by Kit Peel
“What the hell are you doing?” she shouted, struggling to get free.
“What am I doing? What are you doing, Mugasa? Summer is almost over! There’s no more time for your games!”
Tawhir lifted Wyn to her feet and wrapped his arms around her. His face was inches from her own.
“Let go of me!”
“Not until you’ve seen the world that you’ve created.”
And suddenly the rock was shrinking beneath them.
Up and up they flew. The speed, the rush of air on her face, made Wyn’s heart leap inside her.
This was a million times better than ice skating. She wanted to scream from the sheer joy of it. They were in clouds now, out of sight and in their own world.
“Want to go faster?” said Tawhir, his voice cutting through the roar of the storm.
“Yes!” said Wyn automatically, before quickly saying, “No!”
They rocketed upwards.
“I said no!” yelled Wyn, but Tawhir ignored her.
The clouds fell away. Golden sunlight burst around her. The dale was gone. They were in a luminous other world, cast in every shade of blue, so beautiful it made Wyn shiver. Tawhir stopped climbing. They hung there, weightless, in each other’s arms.
Wyn looked up. Tawhir’s face, only inches from hers, was perfectly still, his features like carved ice. His gleaming eyes looked into hers.
“This is where you belong, where you were born to be,” said the boy.
“Take me down.”
“You love it up here. It’s all over your face.”
And he was right. A part of Wyn wanted nothing more than to be up here above the world, with him. But still she felt an insistent warning.
“Please, take me down.”
“Not yet, Mugasa,” said Tawhir.
If he’d flown fast before, it was like a breeze next to the violence of this next climb. They sped upwards with a ferocity that took the breath from Wyn’s lungs. Before she’d been holding Tawhir lightly at the waist. Now she had to put her arms around his neck, gripping with all her might. Tawhir was utterly concentrated on his task, seemingly oblivious to her. His face was still a mask. He barely seemed to be breathing. But she could feel his heart, pounding against hers.
Up, up, always up, as the sky turned from blue to purple and now to black. Tawhir’s climb slowed to a glide. Wyn became aware of a shimmering wall of light coming towards them, identical to the wall she’d seen in the memory of her past life, and she was terrified. All her senses were screaming out for the boy not to cross the border.
To her relief, Tawhir did stop; just a hand’s width away. He reached up, running his fingertips across it. Silver sparks fizzed down onto his sleeve. He watched them intently. His expression was impossible to read.
“The limit of our world,” he said, his voice echoing in the deep silence around them.
“Touch it,” he told her, turning his gleaming eyes towards her.
Wyn was afraid, but determined not to let Tawhir see her fear. She lifted her hand to touch the wall. There was a golden flash, and a jolt of electricity passed through her. She recoiled, startled, but only a moment later she stretched out her hand again, brushing it as lightly as she could across the wall. Specks of gold trailed from her fingers. She traced her hand close to Tawhir’s.
“I catch the sun,” she murmured. “You catch the moonlight.”
Beyond their fingers, stars pulsed in the vastness of space.
Wyn had always been able to see the colors of the stars with her naked eye, as she looked from her bedroom window at Highdale. After the snows had begun to stay longer each year, leaching the color out of the dale, whenever Wyn had stared at the stars on clear nights, the multi-colored fairy lights of the heavens had made her heart sing. Now, from this new vantage point, they took her breath away. Wyn saw rings, clouds, flares of light, swirling gases. A star she had always thought pink turned out to be layer after layer of reds, whites, grays and golds.
“Look down, Mugasa,” said Tawhir.
She did. Her breath froze on her lips.
Wyn inhaled sharply. No picture she’d seen had prepared her for this. It was the earth, but not an earth she recognized. Nearly everything was white. The two giant storms were spreading from each pole, covering most of the world with their fury. Only Europe was still spared the full force of the storm, but it was closing in quickly at the edges, raging across boundary seas. Wyn had seen the frozen world on TV, but from up here it was hideously real. Wyn saw a drop of water fall past her feet, traveling silently downwards into the dark. More drops fell. She realized she was crying.
