“Mary,” I say. “Mary. It’s me.”
36
Mary slide off the pony. Mary coming to me.
“Willo?” she say, eyes wide.
Mary putting her good warm hand up to my face.
“I didn’t think I’d see you again, Willo.”
But Mary pull her hand away then. Her eyes get dark. “You left me. Why did you go without telling me?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I thought you were my friend.”
“I am. Mary. Please.”
“So why did you go?”
“It’s a long story but you. You got out of the settlement?”
“I left with the others.”
“Others? Why?”
“The boat. We’re going to the boat. I’m waiting. Waiting for Da.”
“Your dad?”
“Da’s going to come. He promised.”
“Your dad’s dead, Mary. Remember? He been dead up on the mountain. He aint coming back.”
“No he’s not. He’s alive. He didn’t die—he made it back.”
“He come back?”
“Yes. That day when he went out to look for food, he got caught in a blizzard and lost his way. When you found me in the house on the mountain.”
She step up quiet. “I never thought I’d see you again, Willo.”
A hot wind blow in my head. We been standing close. Mary holding the reins of her pony.
“When he came back to that little house all he found was Tommy. Dogs had got him. He thought the dogs had got me too. So he made his way back to the settlement.”
“How did you get by?”
“I stayed wi’ Piper for a while. I waited for you. But I thought you’d gone forever. Then Vince gave me work at the beerhouse. Enough to get by on. Somewhere to stay. That’s how I found Da again. He knew everything. When the boat was going. All that. And he got the pony and I came up wi’ the ponymen. To the pastures. Da was supposed to meet me. But I know he’ll come. He promised … .”
“Where do you think he been now?”
“I don’t know. He had to go back to the city. To get someone.”
“Who?”
“John Blovyn’s son. He had to get Blovyn’s son.”
“—the boat. It’s ready. You must try and get away. And help her. Please. My daughter. She’s waiting for me … .”
I think Mary see something in my face then. Cos a look pass across her mouth like the shadow of those clouds growing in my head.
“Callum Gourty?”
“Yes. Callum Gourty. How do you know, Willo?”
Time stand still in that shady clearing by the pool. It got to be me telling her. That man been Mary’s dad. He aint been no stealer. She tell me that up on the Farngod. But I aint been listening then.
“He’s dead, Mary.”
“No, Willo, he isn’t dead he’s alive, he …” The shadow rest on her face good and proper now.
“Callum Gourty. Your dad. He aint coming.”
She turn away from me. Walk to the edge of the water. Her hands to her face. I see it and look away. The pony drop its head, snuffling in the leaves.
“How do you know?” Her words are quiet like the murmur of the water.
“Mary.” I step toward her. “He told me to find you—”
“How do you know?” She look at me. Her eyes red.
“I—”
“How do you know, Willo!”
I go to her.
“I’m sorry. I am.” I put out my hand. “Believe me, we aint got time for talking, Mary. There aint much time.” She aint hearing me though. “We got to hurry, Mary.”
“How do you know he’s dead?” Mary swaying like a sapling.
“Your dad come for me. I aint got a clue he been your dad. Not til now.”
“On the mountain?”
“No, Mary. In the city.”
“Why?”
“He come to find me and then we got taken. They gonna come looking for us too. We got to get to the boat. We got to go.”
The clouds break. Mary got that storm inside her now. Look like the rain coming down like an ocean. She fall down on the wet rocks. Great sobs and calling out for her dad. I pull her up.
“Who took him? Willo! What happened? I can’t go without him. I—”
“I aint got a clue why it happen, Mary.” I get her up, hold her tight. “So many things aint no one told me all my life—”
“But why you?”
“Because … I—”
“Because what?”
“Because of my dad, Mary. He’s dead too. My dad’s dead too. It’s just you and me.”
“But why did Da go back for you, Willo?”
“My dad be John Blovyn, Mary. That’s why he came for me. Aint my fault.”
Through her wet eyes she look into my face. “John Blovyn? You? You’re his son?”
“Yes.”
“But you?”
“I can see why your father was so disappointed in you, Willo. You. Son of the great John Blovyn. Running about the hills like a wild dog. His simpleton son.”
“Now aint the time for talking on it, Mary. We got to go. Get to the boat before it’s too late.”
“I can’t, Willo—not without Da.”
“You got me.”
There’s so much I want to say but talking don’t help when you been swallowed up in grief. We got to keep going. It aint over yet. When the weather turn, you just got to bury yourself in your collar and bend with the wind.
I get her up on the saddle. Lead the pony on, snorting as it pick its way along the rocky riverbed. There’s a kind of rhythm to it lost inside our dark clouds.
The pony feel warm. It’s a good little pony. Strong and keen. Its wiry mane long and thick, falling over its neck this way and that. Mary got her hands buried in it. And Mary feel warm too. My arm holding her up.
You’re on your own now, Willo.
I look quick behind us. Aint nothing there.
But the dog telling me I got to be Number One.
For Mary.
“We got to hurry. What we gonna do if the boat go without us.” I say it quiet. “We got our whole lives for crying. But that boat aint gonna wait for two kids no one know about.”
