Just across the woods from Granny Weatherwax's cottage, Nanny Ogg nearly dropped a flagon of her best homemade cider on her cat, Greebo. She kept her flagons of cider in the shady spring by her cottage. The tomcat considered a growl, but after one look at his mistress he tried to be a good boy, for the normally cheerful face of Nanny Ogg was like thunder this morning.
And he heard her mutter, "It should have been me."
In Genua, on a royal visit with her husband Verence, Queen Magrat of Lancre, former witch, discovered that even though she might think she had retired from magic, magic had not retired from her. She shuddered as the shock wave was carried across the world like a tsunami, an intimation that things were going to be... otherwise.
In Boffo's Novelty and Joke Emporium in Ankh-Morpork, all the whoopee cushions trumpeted in a doleful harmony; while over in Quirm, Agness Nitt, both witch and singer, woke with a sinking feeling known to many that she might have made a fool of herself at the previous evening's first-night party.^ It certainly still seemed to be going on behind her eyeballs. Then she suddenly heard her inner Perdita wail...
^(Though Agnes does have the very handy excuse that if she behaves badly, it might not be Anges doing the Devil-Among-The-Pictsies dance on the table, but her other personality, Perdita, who is much more outgoing and, incidentally, a lot thinner.)