The Wee Free Men

gave it no space. ‘Where’s the frying pan? Thank you! Let’s go!’

She set off through the strange trees. The hoof-prints almost glowed in the gloom. Here and there other tracks crossed them, tracks that could have been birds’ feet, rough round footprints that could have been made by anything, squiggly lines that a snake might make, if there were such things as snow snakes.

The pictsies were running in line with her on either side.

Even with the edge of the fury dying away, it was hard looking at things here without her head aching. Things that seemed far off got closer too quickly, trees changed shape as she passed them…

Almost unreal, William had said. Nearly a dream. The world didn’t have enough reality in it for distances and shapes to work probably. Once again the magic artist was painting madly. If she looked hard at a tree it changed, and became more tree-like and less like something drawn by Wentworth with his eyes shut.

This is a made-up world, Tiffany thought. Almost like a story. The trees don’t have to be very detailed because who looks at trees in a story?

She stopped in a small clearing, and stared hard at a tree. It seemed to know it was being watched. It became more real. The bark roughened, and proper twigs grew on the end of the branches.

The snow was melting around her feet, too. Although ‘melting’ was the wrong word. It was just disappearing, leaving leaves and grass.

If I was a world that didn’t have enough reality to go around, Tiffany thought, then snow would be quite handy. It doesn’t take a lot of effort. It’s just white stuff. Everything looks white and simple. But I can make it complicated. I’m more real than this place.

She heard a buzzing overhead, and looked up.

And suddenly the air was filling with small people, smaller than a Feegle, with wings like dragonflies. There was a golden glow around them. Tiffany, entranced, reached out a hand—

At the same moment what felt like the entire clan of Nac Mac Feegle landed on her back and sent her sliding into a snowdrift.

When she struggled out, the clearing was a battlefield. The pictsies were jumping and slashing at the flying creatures which were buzzing around them like wasps. As she stared two of them dived onto Rob Anybody and lifted him off his feet by his hair.

He rose in the air, yelling and struggling. Tiffany leaped up and grabbed him around the waist, flailing at the creatures with her other hand. They let go of the pictsie and dodged easily, zipping through the air as fast as hummingbirds. One of them bit her on the finger before buzzing away.

Somewhere a voice went: ‘Ooooooooooooo-eeerrrrrr…’

Rob struggled in Tiffany’s grip. ‘Quick, put me doon!’ he yelled. ‘There’s gonna be poetry!’

Chapter 9 Lost Boys

The moan rolled around the clearing, as mournful as a month of Mondays.

‘…rrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaoooooooo…’

It sounded like some animal in terrible pain. But it was, in fact, Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but- bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock, who was standing on a snowdrift with one hand pressed to his heart and the other outstretched, very theatrically.

He was rolling his eyes, too.

‘…oooooooooooooooooooooo…’

‘Ach, the muse is a terrible thing to have happen to ye,’ said Rob Anybody, putting his hands over his ears.

‘…oooooiiiiiit is with grreat lamentation and much worrying dismay,’ the pictsie groaned, ‘that we rrregard the doleful prospect of Fairyland in considerrrable decay.’

In the air, the flying creatures stopped attacking and began to panic. Some of them flew into one another.

‘With quite a large number of drrrrrrreadful incidents happening everrry day,’ Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized- Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock recited. ‘Including, I am sorrrry to say, an aerial attack by the otherwise quite attractive fey…’

The flyers screeched. Some crashed into the snow, but the ones still capable of flight swarmed off amongst the trees.

‘Witnessed by all of us at this time, And celebrated in this hasty rhyme!’ Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized- Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock shouted after them.

And they were gone.

Feegles were picking themselves up off the ground. Some were bleeding’ where the fairies had bitten them. Several were lying curled up and groaning.

Tiffany looked at her own finger. The bite of the fairy had left two tiny holes.

‘It isnae too bad,’ Rob Anybody shouted up from below. ‘No one taken by them, just a few cases where the lads didnae put their hands o’er their ears in time.’

‘Are they all right?’

‘Oh, they’ll be fine wi’ counsellin’.’

On the mound of snow, William clapped Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock on the shoulder in a friendly way.

‘That, lad,’ he said proudly, ‘was some of the worst poetry I have heard for a long time. It was offensive to the ear and a torrrture to the soul. The last couple of lines need some work but ye has the groanin’ off fiiine. A in a’, a verrry commendable effort! We’ll make a gonnagle out of ye’ yet!’

Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock blushed happily.

In Fairyland words really have power, Tiffany thought. And I am more real. I’ll remember that.

The pictsies assembled into battle order again, although it was pretty disorderly, and set off. Tiffany didn’t rush too far ahead this time.

‘That’s yer little people wi’ wings,’ said Rob, as Tiffany sucked at her finger. ‘Are ye happier now?’

‘Why were they trying to carry you away?’

‘Ach, they carries their victims off to their nest, where their young ones—’

‘Stop!’ said Tiffany. This is going to be horrible, right?’

‘Oh, aye. Gruesome,’ said Rob, grinning.

‘And you used to live here?’

‘Ah, but it wasnae so bad then. It wasnae perfect, mark you, but the Quin wasnae as cold in them days. The King was still aroound. She was always happy then.’

‘What happened? Did the King die?’

‘No. They had words, if ye tak’ my meanin’,’ said Rob.

‘Oh, you mean like an argument—’

‘A bit, mebbe,’ said Rob. ‘But they was magical words. Forests destroyed, mountains explodin’, a few hundred deaths, that kind of thing. And he went off to his own world. Fairyland was never a picnic, ye ken, even in the old days. But it was fine if you kept alert, an’ there was flowers and burdies and summertime. Now there’s the dromes and the hounds and the stinging fey and such stuff creepin’ in from their own worlds, and the whole place has gone doon the lawy.’

Things taken from their own worlds, thought Tiffany, as she tramped through the snow. Worlds all squashed together like peas in a sack, or hidden inside one another like bubbles inside other bubbles.

She had a picture in her head of things creeping out of their own world and into another, in the same way that mice invaded the larder. Only, there were worse things than mice.

What would a drome do if it got into our world? You’d never know it was there. It’d sit in the corner and you’d never see it, because it wouldn’t let you. And it’d change the way you saw the world, give you nightmares, make you want to die…