The Wee Free Men

Queen gasped and vanished.
    “Come by, Lightning!” shouted Tiffany. “Away to me, Thunder!” And she remembered the time when she’d run across the downs, falling over, shouting all the wrong things, while the two dogs had done exactly what needed to be done.
    Two streaks of black and white sped away across the turf and up toward the clouds.
    They herded the storm.
    Clouds panicked and scattered, but always there was a comet streaking across the sky and they were turned. Monstrous shapes writhed and screamed in the boiling sky, but Thunder and Lightning had worked many flocks; there was an occasional snap of lightning-sparked teeth, and a wail. Tiffany stared upward, rain pouring off her face, and shouted commands that no dog could possibly have heard.
    Jostling and rumbling and screaming, the storm rolled off the hills and away toward the mountains, where there were deep canyons that could pen it.
    Out of breath, glowing with triumph, Tiffany watched until the dogs came back and settled, once again, on the turf. And then she remembered something else: It didn’t matter what orders she gave those dogs. They were not her dogs. They were working dogs.
    Thunder and Lightning didn’t take orders from a little girl.
    And the dogs weren’t looking at her.
    They were looking just behind her.
    She’d have turned if someone had told her a horrible monster was behind her. She’d have turned if they’d said it had a thousand teeth. She didn’t want to turn around now. Forcing herself was the hardest thing she’d ever done.
    She was not afraid of what she might see. She was terribly, mortally frightened, afraid to the center of her bones of what she might not see. She shut her eyes while her cowardly boots shuffled her around and then, after a deep breath, she opened them again.
    There was a gust of Jolly Sailor tobacco, and sheep, and turpentine.
    Sparkling in the dark, light glittering off the white shepherdess dress and every blue ribbon and silver buckle of it, was Granny Aching, smiling hugely, radiant with pride. In one hand she held the huge ornamental crook, hung with blue bows.
    She pirouetted slowly, and Tiffany saw that while she was a brilliant, sparkling shepherdess from hat to hem, she still had her huge old boots on.
    Granny Aching took her pipe out of her mouth and gave Tiffany the little nod that was, from her, a round of applause. And then—she wasn’t.
    Real starlit darkness covered the turf, and the nighttime sounds filled the air. Tiffany didn’t know if what had just happened was a dream or had happened somewhere that wasn’t quite here or had happened only in her head. It didn’t matter. It had happened. And now—
    “But I’m still here,” said the Queen, stepping in front of her. “Perhaps it was all a dream. Perhaps you have gone a little mad, because you are after all a very strange child. Perhaps you had help. How good are you? Do you really think that you can face me alone? I can make you think whatever I please—”
    “Crivens!”
    “Oh no, not them ,” said the Queen, throwing up her hands.
    It wasn’t just the Nac Mac Feegle but also Wentworth, a strong smell of seaweed, a lot of water, and a dead shark. They appeared in midair and landed in a heap between Tiffany and the Queen. But a pictsie was always ready for a fight, and they bounced, rolled, and came up drawing their swords and shaking seawater out of their hair.
    “Oh, ’tis you, izzut?” said Rob Anybody, glaring up at the Queen. “Face to face wi’ ye at last, ye bloustie ol’ callyack that ye are! Ye canna’ come here, unnerstan’? Be off wi’ ye! Are ye goin’ to go quietly?”
    The Queen stamped heavily on him. When she took her foot away, only the top of his head was visible above the turf.
    “Well, are ye?” he said, pulling himself out as if nothing had happened. “I don’t want tae have tae lose my temper wi’ ye! An’ it’s no good sendin’ your pets against us, ’cause you ken we can take ’em tae the cleaners!” He turned to Tiffany, who hadn’t moved. “You just leave this tae us, kelda. Us an’ the Quin, we go way back!”
    The Queen snapped her fingers. “Always leaping into things you don’t understand,” she hissed. “Well, can you face these?”
    Every Nac Mac Feegle sword suddenly glowed blue.
    Back in the crowd of eerily lit pictsies, a voice that sounded very much like that of Daft Wullie said:
    “Ach, we’re in real trouble noo…”
    Three figures had appeared