The Wee Free Men

. . . and then, like someone rising from the clouds of a sleep, she felt the deep, deep Time below her. She sensed the breath of the downs and the distant roar of ancient, ancient seas trapped in millions of tiny shells. She thought of Granny Aching, under the turf, becoming part of the chalk again, part of the land under wave. She felt as if huge wheels, of time and stars, were turning slowly around her.

She opened her eyes and then, somewhere inside, opened her eyes again.

She heard the grass growing, and the sound of worms below the turf. She could feel the thousands of little lives around her, smell all the scents on the breeze, and see all the shades of the night. . .

The wheels of stars and years, of space and time, locked into place. She knew exactly where she was, and who she was, and what she was.

She swung a hand. The Queen tried to stop her, but she might as well have tried to stop a wheel of years. Tiffany’s hand caught her face and knocked her off her feet.

‘I never cried for Granny because there was no need to,’ she said. ‘She has never left me!’

She leaned down, and centuries bent with her.

‘The secret is not to dream,’ she whispered. ‘The secret is to wake up. Waking up is harder. I have woken up and I am real. I know where I come from and I know where I’m going. You cannot fool me any more. Or touch me. Or anything that is mine.’

I’ll never be like this again, she thought, as she saw the terror in the Queen’s face. I’ll never again feel as tall as the sky and as old as the hills and as strong as the sea. I’ve been given something for a while, and the price of it is that I have to give it back.

And the reward is giving it back, too. No human could live like this. You could spend a day looking at a flower to see how wonderful it is, and that wouldn’t get the milking done. No wonder we dream our way through our lives. To be awake, and see it all as it really is . . . no one could stand that for long.

She took a deep breath, and picked the Queen up. She was aware of things happening, of dreams roaring around her, but they didn’t affect her. She was real and she was awake, more awake than she’d ever been. She had to concentrate even to think against the storm of sensations pouring into her mind.

The Queen was as light as a baby and changed shape madly in Tiffany’s arms - into monsters and mixed-up beasts, things with claws and tentacles. But, at last, she was small and grey, like a monkey, with a large head and big eyes and a little downy chest that went up and down as she panted.

She reached the stones. The arch still stood. It was never down, Tiffany thought. She had no strength, no magic, just one trick. The worst one.

‘Stay away from here,’ said Tiffany, stepping though the stone doorway. ‘Never come back. Never touch what is mine.’ And then, because the thing was so weak and baby-like, she added: ‘But I hope there’s someone who’ll cry for you. I hope the King comes back.’

‘You pity me?’ growled the thing that had been the Queen.

‘Yes. A bit,’ said Tiffany. Like Miss Robinson, she thought.

She put the creature down. It scampered across the snow, turned, and became the beautiful Queen again.

‘You won’t win,’ the Queen said. ‘There’s always a way in. People dream.’

‘Sometimes we waken,’ said Tiffany. ‘Don’t come back . . . or there will be a reckoning . . .’

She concentrated, and now the stones framed nothing more - or less - than the country beyond.

I shall have to find a way of sealing that, said her Third Thoughts. Or her twentieth thoughts, perhaps. Her head was full of thoughts.

She managed to walk a little way and then sat down, hugging her knees. Imagine getting stuck like this, she thought. You’d have to wear earplugs and noseplugs and a big black hood over your head, and still you’d see and hear too much . . .

She closed her eyes, and closed her eyes again.

She felt it all draining away. It was like falling asleep, sliding from that strange wide-awakeness into just normal, everyday . . . well, being awake. It felt as if everything was blurred and muffled.

This is how we always feel, she thought. We sleepwalk through our lives, because how could we live if we were always that awake—

Someone tapped her on the boot.

Chapter 14 Small Like Oak Trees

‘Hey, where did you get to?’ shouted Rob Anybody, glaring up at her. ‘One minute we was just aboout to give them lawyers a good legal seein’-to, next minute you and the Quin wuz gone!’

Dreams within dreams, Tiffany thought, holding her head. But they were over, and you couldn’t look at the Nac Mac Feegle and not know what was real.

‘It’s over,’ she said.

‘Didja kill her?’

‘No.’

‘She’ll be back then,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘She’s awfu’ stupid, that one. Clever with the dreaming, I’ll grant ye, but not a brain in her heid.’

Tiffany nodded. The blurred feeling was going. The moment of wide-awakeness had faded like a dream. But I must remember that it wasn’t a dream.