The Little Country

by Charles de Lint

  Something the size of a cat landed on her back and dug its claws into her shoulders.

  Kara shrieked and lost control of her bicycle. Its front wheel turned awkwardly on a cobblestone and she was tossed over the handlebars. All that saved her from a terrible collision with an all-too-rapidly approaching wall was that the hem of her skirt caught on the end of a handlebar. The thin cloth ripped, but its momentary hold had been enough to break the momentum of her flight so that she landed in a pile of refuse‌—winded and shaken‌—rather than cracking her head on the wall.

  But she had no time to consider her good fortune. The thing on her back was clawing at her skin and all she could do was to continue shrieking as she rolled about in the garbage, trying to dislodge it. When she succeeded, it immediately scampered around in front of her and swiped at her face with its talons. Kara jerked her head back so quickly that she pulled a muscle in her neck.

  “If,” Taupin had told them, “you feel that you’re in any sort of danger at all, for God’s sake, give up your doll. That’s what they’re after. Give it up, and when they see what it is they’ve been chasing, they’ll hurry off after another one of us.”

  Taupin’s words rang in Kara’s mind as she stared with horrified fascination at the creature that was perched so near her face.

  Jodi’s description had been all too accurate. It looked like a hairless caricature of Denzil’s monkey, but there the resemblance ended, for Ollie didn’t have claws like the fetch’s, nor those rows of sharp teeth that would do a shark proud. Nor did Ollie’s throat produce the awful chittering sound that escaped from the creature‌—akin to drawing a fingernail across a chalkboard.

  Kara’s earlier curiosity about the creature had utterly vanished. All she wanted to do now was to escape its presence, but the fetch crouched too closely by her. There wasn’t a move she could make that would allow her to avoid those sharp teeth and claws.

  The fetch’s saucer-wide eyes glared with malevolence and she shivered as the creature’s gaze locked onto her own. There was a brutal rage in those eyes‌—and also the promise that the fetch would enjoy the violence that would ensue when that rage was released.

  Kara didn’t want to hang about to see that happen.

  She scrabbled in her pocket for the doll. Trembling fingers took a moment to get a grip on the thing, but then finally she was pulling it free and offering it up to the little monster facing her.

  It tore the doll from her hand, rage glittering sharper as it saw what it was. Its chittering rose into a high-pitched crescendo that made Kara’s eardrums feel as though they would burst at any moment.

  “Th-that’s all I’ve g-got,” she managed.

  Her throat felt thick and dry and she could barely croak the words out.

  The fetch glared at her. It opened its mouth wide and bit off the head of the doll, chewing the cloth and fabric stuffing, throat working as it swallowed the mess down.

  Kara could only continue to stare, fascinated and repulsed by its every motion.

  When it had finished swallowing the doll’s head, it tossed the body away and leaned closer to Kara, grin widening. It swung its paw at her and panic loosened her throat’s constriction to let wail another shriek. The creature snickered as she fell back in the garbage in her attempt to get away, then it swung onto a drainpipe and scrambled quickly up to the roof. Two breaths later, it had disappeared.

  For a long moment Kara simply lay where she’d fallen. Her every muscle ached. She felt as though she were bruised from head to foot. The stench of the garbage made her stomach queasy and she wanted to throw up.

  But she was alive.

  The creature hadn’t killed her.

  She sat up slowly, wincing at the pain the movement brought her. A nervous look at the rooftops surrounding her showed no saucer-eyed face peering down at her still. It was gone now‌—after one of the others.

  Well, that was their problem, she thought. She was just happy to be alive. As far as she was concerned, all the fun had gone out of the day’s lark.

  But then she thought of Ethy. Little Ethy, with her own doll hidden under her shirt. If the fetch went after her . . .

  We were all bloody fools, Kara thought as she hobbled over to where her bicycle lay. We should have stood up against them together, sitting in great vats of seawater, armed with salt-water balloon bombs. . . .

  Balloon bombs. Now that was absolutely brill.

  She opened the little purse attached to her belt and counted her pennies. She had barely enough to buy what was needed‌—but it was enough.

  She righted her bicycle and got on. Setting off down Penzern Way towards the market, she couldn’t help but groan as every bump she hit reminded her poor body of the recent abuse it had undergone. Tears of pain sparkled in her eyes, but she kept on, her mouth set in a tight line, and ignored the way the bumps made her want to lie down in a corner somewhere and not move for weeks.

  She was determined to give back as good as she’d gotten.

  And then some.

  4.

  It was the Widow who tracked down Ratty Friggens.

  Like the others, he’d left Henkie’s warehouse on his bicycle, but he went on afoot as soon as he reached Market Square. Hiding his bicycle behind a stack of crates that he knew wouldn’t be shipped out for a few days, he continued on through the maze of warehouses and shipping docks until he reached the beginning of one of New Dock’s long piers. There he swung down to where the storm drains emptied into the sea. He gave a last quick look out across the bay, then slipped inside and began to make his way back through town‌—underground.

  Find me here, he thought with a happy grin. If you can.

