Winter Damage

by Natasha Carthew

  She dropped to her knees and with one hand clawed at the snow and pulled at the half-burnt timber until she found the pan. She raked through the frozen ashes for any other objects they might have lost.

  In the debris of the fire she felt the ribbed zip of the fish backbone and yanked it clear of the snow. The fish that made Ennor eternally grateful. Life for a life. It had given her strength, strength to keep her heart beating, her mind from going mad. She snapped off the tailbone and cleaned it in the snow. A found object, beautiful, and she pressed it to her lips to make a wish.

  When she returned to the woods Ennor realised she had been gone some time. Sonny was standing black against the huge dancing flames and she had her hands square on her hips.

  ‘You were ages.’

  ‘Sorry. It took time lookin.’

  ‘I was worried.’

  ‘Sorry, least I found the pan.’ She waved it in the air as proof. ‘Even filled it with fresh snow.’ She nestled the pan near to the fire and sat back on the tarp. ‘Snowin mad out there, worse than before.’

  ‘Don’t doubt it.’

  ‘It’s like all the planet’s snow quota got dumped on Cornwall in one swoop. I hope Trip and Dad are all right and Butch of course.’ Ennor had wished this when she kissed the fishtail, but it didn’t hurt to say it out loud.

  ‘What you got there?’ asked Sonny.

  ‘Bit of the fish. Part of the tail I think.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s my wishbone. Gonna bring me luck, like catchin the fish was luck.’

  Sonny added branches to the fire and sat down beside Ennor. ‘You finally losin your mind?’

  ‘Maybe. Don’t hurt to have hopes and dreams, does it?’

  ‘Let me look.’

  Ennor handed over the wishbone and Sonny turned it over in her hands. ‘It’s got a nice weight to it, nice and smooth too, make a good mini-dagger.’ She nodded and reached into her bumbag.

  ‘What you doin?’

  ‘Wait.’

  ‘Don’t carve it or nothin.’

  Sonny pulled out the ball of baler twine and unclipped her knife to cut off a good length. ‘See this hole here?’

  Ennor nodded.

  ‘It’s perfect for a necklace, int it? That way you won’t lose it.’ She wound the string twice through the hole and tied a double knot at the end.

  ‘There, now you can make wishes all day long.’ She smiled as she passed it over and Ennor put it on.

  ‘What’s it look like?’

  ‘Like a bit of fish caught on some twine.’

  ‘Like how I caught it.’

  Sonny nodded her head. ‘Somethin like that.’

  ‘You int so bad, are you?’

  ‘Worse.’

  ‘All hard but soft in the middle.’

  ‘Shut up. Just dint want you to lose the bloody thing, hell. Couldn’t stand you all weepy and feelin sorry.’

  ‘Feelin sorry is your job,’ said Ennor as she moved to make the tea, ‘that and buildin fires.’

  ‘Yours is feelin sorry and makin tea.’

  ‘We got most things covered then.’

  ‘Guess so.’

  Ennor passed her a mug of tea and sat back with her own and they watched the fire burn almost out of control.

  ‘I thought I was gonna die back there,’ said Ennor.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Earlier, before the fire.’

  ‘But you dint.’

  ‘Dint but I might of.’

  ‘That’s two of our lives gone, first the frozen lake, then here in the blizzard.’

  ‘How many lives we got?’

  ‘You got three.’

  ‘How many you got?’

  ‘Nine, like a cat.’

  ‘Why’d you get nine? That int fair.’

  ‘Girl, life int fair.’

  ‘How’d I get nine? Some kind of gypo spell or somethin?’

  Sonny shrugged ‘Maybe. Maybe you should get wishin on that fishbone of yours.’

  ‘All right I will. How many wishes make up one new life credit?’

  ‘Bout a thousand, just to be safe. Nine thousand in all should do it.’

  ‘You don’t think I’d do it?’

  ‘Don’t really care to be honest, but for a girl who likes countin, it’s somethin to do.’

  Ennor smiled. ‘You’re right, best go for ten thousand though.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s a good clean number, a good one to start on.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  Some kind of lesser sun limped ragged and untrusting towards dawn and crept up on the girls as they walked through fresh drifts of snow. Sonny called it an early bird start and that was exactly what it was.

