The Vengeance of Snails

by Chrys Cymri

  I put down my cup of tea. ‘In the church?’

  ‘It’s a pagan rite,’ Morey said, sounding appalled. ‘Pagan elves and weres use it for temporary weddings. There’s no place for that in a Christian ceremony.’

  ‘Do you know what a handfasting symbolises?’ I asked the couple, at the same time trying to give Morey a signal.

  ‘It’s just so pretty,’ Anna said. ‘Colourful ribbons and all that.’

  ‘Handfasting symbolises an intent to be together for a year and a day,’ Morey told me. ‘A betrothal period, after which the couple could part. Totally unsuitable in a Christian context. You must forbid this. Remind them of the vows they’re going to take. The Book of Common Prayer clearly states that they must pledge “for as long as ye both shall live.” There is no place…’

  I tuned him out. The couple were holding hands and smiling at each other. ‘Handfasting is an ancient ritual,’ I said slowly. ‘Sort of like a temporary marriage, for only a year and a day. Is that what you want?’

  ‘A year and a day?’ Anna stared at me. ‘Oh, no, this marriage is for forever. We’re literally soul mates.’

  Had I been that romantically blind when I’d married Alan? Probably. ‘Then maybe that’s not something you want in the marriage ceremony.’

  ‘I’ve gone right off the idea,’ Anna declared. ‘John’s mine for keeps. Okay, we’ll not do that.’

  ‘But what about Simon?’ John reminded her. He glanced over at me. ‘Our friends recommended him. Simon’s a--what do you call it--a celebrant. Really spiritual, New Age and all that. He was going to do the handfasting bit.’

  ‘A pagan celebrant,’ Morey hissed. ‘What’s next, Quidditch in the churchyard afterwards?’

  The fact that Morey knew about Quidditch shocked me more than anything the couple had said. I smoothed my face and filed my questions away. ‘Are any of your friends or family New Age?’

  ‘Well, no.’ Anna released John’s hands. ‘We literally thought it would make people more--’

  ‘Comfortable,’ I jumped in before she could produce another air quote. Morey was eyeing her forefingers with more interest than I liked. ‘You came to the carol service last year, you said?’

  John nodded. ‘It was lovely.’

  ‘Then you’ve seen how I take services.’ I gave them my best smile. ‘You don’t need the celebrant. You’ll have a lovely day. I’ll make sure of it.’ Then I lowered my voice. ‘I’m getting married this summer, so I know how important that is.’

  ‘You are?’ Before I could move, Anna had leapt out of her chair and enveloped me in a hug. The tang of her perfume filled my nostrils and I had to fight back a sneeze. Fortunately the physical contact was short-lived. ‘That’s so fantastic! What’s your colour scheme? Is there going to be a theme?’

  ‘We’re still working on that. And we’re here to talk about you.’ I turned to my computer. ‘So, just to check a few things. Did you want bells? We’ll talk about hymns and readings closer to the time.’

  ‘Simon can do something at the reception,’ John said to Anna. ‘We’ll ask him what he suggests.’

  Morey spluttered, but I said nothing. What they did at the reception had nothing to do with me. Or the Church. A vicar learned to pick her battles. Maybe that was a lesson I needed to take back with me to Caer-grawnt.

  Chapter Twelve

  Peter grinned as I opened the front door. ‘Good morning. I bring tidings of great news.’ He lifted up his laptop bag. ‘The new marquee was destroyed, and I have the CCTV footage.’

  I coughed. ‘Not good news for Meadowell Farm, I should think.’

  ‘Point taken.’ He dropped his head. ‘Does that mean you won’t invite me in for a cup of tea?’

  ‘Tea is always available to handsome policemen.’ I let him in and closed the door. ‘I’ll put the kettle on while you fire up the Macbook.’

  ‘Windows machine,’ Peter said apologetically as he followed me to the kitchen. ‘It’s the work laptop.’

  ‘Then I’ll disinfect the table afterwards.’

  Peter had linked the external hard drive to the Dell computer by the time I placed a mug by his hand. ‘Sarah tried to talk me out of looking at this. “There’s nothing to see, it’s a waste of your time.” They’ve decided that a freak wind storm tore through the marquee.’

  ‘The ability of the human mind to dismiss what it cannot understand,’ I commented.

