“I told you it was a bit dry,” whispered Brother Number Two to Brother Number One. Brother Number One just scowled.
Once there was nothing left to eat, Snow White staggered from the table and flopped down in her chair by the fire, where she instantly fell asleep. David helped the dwarfs to clear the table and wash the dishes, then joined them in a corner where they all began smoking pipes. The tobacco reeked as if someone was burning old, damp socks. Brother Number One offered to share his pipe with David, but David very politely declined the offer.
“What do you mine?” he asked.
There was some coughing from a number of the dwarfs, and David noticed that none of them wanted to catch his eye. Only Brother Number One seemed willing to try to answer the question.
“Coal, sort of,” he said.
“Sort of?”
“Well, it’s a kind of coal. It’s stuff that used to be, sort of, in a way, coal.”
“It’s coalish,” said Brother Number Three helpfully.
David considered this. “Er, do you mean diamonds?”
Seven small figures instantly leaped on him. Brother Number One covered David’s mouth with a little hand and said, “Don’t say that word in here. Ever.”
David nodded. Once the dwarfs were sure that he understood the gravity of the situation, they climbed off him again.
“So you haven’t told Snow White about the, er,
“No,” said Brother Number One. “Never, um, quite got round to it.”
“Don’t you trust her?”
“Would you?” asked Brother Number Three. “Last winter, when food was hard to come by, Brother Number Four woke up to find her nibbling on his foot.”
Brother Number Four nodded solemnly to let David know that this was nothing less than the truth.
“Still have the marks,” he said.
“If she found out the mine was working, she’d take us for every gem we were worth,” continued Brother Number Three. “Then we’d be even more oppressed than we are already. And poorer.”
David looked around the cottage. It wasn’t very much to write home about. There were two rooms: the one in which they now sat, and a bedroom that Snow White had taken for her own. The dwarfs slept together in one bed in a corner beside the fire, three at one end and four at the other.
“If she wasn’t around, we could do the place up a bit,” said Brother Number One. “But if we start spending money on it then she’ll get suspicious, so we have to keep it the way it is. We can’t even buy another bed.”
“But aren’t there people nearby who know about the mine? Doesn’t anybody suspect?”
“Oh, we’ve always let people know that we make a little from mining,” said the dwarf. “Just enough to keep us going. It’s hard work, mining, and nobody wants to do it unless they’re sure of getting wealthy from it. As long as we keep our heads down and don’t go wild spending money on fancy clothes or gold chains—”
“Or beds,” said Brother Number Eight.
“Or beds,” agreed Brother Number One, “then everything will be fine. It’s just that none of us is getting any younger, and now it would be nice to take things a bit easier and perhaps treat ourselves to some luxuries.”
The dwarfs looked at Snow White snoring in her chair, and all of them sighed as one.
“Actually, we’re hoping to bribe someone to take her off our hands,” admitted Brother Number One at last.
“You mean, pay someone to marry her?” asked David.
“He’d have to be really desperate, of course, but we’d make it worth his while,” said Brother Number One. “Well, I’m not sure there are enough diamonds in the whole land to make living with her worthwhile, but we’d give him a pile to ease the burden. He could buy some really nice earplugs, and a really big bed.”
By now some of the dwarfs were nodding off. Brother Number One took a long stick and nervously approached Snow White.
“She doesn’t like being woken up,” he explained to David. “We find this is easiest for everyone.”
He poked at Snow White with the end of the stick. Nothing happened.
“I think you’ll have to do it harder,” said David.
This time, the dwarf hit Snow White a good, strong prod. It seemed to work, because she instantly grabbed the stick and gave it a sharp tug, almost flicking Brother Number One straight into the fireplace before he remembered to let go and landed in the coal scuttle instead.
“Unk,” said Snow White. “Arfle.”
She wiped some drool from her mouth, rose from her chair, and staggered to her bedroom. “Bacon in the morning,” she said. “Four eggs. And a sausage. No, make that eight sausages.”
With that, she slammed the door behind her, fell on her bed, and was immediately sound asleep.
David sat curled up in the chair by the fire. The house rumbled with the snoring of Snow White and the dwarfs, a complex arrangement of snorts, whistles, and dusty coughs. David thought of the Woodsman, and the trail of blood leading into the woods. He remembered Leroi, and the look in the Loup’s eyes. David knew that he could not afford to remain with the dwarfs for longer than one night. He had to keep moving. He had to make his way to the king.
He got up from his chair and walked to the window. He could see nothing outside, so thick and heavy was the darkness. He listened, but he could hear only the hooting of an owl. He had not forgotten what had brought him to this place, but his mother’s voice had not come to him again since he had entered the new world. Only if she called to him would he be able to find her.
“Mum,” he whispered. “If you’re out there, I need your help. I can’t find you if you don’t guide me.”
But there was no reply.
He went back to his chair and closed his eyes. He fell asleep and dreamed of his bedroom at home, and of his father and his new family, but they were not alone in the house. In his dream, the Crooked Man stalked the hallway until he came to Georgie’s bedroom, where he stood for a long time looking at the child before departing the house and returning to his own world.
XV. Of the Deer-Girl
SNOW WHITE was still snoring in her bed when David and the dwarfs departed the next morning, and the spirits of the little men seemed to lift significantly the farther behind they left her. They walked with him as far as the white road, then they all stood around rather awkwardly as everyone tried to find the best way to say good- bye.
“We can’t tell you where the mine is, obviously,” said Brother Number One.
“Obviously,” said David. “I quite understand.”
“Because it’s secret, like.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Don’t want every Tom, Dick, and Harry snooping around it.”
“That seems very sensible.”
Brother Number One tugged pensively at his ear.
“It’s just beyond the big hill on the right,” he said quickly. “There’s a trail that leads up to it. It’s well-hidden, mind, so you’ll need to keep watching out for it. It’s marked by an eye carved in a tree. At least, we think it’s carved. You never can tell with those trees. Just in case, you know, you ever need a little company.”
His face brightened. “Ha!” he said. “A ‘little company’! See what I did there? You know, a little company, like friends, and a little company, like a band of dwarfs. See?”
David did see, and laughed dutifully.
“Now remember,” said Brother Number One, “if you come across a prince or a young nobleman, in fact if you see anyone who looks desperate enough to marry a big woman for money, you send him to us, right? Make sure he waits on this road until we appear. We don’t want him making his own way to the cottage and, well, you