  She was convincing her new friend that nothing was without reason and if it wasn’t for certain circumstances they would never have met. She walked with wide determined strides out from the woods and held the paper map in one hand and a rope for tying found timber in the other.

  ‘You walkin slow for a reason?’ she asked.

  ‘Course not.’

  ‘Guess you only got biddy legs but still.’

  ‘Guess so.’

  ‘Still you could pick um up a little, put some gumph into the thing.’

  ‘I’m goin as fast as I can, I’m stiff from the cold.’

  Ennor laughed at Sonny’s big hair bouncing wild as she walked. Her leather jacket tight and too short for her arms and ancient biker boots split sideways and hard as nails. She wanted to ask her if she was cold but couldn’t stomach another sideswipe and she wondered if the temperature was anything above freezing.

  ‘How cold you think it is?’

  ‘Cold.’

  ‘No, really.’

  ‘Really cold.’

  ‘Why you in a mood?’

  ‘I’m not, I’m concentratin on the route. You wanna find your mum before Christmas or no?’

  ‘Course. I was just askin.’

  ‘It’s about seven or eight below.’

  They walked in silence and Ennor settled her mind to counting steps and she kept her eyes on the thick-set snow around her. She lengthened her stride and stepped into Sonny’s footsteps and she looked at the other prints running alongside them.

  ‘Sonny?’

  ‘What now?’

  ‘We bin here before?’

  Sonny stopped to look at her. ‘Hello? No. Other side of the woods, int we?’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Course, why?’

  Ennor pointed to the patch of snow beside them. ‘You think it’s that mad old woman? After me cus I killed her son?’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ said Sonny. ‘There’s two sets of prints circlin there. She int got four legs, has she?’

  ‘Don’t joke.’

  ‘I int. Probably just people passin, same as us.’

  ‘What kind of people?’

  ‘People, just people.’

  ‘Police?’

  Sonny started to laugh. ‘When was the last time you saw a bobby on the beat? Don’t walk roads or lanes or nothin, do they? Not likely they’re out on a hike.’

  ‘Spose,’ said Ennor.

  ‘Double spose,’ said Sonny. ‘Now come on.’

  They continued north following the bearing Sonny had set them and there were times when the footsteps vanished and times when they were in there walking between them.

  Two ghosts making tracks and two girls following. Ennor didn’t like it. The moor wasn’t for sharing, not any more.

  ‘They started to slow,’ said Sonny. ‘The footsteps are closer together.’

  ‘We gonna catch um up? I don’t want to catch um up.’

  ‘Too late, look.’ Sonny pointed towards two dark figures studded black in the dip of valley below.

  ‘Hello?’ she bellowed.

  ‘Don’t call um!’

  ‘Why not, hello?’ She waved both arms and jumped crazy until the figures stopped and turned.

  ‘Come on. Let’s say hi, looks like one
of um’s a kid.’ She got out her telescope. ‘Yep, a boy type kid.’

  Ennor snatched the telescope and hurried to find familiar faces in the magnified white. She had a feeling, a good one.

  ‘Trip!’ she shouted. ‘Butch!’ She ran down the hill and called out their names until her own name rolled back with a bounce.

  ‘Ennor,’ Trip shouted. ‘We bin lookin everywhere for you.’

  Ennor bent to catch her brother and they hugged so tight they squeezed tears from each other’s eyes.

  ‘I missed you, sister,’ he cried. ‘I missed you lots.’

  Ennor smiled as she knelt in the snow and she kissed both his cheeks. ‘I missed you so much, buddy.’

  ‘Anyone mind explainin?’ asked Sonny.

  Ennor hugged Butch and then pushed him away so she could look at him. ‘What you doin here?’

  ‘I kept runnin away.’ Trip grinned. ‘Just kept runnin, dint I, Butch?’

  Butch nodded. ‘He kept runnin off at night. I had to lock his bedroom door but he’d jump from the window and run.’

  Ennor crouched to hold Trip in her arms and she stroked his hair back from his face. ‘You stayed up at the farmhouse, did you?’

