Midwinterblood

  “Poor Mommy,” said Merle, and then copied her mother, arching her back and sighing deeply. “Poor Merle. Ow.”

  They set off for home, taking a different way back.

  “I always prefer a walk that goes in a circle,” Bridget explained to her daughter. “Don’t you?”

  Merle hadn’t thought about this before.

  “I don’t know. I think I like there-and-back walks, too.”

  As they came back to their starting point, Merle suddenly stopped.

  “I thought you said no one lived here,” she said.

  “No, you weren’t listening. I said almost no one lives here.”

  “So who lives there?” said Merle, pointing at the huge building she had glimpsed through the trees.

  The building was more like a church than a house, a single story of one massive pitched roof, with a tower of some sort on the end forming an impressive entranceway.

  Merle’s eyes were wide. “Who lives there, Mommy?”

  “A dragon,” said Bridget. “So just you stay away, because he eats small girls for his lunch.”

  Merle squealed. They both ran, and got halfway up the hill home before they were too tired to run anymore.

  * * *

  At bedtime, Bridget tucked Merle under the sheets, but Merle still had more questions.

  “Mommy?” she asked. “I don’t think it can really be a dragon who lives in that big house. So who does live there?”

  Bridget smiled.

  “He’s nearly a dragon,” she said. “He’s an old man, and he’s not very friendly. I don’t want you going there, all right?”

  Merle nodded. “But who is he?”

  “He’s an old man. That’s all. He’s a painter, or at least, he was. That’s what they say. And he’s very rich. Once he was the most famous painter in the whole land, but then something happened, and they say he hasn’t painted anything in years. After that he moved here, and had that house built, like a church all of his own. And I don’t want you going there. Now you sleep well and dream of your hare, yes?”

  Merle nodded.

  She closed her eyes and gripped her hare tight, but she already knew she was going to go the painter’s house, just for a look.

  Four

  The very next day, Merle took her chance.

  Bridget was busy in the kitchen with the flowers they had cut the day before.

  “I don’t think you’re old enough to help with this part, yet,” she’d said to Merle, who had done her best to look sad about it, but was actually secretly glad.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll go into the village and find someone to play with.”

  Bridget nodded, distracted. There was a lot of preparation to do—they had picked more flowers than she realized and they needed to be cut and prepared today before their potency went. Then she would have to split and hang all the stems—pounding them would have to wait for another day.

  “Be back for lunch,” Bridget said.

  “When’s that?”

  “When your tummy rumbles.”

  Merle skipped out of the door and down the hill, then into a neighbor’s garden, crawled past the vegetable patch right underneath the kitchen window, and in two minutes was back on the lane to the western side.

  “I’m going to see a dragon, I’m going to see a dragon,” she sang as she went.

  At the bottom of the hill, she nearly forgot which path to take, but then she remembered they’d done a circle walk and not a there-and-back walk.

  She set off to her left, and in two minutes there was the house again.

  Merle stopped, listening for the sounds of the dragon sleeping, or snoring. Or eating small children; crunching on their bones. She shivered at the thought.

  She was just wondering whether dragons only eat girls, and not boys, given the choice, when she saw the orchard.

  To the side of the house sat a beautiful orchard of apple trees and some pear trees. The grass of the orchard was overgrown, almost touching the boughs in places. Here and there enormous weighty clusters of mistletoe, Baldur’s bane, clung to the treetops.

  The orchard was heavy, ripe and bursting to deliver. Merle’s mouth hung open—she had never seen trees with so much fruit on them before. They hung with clusters of apples, their branches pulled low by the weight.

  And though her tummy was not actually rumbling yet, she thought it might be a good idea to have an apple anyway, so that she could stay out for a bit longer than she otherwise might.

  Merle looked at the house.

  She could see no windows on the side that faced her, the front. Rather it had some kind of long gallery that ran around at head height, and there were windows in this gallery. But she could not see into the house itself, and neither could she hear anyone.

  She walked up the path that led to the house, as quietly as she could, and then stopped again.

  Still nothing.

  She stepped off the path and went around the side of the house, walking through a gate that was so old and rickety that it had fallen off its hinges. She liked that; it made her feel less as though she was trespassing than if she’d had to open the gate.

  There were apples on the ground already, many windfalls that lay rotting in the long uncut grass. But there were many, many more still in the trees, and she crept forward, reaching up her hand and sliding her fingers around one that was particularly red and lovely.

  As she did so, there was a shout from behind her.

  “Hey!”

  She turned to see the dragon.

  He was on the gallery that ran around this side of the house, too, and was waving a small stick at her.

  He was angry, really angry.

  “Hey, you! Get away from there! Go away!”

  His voice was broken with anger and age, and terrified, Merle ran as fast as she could, tears already in her eyes.

  It was only when she stopped running, halfway up the hill to home again, that she realized she had the apple in her hand.

  She bit it.

  It was delicious.

