Winterbringers

by Gill Arbuthnott

  “If you’re not busy tomorrow,” Josh said at last, “is there any chance we could go back to that cave and see what’s happened to the ice?”

  “George and Rose are going to Dundee in the car to see some sort of exhibition. Can you cycle?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “You could borrow my dad’s bike and helmet.” They were nearly back at the Cottages now. “Come round at ten. Shall I bring a picnic?”

  “Yeah, that’d be good – only if it’s not raining, mind you.”

  “Wimp!”

  ***

  A cold rain set in again that evening, dying away as darkness fell and the frost returned. In The Smithy Chutney Mary slept curled on the pillow among Callie’s hair, and Josh burrowed down under the duvet up the road at East Neuk Cottages.

  In Constantine’s Cave the man lay huddled at the back of the cave, his eyes closed, picturing a little stream clotted with weeds, and a palace of briars, and a woman whose face he saw now only in his dreams. At the edge of the shore near Pitmillie the water turned thick and slow, moving less and less.

  The sea froze.

  Something dragged itself, cracking, from the sea ice, and lumbered up onto the beach, shedding weed and sand and shells as it moved inland.

  ***

  Luath’s barking woke everyone in the house. George and Callie stumbled from their bedrooms, Callie with the kitten clamped to her shoulder in a state of terror. Rose pushed past them, wide awake, and went at once to where the dog stood trembling, hackles up, behind the front door. Without hesitation she opened it.

  “Rose – don’t! It could be a burglar,” called Callie. George said nothing. A gust of freezing air that smelled of salt and weed blew in, rattling the loose window in the kitchen. Luath stopped barking and edged into the dark garden, growling.

  “What do you see, dog?” muttered Rose under her breath. She could sense nothing. “Is it the wind? Is that what you see? Or is there more?”

  Even in darkness every shape looked familiar. Luath trotted around it a few times, his agitation diminishing, then shook himself, came back in and lay down on his bed.

  “I reckon the dog had a nightmare,” said Rose to no one in particular.

  “Do dogs have nightmares?” asked George.

  “This one does.” She shut and locked the door, muttering quietly to herself. “Well, we may as well get back to bed. Goodnight.”

  But it was a long time before any of them slept.

  ***

  As Josh walked round to Callie’s next morning, he could see his breath hanging in the air like smoke. He wore jeans and a long sleeved tee shirt, a hoodie and his fleece jacket. It he’d had gloves he’d have worn them too. He wriggled his toes in his trainers to keep them warm.

  As he pushed open the gate he saw two muddy mountain bikes propped in the garage, good ones by the look of it. Unlike the bikes he and his mates rode in town, these both looked as if they might have been up a few proper hills.

  Something crunched under his feet as he went up the path to the front door. He looked down to find a scatter of weed and shells and sand round his feet.

  He rang the bell and heard Luath barking somewhere inside. He was getting a bit more used to him now, but he didn’t think he was ever going to turn into a dog person.

  Callie came to the door yawning.

  “Am I too early?”

  “No.” She swallowed another yawn. “I just slept badly. Luath was having nightmares or something. He woke us all up barking at something in the garden.”

  “What was it?”

  “Nothing, as far as we could see.” She focused on the sea-wrack round his feet and frowned. “Was that you?”

  “No. What – do you think I brought a bucket of seaweed with me to tip over your garden?”

  “Sorry; no, of course not. I just wondered where it came from. Come in. It’s cold, isn’t it? I was just getting some food for us.”

  Josh followed her into the kitchen, where George was reading the newspaper, an enormous mug of tea in one hand.

  “Morning,” he said. “Hope you’ve got your thermal underwear on. Mind you, the cycling will warm you up.”

  Callie was putting packages of what Josh hoped was food into a small rucsac, while the kitten chased dust balls across the kitchen floor.

  “Hello Josh, dear,” said Rose, absently going through the kitchen without stopping. “Ten minutes, George.”

