The Snow Spider Trilogy

by Jenny Nimmo

  ‘I won,’ Iolo shouted into the quietness. ‘D’you want a game, Gwyn?’

  ‘No, not now,’ Gwyn said, trying to shake off unreality. ‘Got to get my hands in the right mood.’

  ‘Look!’ Nia held out a handful of conkers. ‘Aren’t they beautiful when they’re new? There are hundreds this year, all over the lane, big and shiny.’

  Gwyn took the largest from her. It gleamed brown and velvet smooth; the underside white and soft as down, just plucked from its shell. ‘I’d like to grow this up at home,’ he said, ‘but it would die; it’s too cold and high for chestnut trees. Nain says it’s strange that a chestnut tree should grow on a mountain at all.’

  ‘It’s in a sheltered spot,’ said Evan, ‘away from the north wind. The topsoil has collected there just so such a tree could thrive.’ And then he added, ‘I climbed that tree once, long ago.’

  Iolo began to attack the roots at his feet, but his victorious conker broke free of its string and bounced into the water. ‘Aw!’ he cried. ‘My conqueror, he’s gone,’ and he leapt up to follow the prizewinner downstream.

  ‘Let it go, Iolo,’ Evan said, ‘and I’ll get you another, an even greater winner.’

  ‘We’re going for a walk,’ Nia reminded him. ‘You wanted to see the mountain again, you said.’

  ‘So I did, and so we shall.’ Evan got to his feet. ‘But I have forgotten the best way, so you’ll have to keep close to me.’

  ‘We’ll all go,’ Gwyn said. He felt protective towards the mountain. It was his place, his and his father’s; Griffiths land right to the summit. ‘And we’ll take Emlyn,’ he added when he saw his cousin, a tall boy with wild corn-brown hair coming through the yard.

  ‘Take Emlyn where?’ his cousin asked. ‘I’m busy.’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ Gwyn winked slyly.

  Emlyn showed no surprise. ‘Oh, I’m not,’ he said.

  Gwyn knew he would help. They were as close and comfortable as brothers, even if Emlyn did not always understand how his cousin could sometimes ache with apprehension on a sunny day. Emlyn had no space to waste on the inexplicable, his mind was reserved for the animals he made. He already showed a considerable talent for woodcarving and it was clear that he would follow in his father’s footsteps. His four-year-old brother Geraint, on the other hand, longed only to be a farmer like his Uncle Ivor.

  In the end it was the four children who walked up the mountain leaving Evan Llr to follow, because Emlyn’s mother came to her door and begged the soldier to stay for just one cup of tea. Mrs Llewelyn was usually shy of strangers but the major had charmed her with his quiet diffidence. His request to wander through her garden had been so courteous, his smile so irresistible, she was eager to share more of her home with him, and to show him round the places he had loved.

  ‘I’ll catch you up,’ Evan told the children. ‘Wait for me at T Bryn.’

  So the children walked up to Gwyn’s home where they visited the cat and her three white kittens lying in a barn. Then Gwyn mentioned the kite he had observed hovering over the lower mountains, and Nia couldn’t wait to see it.

  ‘We’ll need field glasses,’ Gwyn said, ‘just to make sure. It might have been a buzzard, but I think it was too big, and the wings had touches of red.’

  ‘I’ll get the glasses,’ Iolo offered. Gwyn’s attic, crammed with books and maps of the planets, was always worth a visit.

  ‘They’re hanging on my bed,’ Gwyn called after him. But Iolo knew exactly where to look.

  He was away for some time. Gwyn would have gone after him, to see what he was up to, but Nia and Emlyn had already started up the mountain track. It was the sort of breezy day that seemed to forbid the indoors. It spun Gwyn through the farmyard, infecting him with a reckless forgetfulness, and leading him up the mountain away from the thing he should have remembered.

  Inside Gwyn’s room Iolo was reaching for the field glasses when a dark shape fluttered through the open window. It flipped over Iolo’s head, knocked into a cupboard, and swung away. Iolo ducked, the little creature dipped past him then flew up to a shelf above the bed, where it came to rest.

  Iolo straightened up. He saw a tiny bat clinging to something that lay on the very edge of the shelf. He cautiously extended his hand toward the bat, but the creature sensed movement; it wheeled away and this time headed straight for the open window. As it went, something toppled off the shelf and fell on to the pillow. It was a small wooden animal: a horse, maybe, Iolo thought, but without ears or tail, its mouth a jagged row of teeth, its eyes bulging and fierce.

