said Tiffany. She looked around. Feegles were picking themselves up and grumbling, but no one was going “Waily waily waily.” And Rob Anybody wasn’t making any sense at all. “Well, if you think you’re dead, then what are they?” she went on, pointing to a couple of small bodies. “Oh, they’ve gone back to the land o’ the livin’,” said Rob Anybody cheerfully. “It’s nae as good as this one, but they’ll bide fine and come back before too long. No sense in grievin’.” The Achings were not very religious, but Tiffany thought she knew how things ought to go, and they started out with the idea that you were alive and not dead yet. “But you are alive!” she said. “Ach, no, mistress,” said Rob, helping another pictsie to his feet. “We wuz alive. And we wuz good boys back in the land o’ the livin’, and so when we died there, we wuz borned into this place.” “You mean…you think…that you sort of died somewhere else and then came here?” said Tiffany.
