by Jenny Nimmo
‘What’s this, then?’ Nain lifted a spoonful of golden liquid and let it trickle back into the pot. ‘Turning white cloth to gold, isn’t it? And aren’t you a Llr, whose ancestors once ruled Britain? There’s a little bit of power left inside you, Nia Lloyd, if you look for it!’
The shirt was pulled out and hung, steaming from the huge spoon, darker by several shades. It was thrust under cold water, squeezed and put on the stove to dry, while Nain and Nia nibbled biscuits made of oats and berries.
‘You’ll have to leave the cloth with me for a day or two, for the dye to set,’ Nain told Nia. ‘But you’ll come again, won’t you, if you need more colours?’
‘Oh, I will,’ Nia replied fervently.
When she left Coed Melyn she was older by far more than a few hours. And she was stronger, strong enough, perhaps, to bring together two boys who had been divided by a silly quarrel that had nothing to do with them.
Nia kept her own company for the rest of the holiday. She did not mention Emlyn again. The days were warm and dry; days for the boys to help with fence-mending, stone-wall building and sheep dipping, and for playing barefoot in the streams when their work was done.
Nia was excused farm duties and allowed to work in Bethan’s room. Through the open window the boys’ cheerful voices were companionable and undemanding. She worked well. The canvas began to come to life.
Nain Griffiths came to the house one day, holding a piece of bright cloth, as gloriously golden-orange as a bouquet of poppies. And that night Nia cut her poppies to shape and sewed them neatly in place, beside a stream of silver tinsel and blue forget-me-nots that had once been Mrs Bowen’s satin underwear.
By the end of the week Nia had recovered her confidence sufficiently to believe that she could, after all, visit the Llewelyns again. She would say she had come to fetch the violet dress and Mr Llewelyn would welcome her in and finish her portrait. Emlyn would have to forgive her.
Happily absorbed in future plans, Nia left T Bryn believing that her canvas could be a masterpiece; and that her friendship with Emlyn would surely be renewed.
As she said goodbye to Mrs Griffiths she told her, ‘It’s the best holiday I ever had, anywhere!’ And she meant it.
Mrs Griffiths seemed sad at their departure. ‘We don’t see enough of girls up here,’ she said wistfully. ‘Come again, cariad!’
‘If you’ll have me,’ Nia beamed.
Gwyn was nowhere to be seen. She hoped he didn’t regret the secrets he had confided.
Nain Griffiths was standing by her gate when the Land Rover bounced past. She was wearing a dress she had dipped in the bowl of Nia’s poppy-gold dye. She did a little dance and blew a kiss. Nia had to laugh. She knelt on the seat and leant out of the window. ‘You’re a poppy!’ she cried, and waved until the bright figure was out of sight.
‘She’s batty, Gwyn’s grandmother!’ Alun remarked.
‘She’s not! She’s fantastic!’ Nia leapt down and glared at Alun. ‘I think she’s a great lady, would have been a queen, probably, if the Anglo-Saxons hadn’t come, and all that lot!’
All at once Mr Griffiths began to roar with laughter. He couldn’t stop. It was such an unusual sound to come from him; the children stared at his shaking back in perplexity and Alun couldn’t decide who was the most mad, his sister or his best friend’s relations.
Number six seemed unbearably dark and muddled after the clear mountain light. There were sheets and shirts mounded on chairs, waiting to be ironed. Stained butcher’s aprons were piled by the washing-machine. Gareth, with his autographed white leg, was, somehow, everywhere, moaning because he ‘couldn’t sit down nowhere!’ He’d tried putting his foot on a chair and smashed a lens in Nerys’s spectacles.
Nerys was in a horrendous mood. Her new hairdo had gone wrong: mousy spikes framed her long face and she regarded everything with a slit-eyed furious glance. Siôn was fed up with Gareth’s moaning and even calm Catrin was thumping out Mozart like she was massaging a footballer.
Nia had brought her white flower, the stem wrapped carefully in damp tissue. To save bothering her mother she put the flower in her blue tooth-mug and set it on the window sill. It looked as bright and as fresh as ever.
Mrs Lloyd had forgotten that she would have three extra for tea and it was Sunday, so she couldn’t run to the shops.
‘I don’t need cake,’ Nia informed them. ‘I want to go and see Gwyneth. I’ve got to ask her something about school. Can I go now?’
