The Wee Free Men

dromes. You’re certainly more imaginative. I have to thank you.’

‘What for?’ said Tiffany, looking at her boots. Terror clamped her body in red-hot wires. There wasn’t anywhere to run to.

‘I never realized how wonderful your world is,’ said the Queen. ‘I mean, the dromes… well, they’re not much more than a kind of walking sponge, really. Their world is ancient. It’s nearly dead. They’re not really creative any more. With a little help from me, your people could be a lot better. Because, you see, you dream all the time. You, especially, dream all the time. Your picture of the world is a landscape with you in the middle of it, isn’t it? Wonderful. Look at you, in that rather horrible dress and those clumpy boots. You dreamed you could invade my world with a frying pan. You had this dream about Brave Girl Rescuing Little Brother. You thought you were the heroine of a story. And then you left him behind. You know, I think being hit by a billion tons of sea water must be like having a mountain of iron drop on your head, don’t you?’

Tiffany couldn’t think. Her head was full of hot, pink fog. It hadn’t worked.

Her Third Thoughts were somewhere in the fog, trying to make themselves heard.

‘Got Roland out,’ she muttered, still staring at her boots.

‘But he’s not yours,’ said the Queen. ‘He is, let us face it, a rather stupid boy with a big red face and brains made of pork, just like his father. You left your little brother behind with a bunch of little thieves and you rescued a spoiled little fool.’

There was no time! shrieked the Third Thoughts. You wouldn’t have got to him and got back to the lighthouse! You nearly didn’t get away as it was! You got Roland out! It was the logical thing to do! You don’t have to be guilty about it! What’s better, to try to save your brother and be brave, courageous, stupid and dead, or save the boy and be brave, courageous, sensible and alive?

But something kept saying that stupid and dead would have been more… right.

Something kept saying: Would you say to Mum that you could see there wasn’t time to rescue your brother so you rescued someone else instead? Would she be pleased that you’d worked that out? Being right doesn’t always work.

It’s the Queen! yelled the Third Thoughts. It’s her voice! It’s like hypnotism! You’ve got to stop listening!

‘I expect it’s not your fault you’re so cold and heartless,’ said the Queen. ‘It’s probably all to do with your parents. They probably never gave you enough time. And having Wentworth was a very cruel thing to do, they really should have been more careful. And they let you read too many words. It can’t be good for a young brain, knowing words like paradigm and eschatological. It leads to behaviour such as using your own brother as monster bait.’ The Queen sighed. ‘Sadly, that kind of thing happens all the time. I think you should be proud of not being worse than just deeply introverted and socially maladjusted.’

She walked around Tiffany.

‘It’s so sad,’ she continued. ‘You dream that you are strong, sensible, logical… the kind of person who always has a bit of string. But that’s just your excuse for not being really, properly human. You’re just a brain, no heart at all. You didn’t even cry when Granny Aching died. You think too much, and now your precious thinking has let you down. Well, I think it’s best if I just kill you, don’t you?’

Find a stone! the Third Thoughts screamed. Hit her!

Tiffany was aware of other figures in the gloom. There were some of the people from the summer pictures, but there were also dromes and the headless horseman and the Bumble-Bee women.

Around her, frost crept over the ground.

‘I think we’ll like it here,’ said the Queen.

Tiffany felt the cold creeping up her legs. Her Third Thoughts, hoarse with effort, shouted: Do something!

She should have been better organized, she thought dully. She shouldn’t have relied on dreams. Or… perhaps I should have been a real human being. More… feeling. But I couldn’t help not crying! It just… wouldn’t come! And how can I stop thinking? And thinking about thinking? And even thinking about thinking about thinking?

She saw the smile in the Queen’s eyes, and thought: Which one of all those people doing all that thinking is me?

Is there really any me at all?

Clouds poured across the sky like a stain. They covered the stars. They were the inky clouds from the frozen world, the clouds of nightmare. It began to rain, rain with ice in it. It hit the turf like bullets, turning it into chalky mud. The wind howled like a pack of grimhounds.

Tiffany managed to take a step forward. The mud sucked at her boots.

‘A bit of spirit at last?’ said the Queen, stepping back.

Tiffany tried another step, but things were not working any more. She was too cold and too tired. She could feel her self disappearing, getting lost…

‘So sad, to end like this,’ said the Queen.

Tiffany fell forward, into the freezing mud.

The rain grew harder, stinging like needles, hammering on her head and running like icy tears down her cheeks. It struck so hard it left her breathless.

She felt the cold drawing all the heat out of her. And that was the only sensation left, apart from a musical note.

It sounded like the smell of snow, or the sparkle of frost. It was high and thin and drawn out.

She couldn’t feel the ground under her and there was nothing to see, not even the stars. The clouds had covered everything.

She was so cold she couldn’t feel the cold any more, or her fingers. A thought managed to trickle through her freezing mind. Is there any me at all? Or do my thoughts just dream of me?

The blackness grew deeper. Night was never as black as this, and winter never as cold. It was colder than the deep winters when the snow came down and Granny Aching would plod from snowdrift to snowdrift, looking for warm bodies. The sheep could survive the snow if the shepherd had some wits, Granny used to say. The snow kept the cold away, the sheep surviving in warm hollows under roofs of snow while a bitter wind blew harmlessly over them.

But this was as cold as those days when even the snow couldn’t fall, and the wind was pure cold itself, blowing ice crystals across the turf. Those were the killer days in early spring, when the lambing had begun and winter came howling down one more time…

There was darkness everywhere, bitter and starless.

There was a speck of light, a long way off.

One star. Low down. Moving…

It got bigger in the stormy night.

It zigzagged as it came.

Silence covered Tiffany, and drew her into itself.

The silence smelled of sheep, and turpentine, and tobaccco.

And then… came movement, as if she was falling through the ground, very fast.

And gentle warmth, and, just for a moment, the sound of waves.

And her own voice, inside her head.

This land is in my bones.

Land under wave.

Whiteness.

It tumbled through the warm, heavy darkness around her, something like snow but as fine as dust. It piled up somewhere below her, because she could see a faint whiteness.

A creature like an ice-cream cone with lots of tentacles shot past her and jetted away.

I’m underwater, thought Tiffany.