No birds, she thought.

‘Stop,’ she said.

The pictsies lowered her to the ground, but Rob Anybody said: ‘We shouldnae hang aroound here too long. Heids up, lads.’

Tiffany lifted out the toad. It blinked at the snow.

‘Oh, shoap,’ it muttered. This is not good. I should be hibernating.’

‘Why is everything so… strange?’

‘Can’t help you there,’ said the toad. ‘I just see snow, I just see ice, I just see freezing to death. I’m listening to my inner toad here.’

‘It’s not that cold!’

‘Feels cold… to… me…’ The toad shut its eyes. Tiffany sighed, and lowered it into her pocket.

‘I’ll tell ye where ye are,’ said Rob Anybody, his eyes still scanning the blue shadows. ‘Ye ken them wee bitty bugs that clings onto the sheeps and suck themsel’ full o’ blood and then drop off again? This whole world is like one o’ them.’

‘You mean like a, a tick? A parasite? A vampire?’

‘Oh, aye. It floats aroound until it finds a place that’s weak on a world where no one’s payin’ attention, and opens a door. Then the Quin sends in her folk. For the stealin’, ye ken. Raidin’ o’ barns, rustlin’ of cattle—’

‘We use’ to like stealin’ the coo beasties,’ said Daft Wullie.

‘Wullie,’ said Rob Anybody, pointing his sword, ‘you ken I said there wuz times you should think before opening yer big fat gob?’

‘Aye, Rob.’

‘Weel, that wuz one o’ them times.’ Rob turned and looked up at Tiffany rather bashfully. ‘Aye, we wuz wild champion robbers for the Quin,’ he said. ‘People wouldnae e’en go a-huntin’ for fear o’ little men. But ‘twas ne’er enough for her. She always wanted more. But we said it’s no’ right to steal an ol’ lady’s only pig, or the food from them as dinnae ha’ enough to eat. A Feegle has nae worries about stealin’ a golden cup from a rich bigjob, ye ken, but takin’ awa’ the—’

–cup an old man kept his false teeth in made them feel ashamed, they said. The Nac Mac Feegle would fight and steal, certainly, but who wanted to fight the weak and steal from the poor?

Tiffany listened, at the end of the shadowy wood, to the story of a little world where nothing grew, where no sun shone, and where everything had to come from somewhere else. It was a world that took, and gave nothing back except fear. It raided—and people learned to stay in bed when they heard strange noises at night, because if anyone gave her trouble, the Queen could control their dreams.

Tiffany couldn’t quite pick up how she did this, but that’s where things like the grimhounds and the headless horseman came from. These dreams were… more real. The Queen could take dreams and make them more… solid. You could step inside them and vanish. And you didn’t wake up before the monsters caught up with you…

The Queen’s people wouldn’t just take food. They’d take people, too—

‘—like pipers,’ said William the gonnagle. ‘Fairies can’t make music, ye ken. She’ll steal a man awa’ for the music he makes.’

‘And she takes children,’ said Tiffany. ‘Aye. Your wee brother’s not the first,’ said Rob Anybody. There’s no’ a lot of fun and laughter here, ye ken. She thinks she’s good wi’ children.’

‘The old kelda said she wouldn’t harm him,’ said Tiffany. That’s true, isn’t it?’

You could read the Nac Mac Feegle like a book. And it would be a big, simple book with pictures of Spot the Dog and a Big Red Ball and one or two short sentences on each page. What they were thinking turned up right there on their faces and, now, they were all wearing a look that said: Crivens, I hope she disnae ask us the question we dinnae wantae answer…

‘That is true, isn’t it?’ she said.

‘Oh, aye,’ said Rob Anybody, slowly. ‘She didnae lie to ye there. The Quin’ll try to be kind to him, but she disnae know how. She’s an elf. They’re no’ very good at thinking of other people.’

‘What will happen to him if we don’t get him back?’

Again, there was that ‘we dinnae like the way this is going’ look.

‘I said–’ Tiffany repeated.

‘I darrresay she’ll send him back, in due time,’ said William. ‘An’ he willnae be any olderr. Nothing grows old here. Nothing grows. Nothing at all.’

‘So he’ll be all right?’

Rob Anybody made a noise in his throat. It sounded like a voice that was trying to say ‘aye’ but was being argued with by a brain that knew the answer was ‘no’.

‘Tell me what you’re not telling me,’ said Tiffany.

Daft Wullie was the first to speak. ‘That’s a lot o’ stuff,’ he said. ‘For example, the meltin’ point o’ lead is—’

‘Time passes slower the deeper you go intae this place,’ said Rob Anybody quickly. ‘Years pass like days. The Quin’ll get tired o’ the wee lad after a coupla months, mebbe. A coupla months here, ye ken, where the time is slow an’ heavy. But when he comes back into the mortal world, you’ll be an old lady, or mebbe you’ll be deid. So if youse has bairns o’ yer own, you’d better tell them to watch out for a wee sticky kid wanderin’ the hills shoutin’ for sweeties, ‘cos that’ll be their Uncle Wentworth. That wouldna be the worst o’ it, neither. Live in dreams for too long and ye go mad, ye can never wake up prop’ly, ye can never get the hang o’ reality again.’

Tiffany stared at him.

‘It’s happened before,’ said William.

‘I will get him back,’ said Tiffany quietly.

‘We doon’t doubt it,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘An’ wheree’er ye go, we’ll come with ye. The Nac Mac Feegle are afeared o’ nothing!’

A cheer went up, but it seemed to Tiffany that the blue shadows sucked all the sound away.

‘Aye, nothin’ exceptin’ lawyers mmph mmph,’ Daft Wullie tried to say, before Rob managed to shut him up.

Tiffany turned back to the line of hoofprints, and began to walk.

The snow squeaked unpleasantly underfoot.

She went a little way, watching the trees get realer as she approached them, and then looked around.

All the Nac Mac Feegles were creeping along behind her. Rob Anybody gave her a cheery nod. And all her footprints had become holes in the snow, with grass showing through.

The trees began to annoy her. The way things changed was more frightening than any monster. You could hit a monster, but you couldn’t hit a forest. And she wanted to hit something.

She stopped and scraped some snow away from the base of a tree and, just for a moment, there was nothing but greyness where it had been. As she watched, the bark grew down to where the snow was. Then it just stayed there, pretending it had been there all the time.

It was a lot more worrying than the grimhounds. They were just monsters. They could be beaten. This was… frightening…

She was second thinking again. She felt the fear grow, she felt her stomach become a red-hot lump, she felt her elbows begin to sweat. But it was… not connected. She watched herself being frightened, and that meant that there was still this part of herself, the watching part, that wasn’t.

The trouble was, it was being carried on legs that were. It had to be very careful.

And that was where it went wrong. Fear gripped her, all at once. She was in a strange world, with monsters, being followed by hundreds of little blue thieves. And… Black dogs. Headless horsemen. Monsters in the river. Sheep whizzing backwards across fields. Voices under the bed…

The terror took her. But, because she was Tiffany, she ran towards it, raising the pan. She had to get through the forest, find the Queen, get her brother, leave this place!

Somewhere behind her, voices started to shout—

She woke up.

There was no snow, but there was the whiteness of the bedsheet and the plaster ceiling of her bedroom. She stared at it for a while, then leaned down and peered under the bed.

There was nothing there but the guzunder. When she flung open the door of the doll’s house, there was no one inside but the two toy soldiers and the teddy bear and the headless dolly.