Mary pull the pony up.
“I don’t want to go on, Willo. There’s nothing left.”
“But, Mary, you got to. What you gonna do? Lie down under these trees? It aint gonna go away.”
She start crying again in great sobs. I get her down off the saddle.
She’s like a bird fallen from the nest. I remember her thin frozen body when I get her warm in that broken wincone on the mountain. Her hands tight round my neck when I carry her up through the snow. It been a miracle she aint died right then. But she’s strong under her skin. I know it.
“Mary. You aint the sort to just lie down and give up. We got to get to the boat. Wherever it’s gonna take us.”
I can’t bear to see her face so wet and broken.
“Far away,” she say, her eyes all distant. “The Island. The boat’s going to take us somewhere far away. Somewhere safe. Away from here. That’s what Da said. He said it was going to be a new beginning. New everything—”
“Yes, it’s what your da wanted Mary. He wanted you to get on the boat. He told me.”
“He said that to you?”
“He was right Mary. Aint nothing much left here for us, is there?”
“No.”
That picture of Dorothy burning in my head. Patrick. His foot against my face. The things he say. The things he done. To my dad. And Magda. All of them gone.
I feel her close then. Our bodies together. The pony standing quiet beside us.
“I aint never thought people gonna be so bad, Willo.”
“They aint all bad.”
“I know. But it’s hard to forget.” She put her face in my neck. “Why do they want to hurt us?”
“They don’t like people like us because they got scared. Scared we’re
gonna make it. That’s why we got to go.”
She’s still crying soft in my ear. Arms all around me. The trees around look sharp like I never seen them before. The world is under those trees with the water running gentle and Mary in my arms.
“I been thinking about you all the time, Mary … thinking about taking you to the house on the mountain—”
“So why did you leave me? … I don’t understand.”
“I don’t know. Dog got up inside me. He come down from the hills. Calling me. And then it been too late. I know I got to come back to you, but it been too late. Things happen. I got stuck in the city. But I aint stopped thinking on you. I—”
The pony shy up in fright.
Rocks on the riverbed tumble in the shallow water.
“What’s that sound, Willo?”
The water lap at our feet. The horse whinny.
Strange sound coming down the gorge.
“Quick! Mary! Get up the bank.”
“Willo! What is it?”
The sound get louder, the ground shaking. And I know what’s coming. Can’t believe I been so stupid.
“The meltwaters, Mary!”
The pony break free and leap up the bank.
Water rush across the rocks. And that sound. Like a monstrous beast. Coming from behind the bend in the river.
“Mary!”
I grab her hand. Pull her. Pull her toward the higher ground. Scramble up grabbing at branches. The rumbling booming meltwater breaking down from the lake.
Mary slip on the wet leaves, hanging on to me with her hand, grabbing at a tree trunk. I cry out but my voice get lost in the roar of the wave. A great wall of water from the lake above. Rumbling and thundering and filling the gorge. Swelling and crashing through the trees. Aint nothing gonna stop it. Nothing gonna get in its way.
I see it now and it take my breath away. Crashing and pummeling and grinding, a mountain of water. Towering over the riverbed. Filled with rocks and ice—crashing down the gully, engulfing the trees, uprooting them from the ground. Splitting them like matches. Washing down the gorge like an almighty storm. Scouring the banks. I can feel the mist of it spraying on my face. Ripping and roaring and unstoppable.
“Willo!” Mary mouth a scream.
I haul her up with all my strength. Pull her up the slope. The pony scream out. Stamping beside me. Nostrils flared. I grab the loose stirrup hanging at its side. Just in time as the icy waters of Cym Bachan shudder against the banks. Crashing just below us.
The pony drag us up neighing and foaming. We been breathless on the wet ground. A huge tree swirling in the waters below our feet. Thudding against the bank. Huge tree ripped from the ground like a stick. The waters muddy and icy and angry emptying themselves into the valley.
I should have known. I should have known not to be down on the riverbed this time of year. When the melt come you aint gonna stand in its way.
We lie on the bank breathing hard.
And a laugh like a storm got up inside me good and proper. The black clouds break open. I can feel the rains come. It come up from deep inside. I been laughing in great bursts with tears in my eyes. Lying safe on the bank with Mary at my side. All the fear and the hurt and the pain and the joy just bursting out of me in that laugh. From deep in my guts. Laugh ringing out above the sound of the swirling waters below us. Everything flood out in that laugh.
“What? What, Willo?”
I say nothing just turn to face her. Put my hand up to that good pale face. Then I see the hare. Running from the river.
“Shh! Look. Over there.”
I grab Mary’s hand. Like it been the most natural thing in the world. “There! The hare.”
Big brown hare racing into the bare hawthorn. Young leveret at its side.
“Come on, Mary.” I crouch down. “Look. The leveret.”
The hares disappear under a hedge. We get down and crawl through the bushes. Push out from under the branches into the light.
And we been up on a high flat rock looking across the flats down to the sea.
“Look, Willo!”