  She sat on a rock on the Outlook, looking to the sea, and finished it, and by the time she had, her tears were finished, too.

  In fact, she felt really happy.

  She bounded in to the kitchen.

  “Hello, Mommy, is it lunchtime yet?”

  Five

  Next day, all day Merle fussed and fretted, trying not to go back to the orchard. Finally Bridget snapped at her.

  “What is wrong with you? Get out from under my feet! I have all these stems to pound, and the first lot of flowers need to come out of the pot. So be off!”

  Merle took that as a sign, if not actually an order, to go back to the orchard.

  * * *

  She stood for a long time at the end of the path, waiting.

  Hearing nothing, seeing no one, she set off up the path and around the side to the orchard gate.

  She waited again.

  It seems such a shame, she thought to herself.

  Such a shame that here are all these apples and pears going to waste, and no one picking them and they are all falling on the grass and going nasty, with only the worms and maggots to enjoy them.

  So that she wouldn’t be seen from the house, she got down on her hands and knees and crawled through the orchard, pretending she was an animal, her hare maybe.

  Hares always moved silently, rarely seen, she knew that.

  She sat in the long grass, and found a windfall that the worms hadn’t yet, and as she chewed its sweet flesh, she began to think about the dragon.

  He wasn’t a dragon really; she knew that. He was just an old man. She knew that her mother had explained that some old people in the village found it hard to do things. Or that sometimes they found it hard to hear, and that could make it seem like they were rude, when really they weren’t.

  Suddenly, it occurred to Merle that maybe the old man wasn’t picking his apples, because he couldn’t.

  She’d only had a brief glimpse of him, b
ut he did seem very old, and his shoulders were hunched.

  That seemed sad to Merle, and she thought that he’d probably love to have an apple, if only he could pick one.

  She ran into the orchard.

  She picked two apples.

  Merle ran as fast as she could to the front doorstep, left one apple there, and then ran home, saving the other to eat on her rock at the top of the hill.

  Six

  When Merle went back the day after, she smiled.

  The apple had gone, and she knew she was right.

  He did want them after all.

  * * *

  She slipped into the orchard once more, though still checking first to see that he was not around.

  She picked four apples this time, and left two on the doorstep.

  She ate an apple on the rock at the top of the hill, and sneaked the other into her bedroom, in case she was hungry in the night.

  At bedtime, she kissed her hare on the nose, and went to sleep.

  She dreamed of flying on the back of a dragon, right above the island, right over her house. She looked down at her house and saw her mother in the back garden, looking up and waving, and smiling.

  Seven

  On the next day, she waited until the afternoon, and picked six apples.

  She put three on the doorstep, and brought the others home, eating one on her rock, and sneaking two into her bedroom.

  * * *

  At suppertime, her mother seemed tired. She had been working so hard on the flowers and the stems for three days.

  Merle wanted to give her one of her apples. She always felt so much better after eating them, but she knew that if she did she would have to say where it came from, so she didn’t.

  “Merle,” said Bridget, “you haven’t been to the western side without me, have you? To the old man’s house?”

  Merle shook her head.

  “You won’t do that, will you? It might seem tempting, but you mustn’t. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Mommy,” said Merle. She felt bad about lying, but she would confess it to her hare at bedtime and that would make it better.

  * * *

  Next day, when she went back to the western side, she had not even got up the path before she realized that the three apples she had left the day before were still there.

  “That’s not right,” she said.

  She walked up to the house, and for some reason, she didn’t feel afraid.

  There were the three apples from the day before, sitting where she’d left them.

  Not right.

  She stood at the front door, an absolutely tiny figure against its vast size. She stretched up one tiny hand and knocked.

  It made almost no sound, so she tried again, as hard as she could.

  Now she was sure that the old man must have heard her, so she waited, and waited for something to happen, but nothing did.

  She tried to open the door then, but although she could just reach the handle, the door seemed to be locked.

  “That’s odd,” she said.

  She looked to her left.

  There was the gallery that ran around the house, and she decided to see if there was another way in. She turned the corner, feeling the wood of the balustrade under her hand, slightly peeling light blue paint, the lovely smell of warm wood, and then there was the orchard below her, and then, there … there was a door.

  It was open, and Merle knew she would have to go into the dragon’s lair.

  Timidly, like a hare, she stuck her head around the corner of the door.

  It took her a moment to see.

  It was so dark inside, with very few windows, and her eyes took a while to adjust.

  It was a huge room, more a space than a room, like the inside of a church. At first she saw nothing, but then she heard a faint noise from some way inside.

  Then she saw him.

  “Oh!” she cried.

  He was lying on the floor, on his side.

  At her shriek, he opened his eyes.

  Merle thought he seemed confused.

  “Oh,” she said again. “Are you all right? Why are you lying on the floor? Can’t you get up?”

  The old man’s eyes focused on her now.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.

  Then he simply shook his head.