  Ratty knew every hidden nook and secret cranny to be found, in and around and under Bodbury. Like his namesake he could squeeze into the tiniest openings, wriggling his way through narrow drains that others would swear were too narrow for a cat, little say a boy from the Tatters, no matter how small he might be. But if Ratty could get his head in, then it was just a matter of drawing his shoulders in close to his body until they appeared to be folded across his chest. And then he would simply slither his way along.

  Today he kept to the larger drains. Once his eyes adjusted to the poor light, it was easy for him to walk along at a steady pace. The only illumination came from the odd grating that opened up onto the streets above, but it was enough for him to make do. He kicked at pebbles and the odd bit of debris, pausing to unstop the more complex entanglements that might otherwise dam up a drain.

  Ratty kept his underground passages clear for his own convenience, but he was also providing an unknown service to those above whose homes might otherwise be flooded out during a big enough storm. They didn’t know and he didn’t care if they did or didn’t. Below, it was his kingdom.

  His plan was to follow the drains right up to the top of the town. From there he meant to go across country for as far as he got before it became dark. He’d been nervous when Taupin first talked about the witch, but then he had made his own plan of what he’d do and where he’d go, and his nervousness had fled. No one was going to follow him down here.

  He took his time to reach the far end of the last drain, emerging from it cautiously, but there was no one about. This high above the town he could look out across the rooftops, all the way across the bay. It was one of his favorite places. He could spend hours sitting up here, just watching the boats out on the water, the gulls wheeling above them.

  He settled the grating back into place and went to sit on a low wall that backed onto a hedge for a bit of a rest before he continued.

  It was amazing really, when he thought about it. He’d spread about the tale that the Widow Pender had got herself a Small just for the fun of it, never dreaming there was any truth in the matter. How could there be? Smalls and witches were part and parcel of fairy tales and had no part in the real world. If there was magic, if there was wonder, then it remained well hidden. So well hidden that it might as well not even exist
in the first place. But now . . . oh, yes, now. . . .

  Well, he’d seen the miniature Jodi Shepherd with his own two eyes, hadn’t he just? She was real. There was no denying that. And if she was real, then‌—

  “Ratty Richard Friggens.”

  His heart stopped cold in his chest at the sound of the Widow’s voice. He turned slowly to find that she’d crept up on him as if from out of nowhere‌—stepping now from the shadows by Kember Cottage, the last building in Bodbury before the hedge-bordered fields began their walk across the hills. She was no more than the length of a half lane from where he was sitting.

  She regarded him with an amused smile on her tight lips, dark eyes flashing dangerously.

  How could she . . . ? he thought in panic, but the answer came before he could even complete the question.

  She was a witch, wasn’t she?

  “Ratty Richard Friggens,” she said again.

  He started at the repetition of his name. Remembering what Taupin and Jodi both had told him about witch’s spells needing a name spoken three times to work, he hastily pulled the doll he was carrying from his pocket and offered it to her.

  “H-here,” he said.

  Just don’t turn me into a toad, he added to himself.

  “I don’t want that,” the Widow said.

  “But. . .”

  “I want the girl. The Small.”

  “I‌—I don’t have her.”

  “Then who does? Who carried her out?”

  Ratty swallowed dryly. He couldn’t tell because there was no knowing what the witch would do to Jodi when she had her in her power once again. But if he didn’t tell, there was no knowing what she’d do to him either.

  He just knew it would be something horrible.

  “Come, boy. I don’t have all day.”

  “I‌—I. . .”

  The name was on the tip of his tongue, burning to be set free into the air, but he couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t break faith. Not and still live with himself after.

  He straightened his shoulders and met the Widow’s gaze with his own, trying to stay steady, though his legs were trembling so much that if he hadn’t been sitting down, he would have fallen down.

  “I won’t tell you.”

  “Ratty Richard Friggens,” the Widow repeated for the third time. “Are you so brave, then, boy?”

  Brave? He was frightened out of his wits. But by now his throat was so constricted that he couldn’t have given her the name if he’d wanted to.

  He shook his head.

  “Bah,” the Widow said.

  She added some words in a language that Ratty couldn’t understand and the world went all fuzzy on him.

  She’s turning me into a Small, he thought.

  His panic lessened somewhat. That wouldn’t be so bad. He could prowl about in places that he’d never been able to reach before. He could . . .

  It was growing hard to think. Dizziness rose up in waves. There was a metallic taste on his tongue and he realized that he’d bitten his own cheek. That was his own blood he tasted.

  His own blood.

  He thought of Jodi pricking her finger, putting a drop of blood onto the head of each doll.

  Jodi who was the size of a mouse.

  But he didn’t seem to be shrinking. Instead, he seemed to be fading away. He was . . .

  His thoughts grew too fragile to hold on to anymore. They flitted about through his head like flies, humming and buzzing, but he couldn’t snag even one of them.

  What‌—

  He looked down at his hand. It had grown so gossamer that he could see right through it.

  ‌—was she‌—

  The doll fell from his grip‌—no, fell through his grip to land splaylimbed on the road.

  ‌—doing‌—

  Terrified now, he stared at his hand. It was coming apart like smoke. A breeze touched him, took away a finger in a wreath of pink mist.

  ‌—to . . .

