She’d shown no sign of fear – in fact nothing but naked curiosity since they’d come into the cave. He looked at her now, saw her wide-eyed gaze flicking between their two faces.
“Who are you?” she said. Josh hadn’t even had the wit to ask.
“I am the Winter King.”
“Where are you from? Why are you here?”
He said nothing for a few moments. Instead he got stiffly to his feet and walked to the cave mouth to look out. He was a head taller than Josh, and strongly built, his greying hair hanging to his shoulders. In the brighter light at the entrance they could see how intricate were the patterns dyed and embroidered into his clothing.
He looked at the grey sea out of his grey eyes, and Josh thought he had never seen a sadder face. Grief seemed frozen into it.
“Here. Careful – it’s hot.” To Josh’s surprise Callie handed the man a cup of coffee. He sniffed it before he drank, then sipped, eyes closed, concentrating on it as though it was something precious, until he’d finished every drop. There was a trace of colour in his pale face now.
“Thank you. What was that?”
“Coffee.” Callie touched his hand as he held the cup out to her. It was icy cold. “Would you like some more?”
He shook his head. “That is enough for now. I feel warmer than I have in …” He left the sentence unfinished, turned back into the cave and sat down again.
“I do not know your names.”
They told him and he nodded, committing them to memory.
“Where are you from?” Callie asked again.
“I have come from the Frozen Lands, where there are no trees, not a blade of grass, nothing but fields of snow and rivers of white ice and seas of blue ice, and white gulls crying.”
“Do you mean you’re from the Arctic somewhere?” Josh asked, though it sounded stupid to him even before the words had properly left his lips.
“No,” said the King. “It is no place that you know of.”
“Are you hungry?” asked Callie.
“Yes.”
She held out a leftover cheese roll to him. He nodded thanks and began to eat.
“Let’s go. He’s mad,” Josh muttered to Callie.
“Don’t you want to hear what he has to say about calling you? He seems harmless anyway.”
“No, I don’t want to – and you don’t know he’s harmless. You don’t know anything about him,” he hissed.
“That’s why I want to listen to him. You go if you want, I’m staying. I was taught not to run away from things.”
The final comment made Josh so furious that he was lost for words for a few seconds. When speech returned, it was to the King he spoke.
“Why did you call me?”
“I need help. I am grown too weak. I have waited too long.”
“What sort of help? Too long for what?”
“How much can you believe?”
Josh let himself slide down the rock wall opposite the man who called himself the Winter King until they both sat, facing each other. He felt, rather than saw Callie settle at his side.
“I don’t know. Tell us your story and we’ll see.”
He nodded and closed his eyes. There was silence for such a long time that Josh and Callie began to think he must have fallen asleep again, but eventually he began to speak.
“I have not seen her for so long. Sometimes I fear that I dreamed her face; but it is the memory of that face that made me keep trying to put right the wrong that has been done.
“I speak of the Queen of Summer, for the Winter King is chosen by her as her champion and her Consort, to hold the Black Winter through her power within the Frozen Lands. Together we subdued the forces of Winter, held back the ice and snow when they threatened the fragile folk of this world. She held the power of the sun in her two hands and conjured summer to force back the cold. In the Kingdom of Summer no snow fell or cold wind blew, and such was our strength together that for half the year I could leave the cold white lands and live with her.”
He shifted slightly. “And then she began to sicken and her power began to wane and I had to leave her side for longer and longer to subdue the Winterbringers, and each time I returned to her she was a little weaker, her Kingdom grown a little colder. At first she tried to pretend that nothing was wrong, but her people knew; I knew. Some of her power, some of herself, had been stolen away, out of her Kingdom, and without it she was doomed to sicken and die.”
He straightened his shoulders as though to face a confrontation, and went on, “After a time I realized that my presence weakened her faster. At first it seemed that it would be enough if we no longer touched, and so we bore that, but after a time I could see that even to be near her drove the cold a little deeper into her bones, into her heart. I could not bear the thought that I was hastening her death, and so one morning I left her and went back to the Frozen Lands for good. I have not seen her face since.”
