The Little Country

by Charles de Lint

  Too much faith, if you asked him.

  Yes, he told himself, but come ‘pon that, twenty-four hours ago you didn’t believe there was such a thing as a Small, either, you.

  Another sigh escaped him and Ollie reached up to touch his cheek, trying to comfort him.

  “I just don’t know,” Denzil said aloud.

  He had his misgivings about this plan that had been concocted in Henkie Whale’s warehouse. For all that he could no longer deny the existence of magic, the reality of myth, he still found it difficult to accept that someone like Henkie carried the kind of wisdom they needed. The only sensible one of the lot of them‌—himself included, he had to admit‌—was Lizzie Snell.

  She was a clever, down-to-earth, practical jewel of a woman. And utterly wasted on the likes of Henkie. What did she see in him? It was easy to see what he saw in her. . . .

  Now don’t start that kind of thinking, you, he told himself. You’re too old a man to think about sparking with the ladies.

  But he hadn’t always been so old. There’d been a time, when he was a young man‌—

  He shook his head. No, he’d made a choice then and it was far too late to change his mind about it now. He had his studies and nothing had really altered from the time he had made his decision to the present day. What woman would put up with the likes of him anyway‌—what with his odd hours and animals, the studies that swallowed his life, and he so set in his ways?

  A woman like Lizzie Snell.

  Or the woman that Jodi would grow up to be.

  It was his own fault that he’d given up any hope of finding such a companion for himself.

  Too late, too late, the past whispered.

  The present agreed.

  Fair enough. He would just have to make do with the surrogate daughter that Jodi had become. He’d done so for years, loved her as though she really were his daughter. But that didn’t stop regrets bittering up against the corners of his mind.

  He shook his head again, trying to dislodge this train of thought. Think of something different, he told himself. But then only worries arose‌—for Jodi; for the Tatters children that they’d involved in their troubles. If anything happened to them . . .

  The afternoon leaked slowly away as he sat there, staring out at Peter Street, at the folk who went about their business below him without any concern or care for the hidden world that he’d discovered lying all about them, all about each and every one of them. He stroked Ollie’s fur, smiling vaguely as the monkey fell asleep in his arms, and waited for the time to pass.

  7.

  Ethy Welet was really too young for the task at hand, but she would never have admitted it, and no one was about to deny her her chance to take up her part in the trick they meant to play on the Widow. In the Tatters, it simply wasn’t done. The children accepted one another for what they were, for what they said they could and would do, and judged one another only on how they kept their word and how well they accomplished the promised task.

  So Ethy left with the others, her own Jodi doll tucked under her shirt, and pedaled her small bicycle away, a brave grin on her grimy face, waving cheerfully to the others. But once they were out of sight and she was on her own, the nervousness came.

  She thought of the Widow. Even without magic, the old woman was a towering fearsome figure‌—at least four times Ethy’s size and easily capable of far more strength than was hidden in her tiny frame. Whatever would she do if the Widow confronted her? And then there was this fetch creature that Jodi had described. It sounded as though it was even more awful.

  Maybe they wouldn’t come after her. Maybe they’d chase one of the others instead.

  She could hope. . . .

  But that wasn’t a kind thought.

  Ethy lived with her father in a small shabby room deep in the Tatters. Caswal Welet was an absolutely brilliant darts and billiards champion. Unfortunately, after Ethy, they were his only loves, so while they had any number of trophies neatly lined up, row upon row, in their room, there was rarely much to eat because Caswal couldn’t keep a job if his life depended on it, and one change of clothes each was all they had. When Ethy outgrew what she owned, it was the other children in the Tatters who helped her find new garb. Her father simply couldn’t muster enough interest in any job to keep it for more than a week.

  Ethy’s mother had left them because of that and the people of Bodbury considered him, as they did so many who made the Tatters their home, to be nothing more than a lazy layabout. Caswal, in moments of honesty, would have been the first to agree with them. But Ethy didn’t see him like that at all.

