Roland was probably real.
Almost everything else was really a dream, in a robber world that lived off the real worlds and where time nearly stood still and horrible things could happen at any moment. I don’t want to know anything more about it, she decided. I just want to get my brother and go home, while I’m still angry.
Because when I stop being angry, that’ll be the time to get frightened again, and I’ll be really frightened this time. Too frightened to think. As frightened as Sneebs. And I must think . . .
‘The first dream I fell into was like one of mine.’ she said. ‘I’ve had dreams where I wake up and I’m still asleep. But the ballroom, I’ve never—’
‘Oh, that was one of mine,’ said Roland. ‘From when I was young. I woke up one night and went down to the big hall and there were all these people with masks on, dancing. It was just so . . . bright.’ He looked wistful for a moment. That was when my mother was still alive.’
‘This one’s a picture from a book I’ve got,’ said Tiffany. ‘She must have got that from me—’
‘No, she often uses it,’ said Roland. ‘She likes it. She picks up dreams from everywhere. She collects them.’
Tiffany stood up, and picked up the frying pan again. ‘I’m going to see the Queen,’ she said.
‘Don’t,’ said Roland. ‘You’re the only other real person here except Sneebs, and he’s not very good company.’
‘I’m going to get my brother and go home,’ said Tiffany flatly.
‘I’m not going to come with you, then,’ said Roland. ‘I don’t want to see what she turns you into.’
Tiffany stepped out into the heavy, shadowless light, and followed the path up the slope. Giant grasses arched overhead. Here and there more strangely dressed, strangely shaped people turned to watch her, but then acted as though she was just a passing wanderer, of no interest whatsoever.
She glanced behind her. In the distance the nutcracker had found a bigger hammer, and was getting ready to strike.
‘Wanna wanna wanna sweetie!’
Tiffany’s head shot round like a weathercock in a tornado. She ran along the path, head down, ready to swing the pan at anything that stood in her way, and burst through a clump of grass into a space lined with daisies. It could well have been a bower. She didn’t bother to check.
Wentworth was sitting on a large, flat stone, surrounded by sweets. Many of them were bigger than he was. Smaller ones were in piles, large ones lay like logs. And they were in every colour sweets can be, such as Not-Really-Raspberry Red, Fake-Lemon Yellow, Curiously-Chemical Orange, Some-Kind-of-Acidy Green and Who-Knows-What Blue.
Tears were falling off his chin in blobs. Since they were landing amongst the sweets, serious stickiness was already taking place.
Wentworth howled. His mouth was a big red tunnel with the wobbly thing that no one knows the name of bouncing up and down in the back of his throat. He only stopped crying when it was time either to breathe in or die, and even then it was only for one huge sucking moment before the howl came back again.
Tiffany knew what the problem was immediately. She’d seen it before, at birthday parties. Her brother was suffering from tragic sweet deprivation. Yes, he was surrounded by sweets. But the moment he took any sweet at all, said his sugar-addled brain, that meant he was not taking all the rest. And there were so many sweets he’d never be able to eat them all. It was too much to cope with. The only solution was to burst into tears.
The only solution at home was to put a bucket over his head until he calmed down, and take almost all the sweets away. He could deal with a few handfuls at a time.
Tiffany dropped the pan and swept him up in her arms. ‘It’s Tiffy,’ she whispered. ‘And we’re going home.’
And this is where I meet the Queen, she thought. But there was no scream of rage, no explosion of magic . . . nothing.
There was just the buzz of bees in the distance, and the sound of wind in the grass, and the gulping of Wentworth, who was too shocked to cry.
She could see now that the far side of the bower contained a couch of leaves, surrounded by hanging flowers. But there was no one there.
‘That’s because I’m behind you,’ said the voice of the Queen in her ear.
Tiffany turned round quickly.
There was no one there.
‘Still behind you,’ said the Queen. This is my world, child. You’ll never be as fast as me, or as clever as me. Why are you trying to take my boy away?’
‘He isn’t yours! He’s ours!’ said Tiffany.
‘You never loved him. You have a heart like a little snowball. I can see it.’
Tiffany’s forehead wrinkled. ‘Love?’ she said.
‘What’s that got to do with it? He’s my brother! My brother!’
‘Yes, that’s a very witchy thing, isn’t it,’ said the voice of the Queen. ‘Selfishness. Mine, mine, mine. All a witch cares about is what’s hers.’
‘You stole him!’
‘Stole? You mean you thought you owned him?’
Tiffany’s Second Thoughts said: She’s finding your weaknesses. Don’t listen to her.
‘Ah, you have Second Thoughts,’ said the Queen. ‘I expect you think that makes you very witchy, do you?’
‘Why won’t you let me see you?’ said Tiffany. ‘Are you frightened?’
‘Frightened?’ said the voice of the Queen. ‘Of something like you?’
And the Queen was there, in front of her. She was much taller than Tiffany, but just as slim; her hair was long and black, her face pale, her lips cherry red, her dress black and white and red. And it was all, very slightly, wrong.
Tiffany’s Second Thoughts said: It’s because she’s perfect. Completely perfect. Like a doll. No one real is as perfect as that.
‘That’s not you,’ said Tiffany, with absolute certainty. That’s just your dream of you. That’s not you at all.’
The Queen’s smile disappeared for a moment and came back all edgy and brittle.
‘Such rudeness, and you hardly know me,’ she said, sitting down on the leafy seat. She patted the space beside her. ‘Do sit down,’ she said. ‘Standing there like that is so confrontational. I will put your bad manners down to simple disorientation.’ She gave Tiffany a beautiful smile.
Look at the way her eyes move, said Tiffany’s Second Thoughts. I don’t think she’s using them to see you with. They’re just beautiful ornaments.
‘You have invaded my home, killed some of my creatures and generally acted in a mean and despicable way,’ said the Queen. This offends me. However, I understand that you have been badly led by disruptive elements—’
‘You stole my brother,’ said Tiffany, holding Wentworth tightly. ‘You steal all sorts of things.’ But her voice sounded weak and tinny in her ears.
‘He was wandering around lost,’ said the Queen calmly. ‘I brought him home and comforted him.’
And what there was about the Queen’s voice was this: it said, in a friendly, understanding way, that she was right and you were wrong. And this wasn’t your fault, exactly. It was probably the fault of your parents, or your food, or something so terrible you’ve completely forgotten about it. It wasn’t your fault, the Queen understood, because you were a nice person. It was just such a terrible thing that all these bad influences had made you make the wrong choices. If only you’d admit that, Tiffany, then the world would be a much happier place—
– this cold place, guarded by monsters, in a world where nothing grows older, or up, said her Second Thoughts. A world with the Queen in charge of everything. Don’t listen.
She managed to take a step backwards.
‘Am I a monster?’ said the Queen. ‘All I wanted was a little bit of company—’
And Tiffany’s Second Thoughts, quite swamped by the Queen’s wonderful voice, said: Miss Female Robinson . . .
She’d come to work as a maid at one of the farms many years ago. They said that she’d been brought up in a Home for the Destitute in Yelp. They said she’d been born there after her mother had arrived during a terrible storm and the master had written in his big black diary: ‘To Miss Robinson, female infant’, and her young mother hadn’t been very bright and was dying in any case and had thought that was the baby’s name. After all, it had been written down in an official book.
Miss Robinson was quite old now, never said much, never ate much, but you never saw her not doing something. No one could scrub a floor like Miss Female Infant Robinson. She had a thin, wispy face with a pointed red nose, and thin, pale hands with red knuckles, which were always busy. Miss Robinson worked hard.