She shut her eyes, whispering, “Take me home. Please.”
“The whole earth is your home. And she needs you back, Mugasa,” said Tawhir, gripping her with a force that made her glance up at him. As soon as she did, she knew it was a mistake. Their eyes locked. She felt herself being drawn towards him. When he spoke, he was so close to her that his lips almost brushed against hers.
“We all need you back.”
Wyn wanted to say she would go with the boy, let him take her wherever he chose. But instead she squeezed her eyes tight.
“I’ve tried. I can’t.”
She felt his breaths come even closer to her, then pull sharply back.
“Fly well, Mugasa,” Tawhir said, in a voice as hard as ice. And he let go of her.
She was falling.
It was surreal at first. There was nothing around her but the sky and rushing wind. She stretched out her arms and legs, balancing herself so she fell flat and fast. The edges of Europe vanished, then Italy, France, and she lost sight of the frozen sea.
Clouds rose up and suddenly she slammed into them, her mouth filled with the taste of snow. She lost balance and began tumbling head over heels. She came out of the clouds backwards, fell briefly through clear air, then more clouds rushed and she was in them in a flash. Tumbling even quicker, she saw sky, the dale, clouds, dale, clouds … she thought she was going to be sick. Tawhir appeared beside her.
“Are you trying to kill me?” she yelled, grabbing for him.
The boy kept just out of reach of Wyn’s flailing hands.
“You were the world’s greatest flyer, Mugasa.”
“Help me!” yelled Wyn, catching a glimpse of Skrikes Wood. It was coming at her fast. This time, as she flailed for Tawhir, she felt wind come up beneath her arms. She stopped tumbling. She felt the wind underneath her. She was sure it was slowing her a little. Wyn concentrated on the wind, willing it to strengthen. Instead of obeying her, the wind weakened, slipping away. Angrily, Wyn called it back. At once it drove up into her, stopping her fall and suspending her, gasping with surprise. Tawhir drew alongside her.
“Now, command it,” he told her.
But already the wind was straining away from her, trying to break free. In her confusion and panic, Wyn lost control of it.
Immediately, she was tumbling head over heels towards the dale. Tawhir caught up with her.
“Call it back!” he cried.
But everything was a blur to Wyn. The only thing she could focus on was the boy’s gleaming eyes.
The wood was becoming enormous. She fell past the line of the moors. There was only a few hundred feet between her and the ground.
“MUGASA! FLY!”
She watched the treetops rush up to meet her. Wyn could feel winds all around her, like fires waiting to ignite. She flailed her arms, trying to grab them. The winds eluded her. She shut her eyes.
18
—
Not a soul was stirring in Pateley Bridge and only a few lights showed behind curtained windows as Wyn and Thwaite, with Pip trotting by his side, passed along the shadows of the riverbank and on through thickets and tunnels, until they were trudging along the bank of the reservoir.
Wyn moved as q
uickly and quietly as Thwaite now, though she paid little attention to how strong her body felt and how her bare feet made almost no impression on the snow beneath them. While the earth spirit glanced around constantly, pausing every now and then as one by one his blackbirds came looping through the heavy snowfall, landing on his outstretched hand, Wyn remained consumed by her thoughts.
At the last possible moment, Tawhir had caught her. Silently, he’d lowered her to the ground, and for the first time she’d seen true shock and sadness on his face. Letting her go, he’d vanished once more.
His words played over in her mind.
“The world that you’ve created,” Tawhir had said. The world that she had created. When the storm eclipsed the world, there would be no turning back. After tomorrow night, there would be no more summers.
She couldn’t turn back the snow. It was too much. For a brief time that day she’d started to believe in something, started to take joy in her newfound powers. But it was just a few animals she’d spoken to, only a handful of trees that she’d helped. And all the while she had been fighting against a voice inside, telling her to stop.
