“Oh, aye. It floats aroound until it finds a place that’s weak on a world where no one’s payin’ attention, and opens a door. Then the Quin sends in her folk. For the stealin’, ye ken. Raidin’ o’ barns, rustlin’ of cattle—”
“We used to like stealin’ the coo beasties,” said Daft Wullie.
“Wullie,” said Rob Anybody, pointing his sword, “you ken I said there wuz times you should think before opening yer big fat gob?”
“Aye, Rob.”
“Weel, that wuz one o’ them times.” Rob turned and looked up at Tiffany rather bashfully. “Aye, we wuz wild champion robbers for the Quin,” he said. “People wouldna e’en go a-huntin’ for fear o’ little men. But ’twas ne’er enough for her. She always wanted more. But we said it’s no’ right to steal an ol’ lady’s only pig, or the food from them as dinna ha’ enough to eat. A Feegle has nae worries about stealin’ a golden cup from a rich bigjob, ye ken, but takin’ awa’ the—”
—cup an old man kept his false teeth in made them feel ashamed, they said. The Nac Mac Feegle would fight and steal, certainly, but who wanted to fight the weak and steal from the poor?
Tiffany listened, at the end of the shadowy wood, to the story of a little world where nothing grew, where no sun shone, and where everything had to come from somewhere else. It was a world that took, and gave nothing back except fear. It raided—and people learned to stay in bed when they heard strange noises at night, because if anyone gave her trouble, the Queen could control their dreams.
Tiffany couldn’t quite pick up how she did this, but that’s where things like the grimhounds and the headless horseman came from. These dreams were…more real. The Queen could take dreams and make them more…solid. You could step inside them and vanish. And you didn’t wake up just as the monsters caught up with you.
The Queen’s people wouldn’t just take food. They’d take people, too—
“—like pipers,” said William the gonnagle. “Fairies can’t make music, ye ken. She’ll steal a man awa’ for the music he makes.”
“And she takes children,” said Tiffany.
“Aye. Your wee brother’s not the first,” said Rob Anybody. “There’s no’ a lot of fun and laughter here, ye ken. She thinks she’s good wi’ children.”
“The old kelda said she wouldn’t harm him,” said Tiffany. “That’s true, isn’t it?”
You could read the Nac Mac Feegle like a book. And it would be a big, simple book with pictures of Spot the Dog and a Big Red Ball and one or two short sentences on each page. What they were thinking turned up right there on their faces, and now they were all wearing a look that said: Crivens, I hope she disna ask us the question we dinna want tae answer….
“That is true, isn’t it?” she said.
“Oh, aye,” said Rob Anybody, slowly. “She didna lie to ye there. The Quin’ll try to be kind to him, but she disna know how. She’s an elf. They’re no’ very good at thinking of other people.”
ip;it was a black-and-white landscape.
CHAPTER 8
Land of Winter
“Aye, she’s got First Sight, sure enough,” said William’s voice behind Tiffany as she stared into the world of the Queen. “She’s seein’ what’s really there….”
Snow stretched away under a sky so dirty white that Tiffany might have been standing inside a Ping-Pong ball. Only black trunks and scribbly branches of the trees, here and there, told her where the land stopped and the sky began.
Those, and, of course, the hoofprints. They stretched away toward a forest of black trees, boughed with snow.
The cold was like little needles all over her skin.
She looked down and saw the Nac Mac Feegle pouring through the gate, waist deep in the snow. They spread out without speaking. Some of them had drawn their swords.
They weren’t laughing and joking now. They were watchful.
“Right, then,” said Rob Anybody. “Well done. You wait here for us and we’ll get your wee brother back, nae problemo—”
“I’m coming too!” snapped Tiffany.
“Nay, the kelda disna—”
“This one dis!” said Tiffany, shivering. “I mean does! He’s my brother. And where are we?”
Rob Anybody glanced up at the pale sky. There was no sun anywhere. “Ye’re here noo,” he said, “so mebbe there’s nae harm in tellin’ ye. This is what ye call Fairyland.”