  “Yes, my dear.”

  ***

  “Come on Luath. Out we go.” Rose opened the front door and the dog bounded into the garden, tongue lolling. Rose shut the door behind her and took a crunching step along the path. She stopped, looking down, and her hand went to her mouth.

  “Oh no,” she whispered. “Oh please, not yet.” The dog pushed his head against her leg. “Oh Luath, you felt it come, didn’t you?” She stroked him absently. “What are we to do? What are we to do?”

  ***

  It wasn’t very hilly between the village and the coast, for a good job. Josh was used to cycling of course, but not really to cycling so far in one go.

  At least he wasn’t cold, although the frost seemed to get heavier the further they went from Pitmillie.

  They came into Crail and turned along the road to Balcomie. A little later they passed Balcomie Castle sitting in the middle of its farm, and then there was only the golf course between them and the sea.

  Now that they were here, Josh wasn’t sure that he wanted to be. The whole episode with the face behind the ice seemed almost like a dream. He wished he could convince himself that was what it had been, but he couldn’t. He knew that he had to go back to the cave before the thing would resolve itself, but he was happy to put it off when Callie suggested they go for a walk in the little wood on the hill.

  “There’s normally lots of birds in here,” she said. “I don’t know why it’s so quiet in here today. Of course, they’ve done really badly raising young in the past few years.” She seemed to assume he would know what she was talking about, so he nodded in agreement.

  It was definitely colder here than in the village. There was even a skin of ice on the little pond they passed on their way back down to the beach.

  “How about some food?” he said. “I’m starving. Must be all that cycling.”

  Callie shrugged. “Okay.” She doubled back along a narrow path that ended at a bench that gave a view down the hill to the chilly sea. She took off her back pack, sat down and started rummage. “Cheese all right?” She passed him a roll crammed with salad and a thick slab of cheese. “There’s coffee in the flask. Help yourself.”

  “Thanks.” He munched his way slowly through the roll. He wasn’t actually that hungry. It was just a way to put off going back to the cave.

  The coffee was no longer very hot, but it washed down the cheese roll well enough. He turned down the offer of a flapjack for the time being.

  “Let’s go and look at that cave again, see what’s happened to all the ice.”

  “Righto,” she said, round a mouthful of roll. “Just let me finish this.”

  They walked along the path at the edge of the golf course this time instead of on the beach. There were a few birds here, down by the shore, standing on rocks or pecking at things in the sand. Josh wondered what they were. He was pretty sure Callie would know, but he didn’t want to ask her. He was getting fed up of being the one who didn’t know stuff.

  They rounded a corner and the rock face with its cave was in view. Right, time to set his mind at rest.

  The grasses and bushes round the foot of the rocky outcrop were crisp with frost, and it crackled under their feet as they left the path and made their way towards the tall, arched opening.

  His heart beating hard, Josh stepped round and into the cave mouth, Callie just behind him. He forced himself to look slowly round the cave, trying not to think about going into the narrow opening at the back.

  He almost stopped breathing.

  There was a figure sitting
on the ground in one of the shallow recesses at the back of the cave, head on folded arms on drawn up knees. Josh knew what his face would look like.

  He wanted to run, but his muscles wouldn’t do anything. Callie moved round him, apparently unconcerned, saying, “Hello. Are you all right?”

  The man didn’t move.

  “What do you think we should do?” Callie whispered, turning to Josh. She caught sight of his face. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  He managed to speak.

  “The ice. I saw him before in the ice.”

  “Josh, you’re not making any sense. What do you mean?”

  The man still hadn’t stirred.

  “When we were in the cave before and there was all that ice in there –” he gestured at the narrow opening at the back of the cave “– when I went back to look again there was a man’s face behind the ice. That’s what made me drop the torch.”

  They were speaking in whispers now.

  Callie gave Josh a long, hard look, but to his amazement, not only did she not laugh at him, she seemed to take his ridiculous statement seriously.

