The Wee Free Men

She reached the stones. The arch still stood. It was never down, Tiffany thought. The Queen had no strength, no magic, just one trick. The worst one.



“Stay away from here,” said Tiffany. “Never come back. Never touch what is mine.” And then, because the thing was so weak and babylike, she added: “But I hope there’s someone who’ll cry for you. I hope the king comes back.”



“You pity me?” growled the thing that had been the Queen.



“Yes. A bit,” said Tiffany. “But don’t count on it.”



She put the creature down. It scampered across the snow of Fairyland, turned, and became the beautiful Queen again.



“You won’t win,” the Queen said. “There’s always a way in. People dream.”



“Sometimes we waken,” said Tiffany. “Don’t come back…or there will be a reckoning….”



She concentrated, and now the stones framed nothing more—or less—than the country beyond.



I shall have to find a way of sealing that, said her Third Thoughts. Or her Twentieth Thoughts, perhaps. Her head was full of thoughts.



She managed to walk a little way and then sat down, hugging her knees. Imagine getting stuck like this, she thought. You’d have to wear earplugs and noseplugs and a big black hood over your head, and still you’d see and hear too much…



She closed her eyes, and closed her eyes again.



She felt it all draining away. It was like falling asleep, sliding from that strange wide-awakeness into just normal, everyday…well, being awake. It felt as if everything was blurred and muffled.



This is how we always feel, she thought. We sleepwalk through our lives, because how could we live if we were always this awake?



Someone tapped her on the boot.



CHAPTER 14



Small, Like Oak Trees



“Hey, where did you get to?” shouted Rob Anybody, glaring up at her. “One minute we was just aboout to give them lawyers a good legal seein’-to, next minute you and the Quin wuz gone!”



Dreams within dreams, Tiffany thought, holding her head. But they were over, and you couldn’t look at the Nac Mac Feegle and not know what was real.



“It’s over,” she said.



“Didja kill her?”



“No.”



“She’ll be back then,” said Rob Anybody. “She’s awfu’ stupid, that one. Clever with the dreaming, I’ll grant ye, but not a brain in her heid.”



Tiffany nodded. The blurred feeling was going. The moment of wide-awakeness was fading like a dream. But I must remember that it wasn’t a dream.



“How did you get away from the huge wave?” she asked.



“Ach, we’re fast movers,” said Rob Anybody. “An’ it was a strong lighthoose. O’ course, the water came up pretty high.”



“A few sharks were involved, that kind of thing,” said Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock.



“Oh, aye, a few sharkies,” said Rob Anybody, shrugging. “And one o’ them octopussies—”



“It was a giant squid,” said William the gonnagle.



“Aye, well, it was a kebab pretty quickly,” said Daft Wullie.



“Ha’ a heidful o’ heid, you wee weewee!” shouted Wentworth, overcome with wit.



William coughed politely. “And the big wave threw up a lot of sunken vessels full o’ trrrreasure,” he said. “We stopped off for a wee pillage.”



The Nac Mac Feegle held up wonderful jewels and big gold coins.



“But that’s just dream treasure, surely?” said Tiffany. “Fairy gold! It’ll turn into rubbish in the morning!”



“Aye?” said Rob Anybody. He glanced at the horizon. “Okay, ye heard the kelda, lads! We got mebbe half an hour to sell it to someone! Permission to go offski?” he added to Tiffany.



“Er…oh, yes. Fine. Thank you—”



They were gone, in a split-second blur of blue and red.



But William the gonnagle remained for a moment. He bowed to Tiffany.



“Ye didna do at all badly,” he said. “We’re proud o’ ye. So would yer grrranny be. Remember that. Ye are not unloved.”



Then he vanished too.



There was a groan from Roland, lying on the turf. He began to move.



“Weewee men all gone,” said Wentworth sadly in the silence that followed. “Crivens all gone.”



“What were they?” muttered Roland, sitting up and holding his head.



“It’s all a bit complicated,” said Tiffany. “Er…do you remember much?”



“It all seems like…a dream…” said Roland. “I remember…the sea, and we were running, and I cracked a nut which was full of those little men, and I was hunting in this huge forest with shadows—”



“Dreams can be very funny things,” said Tiffany carefully. She went to stand up and thought: I must wait here awhile. I don’t know why I know, I just know. Perhaps I knew and have forgotten. But I must wait for something.



“Can you walk down to the village?” she said.



“Oh, yes. I think so. But what did—?”



“Then will you take Wentworth with you, please? I’d like to…rest for a while.”



“Are you sure?” said Roland, looking concerned.



“Yes. I won’t be long. Please? You can drop him off at the farm. Tell my parents I’ll be down soon. Tell them I’m fine.”



“Weewee men,” said Wentworth. “Crivens! Want bed.”



Roland was still looking uncertain.



“Off you go!” Tiffany commanded, and waved him away.



