“I expect it’s not your fault you’re so cold and heartless,” said the Queen. “It’s probably all to do with your parents. They probably never gave you enough time. And having Wentworth was a very cruel thing to do—they really should have been more careful. And they let you read too many books. It can’t be good for a young brain, knowing words like paradigm and eschatological. It leads to behavior such as using your own brother as monster bait.” The Queen sighed. “Sadly, that kind of thing happens all the time. I think you should be proud of not being worse than just deeply introverted and socially maladjusted.”
She walked around Tiffany.
“It’s so sad,” she continued. “You dream that you are strong, sensible, logical…the kind of person who always has a bit of string. But that’s just your excuse for not being really, properly human. You’re just a brain, no heart at all. You didn’t even cry when Granny Aching died. You think too much, and now your precious thinking has let you down. Well, I think it’s best if I just kill you, don’t you?”
Find a stone! her Third Thoughts screamed. Hit her!
Tiffany was aware of other figures in the gloom. There were some of the people from the summer pictures, but there were also dromes and the headless horseman and the Bumblebee women.
Around her, frost crept over the ground.
“I think we’ll like it here,” said the Queen.
Tiffany felt the cold creeping up her legs. Her Third Thoughts, hoarse with effort, shouted: Do something!
She should have been better organized, she thought dully. She shouldn’t have relied on dreams. Or…perhaps I should have been a real human being. More…feeling. But I couldn’t help not crying! It just wouldn’t come! And how can I stop thinking? And thinking about thinking? And even thinking about thinking about thinking?
She saw the smile in the Queen’s eyes, and thought: Which one of all those people doing all that thinking is me?
Is there really any me at all?
Clouds poured across the sky like a stain. They covered the stars. They were the inky clouds from the frozen world, the clouds of nightmare. It began to rain, rain with ice in it. It hit the turf like bullets, turning it into chalky mud. The wind howled like a pack of grimhounds.
Tiffany managed to take a step forward. The mud sucked at her boots.
“A bit of spirit at last?” said the Queen, stepping back.
Tiffany tried another step, but things were not working anymore. 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 anymore, 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 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.