by Kit Peel
Pulling a blanket around her, Wyn settled next to the window with its swaying cobweb pane that looked out onto the reservoir. The moon was little more than a sliver now and Wyn could sense it waning, moment by moment drawing summer to a close. Every so often, a spider clambered over the silken pane; checking, renewing, checking. She was just starting to doze off, when she heard footsteps below her and the swish of branches.
Sitting up and peering out through the window, she saw Thwaite striding through the deep, fresh snow and onto the reservoir, a pickaxe over his shoulder. Pip bounded at his side. A long way out over the ice, Thwaite stopped and bent down on one knee, touching the frozen surface with his hand. Wyn saw the earth spirit’s lips moving, as if he were talking to someone. He stood up, turning slowly and staring long and hard around him. Then Wyn saw his axe blade glint in the moonlight as it flashed down onto the ice. Shards exploded around him. With metronomic timing, the earth spirit struck the ice again and again.
Wind blew around Wyn and then Tawhir was sitting beside her, looking out through the window. His face, shielded by his long hair, was so close to her that if he turned towards her, their noses would touch. His breath stirred the cobweb window panes.
Wyn resisted the temptation to glance towards the boy.
“Go away,” she muttered, but Tawhir didn’t budge. He kept watching the earth spirit’s efforts out on the reservoir.
“I told him not to exert himself trying to heal your friend. And he’s got no better chance of releasing his girlfriend from the ice.”
“What are you on about?”
“A water spirit; I’ve hardly seen one more beautiful. I don’t know how he did it. She must have a thing for bad-tempered earthers.”
“What happened to her?”
“When the reservoir froze, she was trapped under the surface; a terrible thing for a water spirit. They are born to movement; ceaseless travelers of earth and sky.”
The platform shifted as Tawhir got to his feet, stepping away from her. She glanced around but to her annoyance the boy had his back to her.
“Don’t wait up, Mugasa.”
“Where are you going?”
“To look for your enemies.”
“I thought you said that was dangerous.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Will you just wait?”
At her outburst of temper, the boy turned around, one hand pushing his long hair from his face. Wyn’s chest tightened. There was something so familiar about the way he’d just done that. He was a stranger and yet she recognized his every movement, his every expression. And why did she feel so completely drawn to him, and so angry with him at the same time? What the hell had gone on between them?
Tawhir turned from her again.
“Get some sleep. You’ll need it for your training.”
“When will you be…?”
But the wind spirit was already gone. Overhead, hawthorn leaves shook and the family of owls complained. Wyn squinted through the cobweb window, trying to catch a glimpse of where he was going. All she saw was a faint movement in the sky and clouds parting, then closing behind him.
Outside, the sound of Thwaite’s pickaxe striking the frozen lake rang through the night.
15
—
“Ten years. That was how long I was trained by the earth spirit who was here before me,” Thwaite told Wyn as they stepped out of the hawthorn house into stillness and the grays of dawn.
He strode away at breakneck speed towards Pateley Bridge and Wyn had to run to keep pace with him, her eyes continually on the sky. Overnight, her eyesight had miraculously sharpened. She could easily see Tawhir now, impossibly high up, billowing between clouds.
“Ten years to learn the knowledge that she’d accumulated since before these hills were ever formed. Do you know what she told me on her last day, as she lay down to rest in the heather? We’ve barely scratched the surface, she said. And now here I am, with two days to teach you everything I know about the earth and all the other elements. I’d best take some shortcuts. And we’d best both hope that you have some talent.”
Like the night before, Thwaite led her into tunnels and through thickets, but this time they also climbed up branches that were as close together as steps and walked along a path in the canopy of trees by the river, much to the entertainment of the jackdaws and crows chattering at them from their frosty nests.
As much as Wyn had a sense of wonder to be passing through the dale on Thwaite’s secret paths, she couldn’t escape the feeling that she was somehow betraying herself. With every footstep, unease grew in her. She felt trapped, not wanting to go on, but not knowing why.
From the treetops, Wyn could see clear across the dale. Her gaze flicked up to Highdale, then panned around the other houses and on towards the high school. All her life she’d felt uncomfortable in this world of people, feeling alien and alone and never knowing why. In less than a day she had crossed into the world of the spirits. Now, with every footstep, she felt like she was casting off her old life and the few bonds that tied her to it; even Robin, even Kate.
But even as she thought this, she saw Kate swinging Thwaite’s axe at the ice spirit and remembered all the times Robin had helped her and Mrs. March. Angry with herself, Wyn moved on through the treetops behind the earth spirit, doing her best to remember all the love she had known from Mrs. March, Robin and Kate.
The trees vibrated as her fingers brushed against them. When the jackdaws chattered, Wyn found that she half understood them.
They reached Skrikes Wood just as the sun appeared over the hilltops. Climbing down through the roots of the ash, Thwaite led Wyn through a part of the cavern that she hadn’t seen before: through meadows full of different orchids, their petals in the shape of bees, butterflies; through dog-rose bushes that were twined with blackberry thorns; a pond where a family of badgers were vigorously at work, widening the banks.