Wyn’s bare feet slipped in the snow. She clung to a tree. Far across the dale, a light showed in Highdale. It was Robin. He’d opened a bedroom window and was looking out into the night. Despite being over a mile away, Wyn could see the lines in his face, the whiteness of his hands on the sill. Joan appeared at his side, tears on her cheeks. Robin drew back, closing the window. A curtain extinguished the light.
Pip padded forward, pressing her body against Wyn’s legs. She rubbed the collie’s ears, hearing the dog’s worried, questioning thoughts in her mind.
“One minute I had a normal life, minding my own business, and now the world is going to hell and it’s all my fault. Why does this have to be all on me?”
“Because you’re Mugasa,” said Thwaite.
“I didn’t ask to be her. What if I don’t want to be her? What if I’m happy just being Wyn?”
The earth spirit stood very still, momentarily glancing towards the frozen reservoir.
“Is that what you want?”
“I want Kate to be better. I want summer to come back. I …” Once again the warning voice filled her mind and shook her body. She broke off, gasping for breath.
“What is your heart telling you?” said Thwaite.
“I don’t know.”
But she did, though she was reluctant to admit it.
“You don’t want to be Mugasa again, do you? That’s why you’ve hidden all these years, why even now you’re holding back your true power.”
Wyn was going to keep up her denial, but she saw that there was no anger or criticism in the earth spirit’s lean face. The longer she knew him, the more like Robin he seemed to her.
“What happened to you, child? Was it Sh’en Shiekar?”
Wyn clung harder to the tree.
“Sometimes I see glimpses of things. A cave in the mountains, sunset, something tearing at me. I don’t know. Nothing makes much sense. And all you and Tawhir are saying is that everything bad is all my fault, that unless I become this … this all-powerful dragon before tomorrow night, every living thing is going to die! And I’m trying, I am, but I just can’t. Why does it have to be all on me?”
“There might be another way to lift the cold, one that the rebel spirits long for above all else,” said the earth spirit. “Though it would come at a terrible cost.”
“What is it?”
“If you can’t return, Sh’en Shiekar could …”
Thwaite’s words froze on his lips. He wheeled around, his hands tightening on his axe. Beside Wyn, Pip stiffened and let out a low growl.
Wolves.
They were streaming out of a wood on the hillside, leaping a stone wall and surging towards the reservoir. They pulled up ten feet from Wyn and Thwaite, under the alders and bramble bushes that lined the frozen water. Muscles twitched in their long gray bodies. Their jaws were slack, tasting the air.
“Stay back,” said Thwaite, pushing Wyn behind him. She watched the earth spirit walk towards the wolves, his eyes gleaming green.
“How dare you come at me like this, in my territory?”
The pack leader, a rangy beast of a creature, gave a whine that showed his teeth and continued towards them, his mate at his side. The remaining wolves fanned out behind the lead pair. With no warning, the pack leader sprang towards Thwaite. Quick as a flash, Pip leapt to meet him.
“Pip! Come back!” yelled Thwaite as wolf and dog slammed into each other and rolled in the snow, frenziedly snapping and snarling.
Thwaite bent to the ground, closing his eyes. A moment later, bramble stems whipped out of the bushes past Wyn’s feet and caught the wolf leader’s back legs, dragging the animal off Pip. The brambles wrapped tightly around the wolf. The creature howled as the thorny stems bit into his flesh. Now the entire wolf pack threw themselves at Thwaite. He fought them off with his axe as more brambles shot out, tangling themselves around the wolves and pulling them to the ground. Just as Wyn thought Thwaite had the upper hand, she heard Pip barking and saw a second wolf pack, at least ten-strong, bounding through the snow. The earth spirit was turning to face them when Wyn saw the original wolf leader bite his way free from his bonds and leap at Thwaite as his back was turned. Wyn shouted and he spun round, swinging his axe. But the wolf was too quick. The animal leaped at Thwaite’s chest, sinking his teeth into the earth spirit’s shoulder.
