by Kit Peel
Sunlight faded. Wind whipped into Wyn’s face. Lightning and thunder were all around her. The storm had finally reached the valley, snuffing out the final pocket of clear sky in the world.
The last day of summer was coming to an end.
She wasn’t going to abandon the earth, or Tawhir. Wyn had no idea how she was going to transform into a dragon, or even where Tawhir was, but she wasn’t going to stay here and watch summer die around her.
Throwing up her will into the storm, she summoned the high winds and hurtled upwards into the maelstrom.
The sky blackened around her.
Stars brightened and swelled. The last moon of summer was rising, hollow with age.
With her eyes and her senses she searched for Tawhir. She didn’t notice the golden shadow that was growing around her, or see the fiery trail in her wake.
Something shimmered far away.
At the edge of space, a mouth grew out of the darkness, then a face with swept-back horns, disappearing into a long neck glittering with diamond scales. Huge silver eyes blinked open. Lightning flashed up and down the length of a swirling body.
The dragon hovered at the border of the world on great, slow-beating wings.
“TAWHIR!” Wyn yelled. And as soon as she spoke his name, she didn’t just see the dragon, she also saw the boy who had found her at the skating lake, who had knelt beside her on Thwaite’s sleeping platform, looking out at the reservoir. They were one and the same, dragon and boy.
The dragon’s silver eyes left her, looking upwards. His wings gathered and released, driving him into the shimmering border.
“NO! TAWHIR!”
Suddenly lightning was exploding all around him. She saw his back arch and his wings twist. Diamond scales were being ripped from his body. But despite his agony, Tawhir was still trying to force his way across the border.
With all the speed she could summon from the high winds, Wyn raced after him.
Now Tawhir was crossing the border. His head broke through, then one wing, and another. Incandescent light filled the sky. Scales fell earthwards like shards of ice. His body was vanishing. Just as Wyn was reaching out to grab hold of his tail, it whipped away from her grasp. Traveling too fast to stop, Wyn smashed into the shimmering wall.
Pain ripped through her. In a shard of sparks she was hurled back from the border. In her shock, Wyn lost control of the winds and fell hundreds of feet before she gathered them to her again.
From the other side of the border, Tawhir was writhing as spasm after spasm shook his huge body. With each spasm more diamond scales were ripped from him, leaving bloody streaks.
Wyn screamed for him to come back, but if the dragon heard her, he didn’t show it. He twisted away, heading further into the darkness.
Wyn threw herself at the border. Again the shimmering wall flung her back. The glittering dragon was spinning slowly, scales drifting from his body. His eyelids were closing.
For a third time, Wyn flew at the border, but this time she stopped a fraction before it. Just like Tawhir had done, she tried to fight her way through. Her fingers clawed at the shimmering wall. Sparks of golden light burst around her, and blood poured off her hands.
She scarcely noticed that her body was taking its true form.
In her past life, her scales had been rubies and diamonds and emeralds, the colors of her first dawn in the forests. Now, as she stretched out her new wings, they were marked with the colors of the dale. Citrines for the yellows of celandine and trefoil, amethysts for the purples of foxgloves, opals and sapphires for snowdrops, speedwells and bluebells, and on the tips of her wings sparkled the brown diamonds of water avens.
Wyn’s talons ripped at the border, tearing a glittering rent between the earth and space. There was only darkness, the hazy colors of stars and Tawhir.
By the time she reached him, her strength was almost gone. She gripped onto Tawhir. But as she tried to fly back towards the border, her wings barely moved. Everything was silence. The earth, far below her, was a swirl of white.
And suddenly Wyn was back in the cavern, watching the bees flying towards the roof, out to their death in the freezing sunlight. She saw Thwaite’s lean face watching her and heard his voice explaining, questioning. And then, one after another in flashes, she saw the animals in the cavern — digging and burrowing, the birds hurrying from branch to branch. One by one, all the people she loved most filled her mind: Robin walking in his quick way up the hill to his church; John leading his horse through the fog; Kate running up the bank and looking down into the frozen Nidd; Mrs. March putting her arm around Wyn as they sat hidden in the high reaches of Skrikes Wood one summer afternoon; and finally she saw Tawhir spinning and leaping on the skating lake as she raced beside him.
