by Jenny Nimmo
‘Well, take it, girl!’ commanded Idris Llewelyn. ‘Roll it up and conceal it somewhere about you.’
‘But the dress; I can’t hide them both in my anorak.’
‘Leave the dress here,’ Emlyn suggested, ‘and fetch it when you bring the dog. Will it be soon?’
‘I expect so.’ Nia wished he hadn’t mentioned Fly. She was taking their gift under false pretences. She knelt and folded the canvas, tucking it guiltily into her anorak, like a thief who knows he is observed but has gone too far to save himself.
‘You look so glum, girl,’ Mr Llewelyn remarked. ‘Cheer up! This is the beginning. Can you use an iron?’
Nia nodded and got to her feet.
‘Iron the creases out of your canvas when no one is about, and then hide it; right?’
‘I’ll do that,’ said Nia. ‘I’d better go now, and thank you for the soup and . . . and everything.’
‘Damn the sky!’ Mr Llewelyn was, once again, preoccupied with his own work. ‘The light is going and I should have had another two hours.’
Emlyn followed Nia out of the chapel and began to accompany her down the hill.
‘I’ll be all right,’ Nia said.
‘I’ll come anyway,’ he replied and fell into step beside her.
‘What’s your mam’s name?’ Nia asked, hoping to forestall any inquiries about Fly.
‘Elinor,’ he said.
‘That’s a beautiful name. Why do you think she’s in the moon?’
‘She told me!’
And then, without any prompting, Emlyn began to tell Nia of the night his mother left; of the howling wind that tore slates from the chapel roof and sent them banging against the windows; the baby crying and his father roaring in the dark, because there were no lights. ‘But I could see them both,’ Emlyn said softly, ‘the moon was so bright, and my mam was walking up and down and round the wooden animals, pushing at them, like she hated them. I fell asleep while they were still rowing and then, much later, she woke me. She said she was taking the baby and leaving my dad; she wanted me to go with her, but I said no. I couldn’t leave my dad, could I? And then she said something. “. . . Yr Hanner Lleuad ”, the half moon, that’s all I heard because of the wind; so I painted her in the moon, in a crescent moon, because that’s what she said. But I never told my dad why and he never asked.’
They were no longer walking, but now and again placing one foot in front of the other, until, at last, they stopped moving altogether and Nia said, ‘She just went, like that, in the middle of the night?’
‘She just went,’ he replied.
Nia felt he had left something out, perhaps the most important thing of all; but she had no right to ask any more questions, for she had broken her promise and, even now, when she knew he had probably confided more to her than to anyone, she could not bring herself to tell him the truth about Fly.
The sky was, indeed, like slate; heavy and damp, it pressed all around them, holding the shape of fields and mountains fixed and dark in the distance. Emlyn looked away to a lamplit window at the top of the hill. ‘I stood on my bed after she’d gone,’ he said, ‘and I looked out of the window. There was a Land Rover in the road, and a man beside it.’
Nia gasped. ‘D’you know who it was?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ said Emlyn. ‘I knew him all right. It was Mr Griffiths, Gwyn’s dad. He took my mother away.’
Nia looked hard into his eyes, willing him to smile and tell her that it was not so, not Gwyn’s father, but the gaze he steadfastly returned was so grave and so sad that she had to believe him. And then, all at once, he burst out, ‘They blame him; blame my dad for driving my mam away. But it’s all a lie. She went, didn’t she? She didn’t have to go. My dad gave her a home, with pictures on the wall and a butterfly ceiling for her baby. She didn’t have to go. And they blame me too, for staying. “A boy should go with his mother,” they said, but I couldn’t, could I? Couldn’t leave my dad?’
Emlyn who had seemed so confident, was shaking his head from side to side like a sleepless child, and Nia knew that her answer really mattered. Could she manage, just for once to get it right? ‘No,’ she said calmly, ‘you couldn’t leave your dad; he’d be alone.’
Emlyn smiled, almost apologetically, and Nia knew that she had chosen her words wisely.
‘I’ll come all the way with you tonight,’ Emlyn said. ‘There are spooks in the air.’