  ‘Yep and buddy horse.’

  ‘Well this is a regular mystery, int it?’ laughed Sonny. ‘Like a bloody whodunnit or somethin, this is.’

  ‘Sonny, don’t swear in front of my brother.’

  ‘Sorry, brother. So anyone mind tellin what you’re doin out here?’

  Butch looked at Ennor. ‘Things are gettin worse. We had to leave.’

  ‘Worse how?’ asked Ennor.

  ‘They’re takin kids from all over, good and bad. Detainin them in centres, for our own good they say but it don’t sound right.’

  ‘I int stoppin in no young offenders!’ said Sonny and she looked down at Trip. ‘What you lookin at?’

  ‘Nothin.’

  ‘Well that’s good.’

  ‘You’re weird.’

  ‘So are you.’ She poked out her tongue and he laughed and said he didn’t like her.

  ‘What about everyone else, what about Dad?’ asked Ennor.

  ‘The cities are the worst; they got the army drafted in to keep the peace.’

  ‘How you know all this?’ asked Sonny as she stuck out her hand to shake.

  ‘Radio. It’s all they talk about, that and the weather.’

  ‘This is Sonny by the way,’ said Ennor. ‘Sonny, this is my brother, Trip, and my friend, Butch.’

  ‘So this is the famous Butch? I had you painted as a macho. Name don’t really suit, does it?’ Sonny laughed and continued to grip his hand.

  ‘Why you laughin?’ asked Butch.

  ‘Well no offence but you’re a skinny little rag, int you? No disrespect mind.’

  ‘Looks like you got my share and more.’

  Ennor told them to stop sniping. She wanted to ask Butch about Dad but there was no right time with all the fussing and goings-on and she told herself the reason he wasn’t saying wasn’t bad news but news of a kind. She closed her eyes and pictured herself back at the farm, walking with Dad out in the best fields. She watched him herd the cows with his walking stick and she remembered how when nobody was looking she’d practise on the chickens in the yard.

  Loaded dread swamped her and she opened her eyes to stop it but it was too late because she pictured him dead in bed with his cheeks ballooned further from the drugs and his eyes opaque smudges with the twinkle all gone.

  ‘You OK?’ asked Butch.

  ‘Course she’s OK. What, you her babysitter?’

  Ennor told him she was fine and she asked him how he knew where to look for them.

  ‘Kept a copy of your route.’ He shrugged. ‘Just kept walkin. I knew I’d find you.’

  ‘You did?’ Ennor smiled. He knew he’d find her; she liked that.

  ‘We bin walkin for ages,’ said Trip. ‘I got sores on my feet.’

  ‘I’ll have a look at them later.’ Ennor went to put her arm around him but he took off down into the valley.

  ‘Hey!’ he shouted. ‘A dog!’

  Buddy dog was named by Trip and was immediately given best friend status.

  A sheepdog mixed with something else nobody could call, he was spotted on that first morning the gang set forth into the blizzard.

  ‘Come on, buddy dog,’ laughed Trip.

  ‘Stop with the salt crackers, dogs don’t eat salt crackers,’ said Ennor.

  ‘This one do.’

  ‘If you feed him, he’ll follow us for ever.’

  ‘Good, he’s my best friend.’

  Sonny patted the dog’s head and ruffled his coat. ‘I like him, and if we can’t feed him, we’ll eat him.’ She smiled at Trip and winked but he pulled the dog away.

  ‘Storm’s gettin worse,’ shouted Butch from up ahead.

  ‘Jeez, you think? Hell.’ Sonny turned to Ennor and made a face. ‘Your boyfriend’s a regular genius.’

  ‘He’s not my boyfriend.’

  ‘Friend who’s a boy, whatever. Hey, Butchy boy, where you headin?’

  ‘North,’ he shouted.

  ‘I’m the one with the map.’

  ‘Map int worth much without a compass.’

  There was a serious air about them that was grown-up and silent, the storms had brought the moor to a white-wallpapered stop. They walked in one another’s footsteps and called out their names when they wandered left or right. Every breath taken was painful and brittle in the chest.