  ‘“Do you remember the Zygon gambit with the Loch Ness monster? Or the Yetis in the underground?”’

  ‘That’s it,’ James groaned from the doorway. ‘If you two are going to go all “Doctor Who”, I’m out of here.’

  ‘There’s tea in the pot,’ I told him. ‘What’s brought you down? It’s too early for lunch.’

  ‘The sound of gryphons jumping down the stairs,’ he grumbled. ‘I think they’ve gone outside.’

  I glanced through the kitchen window. ‘So they have.’ Clyde was sitting on a bare patch between the weeds, eyasses leaping and tumbling around him. ‘No sign of Morey or Taryn. Clyde must be on babysitting duty again.’ Jago leapt from the snail’s shell and managed to land in the nearby bushes. ‘I don’t think it’ll be long until they’re flying.’

  ‘And then you’ll be going back to Caer-grawnt?’ Peter asked, his voice neutral.

  ‘Yes. For what’s left of my sabbatical.’ I gave him an apologetic smile. ‘It won’t be for long. I only have six weeks left. Then I have to be back at work over here.’

  ‘What’re you looking at?’ James asked, placing a chair next to ours.

  Peter re-angled the laptop screen. ‘Footage from another act of vandalism. We think someone, or something, from Lloegyr is involved.’

  James nodded. ‘And most people wouldn’t be able to see what it is.’

  ‘Actually, we’ve been lucky thus far,’ Peter continued. ‘There are people who just naturally have the Sight, and they might’ve spotted what’s going on before we could deal with it.’

  ‘Miranda,’ James said quietly. I placed a hand on his arm. He hadn’t mentioned his dead girlfriend for over a month.

  ‘Exactly.’ Peter was fast forwarding through footage which showed the marquee bathed in moonlight. ‘We’ve been finding that with the webisodes. Some people are insisting that they’ve seen extra dragons and elves in the footage. You should check out Twitter, hashtag “dragonsnotthere”. Some of the comments are very funny.’

  James had his iPhone in his hand. ‘Like it. One nutter thinks that it’s a deliberate set up by the Russians. They’re going to invade us with tanks disguised as dragons.’

  ‘And meanwhile, back in reality,’ Peter said, ‘I’ve found the footage.’

  Heads nearly bumped as we peered at the screen. I glanced at the time stamp. 6.18am. Around dawn, which explained why the light was so dim.

  The marquee rippled. Fabric sliced open. I squinted, trying to make out what was happening.

  ‘Hold on, I can zoom in, although we’ll lose some resolution.’ Peter’s fingers slid across the keyboard. The bold stripes of the material filled the screen. Sharp teeth were white against the dark, and I sat back in shock. Peter whistled. ‘Snail sharks. They’re snail sharks.’

  A breeze pulled the damaged side away, revealing around thirty snails. They spread across the grass, tearing away at the marquee. Several attacked the poles, jaws gripping the metal as they used their weight to pull the struts free from the ground.

  ‘Numbers.’ James pointed at the screen. ‘They’ve got numbers painted on their shells. Like the ones at the frost fair.’

  ‘Like the ones,’ Peter said grimly, ‘I used to mark up before sending them back to Lloegyr.’

  ‘You found most of them dead, later on,’ I recalled. ‘Piled up in a heap.’

  ‘Which is why I stopped marking them.’

  ‘All their shells curl on the right,’ James said. ‘I guess Clyde really is that rare, with his spiral on the left.’

  ‘His mother was a lefty,�
�� I said. ‘I do hope I didn't bash a shovel over some endangered species.’

  ‘To be fair,’ Peter reminded me, ‘she was trying to cripple Raven at the time. You had to act. I remember how his leg looked afterwards.’

  The snails had pulled the marquee down, and were now reducing fabric and metal to fragments. ‘Well,’ I said, relieved, ‘at least it’s not--’

  Peter looked up at me. ‘Not what?’

  I had swallowed Raven’s name. My mind cast about for a believable alternative. ‘At least it’s not Cadw ar Wahân.’

  ‘The guys who are against mixed species marriage?’ James asked. ‘Why would they ruin a marquee? It’s not like you’re doing weddings for Lloegyr people over here, after all.’

  Peter nodded. ‘And it doesn’t explain why the church or your car would be attacked.’

  ‘Or why,’ I added, ‘they would leave bird wings in Earls Barton Man’s back garden.’