  “Wait there!” cried Merle, “I’ll get Mommy!”

  She ran, ran fast, and all the way up the hill, and didn’t stop till she burst in through the kitchen door.

  “It’s the dragon man,” she cried. “He’s ill!”

  Eight

  Bridget thought there was nothing seriously wrong with the old man; he’d had a fall and hadn’t been able to get up, that was all.

  She’d sent Merle home for some of her special tea, and while her daughter was gone, Bridget picked him up and set him on a sofa at the edge of the big room.

  She looked around her.

  “Do you have a kitchen?” she asked.

  There was no way of knowing where such a thing might be—this was not a normal sort of home.

  The old man nodded, and she set off.

  The kitchen was small, and primitive. She hunted through the cupboards, and found very little. Some flour, some biscuits. Some sour milk.

  On the worktop sat a couple of apples.

  Merle bustled back into the kitchen, and handed Bridget the tea, then she went to sit with the old man while her mother brewed a pot.

  “Drink this,” she said. “I’ve put some cold water in it, so it isn’t too hot.”

  The old man took the tea, still without words, and drank, drank the whole thing down, in one go.

  He handed the cup back to Bridget, closed his eyes, briefly, and then lifted his head.

  He held out his hand to Bridget.

  “Eric Carlsson,” he said. “Thank you.”

  Bridget recognized his name.

  “Mommy?” asked Merle. “What’s that?”

  Bridget turned to see Merle standing, looking at the far end of the room, and now she finally saw it, too.

  The painting.

  A vast, vast painting.

  Bridget was drawn to it, her feet carrying her toward it without her thinking. Her mouth hung open, she had never seen anything like it, anything so mysterious, so compelling, so terrifying.

  Merle trotted over to stand next to her, looking at the painting, too.

  Around about, on the floor, stood another easel, with a sketch on it. Tables and tables of oil paints, pallet knives, brushes, and turpentine stood next to the easel. The painting seemed almost finished, but Bridget could see there were a few areas still left to be completed.

  It was a work in progress, and the progress must have taken a very long time already.

  “What is it, Mommy?” she asked.

  Bridget did not answer. How could she explain what she saw to such a young child?

  She remembered about Eric Carlsson. It was true; he had been the most famous painter of the last century. Born in a poor quarter, he had begun his career in the city, where he made a living drawing quick sketch portraits on the street, until some rich patron had spotted his talent and paid for him to go to art school. He’d made a name for himself then, painting portraits that seemed more alive than the subjects themselves, so they said.

  His reputation grew, but he started to make real money when he began a series of paintings of family life. He had moved to the countryside with his wife and family, where he painted modest, charming depictions of everyday life in the old-fashioned way: summer dances, evening songs by the piano, butter churning, Christmas celebrations.

  His paintings were reproduced, and sold, and he became very, very rich.

  Bridget remembered those paintings; in fact, she even thought she had one of them somewhere in their own house, but the thing she was looking at came from somewhere else, from another time, from another world, from another dimension even.

  * * *

  For a start, the pa
inting was big. Many of the people depicted were more than life-size, and she counted over thirty before she lost track.

  It showed some kind of ritual, some terrible act. Then, she realized, what it actually showed was the moment just before some terrible act took place.

  At the back of the painting was a building, a building she recognized as the one in which they were standing. Various figures crowded the galleries, watching the scene unfold below.

  There were about twenty more people in the foreground.

  On the left were a group of women in traditional dress, dancing, fingers intertwined above their heads. The music to which they danced came from five musicians, dressed like priests of some sort. Two played long curling horns, of a kind which Bridget had never seen before, the other three played long straight horns, blasting their primal notes up into the sky. In front of the musicians, two more figures, men dressed in furs and leather, danced crazy contorted shapes, as if in pain, their eyes staring and wide.

  Behind them grew a tree, an odd tree, with a straight trunk, and a pointed crown of brilliant green leaves. Gold objects hung in the glossy leaves, and Bridget was startled as she saw that they were skulls. Shining golden skulls.

  To the right were the warriors, half a dozen or more, carrying long spears, dressed in ceremonial robes, with proud helms upon which sat totemic figurines: a fox, a boar, a raven. A hare.

  But it was the center of the painting that disturbed the most.

  Here were the three main players.

  The first was a priest, the high priest maybe, with a white beard, and blind in one eye. In his hands he gripped a ceremonial golden hammer.

  Second, was the king. Bridget knew he was the king because he wore a crown, but, oddly, shockingly, he was naked. At that very moment, he had let fall a rich fox fur robe, even now it slipped from his right shoulder to the ground, as he was carried forward to the center of the painting on a shining sleigh, again covered in gold.

  And then there was the third figure.

  Seen from behind, his head bowed, was a figure robed all in red. Bloodred.

  Tucked behind his right forearm, out of sight of the king, the figure in red held a long and deadly knife.

  He was the executioner.

  His moment had come.