“She said there’d be a reck’ning’!”
“Oh, waily, waily, waily! We’re in trouble noo!”
Tiffany looked around, face red with anger.
“We have a duty,” she said, to the air and the grass.
It was something Granny Aching had said once, when Tiffany had been crying about a lamb. She’d said: “We are as gods to the beasts o’ the field, my jiggit. We order the time o’ their birth and the time o’ their death. Between times, we ha’ a duty.”
“We have a duty,” Tiffany repeated, more softly. She glared around the field. “I know you can hear me, whoever you are. If that sheep doesn’t come back, there will be…trouble….”
The larks sang over the sheepfolds, making the silence deeper.
Tiffany had to do the chores before she had any more time to herself. That meant feeding the chickens and collecting the eggs, and feeling slightly proud of the fact that there were two more than there might otherwise have been. It meant fetching six buckets of water from the well and filling the log basket by the stove, but she put those jobs off because she didn’t like doing them much. She did quite like churning butter, though. It gave her time to think.
When I’m a witch with a pointy hat and a broomstick, she thought as she pumped the handle, I’ll wave my hand and the butter will come just like that. And any little red-headed devils who even think about taking our beasts will be—
There was a slopping sound behind her, where she’d lined up the six buckets to take to the well.
One of them was now full of water, which was still sloshing backward and forward.
She went back to the churning as if nothing had happened but stopped after a while and went over to the flour bin. She took a small handful of flour and dusted it over the doorstep, and then went back to the churning.
A few minutes later there was another watery sound behind her. When she turned around, there was, yes, another full bucket. And in the flour on the stone doorstep were just two lines of footprints, one leading out of the dairy and one coming back.
It was all Tiffany could do to lift one of the heavy wooden buckets when it was full.
So, she thought, they are immensely strong as well as being incredibly fast. I’m really being very calm about this.
She looked up at the big wooden beams that ran across the room, and a little dust fell down, as if something had quickly moved out of the way.
I think I ought to put a stop to this right now, she thought. On the other hand, there’s no harm in waiting until all the buckets are filled up.
“And then I’ll have to fill the log box in the scullery,” she said aloud. Well, it was worth a try.
She went back to the churning and didn’t bother to turn her head when she heard four more sloshes behind her. Nor did she look around when she heard little whooshwhoosh noises and the clatter of logs in the box. She turned to see only when the noise stopped.
The log box was full up to the ceiling, and all the buckets were full. The patch of flour was a mass of footprints.
She stopped churning. She had a feeling that eyes were watching her, a lot of eyes.
“Er…thank you,” she said. No, that wasn’t right. She sounded nervous. She let go of the butter paddle and stood up, trying to look as fierce as possible.
“And what about our sheep?” she said. “I won’t believe you’re really sorry until I see the sheep come back!”
There was a bleating from the paddock. She ran out to the bottom of the garden and looked through the hedge.
The sheep was coming back, backward and at high speed. It jerked to a halt a little way from the hedge and dropped down as the little men let it go. One of the red-headed men appeared for a moment on its head. He huffed on a horn, polished it with his kilt, and vanished in a blur.
Tiffany walked back to the dairy looking thoughtful.
When she got back, the butter had been churned. Not just churned, in fact, but patted into a dozen fat golden oblongs on the marble she used when she did it. There was even a sprig of parsley on each one.
Are they brownies? she wondered. According to the Faerie Tales, brownies hung around the house doing chores in exchange for a saucer of milk. But in the picture they’d been cheery little creatures with long pointy hoods. The red-haired men didn’t look as if they’d ever drunk milk in their lives, but perhaps it was worth a try.
“Well,” she said aloud, still aware of the hidden watchers. “That’ll do. Thank you. I’m glad you’re sorry for what you did.”
She took one of the cat’s saucers from the pile by the sink, washed it in the sink, filled it with milk from today’s churn, then put it down on the floor and stood back. “Are you brownies?” she said.