The Snow Spider Trilogy

by Jenny Nimmo

  Adrift between the elements and this grim stranger she felt afraid. She wanted to bring him within her reach but could not think how to do it. At last she ventured, ‘What is it like – to be a soldier?’

  He turned to her, very slow, and replied, ‘It depends on who you are!’

  ‘But being who you are?’

  He seemed to be sizing her up, deciding if she was worthy of a true answer. Then all at once he leant towards her and softly confided, ‘Glorious!’

  Astonished she mumbled, ‘But . . .’

  ‘Glorious,’ he repeated. For a moment his smile was wicked and his eyes mirrored colours that were not apparent in their surroundings, brimstone and flame-green. She moved away from him and watched him looking across the sea again. He was far away now, somewhere where it troubled and excited him. Then he thrust his fingers through his wild hair as though he were trying to rub away the rage. ‘A soldier is a hero to half the world,’ he murmured uneasily, ‘the others,’ he shrugged, ‘would rather be without us!’ This time his smile was sorrowful. He was almost her quiet prince again. ‘Let’s go down to the beach,’ he said.

  They climbed into the car and sped down the narrow cliff road, then over the railway track and down to the sea. The sun had almost set but the clouds were bright and reflected gold glittered over the sand. They left the car on a verge then, abandoning their socks and shoes, plunged through the dunes to the beach.

  Nia immediately ran to the water. She splashed a path along the tidal line of shells and seaweed, aware that Evan was watching, his hands in his pockets and almost happy again. He began to march across the sand and Nia ran before him and around him, laughing and leaping backwards sometimes, in a little dance that had a pattern to it, and because his strides were measured and unhesitant their movements took on the shape of a strange ritual that they might always have known.

  When they climbed back across the dunes the wind, singing in the marram grass, flung handfuls of sand at them and Nia had to keep her mouth closed tight against her giggles.

  She insisted that she wasn’t cold and so, with the roof open to the dark sky and darker mountains, they sped away from the sea and the coloured clouds and, as all light faded, she watched the headlights beaming them forward through a bright tunnel. Swathes of mist drifted across the road and when she looked back, the mountains had vanished. Nothing was familiar. Huddled against Evan’s shoulder, Nia fancied that she was plunging into the Otherworld in a war chariot driven by some fantastic legendary god or chieftain. She did not mind that her time with the prince had not lasted as long as her sister’s, that certain events might have been omitted from her adventure. Evan had given her enough to puzzle over and to cherish.

  * * *

  At number six the meal was waiting for them. Nia entered the kitchen with a challenging stare, meant especially for Catrin. Her sister deliberately avoided her glance but Nia, watching closely, saw a listening expression cross her face when Evan came in. Catrin would not look at him.

  Nia had intended to boast of the warm beach and the sunset. She had thought that she would tell about Mount Eryri and her dance beside the water but she found that she could not. It had become something special that could not be shared. And when her father asked how their journey had been and had they seen the sea, she could only answer, ‘It was great!’

  The atmosphere was strained. The younger children had eaten earlier and where the twins’ noisy chatter would have been there was an uncomfortable emptiness. Alun tried a few jokes. Evan smiled and Mr Lloyd laughed seconds too late. Nerys had nervously applied make-up to her long thin face. It was a disastrous experiment; the colour was wrong and she looked like an unsuccessful clown. Everyone wondered what had possessed her but she seemed so sadly ill at ease that no one could bring themself to ridicule her efforts.

  After supper when the household had dispersed, Nia heard a monotonous and desultory tune coming from the piano in the front room. Catrin seemed unable to perform. Nia opened the door and peering round it asked, ‘Can I listen?’

  Hunched over the piano, Catrin said nothing.

  Nia slipped quietly into a chair. Catrin toyed with the keys and then thrust her hands across the piano, pounding out discordant ugly chords. She was too musical to bear the sound for long, however, and gradually brought her fingers under control until the notes softened into a tune again. It was then that Nia became aware of the high treble accompaniment of sobbing. ‘I can’t play any more,’ Catrin wept quietly. ‘It’s beyond me!’

  Nia stood up, ready to leave the room. Her sister’s distress seemed too private. But as she touched the door Catrin said, ‘Glory is dead!’

