The Snow Spider Trilogy

by Jenny Nimmo

  Should he have more to eat before he set off? No. Poets and magicians fasted before attempting feats of great magnitude. He brushed his hair for the occasion and emptied his pockets. In case he was delayed, he tore a page from his exercise book and wrote on it: Gone to see Emlyn about homework. Might stay late! He took the note to the kitchen and left it on the table propped against the honey jar. Then, noticing the half-moons of grime under his fingernails, he gave his hands a good scrub in the kitchen sink.

  When he got back to the attic the web was ready. It hung across an entire corner from ceiling to floor: a huge screen that capriciously mirrored his room in false shapes and colours; his bed had become a frothy green bank, the cupboard had multiplied into a wood of twisted grey trees; the carpet was tufted with wild flowers where a reed-like shadow stood, who must have been Gwyn’s own reflection.

  He searched the beams for his spider and identified her at last; a tiny glimmer beside the silver pipe. She seemed to indicate that he should take it, so leaping on the bed, he seized the pipe and immediately felt his legs lighten. In a strange, almost airborne fashion he stepped down and walked towards the web. The pipe began to tell him things he did not understand but when he touched the gossamer it began to make sense. ‘Come, forward, and bow your head, now your feet!’

  Gwyn held his breath. He shut his eyes against the sticky threads, lowered his head and moved through the web, remembering to call a brief farewell to the spider watching from her perch. When he opened his eyes again he was met with such a blackness he panicked himself into believing he was blind. But the pipe in his hand hummed in such a comforting way that he took a courageous step forward and, finding nothing to resist him, took another and another, until he was moving confidently forward to where a faint light illumined the landscape.

  He was in a forest, a vast never-ending sea of trees. He knew it was vast as though he had lived there always. He could feel the endless repetition of branches stretching to the fringes of the land. It was an ancient forest, the slowly brightening dawn light showed him huge moss-grown trunks, plants that festooned the branches like Christmas decorations and a deep carpet of undisturbed leaves that smelt indescribably old and earthy. Gwyn became aware that he was following a thin track where the undergrowth had been brushed with a silvery dew, like the wake of a snail, and he knew that he was not alone.

  Creatures crept behind him, accompanying his footfalls with soft breathing and busy scurrying that was not at all alarming. Once Gwyn glimpsed a great stag moving in the shadows, but he was not afraid. He felt every animal to be his friend.

  The light became sunshine beaming into a glade where someone sat motionless on a huge seat, roughly hewn from a single rock that glittered with threads of quartz. The man had his back to Gwyn. He wore a cloak made of strips of fur intertwined with dark feathers whose colour shifted through a hundred variations with every breath of air. His hair was singing white and lay in a stiff mane down to his shoulder blades.

  The stranger heard Gwyn’s approach and turned in his direction. He showed no surprise on seeing a twentieth-century boy, in fact he seemed to expect him. Gwyn, however, stopped dead in his tracks; he might have been looking at a matured and weathered version of himself. The white-haired man was not old; he had every one of Gwyn’s features: the dark eyes, and heavy eyebrows, even the Griffith dent in his chin. He smiled, showing excellent white teeth and said, in perfectly understandable Welsh, ‘Croeso, Gwydion Gwyn! Welcome!’ He motioned the boy to sit at his feet and when Gwyn was comfortable began to talk as naturally as a parent embarking on a bedtime story.

  Gwyn slowly came to realise that he was hearing a story told, not as a legend but as an episode in someone’s life, where spells were just as commonplace as cups of tea. Gwydion, the magician, the greatest storyteller in all the world was relating a chapter that had been missed in the writing of the legends. He spoke for a long time and while Gwyn listened the sun died and a brilliant moon filled the open sky above them. It was the story of two princes, brothers, one kind and gentle, the other wilful and strong. They were so close they might have been two sides of one man. But somewhere in their lives the stronger man had swept his gentle brother into his own fierce life, swamped him so that he had no place in the story. And the strong prince loved so passionately, hated so savagely, committed crimes of such enormity that, even when he died, his spirit was stranded outside the Otherworld where all great warriors live, until Gwydion, almost by accident, trapped the violent spirit into an exquisite carving, a small ebony horse that had been a gift from his brother Gilfaethwy. But when his spell was accomplished, the horse had twisted and screamed itself into such a monstrosity that Gwydion had locked it out of his sight. ‘And that mad prince was Efnisien, my own nephew,’ the magician said a little sadly. ‘He was my sister Penarddun’s son.’

