Wintersmith

"I dinna see why we canna just talk tae the ol' hag. We get along fine wi' hags."



"Mebbe, but this one is a terrrrrible piece o' work. They say she's got a fearsome demon in her tattie cellar." Miss Treason looked puzzled. "Them?" she whispered to herself. The voices were coming from beneath the floor. She sent the mouse scurrying across the boards and into a hole. "I dinna want to disappoint ye, but we's in a cellar right here, and it's full o' tatties." After a while a voice said: "So where izzit?"



"Mebbe it's got the day off?"



"What's a demon need a day off for?"



"Tae gae an' see its ol' mam an' dad, mebbe?"



"Oh, aye? Demons have mams, do they?"



"Crivens! Will ye lot stop arguin'! She might hear us!"



"Nae, she's blind as a bat and deaf as a post, they say." Mice have very good hearing. Miss Treason smiled as the hurrying mouse came out in the rough old stone wall of the cellar, near the floor. She looked through its eyes. It could see quite well in the gloom, too. A small group of little men was creeping across the floor. Their skins were blue and covered with tattoos and dirt. They all wore very grubby kilts, and each one had a sword, as big as he was, strapped to his back. And they all had red hair, a real orange-red, with scruffy pigtails. One of them wore a rabbit skull as a helmet. It would have been more scary if it hadn't kept sliding over his eyes. In the room above, Miss Treason smiled again. So they'd heard of Miss Treason? But they hadn't heard enough. As the four little men squirmed through an old rat hole to get out of the cellar, they were watched by two more mice, three different beetles, and a moth. They tiptoed carefully across the floor, past an old witch who was clearly asleep—right up until she banged on the arms of her chair and bellowed: "Jings! I see you there, ye wee schemies!" The Feegles reacted in instant panic, colliding with one another in shock and awe. "I dinna remember tellin' ye tae move!" shouted Miss Treason, grinning horribly. "Oh, waily, waily, waily! She's got the knowin' o' the speakin'!" someone sobbed. "Ye're Nac Mac Feegles, right? But I dinna ken the clan markin's. Calm doon, I ain't gonna deep-fry ye. You! What's your name?"



"Ah'm Rob Anybody, Big Man o' the Chalk Hill clan," said the one with the rabbit-skull helmet. "And —"



"Aye? Big Man, are ye? Then ye'll do me the courtesy an' tak' off yon bony bonnet ere ye speak tae me!" said Miss Treason, enjoying herself no end. "An' stannit up straight! I will have nae slouchin' in this hoose!" Instantly all four Feegles stood to rigid attention. "Right!" said Miss Treason. "An' who are the rest o' yez?"



"This is my brother Daft Wullie, miss," said Rob Anybody, shaking the shoulder of the Feegle who was an instant wailer. He was staring in horror at Enochi and Athootita. "An' the other two of you…I mean, twa' o' ye?" said Miss Treason. "You, there. I mean ye. Ye have the mousepipes. Are ye a gonnagle?"



"Aye, mistress," said a Feegle who looked neater and cleaner than the others, although it had to be said that there were things living under old logs that were cleaner and neater than Daft Wullie. "And your name is…?"



"Awf'ly Wee Billy Bigchin, mistress."



"You're staring hard at me, Awf'ly Wee Billy Bigchin," said Miss Treason. "Are ye afraid?"



"No, mistress. I wuz admirin' ye. It does my heart good tae see a witch so…witchy."



"It does, does it?" said Miss Treason suspiciously. "Are ye sure ye're no' afraid o' me, Mr. Billy Bigchin?"



"No, mistress. But I will be if it makes ye happy," said Billy carefully. "Hah!" said Miss Treason. "Well, I see we have—hae a clever one here. Who is your big friend, Mr. Billy?" Billy elbowed Big Yan in the ribs. Despite his size, which for a Feegle was huge, he was looking very nervous. Like a lot of people with big muscles, he got edgy about people who were strong in other ways. "He's Big Yan, mistress," Billy Bigchin supplied, while Big Yan stared at his feet. "I see he's got a necklace o' big teeth," said Miss Treason. "Human teeth?"