They laughed and then they ran; ran all the way to number six, where Emlyn held his nose and made hideous faces at the butcher’s dark and empty window, and Nia giggled as she rang the bell. Someone had latched the door. Nerys opened it with a book in one hand. ‘I saw your friend Gwyneth in the library,’ she said.
‘Yes, her dad let me in and I waited!’ Nia decided that Gwyneth’s father was not likely to frequent libraries. ‘We had a great time. Gwyneth’s got a new doll’s house.’
‘She’s spoiled,’ said Nerys. Her spectacles had slipped to the end of her nose and she didn’t see Emlyn, dancing in the street, thumbs in his ears and feet turned out like Charlie Chaplin. ‘What’re you grinning at, idiot?’
‘Nothing,’ Nia replied. She followed her sister into the house and turned to give Emlyn a secret signal of farewell.
Emlyn had stopped dancing. He was staring into the hall, listening to the cheerful sounds beyond: the singing, shouting and laughter. He reminded Nia of a hungry, golden-eyed animal, searching for warmth.
She hated closing the door.
It was a cold night. The grey clouds drifted south and the moon sailed out, bright and startling from behind the mountains. Falling through frosted glass, it filled the yellow bathroom with soft light and Nia, sleepless with impatience, knew that she had found a safe and secret place to do her work.
Iolo was not easily disturbed from sleep; his face was pressed against his blue monster and his breathing was calm and even as his sister crawled beneath her bed to retrieve the canvas from its hiding place. Nevertheless she tiptoed through the door and dared not shut it tight behind her.
Beside the bath, in the brightest patch of moonlight, Nia spread her canvas and gazed at it. She had managed to iron it in the tiny upstairs room, on the board her mother had left unattended while she ran Iolo’s bath. Nia stroked the rough surface and screwed up her eyes, silently demanding the canvas to show her where and how to begin. A huge rectangle of dull brown stared back at her, giving no advice, no encouragement.
Once again, the hateful and familiar feeling of hopelessness began to overwhelm Nia. She sank back on her heels, numb with disappointment. She was not what they thought after all. She could not see shapes and colours where they did not exist. She was not gifted with imagination. The Llewelyns had burdened her with a talent she did not possess. They expected too much.
Motionless, she crouched on the cold floor until the church clock struck twice. The lonely, hollow sound made her shiver. It was time to put away the masterpiece that would never be.
A wisp of cloud passed across the moon; the long dress of a lady in the sky. A shadow covered the canvas like a ghost and, when it had gone, a faint shape appeared beside Nia’s cold hand where it touched the frayed edge. The pale form gathered strength and colour, it became a roof, dark grey, with a chimney in the centre. Another roof emerged beside the first, dark red this one, with a curl of smoke drifting from the chimney-pot. The lower edge of the canvas began to fill with imaginary shapes and colours. Nia was so excited she ran to the bedroom, crashing the door back against Iolo’s toy box. The rhythm of her brother’s quiet breathing changed, but he did not wake.
Nia opened a cupboard and took out her sewing basket. She found a large needle, scissors, and a ball of soft grey wool. Terrified that the picture in her mind would evaporate before she could commit it to canvas, she rushed back to the bathroom, slipped on the shiny floor, and crashed into a stool, sending it spinning into the bath. In the silent house, the noise seemed deafening. For a whole minute Nia waited, frozen, against the wall
. When she had assured herself that she had not woken her family she knelt beside her canvas and began to thread the needle. This done, she made three tiny stitches in the material. She paused to consider, then made a long stitch, then a curve. Nia teased the wool with the sharp end of her needle and pale grey, drifting smoke appeared.
‘Oh!’ she sighed, surprised and delighted by her achievement.
‘Nia?’
Someone had been disturbed after all. Catrin stood in the open doorway.
‘Can’t you sleep?’
It was too late to hide the canvas. ‘Something woke me!’ Nia said.
‘What’s that on the floor?’
‘Nothing – just a piece of stuff I found; I’m . . . I’m sewing on it. Please don’t tell.’
‘I won’t tell, but you’d better go to bed now or you’ll never wake up in the morning.’ Kind Catrin never scolded.
Nia smiled and rolled up her work. She had begun. Nothing mattered now. The smoke was there and it would remain. Tomorrow there would be a chimney and a roof and perhaps pink blossom on a tree. ‘I’ll sleep now,’ she said happily.