‘Well, seeing as it’s about school . . .’ Mrs Lloyd gratefully cut the remaining piece of fruit cake into eight neat slices.
Nia squeezed between the dresser and her brothers on their bench, happily relinquishing fruit cake in order to escape.
‘Won’t be long!’ she called confidently from the hall.
Outside she did not feel so sure of herself. The walk up to the chapel seemed longer than usual, but she did not have to knock. Idris Llewelyn was painting silver leaves beneath the gold flowers on his door. ‘I hadn’t finished,’ he told Nia, ‘but it’s done now. Do you approve?’
Nia nodded and followed him into the chapel. Emlyn was sitting on the floor with a book; he did not look at her.
‘Well, get up, boy, and welcome your visitor,’ said Mr Llewelyn. He prodded his son gently with a sandalled foot. ‘Had a bit of trouble with you, Nia, and his cousin, I heard: about the dog!’
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ Nia blurted out. ‘Dad sold it to Mr Griffiths. I tried to stop him. But I couldn’t . . . couldn’t tell you. I was a coward!’
‘Not a coward, just cautious. And Emlyn is contrite! Aren’t you, boy? He came to see you in the holiday.’
‘Did you?’ Nia looked at Emlyn in surprise. She perched herself on a cushion beside him, but he still refused to respond. He hasn’t forgiven me; he never will, she thought.
‘You weren’t there,’ he said at last, and still without looking at her. ‘That sister of yours opened the door. The one with specs. I’m sorry but I can’t stand her.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Nia said. Now and again there were good reasons for being disloyal. ‘Did she say something spiteful? They didn’t want me to come here again. They sent me away, up to Gwyn Griffiths’ place, with Alun and Iolo. I’d been in trouble, see!’
‘Trouble?’ Mr Llewelyn sounded concerned.
‘I thought everyone would know by now. Miss Olwen Oliver is famous for her gossip.’
‘We haven’t seen no one,’ Emlyn murmured. ‘No one comes here.’
‘Tell us your trouble, girl.’ Mr Llewelyn put his silvery brush into a jar of spirit and sat on an extraordinarily large upturned bucket.
‘The first thing was,’ Nia began, ‘I said I was a vegetarian.’ Emlyn looked up.
‘Well that didn’t go down too well, Dad being a butcher.
The next thing happened because I wanted something for blossom and I couldn’t think what, so I . . . so I . . .’
‘Go on,’ Emlyn said, with a spark of interest.
‘So I cut a piece of lace from Miss Olwen Oliver’s curtain. I did that before being a vegetarian, but they didn’t know,’ Nia said in a rush. ‘I didn’t think it would notice, well, it didn’t notice, but she saw, didn’t she? And, aw heck, there was so much trouble.’ She sighed and rolled her eyes towards the ceiling, remembering the horror of it all.
When she dared to observe the effect her confession had made, she found that Mr Llewelyn’s very white teeth were showing through the mass of brown hair on his face. He was smiling, and then he was laughing, and Emlyn with him.
‘But it was a terrible thing I did,’ Nia reproached them.
‘It was! It was!’ agreed Mr Llewelyn. ‘Excuse us! Why didn’t you come to us, cariad bach? We can give you lace and anything you need for your masterpiece.’ He strode to a wooden box beneath one of the long windows and flung it open. ‘Look!’ he exclaimed. ‘Lace and cotton, feathers and pretty things!’ he held up a dress, the palest of pink cotton embossed wit
h white flowers. ‘Blossom! Don’t you agree?’
The children stood, simultaneously. Emlyn was staring at his father and at the dress.
‘What d’you think, Emlyn? Shall I give this to Nia for her work?’ His words were somehow more than a question. Nia had the feeling that, perhaps, he was trying to lay a ghost.
Emlyn was still gazing at the dress. He screwed up his face, like someone with toothache. ‘I don’t mind,’ he said at last.
‘No anorak to hide it in today,’ observed Mr Llewelyn. ‘Will you dare to say you got the dress from us?’
‘I’ll say it was from Gwyneth Bowen. I’m always getting wool and stuff out of her mam’s shop. They’ll believe me.’
‘Nia Lloyd, you have criminal tendencies,’ Idris Llewelyn remarked, with half a smile.
