"We is under one o' them big birds," said Daft Wullie, keeping his eyes averted from the witch's blind stare. "He means a geas, mistress," said Rob Anybody, glaring at his brother. "It's like a—"
"—a tremendous obligation that you cannot disobey," said Miss Treason. "I ken what a geas is. But why?" Miss Treason had heard a lot of things in 113 years, but now she listened in astonishment to a story about a human girl who had, for a few days at least, been the kelda of a clan of Nac Mac Feegles. And if you were their kelda, even for a few days, they'd watch over you…forever. "An' she's the hag o' our hills," said Billy Bigchin. "She cares for them, keeps them safe. But…" He hesitated, and Rob Anybody continued: "Our kelda is havin' dreams. Dreams o' the future. Dreams o' the hills all froze an' everyone deid an' the big wee hag wearin' a crown o' ice!"
"My goodness!"
"Aye, an' there wuz more!" said Billy, throwing out his arms. "She saw a green tree growin' in a land o' ice! She saw a ring o' iron! She saw a man with a nail in his heart! She saw a plague o' chickens an' a cheese that walks like a man!" There was silence, and then Miss Treason said: "The first two, the tree and the ring, no problem there, good occult symbolism. The nail, too, very metaphorical. I'm a bit doubtful about the cheese—could she mean Horace?—and the chickens…I'm not sure you can have a plague of chickens, can you?"
"Jeannie wuz verra firm about them," said Rob Anybody. "She's dreamed many strange and worryin' things, so we thought we might just see how the big wee hag wuz gettin' along." Miss Treason's various eyes stared at him. Rob Anybody stared back with an expression of ferocious honesty, and did not flinch. "This seems an honorable enterprise," she said. "Why start by lying?"
"Oh, the lie wuz goin' tae be a lot more interestin'," said Rob Anybody. "The truth of the matter seems quite interesting to me," said Miss Treason. "Mebbe, but I wuz plannin' on puttin' in giants an' pirates an' magic weasels," Rob declared. "Real value for the money!"
"Oh well," said Miss Treason. "When Miss Tick brought Tiffany to me, she did say she was guarded by strange powers."
"Aye," said Rob Anybody proudly. "That'd be us, right enough."
"But Miss Tick is a rather bossy woman," said Miss Treason. "I am sorry to say I didn't listen much to what she said. She is always telling me that these girls are really keen to learn, but mostly they are just flibbertigibbets who want to be a witch to impress the young men, and they run away after a few days. This one doesn't, oh no! She runs toward things! Did you know she tried to dance with the Wintersmith?!"
"Aye. We ken. We were there," said Rob Anybody. "You were?"
"Aye. We followed yez."
"No one saw you there. I would have known if they did," Miss Treason said. "Aye? Weel, we're good at no one seein' us," said Rob Anybody, smiling. "It's amazin', the people who dinna see us."
"She actually tried to dance with the Wintersmith," Miss Treason repeated. "I told her not to."
"Ach, people're always tellin' us not tae do things," said Rob Anybody. "That's how we ken what's the most interestin' things tae do!" Miss Treason stared at him with the eyes of one mouse, two ravens, several moths, and an earwig. "Indeed," she said, and sighed. "Yes. The trouble with being this old, you know, is that being young is so far away from me now that it seems sometimes that it happened to someone else. A long life is not what it's cracked up to be, that is a fact. It—"
"The Wintersmith is seekin' for the big wee hag, mistress," said Rob Anybody. "We saw her dancin' wi' the Wintersmith. Now he is seekin' her. We can hear him in the howl o' the wind."
"I know," said Miss Treason. She stopped, and listened for a moment. "The wind has dropped," she stated. "He's found her." She snatched up her walking sticks and scuttled toward the stairs, going up them with amazing speed. Feegles swarmed past her into the bedroom, where Tiffany lay on a narrow bed. A candle burned in a saucer at each corner of the room. "But how has he found her?" Miss Treason demanded. "I had her hidden! You, blue men, fetch wood now!" She glared at them. "I said fetch—" She heard a couple of thumps. Dust was settling. The Feegles were watching Miss Treason expectantly. And sticks, a lot of sticks, were piled in the tiny bedroom fireplace. "Ye did well," she said. "An' not tae soon!" Snowflakes were drifting down the chimney. Miss Treason crossed her walking sticks in front of her and stamped her foot hard. "Wood burn, fire blaze!" she shouted. The wood in the grate burst into flame. But now frost was forming on the window, ferny white tendrils snapping across the glass with a crackling sound. "I am not putting up with this at my age!" said the witch. Tiffany opened her eyes, and said: "What's happening?"
CHAPTER THREE
The Secret of Boffo I t is not good, being in a sandwich of bewildered dancers. They were heavy men. Tiffany was Aching all over. She was covered in bruises, including one the shape of a boot that she wasn't going to show to anyone. Feegles filled every flat surface in Miss Treason's weaving room. She was working at her loom with her back to the room because, she said, this helped her think; but since she was Miss Treason, her position didn't matter much. There were plenty of eyes and ears she could use, after all. The fire burned hot, and there were candles everywhere. Black ones, of course. Tiffany was angry. Miss Treason hadn't shouted, hadn't even raised her voice. She'd just sighed and said "foolish child," which was a whole lot worse, mostly because that's just what Tiffany knew she'd been. One of the dancers had helped bring her back to the cottage. She couldn't remember anything about that at all. A witch didn't do things because they seemed a good idea at the time! That was practically cackling! You had to deal every day with people who were foolish and lazy and untruthful and downright unpleasant, and you could certainly end up thinking that the world would be considerably improved if you gave them a slap. But you didn't because, as Miss Tick had once explained: a) it would make the world a better place for only a very short time; b) it would then make the world a slightly worse place; and c) you're not supposed to be as stupid as they are. Her feet had moved, and she'd listened to them. She ought to have been listening to her head. Now she had to sit by Miss Treason's fire with a tin hot-water bottle on her lap and a shawl around her. "So the Wintersmith is a kind of god?" she said. "That kind o' thing, yes," said Billy Bigchin. "But not the prayin'-to kinda god. He just…makes winters. It's his job, ye ken."
