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 wee 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.
But her Second Thinking said: He’s mine. My place, my home, my brother! How dare anything touch what’s mine!
She’d been brought up not to be selfish. She knew she wasn’t, not in the way people meant. She tried to think of other people. She never took the last slice of bread. This was a different feeling.
She wasn’t being brave or noble or kind. She was doing this because it had to be done, because there was no way that she could not do it. She thought of:
. . . Granny Aching’s light, weaving slowly across the downs, on freezing, sparkly nights or in storms like a raging war, saving lambs from the creeping frost or rams from the precipice. She froze and struggled and tramped through the night for idiot sheep that never said thank you and would probably be just as stupid tomorrow, and get into the same trouble again. And she did it because not doing it was unthinkable.
There had been the time when they met the pedlar and the donkey in the lane. It was a small donkey and could hardly be seen under the pack he‘d piled on it. And he was thrashing it because it had fallen over.
Tiffany had cried to see that, and Granny had looked at her and then said something to Thunder and Lightning. . .
The pedlar had stopped when he heard the growling. The sheepdogs had taken up position on either side of the man, so that he couldn’t quite see them both at once. He raised his stick as if to hit Lightning, and Thunder’s growl grew louder.
‘I’d advise ye not to do that,’ said Granny.
He wasn’t a stupid man. The eyes of the dogs were like steel balls. He lowered his arm.
‘Now throw down the stick,’ said Granny. The man did so, dropping it into the dust as though it had suddenly grown red-hot.
Granny Aching walked forward and picked it up. Tiffany remembered that it was a willow twig, long and whippy.
Suddenly, so fast that her hand was a blur, Granny sliced it across the man’s face twice, leaving two long red marks. He began to move and some desperate thought must have saved him, because now the dogs were almost frantic for the command to leap.
‘Hurts, don’t it,’ said Granny, pleasantly. ‘Now, I knows who you are, and I reckon you knows who I am. You sell pots and pans and they ain’t bad, as I recall But if I put out the word you’ll have no business in my hills. Be told. Better to feed your beast than whip it. You hear me?’
With his eyes shut and his hands shaking, the man nodded.
‘That’ll do,’ said Granny Aching, and instantly the dogs became, once more, two ordinary sheepdogs, who came and sat either side of her with their tongues hanging out.
Tiffany watched the man unpack some of the load and strap it to his own back and then, with great care, urge the donkey on along the road. Granny watched him go while filling her pipe with Jolly Sailor. Then, as she lit it, she said, as if the thought had just occurred to her:
‘Them as can do, has to do for them as can’t. And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices.’
Tiffany thought: Is this what being a witch is? It wasn’t what I expected! When do the good bits happen?
She stood up. ‘Let’s keep going,’ she said.
‘Aren’t ye tired?’ said Rob.
‘We’re going to keep going!’
‘Aye? Weel, she’s probably headed for her place beyond the wood. If we dinnae carry ye, it’ll tak’ aboout a coupla hours—’
‘I’ll walk!’ The memory of the huge dead face of the drome was trying to come back into her mind, but fury 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 . . .