‘No, I never . . .’ she began, but the big man laughed again and bundled the dress into her arms.
‘Will you stay for tea?’ he asked.
Nia hesitated. She dared not risk trouble on her first day at home. ‘I’ll come tomorrow,’ she said.
When she left, Emlyn followed her out on to the road but no further. He sat on the chapel steps and when she turned back to wave he would not look at her; his chin was cupped in his hands and he was staring out at distant, empty mountains.
He hasn’t forgiven me, Nia thought. But he will, he must!
Everything at number six had simmered down, by the time Nia returned. The boys were by the river examining something dead on the bank, while the three big Morgan brothers shouted fishy information across the water. The river was low and so was the sun. The water sparkled gold over smooth stones and bare feet.
‘What’s that?’ Iolo poked a wet finger at the dress in Nia’s arms.
‘Don’t!’ she sprang back. ‘It’s for my work.’
‘Oh!’ He fished a handkerchief from his pocket and a matchbox came tumbling out and fell into a shallow pool at his feet. ‘Aw, no!’ he cried, retrieving the damp box. ‘Nia, take it inside for me, will you?’
‘What is it?’
‘A spider! I found it at Gwyn’s place. It’s special, like silver!’
Nia took the box and left them to decide the identity of the dead fish. She passed the window of her father’s cold room; told herself not to look in, but did. The sight was even more gory than she had imagined. Her father was removing unimaginable things from something lying on a bloody slab – and he was whistling!
She ran up to her room where curiosity prompted her to open Iolo’s matchbox. The spider was, indeed, special: very tiny, silvery and, like the white flower, it seemed to glow.
She put the box on the chest of drawers, slightly open so that the spider could breathe or spin, or do anything a spider should do.
The boys would be in the river for hours, she could tell. There was no one to bother her. She knelt down and spread the dress on the floor. It was almost too beautiful to cut but someone had already done that. The hem had been unevenly severed, slashed, hastily, as though with a knife.
The sight was, somehow, rather shocking. Nia scissored away the painful gashes, neatening the wound, tidying the sad, pale dress. She put the severed strands into a rag-bag and then, almost by accident, found herself slipping the dress over her head. The cuffs of the long full sleeves covered her fingers, the high collar tickled her neck, very softly.
She smoothed the dress close to her body, over her skirt and crumpled shirt. It concealed everything but her trainers. Elinor Llewelyn must have been tall and slim.
Nia wished she could see herself. A mirror had been promised once. Catrin and Nerys had a mirror in their room that reached to the ground, but Nerys was probably there reading.
Sometimes a hint of a reflection would emerge from the wardrobe’s shiny doors. Today, to Nia’s amazement, there was more than a hint. A huge circle of shimmering silver hung over the doors: a cobweb, spun so fine, so close, that it resembled a mirror. How it had come there, and when, Nia could not imagine but it must have been the work of Iolo’s spider for there it was, at the very top, swinging on an inch of gossamer.
The window was open and the web was blown into a slow, deep movement, like a wave. Nia waited for it to calm. She could already see the pink dress and dark hair above it, like someone lying under clear water. Gradually, features began to appear, large dark eyes, a pale face and lips, parted in a scream. The face that looked out at Nia was not hers.
Nia screamed, and went on screaming. She gasped for air, terrified and trembling.
‘Nia, what is it?’ Catrin stood behind her, clasping her shoulders.
‘Not me! It’s not me!’ sobbed Nia. ‘Not my face!’ She pointed to where a dark woman’s features had replaced her own, but the shining cobweb had broken loose. A cloud of silvery threads streamed out towards them, and drifted through the open window.
Later, when Nia had recovered and Mam sat reading by her bed, the spider crawled over the carved pattern at the top of the wardrobe. The tiny creature mesmerised her, but when her mother anxiously inquired whether Nia was ‘seeing things’ again, she replied, ‘It’s nothing. I was thinking!’
They had not understood, of course, and Nia had no intention of trying to explain what she had seen. Her scream had not been a call for help. It had just burst out of her at the sight of something unnatural. She had experienced the same sensation in the churchyard, when Gwyn Griffiths had interrupted time, but he’d stolen her breath as well so she had not been able to cry out.
Was it coincidence that her mother was reading of Welsh magicians; magicians who had also been soldiers, kings and princes. Could Gwyn bring them, even here, in safely terraced number six?
