by James Nicol
‘More than an hour ago, I think. Maybe more.’
‘And where would that have been?’
‘On the East Gate bridge, near the kiln. My grandmother was watching it for me while I came to the party.’
Mayor Belcher glared at her. ‘The kiln was your responsibility, Miss Gribble—’ he began to bluster, but Aunt Grace interrupted.
‘Now’s not the time, Josiah,’ she said, folding her arms over her chest and fixing him with a stare that would scare off a horde of dark gruffits.
‘And I found her scarf in the snow.’ Arianwyn lifted the scarf, which had thawed by the fire and felt silky and warm now in her hands. She could smell her grandmother’s perfume. ‘It’s her favourite, she’d never leave it anywhere,’ she said again, giving her father another hard stare to make her point.
Constable Perkins looked at the mayor first and then scratched his head. ‘I think we’d best get some people looking, Mayor Belcher, don’t you? Especially with the snow coming down so heavy now.’
‘Of course,’ the mayor said. He reached out to place a comforting hand on Arianwyn’s shoulder.
Everyone moved and started talking at once. ‘Stay here,’ Sergeant Gribble ordered as he pulled on his coat and scarf.
‘No. I want to help,’ Arianwyn said, moving after him.
‘You should stay here. It might not be safe.’
‘I am quite used to dealing with things that aren’t safe, Dad. I’m a witch, in case you hadn’t noticed!’
‘Why are you always so argumentative these days?’ her father asked.
‘I’m not. Except for when I’m really worried about something,’ she said quietly.
They stared at each other for a few moments, before Sergeant Gribble sighed and shook his head.
A few minutes later, Sergeant Gribble, Constable Perkins and the mayor led three search parties out of the Blue Ox.
Arianwyn watched anxiously from the window.
‘Perhaps your grandmother might have gone to the Spellorium to look for you,’ Aunt Grace suggested gently. ‘We could go and check there if you like?’
‘Well, I don’t want to be sat here doing nothing,’ Arianwyn said. ‘So yes, if that’s all right?’
Arianwyn set off across the town square with Aunt Grace and Uncle Mat following close behind. The music and dancing continued and the snow still fell, and nobody took any notice of where the three of them were going, their faces so stony and etched with concern.
Arianwyn unlocked the door of the Spellorium quickly and they hurried inside, stamping the snow from their shoes and boots.
‘Hello? Grandma?’ Arianwyn called.
There was no reply.
‘Shall we just check upstairs?’ Aunt Grace asked, glancing at Uncle Mat.
As they made their way up the curving stairs Arianwyn took her chance. She turned and ran from the Spellorium, leaving the door wide open and letting the snow gust in behind her. She raced back towards Wood Lane and the East Gate, towards the kiln, determined to join the proper search for her grandmother.
The gusts of wind brought so much snow that she found it hard to see where she was going, occasionally stumbling over doorsteps or other things buried in the snow. But soon she was passing through the gate and on to the bridge. Why was no one looking there yet? It was the last place Grandmother had been seen! She hurried out over the bridge shouting ‘Grandma!’ over and over into the storm.
And then coming towards her, on the far side of the bridge, she could see a figure in the swirl of white.
‘Grandma?’ she called, wading forwards through the snow, which was now over her ankles in places.
But as the figure drew closer she could see it was not her grandmother. This figure was smaller, covered from head to toe in a long dark coat with a hood pulled low over its face. The figure moved quickly, despite the snow, with slightly erratic jerking movements, the hooded head searching this way and that as if trying to sniff something out.
‘Hello?’ Arianwyn shouted over the cry of the wind. ‘Do you need help?’
At that moment the hood was thrown back by a strong gust, and Arianwyn saw it was Gimma.
Her skin was grey, her hair twists of dry white that looked like they might snap and shatter at any moment. A worrying fear churned in Arianwyn’s stomach, colder than the snow and ice around her. She was shocked to see Gimma here – and yet perhaps part of her had known all along: wasn’t this what her vision had shown her in the flames of the fire, and wasn’t this what her grandmother had seen too? It all made sense. She had known this was going to happen.