  ‘I wonder if they’re the same rabble.’ Peter pointed at the snail nearest the camera. A bright red ‘65’ stood out against the brown shell. ‘None of the snails in EBM’s garden had numbers.’

  A sound like a distant trumpet made me lift my eyes to look out at the back garden. Jago was perched on a branch, his blue wings spread high above the green leaves. The crest on his head was fully erect, and he threw his head back to bugle a second time.

  I rose to my feet and dropped my gaze. For a moment, I thought that the images of snail sharks destroying a marquee had been emblazoned on my retinas. Then I blinked, and realised that I was looking at another rabble. In my back garden. And they were attacking the eyasses.

  My chair toppled behind me as I flung myself at the back door. The key jammed in the lock for a moment. Then I was outside, weeds tangling around my feet as I stumbled towards the pitched battle.

  The gryphons were desperately trying to jump out of reach, their wing feathers still too short to allow them to take flight. The snail sharks, mercifully not much larger than cats, slithered after them, jaws open wide. The sharp teeth snapped at the eyasses’ tails and legs.

  Clyde reared back, his own belly splitting wide open. ‘Stop!’ he roared, his tentacles swivelling desperately. He seemed paralysed at the multiple angles of attack.

  ‘Just go after one of them!’ I told Clyde. ‘Help Eiddwen!’

  The brown fledgling was trying to crawl away, her hind legs trembling with strain. Clyde swerved, putting himself bodily between her and another snail shark. To my horror, the smaller snail merely went after Clyde instead, teeth snapping at his shell.

  Too late I realised how little I could do to protect Morey and Taryn’s children. All I had on me was a pocketknife, with a blade far too short to use against the attackers. Garden tools were safely locked away in the garage. I halted, my hands clenching in helplessness.

  ‘Get off them, you bastards!’ That was James, and he had brought a kitchen chair with him. He swung the legs at the snail sharks, narrowly missing Annest’s head. The black gryphon ran over to his leg, and her claws dug deep into his jeans as she pulled herself up to his waist.

  A loud crack made me turn my head. Peter had swung a flower vase against the snail snapping at Gwilym. Both container and snail shell had been reduced to little more than fragments. To my amazement, the other snails stopped in their tracks, bodies pulsing red and orange as they stared at their dead comrade. They reared onto their feet, and opened jaws wider.

  A wordless song drummed across the garden. The wooden fence shuddered in response. I felt my mouth dry in horror. The tentacles of another dozen snail sharks appeared over the top. Even before their shells came into view, I realised that these were huge, each the size of a large dog. Never mind the danger to the gryphons. Clyde’s mother had been as tall as a German shepherd, and she had attacked me. We were all in danger.

  ‘Wish I still had my sword,’ Peter panted beside me. ‘Penny, go into the house.’

  ‘What, and leave you all to die?’

  The large snails balanced on the top of the fence. They opened their huge jaws and roared. The smaller snails stopped singing, and responded with higher-pitched growls of their own. For some strange reason, I found myself counting how many had red numbers painted on their shells.

  Then Clyde’s tenor voice cut through the noise. ‘“Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before!”’ He spread out his wings. Rothgen leapt onto his shell and clung on while Clyde rose into the air. ‘Gadewch!’

  The other snail sharks froze for a moment. Then, almost in unison, they shouted, ‘Arweinydd mawr, arweinydd mawr, arweinydd mawr!’

  ‘“Great Leader”?’ Peter asked. ‘I thought only the lemmings called him that.’

  The snail sharks turned to look at Peter, and growled. ‘Y cydweithredwr.’

  ‘They’re calling you “the collaborator”,’ I told Peter. ‘What’s that all about?’

  One of the snails on the fence sung out, in Welsh, ‘We’ve finally flushed out the collaborator, and the Great Leader is at his side! Kill the Great Leader!’

  I jumped to Peter’s side. ‘They’re going after Clyde!’

  The smaller snail sharks gathered themselves into one group. Saliva dripped from their teeth as they prepared to launch themselves at their new target. The snails above us twisted their bodies so they could slide down into the garden.

  Jago trumpeted. He dropped from his branch onto the nearest snail. The snail shark whipped its head around, and tentacles and gryphon collided. The eyas was flung to the ground. The snail plunged sharp teeth into the nearest wing, and pulled. Jago cried out in pain, and stabbed his beak at the eyespots.