The earth spirit walked ahead of Wyn with his hands outstretched, brushing the plants and trees he passed. And all the time, bees and butterflies bobbed by his cheeks and birds landed on his bare forearms, jostling for attention. He came to an abrupt stop by unkempt bushes of dog roses, their thorny stems tumbling onto purple bugle that grew in their shadow.
“Touch is the language of plants, of trees, of all living things,” he said, carefully taking a bee in his hand, his thumb brushing the tips of its wings. “It is how most ordinary earth spirits communicate with nature.” Thwaite’s eyes gleamed momentarily and the bee rose into the air, circling around Wyn. Now Thwaite reached out to a dog-rose bush, his eyes gleaming again, and Wyn watched with a shiver of delight as the bush drew back the thorny stems that were choking the flowers beneath them.
“I am an ordinary earth spirit. The range of my power is limited to what I can touch,” continued Thwaite. “Only the very greatest among my kind can communicate with nature by thought alone, reading the mind of any creature or plant in their territories. I know of only five living earth spirits with this power: Sagarmatha and Denali, the mountain lords; Uluru in the east; and the forest lords Amazonia and Kongo. Yet you, Wyn, you have a strength infinitely greater than any of them. You have the power to send your thoughts across oceans, across continents, to shake mountains on the other side of the world. It is this power that you need to rediscover before tomorrow night, before the last chance of summer is gone.”
“No pressure then,” muttered Wyn.
“In the first year of my training, I learned how to communicate with nature; to speak with the plants and animals of the territory that one day I would inherit. Let’s see how you get on.”
“How long do I have?”
“Until lunchtime. Now, hold out your hands.”
Then, with a momentary gleam of his green eyes, all the birds, bees and butterflies that had been clustering around him flew to Wyn, landing on her arms, h
ands, shoulders, and she even found herself looking into the waggling antennae of a butterfly that had come to rest on her nose.
The next few hours were the most surreal and exhilarating of Wyn’s life.
Thwaite threw challenge after challenge at her. Every time she was sure she was going to fail. After all, how on earth was she expected to suddenly be able to have a conversation with a family of moles? Or be able to walk into the center of the bee glade and peer into their hives and not be stung by any of the hundreds of thousands of creatures that buzzed around her? And yet, under Thwaite’s instruction, she was able to understand all the animals in the cavern and they could understand her. It happened slowly at first and then with an ease that was as bewildering to Wyn as it was wondrous.
Now that she could communicate with all the creatures of the cavern, Wyn found herself wondering if she hadn’t always understood them a little. How many times had she sat on the windowsill of her bedroom at Mrs. March’s house, letting the birdsong from Spring Wood come in with the breeze? While she hadn’t known what the birds were saying, Wyn had always been able to recognize their individual voices and had always been able to sense their mood, and the mood of the wood itself. The birds had been her friends, even as she’d kept her distance from other children at school.
If the earth spirit was as astonished at the speed of Wyn’s progress as she was, he said nothing. All that Wyn noticed was a new vigor in his long stride and the occasional narrowing of his eyes.
Leaving the hives, he had told her to take off her boots, and now Wyn walked barefoot through the grass and flowers. Under her feet, the ground had suddenly become a living thing, vibrating with an energy just like the one she’d felt within the trees. With every step she took, her feet seemed to press deeper into the ground and the power of the earth rose up in her, making her limbs feel lighter and stronger. She had barely slept last night and walked far already today, but now all the tiredness washed away from Wyn and she felt like she could walk forever.
And all around her were the voices of animals, which now she could understand.
After the animals, Thwaite led her from flower to flower, watching as she carefully stroked their stems. They were harder to understand than the trees. The images they showed her were dreamlike and fleeting; a blur of rain, wind, the darkness of the soil. Hardest of all was a harebell, the last flower that Thwaite led her to. Long minutes passed until it responded to Wyn’s touch and she was able to see into the flower’s mind.
When she looked up, Thwaite was leaning on his axe.
“Did it show you things?” he asked.
Wyn nodded.
“All my life, I’ve not got anything out of them. What did it have to say?”
“Much the same as the others,” replied Wyn, which made the earth spirit chuckle.
“Obstinate little flowers,” he muttered.
And not for the first time that day, Wyn noticed the glimmer of excitement in the earth spirit’s eyes and a familiar warning ached in her heart. But Wyn was too caught up in the pleasure of talking to the animals and plants to listen to the voice warning her to leave the cavern and forget what the earth spirit had taught her.
After lunch, Thwaite slung a heavy bag over his shoulder and, carrying Pip under his arm, led Wyn up the ladder of vines. They clambered out into stillness and a silver disc of a sun, shrouded in cloud.
“Now that you can talk to plants and trees, let’s see if you can be of use to them,” said the earth spirit. He led Wyn into a dell of beech trees, dark and heavy with decay, and told her to lay her hands on the trees. They stirred at Wyn’s touch, vibrating faintly and showing blurry, broken images. Wyn remembered Mrs. March in hospital, right at the end. The old woman had curled her fingers around Wyn’s hand. Her voice had been little more than breaths.