  He picked it up to replace it but found that it was looking at him and he couldn’t do what he’d intended because the horse didn’t want to be abandoned. It clung to his hand with an almost human insistence. So he put it in his pocket, took the field glasses and left Gwyn’s room.

  The others were already in the high field where Gwyn had first caught sight of the kite. And, as if to reward them, the great bird reappeared. They had no need of field glasses, it soared above them, an autumn bird, red-gold in the soft light, its tail spread in a wide triangle, the distinctive blaze of white on the underwings clearly visible. It swept down to the woods and they jumped on a stone wall to prolong the event.

  ‘It lives here,’ Nia cried. ‘Right here, with us. Let’s not tell anyone, ever. Let’s keep it a secret, our bird!’

  ‘Better warn Iolo it’s a secret then,’ said Emlyn nodding at a small figure bobbing up the track.

  And Gwyn saw Iolo sprinting towards them, the field glasses clutched in his hand. He waited until Iolo reached them before telling him the news. ‘Don’t broadcast it, Iolo, we don’t want strangers on our mountain.’

  ‘Looking for our kite,’ Nia added.

  Iolo climbed up beside them, held the field glasses to his eyes and trained them on to the wood. But the kite didn’t emerge. It had important business down there, behind the screen of coloured leaves.

  They sat on the wall and ate the apples that Emlyn’s mother had provided and then they remembered Evan.

  ‘He can’t be lost,’ Gwyn said.

  And Emlyn remarked, ‘My mam’s taken a fancy to him, I reckon.’

  It was intended as a joke but, for some reason, on one laughed because Evan Llr was the sort of person who might pose a threat to the most stable relationship. Gwyn knew this because Elinor Llewelyn’s glance had excluded everyone but Evan; even Gwyn’s own mother had recalled the soldier with a hint of something deeper than affection, and now cheeky childish Nia had begun to watch this older man like a real, wide-eyed girl at last.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Gwyn said suddenly, ‘and find out where the major’s got to.’

  They followed the stream down to T Bryn. It was a favourite route. They could leap over the water from side to side, on to dry islands of rock that rose clear of the sparkle and the spray.

  Emlyn lead the way with Nia close behind him, singing delightedly as she slipped and splashed through the water. Her voice was high and fluttery but she didn’t care, the mountain always drew songs from her. Gwyn couldn’t help laughing, and then he turned to see what had become of Iolo. The sky smouldered gold and scarlet where the sun had left it and he was about to remark on this when he noticed Iolo, unmoving, on his tiny island, staring at something in his hand.

  ‘What’ve you got, Iolo?’ Gwyn called. ‘Not a fish?’ No, it was not a fish. He knew very well what it was. He could see the tiny label. He stepped into the stream, but he was shaking now and couldn’t trust himself to move further.

  Iolo, looking up, said, ‘It’s a horse, I think. I found it in your room and put it in my pocket. I didn’t mean to keep it, honest!’

  ‘Give it to me!’ He couldn’t convey urgency, his words carried across the water in a dismal mutter.

  ‘OK.’ Iolo raised his arm.

  ‘No! Don’t throw . . .’ This time Gwyn found a scream, but it was too late. Distracted by Gwyn’s cry, Iolo’s aim went wild. The horse was free! It sailed over Gwyn’s he
ad and landed, with a soft splash, beyond him. The stream carried it away.

  ‘Stop it!’ Gwyn shrieked.

  Nia looked back, still singing, and Emlyn shouted, ‘What’s the matter?’

  Gwyn couldn’t explain, even if he had had the time, they wouldn’t understand, and who could blame them. ‘Destroyer . . .’ he mumbled. ‘Guard the prince . . . me . . . only me . . . dark . . .’ Shaking, he tottered to the bank and crawled along the side of the stream crying, ‘Stop it! Stop it! Please!’

  ‘Stop what?’ Confused, Nia slithered into a deep pool and water gushed into her wellingtons.

  ‘Horse,’ Gwyn moaned. ‘Black, very small.’ Willing strength into his knees he got to his feet and ran past Nia, his eyes fixed on the water. ‘You wouldn’t know,’ he gabbled feebly. ‘It’s got no ears, no tail. Must stop it, see! Stop it! Stop it!’

  ‘What’s so special about it?’ Emlyn peered into the stream.