  ‘No!’ Nia cried. ‘Oh no,’ and she ran to Catrin who flung her arms about her sobbing, ‘Michael blames me, I don’t know why. He’s so cruel now. Won’t speak to me. And he’s seeing Lluned Price every day.’

  Astonished that Catrin should be sharing this news with her, Nia marvelled, nevertheless, at her sister’s self-deception. Surely Catrin must know what the town and, therefore, Michael thought. She had been seen so often with Evan Llr. She had refused Michael when he needed her. Surely he was a boy of the past. But perhaps it hurt that he had chosen someone else. It was all such a puzzle. As Catrin sobbed against her shoulder Nia resolved that she would never find herself in such a quandary. She would love always and forever, to the very end.

  ‘Don’t tell them,’ Catrin brushed her wet cheeks with the back of her hand.

  ‘Course not,’ Nia said. She stood at Catrin’s side a moment longer, studying the tortuous black patterns of her sister’s music. Catrin began to fumble with the keys again and Nia wondered how she could avoid the age of sixteen when it was possible to be hurt by so many things at once: a dead horse, a boy’s rejection, music that you couldn’t play.

  When she let herself out of the room Catrin had begun to draw something almost tuneful from the piano.

  All that stuff she gave me was only part of the truth, Nia thought. It was Evan taking me to the sea, that was the real hurt, but it came out as all sorts of other things.

  She climbed the stairs wondering if Evan had left the house. What would he be doing if he was in his room? Did he read? Write? She had never seen him with a book. She glanced towards his door. It gave nothing away. The house was exceptionally quiet; even the boys’ voices were low. She began to mount the narrow flight of stairs that led to the top bedrooms: her parents’ and the room she shared with Iolo and Bethan.

  Bethan was asleep in her cot but in the corner, where a soft light glowed on the sloping roof, Iolo lay in a tense huddle. Nia knew he was awake. She crept over to him and touched his shoulder. ‘Go away,’ said a muffled voice from the mounded bedclothes.

  ‘What’s the matter, Iolo?’

  He turned on his back and glared at her, his eyes red-rimmed with drying tears.

  ‘What is it? Shall I call Mam?’ Nia asked. She had little confidence in her nursing abilities.

  Iolo shook his head.

  ‘Shall I turn the light out?’

  Another shake of the head, then screwing up his face he blurted out, ‘He promised me. He promised to take me!’

  ‘Who?’ She knew, of course, but had to play for time while she thought of a way to settle him.

  ‘Evan. He said he’d take me in the car, one day. But he never does. It’s always Catrin, and now it’s you. He said I could walk with him, but he never waits. And he never talks to me now.’

  Nia didn’t know how to comfort her brother. ‘Perhaps you’re too shy,’ she suggested. ‘Ask him about the car tomorrow. I’ll help you!’

  Iolo stared at her searchingly. ‘OK.’ He yawned, burrowed into a comfortable position and closed his eyes.

  Nia undressed, turned out the light and got into bed. She lay very still listening intently for sounds from the room beneath. But there were none. She fell asleep and dreamed that she was riding in a chariot through a cloud of larks that whirled about her head like the butterflies in Idris
Llewelyn’s studio. Distant hoofbeats drifted into her dream and fixed themselves in her head, edging out the smoother singing sounds. In her confused and drowsy state she wondered if it could be the poor broken unicorn, or the spirit of black Glory come to take her to the Otherworld.

  All at once she was wide awake and the hoofbeats had rolled out of her dream and into the night of the street. She must see this phantom for herself.

  Kneeling on the dressing table she reached up to the high dormer window, opened it carefully and peered down into the street. The horse, or whatever it was, was coming closer. Suddenly its speed increased and it galloped across her narrow line of vision. A wild white horse, a stallion perhaps who had left the mountain herd or been stolen from it by the dark rider on his back; a man who wore something bright that billowed round him like a cloud.

  Nia closed the window and went back to bed. ‘A ghost,’ she told herself. ‘Farmers do not wear cloaks and gallop about at night.’ She thought of telling this story at breakfast, knowing very well that she would not tell anyone.