  The storyteller’s voice had almost sent Gwyn into a state of dreaming. ‘I had forgotten he was related,’ he said, shaking himself into action. He stood and told his ancestor, ‘Efnisien is free again.’

  Gwydion said, ‘Well, boy, I know. Why else would I have told you all this?’

  ‘Forgive me,’ Gwyn persevered, ‘but it isn’t an answer to my problem.’

  ‘A story is an answer,’ Gwydion replied. ‘Perhaps you haven’t asked the right questions.’

  ‘Very well, then. What must I do?’

  ‘Whatever you do, don’t do it in anger,’ Gwydion said gravely. Then all at once he took a long stick of ash wood that lay beside him, spun it three times in the air and let it fall. And where it touched the earth sparks flew out in a brilliant display of forms and colours : dragons, flowers and butterflies, beasts and birds blazed about Gwyn’s head and then slid away in a bright procession through the trees.

  Gwyn regarded the wand for a moment, wondering if it was a gift. He could not bring himself to touch it. ‘Gwydion,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid of magic. Everything I do – it always turns on me. My decisions are hopeless. I’ve made too many mistakes.’ He looked up at his ancestor, hoping for a word to set him once and for all on the right road for a magician.

  But Gwydion said, ‘I too!’

  ‘You?’

  ‘We all do!’ Gwydion laughed. ‘My uncle Math turned me into a stag once, for misbehaving, and on another occasion a wild sow.’ He threw back his head and gave a delighted guffaw. ‘Imagine,’ he roared, ‘a sow. I can’t tell you what it was like. I found myself relishing, well, you wouldn’t believe it!’

  ‘I would,’ Gwyn said, joining in the laughter. ‘We’ve kept pigs.’

  At this Gwydion’s laughter redoubled and Gwyn fell back on the ground, giggling hysterically. In all his life he had never felt so carefree. If only he’d known that magic did not have to be a burden. ‘You mean a magician can misjudge?’ he asked breathlessly. ‘Can blunder?’

  ‘Nothing is straightforward,’ Gwydion replied. ‘It’s like life. But isn’t it fun to leap in the dark?’

  They smiled at each other in perfect understanding. Friends forever and Gwyn, at last, felt able to murmur, ‘Gwydion, I haven’t grown for nearly four years.’

  For a moment he thought his ancestor was going to find another excuse for laughter, but instead he nodded in a thoughtful way. ‘I’m sure you will,’ he said. ‘But is it so important?’ And when Gwyn grimaced he added, ‘You’re not blaming your genes, are you? I’m no dwarf! Bear up, boy! Laugh a bit more. Let a chuckle grow inside you until you have to stretch to keep up with it. Now take my ash wand and see what you can make of it.’

  It was a slim uncomplicated-looking stick, and yet it had released a cloud of magic. When Gwyn picked it up he felt the echo of his touch ringing through the wand like music. He knew he must give something in return for this precious gift and tentatively offered the pipe that Gwydion had sent him four years before.

  ‘I’ll keep it safe!’ his ancestor said.

  A quietness hung between them and Gwyn was aware that there was still something unfinished about their e
xchange. There was a meaning to the story that he had missed and, running through it quickly in his mind, he found what surfaced every time he thought of the broken horse, causing him a restless sort of anxiety. ‘Will that tormented prince ever be happy?’ he asked. ‘Can I help him into the Otherworld?’

  He was rewarded with a golden smile. ‘You’ve already taken the first step,’ Gwydion said, sliding gracefully from his seat, and without another word he vanished into the black shadows of the forest. Gwyn could not even hear a footfall. And yet when he had curled himself into a sleeping pattern on the ground, he thought he heard a voice, very close to his ear, whisper, ‘Pob hwyl, Gwydion Gwyn! Good luck!’

  When he woke up he was lying on his bed with his mother leaning over him, an expression of irritated concern on her face. ‘Gwyn, what’s the matter with you?’ a rather distant voice came grumbling through to him, and then more loudly, ‘Emlyn’s downstairs; he says he hasn’t seen you. Why leave that note?’