  ‘There isn’t time,’ Gwyn mumbled breathlessly. ‘Help me, Emlyn. If you see it, keep it safe. It’s a terrible thing.’ And he ran on helplessly, seeing nothing in the stream but weeds and pebbles.

  ‘You’ll never find it now,’ Emlyn called. ‘The current’s too fast, and once it reaches the river . . .’

  ‘I must!’ Gwyn screeched and pelted on, now hopping sideways to scrutinise the water where it rippled over shallow pools, now trying to race the current. But he couldn’t stop shaking; fear shattered his concentration. He knew the others were staring at him, bewildered and concerned. It was such a small thing. They must think him mad.

  All at once the shaking stopped and Gwyn stood very still, reluctantly remembering who he was. Then, leaving the others without any explanation, he ran home.

  He kicked his boots off in the porch and crashed through the kitchen door, provoking an angry, ‘Mind that door,’ from his mother scrubbing potatoes in the kitchen.

  ‘Don’t let anyone come upstairs, Mam,’ Gwyn cried.

  ‘Whatever . . .’ she began.

  ‘I’m dead serious, Mam,’ he said.

  The urgency in his voice must have impressed her because she said gently, ‘All right, cariad !’

  He leapt up two flights of stairs, burst into his room and, taking a deep breath, sank on to his bed. He mustn’t panic now. He could see a boy, himself, fearful and wide-eyed, staring out of a small oval mirror on the wall opposite. ‘Nothing ever comes quietly into your life, Gwyn Griffiths,’ he sadly told himself. ‘A soldier arrives and you know he’s not what he seems. Then a mad prince decides on some devilment, and you’re the one to stop him, the only one. If it wasn’t so tragic I’d laugh,’ and he smiled ruefully at his troubled and too youthful reflection.

  Something glistened in a dark recess. His spider was at work already. She had known what he needed even before he himself had become fully aware of it. He sat very still, watching a glossy cobweb begin to form. Like a tiny spark, Arianwen darted back and forth in a series of breathtaking acrobatics while her gossamer grew into a vast and glittering screen.

  Gwyn got up and closed the curtains so that the luminous threads would reveal more clearly the landscape where he must work. There was no turning back. He couldn’t dismiss the magic. He must trap the demon before it was too late.

  The web was spattered with green and gold, like swathes of paint, changing hue in places, to form shadows and sunlit trees and hedges. Now autumn leaves fluttered below the green and Gwyn could discern the lane where it twisted beyond Nain’s cottage and descended to T Llr. And there, on the bend where the ground levelled out beside the stream, the chestnut tree surged up beside its neighbours, towering, like a huge pavilion hung with rosy-golden banners, and Gwyn saw what he had been hoping for: a dark figure stepping out of the stream; a crouching demon, hardly yet formed into a man, stealthy, believing himself free again. Gwyn held his breath, and gathered his strength. He had to order his thoughts, chance his power, even if it stunted him for another year, there was no other way.

  The shadowy figure moved beneath the low branches of the chestnut tree and then emerged on to the lane. It was tall and straight now, more prince than demon. ‘You don’t fool me,’ Gwyn muttered as his victim took three paces, one! two! three! into the centre, the very heart of Arianwen’s web.

  ‘Daliwch ef !’ Gwyn cried. ‘Take him!’

  And the tiny streak of silver flared toward the web’s heart, covering in a shining blanket the image that trembled there. It took less than a minute.

  ‘We have him!’ Gwyn whispered triumphantly, and then from the shelf above Gwyn’s bed the silver pipe rocked and a cry issued from it, filling the room. The sadness of the sound overwhelmed Gwyn. His confidence ebbed and his clever victory all at once seemed meaningless. He had heard the captured demon howl before, but this voice was different. It was full of despair, and a kind of submission.

  Arianwen crept along a rafter and dropped on to his arm, as if in consolation.

  The green and gold landscape began to dissolve. The shining threads slackened and drifted apart; coloured strands floated to the ceiling and disintegrated. And the silver core dropped to the floor, a pile of glittering fragments. Gwyn knelt and touched them. Hard to believe that a moment ago they had formed the image of a man. He blew and the tiny particles melted into the dust of his room.

  ‘What have we done, Arianwen?’ Gwyn asked softly.

  The other children had reached T Bryn. They stood by the gate not knowing whether to seek out their friend or leave him in peace. Emlyn and Nia understood Gwyn well enough to respect his sudden impulses, his request for solitude. But they had never seen him in such a violent state of agitation. It frightened Nia.