  Clyde called out, ‘Amddiffynwch eich arweinydd mawr!’

  For a moment, I wondered upon whom he was calling to defend him. Then the air was full of lemmings. Their gossamer wings carried them into the fray, several dozen swooping from trees and bushes to aim round heads at the snail sharks. But not to attack with teeth or claws. Their furry bodies plunged straight into the snail’s open jaws.

  The snails choked and spluttered. Muffled cries came from those on the fence, as the impact of body after body loosened their grips. Several fell away, and I heard sickening crunches as they hit the pavement on the other side.

  More lemmings poured into the garden. And now Taryn and Morey were in their midst, wings pulled back as they arrowed down from the sky. Together they targeted the largest snail still perched on the fence, using their combined weight to throw it off.

  One of the smaller snails, its shell bearing the number ‘23’, spat out lemming fur and called out, ‘Enciliwch!’

  The remaining snail sharks turned and sped away. The smaller ones dived into the bushes and, I assumed, found their way through whatever small hole had allowed them entry. The fence shook as the larger ones slithered down.

  I took deep, ragged breaths. James and Peter looked unharmed. Annest was clinging to my brother’s belt. Eiddwen emerged from the bushes, standing unsteadily but untouched. Clyde landed beside me, Gwilym safe on his shell. Rothgen chittered from the bird table.

  ‘Jago?’ Morey called out before I could. ‘Where are you?’

  A soft whimper made my heart freeze. I reached out towards the source, pulling bushes aside. The blue gryphon was spread out across the dark ground. Wing feathers had been torn from his body, and blood trickled from his back.

  I fell to my knees. My hands trembled as I picked him up. He seemed smaller than ever on my palms. First Morey and then Taryn landed beside me, feathers slick with concern as they peered down at their son.

  Jago lifted his head. He tried to make a noise, but all that came out was another whimper. I touched a finger to his beak. The bottom had been pushed to one side, and was no longer aligned with the top. He tried to open his mouth, and his eyes widened in pain.

  ‘Don’t,’ I begged him.

  ‘The unicorn horn?’ James asked. ‘It’s still in your wardrobe?’

  ‘A horn isn�
�t going to sort out a misaligned beak,’ Peter said. ‘We need to take him to a vet.’

  ‘How,’ I asked despairingly, ‘are we going to explain a fist sized gryphon to a vet?’

  ‘Not just any vet.’ Peter had his phone out and was dialling a number. ‘Jen at the Midlands Safari Park. She knows all about Lloegyr.’

  ‘Does she know anything about gryphons?’ I asked. James put out a hand to help me rise to my feet. ‘Should we try to take Jago to Lloegyr?’

  Morey flew onto my brother’s shoulder. ‘He’s better off here in England.’

  ‘Hi, can I speak to Jennifer Lawson, please?’ Peter said into his phone. He wandered away. ‘Yes, it’s about an emergency case.’

  ‘Don’t you have doctors in Lloegyr?’ James asked.

  ‘Not really,’ Morey said. He turned to his wife. ‘One of us should go with them.’

  ‘You stay with the eyasses,’ Taryn said. ‘Have them give the coup de grâce to the lemmings.’

  Only then did I look around the destruction in my back garden. Five snail shark bodies glistened in the mid day sun. They were outnumbered by dead and dying lemmings. The rodents made no sound as they twitched and kicked, blood staining the nearby weeds.

  One of the snails was still shuddering. ‘And the snail shark,’ I added. ‘Put it out of its misery.’

  ‘No,’ Taryn snarled. ‘It can suffer.’

  Clyde said something short and sharp which I pretended not to hear. He trundled over to the dying snail, and his teeth sliced across the pale skin just above the belly. Blue liquid spilled out, and the snail stopped moving.

  Peter came back to my side. ‘Jen says to come straight in. There’s an avian expert she’s called on before. They’ll arrange for us to drive straight into the safari park.’

  James had moved Annest to his shoulder. ‘I want to come too.’

  ‘I’d feel better if you stayed here,’ Morey said. ‘You can more easily use a phone.’

  ‘I’ve sent for back up,’ Peter assured him. ‘They’ll be making a sweep to look for any more snail sharks. I’d like everyone to go inside, and lock all windows and doors.’