The Wee Free Men

growing on it. A lot of the mounds had thickets on them. The trees took advantage of the deeper soil. It was said to be unlucky to cut them down.
    “It’s nae very far noo,” he said.
    “You live in one of the mounds?” Tiffany asked. “I thought they were, you know, the graves of ancient chieftains?”
    “Ach, aye, there’s some ol’ dead kingie in the chamber next door, but he’s nae trouble,” said Rob. “Dinna fret, there’s nae skelingtons or any such in oour bit. It’s quite roomy, we’ve done it up a treat.”
    Tiffany looked up at the endless blue sky over the endlessly green downland. It was all so peaceful again, a world away from headless men and big savage dogs.
    What if I hadn’t taken Wentworth down to the river? she thought. What would I be doing now? Getting on with the cheese, I suppose….
    I never knew about all this. I never knew I lived in heaven, even if it’s only heaven to a clan of little blue men. I didn’t know about people who flew on buzzards.
    I never killed monsters before.
    “Where do they come from?” she said. “What’s the name of the place the monsters come from?”
    “Ach, ye prob’ly ken the place well,” said Rob Anybody. As they grew nearer to the mound, Tiffany thought she could smell smoke in the air.
    “Do I?” she said.
    “Aye. But it’s no’ a name I’ll say in open air. It’s a name to be whispered in a safe place. I’ll no’ say it under this sky.”

    It was too big to be a rabbit hole and badgers didn’t live up here, but the entrance to the mound was tucked among the thorn roots, and no one would have thought it was anything but the home of some kind of animal.
    Tiffany was slim, but even so she had to take off her apron and crawl on her stomach under the thorns to reach it, dragging the apron behind her. And it still needed several Feegles to push her through.
    At least it didn’t smell bad and, once you were through the hole, it opened up a lot. Really, the entrance was just a disguise. Underneath, the space was the size of quite a large room, open in the center but with Feegle-sized galleries around the walls from floor to ceiling. They were crowded with pictsies of all sizes, washing clothes, arguing, sewing and, here and there, fighting, and doing everything as loudly as possible. Some had hair and beards tinged with white. Much younger ones, only a few inches tall, were running around with no clothes on, and yelling at one another at the tops of their little voices. After a couple of years of helping to bring up Wentworth, Tiffany knew what that was all about.
    There were no girls, though. No Wee Free Women.
    No…there was one.
    The squabbling, bustling crowds parted to let her through. She came up to Tiffany’s ankle. She was prettier than the male Feegles, although the world was full of things prettier than, say, Daft Wullie. But, like them, she had red hair and an expression of determination.
    She curtsied, then said, “Are ye the bigjob hag, mistress?”
    Tiffany looked around. She was the only person in the cavern who was over seven inches tall.
    “Er, yes,” she said. “Er…more or less. Yes.”
    “I am Fion. The kelda says to tell you the wee boy will come to nae harm yet.”
    “She’s found him?” said Tiffany quickly. “Where is he?”
    “Nae, nae, but the kelda knows the way of the Quin. She didna want you to fash yersel’ on that score.”
    “But she stole him!”
    “Aye. ’Tis comp-li-cate-ed. Rest a wee while. The kelda will see you presently. She is…not strong now.”
    Fion turned around with a swirl of skirts, strode back across the chalk floor as if she was a queen herself, and disappeared behind a large round stone that leaned against the far wall.
    Tiffany, without looking down, carefully lifted the toad out of her pocket and held it close to her lips. “Am I fashing myself?” she whispered.
    “No, not really,” said the toad.
    “You would tell me if I was, wouldn’t you?” said Tiffany urgently. “It’d be terrible if everyone could see I was fashing and I didn’t know.”
    “You haven’t a clue what it means, have you…?” said the toad.
    “Not exactly, no.”
    “She just doesn’t want you to get upset, that’s all.”
    “Yes, I thought it was probably something like that,” lied Tiffany. “Can you sit on my shoulder? I think I might need some help here.”
    The ranks of the Nac Mac Feegle were watching her with interest, but at the moment it appeared that she had