The Snow Spider

  "No school." The reply was just audible. "No bus— blizzard—where's Gwyn?"

  "Stamp the snow off those boots and come in!" said Mrs. Griffiths. She took the boy's coat and shook it outside before closing the door. "Gwyn's upstairs with the girl," she went on. "Poor little thing had an accident yesterday. She's in bed!"

  "I heard," muttered Alun. "Can I go up?"

  " 'Course, love. First door on the left. Don't stay too long, mind. She's still a bit—"

  Alun had sprung up the stairs before Mrs. Griffiths could finish her sentence. He opened the door and saw only the girl. She was sitting up in bed, reading a book.

  "Where's Gwyn?" Alun asked.

  "With his grandmother," the girl replied.

  "No, he's not. I've been there!"

  The two children stared at each other across the patterned quilt.

  Alun decided to put his question another way. "Is he in the house? Won't he see me?"

  The girl regarded him gravely, and he had to look away from her strange, greeny blue gaze. He did not like her eyes. They made him feel cold.

  "O.K. You're not going to tell, are you? I'm sorry about... about your falling down and that, and I came to say so." He glanced briefly at her pale face, then quickly averted his eyes again. "But I want to tell Gwyn about it. I want to talk to him, see? And I'm going to find him. I don't care if it takes—forever!"

  Alun turned swiftly and ran out of the room.

  A few seconds later Mrs. Griffiths heard the front door slam and called out, "Was that Alun? Why didn't he stay?" Receiving no reply, she returned to her washing, still unaware that Gwyn was not in the house.

  Outside, Alun saw footsteps in the snow and began to follow them.

  Gwyn returned minutes later. He took off his snow-soaked coat and boots and crept barefoot up to the bedroom.

  "It's done!" he told Eirlys. "The spell's begun!"

  "Your friend was here!" she said.

  "Alun? What did he want?"

  "To see you! He was angry!"

  "Where has he gone?" Gwyn felt a terrible apprehension take hold of him.

  "I think he went on to the mountain," Eirlys replied with equal consternation.

  "I didn't see him. He must have missed the path!"

  "He'll get lost!"

  "Trapped!" cried Gwyn. "Trapped and frozen!" He tore down the stairs and out into the snow, in his panic forgetting to put on his boots or his coat or to shut the front door. As he ran he called his friend's name again and again, until he was hoarse. The snow had become a fog, still and heavy, like a blanket, smothering any sound.

  He found his way to the place where he had touched the pillar of ice. There was another beside it now, and another and another. They rose higher than he could reach and were too close to pass through. A wall of ice! Gwyn beat upon the wall, kicked it, and tore at it with his fingers, all the while calling Alun's name in his feeble croaking voice. And then he slid to the ground, defeated by his own spell.

  Chapter 9

  RETURN

  Gwyn's mother was waiting for him when he stumbled home. "You left the door open," she accused him. "Whatever have you been doing? Where's Alun?"

  Gwyn could not tell her. The trap had been set and now there was nothing anyone could do until Arianwen had finished her work. Besides, Alun might have gone home. They had no proof that he was on the mountain. "I think he's gone home," Gwyn told his mother.

  But later that day, when Mr. Lloyd arrived searching for his eldest son, Gwyn admitted, "Yes! Alun was here," and "Yes! He might have gone up on the mountain. But I didn't know. I didn't know for sure!"

  Then Mrs. Lloyd, who had followed her husband with little Iolo, turned on Gwyn and vented all her anger and fear. "He was your friend," she cried. "He came to look for you! Why didn't you go after him? Why didn't you say? Don't you remember how it was when your sister went? It's been four hours now! Don't you care? Don't you care about anyone, Gwyn Griffiths? You're not normal, you aren't! Not a normal boy at all!"

  Little Iolo began to scream, and Gwyn's fingers ached with the desire to hurt. But he could not use his power, because he knew this woman was terribly afraid. How could she know that he was suffering as much as she? He left the kitchen and went up to his room.

  The fog was so dense he could see nothing out of his window. He knew he had to protect Alun, but how? And then he remembered something Nain had said about those long-ago magicians. "They could turn men into eagles!" Why could he not turn Alun into a bird —a small bird—a white one, so that he could not be seen against the snow?