  On Saturday mornings number six was always more than half empty. Alun went to football, the twins to cheer him on. Catrin visited Miss Olwen Oliver for extra music lessons. Nerys was always in the library. Mr Lloyd would be in his shop, his wife in the kitchen singing to Bethan while she cooked cottage pie and Iolo drew pictures of animals and tall coloured houses. This Saturday, Evan had left the house before anyone was up. His note on the kitchen table told them that he would be away for a day and a night.

  Alone in her high bedroom Nia reflected on the events that had crowded too fast into the recent hours: her visit to the sea, her sister’s tears, the phantom horse. She must share some of these secrets soon, she thought, with someone she could trust, or they would tumble out where they should not.

  She left the room and descended in a drifting way to the landing. She glanced down the passage. At the end Evan’s door invited her from its deep shadows. She walked slowly towards it, put her hand on the doorknob and found herself looking through the open doorway into Evan’s room. It told her nothing. Its tidiness was depressing. Only the jacket left on the back of a chair gave a clue to the room’s occupant. Nia wandered into the room. It was a cool, featureless place, but in the mornings a slither of sunlight would creep through the window. She patted the pillow, straightened the coverlet. She ran her finger along the top of the dressing table, not daring to open a drawer. He had left nothing for her to do, except perhaps tidy the jacket into smoother folds. She picked it up and must have turned it upside down, for something fell out of an inner pocket.

  It lay on the pale carpet; a small dark object, wooden, an animal without ears or tail. She knew it to be Gwyn’s lost horse. Holding her breath she knelt down and touched it, ready to sustain the fear that Gwyn had prepared her for. But it was not a dreadful thing at all. It was light. Harmless. She threw it up, caught it and, almost laughing, passed it from one hand to another.

  ‘Oh, Gwyn,’ she said to the sunshine in the air. ‘There’s no demon here. It’s empty!’

  And then the fear came.

  Gwyn was on the mountain when he saw Nia and Iolo arriving. He was gathering bracken for the cattle’s winter bedding, in a field that was too steep to mow. He dumped the last bundle into the trailer and began to run down the track. Nia had something to tell him at last. He had been waiting, anxiously, for something to jolt her out of her ridiculous loyalty to her cousin. As he ran he speculated on what could have led Nia to seek his help. His downhill race became a wild plummeting.

  His visitors were already in the house when he reached the porch. He dutifully flung off his muddy wellingtons and ran into the kitchen. The Lloyds were sitting, waif-like, at the table, waiting for hot chocolate.

  ‘I’ve brought Nia and Iolo for the weekend,’ his mother explained as she heated milk on the stove.

  ‘The weekend?’ Gwyn noticed two bulging plastic bags beside the door. A pyjama sleeve dangled, pathetically, from one. Their departure must have been hasty.

  ‘What’s happened?’ he asked nervously.

  Nia frowned, trying to decide on an answer. ‘Iolo was in a state,’ she said at last.

  Iolo obviously did not object to this remark. He nodded vehemently.

  Gwyn was disappointed. He had hoped for something more impressive. ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘He keeps losing things and – people are being unkind.’ She looked furtively over her shoulder and whispered, ‘I’ll tell you the rest later.’

  Here was better news. If it could not be spoken aloud it must be interesting, Gwyn reasoned. He joined them at the table and begged a cup of chocolate for himself. Mrs Griffiths had automatically added more milk to the saucepan. She looked as though she could not quite grasp the situation and was comforting herself with a quiet and familiar routine.

  Gwyn and the Lloyds sipped their hot drinks, slowly postponing further conversation while they avoided scalding their tongues on the hot liquid.

  ‘Perhaps you two would like to take your things to Bethan’s room,’ Mrs Griffiths suggested when the mugs were empty. She never said, ‘the room where Bethan used to sleep,’ because she had never relinquished the hope that, one day, her daughter would return to claim her place, although it was eight years now since Bethan had vanished.

  Nia loved the room. She had once confided to Gwyn that she felt peaceful, surrounded by Bethan’s dolls and clothes. It was a state that always seemed to elude Nia in her own home.

  ‘Come on, then,’ Nia nudged her brother and made for the door.