Catrin followed Nia to her room and smoothed the pillow. ‘You’re a funny one,’ she said as Nia climbed into bed.
‘I’m glad it wasn’t Nerys who found me,’ Nia whispered.
‘I bet you are!’ Catrin began to tidy the rumpled sheets. Before she had finished, Nia was asleep.
There began a week of feverish activity for Nia. Scraps of cotton, corduroy and velvet were begged from her mother and retrieved from rag-bags, boxes and bottom drawers. Christmas paper, tinsel and ribbons were carefully acquired from friends and neighbours. Gwyneth Bowen came up trumps and donated a whole box of shop-soiled wool and her mother’s tired satin petticoat. She didn’t even ask what they were for.
All these precious bits Nia hoarded, mouse-like, in plastic bags beneath her bed. And no one guessed, no one asked, no one wanted to know what she was up to!
Luckily Mrs Lloyd had never been a great one for ‘doing out’ bedrooms, and the hoard grew undisturbed, until there was scarcely enough room for the canvas which Nia rolled with great care every night, after she had smoothed bits of material, snipped loose threads and ensured that glue was dry.
She forgot about Fly and her broken promise. Her mind was filled with the colour and complexion of the world about her; the intensity of shadows, shades of the sky, the brilliance of flowers and curving shapes of trees. She was completely enthralled by her new occupation, though she managed to chat to Gwyneth and play hopscotch while counting windows.
And then, one day, when the canvas lay safe and secret under her bed, already half-filled with patches, Nia was forced to remember Fly. She was standing in the middle of the playground, gazing up, through half-closed eyes, at a giant yew in the churchyard beyond the school wall.
She was hardly aware of the activity about her, until someone began to approach and Emlyn Llewelyn broke through a hazy foreground.
I can ask him about the yew, she thought; he’ll know if it’s green or black. But when she had made sense of his expression she realised that she could ask him nothing. He had discovered her treachery.
When he knew he had Nia’s attention, Emlyn stood very still; his golden eyes were dangerous and his words quiet and cold.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about the dog?’
‘I didn’t know . . . I wasn’t sure, I . . . I couldn’t . . .’
‘You promised!’
Nia shook her head hopelessly. ‘My dad did it. I told him about . . . about you, wanting the dog an’ all, but it was too late!’
‘You let them have it, and you never told me!’ Emlyn’s voice began to rise.
A crowd of children, sensing conflict, gathered closer.
‘Why Gwyn Griffiths? Why not me? You knew I wanted the dog. You knew how much I wanted her.’
Nia looked away from him. She had been prepared for anger; it was his humiliation that she could not endure.
‘Look at me,’ Emlyn cried, and, turning, Nia saw his hand go to his pocket and pull out a strip of leather. ‘I even bought a lead. Stupid, wasn’t it? A lead and no dog. I don’t need it now, do I?’
Emlyn raised his arm. For a moment the strip of leather hung innocently from his hand and then, suddenly, it came snaking towards Nia as she stood awaiting her punishment.
But someone stepped in front of her and Nia heard gasps of horror and delight as the hard leather struck Gwyn Griffiths in the face. An angry red mark appeared on his cheek and he walked towards Emlyn, holding the lead tight in his hand.
Emlyn stood his ground for a moment, angry and unrepentant, then he turned and ran.
Gwyn pursued him slowly at first, but as Emlyn approached the low playground wall, Gwyn gathered speed. Emlyn flung himself at the wall and tumbled over into the narrow lane between the churchyard and the playground. Gwyn followed only seconds after, and Nia found that she was running too, knowing that whatever was going to happen would be her fault.
‘Nia Lloyd, where are you going?’ called Miss Powell, on duty by the climbing frame and more concerned with death-defying five-year-olds than Nia Lloyd’s flight. She hadn’t even noticed the boys.
‘You’ll catch it when you get back!’ someone called as Nia fell, breathless, into the stony lane.
She caught sight of Gwyn turning on to the path that led to the churchyard and stumbled after him. Her mind was racing her feet and they would not obey her. She could not keep her balance; twice she tripped and crashed on to the stones. ‘You’ll catch it!’ warned the sing-song voices, Gwyneth Bowen’s louder than the rest.
