‘And you watch over Tiffany’s farm, Mr Anybody?’

‘Aye, we do that, an’ we dinnae ask for any reward,’ said Rob Anybody stoutly.

‘Aye, we just tak’ a few wee eiggs an’ fruits an’ old clothes and—’ Daft Wullie began.

Rob gave him a look.

‘Er… wuz that one o’ those times when I shouldna’ open my big fat mouth?’ said Wullie.

‘Aye. It wuz,’ said Rob. He turned back to both of Miss Level. ‘Mebbe we tak’ the odd bitty thing lyin’ aboot—’

‘—in locked cupboards an’ such—’ added Daft Wullie happily.

‘—but it’s no’ missed, an’ we keeps an eye on the ships in payment,’ said Rob, glaring at his brother.

‘You can see the sea from down there?’ said Miss Level, entering that state of general bewilderment that most people fell into when talking to the Feegles.

‘Rob Anybody means the sheep,’ said Awf’ly Wee Billy. Gonnagles know a bit more about language.

‘Aye, I said so, ships,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘Anywa’… aye, we watch her farm. She’s the hag o’ oor hills, like her granny.’ He added proudly, ‘It’s through her the hills knows they are alive.’

‘And a hiver is… ?’

Rob hesitated. ‘Dunno the proper haggin’ way o’ talking aboot it,’ he said. ‘Awf’ly Wee Billy, you know them lang words.’

Billy swallowed. ‘There’s old poems, mistress. It’s like a—a mind wi’oot a body, except it disnae think. Some say it’s nothing but a fear, and never dies. And what it does…’ His tiny face wrinkled. ‘It’s like them things you get on sheep,’ he decided.

The Feegles who weren’t eating and drinking came to his aid.

‘Horns?’

‘Wools?’

‘Tails?’

‘Legs?’

‘Chairs?’ This was Daft Wullie.

‘Sheep ticks,’ said Billy, thoughtfully.

‘A parasite, you mean?’ said Miss Level.

‘Aye, that could be the word,’ said Billy. ‘It creeps in, ye ken. It looks for folks wi’ power and strength. Kings, ye ken, magicians, leaders. They say that way back in time, afore there wuz people, it live in beasts. The strongest beasts, ye ken, the one wi’ big, big teeths. An’ when it finds ye, it waits for a chance tae creep intae your head and it becomes ye.’

The Feegles fell silent, watching Miss Level.

‘Becomes you?’ she said.

‘Aye. Wi’ your memories an’ all. Only… it changes ye. It gives ye a lot o’ power, but it takes ye over, makes ye its own. An’ the last wee bit of ye that still is ye… well, that’ll fight and fight, mebbe, but it will dwindle and dwindle until it’s a’ gone an’ ye’re just a memory…’

The Feegles watched both of Miss Level. You never knew what a hag would do at a time like this.

‘Wizards used to summon demons,’ she said. ‘They may still do so, although I think that’s considered so fifteen centuries ago these days. But that takes a lot of magic. And you could talk to demons, I believe. And there were rules.’

‘Never heard o’ a hiver talkin’,’ said Billy. ‘Or obeyin’ rules.’

‘But why would it want Tiffany?’ said Miss Level. ‘She’s not powerful!’

‘She has the power o’ the land in her,’ said Rob Anybody stoutly. ‘ ‘Tis a power that comes at need, not for doin’ wee conjurin’ tricks. We seen it, mistress!’

‘But Tiffany doesn’t do any magic,’ said Miss Level, helplessly. ‘She’s very bright but she can’t even make a shamble. You must be wrong about that.’

‘Any o’ youse lads seen the hag do any hagglin’ lately?’ Rob Anybody demanded. There were a lot of shaken heads, and a shower of beads, beetles, feathers and miscellaneous head items.

‘Do you spy—I mean, do you watch over her all the time?’ said Miss Level, slightly horrified.

‘Oh, aye,’ said Rob, airily. ‘No’ in the privy, o’course. An’ it’s getting harder in her bedroom ‘cuz she’s blocked up a lot o’ the cracks, for some reason.’