  ‘Sorry, Mam.’ He tried to wring a reasonable response out of himself. He felt utterly exhausted. ‘I meant to go. Must have fallen asleep!’

  ‘Supper’s ready!’

  He thought he’d spent twenty-four hours in a forest, had it been only one? He swung his legs over the side of the bed, knocking something on to the floor.

  ‘What’s that?’ Mrs Griffiths frowned at the stick beside his bed.

  He was about to inform her that it was a wand, of course, when his twentieth-century self caught up with him and he replied, ‘It’s for measuring, Mam.’

  ‘Gwyn, love.’ She gave him a sympathetic glance at last. ‘You’re not still worried about growing, are you?’

  ‘Heck no,’ he assured her. ‘I’m measuring furniture and that, for school. It’s a project.’

  She gave a sigh of relief and left him to tidy himself up.

  His legs felt like lead. I suppose I’ve walked a fair bit, he told himself, and then he looked in his mirror. It was not Gwyn the boy who returned his puzzled stare, but a full-grown man with white hair and deep lines etched into his parchment-brown skin. It was Gwydion the magician. Yet Gwyn’s mother had noticed nothing.

  Had he exchanged more than a gift with Gwydion, then? Had unseen age come with the wand, while all his youthful undisturbed features had been left in the forest, for a middle- aged wizard to enjoy? What a trickster!

  ‘How old am I?’ Gwyn asked the mischievous reflection. ‘Two thousand years, or forty?’ The wizard wasn’t telling. ‘Will I be thirteen on Sunday? You surely can’t take my birthday away from me! Tricks are all very well,’ he went on, facing the mirror squarely, ‘but will I be strong enough now, to fight the prince, or will I crumble to dust the moment he touches me?’

  When Mr Lloyd had repaired the table well enough to withstand a meal, the family settled down to a cold supper. Only the twins had an appetite but the others forced themselves through the motions of eating as a way of comforting their mother who seemed more distraught than ever.

  Nia couldn’t rid her mind of the wild presence that had burned into every corner of their narrow hall. He had shone like the spirit who had tricked Iolo; he had gleamed gold with his glittering bracelet, his rings and jewelled brooch. Had he stepped back through time to retrieve the effects of a warrior prince? Or had madness driven him to buy an exotic costume for the final seduction, the moment when he would carry her sister thousands of years away?

  Evan went out after his brief visit and did not return. Catrin left her music looking as though goblin’s kisses were burning both her cheeks. No one alluded to the soldier’s outlandish appearance. They tried to wish the memory away.

  The rain fell steadily through the night. By morning the river had risen more than a metre. The mountains were scribbled with tiny white torrents that gushed down through the rocks and the scree. The ditches swelled and spilled across the narrow roads, making them almost impassable.

  Nia caught a glimpse of Gwyn in school; he was dragging himself along the corridor and coughing like a geriatric.

  ‘He’s a real wally, that Gwyn,’ said Gwyneth Bowen. ‘Did you see what happened in the playground?’

  Nia had not seen. She’d spent her break trying to catch up with homework.

  ‘Fell flat on his face, he did,’ Gwyneth informed her gleefully, knowing Gwyn was a friend of Nia’s. ‘Just because one of those old jets flew over. Shaking like a leaf, he was. What a laugh!’

  ‘Perhaps he knows something we don’t,’ Nia retorted. ‘They crash sometimes, those jets do.’ She had heard the jet, rumbling overhead. It was a familiar sound but she could never help reacting, hunching her shoulders and blocking her ears. She wasn’t the only one either. No one, however, had gone as far as flinging themselves to the ground. What had become of Gwyn, just when she most needed him?

  Nia caught Gwyn’s eye in the dinner queue and he gave her a sly half-smile. After school he accompanied the Lloyds to number six, but instead of following Alun into the kitchen he hung back and touched Nia’s arm. She waited in the hall while he gasped for breath.

  ‘What is it?’ she whispered. ‘You’re like an old man.’

  ‘Not old, just out of touch,’ he replied. ‘It’s household air, I’m not used to it.’

  ‘What do you live in then, a forest?’

  ‘You don’t realise how funny that is,’ he said wryly.

  ‘I heard you were diving for cover when the jets flew in today!’

