Snow Summer

by Kit Peel

  A fierce anger rose up in Wyn. She wasn’t going to let him die. Slamming the book shut, she stood in front of the sacks and emptied her mind of everything but the wildflowers.

  She pictured them in life, growing in the dale in some long-ago summer; their flowers unfurling under the sky and their thin roots grasping the earth. Wyn found that she was flying over them, so low that petals and stalks brushed against her. Everything was warmth, soft breezes, the scent of one flower to the next; yarrow and speedwell on a sunny bank, pimpernels in the shade of trees, clumps of foxgloves. When she reached out to them, she saw with a start that it was no longer with a human hand.

  Suddenly Wyn was back in the hawthorn house, standing in front of the sacks. Even though she was sure she hadn’t moved, she was holding a bunch of wildflowers. She scrunched them into a ball and rubbed them between her palms. Just a few seconds later, she opened her hands to find a sparkling green ointment in them.

  She pressed her hands over Thwaite’s wound until the paste stopped shimmering between her fingers. Thwaite’s breathing became more regular. When she took away her hands, she saw that the gash was no longer bleeding and was starting to close up.

  She looked for a blanket in the dresser. When she came back with it, rabbits and mice had pressed themselves into Thwaite’s lap, the snakes were curled around his arms and the three blackbirds were perched on his good shoulder. Pip had settled herself at his feet, pressing her fur into his frost-mottled toes. Wyn laid the blanket over Thwaite’s lower body, reminded of how she had once done this for Mrs March.

  Wyn’s heart quickened. Looking out of the cobweb window, she saw Tawhir streaking down from the stars. He crashed through the hawthorn canopy, landing beside Thwaite and examining the earth spirit’s wound.

  “What happened?” he asked. Wyn told him. The boy went to the dresser and lit a lamp. He examined Thwaite’s wound, then turned to her.

  “You did this all on your own? I’m impressed.”

  “Where the hell were you when we needed you?”

  “There was a powerful wind spirit circling not far from here. She came after me, wanting to know what I was doing here. Who knows what side she was on, but I wasn’t going to risk it. I was halfway across Europe before I managed to shake her off.”

  Wyn scowled at him. Only a few hours ago he’d dropped her from the edge of space. She still heard the wind howling, saw Tawhir pull away as she tried to grab onto him. And now here he was, as if nothing had happened, sitting on the thyme floor with a lit lamp beside him, emptying his pockets. Instead of his usual junk food, there was a soft loaf, a round cheese wrapped in paper and a bag of white peaches that filled the room with their fragrance. They had always been Wyn’s favorite fruit, although it had been years since she’d last had one. When he held out a peach to her, she reached for it, then, remembering her anger, quickly retracted her hand.

  “Won’t you join me?” said Tawhir.

  “I’m fine where I am,” replied Wyn. Was there a flash of genuine hurt on the boy’s face? He bent forward to tear off a piece of bread and then a lump of the cheese, his eyes disappearing underneath a thick veil of hair.

  “You know, you’re just the same in this life as you were in the last.”

  Wyn’s pulse began hammering wildly. She gripped hold of the back of Thwaite’s chair, suddenly terrified to ask the question that had been burning in her mind these past days.

  In as steady a voice as she could manage, she said, “How did we know each other?”

  Did he react? Did the bread pause for a split second on the way to his mouth? Wyn was watching Tawhir’s every tiny movement, but to her intense annoyance, the hair still remained across his face, hiding whatever expression he might be showing. It was an age before he finished his mouthful.

  “We were friends,” he replied. And again, there was the same lack of emotion in his voice. He tore off another hunk of bread and some cheese. “Don’t you remember?”

  Friends? Wyn couldn’t imagine being friends with Tawhir. Kate was the only friend Wyn had ever had, unless she counted John, and that was awkward most of the time. When she didn’t reply, Tawhir turned his head a fraction towards her.

  “Perhaps you will remember one day,” he said.