  “But in that case he’d have to be dead, wouldn’t he? He doesn’t look dead. And how could George and I not see him?”

  “I don’t know. I know it doesn’t make any sense. What are you doing?” Callie was edging towards the still figure. “Come back!” he hissed. “You don’t know what he is.”

  “Well, he’s not dead, whatever he is. I can see him breathing.”

  “Leave him. Come on, let’s get away from here.”

  “No! What if he’s ill, or hurt?” She kept sidling closer.

  “Hello,” she said quietly. “Can you hear me? Are you all right?”

  There was no reaction from the huddled figure. She said it again, more loudly this time. Still nothing.

  Josh moved closer.

  The man was dressed in clothes made from what looked like animal skins, soft and supple, dyed blue and grey. He could see the stitching at the seams on the sleeves. They were decorated with patterns of coloured thread and pieces of shell and what looked like bone. His hair was a mix of black and various greys, longer than Josh’s. There were small braids through it, with pieces of bone and silver and fragments of blue feather woven into them.

  As he watched, the pattern of the man’s breathing changed. Josh began to back away, but before he got more than a few feet the stranger lifted his head and fixed his gaze on Josh. His eyes, as he had known they would be, were a piercing light grey, and his face was filled with melancholy, but when he saw Josh, a sad smile spread slowly across it.

  “I knew you would come,” he said.

  ***

  “Come,” she said, and turned and led us to her hall, and we followed as though we were spellbound, and I suppose we were.

  The air was full of the scent of flowers and honey and green things growing.

  We walked in under a lintel of living wood into a breathing palace that had no roof but the open sky. Still we clung to each other’s hands as we followed the Queen over a carpet of flower-starred grass to a white birch that had shaped itself into a throne. I could hear voices here and there, but still saw no one, but now birds and butterflies and dragonflies came fluttering through the windows, and suddenly, where there had been no one there were men, tall and fair, with long, clever eyes, and women so beautiful I could not look at them.

  The Queen seated herself on her throne, soft as a drifting leaf. “Now, tell me why you have come to my Kingdom.”

  As usual, it was Beatrix who found her voice. She told the Queen how the crops had come close to failing for the last two years, and how cold and wet the weather had become, told her of the winter hunger we had come to dread, how the Laird claimed his share – a third of the harvest – even when we had hardly anything.

  “And so we have come to you,” she finished, “to ask for your help. We thought that maybe, if you would let us take back something from here, we might take the summer with us, and maybe we could make the weather better for the crops and help the folk.”

  The Queen sat, considering. Near her, a young man changed into a dragonfly and flew away.

  “What do they call you, in your village, that would dare such a thing as this?”

  “They’d call us witches if they knew; and then they’d kill us,” said Janet.

  “Foolish folk they must be, to turn on those who would help them.”

  “The church tells them they should. They’re feared they’ll go to hell if they don’t follow its teachings.”

  The Queen laughed. “Poor souls, to live in such fear and ignorance. Very well then; let us see if we can help them.” She thought for a moment, then called over a woman whose plum-coloured hair hung, curling, to her hips. She said something to her that we did not hear. The woman smiled and then she was a swallow, fluttering out of the nearest window.

  “Will you take food and drink with us while you wait?” asked the Queen, and men bearing trays of pale polished wood set them down at her feet. There were bowls of summer berries and soft white bread and honey and cups of golden liquid.

  I would have taken a cup and drunk, but Beatrix kept my hand pressed in hers and said, “We thank you for your hospitality, but we may not eat in your Kingdom or likely we will never come back to our own.”

  The Queen locked gazed with her for a few seconds, then smiled and said: “As you wish.”

  At that moment, the woman with plum-coloured hair reappeared. She carried a tiny crystal phial, which she handed to the Queen. The Queen took the stopper out and held it up so that the sun flashed off the cut facets; then she stoppered it again and held it out to Beatrix.