It all stretch away as far as the eye can see. The sky wrapping around us. The horizon bending around all about. Bending “cos the earth is round, Willo.” And you can see it from up here. The great wholeness of it and the sky clear and the thin wispy clouds floating on the edge of the world. The great wide world. My world.
“There! On the beach. Look!” she cry.
I can just make it out. The telltale wisps of smoke from campfires. And people. Huddled in groups on the shore. Out across the sea in the glimmering light, boats sitting on the waters of the bay. I can see their wide sails flapping in the wind. Like silver wings. Dinghies pulled onto the sand.
“Willo. The boats.”
She’s talking all quiet.
She still got her hand in mine. Sweet and soft and warm.
“We’re not too late,” she say.
But that fire blow hot in my head. Blowing with the smell of the coming spring. I hear the voices. Maybe the dog come down off the mountain for me after all. The voices ripping and tugging and tumbling inside me.
I turn to her. The sun catching on the heathery peaks behind us. Soft greens and russet on the hillside. The sound of the swirling water filling the river on the other side of the trees. And Mary. Lying right beside me.
“Come on. We can make it, Willo. The boat. We’ve got to get down there!”
I roll onto my back. The sun on my face.
“Willo! Come on.”
Yes, soon the russet heather gonna be humming with insects. The grass gonna be tall and soft and sweet. Dogs gonna be bringing pups out of the ground. Birds laying eggs in the bracken. Time to turn over the ground and plant a few oats for the winter. Time to wash the soot out of blankets and beat the rugs. Time to mend the roof. Let the goats out of the barn. Smell the earth under the snow.
“Willo?”
“Look, Mary. The whole world. It’s right here.”
“We’ve got to get down there, Willo. Before they leave.”
“Is it gonna be better than this Mary? Wherever it is that boat’s gonna go?”
“I don’t understand. It’s the boat that’s going to take us away. To the Island. New beginning and everything. Somewhere safe.”
“But don’t you see? It’s all here. This is where we belong. In the trees and the mountains. Across the valleys. In this great big sky all about. The ice is only frozen water Mary. Got to shout it out loud and clear. This is the Island. You. Me. This place. The Island is right here. In us. I see it now. Cos you can carry the good around in your head. Like that ship on the sea. Aint nothing gonna touch the things in your head if you don’t let them. I know it.”
Mary look across the bay. She’s close, so close I can feel her breathing. Her hand still in mine. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Maybe what’s on that boat aint gonna be any different in the end. If we get on that boat it’s the same as if they killed us. They won then.”
There’s a big silence between us. Just the sound of the wind in the sky and the trees moving. But those things aint shouting now. Just rustling soft.
“We could go south,” she say in a whisper.
I turn and look at her. Wipe the hair from her damp forehead.
I can feel the fear. But it’s strong. Good and strong inside us like the sun cracking through the stormclouds blowing in my head. Nothing aint certain but the new day ahead.
“Yes, Mary. You see? We got the pony. We can go south. Find a house down there. Plant some oats. Cut some wood. Start fresh. Got to be beacons of hope. If it aint us, who’s it gonna be?”
It’s in that moment. Just looking out at the world all about. Saying and believing.
“And you won’t leave me?”
I look into her eyes.
“No, Mary. No. I won’t.”
She pull back and look at me.
“You promise?”
The wind blow inside me. The voices Tel
l.
“Heed your own spirit, Willo. Optimism! We must all share it. Around the fire. When we Meet. When we Tell. We must pass this gift to our children.”
“Yes, Mary,” I tell her, “I promise.”
And it been my voice. It always been my voice. Not the hare. Not the dog. Not Dad. Not anyone. Just me.
Thanks and Acknowledgments
Timothy Shepard, Julia Churchill, Emma Young, Gordon Stevens, Daniel Crockett, Tony Lawrence, Claude and Therese Mesmin, Michelle and Francis Domps, and Debi Squirrell.
Et enfi n (but not least) Louise Bacou.
Thank you all.
A FEIWEL AND FRIENDS BOOK
An Imprint of Macmillan
AFTER THE SNOW. Copyright © 2012 by S. D. Crockett. All rights reserved. Donnelley & Sons Company, Harrisonburg, Virginia. For information, address Feiwel and Friends, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
macteenbooks.com
Book design by Barbara Grzeslo
Feiwel and Friends logo designed by Filomena Tuosto
eISBN 9781466816053
First eBook Edition : March 2012
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Crockett, S. D. (Sophie D.)
After the snow / S. D. Crockett.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Fifteen-year-old Willo Blake, born after the 2059 snows that ushered in a new ice age, encounters outlaws, halfmen, and an abandoned girl as he journeys in search of his family, who mysteriously disappeared from the freezing mountain that was their home.
ISBN: 978-0-312-64169-6 (hardback)
[1. Survival—Fiction. 2. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 3. Voyages and travels—Fiction. 4. Missing persons—Fiction. 5. Winter—Fiction. 6. Science fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.C8718Aft 2012
[Fic]—dc23
First Edition: 2012
After the Snow Page 21