‘What have you done, Gimma?’ Arianwyn asked. ‘Where is my grandmother?’
Gimma carried on moving towards Arianwyn. Her dark narrow form sliced through the snow. She looked like a rift. But she still said nothing.
Arianwyn thought about running back into Lull for help but she stood her ground until Gimma was standing just a metre or so from her. ‘Hello, Arianwyn,’ Gimma said at last, her voice raspy and dry, as though she hadn’t spoken for some time.
‘Where’s my grandmother?’ Arianwyn asked again. Sudden tears tumbled down her cold cheeks.
Gimma glanced over her shoulder, looking back at her trail through the deep snow. Back to the Great Wood. ‘She has her.’
‘Who?’ Arianwyn asked, and was suddenly reaching out and grasping Gimma, her hands tangling in the heavy wool of the long coat she wore. ‘What have you done with her?’ she cried.
Gimma’s black eyes stared ahead unblinking. ‘I’m . . . sorry,’ she said quietly, her eyelids flickering a little. ‘I had no choice. She knows. She knows about the Book of Quiet Glyphs, Arianwyn. She knows the glyphs are inside you.’
‘Who?’ Arianwyn asked. Her mind felt fogged; she felt dizzy and suddenly sick. It must be the hex within Gimma. Where were her charms? The dark magic of the hex was stronger than ever.
‘The . . . High Elder.’
‘What?’ Arianwyn asked, her mind spinning. It didn’t make any sense. But then . . . hadn’t her grandmother said that the High Elder was away, travelling?
It had all been a cover, she realized, the breath suddenly snatched from her lungs. The High Elder had been behind this all the time. She had been the one using glamour charms to disguise herself and threaten Gimma. She had been at the Alverston house, watching over Gimma from the window when Arianwyn had left! She had gone to the sanatorium in the guise of Elder Tully to talk to her father.
But what did any of that matter? She couldn’t bring herself to care: she just wanted Grandmother.
‘Just bring her back!’ Arianwyn roared. She pulled Gimma towards her and the girls tumbled into the snow. Gimma tried to struggle free. She was strong: the hex had granted her a dark power. But Arianwyn’s rage was strong too. She clung on hard and as Gimma brought her hand up – was she about to cast a spell? – Arianwyn reached out and smacked her across the face.
Gimma slumped to one side in the snow, a tangle of black in the white. She moaned.
‘If you won’t bring her back, then take me to her. Now!’ Arianwyn said through her tears. She reached for Gimma, dragging her to her feet.
‘Wyn?’
‘Miss Gribble?’
Urgent shouts came from beyond the town gates. Her friends. She could hear the mayor and Salle and even her father. ‘Arianwyn, where are you?’
‘Here!’ she shouted, but her voice came out as a dry squeak. ‘I’m here with Gimma!’
She turned back as Gimma’s eyes swam with the hex’s darkness.
‘She won’t let me go,’ Gimma mumbled and pulled back the long sleeve of her coat.
Her hand and arm were wrapped in a strange twist of metal that held small slivers of stone, hoops of silver and gold and several small charm orbs. Arianwyn recognized them at once – they were the ones she had made, but different somehow. The new components had altered the soft light from the charms. Now they pulsed with darkness. ‘What’s this?’ she asked, reaching for the tangle of
metal and the charm orbs, but Gimma snatched her hand away.
‘It’s how she controls the hex . . . and me.’
The High Elder was very interested in how I made those charms, Arianwyn remembered with a shiver.
‘Take them off then,’ Arianwyn said, reaching for the strange ties – but before she touched them she could feel the immense power of them, like a searing heat. She snatched her hands away.
‘They won’t come off,’ Gimma said sadly. ‘She was waiting for more of your charms to finish this.’ Gimma shook her wrist. ‘And you delivered them straight to Highbridge.’
Arianwyn felt like ice water had been poured over her body. She had done this. Her charms had been used to trap Gimma.
‘Arianwyn!’ came the shouts again from behind her.
‘I’m here, on the bridge!’ she called, then turned back to see Gimma retreating. She was already over the bridge and disappearing behind the snowfall, a sliver of black fading into the night. ‘No! Wait!’ Arianwyn shouted into the storm, but Gimma’s retreating form only got smaller and smaller.