  The man she knew was kind and thoughtful, if a bit silly. But he always made sure that she had enough to eat, even if he didn’t, and they had time to walk about together and he taught her how to play both darts and billiards‌—moving the crate she had to stand upon around the table when it was her turn for a shot. But best of all were his stories.

  He knew any number of them. Wise and wonderful stories. Funny ones and sad. And the heroes‌—they were always brave and strong, yes, but they were kind as well.

  “Kindness is important, my little wren,” he would tell her. “Doesn’t matter how poor you are, you can still be kind. Doesn’t cost a tuppence, and maybe those you’re kind to won’t be kind back, but at least you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you tried to leave the world a bit of a better place, even if all you had to spare was a smile.”

  She wasn’t that strong, Ethy thought as she pedaled along, but at least she could try to be brave and kind. But the former was easier thought than done. As she took a shortcut through an alley ’round back of the butcher’s on Weaver Street, the Widow’s fetch dropped on her back and knocked her from her bicycle.

  She stared horrified at the creature, trying not to cry from the bumps she’d taken in her fall, and clutched the Jodi doll under her shirt tight against her skin.

  The fetch was ever so much worse than Jodi had described it‌—all teeth and claws and those huge evil eyes. It made a chittering sound that rose click-clicking from the back of its throat, a sound like the same harsh words being repeated over and over again. Ethy knew she wasn’t really understanding them, but she couldn’t help but hear them as‌—

  Killyoukillyoukillyoukillyou . . .

  Taupin had said to hand over the doll if she was in danger, but that didn’t seem to be a very brave thing to do, no matter how badly she wanted to do it right at this very moment. Because if she handed over the doll, then the fetch would just go after one of the others.

  And maybe kill her anyway, just for fun.

  She trembled as it advanced on her, and hugged the doll more tightly.

  Killyoukillyoukillyou . . .

  “D-daddy . . .” she cried.

  The fetch’s grin widened.

  Ethy didn’t want to look, but couldn’t unlock her gaze from that of the horrible little creature. It crouched low, gathering its muscles to spring at her. A voice stopped it before it could attack.

  “Hey, you!”

  Ethy looked up and relief went through her. It was Kara.

  The fetch turned to look as well and hissed as though it recognized the older girl.

  “Come on, you little bugger,” Kara said. “You and I, we haven’t finished our own dance yet.”

  Ethy stared wide-eyed at her friend. Kara was scratched, her sundress torn, but she stood as tall as a heroine from one of her daddy’s stories, eyes shining, voice firm, just like some knight all in armour, holding up a great heavy sword. Except that Kara didn’t have any armour or a sword. All she had was a balloon full of water.

  The fetch shrieked and flung itself towards Kara, who promptly let fly her water bomb. Neither of the girls was prepared for what next ensued.

  The balloon burst, soaking the fetch with water.

  That’ll never stop it, Ethy thought.

  But the water had been drawn up from the bay, salty seawater filling not only the balloon that Kara had just thro
wn, but the half-dozen others that she was lugging about in the satchel at her side.

  The fetch howled. Steam hissed up from its skin, like water dropped onto a hot griddle. The creature fell to the ground, howling and wailing.

  Ethy’s fingers went up to her mouth. A moment ago she would have given anything to be able to fend off the creature. Now she felt pity for its pain. Her gaze went to Kara’s face to find her own shock mirrored there.

  The fetch stopped its thrashing, only to lie still. It whimpered, saucer-eyes filled with pain, its malevolence fled. Its limbs twitched. Its skin was the red of a lobster, steam still hissing from it.

  Kara walked slowly around it, never taking her eyes from the creature. She helped Ethy to her feet.

  “G-get your bike,” she said.

  Ethy blinked. “But it’s so hurt. . . .”

  “It got only what it deserved,” Kara replied, but she seemed none too sure of that herself as she spoke. “We have to go.”

  “We can’t leave it,” Ethy said. “The poor thing.”