"He's an elemental," said Miss Treason from her loom. "Aye," said Rob Anybody. "Gods, elementals, demons, spirits…sometimes it's hard to tell 'em apart wi'oot a map."
"And the dance is to welcome winter?" said Tiffany. "That doesn't make sense! The Morris dance is to welcome the coming of the summer, yes, that's—"
"Are you an infant?" said Miss Treason. "The year is round! The wheel of the world must spin! That is why up here they dance the Dark Morris, to balance it. They welcome the winter because of the new summer deep inside it!" Click-clack went the loom. Miss Treason was weaving a new cloth, of brown wool. "Well, all right," said Tiffany. "We welcomed it…him. That doesn't mean he's supposed to come looking for me!"
"Why did you join the dance?" Miss Treason demanded. "Er…There was a space, and—"
"Yes. A space. A space not intended for you. Not for you, foolish child. You danced with him, and now he wants to meet such a bold girl. I have never heard of such a thing! I want you to fetch the third book from the right on the second shelf from the top of my bookcase." She handed Tiffany a heavy black key. "Can you manage to do even that?" Witches didn't need to slap the stupid, not when they had a sharp tongue that was always ready. Miss Treason also had several shelves of books, which was unusual for one of the older witches. The shelves were high up, the books looked big and heavy, and up until now Miss Treason had forbidden Tiffany to dust them, let alone unlock the big black iron band that secured them to the shelves. People who came here always gave them a nervous look. Books were dangerous. Tiffany unlocked the bands and wiped away the dust. Ah…the books were, like Miss Treason, not everything they seemed. They looked like magic books, but they had names like An Encyclopaedia of Soup. There was a dictionary. Next to it the book Miss Treason had asked for was covered in cobwebs. Still blushing with shame and anger, Tiffany got the book down, fighting to get it free of the webs. Some of them went pling! as they snapped, and dust fell off the top of the pages. When she opened it, it smelled old and parchmenty, like Miss Treason. The title, in gold lettering that had almost rubbed away, was Chaffinch's Ancient and Classical Mythology. It was full of bookmarks. "Pages eighteen and nineteen," said Miss Treason, her head not moving. Tiffany turned to them. "'The Dacne of the Sneasos'?" she said. "Is that supposed to be 'The Dance of the Seasons'?"
"Regrettably, the artist, Don Weizen de Yoyo, whose famous masterpiece that was, did not have the same talent with letters as he had with painting," said Miss Treason. "They worried him, for some reason. I notice you mention the words before the pictures. You are a bookish child." The picture was…strange. It showed two figures. Tiffany hadn't seen masquerade costumes. There wasn't the money at home for that sort of thing. But she'd read about them, and this was pretty much what she'd imagined. The page showed a man and a woman—or, at least, things that looked like a man and a woman. The woman was labeled "Summer" and was tall and blond and beautiful, and therefore to the short, brown- haired Tiffany was a figure of immediate distrust. She was carrying what looked like a big basket shaped like a shell, which was full of fruit. The man, "Winter," was old and bent and gray. Icicles glittered on his beard. "Ach, that's wha' the Wintersmith would look like, sure enough," said Rob Anybody, strolling across the page. "Ol' Frosty."
"Him?" said Tiffany. "That's the Wintersmith? He looks a hundred years old!"
"A youngster, eh?" said Miss Treason nastily. "Dinna let him kiss ye, or yer nose might turn blue and fall off!" said Daft Wullie cheerfully. "Daft Wullie, don't you dare say things like that!" said Tiffany. "I wuz just tryin' to lighten the mood, ye ken," said Wullie, looking sheepish. "That's an artist's impression, of course," said Miss Treason. "What does that mean?" said Tiffany, staring at the picture. It was wrong. She knew it. This wasn't what he was like at all…. "It means he made it up," said Billy Bigchin. "He wouldna ha' seen him, noo, would he? No one's seen the Wintersmith."
"Yet!" said Daft Wullie. "Wullie," said Rob Anybody, turning to his brother, "ye ken I told ye aboot makin' tactful remarks?"
"Aye, Rob, I ken weel," said Wullie obediently. "What ye just said wuz not one o' them," said Rob. Wullie hung his head. "Sorry, Rob." Tiffany clenched her fists. "I didn't mean all this to happen!" Miss Treason turned her chair with some solemnity. "Then what did you mean? Will you tell me? Did you dance out of youth's inclination to disobey old age? To mean is to think. Did you think at all? Others have joined in the dance before now. Children, drunkards, youths for a silly bet…nothing happened. The spring and autumn dances are…just an old tradition, most people would say. Just a way of marking when ice and fire exchange their dominion over the world. Some of us think we know better. We think something happens. For you, the dance became real, and something has happened. And now the Wintersmith is seeking you."
"Why?" Tiffany managed. "I don't know. When you were dancing, did you see anything? Hear anything?" How could you describe the feeling of being everywhere and everything? Tiffany wondered. She didn't try. "I…thought I heard a voice, or maybe two voices," she mumbled. "Er, they asked me who I was."
"Int-ter-rest-ting," said Miss Treason. "Two voices? I will consider the implications. What I can't understand is how he found you. I will think about that. In the meantime, I expect it would be a good idea to wear warm clothing."