The Wee Free Men

She walked forward, reading aloud about Garget of the Nostrils and the Staggers but keeping an eye on the ground. And there was another teddy-bear sweet, green this time and quite hard to see against the turf.

O-K, Tiffany thought.

There was one of the three-stone arches a little way away; two big stones with another one laid across the top of them. She’d walked through it before, and nothing had happened,

But nothing should happen, she thought. You can’t leave a doorway into your world that anyone can walk through, otherwise people would wander in and out by accident. You’d have to know it was there.

Perhaps that’s the only way it would work.

Fine. Then I’ll believe that this is the entrance.

She stepped through, and saw an astonishing sight: green grass, blue sky becoming pink around the setting sun, a few little white clouds late for bed, and a general warm, honey-coloured look to everything. It was amazing that there could be a sight like this. The fact that Tiffany had seen it nearly every day of her life didn’t make it any less fantastic. As a bonus, you didn’t even have to look through any kind of stone arch to see it. You could see it by standing practically anywhere.

Except . . .

. . . something was wrong. Tiffany walked through the arch several times, and still wasn’t quite sure. She held up a hand at arm’s length, trying to measure the sun’s height against the horizon.

And then she saw the bird. It was a swallow, hunting flies, and a swoop took it behind the stones.

The effect was . . . odd, and almost upsetting. It passed behind the stone and she felt her eyes move to follow the swoop . . . but it was late. There was a moment when the swallow should have appeared, and it didn’t.

Then it passed across the gap and for a moment was on both sides of the other stone at the same time.

Seeing it made Tiffany feel that her eyeballs had been pulled out and turned round.

Look for a place where the time doesn’t fit. . .

The world seen through that gap is at least one second behind the time here,’ she said, trying to sound as certain as possible. ‘I thi— I know this is the entrance.’

There was some whooping and clapping from the Nac Mac Feegles, and they surged across the turf towards her.

‘That was great, al’ that reading’ ye did!’ said Rob Anybody. I didnae understand a single word o’ it!’

‘Aye, it must be powerful language if you cannae make oout what the heel it’s goin’ on aboot!’ said another pictsie.

‘Ye definitely ha’ got the makin’s of a kelda,

mistress,’ said Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock.

‘Aye!’ said Daft Wullie. ‘It was smashin’ the way you spotted them sweeties and didnae let on! We didnae think you’d see the wee green one, too!’

The rest of the pictsies stopped cheering and glared at him.

‘What did I say? What did I say?’ he said. Tiffany sagged. ‘You all knew that was the way through, didn’t you?’ she said.

‘Oh, aye,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘We ken that kind of stuff. We used tae live in the Quin’s country, ye ken, but we rebelled against her evil rule—’

‘An’ we did that, an’ then she threw us oout on account o’ bein’ drunk an’ stearin’ and fightin’ al’ the time,’ said Daft Wullie.

‘It wasnae like that at all’ roared Rob Anybody. ‘And you were waiting to see if I could find the way, right?’ said Tiffany, before a fight could start. ‘Aye. Ye did well, lassie.’

Tiffany shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t,’ she said. ‘I didn’t do any real magic. I don’t know how. I just looked at things and worked them out. It was cheating, really.’

The pictsies looked at one another. ‘Ah, weel,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘What’s magic, eh? Just wavin’ a stick an’ sayin’ a few wee magical words. An’ what’s so clever aboot that, eh? But lookin’ at things, really lookin’ at ‘em, and then workin’ ‘em oout, now, that’s a real skill.’

‘Aye, it is,’ said William the gonnagle, to Tiffany’s surprise. ‘Ye used yer eyes and used yer heid. That’s what a real hag does. The magicking is just there for advertisin’.’

‘Oh,’ said Tiffany, cheering up. ‘Really? Well, then . . . there’s our door, everyone!’

‘Right,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘Now show us the way through.’

Tiffany hesitated and then thought: I can feel myself thinking. I’m watching the way I’m thinking. And what am I thinking? I’m thinking: I walked through this arch before, and nothing happened.

But I wasn’t looking then. I wasn’t thinking, either. Not properly.

The world I can see through the arch isn’t actually real. It just looks as though it is. It’s a sort of . . . magical picture, put there to disguise the entrance. And if you don’t pay attention, well, you just walk in and out of it and you don’t realize it.

Aha . . .

She walked through the arch. Nothing happened. The Nac Mac Feegles watched her solemnly.

O-K, she thought. I’m still being fooled, aren’t I. . .?