  She approached it cautiously, holding out one nervous hand. The fetch snapped its teeth feebly at her, but didn’t seem to be able to move much otherwise. Ethy looked back at Kara.

  “We can’t.”

  Kara hesitated. “What will we do with it?”

  “Take it to the Widow’s house.”

  “While she’s off attacking our friends?” Kara said, her perspective on the situation returning. She patted the satchel at her side. “We have to help them with these.”

  “You go, then,” Ethy said. “I’ll take it ’round.”

  “I. . .” Kara began, then she sighed. “Oh, bother.”

  She looked about in the refuse that littered the alleyway until she found a relatively dry newspaper. Moving gingerly, she wrapped the fetch in it, her own heart going out to the little creature as it whimpered in pain at the touch of the paper. The fetch tried to bite her, but it had no strength in its jaws. Its whimpering was enough to bring tears to Ethy’s eyes.

  “Oh, be careful,” she said, hovering nearby.

  “I am being careful.”

  Kara lifted the fetch. It made a tiny bundle, easy enough to carry in the crook of her arm. Ethy got her bicycle for her, then the two set off for the Widow’s house, Kara walking her bike and carrying the Widow’s creature, Ethy fluttering along beside her pushing her own bicycle.

  8.

  The Widow Pender had Peter Moyle backed up against the wall of an alleyway in another part of Bodbury. She had just repeated his name for the second time when she suddenly doubled over, a sharp cry of pain escaping from between her lips. Her missing toe‌—the one from which she’d taken the bone to grow Windle‌—came ablaze with pain.

  Gasping, she stumbled forward. Peter ducked away to one side and dashed for his bike. He was on it and wheeling for the end of the alley when he stopped to peer back. The Widow was hunched against the wall, moaning, the tears streaming from her eyes.

  Shivering, Peter pedaled quickly off, his Jodi doll still tucked safely away in his belt.

  The Widow remained behind in the alley. Once the pain struck, she had been no more aware of his presence when he’d been there than she was of his departure when he left. All she knew was Windle’s pain.

  Burning as though he’d been boiled alive.

  His agony was hers, the pain so sharp, so anguished.

  So raw. . . .

  What had they done to him?

  She was slow in straightening up from the wall. Her leg could scarcely support her weight, the pain in her missing toe was so fierce. Every inch of her skin felt burned and raw. Cramps threatened to buckle her over again, but she stayed upright. She closed her eyes, not against the pain‌—there could be no surcease from its fire‌—but to use her witch-sight to track the position of her fetch.

  The agony stretched like a wire between them, making it child’s play to place him.

  It took a moment longer for her to judge her own position in relation to his, but then she hobbled off, a fire burning in her heart as fiercely as the pain wracked her body.

  They would pay, she vowed. Every last one of the monsters would pay for what they had done.

  Border Spirit

  No magic can change something into something it is not; the imaginative transformation at the heart of magic is recognition, not creation. . . .

  ‌—SUSAN PALWICK, from “The Last Unicorn: Magic as Metaphor,” in The New York Review of Science Fiction, February 1989

  Janey’s Reliant Robin was admirably suited to the narrow back lanes of Penwith Peninsula‌—lanes so confining that in most places they were only wide enough to allow one car egress at a time. But the Reliant’s tiny three-wheeled body took to them like a ferret, low-slung and quick, whizzing along at a happy putter between the tall hedgerows that rose on either side, darting by other vehicles, even where the road hadn’t been widened for passing.

  While Clare had ridden with Janey more times than she could possibly begin to count, she could never help but feel just a bit nervous on a trek like this. As far as she was concerned, the little Reliant was simply too small, its three wheels much too precarious, and Janey’s driving, especially when she was in a mood like this, far too impetuous. Any moment she expected them to come smack upon a lorry, or to have the car tip over on some particularly sharp corner that she was certain Janey took far too fast.

