The Wee Free Men

floor.
    The rattling went on. Now it was coming from the big oven. She could see the door actually shaking on its hinges.
    She turned to her mother and saw her put another plate down by the sink. But it wasn’t being held in a hand.
    The oven door burst off the hinges and slid across the floor.
    “Dinna eat the porridge!”
    Nac Mac Feegles spilled out into the room, hundreds of them, pouring across the tiles.
    The walls were shifting. The floor moved. And now the thing turning around at the sink was not even human but just…stuff, no more human than a gingerbread man, gray as old dough, changing shape as it lumbered toward Tiffany.
    The pictsies surged past her in a flurry of snow.
    She looked up at the thing’s tiny black eyes.
    The scream came from somewhere deep inside. There was no Second Thought, no First Thought, just a scream. It seemed to spread out as it left Tiffany’s mouth until it became a black tunnel in front of her, and as she fell into it, she heard, in the commotion behind her:
    “Who d’yer think ye’re lookin’ at, pal? Crivens, but ye’re gonna get sich a kickin’!”

    Tiffany opened her eyes.
    She was lying on damp ground in the snowy, gloomy wood. Pictsies were watching her carefully but, she saw, there were others behind them staring outward, into the gloom among the tree trunks.
    There was…stuff in the trees. Lumps of stuff. It was gray, and it hung there like old cloth.
    She turned her head and saw William standing beside her, looking at her with concern.
    “That was a dream, wasn’t it?” she said.
    “Weel, noo,” said William. “It was, ye ken, and therrre again, it wasna….”
    Tiffany sat up suddenly, causing the pictsies to leap back.
    “But that…thing was in it, and then you all came out of the oven!” she said. “You were in my dream! What is— was that creature?”
    William the gonnagle stared at her as if trying to make up his mind.
    “That was what we call a drome,” he said. “Nothing here really belongs here, remember? Everything is a reflection from outside, or something kidnaped from another worrrld, or mebbe something the Quin has made outa magic. It was hidin’ in the trees, and ye was goin’ so fast, ye didna see it. Ye ken spiders?”
    “Of course!”
    “Well, spiders spin webs. Dromes spin dreams. It’s easy in this place. The world you come from is nearly real. This place is nearly unreal, so it’s almost a dream anywa’. And the drome makes a dream for ye, wi’ a trap in it. If ye eats anything in the dream, ye’ll never want tae’ leave it.”
    He looked as though Tiffany should have been impressed.
    “What’s in it for the drome?” she asked.
    “It likes watchin’ dreams. It has fun watching ye ha’ fun. An’ it’ll watch ye eatin’ dream food, until ye starve to death. Then the drome’ll eat ye. Not right away, o’ course. It’ll wait until ye’ve gone a wee bit runny, because it hasna teeth.”
    “So how can anyone get out?”
    “The best way is to find the drome,” said Rob Anybody. “It’ll be in the dream with you, in disguise. Then ye just gives it a good kickin’.”
    “By kicking you mean—?”
    “Choppin’ its heid off generally works.”
    Now, Tiffany thought, I am impressed. I wish I wasn’t. “And this is Fairyland?” she said.
    “Aye. Ye could say it’s the bit the tourists dinna see,” said William. “An’ ye did well. Ye were fightin’ it. Ye knew it wasna right.”
    Tiffany remembered the friendly cat, and the falling shepherdess. She’d been trying to send messages to herself. She should have listened.
    “Thank you for coming after me,” she said, meekly. “How did you do it?”
    “Ach, we can generally find a way intae anywhere , even a dream,” said William, smiling. “We’re a stealin’ folk, after all.” A piece of the drome fell out of the tree and flopped onto the snow.
    “One of them won’t get me again!” said Tiffany.
    “Aye. I believe you. Ye have murrrder in yer eyes,” said William, with a touch of admiration. “If I was a drome, I’d be pretty fearful noo, if I had a brain. There’ll be more of them, mark you, and some of ’em are cunning. The Quin uses ’em as guards.”
    “I won’t be fooled!” Tiffany remembered the horror of the moment when the thing had lumbered around changing shape. It was worse because it was in her house, her place. She’d felt real terror as the big shapeless thing crashed across the kitchen, but the anger had been