"Aye, mistress. Four, mistress. One for every man he's knocked out."



"Are you talking about human men?" asked Miss Treason in astonishment. "Aye, mistress," said Billy. "Mostly he drops on 'em heidfirst oot o' a tree. He has a verra tough heid," he added, in case this wasn't clear. Miss Treason sat back. "And now you will kindly explain why ye were creepin' aboot here in my hoose," she said. "Come along, now!" There was a tiny, tiny pause before Rob Anybody said happily, "Oh, weel, that's easy. We wuz huntin' the haggis."



"No, you weren't," said Miss Treason sharply, "because a haggis is a pudding of sheep's offal and meat, well spiced and cooked in a sheep's stomach."



"Ah, that is only when ye canna find the real thing, mistress," said Rob Anybody carefully. "'Tis no' a patch on the real thing. Oh, a canny beast is the haggis, which makes its burrows in tattie cellars…."



"And that's the truth? You were hunting the haggis? Is it, Daft Wullie?" said Miss Treason, her voice suddenly sharp. All eyes, including a pair belonging to an earwig, turned to the luckless Wullie. "Er…aye…oooh…aarg…waily, waily, waily!" moaned Daft Wullie, and dropped to his knees. "Please dinna do somethin' horrible tae me, mistress!" he begged. "Yon earwiggy is givin' me a dreadful look!"



"Very well, we shall start again," said Miss Treason. She reached up and tore off her blindfold. The Feegles stepped back as she touched the skulls on either side of her. "I do not need eyes to smell a lie when it comes calling," she said. "Tell me why you are here. Tell me… again." Rob Anybody hesitated for a moment. This was, in the circumstances, very brave of him. Then he said: "'Tis aboot the big wee hag, mistress, we came."



"The big wee—Oh, you mean Tiffany?"



"Aye!"



"We is under one o' them big birds," said Daft Wullie, keeping his eyes averted from the witch's blind stare. "He means a geas, mistress," said Rob Anybody, glaring at his brother. "It's like a—"



"—a tremendous obligation that you cannot disobey," said Miss Treason. "I ken what a geas is. But why?" Miss Treason had heard a lot of things in 113 years, but now she listened in astonishment to a story about a human girl who had, for a few days at least, been the kelda of a clan of Nac Mac Feegles. And if you were their kelda, even for a few days, they'd watch over you…forever. "An' she's the hag o' our hills," said Billy Bigchin. "She cares for them, keeps them safe. But…" He hesitated, and Rob Anybody continued: "Our kelda is havin' dreams. Dreams o' the future. Dreams o' the hills all froze an' everyone deid an' the big wee hag wearin' a crown o' ice!"



"My goodness!"



"Aye, an' there wuz more!" said Billy, throwing out his arms. "She saw a green tree growin' in a land o' ice! She saw a ring o' iron! She saw a man with a nail in his heart! She saw a plague o' chickens an' a cheese that walks like a man!" There was silence, and then Miss Treason said: "The first two, the tree and the ring, no problem there, good occult symbolism. The nail, too, very metaphorical. I'm a bit doubtful about the cheese—could she mean Horace?—and the chickens…I'm not sure you can have a plague of chickens, can you?"



"Jeannie wuz verra firm about them," said Rob Anybody. "She's dreamed many strange and worryin' things, so we thought we might just see how the big wee hag wuz gettin' along." Miss Treason's various eyes stared at him. Rob Anybody stared back with an expression of ferocious honesty, and did not flinch. "This seems an honorable enterprise," she said. "Why start by lying?"



"Oh, the lie wuz goin' tae be a lot more interestin'," said Rob Anybody. "The truth of the matter seems quite interesting to me," said Miss Treason. "Mebbe, but I wuz plannin' on puttin' in giants an' pirates an' magic weasels," Rob declared. "Real value for the money!"



"Oh well," said Miss Treason. "When Miss Tick brought Tiffany to me, she did say she was guarded by strange powers."