  ‘I’ll bring a mattress for Iolo later,’ Mrs Griffiths called after them.

  ‘Iolo can share my room if he likes,’ Gwyn proposed. He could not think why he had said this. Later he assumed that it was intuition.

  The Lloyds stopped in their tracks. Nia astonished. Iolo round-eyed with enthusiasm. ‘Yes, please,’ he said.

  ‘Take your stuff and put it on my bed then,’ Gwyn told him. ‘I’ll sleep on the mattress.’

  ‘That was kind, Gwyn,’ Mrs Griffiths said when the Lloyds had gone.

  ‘Iolo’s all right,’ Gwyn murmured. ‘He’s different from the twins; quieter. We’ll be OK. What happened, Mam? Why are they here? Why not Alun? It’s all a bit sudden.’

  ‘Alun had a big match on, and I don’t know why those two are here, that’s the truth. I was in the shop for the weekend joint when Nia bursts in from the house.’ Mrs Griffiths lowered her voice. ‘She looked, quite frankly, terrified. I don’t know what’s been going on. Poor Betty, I don’t know how she manages it; eight children and I’ve only one to worry about.’

  They eyed each other but did not mention Bethan.

  ‘Go on about Nia,’ Gwyn encouraged. ‘Why did you bring her here?’

  ‘Well, she stared at me, I don’t know, as if I were her salvation and almost yelled, “Please, Mrs Griffiths, can I come and stay with you, please, please!” Her father looked quite put out. Well, I went into the house and, of course, Betty was very happy for Nia to come. She said Catrin needed a bit of attention, she wasn’t herself, and then all at once Iolo cries out, “Can I come too?” And Nia put in her bit, “Let him come,” and added all those “pleases” again, so I couldn’t refuse, could I?’

  ‘I’m glad you didn’t. Was Catrin ill, then?’ He asked the question in an off-hand way, not wishing to appear too interested in her.

  ‘No. But she hasn’t looked well lately, and always about with Evan . . .’

  ‘Yes.’ Gwyn curtailed any discussion that might revolve around Evan Llr. He knew where his mother’s sympathies lay.

  ‘That poor man, his hair . . . I heard from the Davises . . .’

  ‘Yes, yes!’ Gwyn said, not waiting for a story he would have found enlightening. ‘I’m going to see what those two are doing.’

  Nia was sitting on the patchwork quilt that covered his sister’s bed. She had Bethan’s rag dolls in her lap and was tidying their hair. Gwyn sat beside her.

 
‘Will she come back again?’ Nia asked.

  ‘Bethan?’ Gwyn shrugged. ‘Perhaps. If I call her!’

  ‘Will you?’

  ‘No,’ Gwyn said and then added, regretfully, ‘She’s happy in another place. She’ll always be a child and I’m afraid if I’ve outgrown her, we’ll have nothing left to say to each other. When she came back, that other time, we were almost the same age.’

  Nia hugged all three dolls, sighing hugely. Gwyn laughed and said, ‘Come on, it’s not that sad. Now tell me what’s happened.’

  ‘I don’t know what came over me,’ she said. ‘I was so scared, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know who to tell, and then there was your mother, just like an answer to a prayer I hadn’t thought of. I feel a bit silly now.’

  ‘So tell me!’ Gwyn demanded.

  Nia felt inside her jacket pocket and brought out the broken horse. Gwyn stared at it, almost disbelieving. ‘Thank God,’ he said. ‘Where was it?’

  Nia hung her head and murmured reluctantly, ‘It fell out of Evan’s coat.’

  Gwyn grabbed the horse from her. ‘Duw,’ he said. ‘I knew it. All the time I’ve known it. But I didn’t want it to be true.’

  ‘You knew he had it?’

  ‘Not just that. I know why he had it!’

  ‘Perhaps he meant to give it back but had forgotten?’

  Gwyn shook his head. He yawned, longing to lay his head down. It was like having flu without the pain. Just knowing he was going to have to embark on an impossibly ambitious spell exhausted him. And it would have to be soon, before the demon grew confident and completely overcame the soldier. But how could he stop him, and with what? ‘You realise, Nia, what has happened, don’t you?’ Gwyn said.