I Shall Wear Midnight

Tiffany dealt with this. Dealing was part of witchcraft too. Her father looked so miserable that she put on her cheerful face and said, ‘If I was you, Dad, I would go home and get a decent night’s sleep. I’ll sort things out. Actually, there’s a coil of rope over there, but I’m certain I won’t need to use it now.’

He looked relieved at this. The Nac Mac Feegle could be pretty worrying to those who did not know them very well, although now she thought about it, they could be pretty worrying however long you had known them; a Feegle in your life very soon changed it.

‘Have you been here all this time?’ she demanded, as soon as her father had hurried off.

For a moment it rained bits of hay and whole Feegles.

The problem with getting angry at Nac Mac Feegles was that it was like getting angry at cardboard or the weather; it didn’t make any difference. She had a go anyway, because by now it was sort of traditional.

‘Rob Anybody! You promised not to spy on me!’

Rob held up a hand. ‘Ah weel, there ye have it, right enough, but it is one of them miss apprehensions, miss, ’cause we wasn’t spying at all, was we, lads?’

The mass of little blue and red shapes that now covered the floor of the barn raised their voices in a chorus of blatant lying and perjury. It slowed down when they saw her expression.

‘Why is it, Rob Anybody, that you persist in lying when you are caught red-handed?’

‘Ah weel, that’s an easy one, miss,’ said Rob Anybody, who was technically the head man of the Nac Mac Feegles. ‘After all, ye ken, what would be the point of lyin’ when you had nae done anything wrong? Anyway, now I am mortally wounded to my giblets on account of me good name being slandered,’ he said, grinning. ‘How many times have I lied to you, miss?’

‘Seven hundred and fifty-three times,’ said Tiffany. ‘Every time you promise not to interfere in my business.’

‘Ah weel,’ said Rob Anybody, ‘ye are still our big wee hag.’

‘That may or may not be the case,’ said Tiffany haughtily, ‘but I am a lot more big and considerably less wee than I used to be.’

‘And a lot more hag,’ said a jolly voice. Tiffany did not have to look to know who was talking. Only Daft Wullie could put his foot in it as far up as his neck. She looked down at his beaming little face. And he never did quite understand what it was that he was doing wrong.

Hag! It didn’t sound pretty, but every witch was a hag to the Feegles, however young she was. They didn’t mean anything by it – well, probably didn’t mean anything by it, but you could never tell for certain – and sometimes Rob Anybody grinned when he said it, but it was not their fault that to anyone not six inches tall the word meant someone who combed her hair with a rake and had worse teeth than an old sheep. Being called a hag when you are nine can be sort of funny. It isn’t quite so amusing when you are nearly sixteen and have had a very bad day and very little sleep and could really, really do with a bath.

Rob Anybody clearly noticed this, because he turned to his brother and said, ‘Ye will bring to mind, brother o’ mine, that there was times when ye should stick your head up a duck’s bottom rather than talk?’

Daft Wullie looked down at his feet. ‘Sorry, Rob. I couldnae find a duck the noo.’

The head man of the Feegles glanced down at the girl on the floor, sleeping gently under her blanket, and suddenly everything was serious.

‘If we had been here when that leathering was happening, it would have been a bad day for him, I’ll tell ye,’ said Rob Anybody.

‘Just as well that you weren’t here then,’ said Tiffany. ‘You don’t want to find people coming up to your mound with shovels, do you? You keep away from bigjobs, you hear me? You make them nervous. When people get nervous, they get angry. But since you’re here you can make yourselves useful. I want to get this poor girl up to the mound.’

‘Aye, we know,’ said Rob. ‘Was it not the kelda herself who was sending us down here to find you?’

‘She knew about this? Jeannie knew about this?’

‘I dinnae ken,’ said Rob nervously. He always got nervous when talking about his wife, Tiffany knew. He loved her to distraction, and the thought of her even frowning in his direction turned his knees to jelly. The life of all the other Feegles was generally about fighting, stealing and boozing, with a few extra bits like getting food, which they mostly stole, and doing the laundry, which they mostly did not do. As the kelda’s husband, Rob Anybody had to do the Explaining as well, and that was never an easy job for a Feegle. ‘Jeannie has the kenning o’ things, ye ken,’ he said, not looking directly at Tiffany. She felt sorry for him then; it must be better to be between a rock and a hard place than to be between a kelda and a hag, she thought.

Chapter 3: Those Who Stir In Their Sleep

Chapter 3

THOSE WHO STIR IN THEIR SLEEP