As Thwaite was grappling with the wolf, the second pack visibly picked up their pace. Pip bounded forward. Just in time, Wyn flung herself onto the collie to hold her back. Rolling over, her arms still clamped around Pip, Wyn frantically looked for a way to stop the second pack. They were running up to a row of alders at the edge of the reservoir. With no chance of reaching the trees before the wolves, Wyn threw her will towards the trees, demanding they come to her aid. Nothing happened. The wolves were running underneath them now. In moments, they would reach the earth spirit.
“Please!” Wyn yelled. Energy coursed through her body, pouring forth from her outstretched hand. Suddenly she felt the trees’ vibrations. Her mind joined with theirs.
Immediately the alders’ dark branches bent down and wrapped around the wolves. Directing her will towards the thicket, Wyn sent brambles whipping around the wolf that was attacking Thwaite, binding the animal’s limbs and dragging him off the earth spirit.
Releasing Pip, Wyn ran to help Thwaite. His face was waxy and his breath was coming in short rasps. He was glancing between Wyn and the wolves she’d entangled, snarling, in the alders. Thwaite started to say something, then the light left his eyes and he collapsed on the snow.
Blood was pouring from the earth spirit’s shoulder. Panicking, Wyn pressed her hands against the wound, trying to stop the flow, but the blood kept seeping though her fingers. Hurrying, she fumbled through Thwaite’s pack, prised off the lid of an earthenware jar. There was just enough purple paste in the bottom to coat Wyn’s fingers. As she’d done with the trees, Wyn rubbed the paste between her hands until it sparkled and then rubbed the mixture into Thwaite’s shoulder. The blood flow slowed and a little color returned to the earth spirit’s face, but try as she might to revive him, he didn’t wake.
Pip growled and paced around her and Thwaite. Some of the wolves were already biting their way through the branches that bound them. Wyn knew that there was nothing else to do. She would have to carry him.
Wyn put her shoulder under one of the earth spirit’s arms and hauled him off the ground. It was like trying to pick up a tree trunk. Thwaite was a foot taller than her and knotted with muscles.
Wyn’s legs buckled and she and the earth spirit were back on the snow. So close to her that she could feel the heat of his breaths, the wolf pack leader had almost gnawed his way free. Only a branch knotted around his hind leg was holding him back.
And maybe because of her anger, or maybe because she had no time to think, but now Wyn was able to haul Thwaite off the ground and over her shoulder. Only when she’d got him there did Wyn realize what she’d just done, and was still doing. Wyn took a step forward. Despite Thwaite’s legs dragging through the snow, she found that she had the strength to carry him.
By the time they crashed through the entrance of Thwaite’s home, the wolves were already streaming away from the reservoir, up into the moors. The pack leader hung back momentarily, hidden in the deep fastness of trees at the top of the dale, his bright eyes fixed on the tangle of brambles and hawthorn trees which Wyn had just disappeared into. Then he raced off after the others, heading east, back towards the way they had come.
19
—
In the dark hawthorn house, Wyn was being mobbed by animals.
All the occupants of the dresser and the sleeping platform had emerged and were clustering around the chair in which Wyn had laid Thwaite. The other animals made way to let the snakes onto the earth spirit. Wyn watched as one of them wrapped itself tightly around Thwaite’s shoulder. But even though the wound bled less, there was still blood running over the snake’s scales. Wyn knew that the animals alone couldn’t heal Thwaite; they needed her help.
Hurriedly, Wyn started untying the burlap sacks which hung on the side wall. There were at least fifty, each full of dried wildflowers; some she recognized and others that were new to her. She went up and down the row of sacks, touching and smelling the flowers, trying to figure out which were the right ones for Thwaite’s wound.
Wyn noticed the earth spirit’s sketch pad on a shelf of the dresser and grabbed it, opening it in the hope that she might find some guide to the different wildflowers. There were no notes, only pictures. One page showed a beautifully drawn image of the meadow between Gouthwaite and Wath, overflowing with pink and white yarrow. The next depicted a grassy verge, intricately planted with species after species of wildflowers. Every page of the sketch pad revealed more of Thwaite’s dreams for his territory. And amongst the images were sketches of a blue-eyed woman walking through the Nidd, through rainfall.