She did not doubt that Gwyn was responsible for the mysterious cobweb, and for the spider that was now moving so gracefully over carved wooden flowers. Mrs Lloyd’s quiet voice drifted on, soothing herself as well as her children. She seemed almost to be talking to the baby inside her, Nia thought.
The white flower on the window sill began to glow as the sky behind it deepened into a gloomy twilight. Iolo fell asleep. He couldn’t see the spider he had taken from Gwyn Griffiths, hadn’t seen the magic he had stolen.
‘Nos da, cariad,’ Mrs Lloyd bent and kissed her daughter.
‘Good night, Mam!’
‘Better now?’
‘Yes, Mam. I’m sorry to be a nuisance.’
‘You can go back to T Llr again, you know, for a visit. It isn’t far.’
‘No, Mam.’ Nia smiled and closed her eyes. She had just had a wonderful idea.
Her mother drew the curtains, carefully moving the flower as she did so. ‘Trust you to find a strange plant,’ she muttered. ‘Never seen anything like it.’
After school next day, Nia left Gwyneth Bowen at the school gates, the latter still halfway through a recital of her hamster’s holiday misadventures.
‘You are rude, Nia Lloyd,’ Gwyneth called after her. ‘You don’t care about animals, do you? You don’t care if Gethin put my Sandy in the freezer, do you? You’re callous, you are!’
‘So’s Gethin,’ Nia shouted back. She had spied Emlyn Llewelyn striding up through the town, always the first to leave school.
Nia tore after him, twisting herself into her back-pack and her jacket. She gave up trying to wear them and carried them in a bundle before her.
‘Hold on! Emlyn, wait! Please wait! Wait!’ she cried, almost tripping on the trailing bag strap.
Emlyn stopped; he looked back, unsmiling, until Nia caught up with him.
‘I’ve got something for you,’ she said, ‘in my bag. And I want to tell you something about the dress you gave me!’
Emlyn began to stride out again.
Nia had to take little running steps in order to keep up with him. ‘Hang on! Don’t go so fast!’ she exclamed breathlessly.
‘Are you coming back with me then?’ he asked, slowing his pace a fraction.
‘I’ll come up to the chapel, but I’d better not come in!’ She gulped for air. ‘I h
ad a bit of bother yesterday.’
‘You’re always having a bit of bother,’ he remarked, but he slowed down sufficiently for her to heave her bag on to her shoulders. They were on the bridge now and the river obliterated all the town sounds.
‘Emlyn,’ she said. ‘I think I saw your mam last night.’
‘You what?’ He stood quite still, trying to determine her expression, then he shook his head and resumed his frantic pacing.
When he had crossed the bridge, however, he did not continue up the hill to home but leapt down a steep bank, where nettles and brambles had been previously attacked to allow a narrow, safe passage to the river bank.
Nia followed, less adroitly, and found herself, with scratched hands and a dusty skirt, sitting beside Emlyn on the river bank. Before them the wide river snaked into the sunlight; behind and all about them, tall reeds concealed their presence from all but a moorhen, stepping daintily over shining stones.
They sat silently contemplating the water until Emlyn said, ‘Go on, then!’
‘Iolo had a spider in a matchbox.’ Nia frowned, wondering if she had begun at the wrong place. ‘The box got wet down by the river; he gave it to me to look after.’ She ploughed on. ‘It belonged to Gwyn Griffiths really. You know about Gwyn Griffiths, don’t you?’
‘Huh!’ was all Emlyn said.
‘I mean, I know you know him,’ Nia floundered. ‘But he’s not like other boys, you know that, don’t you? Because of what happened in the churchyard.’ She glanced at Emlyn but he gave her no encouragement.
‘Well, this spider, it was like silver and it sort of glowed. I put the box down somewhere in my bedroom and then I . . . well, I hope you don’t mind, but I put on your mam’s dress. The one your dad gave me yesterday, like blossom. It was your mam’s, wasn’t it?’
Emlyn nodded.
‘The spider had made this cobweb, like a mirror it was – shining.’ Nia stared out at the water remembering the glimmering shapes in the web. ‘An’ I could see my reflection in it; only it wasn’t me, it was your mother, I’m sure it was. She had long dark hair, see, and big dark eyes and . . .’