They had spent an eternity together, but it still wasn’t enough time.
Wyn beat her wings again. Slowly, so slowly, she dragged Tawhir back across the border, into life. Locked together, the two dragons fell from the skies, to earth.
They fell through blackness, through the storm. Tawhir’s eyes were still closed. Mountains rose up. They fell through peaks. The two dragons tumbled into the deep snow of the meadow.
25
—
Wyn woke to the excited calls of jackdaws and the fresh smell of morning. When she tried to stretch out, she found that she couldn’t.
She opened her eyes.
Tawhir’s face was inches from hers. They were lying on a bed of wildflowers, tangled in each other’s arms and legs. Wyn brushed her fingers over the whites and silvers of masterwort and edelweiss, the purples and blues of scabious and gentian. And there, rising up around her legs, were the russet heads of water avens.
As she lay there, Wyn felt the ground vibrating underneath her. It only lasted for a moment, but it was enough for Wyn to understand what the earth was telling her. She and Tawhir would not have to guard the balance of nature forever. One day the earth would set them free. She lay back, staring up at the blue skies, happiness washing over her.
The boy stirred. As he tried to get an arm loose, she rolled over and accidentally bumped Tawhir on his nose.
“Ow,” he murmured, opening his eyes.
“Sorry,” said Wyn. “Are you all right?”
The boy smiled at her and held her close.
Hand in hand, they scrambled out of the wildflowers to see the day.
Golden rivers of sunshine washed down the mountainsides, spilling into the valley. Streaks of green were appearing in the meadow, tumbling down to the fir forest, where trees were shaking off their winter coats and stretching their arms to the morning.
It was the same story in the valleys as far as the eye could see. A rich haze hung across all the Alps.
“You came back to me,” said Tawhir.
The boy squeezed her hand.
“This isn’t forever, Mugasa,” he said. “One day she will release us.”
“I know,” she whispered. “By the way, in this life, the name’s Wyn.”
“Perhaps I’ll change mine to Tawhir.”
“You should, it suits you.”
She let go of his hand. He nodded, understanding. The boy rose up into the sky, glancing up towards the mountain cave.
Wyn walked alone in the meadow, gathering her strength.
Finally, she felt she was ready. She rolled up her sleeves.
Taking a deep breath, Wyn knelt on the damp ground, pushing her hands into the soil. She felt the life within it; the tiny vibrations of innumerable sleeping plants, of roots withered by cold, not just in the valley but beyond and beyond and over seas and other seas and more lands and beyond. Gathering all the power and fire inside her, she released it into the ground. All across the alps, the ground shook. The haze covering the sun melted away. In the valley, the remaining snow disappeared and in clumps and singly, wildflowers rose up t
hrough wet grass.
Exhausted, she sat down, breathing hard. Tawhir materialized next to her, his hands slipping into hers.
“We should get going. There’s much to do.”
“Not quite yet. I need to go back to Nidderdale first.”
Tawhir raised an eyebrow.
“To your friends?”
Wyn nodded.
“Don’t be long, or I’ll have to come looking for you again.”
Laughing, Wyn leapt into the air, taking dragon shape in an instant. Wrapping clouds around her, she raced into the sky, every atom of her body singing with the joy of speed and the delight of her true form. Tawhir pursued her and together they flew high and westwards, as a warm autumn day unfurled across the world.
Scarcely an hour later, a mist descended on Harrogate hospital.
It washed over the buildings, the car park and the horse chestnut trees whose branches tapped against some of the lower windows.