  ‘Took me by surprise. Look, can you come outside, there’s a dreadful smell in here!’

  ‘It’s only Mam’s cooking,’ Nia said indignantly, and then admitted, ‘It could be disinfectant, it does pong a bit.’

  He opened the front door and pulled her out on to the pavement. ‘That’s better,’ he said, breathing in a more normal fashion. ‘I suppose I look quite ordinary to you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ she replied. ‘You’ve never looked absolutely average and today you’re really weird.’

  ‘But you’d recognise me?’

  ‘No, I think I’m talking to a buzzard.’

  He gave a high plaintive ‘Hee-haw’ in response and then laughed. He was not someone else and yet he was not quite Gwyn. It was very unnerving to think that this heavy- breathing, rather jokey person was all that she had to rely on. ‘Gwyn,’ she said gravely. ‘Are you going to help us?’

  He looked up the road, frowned at a passing car and said tantalisingly, ‘I suppose you’re shouting because of all this.’

  ‘I’m not shouting!’ She had the impression that he was trying to adjust to the atmosphere, as though the world of traffic and conversation was too overwhelming for him to give her the attention she needed.

  ‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘I know what to do, but it’ll be up to you, too.’

  ‘What do I have to do?’ she asked, reluctant to commit herself to any frontline activity.

  Having adapted himself to the situation, he became quietly efficient. ‘Tomorrow’s Saturday,’ he said. ‘Catrin will be rehearsing in the Community Centre. Tell Evan Llr she wants to see him by the bridge. Say it’s urgent!’

  ‘But . . .’ she said wildly.

  ‘There’s no room for dithering, Nia. He’ll be there, in your house and you’ll all be glad to get rid of him. I’ll put things right!’

  ‘When?’ she cried, beginning to panic at the deceit she’d have to use.

  ‘At dusk,’ he told her. ‘You’ll know. Now I’ve got arrangements to make.’

  She watched him swaying up the road, wanting to ask him so many questions, yet knowing he’d moved on, somewhere far beyond her little problems. What did he intend to do? Would he harm her cousin? Was there a place on the clock for dusk? Suppose she didn’t time her mission properly?

  Gwyn walked all the way home; surveying his territory, marking footsteps in his mind; judging the swell of the river and feeling the approaching weather. After a while his feet became accustomed to the hard tarmac. He would have to drag himself a little further i
nto the present, he realised, to grapple with a soldier whose anger burned in two worlds. He needed a storm – drowning weather.

  When he reached his grandmother’s cottage he found her in the garden, piling leaves ready for a bonfire. ‘Are you coming down tomorrow, then, Gwydion Gwyn?’ she asked. ‘To share my Hallowe’en fire?’

  Hallowe’en? He’d forgotten. How appropriate, he thought wryly. But there would be no fire. ‘It’ll rain, Nain,’ he told her, ‘and I’m sorry, but I’ll be busy.’

  ‘Rain? Rubbish!’ she snorted, and then she looked intently at him, as though something in his attitude had filtered through to her at last. She came to the gate and asked, ‘How do you know?’

  He felt himself give the same smile that his ancestor had passed on to him, ‘I know,’ he said lightly.

  She peered at him, searched his face with her bird-bright eyes and whispered, ‘Gwydion Gwyn, have you been back?’

  He nodded, still smiling.

  ‘And did you meet . . .?’

  ‘I did,’ he told her.

  She gave a long happy sigh. ‘I’m so glad for you, Gwydion Gwyn.’

  ‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ he said with the air of someone who was passing on information about a mutual friend. ‘Gwydion is a rascal. He blunders like I do, and I know that sometimes I shall have to leap into the dark, but Nain,’ he was amused by the crooked little expression of gladness that had gradually crept into her face, ‘I’ll never turn from it again. It’s not a burden, you see.’

  ‘You speak of him in the present,’ Nain said.

  ‘Do I? Well, he’s here, isn’t he?’ Gwyn spun, arms akimbo, in the lane, his hands eventually coming to rest on top of his black hair.

  They laughed together in a way they hadn’t done for a long time and Gwyn, at last, confided, ‘He’s in my reflection, Nain. He’s taken me over, he breathes through me, laughs inside my head, and he’s not above a bit of wickedness. I’ll have to watch that!’