Silence spread over the cave floor. Josh had no idea what he was supposed to make of the fantastic story he had just heard, but he found himself unable to dismiss it as easily as good sense suggested he should. It tugged at something within him.
“How long is it since you saw her?” Callie asked quietly.
He thought. “Time is different for you and me, but as far as I can reckon it, it is a hundred and fifty years.”
It seemed no madder than anything else they’d heard since they entered the cave.
“Why have you come here?” asked Josh. “And why now?”
“Because she is dying, and I cannot bear to be apart from her any longer, and it would not help her now if I stayed in the Frozen Lands. I weaken day by day as her power withers. The only thing that could save her now is if what was stolen from her was returned, and what hope is there for that? Her Kingdom is almost sealed now, but this is the place where the Frozen Lands and the Kingdom of Summer come close enough to almost touch and I believe there will still be a way through for me. I will go to her when I sense that it is time and be with her when she dies, and then the Winterbringers will have their way: the Black Winter will come and the ice will stretch away forever.”
“What do you mean? Just in your … Frozen Lands? Or do you mean here?” asked Josh, suddenly worried that he understood.
“Everywhere. Everywhere. It has already begun.”
“Is that why it’s been getting colder?”
“Yes. Though here it is less bad than in other places.”
“I know. Everyone in the village notices, but no one knows why,” said Callie.
“They say it’s Global Warming that’s made it colder. Something about shifting the Gulf Stream. But it’s supposed to get hotter in other places. The ice at the poles is meant to melt,” said Josh.
The Winter King shook his head slowly. “You people tell stories about everything to try and make sense of what happens. That story is wrong. The ice will spread until it covers everything, as it has done in the past as the power of each Winter King waxed and waned.”
“There’s more than one of you?” Callie frowned, confused.
He shook his head. “No. The Queen is ageless, but not her people. Her Consorts age and their powers weaken until the Winterbringers overwhelm them. That is when the ice spreads into your world until she chooses a new Winter King. He must prove himself by forcing the Winterbringers back to the Frozen Lands. So the powers of Winter and Summer waxed and waned, but there was always balance.”
“The ice spreading … you’re talking about the Ice Ages, aren’t you?” Callie asked.
He nodded. “But without the Queen there will be no end to this one. Nothing but rivers of white ice and seas of blue ice …”
Josh asked the question that had been nagging at him. “If there is nothing that can help, why did you call me?”
“Because it is you who saw me in the ice. You anchor me to this place now. Without you I cannot stay here. As I grow weaker I will be drawn back to the Frozen Lands and overwhelmed. If you are clos
e, my strength will last longer. I called you so you would know.
“There is another reason too: to be a witness. So that there is someone who knows the truth and will tell it and set it against all the false stories. It will take time for the ice to win. Your people will fight it and try to explain it with stories, but this is the truth of it.”
“Prove it.” Callie’s voice cut in, cool and assured. “Prove you’re what you claim and not some madman in fancy dress.”
The Winter King held her gaze and Josh found himself holding back words. How can you look at him and doubt him? Look at his face. Look into his eyes. However unbelievable his story seems, look and you must see it’s true. Perhaps that’s another reason why he called me, he thought.
“As you wish,” said the King. “I will let in a little of what I hold at bay.” He closed his eyes, and snow began to fall in the cave, a few flakes at first, like swansdown, then coming faster and faster, though Josh could see that there was no snow beyond the cave mouth.
As she turned towards the rear of the cave watching the flakes fall, Callie saw something shiver and form in the air at the dark entrance to the ice passage. It was like looking down the wrong end of a telescope: she was looking at a miniature but extraordinarily clear view of a landscape such as she had never imagined.
Blue and green and white and glittering, ice stretched past the limits of her sight, smooth or jagged or carved into wild shapes by a ceaseless, screaming wind. There was not a tree, nor blade of grass, nor inch of earth; nothing and no one but white gulls crying in the fierce air.
It hurt her eyes to look at it, but she found she couldn’t turn away.
“Josh?” she whispered.
“I see it,” he said quietly.
The snow whirled around them now, a miniature blizzard, each flake a tiny, stinging slap of cold. It clogged Josh’s lashes and ran down his neck. It was bitterly cold.