"Aye," said Rob Anybody proudly. "That'd be us, right enough."



"But Miss Tick is a rather bossy woman," said Miss Treason. "I am sorry to say I didn't listen much to what she said. She is always telling me that these girls are really keen to learn, but mostly they are just flibbertigibbets who want to be a witch to impress the young men, and they run away after a few days. This one doesn't, oh no! She runs toward things! Did you know she tried to dance with the Wintersmith?!"



"Aye. We ken. We were there," said Rob Anybody. "You were?"



"Aye. We followed yez."



"No one saw you there. I would have known if they did," Miss Treason said. "Aye? Weel, we're good at no one seein' us," said Rob Anybody, smiling. "It's amazin', the people who dinna see us."



"She actually tried to dance with the Wintersmith," Miss Treason repeated. "I told her not to."



"Ach, people're always tellin' us not tae do things," said Rob Anybody. "That's how we ken what's the most interestin' things tae do!" Miss Treason stared at him with the eyes of one mouse, two ravens, several moths, and an earwig. "Indeed," she said, and sighed. "Yes. The trouble with being this old, you know, is that being young is so far away from me now that it seems sometimes that it happened to someone else. A long life is not what it's cracked up to be, that is a fact. It—"



"The Wintersmith is seekin' for the big wee hag, mistress," said Rob Anybody. "We saw her dancin' wi' the Wintersmith. Now he is seekin' her. We can hear him in the howl o' the wind."



"I know," said Miss Treason. She stopped, and listened for a moment. "The wind has dropped," she stated. "He's found her." She snatched up her walking sticks and scuttled toward the stairs, going up them with amazing speed. Feegles swarmed past her into the bedroom, where Tiffany lay on a narrow bed. A candle burned in a saucer at each corner of the room. "But how has he found her?" Miss Treason demanded. "I had her hidden! You, blue men, fetch wood now!" She glared at them. "I said fetch—" She heard a couple of thumps. Dust was settling. The Feegles were watching Miss Treason expectantly. And sticks, a lot of sticks, were piled in the tiny bedroom fireplace. "Ye did well," she said. "An' not tae soon!" Snowflakes were drifting down the chimney. Miss Treason crossed her walking sticks in front of her and stamped her foot hard. "Wood burn, fire blaze!" she shouted. The wood in the grate burst into flame. But now frost was forming on the window, ferny white tendrils snapping across the glass with a crackling sound. "I am not putting up with this at my age!" said the witch. Tiffany opened her eyes, and said: "What's happening?"



CHAPTER THREE



The Secret of Boffo I t is not good, being in a sandwich of bewildered dancers. They were heavy men. Tiffany was Aching all over. She was covered in bruises, including one the shape of a boot that she wasn't going to show to anyone. Feegles filled every flat surface in Miss Treason's weaving room. She was working at her loom with her back to the room because, she said, this helped her think; but since she was Miss Treason, her position didn't matter much. There were plenty of eyes and ears she could use, after all. The fire burned hot, and there were candles everywhere. Black ones, of course. Tiffany was angry. Miss Treason hadn't shouted, hadn't even raised her voice. She'd just sighed and said "foolish child," which was a whole lot worse, mostly because that's just what Tiffany knew she'd been. One of the dancers had helped bring her back to the cottage. She couldn't remember anything about that at all. A witch didn't do things because they seemed a good idea at the time! That was practically cackling! You had to deal every day with people who were foolish and lazy and untruthful and downright unpleasant, and you could certainly end up thinking that the world would be considerably improved if you gave them a slap. But you didn't because, as Miss Tick had once explained: a) it would make the world a better place for only a very short time; b) it would then make the world a slightly worse place; and c) you're not supposed to be as stupid as they are. Her feet had moved, and she'd listened to them. She ought to have been listening to her head. Now she had to sit by Miss Treason's fire with a tin hot-water bottle on her lap and a shawl around her. "So the Wintersmith is a kind of god?" she said. "That kind o' thing, yes," said Billy Bigchin. "But not the prayin'-to kinda god. He just…makes winters. It's his job, ye ken."