It sound like London aint been too great even before the snow and the troubles come, but Dad say no it aint been that bad. Just all the bad things been waiting, kind of hiding under the ground like the grass wait under the snow for summer to come. Except they aint been good things like grass but bad things—all the angry things and hungry things, and my dad say the animal bit inside people’s heads.
I mean, I reckon he got to be a bit right cos I seen hungry people, and like I said they aint been the nicest thing you gonna meet if you got food and they aint. Dad find this wild place up here cos he say no one gonna want a bit of these mountains, even though people been living here forever so there musta been something good here.
You can see he been right about that cos there been all the old-time houses just sitting up on the hills empty. He say, People in the city got to learn, but Patrick aint so sure. He say people in the city aint gonna want to be up here in the snow alone, they just looking to get to China, and what we gonna do if they all got the same idea anyway, cos there aint gonna be enough mountain to go around—gonna be what he call anarchy if all the people come, which is a good point. I mean I don’t know who been right except I see that Patrick stay here with us so that say something, don’t it?
Me though, I reckon I been itching to go to the city since Geraint tell me that’s where he got his gun. One day I’m gonna get along the power lines to Manchester, maybe even London. After I find Dad.
But right now I just got to get through another night with this sad girl and get her off to the Farngod in the morning. Maybe take her to my secret place before I take her down to the power lines. Ask her some more about the trucks and papers too. I don’t want her getting in trouble or nothing after what she been through. I really don’t.
13
“You the first person been to my secret place. I aint never show no one before.”
Mary don’t look too comfortable with the pack on her back and that coat hanging round her but I tie it round the middle so the wind aint gonna get under it.
“You got the pack on good? Cos I aint gonna keep stopping.”
“It’s all right,” she say, lifting her foot to see her snowshoe.
“Just put your feet down easy and flat. You soon gonna get the hang of it.”
“D’you make them?” she ask.
“Magda make that pair, but I can too if I want—it aint hard.”
“How far have we got to go?”
“It’s a good way in this deep snow, so you got to do what I say and keep easy or you gonna get proper tired. You understand?”
“Where are we going?”
“I’m gonna take you down to the power lines. You can get a truck ride back to the city then.”
She get quiet all of a sudden.
“But I don’t want to go back to the city,” she say after a bit.
“Well you aint got much choice cos that’s where I’m taking you.”
I don’t know why girls always got to be talking. But I aint paying much attention, just looking over the ridge now. I aint told her but I been keen to get going cos I hear that wolf-dog howl far off in the night. With the sun putting a crust on the snow it aint gonna be long before they dance on top of it up the ridge.
I make a pack up for the girl with the food and light stuff and a poor type of sled with a piece of metal from the wincone for me cos you know how I lost my proper sled down at that house but aint no use getting angry about it now. I got the tent and firebox and heavy stuff on the bit of metal and I can drag it behind quite easy. The rest I been hauling on my back.
All around, the towers from the old winfarm rise up tall from the snow. They been so big they look like broken giants striding around on top of the mountain. I can see them sharp as a pin cos the sky’s blue like the blue never gonna stop it been so clear and light and just going on back into the forever.
Big raven wheel and scriek overhead. It make me think of those two bodies down in Mary’s house and I get sick thinking it near been our bloody bodies torn up by the pack in the snow with that big dog and his red mouth standing over our guts.
That raven probably wheeling around just waiting for the dogs to leave. Either that or he been looking down at me and Mary, waiting for us to drop. Something about a scrieking raven and him all lonely up in the cold sky always make me think some bad thing gonna happen.
I never spend much time on this side of the Farngod. Mary been a good kid tramping behind me without a word for now. The shadows on the snow all blue and the whiteness burn my eyes cos the snow sparkle in the sun like a million stars. The snow creak underfoot and the sound of my breath been trapped inside my hood and the warm heat of my body rise up through the neck of my coat.
I got to get east. That’s where my secret place is. I got a thrill thinking about showing it to someone, I really do, which is funny cos I aint never wanted to show it to no one before.
The little valley open up between rocks cresting a rise, and I see the ring of stones rise out the ground far ahead. The crown of thorns.
“It aint too far now, Mary.”
She stop a bit and look over the valley.
“I don’t want to go back to the city,” she say.
I don’t pay no attention. The raven still circling overhead. He aint following us which been good, but I aint so sure about the dogs. When that raven dip down into the pass down there I’m gonna know the dogs on the move again and he just picking over guts and bones. It’s a gruesome thought for sure—the raven being some sort of sign I mean.
I let her take a rest. I reckon it been about the middle of the day. Mary chewing on a bit of food quiet. I reckon she’s just about okay for walking still. It been lucky the sun got out and no wind either else she gonna struggle cos she’s thin as a branch with no leaves.
“How far is it?” she ask.
“Three hours maybe. Til the sun go close to that ridge over there.”
“Dogs aren’t following us yet, are they?”
“Don’t reckon,” I say.
“But I heard them in the night. They aren’t following us, are they, Willo?”
