stepped out into the narrow corridor that had been cut through the snow-filled farmyard where the drifts were more than twice the height of a man. At least the deep snow kept off the worst of the wind, which was made of knives.
A track had been cleared all the way to the paddock, but it had been heavy-going. When there is fifteen feet of snow everywhere, how can you clear it? Where can you clear it to?
She waited by the cart sheds while the men hacked and scraped at the snow banks. They were tired to the bone by now; they'd been digging for hours.
The important t
