The Wee Free Men

the dog looked down at the snow.
    And vanished. The snow sank into the ground. The light changed.
    Tiffany and the Wee Free Men were alone on the downs. Feegles were picking themselves up around her.
    “Are you fine, mistress?” said Rob Anybody.
    “Yes!” said Tiffany. “It’s easy! If you get them off the snow, they’re just dogs!”
    “We’d best move on. We lost some of the lads.”
    The excitement drained away.
    “You mean they’re dead?” Tiffany whispered. The sun was shining brightly again, the skylarks were back…and people were dead.
    “Ach, no,” said Rob. “ We’re the one’s who’s deid. Did ye not know that?”

CHAPTER 6
    The Shepherdess
    “Y ou’re dead ?” said Tiffany. She looked around. Feegles were picking themselves up and grumbling, but no one was going “Waily waily waily.” And Rob Anybody wasn’t making any sense at all.
    “Well, if you think you’re dead, then what are they?” she went on, pointing to a couple of small bodies.
    “Oh, they’ve gone back to the land o’ the livin’,” said Rob Anybody cheerfully. “It’s nae as good as this one, but they’ll bide fine and come back before too long. No sense in grievin’.”
    The Achings were not very religious, but Tiffany thought she knew how things ought to go, and they started out with the idea that you were alive and not dead yet.
    “But you are alive!” she said.
    “Ach, no, mistress,” said Rob, helping another pictsie to his feet. “We wuz alive. And we wuz good boys back in the land o’ the livin’, and so when we died there, we wuz borned into this place.”
    “You mean…you think…that you sort of died somewhere else and then came here?” said Tiffany. “You mean this is like…heaven?”
    “Aye! Just as advertised!” said Rob Anybody. “Lovely sunshine, good huntin’, nice pretty flowers, and wee burdies goin’ cheep.”
    “Aye, and then there’s the fightin’,” said another Feegle. And then they all joined in.
    “An’ the stealin’!”
    “An’ the drinkin’ and fightin’!”
    “An’ the kebabs!” said Daft Wullie.
    “But there’s bad things here!” said Tiffany. “There’s monsters!”
    “Aye,” said Rob, beaming happily. “Grand, isn’t it? Everythin’ you could ever ask for, even things to fight!”
    “But we live here!” said Tiffany.
    “Ach, well, mebbe all you humans wuz good in the Last World, too,” said Rob Anybody generously. “I’ll just round up the lads, mistress.”
    Tiffany reached into her apron and pulled out the toad as Rob walked away.
    “Oh. We survived,” it said. “Amazing. There are very definite grounds for an action against the owner of those dogs, by the way.”
    “What?” said Tiffany, frowning. “What are you talking about?”
    “I…I…don’t know,” said the toad. “The thought just popped into my head. Perhaps I knew something about dogs when I was human?”
    “Listen, the Feegle think they’re in heaven! They think they died and came here!”
    “And?” said the toad.
    “Well, that can’t be right! You’re supposed to be alive here and then die and end up in some heaven somewhere else!”
    “Well, that’s just saying the same thing in a different way, isn’t it? Anyway, lots of warrior tribes think that when they die, they go to a heavenly land somewhere,” said the toad. “You know, where they can drink and fight and feast forever? So maybe this is theirs.”
    “But this is a real place!”
    “So? It’s what they believe. Besides, they’re only small. Maybe the universe is a bit crowded and they have to put heavens anywhere there’s room? I’m a toad, so you’ll appreciate that I’m having to guess a lot here. Maybe they’re just wrong. Maybe you’re just wrong. Maybe I’m just wrong.”
    A small foot kicked Tiffany on the boot.
    “We’d best be moving on, mistress,” said Rob Anybody. He had a dead Feegle over his shoulder. Quite a few of the others were carrying bodies, too.
    “Er…are you going to bury them?” said Tiffany.
    “Aye, they dinna need these ol’ bodies noo, an’ it’s no’ tidy to leave ’em lyin’ aboot,” said Rob Anybody. “Besides, if the bigjobs find little wee skulls and bones aroound, they’ll start to wonder, and we don’t want anyone pokin’ aboot. Savin’ your presence, mistress,” he added.
    “No, that’s very, er…practical thinking,” said Tiffany, giving up.
    The Feegle pointed to a distant mound with a thicket of thorn trees