‘I can’t imagine why,’ said Miss Level carefully.

‘No’ us, neither,’ said Rob. ‘We reckon it was ‘cuz o’ the draughts.’

‘Yes, I expect that’s why it was,’ said Miss Level.

‘So mostly we get in through a mousehole and hides out in her old dolly house until she guz tae sleep,’ said Rob. ‘Dinnae look at me like that, mistress, all the lads is perrrfect gentlemen an’ keeps their eyes tight shut when she’s gettin’ intae her nightie. Then there’s one guarding her window and another at the door.’

‘Guarding her from what?’

‘Everything.’

For a moment Miss Level had a picture in her mind of a silent, moonlit bedroom with a sleeping child. She saw, by the window, lit by the moon, one small figure on guard, and another in the shadows by the door. What were they guarding her from? Everything…

But now something, this thing, has taken her over and she’s locked inside somewhere. But she never used to do magic! I could understand it if it was one of the other girls, messing around, but… Tiffany?

One of the Feegles was slowly raising a hand.

‘Yes?’ she said.

‘It’s me, mistress, Big Yan. I dinnae know if it wuz proper hagglin’, mistress,’ he said nervously, ‘but me an’ Nearly Big Angus saw her doin’ something odd a few times, eh, Nearly Big Angus?’ The Feegle next to him nodded and the speaker went on. ‘It was when she got her new dress and her new hat…’

‘And verra bonny she looked, too,’ said Nearly Big Angus.

‘Aye, she did that. But she’d put ‘em on, and then standing in the middle o’ the floor and said—whut wuz it she said, Nearly Big Angus?’

‘ “See me”,’ Nearly Big Angus volunteered.

Miss Tick looked blank. The speaker, now looking a bit sorry that he’d raised this, went on: ‘Then after a wee while we’d hear her voice say “See me not” and then she’d adjust the hat, ye know, mebbe to a more fetchin’ angle.’

‘Oh, you mean she was looking at herself in what we call a mirror,’ said Miss Level. ‘That’s a kind of—’

‘We ken well what them things are, mistress,’ said Nearly Big Angus. ‘She’s got a tiny one, all cracked and dirty. But it’s nae good for a body as wants tae see herself properly.’

‘Verra good for the stealin’, mirrors,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘We got oor Jeannie a silver one wi’ garnets in the frame.’

‘And she’d say “See me”?’ said Miss Level.

‘Aye, an’ then “See me not”,’ said Big Yan. ‘An’ betweentimes she’d stand verra still, like a stachoo.’

‘Sounds like she was trying to invent some kind of invisibility spell,’ Miss Level mused. ‘They don’t work like that, of course.’

‘We reckoned she was just tryin’ to throw her voice,’ said Nearly Big Angus. ‘So it sounds like it’s comin’ fra’ somewhere else, ye ken? Wee Iain can do that a treat when we’re huntin’.’

‘Throw her voice?’ said Miss Level, her brow wrinkling. ‘Why did you think that?’

‘ ‘Cuz when she said “See me not”, it sounded like it wuz no’ comin fra’ her and her lips didnae move.’

Miss Level stared at the Feegles. When she spoke next, her voice was a little strange.

‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘when she was just standing there, was she moving at all?’

‘Just breathin’ verra slow, mistress,’ said Big Yan.

‘Were her eyes shut?’

‘Aye!’

Miss Level started to breathe very fast.

‘She walked out of her own body! There’s not one—’

‘—witch in a hundred who can do that!’ she said. ‘That’s Borrowing, that is! It’s better than any circus trick! It’s putting—’

‘—your mind somewhere else! You have to—’

‘—learn how to protect yourself before you ever try it! And she just invented it because she didn’t have a mirror? The little fool, why didn’t she—’

‘—say? She walked out of her own body and left it there for anything to take over! I wonder what—’

‘—she thought she was—’

‘—doing?’

After a while Rob Anybody gave a polite cough.

‘We’re better at questions about fightin’, drinkin’ and stealin’,’ he mumbled. ‘We dinna have the knowin’ o’ the hagglin’.’