  He scanned the room for something that had belonged to Alun. On his bookshelf was an old paperback book on boats that Alun had lent him. It hardly seemed appropriate, but it would have to do. He took the book to the window and held it very tight. He closed his eyes and tried to picture Alun, tried to remember every feature of his friend: his blue eyes, his freckles, his short red fingers with the nails all bitten. And then he thought of a bird, a small white bird, and he placed the picture of the bird that was in his mind over the blue eyes, the freckled nose, and the tufty fair hair of his friend, until the bird and the boy seemed to become one.

  Gwyn did not know how long he stood by the window. He was not aware of any sound until the search party began to arrive. The grapevine in Pendewi worked fast. Sometimes people even sensed the news before they heard it. Ten men set off to look for Alun Lloyd, and later Mrs. Griffiths and another mother followed them.

  The search did not last long. Gwyn heard the defeated stamping of boots in the snow, the grave, deep voices, and the kettle whistling on and on and on!

  Hunger and curiosity drove him downstairs. The kitchen was so crowded he could not find a chair, nor reach the bread bin. He managed to sneak a plate of cookies from the table, and then retreated with it to the door. He leaned and listened, waiting for someone to mention the mountain and whatever it was that Arianwen had built there.

  They were all talking at once, yet avoiding what they wanted to say. They were adults and did not know how to discuss something that was impossible, something they did not understand.

  Pools of water on the kitchen floor mingled with crushed cookies and cigarette ash. Iolo was under the table, snivelling, but everyone had become accustomed to that sound and ignored him. Gwyn remembered that other search, four years ago, when he had sat under the table and cried because his sister was lost.

  And then the words that he wanted to hear began to drift towards him.

  "Did you feel it?" "Bloody peculiar!" "Like a net!" "A cloud?" "No, not that!" "Ice!" "A frozen cloud?" "More like a wall!" "Never heard of anything like it!" "Call the police!" "What can they do?" "Can't see a bloody thing out there!" "Searchlights?"

  Gwyn sidled out the door and carried his plate of cookies upstairs. He heard the police arrive. Eirlys, the last person to see Alun, was called down to speak to them.

  Everybody stopped talking when she came in. They drew back and gazed at the frail, white-faced child, so insubstantial and fairylike in her white nightgown and borrowed gray shawl. She brought to mind that other time, in the same farmhouse, when they had come to search for a girl like this one, so very like this one. Only the other girl had been dark and rosy-cheeked, and they had never found her. Now they bent their heads, straining to hear the words she spoke so softly. And when she had finished, they all began to sigh and murmur about mists and mountains. Officer Perkins had to erase half his notes. He was new to the area, just up from the city, and he felt like a stranger among these superstitious and excitable farmers. Their melodious voices conveyed nothing but confusion to him.

  He left with his partner, Officer Price, and they walked up the road for a bit, to find out what they could. They returned before long, and drove away without a word.

  It'll be in the papers, thought Gwyn. They'll call it a phenomenon and then they'll forget about it.

  The searchers departed in ones and twos. "We'll be back in the morning!" they called. "We'll find him
!"

  The Lloyds were the last to leave. Iolo had fallen asleep in his father's arms, but now Mrs. Lloyd was crying.

  It was such a long, long night. Gwyn could not sleep. He sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the window. Eirlys came up and kept him company. They did not speak, but her presence was comforting. Just as she was about to go, a sound came from the mountain. A long, wailing sigh!

  "Did you hear that?" Gwyn whispered.

  "Was it the wind?" she asked.

  "No, not the wind!"

  The sound came again, louder this time. An anguished, melancholy howl. It crept down Gwyn's spine and made him shiver.

  "It's like a wild animal," said Eirlys.

  "Trapped!" he added.

  The howling gradually died away, and Eirlys returned to her bed. But later that night it came again, louder and more terrible than ever, though it seemed to be only Gwyn who heard it. It got into his head, and he had to rock back and forth to endure the sound. He knew who it was, of course, and agonized over what it might do to Alun, if it found him.

  And then he became aware that the sound was in the room. It was in the silver pipe, lying on the bedside table.