  “What’s in it?” Janet asked. “It looks empty.”

  “It is full of air from my Kingdom.”

  “Air? Will that help us?”

  Beatrix’s hand tightened on mine and I felt myself grow cold. Janet’s tongue could bring trouble anywhere. The Queen however, merely smiled at her ignorance.

  “In you world it will be very … potent. Open the phial in your village and you will see.”

  We muttered our thanks.

  “We should go back to our own world now,” said Beatrix.

  “Yes,” said the Queen, nodding, “for who knows how much time may have passed while you have been here?”

  Her words sent a chill through my heart and I saw it reflected on the others’ faces as we exchanged fearful looks. We got to our feet slowly.

  “Thank you for helping us, Majesty,” said Beatrix, Janet and I repeating her words like an echo. The Queen of Summer waved her hand to dismiss us and it was obvious that she had already lost interest in our small concerns. It seemed clear we were to leave.

  We walked slowly across the fragrant flowering grass to the doorway and paused to look back.

  There was no one to be seen in the great hall of the palace, in human form at least. Here and there butterflies danced among the flowers, and there was a flash of blue as a Kingfisher took flight.

  We quickened our pace once we left the palace, feeling the Kingdom grow wilder about us, as though the Queen’s concentration had moved elsewhere. We looked back at the palace once more from the edge of the wood, then set off down the path through the trees, anxious now, hearing her words in our heads. WHO KNOWS HOW MUCH TIME MAY HAVE PASSED WHILE YOU HAVE BEEN HERE?

  Silence closed in about us again as though the wood waited for something, its breath hushed. We dared not speak.

  I remember that my legs shook with relief when we came down to the lily-strewn pool and the silvery jetty and saw the boat still there. Carefully, we climbed into it as quickly as we could. A Kingfisher feather floated on the water beside me and I picked it up, for a keepsake.

  Janet pushed us away into the middle of the pool. “Take us home, little boat,” she said and sure enough the boat began to drift, going upstream this time, without oars or sail, pushing between trails of water weed under the gold-green tunnel of trees, under the silver-green
tunnel of trees, the sky darkening until the clearest thing to our eyes was the glimmering white rope stretching away ahead of us.

  The trees opened out and we came to where the rope was tethered to a branch. Wide-eyed, we stared at each other. Beatrix opened her hand and there was the crystal phial, safe and solid.

  “What if years have passed in Pitmillie? What if no one knows us? Or what if we suddenly become old when we set foot on true soil again?”

  “Look around you, you silly fool. It’s all the same as when we got into the boat: same trees, same bushes. Look at the moon: it’s hardly moved in all the time we’ve been gone. If anything, time has run quicker in her Kingdom than here.” Beatrix sounded exasperated and exhausted.

  I had no choice but to believe her, but all the same, as I set my foot on the earth of the river bank I screwed my eyes tight shut for fear that I should see my own foot crumble to bones and dust.

  Beatrix got out with her precious cargo, then Janet. She untied the rope from the branch and dropped it into the boat.. The boat slid away from the bank and drifted away back down the stream.

  “It wants to go back,” said Janet. “It is her thing now.”

  We watched it out of sight.

  ***

  5. The Winter King

  “I knew you would come,” he said.

  Josh stood very still.

  “What does he mean, Josh?” Callie said beside him.

  “I don’t know,” Josh lied.

  “I dreamed about you,” said the man, “and in my dream, I called you. Come back, I said. I saw you through the ice, as I forced myself here. You saw me.” By his side, Josh heard Callie take in a quick, sharp breath. “Yours was the only face I knew, and I saw your face in my dreams and I called you. Come back. And you have come.”

  Josh didn’t know what to think or say or do. He hoped he was having a nightmare. He tried to think of the relief he’d feel when he woke, but somehow he didn’t think this was a dream. What he mostly wanted to do was turn and run away from this strange man, but his legs seemed to have forgotten what to do. Besides, there was Callie.