  Thwaite stirred in his chair, his breathing becoming labored. As Wyn bent over the earth spirit, a soft wind blew around the hawthorn house, rocking the leaves of the trees. Tawhir was standing beside her.

  “You’ve got to get it just right,” he told her. “Too much and they’ll get annoyed. Too little and they won’t …”

  He paused, concentrating.

  “Won’t what?”

  “Find their voices.”

  A faint noise began to rise around them. Amongst the sound of wind and rustling leaves, impossibly far off and as delicate as moths’ wings, Wyn heard something quite distinct and magical. The sound sent shivers down her spine.

  “Are they…?”

  “Yes, trees can sing, when they are in a mood to. I’ve heard a whole forest break into song when a new earth spirit has been born within it. When you return to us, the joy of the trees will echo across the whole world.”

  Thwaite took a deep, contented breath and returned to sleep. Tawhir picked up the earth spirit’s sketch pad and began slowly leafing through it.

  “Have you never wondered why you were reborn here, in this unremarkable territory? Of all the territories in the world the earth could have chosen, why this one? And why him? A more powerful spirit might have found you years earlier, and would certainly be able to train you better. But no, she brought you back from death and placed you here, in human form, with no memory of who you once were. It’s almost as if …”

  The boy looked up from the book, the light fading from his eyes. Wind died in the leaves and the hawthorns ceased their song. Thwaite’s house fell into shadows and the stillness of night.

  “As if what?”

  “She was giving you a choice.”

  As Tawhir spoke the words, an old anger started to beat through Wyn.

  “I was reborn here, with no memory. How the hell is that giving me a choice?” she demanded.

  “She could have brought you back in your true form, with all your power intact. But instead she hid you from us, and from yourself. She has placed the fate of the world in your hands. What will your choice be, Mugasa? Will you return to us and end this long winter?”

  He didn’t look at her as he spoke, but kept slowly turning the pages of the sketch pad. She remembered what Thwaite had said just before the wolves attacked.

  “Thwaite said that it wasn’t all up to me.”

  Tawhir’s hand froze on the pages of the pad.

  “What did the earther tell you?”

  “He said there was another way. Something to do with Sh’en Shiekar.”

  “He’s wrong.”

  Wyn knew the boy was lying.

  “Tell me.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You will come back.”

  “Just tell me what it is!”

  “If you don’t return to power before summer ends tomorrow night, only Sh’en Shiekar can restore the balance of nature. He will follow the path that you took and give up his power.”

  “Would that kill him?”

  “What choice does he have? It’s not just his life, but the life of every human on the planet.”

  Thrusting the pad into her hands, Tawhir strode out of Thwaite’s house, walking quickly across the frozen reservoir. She glanced down at the pad. It was open on a page showing an image of Skrikes Wood in a long-ago summer. There, hidden amongst bracken and foxgloves and the trunks of trees, she saw the outline of herself and Mrs. March.

  Wyn hurried outside after the boy, snow driving into her face. She called out to Tawhir, but he just kept walking. Not far ahead, where the ice had been smashed up and hollowed, Wy
n saw Tawhir stop and look down.

  When she caught up with him, she gasped.

  Suspended in the heart of the reservoir was the blue-eyed woman the trees had shown her. She lay perfectly still, her long silver hair motionless around a simple blue dress. Her eyes and her lips were fully open, as if she’d been trying to say something, before being stopped mid-breath.

  Fighting back her tears, Wyn knelt down, laying a hand on the ice.

  “Naia,” she whispered. The frozen water spirit stared back at her.

  “She could have left and gone south like so many of her kind, to where the rivers still flow,” said Tawhir. “Instead she chose to stay close to him. And he had to watch this happen to her, then wait and hope for the ice to melt so they can be reunited.”

  Tawhir knelt down beside Wyn, placing his hand on the ice beside hers.

  “All that time knowing that the one he loves more than anything in the world is so close to him, and so far away. And there’s nothing he can do about it.”

