The Wee Free Men d(-2 Read online

  The snow was melting in a circle around William, whose cheeks were red with effort. Steam was rising.

  He took the pipe from his mouth. The grimhounds, struggling in the slush, raised their heads. And then, as one dog, they put their tails between their legs and ran like greyhounds back across the snow.

  ‘Weel, they ken we’re here noo,’ said Rob Anybody, wiping tears from his eyes.

  ‘Ot appened?’ said Tiffany, touching her teeth to check that they were all still there.

  ‘He played the notes o’ pain,’ Rob Anybody explained. ‘Ye cannae hear ‘em ‘cos they’re pitched so high, but the doggies can. Hurts ‘em in their heids. Now we’d better get movin’ before she sends somethin’ else.’

  ‘The Queen sent them? But they’re like something out of nightmares!’ said Tiffany.

  ‘‘Oh aye,’ said Rob Anybody. That’s where she got them.’

  Tiffany looked at William the gonnagle. He was calmly replacing the pipes. He saw her staring at him, looked up, and winked.

  The Nac Mac Feegle tak’ music verrrrrra’ seriously,’ he said. And then he nodded at the snow near Tiffany’s foot.

  There was a sugary yellow teddy bear in the snow, made of 100% Artificial Additives.

  And the snow, all round Tiffany, was melting away.

  Two pictsies carried Tiffany easily. She skimmed across the snow, the clan running beside her.

  No sun in the sky. Even on the dullest days, you could generally see where the sun was, but not here. And there was something else that was strange, something she couldn’t quite give a name to. This didn’t feel like a real place. She didn’t know why she felt that, but something was wrong with the horizon. It looked close enough to touch, which was silly.

  And things were not… finished. Like the trees in the forest they were heading towards, for example. A tree is a tree, she thought. Close up or far away, it’s a tree. It has bark and branches and roots. And you know they’re there, even if the tree is so far away that it’s a blob.

  The trees here, though, were different. She had a strong feeling that they were blobs, and were growing the roots and twigs and other details as she got closer, as if they were thinking, ‘Quick, someone’s coming! Look real!’

  It was like being in a painting where the artist hadn’t bothered much with the things in the distance, but had quickly rushed a bit of realness anywhere you were looking.

  The air was cold and dead, like the air in old cellars.

  The light grew dimmer as they reached the forest. In between the trees it became blue and eerie.

  No birds, she thought.

  ‘Stop,’ she said.

  The pictsies lowered her to the ground, but Rob Anybody said: ‘We shouldnae hang aroound here too long. Heids up, lads.’

  Tiffany lifted out the toad. It blinked at the snow.

  ‘Oh, shoap,’ it muttered. This is not good. I should be hibernating.’

  ‘Why is everything so… strange?’

  ‘Can’t help you there,’ said the toad. ‘I just see snow, I just see ice, I just see freezing to death. I’m listening to my inner toad here.’

  ‘It’s not that cold!’

  ‘Feels cold… to… me…’ The toad shut its eyes. Tiffany sighed, and lowered it into her pocket.

  ‘I’ll tell ye where ye are,’ said Rob Anybody, his eyes still scanning the blue shadows. ‘Ye ken them wee bitty bugs that clings onto the sheeps and suck themsel’ full o’ blood and then drop off again? This whole world is like one o’ them.’

  ‘You mean like a, a tick? A parasite? A vampire?’

  ‘Oh, aye. It floats aroound until it finds a place that’s weak on a world where no one’s payin’ attention, and opens a door. Then the Quin sends in her folk. For the stealin’, ye ken. Raidin’ o’ barns, rustlin’ of cattle—’

  ‘We use’ to like stealin’ the coo beasties,’ said Daft Wullie.

  ‘Wullie,’ said Rob Anybody, pointing his sword, ‘you ken I said there wuz times you should think before opening yer big fat gob?’

  ‘Aye, Rob.’