Fear, anger, hate bubbled up from deep inside Arianwyn. Before she knew what she was doing, she was summoning a glyph, the new glyph from the spirits in the Great Wood, the first one that sprung to her mind. She had drawn it into the swirling snow with her hand, and her strokes were strong and confident. The snow, already full of the frost phoenixes’ magic, fed the glyph.
But Arianwyn, her mind clouded with confusion and fear, hadn’t thought through the spell – the magic had no purpose. Before she could do anything else the glyph glowed brightly then vanished into the swirl of snowflakes. Seconds later, a new, stronger wind roared across the frozen meadow, bringing a blizzard, blotting out the view and surrounding her in a snowstorm. Ice stung her eyes, tears and snow blurring her sight. She’d made it worse. Gimma and Grandmother were more unreachable than ever.
‘Arianwyn!’
She turned and could just see her father hurrying through the snow towards her. ‘What are you doing out here, you silly girl?’ he snapped. ‘We’ve all been worried sick!’
‘Gimma . . .’ Arianwyn mumbled. But Gimma’s tracks were already covered by the heavy falling snow.
‘What?’ her father asked. ‘What did you say?’
‘Gimma?’ Mayor Belcher loomed through the swirling white. ‘No . . . it can’t have been.’
Arianwyn gestured to where the bridge had been as Salle and Colin appeared. ‘She has Grandma,’ Arianwyn said to no one in particular, her voice almost lost to the winds.
‘Who? Gimma?’ Salle asked, wrapping a heavy blanket over Arianwyn’s shoulders as the wind howled stronger than ever. She did feel incredibly cold all of a sudden.
‘The High Elder,’ Arianwyn said.
And she suddenly felt herself falling, everything swimming around her. She couldn’t feel herself any more, as though her mind had drifted away from her body.
Everything was just white and white – and then black.
Chapter 24
The STORM
rianwyn felt like she was swimming through deep, dark water. Somewhere high above her there was a glimmer of light, but she was surrounded by darkness.
Mumbled and muffled voices came from somewhere. There was a familiarity to the sounds but she couldn’t pick out any definite words.
Where was she?
In the swirling darkness, which wasn’t frightening but strangely comforting – like hiding under a blanket – she saw a form, a shape emerging. She knew at once that it was a glyph. A new quiet glyph.
‘Not now,’ she said to herself. ‘Now’s hardly the time.’
The shape was more complex than the other quiet glyphs she had seen, its spiral longer, a sharp spear like a tail, it seemed bigger and bolder and its power throbbed and thrummed. It made Arianwyn feel a little sick.
She glanced around herself; the darkness and the glimmering light from above didn’t seem to be changing at all – she was obviously not going anywhere anytime soon. So she reached towards the glyph, to see if anything would reveal itself about its power or . . . what was it Estar had called it? . . . intention.
But although it was clearly a powerful glyph it was also guarding its intention well. Very well, in fact.
‘I suppose that’s why you are quiet glyphs,’ Arianwyn said to the glyph which was glowing a soft golden colour, like calvaria eggs. Like Yule decorations.
‘Wyn?’
She heard her name called from somewhere and instinctively glanced up at the light. At the same time the glyph began to fade. She looked back at it, staring, trying hard to remember the shape, the colour and the feeling of it.
‘Wyn, wake up.’ The warm, familiar voice grew louder, tugging her from the darkness, pulling her free. ‘She’s waking up!’
It was Salle.
Arianwyn blinked, then opened her eyes properly. She was in a bed in Salle’s room above the Blue Ox. Several eiderdowns and a collection of different blankets were piled around her. Bob sat on the bed, watching her carefully. ‘Hi, Bob.’ The moon hare’s blue eyes flashed with happiness.
The fire blazed. Salle sat beside the bed as Aunt Grace, Dr Cadbury and her father entered the room, expectant looks on their faces. Estar sat in a chair in the corner of the room, his yellow eyes glinting. He raised a hand in greeting.
But where was her grandmother? A sudden cold feeling filled her stomach, as realization dawned. ‘Grandma?’ she asked.