  Moonlight broke through around them. Tawhir stood up quickly, turning away from her.

  “I should go and keep watch,” he said.

  And suddenly Wyn was desperate for him to stay. She reached out for his hand, but in a swirl of wind Tawhir was gone and once again she was left grasping air.

  Wyn was too unsettled to sleep that night.

  Over and over, she saw the snowball earth, Naia frozen under the reservoir, and Kate lying in hospital, as pale as Mrs. March had once been. Because of her? Memories of a past life kept flashing through her mind. She was soaring over brightly lit cities, over forests being cut and cleared, over great sweeps of bone-white coral lying dead under warm seas. She felt again the fury of her other life. Fury at what the world she was passing over had once been, and what it had become.

  Then she was standing at the entrance to a cave, high above the mountain pass, in a maelstrom of storm and lightning. Huge silver eyes hovered in front of her and she was raging against him, against Sh’en Shiekar. She couldn’t hear the words passing between them, but she could remember her despair and anger. She had been the storm, and he had been implacable, unyielding. Try as she might, Wyn couldn’t remember why.

  In a dale to the north, exhausted from his long run through the snow, the wolf pack leader padded into a barn that lay abandoned on the high moors. Denali waited there, Foehn at his side. Denali bent to greet the wolf, stroking the places where the brambles had bit into his skin. Afterwards, he told Foehn what the wolf had seen, about Wyn fighting off the pack once Thwaite had fallen.

  “The girl moved the trees with her mind alone? Then it must be Mugasa reborn,” said Foehn. “She is stronger than we thought.”

  “But she has not come into her true power yet,” said Denali. “Is there still no sign of Sh’en Shiekar?”

  “He still remains hidden.”

  “You will find Oya and Sirmik and tell them where the girl is hiding. Together, the three of us will face her.”

  “The four of us, you mean.”

  “You must hold back. If we fail, it will be your task to lead the other spirits loyal to our cause.”

  “I won’t let you go without me. What if she becomes Mugasa again, or Sh’en Shiekar comes to her defense?”

  Denali took her in his arms.

  “In five thousand years, when have I ever lost a fight?”

  “No spirit has ever come close to defeating a dragon.”

  “You’re talking about ordinary spirits, and I am not an ordinary spirit. There will be three of us, striking from all sides. All it will take is for one of us to get through their defenses. But it may not come to this. The girl may not become Mugasa and Sh’en Shiekar may be on the other side of the world, for all we know.

  “We’re close, Foehn, so close to ending their foolish rule. We will rid the earth of the human canker that afflicts her and see new spirits born in every territory once more. Imagine it — the second age of the spirits. I’ve dreamt of this time for too long to let it slip from our grasp.”

  “If Mugasa does not return before tomorrow night, do you still believe Sh’en Shiekar will sacrifice himself?”

  “He has no choice. He will cross the boundary, just as she did.”

  20

  —

  Clouds, blood-red in the setting sun. The snow-capped mountains. Glittering teeth. Huge talons reached for her. He was trying to drag her back to earth, but she wrested herself free, flying upwards towards the shimmering wall of light.

  Wyn woke with a start on the thyme floor of Thwaite’s house, her heart racing from her dream.

  The earth spirit was looking down at her. He looked paler and leaner, but he was himself again and Wyn was so relieved that she got to her feet and hugged him. Thwaite didn’t exactly hug her back, but instead squeezed her shoulder, just as Robin always did, and gave her a brief, warm smile.

  And then her thoughts turned to Tawhir.

  “He’s trying to slow down our visitors,” said Thwaite, reading her mind.

  He told Wyn the news that the blackbirds had delivered. At dawn, Denali had crossed into the northern dales on a direct path to Nidderdale. The fire and ice spirits were also converging on the dale. Wyn felt sick, but did her utmost to keep her voice steady.

  “How long?”

  “Mid-morning, perhaps dinnertime if the boy has some talent.”