“We’ve got to help them,” she told Thwaite.
Nodding, the earth spirit took an earthenware pot out of his bag. It was full of the same purple paste he had rubbed onto Kate after the bear’s attack. The smell of wildflowers and warm summer days rose up from the pot.
“What’s in it?” Wyn asked.
“Betony, knapweed, hawthorn berries, among others. On its own it has some strength, but in the right hands … take some.”
He watched as Wyn scooped out some of the paste, frowning at first, then breathing out deeply when the paste began to glimmer between Wyn’s fingers. The glimmer became a sparkle, washing over her hands, casting the dell in purple light. Thwaite dipped his fingers into the pot and held them up to show her, raising his eyebrows. At his touch, the paste shone, but with nothing like the intensity that it did against Wyn’s skin.
Under the earth spirit’s guidance, Wyn went from tree to tree in the dell, dabbing the paste on their frosted trunks until she felt their vibrations become stronger and steadier. With every tree she touched, Wyn felt her strength grow. Frost melted from their trunks, snow fell from their branches.
As she reached into the earthenware pot for more paste, Thwaite drew it away from her.
“Try it without this time,” he said.
It was harder without the paste, much harder. The trees were slower to respond to her. Sweat pricked her eyes and tiredness dragged at her limbs, but Wyn kept thinking of Mrs. March and Kate, and the memory of them drove her on. Pip stayed by her side, encouraging her, and more than once Wyn steadied herself by resting her hand on the collie’s head. She was breathing deeply when she clambered out of the dell behind Thwaite.
The earth spirit was leaning against his axe, looking at the silver birches higher up the wood.
“Now them,” he said, nodding up at the slender trees.
To Wyn’s irritation, he hadn’t thanked her or shown any acknowledgment of what she had already done. Glaring at him, she set off towards the trees, only to be held back by one of the earth spirit’s huge hands.
“No, heal them from here,” he said.
“But I can’t touch them from here.”
“You don’t need to. Reach out to them with your will alone.”
Wyn was so tired after her efforts in the dell that she wanted nothing more than to slump down on the snow. As she planted her feet and looked up towards a single silver birch, she heard a warning voice from within. Ignoring it, Wyn reached with her senses towards the distant tree.
Nothing. She felt nothing.
The voice grew stronger, angrier.
Summoning all the energy in her body, Wyn stretched out her hands, imagining her fingers stretching over the snow and clasping the slim trunk. Did she feel something this time? Did the faintest of tremors come from the tree? It was gone as soon as it came, leaving her gasping for breath.
Now the voice was raging through her, telling her over and over to stop.
“Keep going,” said Thwaite.
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder.”
“What the hell do you know?!”
Wyn focused with all her might on the tree. But as she did, the voice in her mind reached a new level of fury and suddenly the wood dissolved around her and she was hurtling up, up into a blood-red sky. Anger and fear coursed through her body, driving her on, away from her glittering assailant. Glancing back, she saw glimpses of tapering diamond wings, great silver eyes, white fire. The sky was growing darker. A shimmering wall of light appeared. She hurtled towards it, oblivious to him, to her own fear. There was pain, dazzling light. And blackness.
Then she was back in the wood, on her knees in the snow, gasping for air. Thwaite looked anxiously down at her.
“Forgive me. I was pushing you too hard.”
“What if I can’t be Mugasa again?”
“In a single morning, you’ve mastered what took me five years. You can become her once more, I’m sure of that.”
“What if I don’t want to be her?”
“What just hap
pened? What did you see?”
“Tell me about Sh’en Shiekar,” gasped Wyn.
16
—
A barren hilltop. In the distance, the frozen sea. Denali stood with his back to it, watching dark specks moving on faraway fields. He glanced upwards. A moment later Foehn fell from the sky, landing noiselessly in front him.
“Sh’en Shiekar is gone. The winds don’t speak of him,” she said.
The huge earth spirit took her in his arms.
“He may have found her,” he said.
“Then we’ve lost!”
“Even if he has tracked Mugasa down, bringing her back to power will be no simple task, especially if she remembers her past.”
“Do you think she would?”
“To be reborn is to be reshaped, not cast anew. However deep her memories of a past life may lie, they will be inside her,” said Denali. “Do not forget that she has remained hidden for so long. A part of her does not want to return. The same part that made her give up her powers in her last life. We’ve not lost. The odds are still with us. What news of the others?”
“Sirmik and Oya have found nothing.”
“Are there no living earth spirits to the west?”
“Only a few still walk the land, but they work alone.”
“And Kaniq?”
“He, too, has vanished.”
“So this is why my wolves are returning,” said the earth spirit. The distant specks had become shapes, bounding across white fields. One of the wolves ran ahead of the others. As he looked towards the pack leader, Denali’s eyes gleamed. After a few moments of silence, he breathed out deeply.
“There is a valley to the south, where Kaniq’s tracks end. An earth spirit lives there. He has a girl with him.”
“A human child? It can’t be her. Of all forms, she’d never have chosen to come back as a human.”