Hurrying as fast as she could without breaking into a run, her bare feet squeaking on the linoleum floor, Wyn made her way to the children’s ward. A short while later, Wyn was being led along a corridor by a nurse and then shown into a hospital room. Kate was sitting up in bed, surrounded by Robin, Joan and Lisa.
“Wyn!” she exclaimed. “Where have you been?”
But Kate didn’t get an explanation. Wyn was hugging her, tears running down her cheeks.
Later, when she went to get her friend a magazine from the hospital shop, Robin caught up with her in the corridor. Light streamed in through tall windows. One of them had been opened a little, letting in the sound of birdsong.
“You did it, love, didn’t you? The weather’s turning.”
There was something almost fearful about the way Robin was looking at her. Could he see who she was now?
Hating the strange formality that had suddenly come between them, she wrapped her arms around Robin.
Despite Kate’s protests that she felt fine, the doctors wanted to keep her in hospital at least until the afternoon.
At lunchtime, telling the others that she would see them at home, Wyn walked out of the hospital in the trainers that the nurses had found for her.
Once again, a mist descended over the hospital and the girl with dark red hair stepped into the shadow of trees and vanished from sight.
Wyn thumped down outside Thwaite’s hawthorn house. Just like in the valley in the Alps, trees were shrugging off their white overcoats. In the greatest hurry, plants were all pushing through the softening ground. At a thought from Wyn, betony, harebells and water avens appeared and unfurled in brief minutes. The intoxicating smell of fertility filled the dale. Its very air vibrated with life.
With Pip at his side, Thwaite was sitting beside the reservoir, water lapping against his bare feet. Wyn smiled at the change that had come over the earth spirit. His face was fuller and his cheeks ruddier. Streaks of brown ran though his white hair. He looked ten years younger.
“Not bad, Wyn. Not bad at all,” he said.
Rain fell.
Since she’d known him, she’d seen his many moods, from anger and pain to cautious wonder, but never the pure delight on his features now.
A moment later a beautiful woman appeared, her blue robes shimmering around her.
“Naia, there is somebody I’d like you to meet,” said Thwaite.
The woman turned her beautiful silvery face to Wyn, smiling in a way that sent tingles down Wyn’s spine.
“Thank you,” whispered the water spirit, bowing her head a fraction, as she took Wyn’s hand and kissed it.
Through rain and sunshine, Naia, Thwaite, Pip and Wyn walked alongside the blue reservoir, towards Wath.
Wyn felt the eyes of the earth and water spirits constantly on her, but they never questioned her about what had happened. In truth, she was in no mood for talking, content to listen to the gentle conversation between the two spirits. Thwaite was telling Naia about his plans for replanting the dale, pointing to banks that he would sow with yarrow, a meadow that wanted more red clover and bird’s foot trefoil and hawthorns for the birds and bees. As he spoke, Wyn remembered the earth spirit drawing in his sketch pad beside the fire as snow fell outside his house.
Trees reached out and brushed against Wyn as she passed. Birds darted out to greet her. Thwaite’s blackbirds appeared, jealously driving off all other comers. Bees from Skrikes Wood came, buzzing over grass that was just starting to unbend in the sunshine and take the faintest green blush. When even the butterflies from the wood arrived, Wyn had the sensation of being mobbed and knew she was drawing too much attention to herself.
With light winds and gentle commands, she sent the birds, bees and butterflies away and calmed the trees. Then, as if she were weaving an invisible cloak, Wyn shielded her power.
The song of the trees filled Nidderdale, spreading to the next dale and the ones after that and on, on, across seas and continents, until the world echoed to their voices.
26
—
In the days that followed, snows melted and the earth woke out of a deep sleep and blossomed. Rivers unfroze, and on beaches the sea ice retreated and retreated until nothing but blue swells shifted on the horizon.
