‘A bit of spirit at last?’ said the Queen, stepping back.

Tiffany tried another step, but things were not working any more. She was too cold and too tired. She could feel her self disappearing, getting lost…

‘So sad, to end like this,’ said the Queen.

Tiffany fell forward, into the freezing mud.

The rain grew harder, stinging like needles, hammering on her head and running like icy tears down her cheeks. It struck so hard it left her breathless.

She felt the cold drawing all the heat out of her. And that was the only sensation left, apart from a musical note.

It sounded like the smell of snow, or the sparkle of frost. It was high and thin and drawn out.

She couldn’t feel the ground under her and there was nothing to see, not even the stars. The clouds had covered everything.

She was so cold she couldn’t feel the cold any more, or her fingers. A thought managed to trickle through her freezing mind. Is there any me at all? Or do my thoughts just dream of me?

The blackness grew deeper. Night was never as black as this, and winter never as cold. It was colder than the deep winters when the snow came down and Granny Aching would plod from snowdrift to snowdrift, looking for warm bodies. The sheep could survive the snow if the shepherd had some wits, Granny used to say. The snow kept the cold away, the sheep surviving in warm hollows under roofs of snow while a bitter wind blew harmlessly over them.

But this was as cold as those days when even the snow couldn’t fall, and the wind was pure cold itself, blowing ice crystals across the turf. Those were the killer days in early spring, when the lambing had begun and winter came howling down one more time…

There was darkness everywhere, bitter and starless.

There was a speck of light, a long way off.

One star. Low down. Moving…

It got bigger in the stormy night.

It zigzagged as it came.

Silence covered Tiffany, and drew her into itself.

The silence smelled of sheep, and turpentine, and tobaccco.

And then… came movement, as if she was falling through the ground, very fast.

And gentle warmth, and, just for a moment, the sound of waves.

And her own voice, inside her head.

This land is in my bones.

Land under wave.

Whiteness.

It tumbled through the warm, heavy darkness around her, something like snow but as fine as dust. It piled up somewhere below her, because she could see a faint whiteness.

A creature like an ice-cream cone with lots of tentacles shot past her and jetted away.

I’m underwater, thought Tiffany.

I remember…

This is the million-year rain under the sea, this is the new land being born underneath an ocean. It’s not a dream. It’s… a memory. The land under wave. Millions and millions of tiny shells…

This land was alive.

All the time there was the warm, comforting smell of the shepherding hut, and the feeling of being held in invisible hands.

The whiteness below her rose up and over her head, but it didn’t seem uncomfortable. It was like being in a mist.

Now I’m inside the chalk, like a flint, like a calkin…

She wasn’t sure how long she spent in the warm deep water, or if indeed any time really had passed, or if the millions of years went past in a second, but she felt movement again, and a sense of rising.

More memories poured into her mind.

There’s always been someone watching the borders. They didn’t decide to. It was decided for them. Someone has to care. Sometimes, they have to fight. Someone has to speak for that which has no voice…

She opened her eyes. She was still lying in the mud, and the Queen was laughing at her and, overhead, the storm still raged.

But she felt warm. In fact, she felt hot, red-hot with anger… anger at the bruised turf, anger at her own stupidity, anger at this beautiful creature whose only talent was control.

This… creature was trying to take her world.

All witches are selfish, the Queen had said. But Tiffany’s Third Thoughts said: Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf! My dreams! My brother! My family! My land! My world! How dare you try to take these things, because they are mine!

I have a duty!

The anger overflowed. She stood up clenched her fists and screamed at the storm, putting into the scream all the rage that was inside her.

Lightning struck the ground on either side of her. It did so twice.

And it stayed there, crackling, and two dogs formed.

Steam rose from their coats, and blue light sparked from their ears as they shook themselves. They looked attentively at Tiffany.

The 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 towards 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 upwards, 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 towards 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 round 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 centre of her bones of what she might not see. She shut her eyes while her cowardly boots shuffled her round 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, glowing 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, glowing 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 night-time 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 only happened 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—’