  ‘Weel, that wuz one o’ them times.’ Rob turned and looked up at Tiffany rather bashfully. ‘Aye, we wuz wild champion robbers for the Quin,’ he said. ‘People wouldnae e’en go a-huntin’ for fear o’ little men. But ‘twas ne’er enough for her. She always wanted more. But we said it’s no’ right to steal an ol’ lady’s only pig, or the food from them as dinnae ha’ enough to eat. A Feegle has nae worries about stealin’ a golden cup from a rich bigjob, ye ken, but takin’ awa’ the—’

  –cup an old man kept his false teeth in made them feel ashamed, they said. The Nac Mac Feegle would fight and steal, certainly, but who wanted to fight the weak and steal from the poor?

  Tiffany listened, at the end of the shadowy wood, to the story of a little world where nothing grew, where no sun shone, and where everything had to come from somewhere else. It was a world that took, and gave nothing back except fear. It raided—and people learned to stay in bed when they heard strange noises at night, because if anyone gave her trouble, the Queen could control their dreams.

  Tiffany couldn’t quite pick up how she did this, but that’s where things like the grimhounds and the headless horseman came from. These dreams were… more real. The Queen could take dreams and make them more… solid. You could step inside them and vanish. And you didn’t wake up before the monsters caught up with you…

  The Queen’s people wouldn’t just take food. They’d take people, too—

  ‘—like pipers,’ said William the gonnagle. ‘Fairies can’t make music, ye ken. She’ll steal a man awa’ for the music he makes.’

  ‘And she takes children,’ said Tiffany. ‘Aye. Your wee brother’s not the first,’ said Rob Anybody. There’s no’ a lot of fun and laughter here, ye ken. She thinks she’s good wi’ children.’

  ‘The old kelda said she wouldn’t harm him,’ said Tiffany. That’s true, isn’t it?’

  You could read the Nac Mac Feegle like a book. And it would be a big, simple book with pictures of Spot the Dog and a Big Red Ball and one or two short sentences on each page. What they were thinking turned up right there on their faces and, now, they were all wearing a look that said: Crivens, I hope she disnae ask us the question we dinnae wantae answer…

  ‘That is true, isn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘Oh, aye,’ said Rob Anybody, slowly. ‘She didnae lie to ye there. The Quin’ll try to be kind to him, but she disnae know how. She’s an elf. They’re no’ very good at thinking of other people.’

  ‘What will happen to him if we don’t get him back?’

  Again, there was that ‘we dinnae like the way this is going’ look.

  ‘I said–’ Tiffany repeated.

  ‘I darrresay she’ll send him back, in due time,’ said William. ‘An’ he willnae be any olderr. Nothing grows old here. Nothing grows. Nothing at all.’

  ‘So he’ll be all right?’

  Rob Anybody made a noise in his throat. It sounded like a voice that was trying to say ‘aye’ but was being argued with by a brain that knew the answer was ‘no’.

  ‘Tell me what you’re not telling me,’ said Tiffany.

  Daft Wullie was the first to speak. ‘That’s a lot o’ stuff,’ he said. ‘For example, the meltin’ point o’ lead is—’

  ‘Time passes slower the deeper you go intae this place,’ said Rob Anybody quickly. ‘Years pass like days. The Quin’ll get tired o’ the wee lad after a coupla months, mebbe. A coupla months here, ye ken, where the time is slow an’ heavy. But when he comes back into the mortal world, you’ll be an old lady, or mebbe you’ll be deid. So if youse has bairns o’ yer own, you’d better tell them to watch out for a wee sticky kid wanderin’ the hills shoutin’ for sweeties, ‘cos that’ll be their Uncle Wentworth. That wouldna be the worst o’ it, neither. Live in dreams for too long and ye go mad, ye can never wake up prop’ly, ye can never get the hang o’ reality again.’

  Tiffany stared at him.


  ‘It’s happened before,’ said William.

  ‘I will get him back,’ said Tiffany quietly.

  ‘We doon’t doubt it,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘An’ wheree’er ye go, we’ll come with ye. The Nac Mac Feegle are afeared o’ nothing!’

  A cheer went up, but it seemed to Tiffany that the blue shadows sucked all the sound away.

  ‘Aye, nothin’ exceptin’ lawyers mmph mmph,’ Daft Wullie tried to say, before Rob managed to shut him up.

  Tiffany turned back to the line of hoofprints, and began to walk.

  The snow squeaked unpleasantly underfoot.

  She went a little way, watching the trees get realer as she approached them, and then looked around.