  It didn’t help today that ever since they’d set off from the Gaffer’s house, neither of them had spoken so much as a word to each other. It made Clare feel somewhat put upon. After all, none of this was her fault. She hadn’t found some rare book that a gang of thugs were bent upon stealing. When it came right down to it, if it weren’t for the Littles, she herself would never have been attacked last night. She was the innocent in all of this. All she’d been trying to do was help.

  She shot a sidelong glance at Janey and was surprised to see unshed tears glistening in her friend’s eyes. She immediately felt guilty for the turn her thoughts had taken. She really wasn’t being very fair.

  It wasn’t Janey’s fault either.

  “Janey,” she began, but then was at a loss as to what to say next.

  Janey slowed the Reliant’s headlong pace and gave Clare a quick sad look.

  “It’s all gone so awful,” she said. “Finding that book . . . having Felix come back. . . . Everything should have been all wonderful and happy, but it’s not. It’s horrible.”

  Clare stifled a sigh. Trust Janey to simply feel sorry for herself. But the next thing Janey said made her realize that she’d misjudged her friend once again.

  “I never meant to hide the book from you,” Janey said. “I would have asked Gramps if you could borrow it. But everything went so odd, all of a sudden, and I never had a chance to even think about it in the first place.” She shot Clare another quick glance. “I’m really sorry that I never told you, Clare. Honestly I am.”

  “That’s all right,” Clare said, feeling somewhat chagrined.

  “I only found it on Friday,” Janey went on, “and there’s been ever so much going on since then. . . .”

  “I really do understand,” Clare said.

  And she did. Janey had a mind like a sieve and it wasn’t because she didn’t care that she’d let something like telling Clare about the Dunthorn book slip her mind. It was just that as soon as something new came up, whatever Janey had been thinking of earlier would find itself put away into a little box and then stored off somewhere in the muddle that was her mind, haphazardly stacked up with all the other boxes of ragtag odds and ends by which Janey compartmentalized her memories.

  “I wish I had a brain that worked like a normal person’s does,” Janey said as though she’d been reading Clare’s mind.

  “Who’s to say what’s normal?” Clare replied.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do. But if you were any different, then you wouldn’t be you.”

  “Sometimes,” Janey said, “
I think that might not be such a bad thing.”

  Clare shook her head. “Don’t start.”

  Every once in a while, Janey would decide that everything in her life was wrong and after long soul-searching talks with Clare would attempt to set it all straight. It never worked. Her intentions were good, but as Clare endlessly pointed out, why try to be someone she wasn’t?

  Janey’s personality was so strong that she simply couldn’t change. She had strong views on everyone and everything‌—not always informed ones, unfortunately‌—and she could easily rub a person the wrong way. But the other side of that coin was that the very strength of her convictions was part and parcel of her charm. She could wax eloquent on any number of passions, which was far more entertaining than listening to gossip along the lines of who so-and-so’s sister was dating, or have you heard about the Hayles taking in a boarder?

  She envied Janey’s easy geniality and, if not her quick temper, then at least her ability to forgive just as quickly. The envy that was hardest to deal with was how Janey always seemed to come out ahead, no matter what the situation.

  Sometimes Clare wondered why she didn’t hate Janey for that. Janey always got what she wanted, and got it first.

  Got the music.

  Got the new Dunthorn book.

  Got Felix. . . .

  Best not to think of that, she told herself. She glanced at Janey again and stifled yet another sigh. For all the times Janey drove her mad, there were a hundred others when she’d rather not be with anyone else. Hating Janey would be like hating a part of herself.

  “We turn here,” she said.

  Janey steered them through a gap in the hedgerows onto a narrow bumpy track that drifted down to Peter Goninan’s cottage. It had been a lane once, but now it barely held back the encroaching woods on one side, or the fields on the other, most of which had grown over into moorland since the land had stopped being farmed. No more than a quarter kilometer along, the track gave out completely, ending at a jumble of rock that had once been a stone fence. A gate in it led over a stream that had dammed into a pool a few yards down the slope because the density of the weeds blocked its flow.