When the two of the them had disappeared below the brow of the hill, with several backward glances, she sat between the four iron wheels and hugged her knees.



She could see, far off, the mound of the Nac Mac Feegle. Already they were a slightly puzzling memory, and she’d seen them only a few minutes ago. But when they’d gone, they’d left the impression of never having been there.



She could go to the mound and see if she could find the big hole. But supposing it wasn’t there? Or supposing it was, but all there was down there was rabbits?



No, it’s all true, she said to herself. I must remember that, too.



A buzzard screamed in the dawn grayness. She looked up as it circled into sunlight, and a tiny dot detached itself from the bird.



That was far too high up even for a pictsie to stand the fall.



Tiffany scrambled to her feet as Hamish tumbled through the sky. And then—something ballooned above him, and the fall became just a gentle floating, like thistledown.



The bulging shape above Hamish was Y-shaped. As it got bigger, the shape become more precise, more…familiar.



He landed, and a pair of Tiffany’s pants, the long-legged ones with the rosebud pattern, settled down on top of him.



“That was great!” he said, pushing his way through the folds of fabric. “Nae more landin’ on my heid for me!”



“They’re my best pants,” said Tiffany wearily. “You stole them off our clothesline, didn’t you?”



“Oh aye. Nice and clean,” said Hamish. “I had to cut the lace off ’cause it got in the way, but I put it aside and ye could easily sew it on again.” He gave Tiffany the big grin of someone who, for once, has not dived heavily into the ground.



She sighed. She’d liked the lace. She didn’t have many things that weren’t necessary. “I think you’d better keep them,” she said.



“Aye, I will, then,” said Hamish. “Noo, what wuz it? Oh, yes. Ye have visitors comin’. I spotted them out over the valley. Look up there.”



There were two other things up there, bigger than a buzzard, so high that they were already in full sunlight. Tiffany watched as they circled lower.



They were broomsticks.



I knew I had to wait! Tiffany thought.



Her ears bubbled. She turned and saw Hamish running across the grass. As she looked, the buzzard picked him up and sped onward. She wondered if he was frightened or, at least, didn’t want to meet whoever was coming



The broomsticks descended.



The lowest one had two figures on it. As it landed, Tiffany saw that one of them was Miss Tick, clinging anxiously to a smaller figure who’d been doing the steering. She half climbed off, half fell off, and tottered over to Tiffany.



“You wouldn’t believe the time I’ve had,” she said. “It was just a nightmare! We flew through the storm! Are you all right?”



“Er…yes…”



“What happened?”



Tiffany looked at her. How did you begin to answer something like that?



“The Queen’s gone,” she said. That seemed to cover it.



“What? The Queen has gone? Oh…er…these ladies are Mrs. Ogg—”



“Mornin’,” said the broomstick’s other occupant, who was pulling at her long black dress, from under the folds of which came the sounds of twanging elastic. “The wind up there blows where it likes, I don’t mind telling you!” She was a short fat lady with a cheerful face like an apple that had been stored too long; all the wrinkles moved into different positions when she smiled.



“And this,” said Miss Tick, “is Miss—”



“Mistress,” snapped the other witch.



“I’m so sorry, Mistress Weatherwax,” said Miss Tick. “Very, very good witches,” she whispered to Tiffany. “I was very lucky to find them. They respect witches up in the mountains.”



Tiffany was impressed that anyone could make Miss Tick flustered, but the other witch seemed to do it just by standing there. She was tall—except, Tiffany realized, she wasn’t that tall, but she stood tall, which could easily fool you if you weren’t paying attention—and like the other witch wore a rather shabby black dress. She had an elderly, thin face that gave nothing away. Piercing blue eyes looked Tiffany up and down, from head to toe.



“You’ve got good boots,” said the witch.



“Tell Mistress Weatherwax what happened,” Miss Tick began. But the witch held up a hand, and Miss Tick stopped talking immediately. Tiffany was even more impressed now.



Mistress Weatherwax gave Tiffany a look that went right through her head and about five miles out the other side. Then she walked over to the stones and waved one hand. It was an odd movement, a kind of wriggle in the air, but for a moment it left a glowing line. There was a noise, a chord, as though all sorts of sounds were happening at the same time. It snapped into silence.



“Jolly Sailor tobacco?” said the witch.



“Yes,” said Tiffany.



The witch waved a hand again. There was another sharp, complicated noise. Mistress Weatherwax turned suddenly and stared at the distant pimple that was the pictsie mound.



“Nac Mac Feegle? Kelda?” she demanded.



“Er, yes. Only temporary,” said Tiffany.



“Hmmph,” said Mistress Weatherwax.



Wave. Sound.



“Frying pan?”



“Yes. It got lost, though.”



“Hmm.”



Wave. Sound. It was as if the woman was extracting her history from the air.