  All the Nac Mac Feegles were creeping along behind her. Rob Anybody gave her a cheery nod. And all her footprints had become holes in the snow, with grass showing through.

  The trees began to annoy her. The way things changed was more frightening than any monster. You could hit a monster, but you couldn’t hit a forest. And she wanted to hit something.

  She stopped and scraped some snow away from the base of a tree and, just for a moment, there was nothing but greyness where it had been. As she watched, the bark grew down to where the snow was. Then it just stayed there, pretending it had been there all the time.

  It was a lot more worrying than the grimhounds. They were just monsters. They could be beaten. This was… frightening…

  She was second thinking again. She felt the fear grow, she felt her stomach become a red-hot lump, she felt her elbows begin to sweat. But it was… not connected. She watched herself being frightened, and that meant that there was still this part of herself, the watching part, that wasn’t.

  The trouble was, it was being carried on legs that were. It had to be very careful.

  And that was where it went wrong. Fear gripped her, all at once. She was in a strange world, with monsters, being followed by hundreds of little blue thieves. And… Black dogs. Headless horsemen. Monsters in the river. Sheep whizzing backwards across fields. Voices under the bed…

  The terror took her. But, because she was Tiffany, she ran towards it, raising the pan. She had to get through the forest, find the Queen, get her brother, leave this place!

  Somewhere behind her, voices started to shout—

  She woke up.

  There was no snow, but there was the whiteness of the bedsheet and the plaster ceiling of her bedroom. She stared at it for a while, then leaned down and peered under the bed.

  There was nothing there but the guzunder. When she flung open the door of the doll’s house, there was no one inside but the two toy soldiers and the teddy bear and the headless dolly.

  The walls were solid. The floor creaked like it always did. Her slippers were the same as they always were: old, comfortable and with all the pink fluff worn off.

  She stood in the middle of the floor and said, very quietly, ‘Is there anybody there?’

  Sheep baa’d on the distant hillside, but they probably hadn’t heard her.

  The door squeaked open and the cat Ratbag came in. He rubbed up against her legs, purring like a distant thunderstorm, and then went and curled up on her bed.

  Tiffany got dressed thoughtfully, daring the room to do something strange.

  When she got downstairs, breakfast was cooking. Her mother was busy at the sink.

  Tiffany darted out through the scullery and into the dairy. She scrambled on hands and knees around the floor, peering under the sink and behind cupboards.

  ‘You can come out now, honestly,’ she said.

  No one came. She was alone in the room. She’d often been alone in the room, and had enjoyed it. It was almost her private territory. But now, somehow, it was too empty, too clean…

  When she wandered back into the kitchen her mother was still standing by the sink, washing dishes, but a plate of steaming porridge had been put down in the one set place on the table.

  I’ll make some more butter today,’ said Tiffany carefully, sitting down. ‘I might as well while we’re getting all this milk.’

  Her mother nodded, and put a plate on the draining board beside the sink.

  ‘I haven’t done anything wrong, have I?’ said Tiffany.

  Her mother shook her head.

  Tiffany sighed. ‘And then she woke up and it was all a dream.’ It was just about the worst ending you could have to any story. But it had all seemed so real. She could remember the smoky smell in the pictsies’ cave, and the way… who was it?… oh, yes, he’d been called Rob Anybody… the way Rob Anybody had always been so nervous about talking to her.

  It was strange, she thought, that Ratbag had rubbed up against her. He’d sleep on her bed if he could get away with it, but during the day he kept well out of Tiffany’s way. How odd…

  There was a rattling noise near the mantelpiece. The china shepherdess on Granny’s shelf was moving sideways of its own accord and, as Tiffany watched with her porridge spoon halfway to her mouth, it slid off and smashed on the floor.

  The rattling went on. Now it was coming from the big oven. She should see the door actually shaking on the hinges.

  She turned to her mother, and saw her put another plate down by the sink. But it wasn’t being held in a hand…

  The oven door burst open and slid across the floor.

  ‘Dinnae eat the porridge!’

  Nac Mac Feegles spilled out into the room, hundreds of them, pouring across the tiles.

  The walls were shifting. The floor moved. And now the thing turning round at the sink was not even human but just… stuff, no more human than a gingerbread man, grey as old dough, changing shape as it lumbered towards Tiffany.