  Gwyn jumped out of bed, seized the pipe, and ran with it across the room. He thrust it into his drawer and slammed the drawer tightly shut. But to his horror, the voice within the drawer merely seemed to intensify, until the whole chest vibrated with the sound.

  Gwyn put his hands over his ears and stumbled backwards to the bed. He knows about the pipe, Gwyn thought. He's using it to fight me. But he won't get out! He won't! He won't! Arianwen and I are too strong for him!

  It ended at last. Gwyn lay back, exhausted, and fell asleep on top of the blankets.

  He was awakened by another sound, a muffled, intermittent tapping on his window. Someone was throwing snowballs.

  He went to the window, opened it, and looked out. A shadowy figure was beside the apple tree, but he could not make out any features. "Who's there?" he called.

  "Alun!" came the reply.

  Gwyn ran down and opened the front door.

  Alun was standing on the porch. He was pale, but certainly not frozen. He was holding something small and dark in his hand, and he had an odd, vacant expression in his eyes, as though he was not sure why or how he had come to be there. He stepped into the house and wordlessly followed Gwyn into the kitchen. He laid the thing that he had been holding on the kitchen table. It was the broken horse!

  Gwyn stared at it. "Where've you been?" he asked gently.

  "Out there!" Alun jerked his head towards the window.

  "I know, out there," said Gwyn. "But where?"

  Alun wiped his nose on the sleeve of his coat. He did not seem inclined to answer any more questions.

  "Better take some of that off," said Gwyn, nodding at his friend's soaking clothes.

  Alun removed his coat, his boots, and his socks, and then he sank onto a kitchen chair and wiped his nose, this time on his shirt cuff.

  "Wish you could tell me about it!" Gwyn bit his lip. He realized that it was no use trying to force Alun to talk. He would have to wait until his friend was ready.

  "Aw heck!" Alun scratched his head. "I don't know. It's all so peculiar, like. I don't really understand what happened. I was following your footsteps in that blizzard, and I got lost. So I turned around to come back—and I couldn't. There was something there, like bars. Ice-cold they were, but hard as anything. At first it was all cloudy, and I couldn't see, but then it got brighter and brighter and I saw what I was caught in. It was a sort of cage, bars all round in a pattern, like a . . . like a . . ."

  "Cobweb?" Gwyn suggested.

  "Phew!" Alun looked hard at Gwyn. "You know, don't you? It's funny though. All those things you said. They were true, weren't they?"

  "Yes, they were true!"

  "Well, I suppose you know about the man, then?"

  "What man?" Gwyn stepped closer. "Was there a man in there with you?"

  "A kind of man. He scared me. He had red hair and he was dressed all in kind of bright stuff, jewelry and that, with a cloak and a gold belt with a big sword in it. And he was beating at the bars with his fists, tearing at them, banging his head on them, yelling. I was scared, I can tell you. But he didn't see me. It sounds funny, but I felt very small and kind of . . . like I had something round me, very warm and soft, like feathers. Anyway, he kept on and on at those bars for hours and hours. I fell asleep, and when I woke up he was still at it—moaning and crying. And then something awful happened!"

  Gwyn waited. He could hardly bear the suspense, but he dared not ask a question.

  "He began to disappear," Alun continued, "just shrank. Sort of faded away, and so did the bars of ice, until there was nothing left there, except . . ."

  "Except what?"

  "That!" Alun pointed to the broken horse.

  Gwyn looked at it, lying on its side, black and disfigured. Poor thing! he thought. You want so imicli to get out—but I can never, never let you. He took tin-horse and slipped it into his pocket. Later he would find a safe and secret place.

  It was all over, and suddenly he felt very tired.

  There were sounds from above, and Gwyn said, "They've been looking for you, your dad and mine."

  "I bet!" said Alun.

  "And Mr. Davis came, and Gary Pritchard's dad, and Mr. Ellis and Mr. Jones, Ty Gwyn, and people I can't remember. Even Mrs. Pritchard came, and she and my mam went out to look. And your mam was here with Iolo. I don't know why she brought him, he was making such a racket."

  "He always does." Alun nodded sympathetically.