I look at that little stick girl a bit different for a while then knowing she been listening to the dogs in the night same as me.
“No, they aint following us yet.” I point to the raven. “When you can’t see him, then we got to start running.”
She look up matter-of-fact. I reckon she’s pretty scared, but she aint showing it too bad.
I shoulder my pack and pick up the rope from the sled. “Slow and steady, Mary, though. Aint no point to get scared and sweaty,” I tell her, “that raven still in the air for now. He still been waiting, so we been all right.”
14
Soon we get over to the steep side of the glen. It look like there aint no way out but I know the way and I won’t get mired down at the bottom on the marshy ground under the ice. We been close to my secret place.
We come out of the pass. Down to the north been the Afon Eden Valley clad in snow, and Trawsfinnid Lake all ice and silver and orange in the evening sun, birch trees like shadows along its edge and the dark green of the conifer plantation far off.
“It look pretty good, don’t it?” I say.
Girl nearly falling over with tiredness, but she look all the same. We look at that lake a bit, breathing into our hoods with the climb.
Behind us a wall of rock rise up out the side of the hill. Up in the crags been my cave. I block up the entrance at the end of the summer.
“Come on, Mary, you got to climb up here and get inside or you gonna get cold,” I say, hauling my stuff up onto the rocks.
“You’re going to take me to the road anyway, so why do you care?”
She sulk just like the little kids at home. I mean, I got to remember she’s just a girl.
“How old you been, Mary?” I shout down.
“I’m not telling.”
“How old?”
“Thirteen.”
“Well, you acting like you bee
n about six, cos if you don’t stop sulking and get inside, you gonna freeze to death down there.”
I know she gonna come up, just need a bit of time to look like it been her idea. Anyway, I got heavy stuff to clamber up and down the rocks with.
“Aint never show no one this place, Mary. You gonna be the first.”
That make her head turn a bit and I see she getting ready to make it her idea and get up.
“Come on, Mary, you can climb up here easy.”
I move the rocks still piled at the entrance and squeeze inside. The smell of damp and earth and goat hit my nose. There aint no wind inside the cave. And I got my feeling all special and magic like I always do when I get in here.
The floor been thick with goat droppings cos this been a goat cave when they been wild up here, and the cave a lot bigger than you gonna think from that slit in the rocks. Aint no goats now though.
Mary clamber up the icy ledges of the rock face. She aint talking to me, but later I’m gonna show her the tunnels. And the spirit deep inside the mountain. She’s gonna like that I reckon.
“I’m cold,” she say.
“Just wait. I got to get the other stuff.”
I got to scramble up the crags with all the things I been dragging up the hill. She stand out on the ledge, watching.
“Just wait, Mary, we soon gonna get the fire going, plenty of goat droppings to burn.”
She squeeze through the slit in the rocks, pressing her hands against the slabs of cold gray stone sheering up above us. The snow drifted across the floor of the narrow passageway in hard crusted ridges. It’s so dark it take a while to see when you get inside. The roof way above us in the darkness. The floor deep in goat droppings rolling underfoot.
“Halloooo—” My voice echo back into the depths of the cave.
“Why do you do that?”
“It’s my cave. Gonna do what I like.”
She really start to annoy me.
I get down and get a fire going. Mary creep close. The light bounce off the jags and ruts of the stones. Far back the ledges rise up into the back of the cave. Back into the tunnels.
“I don’t like it,” she say.
She aint the only one cold and tired.
Aint the only one alone on the mountain.
“We can rest a bit,” I say.
“But you’re going to leave me down by the road tomorrow, aren’t you?”
“Sleep, Mary.”
“But you are, aren’t you?”
“Just get some rest now. We got a long walk tomorrow.”
“You are, aren’t you?”
I just close my eyes.
15
When I wake up it been dark outside. I can see it through the slit in the rocks. A bit of light come off the fire and dance about the walls of the cave though. The roof echoing high up above us and I shout into it again.
“Helloooo!”
“What? …” She jump up.
“Hear that, Mary?”
I reckon this cave been here since the beginning of time cos its cold black walls of rock aint going nowhere. Just like an old man sitting in a chair who know he been all right and aint got no worries. Just a long pipe of baccy in his hand, watching the kids scampering and the grown-ups arguing and the snow falling outside the window. That’s what I think of.
It wrap me up pretty good and homesome to be back up here. I know every corner of this place.
The smoke from the chimney curl away in the black, whisping now and then in a twist of air. Mary sit up looking at the fire. She’s tired and pesky as a baby, but I got something I’m gonna show her.
“Come on, Mary,” I say. “I’m gonna show you my secret.”
“I don’t want to come.”
She really sulk pretty good.
“Well, I aint gonna make you come cos it been a bit scary. You just stay here.”
Don’t know why I want her to see my secret place. But I do. I really want to show it to her. I don’t reckon she’s gonna laugh when I say my words either, most people gonna laugh at me then, cos I got to say my words in my secret place, aint really a choice no more. It gonna be bad luck if I don’t. That’s why it’s secret.