  The pictsies surged past her in a flurry of snow.

  She looked up at the thing’s tiny black eyes.

  The scream came from somewhere deep inside. There was no Second Thought, no first thought, just a scream. It seemed to spread out as it left Tiffany’s mouth until it became a black tunnel in front of her, and as she fell into it she heard, in the commotion behind her:

  ‘Who d’yer think ye’re lookin’ at, pal? Crivens, but ye’re gonna get sich a kickin’!’

  Tiffany opened her eyes.

  She was lying on damp ground in the snowy, gloomy wood. Pictsies were watching her carefully but, she saw, there were others behind them staring outwards, into the gloom amongst the tree trunks.

  There was… stuff in the trees. Lumps of stuff. It was grey, and hung there like old cloth.

  She turned her head and saw William standing beside her, looking at her with concern.

  ‘That was a dream, wasn’t it…?’ she said.

  ‘Weel noo,’ said William, ‘it was, and therrre again, it wasnae…’

  Tiffany sat up suddenly, causing the pictsies to leap back.

  ‘But that… thing was in it, and then you all came out of the oven!’ she said. ‘You were in my dream! What is—was that creature?’

  William the gonnagle stared at her as if trying to make up his mind.

  ‘That was what we call a drome,’ he said. ‘Nothing here really belongs here, remember? Everything is a reflection from outside, or something kidnapped from another worrrld, or mebbe something the Quin has made outa magic. It was hidin’ in the trees, and ye was goin’ so fast ye didnae see it. Ye ken spiders?’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘Well, spiders spin webs. Dromes spin dreams. It’s easy in this place. The world you come from is nearly real. This place is nearly unreal, so it’s almost a dream anywa’. And the drome makes a dream for ye, wi’ a trap in it. If ye eats anythin’ in the dream, ye’ll never wanta’ leave it.’

  He looked as though Tiffany should have been impressed.

  ‘What’s in it for the drome?’ she asked.

  ‘It likes watchin’ dreams. It has fun watching ye ha’ fun. An’ it’ll watch ye eatin’ dream food, until ye starve to death. Then the drome’ll eat ye. Not right away, o’ course. It’ll wait until ye’ve gone a we
e bit runny, because it hasnae teeth.’

  ‘So how can anyone get out?’

  The best way is to find the drome,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘It’ll be in the dream with you, in disguise. Then ye just gives it a good kickin’.’

  ‘By kicking you mean—?’

  ‘Choppin’ its heid off generally works.’

  Now, Tiffany thought, I am impressed. I wish I wasn’t. ‘And this is Fairyland?’ she said.

  ‘Aye. Ye could say it’s the bit the tourists dinnae see,’ said William. ‘An’ ye did well. Ye were fightin’ it. Ye knew it wasnae right.’

  Tiffany remembered the friendly cat, and the falling shepherdess. She’d been trying to send messages to herself. She should have listened.

  ‘Thank you for coming after me,’ she said, meekly. ‘How did you do it?’

  ‘Ach, we can generally find a way intae anywhere, even a dream,’ said William, smiling. ‘We’re a stealin’ folk, after all.’ A piece of the drome fell out of the tree and flopped onto the snow.

  ‘One of them won’t get me again!’ said Tiffany.

  ‘Aye. I believe you. Ye have murrrder in yer eyes,’ said William, with a touch of admiration. ‘If I was a drome I’d be pretty fearful noo, if I had a brain. There’ll be more of them, mark you, and some of ‘em are cunning. The Quin uses ‘em as guards.’

  ‘I won’t be fooled!’ Tiffany remembered the horror of the moment when the thing had lumbered around changing shape. It was worse because it was in her house, her place. She’d felt real terror as the big shapeless thing crashed across the kitchen, but the anger had been there too. It was invading her place.

  The thing wasn’t just trying to kill her, it was insulting her…

  William was watching her.

  ‘Aye, ye’re lookin’ mighty fierce,’ he said. ‘Ye must love your wee brother to face a’ these monsters for him…’

  And Tiffany couldn’t stop her thoughts. I don’t love him. I know I don’t. He’s just so… sticky, and can’t keep up, and I have to spend too much time looking after him, and he’s always screaming for things. I can’t talk to him. He just wants all the time.