  The earth spirit took down an axe from the hawthorn wall that was almost as tall as he was and gripped it in his huge hands. Wyn saw that even in the few days she had known him, the earth spirit had aged and grown weaker. His eyes had lost their intense green. There was a stiffness about the way he moved, as if the cold had at last found its way into his bones. Wyn knew that he didn’t stand a chance against the rebel spirits, but he would take them on anyway. He would defend her and his territory with whatever strength was left in him.

  “The last day of summer,” he said. “Are you going to fight for us, child?”

  “I’ll try.”

  When the earth spirit smiled, Wyn was reminded of Mrs. March, close to the end.

  “We’ll both try, and see what comes of it,” he said.

  Pip was barking from outside the hawthorn house. As the collie ran inside, her coat flecked in snow, Thwaite’s blackbirds flew in over her head. They landed on the earth spirit’s shoulders, chattering and winking. Wyn understood them, just as Thwaite did.

  All around the reservoir, trees bent in the coming storm. Snow drove across the ice. The great storm that had encompassed the world was finally coming to the dale. A man and a woman were coming towards Thwaite’s house, both barefoot. The woman was as tall and lean as the beech staff she swung in front of her. In contrast the man was almost as wide as he was short, his face as deeply creased as limestone. While the woman struggled a little with the deep snow, the man stamped through it as if it didn’t exist.

  “Hackfall and Old Mal,” Thwaite told Wyn. “Eight thousand years old and he’s convinced he’s still green-limbed. Past his prime he may be, but he’s still by far the strongest earth spirit in the Dales.”

  “I thought you couldn’t trust them,” said Wyn.

  “I’ve no choice, not against the odds we face,” muttered the earth spirit, tightening his grip on the shaft of his axe. “Stay by me.”

  Old Mal marched up and stood with his hands in the pockets of his stained coat, his brilliant green eyes flicking between his fellow earth spirit and Wyn.

  “Now then, Thwaite,” he said.

  “Mal.”

  Hackfall followed, stepping up to Thwaite to kiss his cheek. Wyn saw her glance towards the center of the reservoir.

  “Naia?” she asked gently. Thwaite shook his head.

  “Your birds said you needed us in a hurry,” said Old Mal. “Said the rebel spirits were after you. Now I see why. What’s your name, child?”<
br />
  “Wyn,” she replied, refusing to let herself be intimidated by the force of his stare.

  “No, your real name. It’s Mugasa, I take it.”

  “Thwaite, is this true? She’s the reborn fire dragon?” said Hackfall.

  “Not yet, she isn’t, or why else would he be greeting us with knuckles white on his axe?” said Mal. “Worried we might have joined those damned fool rebels, are you, Thwaite? I may be old, but I’ve not lost my wits entirely. What about you, Hackfall?”

  The female earth spirit smiled warmly at Wyn.

  “Welcome back, Mugasa,” she said. “All these years I have prayed for your return.”

  While Thwaite told the two earth spirits about how he’d become aware of Wyn, her thoughts returned to the dream she’d woken from in the morning. She saw Sh’en Shiekar clearly now and heard the roar of his voice, calling for her to turn back. But most of all she felt the rage forcing her on. A blind rage that knew nothing but itself. Why? What had she been so angry about?

  Hackfall was saying his name.

  “What of Sh’en Shiekar. Is there no sign of him?”

  “None,” said Thwaite.

  “It’s strange that the wind spirit found her, and her soulmate has not been able to.”

  Old Mal gave a grunt of agreement.

  “There’s much here that doesn’t make sense. But we should be on with doing, not going about in circles. The fire and ice spirits we should be able to handle. If it truly is Denali with them, that’s another matter. It’ll take all of us and the wind spirit to hold him off. Though I doubt we can do more than that. Only a dragon could bring him down.”

  The brilliant green eyes returned to Wyn.

  “It’ll be up to you, Mugasa, or if not you then Sh’en Shiekar.”