‘We’ve not been able to find her—’ Sergeant Gribble began to explain but Salle interrupted.
‘Yet! We’ve not found her yet.’ Salle fell quiet and glanced over at the window where a fluttering and gauzy light streamed in through the slightly drawn curtains. It was daytime – how long had she been asleep?
‘Gimma,’ Arianwyn said slowly, the memory of the night before slipping slowly through her mind. Gimma on the bridge. She had said the High Elder had her grandmother.
‘Gimma?’ Salle asked.
‘She was there. On the bridge, when I went back. She said the High Elder took Grandmother. The High Elder is the traitor!’ Arianwyn tried to get out of bed, but her father stepped forward and gently held her in place.
‘You’re to stay there, young lady.’
‘But . . .’ She didn’t feel she had the strength to rise from the bed anyway, but she had to try, didn’t she? ‘But – Grandma.’ She saw her grandmother’s yellow scarf folded neatly over the end of the bed and her eyes suddenly swam with tears as she folded herself against her father’s shoulder and sobbed.
‘It’s all right.’ He rubbed her back and held her tight. ‘We’re going to find her.’
‘But she’s not missing,’ Arianwyn said clearly. ‘The High Elder has taken her. We have to go now and get her.’
Everyone started to talk at once, the voices in the room growing louder and louder as everyone tried to make their point heard.
It was Estar who brought calm back to the room as he pulled the curtains wide. ‘Surely no one can go anywhere until the storm has blown over?’ he asked, his voice high and fine.
Arianwyn blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust. The window was laced with icy patterns all around the edges of each pane of glass, but she could see clearly enough that Lull and beyond was covered in the heaviest blanket of snow she had ever seen. More snow tumbled from the sky, swirling and flurrying in the gusts of wind. Nobody moved outside. Everything was white and perfect as though nothing really existed except for the immediate space of the room they were in and what looked like a half-finished sketch of the town square.
‘It’s been snowing all night and today,’ Salle said.
Arianwyn glanced at the clock on the bedside table: it was three in the afternoon. She’d been asleep for hours and all that time the High Elder had Gimma and Grandmother. She had never felt so utterly helpless.
‘We need to contact the C.W.A. And the council—’ Arianwyn started.
‘The phone lines are down,’ Salle said in a
tiny voice.
‘And there’s no electricity either.’ Aunt Grace indicated the old lantern beside the bed which gave off a warm but slightly fluttery light.
‘But we need to get word to somebody!’ Arianwyn said desperately, searching the faces in the room.
‘When we have power again, the constable will be able to send a message via his radio . . . but until then we are cut off from everywhere,’ Aunt Grace explained.
There was a quiet in the room as everyone considered this.
Arianwyn glanced at Estar. He could teleport himself . . . But he seemed to know what she was thinking and was already shaking his head. ‘I have tried, but the storm is not entirely natural, brought first by the frost phoenixes and then exacerbated by whatever it was you summoned?’ His eyes glowed. ‘A quiet glyph perhaps?’
Arianwyn nodded, feeling ashamed at her rashness. She reached for her notebook and handed it to Estar with the page open to show the last glyph she had sketched, the gift from the Yule log spirits.
‘Hmmm . . .’ Estar turned the book this way and that and then said. ‘Well, that makes sense then.’
‘What is it?’ Arianwyn asked. ‘Is it bad?’
‘No,’ he said quickly. ‘But it looks similar to the feyling word mo’lkø. It means abundance or exuberance. I suspect it amplified whatever magic was already at work.’
‘The snow from the frost phoenixes?’
Estar nodded. ‘And it’s now also blocking me from leaving via my magic, or naturally I would have sought help.’
‘It doesn’t make sense to me. Why would the High Elder take Maria?’ Arianwyn’s father asked, taking her hand.
‘She wants me, because of the quiet glyphs. She knows they’re inside me,’ Arianwyn said. ‘She thinks she can use Grandma to get what she wants.’ She blinked away her tears. She felt so angry with herself for putting her grandmother in danger. And now to make matters worse the glyph had caused the snowstorm that had cut off Lull, putting even more people in danger. She was really outdoing herself.