  Landmarks they had circled on the map were useless to them in the suffocating snow and they hung to the plastic Christmas-cracker compass Butch had brought with him like their lives depended upon it because it did.

  ‘If we keep headin north, we’ll be fine,’ Butch said to Ennor.

  ‘And when the storm eases we’ll be able to pick up our route,’ shouted Sonny.

  ‘I hope so,’ said Ennor. ‘I’m gettin tired of this.’

  Butch shook his head. ‘I told you, dint I? You got to take account of everythin.’

  Ennor knew he was right because he was always right. There was a time when she took comfort from this, but they were in a new world now, her world. His righteousness bugged her when everything was so skewed.

  Earlier she had wanted to take hold of his arm, allow herself to be guided, protected from the grinding worry that turned her thoughts to dust.

  But now she harboured an overwhelming desire to tell him to get stuffed. She’d survived the journey so far, hadn’t she? Maybe some of Sonny’s attitude had rubbed off on her and maybe that was a good thing.

  She wanted to ask him if he’d rather leave them to it and turn back but knew this would only hurt his feelings. He was sensitive for all his arrogance. His job was unfaltering help and protection and she’d always needed him but maybe he needed her more, a weak boy and a beaten boy, who was strong for her. She felt bad for thinking bad and when he started coughing she felt bad for that too.

  She linked his arm and smiled. In her mouth there were a million words stored for asking about Dad, but when she went to speak spitting grit jammed her throat tight.

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘You goin to be all right?’

  ‘Course, why?’

  ‘Your cough and all.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘But your chest infection?’

  ‘Don’t worry bout it. It’s the least of my worries. It’s cleared anyhow. Just got the cough now.’ He pulled away from her and stopped to reach into his rucksack for the water bottle and Ennor stopped too.

  She looked back and waited for Sonny and Trip to catch up and she laughed at the dog jumping crazily between them.

  ‘Stupid dog tryin to trip me up,’ shouted Sonny. ‘What have I ever done to you? Grizzly cloth-eared mongrel.’

  ‘He likes you,’ said Ennor, still smiling.

  ‘Glad I can provide you with some entertainment, hell.’

  ‘Maybe he can smell the fish on you?’
/>
  ‘What fish?’ asked Butch.

  ‘The fish I caught on Siblyback.’

  ‘Big bugger,’ added Sonny.

  ‘You eat it?’ he asked.

  ‘Course we did,’ laughed Sonny. ‘What you think we did with it? Fashion it into a hat?’

  ‘You got any left?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Shame.’

  ‘Not for us.’

  Ennor told them to shut up and for Butch to ignore Sonny because she always won with wind-ups.

  ‘It’s true,’ grinned Sonny. ‘Just try it and you’ll see.’

  Occasionally the dog ran into the abyss with Trip in pursuit and Sonny made a lead with great lengths of the baler twine she still had balled in her bumbag, plaiting it in her mouth as they walked.

  ‘If the dog goes to make a dash, you give this a sharp tug,’ she shouted as she tied the lead securely around the dog’s scruff and she let Ennor tie it around Trip’s wrist.

  ‘What you say to Sonny?’

  Trip stroked the rope and they all stood sideways in the gale while he thought for a moment and then he thanked her.

  ‘You’re welcome. There’s nothin Sonny Pengelly can’t make out of twine, I know all the knots.’ She smiled at the others but nobody was looking and nobody was listening and she got out the map instead.

  ‘According to this there’s a farm near bout.’

  ‘If we pass it, we’re doin well,’ yelled Butch through the wind.

  ‘If we pass it, we’re goin in,’ Sonny replied.

  ‘We can’t go knockin on every door we see, it’s Christmas. People will think we’re on the rob.’

  ‘Well I’m gonna find me a barn cus this is ridiculous and it’ll be dark before long. You’ve not spent much time out here, have you, skinny boy?’

  ‘Just shut up, you two. If we get to a farm and it’s gettin dark, we’ll ask if we can stay,’ said Ennor.

  Sonny laughed. ‘Just ask? You two are as green. Buddy dog’s got more smarts than you.’

  She looked at the dog and looked at Trip and he smiled and told her he had a horse too.

  ‘Really? What’s his name?’