A Hat Full Of Sky

that Awf’ly Wee Billie calmed down a little.
    “Very well then,” he said, but rather coldly because you can’t lose that much anger all at once. “We’ll not talk aboout this again. But we will remember it, right?” He pointed to the sleeping shape of Tiffany. “Now pick up that wool, and the tobacco, and the turpentine, understand? Someone tak’ the top off the turpentine bottle and pour a wee drop onto a bit o’ cloth. And no one, let me mak’myself clear, is tae drink any of it!”
    The Feegles fell over themselves to obey. There was a ripping noise as the “bit o’ cloth” was obtained from the bottom of Miss Level’s dress.
    “Right,” said Awf’ly Wee Billy. “Daft Wullie, you tak’ all the three things and put them up on the big wee hag’s chest, where she can smell them.”
    “How can she smell them when she’s oout cold like that?” asked Wullie.
    “The nose disna sleep,” said the gonnagle flatly.
    The three smells of the shepherding hut were laid reverentially just below Tiffany’s chin.
    “Noo we wait,” said Awf’ly Wee Billy. “We wait, and hope.”

    It was hot in the little bedroom with the sleeping witches and a crowd of Feegles. It wasn’t long before the smells of sheep’s wool, turpentine, and tobacco rose and twined and filled the air….
    Tiffany’s nose twitched.
    The nose is a big thinker. It’s good at memory—very good. So good that a smell can take you back in memory so hard that it hurts. The brain can’t stop it. The brain has nothing to do with it. The hiver could control brains, but it couldn’t control a stomach that threw up when it was flown on a broomstick. And it was useless at noses….
    The smell of sheeps’ wool, turpentine, and Jolly Sailor tobacco could carry a mind away, all the way to a silent place that was warm and safe and free from harm…

    The hiver opened its eyes and looked around.
    “The shepherding hut?” it said.
    It sat up. Red light shone in through the open door, and between the trunks of the saplings growing everywhere. Many of them were quite big now and cast long shadows, putting the setting sun behind bars. Around the shepherding hut, though, they had been cut down.
    “This is a trick,” it said. “It won’t work. We are you. We think like you. We’re better at thinking like you than you are.”
    Nothing happened.
    The hiver looked like Tiffany, although here it was slightly taller because Tiffany thought she was slightly taller than she really was. It stepped out of the hut and onto the turf.
    “It’s getting late,” it said to the silence. “Look at the trees! This place is dying. We don’t have to escape. Soon all of this will be part of us. Everything that you really could be. You’re proud of your little piece of ground. We can remember when there were no worlds! We—you could change things with a wave of your hand! You could make things right or make things wrong, and you could decide which is which! You will never die!”
    “Then why are ye sweatin’, ye big heap o’ jobbies? Ach, what a scunner!” said a voice behind it.
    For a moment the hiver wavered. Its shape changed, many times in the fractions of a second. There were bits of scales, fins, teeth, a pointy hat, claws…and then it was Tiffany again, smiling.
    “Oh, Rob Anybody, we are glad to see you,” it said. “Can you help us?”
    “Dinna gi’ me all that swiddle!” shouted Rob, bouncing up and down in rage. “I know a hiver when I sees one! Crivens, but ye’re due a kickin’!”
    The hiver changed again, became a lion with teeth the size of swords and roared at him.
    “Ach, it’s like that, is it?” said Rob Anybody. “Dinna go awa’!” He ran a few steps and vanished.
    The hiver changed back to its Tiffany shape again.
    “Your little friend has gone,” it said. “Come out now. Come out now . Why fear us? We are you. You won’t be like the rest, the dumb animals, the stupid kings, the greedy wizards. Together—”
    Rob Anybody returned, followed by…well, everyone.
    “Ye canna die,” he yelled. “But we’ll make ye wish ye could!”
    They charged.
    The Feegles had the advantage in most fights because they were small and fought big enemies. If you’re small and fast, you’re hard to hit. The hiver fought back by changing shape, all the time. Swords clanged on scales, heads butted fangs—it whirled across the turf, growling and screaming, calling up past shapes to counter every attack. But Feegles were hard