Nia reached a swinging wrought-iron gate. The voices faded. She hesitated. Beyond lay the graveyard; not her favourite place. It was dark with ancient trees; a place where long ago, before any church was built, men had prayed to gods other than the one she knew.
She braced herself and passed through the gate. A shroud of trees enveloped her as she walked down the avenue, soft with moss and weeds. She watched and listened for signs of battle, but there were none. Perhaps the two boys had parted without a fight, yet she could not believe it.
There were five yews in the churchyard, all of them a thousand years old, so it was said, and Nia could believe it. Their hollow trunks were scarred and dusty, their branches of dark needles bent and cracked. Mysterious trees, sacred and poisonous.
She left the path and allowed herself to be drawn further out into the maze of older graves; into a place inhabited by phantoms whose names could not be read, and where the yews trailed damp fingers over decaying stones. The feeling of unseen and mysterious power never left her, and she wondered why Emlyn had chosen such a retreat.
On a patch of dead ground, beneath the furthest, darkest tree, Nia saw the boys. Or rather she saw one form, circling slowly. They were closed in combat, their tangled arms embracing, their legs hardly moving. The black head tight against the brown and their bodies pushing, unremittingly, one against the other. And then one boy broke free, Emlyn, and he began to beat his adversary with desperate and deadly fists.
Gwyn reeled back, defending himself with upraised arms. Emlyn was the taller and more powerful boy, but Nia sensed a strength about Gwyn that could withstand and even overcome the other. And she remembered that strange time two years ago, when Gwyn had inflicted a terrible injury on fat Dewi Davis, no one knew how. They said a stone had been thrown and broken Dewi’s nose, but Nia had seen no stone; she believed Gwyn had a power that could not be named; once, he had called himself a magician.
The magician was kneeling now, shielding his head with his hands. Emlyn seized him by the shoulders and would have thrown him over, but something happened. The kneeling boy seemed to lose his shape, or change it.
Emlyn stepped back, his eyes fixed on Gwyn, utterly astonished; and he kept on stepping back until he was almost lost in the gloom beneath the tree. And when he stopped moving the two boys were frozen in a great bowl of nothingness where no birds sang, no leaves
fell, and even dust was motionless. And Nia was standing on the very edge, breathing, but only just. She wanted to scream, but something was strangling sound.
Then Gwyn stood up, his arms raised, fingers stretched wide, like a cat spreading its claws. A boy who was not a boy, but a part of the magic in the sacred yews and of the ageless shadows beneath them. All the dark power that still dwelt in the graveyard seemed to have gathered into his hands.
And then he let it go. His arms dropped to his sides, and something fell away from him, an unseen mantle that he had borrowed from the air in a moment of need.
Emlyn, released, sprang forward and felled his enemy with one blow.
He ran past Nia, scarcely seeing her. The victor. But his face showed repentance and when he reached the path, she thought she heard a sob.
Gwyn got to his feet, rubbing his head. An ordinary boy who had been hurt, but Nia still felt in awe of him. She walked towards him, meaning to thank him for defending her, but instead she asked, ‘Why did you let him beat you?’
‘He’s stronger,’ Gwyn said.
‘No he isn’t! You can do things to the air. It’s frightening!’
Gwyn gave her a sly look, the sort of look he usually reserved for Alun. She felt privileged.
‘Emlyn had to win,’ was all he said.
Nia understood. ‘He is your cousin, isn’t he?’ She looked sideways at him.
Gwyn sighed. ‘Yes, he’s my cousin. But he hates me, and it isn’t just the dog.’ He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. ‘There’s something wrong between our families.’
‘Your father stole his mother!’ Nia said quietly.
‘That’s not true!’ he sounded angry, but astonished at the solution to an old and painful puzzle. ‘It can’t be true . . .’ his voice trailed off and then he added softly, ‘I didn’t know. Why didn’t he tell me?’ and then again, ‘It’s not true!’
Nia was glad that he hadn’t known; hadn’t been part of the plot. ‘It is true,’ she said. ‘The way Emlyn told it to me . . . he couldn’t have made it up!’