Most of the snows had left Nidderdale now. Only a few pockets still clung to the tops. Slowly the heather emerged, dark and wet. In the sunlight and warmth, new buds formed and opened. Through the rest of the dale, the tough little spring trees — hawthorn, blackthorn and the cherries — burst into leaf and flower, quickly followed by the statuesque larches and horse chestnuts. The oaks remained resolutely bare. With just a thought, Wyn could have brought them and every other flower and tree into leaf, but instead she left the last traces of winter to vanish at their own pace.
There was only one place where Wyn allowed herself a little influence.
On the first Sunday that she had returned to Nidderdale, Wyn had slipped away from Highdale at sunrise, and after flying fast and far through the waking gardens of southern England and France, she had come to Mrs. March’s old home, her pockets full of flower heads and little splints of wood. She had scattered them in and around the deserted house in Spring Wood and set them to grow. By the second Sunday, when Wyn went to pick a bouquet for her old foster mother’s headstone, the house had almost vanished from sight, hidden under a white and purple cascade of wisteria, jasmine and roses.
Flowers had sprung up all over the garden; some of her choosing, others of their own accord. Wyn’s heart missed a beat when she noticed a trail of water avens that led from the walled garden, taking a curiously direct path through the garden gate and up to a stile that led into Spring Wood. They reappeared on the other side of the stile, then petered out amongst the trees. Wyn sat down beside the last water aven, running her finger against its russet-colored head, talking softly to the morning.
As much as Wyn longed to be able to tell Kate exactly what had happened on the last night of summer and who she had truly become, Wyn held on to her secret, afraid to expose her friend to any future danger.
Her best friend asked her many times about the green-eyed man who had struggled with the bear on the skating lake. Wyn told Kate that she didn’t know him and that she’d never seen him again, and Kate nodded along to this, but a look in her eyes told Wyn that her friend didn’t quite believe her. She definitely didn’t believe Wyn when she tried to tell Kate that she didn’t know where Tawhir was.
“So where is he? I know he didn’t leave the dale after the accident,” said Kate.
It was the first day of the new school year and once again Wyn and Kate had set off together from Highdale, down the steep hill into Pateley Bridge and then along the river Nidd, which flowed swiftly under the green canopy of alders and the noisy conversation of jackdaws.
They were cutting across the field from the river, heading towards Pateley High. The school was all bo
xy gray and busy with cars and buses pulling up. Wyn’s attention had been distracted by an earthquake that was shaking huge swaths of eastern Russia, breaking up ice-locked plains. Three huge black-bearded earth spirits were causing the quake, which was rapidly getting out of control.
“Who?” asked Wyn, returning to the present.
“Tawhir. John said he saw you with him in Skrikes Wood.”
“He went back to the Alps.”
“Just like that?”
Wyn nodded. Kate’s stare became more quizzical.
“Did anything happen between you two?”
“Nothing much.”
“Oh, really? So I guess there must be another reason that you’re acting differently these days.”
“There’s nothing different about me.”
They had reached the gate at the end of the field that led onto the road. Wyn opened it and they walked through, joining groups of other schoolchildren who had walked from Pateley Bridge. As they streamed across the road, Wyn saw that John was standing by the entrance to the school with Lisa. He waved at them.
“And what about John?” asked Kate.
“What about him?”
“Do you think that you and him…?”
Wyn shook her head.
“Friends,” she said.
“Poor John.”
Lisa glanced over her shoulder, then positioned herself between John and them, blocking his view.
“Poor John,” repeated Kate, laughing.
But even more than Kate, John seemed to sense the change in Wyn. He didn’t ask her out on dates anymore, and he became less awkward around her. The only thing he did press her on was the barefooted farmer that he had glimpsed dimly in the fog in Skrikes Wood. All his energies now went into hunting for Thwaite, and to his obvious delight, he was joined in his quest by his father. Often, as she floated invisible in the clouds above Nidderdale, Wyn would watch John and David Ramsgill going on their long walks, and would listen in on their conversation. Mostly John’s father talked about his time as a gamekeeper, passing on to John all that he had learned from his years on the land before he went into business.