  He never did get to finish the thought.

  5.

  The Widow smiled humourlessly as the last parts of Ratty Friggens were dissipated by the wind. All that remained was a small bone button on the wall where he’d been sitting. That, and a distant fading cry that sounded very much like his voice, before it too was taken away by the wind.

  He’d thought she was going to change him into a Small as well, she had realized towards the end. She’d seen it in his eyes.

  Instead, she’d simply unmade him.

  Because that had been his real fear. He was the sort who could find fortune in any size he might be. But to be nothing . . .

  She smiled and scooped up the button. Needle and thread appeared from her pocket and she quickly sewed it to her cloak where it joined a dozen or so others already sewn there. With the button in place, needle and thread returned to her pocket. She stooped and picked up the doll he’d dropped, her smile fading.

  Clever.

  Which of them had thought of this?

  She lifted the doll to her mouth and licked the spot stained with Jodi’s blood.

  Too clever.

  But she’d have the miserable girl yet. And she’d have gifts as well for the whole gaggle of fools who’d tried to help her. She would change them and unmake them. She would . . .

  She sighed. Closing her mind, she reached out with her witch-sight until she found and marked the presence of another one of the carriers. Did this one bear another doll, or the girl herself? The bothersome thing was that there was only one way to find out. She might well waste the entire day tracking them all down.

  Unless . . .

  She glanced skyward. The early afternoon was aging, the day steadily wearing into the evening. Night would be here soon. She could call up helpers then.

  From the marshes.

  From under cairns.

  From sea graves.

  Wrapping her cloak more closely about her, she fingered the newest addition to her collection and set off after the next Tatters child whose position she had noted moments ago.

  Behind her, where the shadows were thickening at the base of the wall, shadows laughed softly to themselves. The Widow heard them, as they knew she would, but she paid them no mind.

  6.

  The animals went mad when Denzil finally returned home in the early afternoon.

  Ollie flung himself onto his shoulders as soon as he opened the door, and happily hugged him. Noz gave a complaining squawk from his perch and ruffled his feathers, while the raven swooped down to circle once around Denzil’s head, before flying back to its own perch on the bookshelf. The mice scurried about in their cages and Rum wound back and forth in between his legs, tripping him up as he tried to close the door, deal with Ollie, and get into the room.

  “That’s enough, you!” he cried, straightening his glasses with an angry shove of his thumb and forefinger.

  Silence descended. Movement stopped.

  “I’m sorry I left you so long, but there were important matters to attend to.”

  “End to,” Noz repeated gravely.

  Denzil had to laugh.

  He propped up his own Jodi doll by the flying machine on his workbench and spent the next half hour grumbling good-naturedly as he set about feeding them all, then cleaned cages and the mess in the box of sand in one corner where the birds, Ollie, and Rum had been trained to relieve themselves.

  Rum scratched to go outside as soon as he was fed, but the other animals followed him about‌—Noz and the raven with their unblinking gazes, Ollie tagging along like an errant child, making more of a mess in trying to help Denzil clean up than if he’d left well enough alone. But finally order was restored, routines brought back onto track, and Denzil could sit by the window and stare out at Peter Street to consider the past night’s odd occurrences.

  “Utter madness,” he told Ollie, who cuddled close to him on the chair. “That’s what it is. All the world gone topsy-turvy.”

  His gaze traveled across the room to where the Jodi doll w
as sprawled on his workbench.

  Nothing was the same anymore. New equations had entered into the calm, if complex, natural world he thought he had come to somewhat understand. Not well, mind you. He’d barely scratched its surface in the better part of the lifetime that he’d spent attempting to unravel its mysteries. But he’d had the basic tools necessary for the task, the scientific demeanor that told him how to best go about his studies, the understanding of the underlying logic that bound the unknown to the known.

  And now everything was changed.

  Smalls and witches and dead men who could still move and speak. . . .

  Tee-ta-taw. Utter madness.

  His gaze shifted from the Jodi doll to his bookshelves where the raven was now grooming its feathers. He had a wealth of scientific texts, research notes‌—those of his own, and of colleagues‌—and every manner of useful tract on every manner of useful subject, from mechanics to astronomy, philosophy to natural history. But not the one of them was of any use in his present situation. He would have to go down to the library and pore through their collections of folklore and myth to learn what he now needed to know. To understand it all. Understand, and correlate it to what he already knew so that he could fashion some kind of a working plan as to what he would do when this immediate crisis was over.

  He sighed.

  Correlating madness to what he already knew.

  Bother and damn, as Jodi would say.

  How could he know what to keep and what to throw out? Piskies were real, but did that mean dragons were as well? The dead could walk and talk, but did that prove the existence of demons? Witches could shrink people down to the size of a mouse, but could they fly through the air on a broomstick?

  It made his head hurt to think of it all.

  And then there was Jodi.

  It made sense that he couldn’t bring her home with him. This was perhaps the first place the Widow would look for her. But he didn’t much care for her to be out of his sight. To have to sit here and wait and wonder until it grew close enough to moonrise so that they could make their way out to the holed stone on which Jodi, Henkie, and Taupin all put so much faith.