  Mrs. Griffiths came into the kitchen and gasped at the sight of Alun sitting there so rosy and cheerful. Before she could utter a word the doorbell rang. The Lloyds had returned to resume their search.

  Mrs. Griffiths ran to open the door. "He's back!" she cried. "He's safe, your Alun. Good as new and nothing wrong with him, as far as I can see."

  "Where? Where?" Mrs. Lloyd tore into the kitchen and flung herself upon her son.

  "Come on, Mam. I'm O.K.," came Alun's muffled Voice from beneath his mother.

  "What happened? Where've you been? They went to search. We thought you'd freeze!"

  "I stayed where I was," Alun said, wriggling. "I didn't want to get lost. I got behind some rocks ... in a sort of cave. It was quite warm, really."

  Mrs. Lloyd began to wrap up her boy like a baby, though the mist had gone and the sky was brightening. She bundled him out into the hallway, talking nonstop to her husband and Mrs. Griffiths. While she spoke, Alun looked back at Gwyn and said, "I found this out there, as well." He put something cool into Gwyn's hand—the snow spider.

  Gwyn curled his fingers round the spider as Alun whispered hoarsely, "Don't tell about . . . about what I said, will you?"

  "I won't tell!" Gwyn grinned. "One loony's enough!"

  Alun grinned back and gave the thumbs-up sign. And then his mother whisked him through the door.

  Mr. Griffiths had his way, and Eirlys stayed for Christmas. It was the sort of Christmas one always remembers. The trees were iced with snow and the sun came out to make the mountain sparkle. The biggest Christmas tree they had ever seen at Ty Bryn was put up in the front room and decorated with lights like candles, silver stars, and homemade sweets wrapped in colored paper.

  A log fire was lit, and they all played Monopoly and Scrabble, and even made up games so as to prolong the fun. Mrs. Griffiths played carols on the out-of-tune piano with damp hammers, and it did not matter that the soloists were sometimes out of tune, too. The children were allowed to drink punch, which made them giggle at Nain, who had drunk too much and looked like a Christmas tree herself, all bedecked in colored beads and bangles.

  Just before they went to bed, Eirlys looked out of the window at the white, moonlit mountain and said, "It reminds me of home!" Only Gwyn heard her. He knew that she was not talking about Wales, and it occurred to him for the first time that she might not stay with them forever
.

  On New Year's Day, the children decided to walk in the fields. It was a cold day, and while the girl waited in the garden, Gwyn ran up to fetch the gloves his father had given him for Christmas. They were blue and silver, lined with fur, and Gwyn cherished them even more than the black watch his mother had given him for his birthday.

  When he opened his drawer he saw Arianwen and the silver pipe. They looked so innocent, who would guess what they could do? One that had travelled a million miles or more, the other from somewhere in the distant past. They would always be with him now, he knew that. As he turned away, the pipe whispered something. It sounded like, "Don't go!" Gwyn smiled and drew on his gloves. "I'm not going anywhere!" he said.

  His parents were outside in the garden with Eirlys. They were standing by the gate, talking quietly while they stared up at the mountain. They did not see Gwyn when he came out, nor hear him close the front door.

  "I have to go soon," Eirlys was saying. "I have to go back to where I came from."

  His parents did not speak immediately. They seemed frozen by her remark. Then Mrs. Griffiths put her hand out and gently tucked the girl's hair into her hood. "Do you have to go, Eirlys? Can't you stay?"

  Eirlys shook her head.

  "Were you happy there, where you came from?" Mr. Griffiths asked.

  "Oh, yes! Very happy!"

  They did not ask where she lived. They did not seem to want to know. And then Gwyn broke into their thoughts. "Come on," he cried, "I'll race you to the trees!" He ran past them through the open gate.

  Eirlys followed, and they ran to the circle of hawthorn trees where Gwyn had released Arianwen. The snow had melted and the grass was smooth and green. There was nothing to show that the earth had shaken or that icicles had flown from it like stars.

  "Why couldn't she escape without my help?" Gwyn thought aloud. "She has her own power."

  "She has nothing without you," said Eirlys. "She needs your thoughts to help her."

  "She's just an ordinary spider, then?"

  "Oh, no! No creature from my place is a common garden thing!"