I got a candle. I hide it up here in the summer. I aint proud that I steal it from the house but I need it to find my way through the tunnels—it’s just a smoky tallow candle but if I ask, Magda’s gonna want to know why and all that kind of thing.
“Where are you going?” say Mary.
“Up there.” I point to the blackness at the back of the cave.
“All right, I’m going to come wi’ you.”
“I thought you been too scared.”
“No, I’m not scared.” She’s up now, but I reckon she is scared cos this cave’s big and dark and she really is just a kid and don’t want to be left on her own.
“Come on then, follow me.” I got the candle lit and I head into the shadows. Up onto the ledges, Mary scrambling behind me. The hard rocks catch at my knees and we slide on the shale. We clamber high up to the back of the cave. The cold stone walls seem to close around the tiny candle flame like a sleeve.
Aint a sound deep in the earth here. Just our breathing. We sit for a bit on the flat ledge of rock in the blackness. The fire glowing down below us.
“Come on, back here.” I lift the candle.
Behind us the tunnels look like open black mouths. I crawl into the darkness.
“I’m scared,” Mary say.
But she follow me cos she aint got no choice. The floor been dry and gritty, the tunnels low—sometimes wide enough, sometimes tight.
The tunnels twist and turn. Other openings appear in the rocks. I see them in the guttering candlelight dancing up around us.
“I’m scared.” She reach out a hand all eager in the darkness.
“We been pretty close, don’t worry.”
I aint gonna be holding someone’s hand just cos it got a bit dark.
She whimper a bit, but I aint lying—we’re nearly there. A bit further and she’s gonna see my secret place. The spirit of the hare gonna jump up inside her and she aint gonna be scared of nothing.
But Mary scuffle up beside me right then and grab at my arm, which aint been a good idea cos when she do she knock the candle from my hand, and it fall on the ground and snuff out. Just like that.
She get silent like she been dead then.
“Well, that aint too clever,” I say.
The dark screaming out it’s so dark.
She cling on me like a bur.
Aint nothing left in this kind of darkness you want to think on too hard if you aint used to it.
“Don’t cry, Mary. We aint lost.”
I strike my flint, and I tell you, the flame that come off a little thing like a smoky old tallow candle after that kind of blackness been like a great fire burning in the hearth.
“I thought we were going to be lost in here forever,” she say.
I shuffle forward in the little pool of light.
“I know.”
“Wait. Please.” She reach out a trembling hand.
“But look—we’re here.”
I crawl through a gap in the rocks and come up on my haunches—right in the middle of my secret place. Mary’s eyes blinking like she just been born.
All around us been the spirit of the hare. The dogs dancing along the wall of the chamber where I draw them out with a charred stick. That big hare skull on a stick right in the middle looking down at us, his hollow eye sockets filled with stones. I got all the hare skulls on sticks—I know every one and where I caught it. The big hare I caught last summer—he got the stones in his eyes like the dog, cos I want to catch the biggest hares, so I got to give more respect to him than the tiddlers.
At first I been very excited when I come up with the idea of putting them all up here but now I don’t go dancing about screeching. Dog teach me to talk all quiet and put my offerings down. Say my words. I got an order to it now.
The whole thing got like
it aint even my idea anymore. It’s like I got to do it or I won’t get the magic.
Mary put her cold hand in mine. I don’t say nothing this time, just reach up and put the candle on a ledge in the rock. Then I get ready to say my words. Touch big hare first like always. Close my eyes.
Eat the leaf,
Eat the grass,
The sun got warm
in the spring.
High up on the hill
I didn’t catch you then,
big hare,
with my trap and the wire.
I didn’t catch you then.
Come into the circle,
And through him and to him,
All things gonna see.
Come into the circle,
And through him and to him,
All things gonna see—
It been a proper good moment of calm.
“You get the spirit of the hare in you when you tell them the words,” I tell Mary. “We aint been the first I don’t reckon. Look.”
I point up to the ceiling. She tilt her head back, still holding my hand.
“You got to get on my shoulder with the candle, Mary.”
“But I don’t want to—I’m scared to.”
“You got to.”
I give her the candle—wrap her fingers around it. Lift her up on my shoulders.
“See. Hold up the light and you gonna see them.”
“Oh. I can see them now.”
“You see them all?”
“Go back a bit. Yes, that’s it. There are hares—two hares standing up next to each other. That’s a goat, like it’s been carved in the rock. And a deer—it’s got antlers—and a beast with big hairy shoulders.”
She’s looking at the sweep of the ceiling opening up in lines and smudges like it been a grassy plain alive with animals. I aint the first person been in here. It gonna fill you up with magic deep in this cave, I tell you.
“Can you see the hands?”
“Hands?”
“On the wall. Look like someone hold up their hand and paint round it, don’t it?” I say. “Reckon it been the person’s hands who done the picture. Like it been their name kind of.”
After the Snow Page 7
