The Wee Free Men (23 page)

T
he Queen walked over the turf toward Tiffany. Where she’d trodden, frost gleamed for a moment. The little part of Tiffany that was still thinking thought: That grass will be dead in the morning. She’s killing
my
turf.

“The whole of life is but a dream, when you come to think of it,” said the Queen in the same infuriatingly calm, pleasant voice. She sat down on the fallen stones. “You humans are such dreamers. You dream that you’re clever. You dream that you’re important. You dream that you’re special. You know, you’re almost better than 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
anymore. 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 seawater 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 Tiffany’s 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 her 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 books. It can’t be good for a young brain, knowing words like
paradigm
and
eschatological
. It leads to behavior 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! her 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 Bumblebee 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 anymore. 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 anymore, 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 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 tobacco.

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.

I remember…

This is the million-year rain under the sea, this is the new land being born underneath an ocean. It’s not a dream. It’s…a memory. The land under wave. Millions and millions of tiny shells…

This land was
alive
.

All the time there was the warm, comforting smell of the shepherding hut, and the feeling of being held in invisible hands.

The whiteness below her rose up and over her head, but it didn’t seem uncomfortable. It was like being in a mist.

Now I’m inside the chalk, like a flint, like a calkin…

She wasn’t sure how long she spent in the warm deep water, or if indeed any time really had passed, or if the millions of years went past in a second, but she felt movement again, and a sense of rising.

More memories poured into her mind.

There’s always been someone watching the borders. They didn’t decide to. It was decided for them. Someone has to care. Sometimes they have to fight. Someone has to speak for that which has no voice….

She opened her eyes. She was still lying in the mud, and the Queen was laughing at her, and overhead the storm still raged.

But she felt warm. In fact, she felt hot, red-hot with anger…anger at the bruised turf, anger at her own stupidity, anger at this beautiful creature whose only talent was control.

This…creature was trying to take her
world.

All witches are selfish, the Queen had said. But Tiffany’s Third Thoughts said: Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf! My dreams! My brother! My
family! My land! My world! How dare you try to take these things, because
they are mine!

I have a duty!

The anger overflowed. She stood up, clenched her fists, and screamed at the storm, putting into the scream all the rage that was inside her.

Lightning struck the ground on either side of her. It did so twice.

And it stayed there, crackling, and two dogs formed.

Steam rose from their coats, and blue light sparked from their ears as they shook themselves. They looked attentively at Tiffany.

The Queen gasped and vanished.

“Come by, Lightning!” shouted Tiffany. “Away to me, Thunder!” And she remembered the time when she’d run across the downs, falling over, shouting all the wrong things, while the two dogs had done exactly what needed to be done.

Two streaks of black and white sped away across the turf and up toward the clouds.

They herded the storm.

Clouds panicked and scattered, but always there was a comet streaking across the sky and they were turned. Monstrous shapes writhed and screamed in the boiling sky, but Thunder and Lightning had worked many flocks; there was an occasional snap of lightning-sparked teeth, and a wail. Tiffany stared upward, rain pouring off her face, and shouted commands that no dog could possibly have heard.

Jostling and rumbling and screaming, the storm rolled off the hills and away toward the mountains, where there were deep canyons that could pen it.

Out of breath, glowing with triumph, Tiffany watched until the
dogs came back and settled, once again, on the turf. And then she remembered something else: It
didn’t
matter
what
orders she gave those dogs. They were not her dogs. They were working dogs.

Thunder and Lightning didn’t take orders from a little girl.

And the dogs weren’t looking at her.

They were looking just behind her.

She’d have turned if someone had told her a horrible monster was behind her. She’d have turned if they’d said it had a thousand teeth. She didn’t want to turn around now. Forcing herself was the hardest thing she’d ever done.

She was not afraid of what she might see. She was terribly, mortally frightened, afraid to the center of her bones of what she might not see. She shut her eyes while her cowardly boots shuffled her around and then, after a deep breath, she opened them again.

There was a gust of Jolly Sailor tobacco, and sheep, and turpentine.

Sparkling in the dark, light glittering off the white shepherdess dress and every blue ribbon and silver buckle of it, was Granny Aching, smiling hugely, radiant with pride. In one hand she held the huge ornamental crook, hung with blue bows.

She pirouetted slowly, and Tiffany saw that while she was a brilliant, sparkling shepherdess from hat to hem, she still had her huge old boots on.

Granny Aching took her pipe out of her mouth and gave Tiffany the little nod that was, from her, a round of applause. And then—she wasn’t.

Real starlit darkness covered the turf, and the nighttime sounds filled the air. Tiffany didn’t know if what had just happened was a dream or had happened somewhere that wasn’t quite
here
or had happened only in her head. It didn’t matter. It had
happened.
And now—

“But I’m still here,” said the Queen, stepping in front of her. “Perhaps it
was
all a dream. Perhaps you have gone a little mad, because you are after all a very strange child. Perhaps you had help. How good are
you?
Do you really think that
you
can face me alone? I can make you think whatever I please—”

“Crivens!”

“Oh no, not
them
,” said the Queen, throwing up her hands.