  ‘Let’s go and see the kittens again,’ Emlyn suggested. ‘We can wait in the barn till Gwyn is ready.’

  ‘I didn’t mean nothing,’ Iolo said for the tenth time. ‘It was only an old bit of wood. How can it be precious?’

  ‘It’ll turn up,’ Emlyn reassured him. ‘Come on, we’ll go and find out what it’s all about.’ He turned in through the gate and walked up the path, with Iolo hopping nervously after him.

  Nia held back; she noticed that Gwyn’s curtains were drawn. Something was happening in his attic room. It must be dark in there. It reminded her of sickness and unnatural sleep. She walked away from the house calling, ‘I’ll see you later.’

  She had just turned the last bend before the lane made its steep descent to Emlyn’s home when she saw someone climbing out of the stream behind the chestnut tree; Evan must have been wandering there, she thought; perhaps he had found Gwyn’s horse.

  Yes, it was Evan; he was tall and had to stoop beneath the branches. He stepped into the lane, took three paces towards her and lifted his hand to wave, then he fell – and went on falling!

  Nia found herself running. The prince had made no sound when he slipped to the ground but Nia sensed a cry so terrible it seemed as though her own breath was caught in it. She saw a man lying motionless, but she could still feel him falling, falling, falling, and could hear his descending sigh, while all about him was utterly silent, utterly still.

  When she reached Evan he had turned on his back. He was lying among the broken conker shells, his arms spread wide, his fingers buried in dead leaves. He smiled at Nia and said, ‘Don’t be frightened. No bones broken!’

  Then he sat up and brushed himself free of dust and dead leaves, while Nia watched, speechless. But when he eventually got to his feet, she flung her arms round his waist and buried her face in the rough wool of his sweater. ‘I thought you had died,’ she murmured.

  Evan laughed and said, ‘I am very much alive!’

  She felt the laugh deep inside his body and a pulse racing through him, angry and irregular, as though it had just been awakened. His arms round her shoulders were hot and heavy, but he was shivering.

  They walked up the lane to fetch Iolo for the journey home, Evan keeping Nia’s hand in his own, and gradually his shivering subsided.

  I shall protect
him, Nia thought. He is my prince and in danger, but I shall save him, somehow. From whom or what she should save him she didn’t know. Nor did she know that she was too late!

  Gwyn’s curtains were still drawn when they reached T Bryn and Nia was reluctant to go in, so she called to Iolo from the gate, and heard a muffled pleading for ‘Just one minute longer with the kittens, please!’ and then Gwyn’s mother saw Evan from the window, and ran to open the kitchen door.

  ‘Come and have a cup of tea while you wait,’ she suggested. ‘It’s Evan Llr, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is, and your sister Elinor has already entertained me,’ the soldier told her.

  ‘I see,’ Glenys Griffiths looked disappointed. ‘Did she give you cake, too? Elinor doesn’t like baking. I’ve got fresh bara brith here!’

  ‘I can’t resist,’ said Evan Llr.

  Glenys’s smile seemed to indicate more than ordinary pleasure, in fact Nia had rarely seen Gwyn’s mother so animated, but Mr Griffiths came through the yard just then, and his wife’s expression stiffened into awkward uncertainty. ‘You remember Evan Llr, Ivor, don’t you? He used to help the Lloyds with the lambing.’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ Mr Griffiths muttered.

  ‘Of course you do,’ Glenys pulled at her apron, nervously.

  ‘I said I don’t,’ said Ivor Griffiths. He did not welcome

  visitors but on this occasion his hostility seemed personal.

  The soldier, however, seemed unperturbed. ‘It’s been ten years,’ he said, ‘and people can’t be expected to remember.’

  ‘Evan’s stopping for a bit,’ Glenys said boldy. ‘Are you coming in then, Ivor?’

  Ivor stood rooted to his earth. ‘What is this, a party? It’s milking time. Where’s Gwyn?’

  He could be so savage, Gwyn’s father. ‘I’ll fetch him, if you like,’ Nia said.

  ‘Well, he’s . . . busy, Nia,’ Mrs Griffiths began.

  ‘Tell him, it’s five minutes or it’s no pocket money,’ her husband growled.

  ‘Yes, and I’ll knock,’ she told Gwyn’s mother.

  As she left them she heard Evan say, ‘I’ll help with the cows, Ivor, I haven’t forgotten how.’ But Nia did not hear the reply.