“Enough! Stop!” yelled Callie’s voice from somewhere inside the storm of white. The flakes still in the air settled and were still and Callie and the King faced each other.
“All right,” she said shivering, “I believe you.”
Snow was sifted into every crevice of the cave, and lay thick on the ground. It stopped at the entrance as though cut by a knife. Outside, a watery sun still shone.
“There must be something we can do – some way we can help you at least.”
He hesitated. “It would help me if you came back again. You are my anchor to this place. Your presence will strengthen my hold here.”
“You could come back to the village with us. You could stay in my family’s house; there’s no one there just …”
“No. Thank you. I must stay here as long as possible. From here I have most power over the Winterbringers. You must come back here.”
Come back. Come back.
“Of course. At least, I will,” Josh said, shivering.
“We both will,” Callie said firmly.
“But now you must go. Close your doors and windows after dark, for the ice ranges further each night.”
They didn’t understand exactly what he meant, but chilled and confused as they were, they were easily persuaded to go.
Josh paused at the boundary between the snow and the outside world. “We’ll be back.”
“I know.”
***
In the West Port Café, Rose and her friends sat at their usual table, their coffee and scones untouched in front of them. No one had spoken for nearly five minutes; a thing unheard of. In the middle of the table sat a honey jar, half full of sand and weed and fragments of shell. They all stared at it glumly.
“What does George say about all this?” asked Isobel.
Rose sighed. “You know George: he doesn’t really say anything. He guesses some of it of course, but not how bad things are, or how much worse they could get.”
“Did you see the …” Bessie gestured, looking for a word that would do.
“No,” said Rose as Barbara lifted the jar and unscrewed the lid to sniff the contents. “The dog woke. He knew there was something outside, though not what, or I doubt he’d have been so keen to get out beside it.”
“We must try again to conjure a proper summer,” said Barbara, putting the lid back on.
“Sshh!” hissed Isobel. “People will think we’re mad old women if they hear you saying things like that.”
“They’ll have more to worry about than other people’s conversations soon if we don’t manage to do something,” retorted Barbara darkly.
“We must do it tonight,” cut in Rose. “We can’t wait any longer.”
“The tower?” asked Bessie.
Rose nodded. “At moonrise. You all know what to bring?”
They nodded and fell silent again.
“Does anyone want my scone?” asked Isobel. “I’m not really hungry any more.”
***
When my mother shook me awake the next morning I thought for a few seconds that I’d dreamed the whole thing; then I saw the Kingfisher feather I’d tucked in among the daisies in the little jug on the windowsill, and every detail came back at me clear and sharp.
I ate my porridge without even sitting down, my mother’s acid comments about my laziness buzzing about my ears like stray bees, then went to my chores absent minded, waiting for the evening, when we’d meet again and find what we had really brought back with us.
It was a strange day. The air seemed heavy and still and quiet to me, as though some sort of blanket lay muffling the whole of the village. It was as though a thunderstorm were brewing, but there wasn’t even a wisp of cloud to be seen for most of the day.
That evening I made some excuse to leave the house and walked out over the fields to the place where we’d set the boat afloat the night before. Beatrix and Janet were already there, flushed and bright-eyed with excitement, the way I felt myself.
We looked about for a minute to be sure no one was watching us, then Beatrix took the phial out of her apron. We passed it between us, watching the evening sunlight glance off the smooth, shining faces. It looked quite empty.
I handed it back to Beatrix. She glanced at Janet, then at me.
“Now?”
We nodded.
Biting her lip in concentration, she twisted the glass stopper. It moved smoothly in her fingers. She paused for a heartbeat, then pulled it gently free.
A warm breeze sprung from the bottle, fragrant with honey and roses and summer rain. It swirled around us, moving the grass and shaking the leaves on the trees. Round and round us it traced a widening spiral until the crops and grasses and twigs were moving everywhere. Then it dropped away to nothing, leaving a fugitive scent of honey.
Beatrix put the stopper carefully back in the bottle, her hands shaking a little as she did so.
“Well,” she said, “that’s that.”
“Wait,” said Janet, pointing to a little group of trees across the corner of the field. “There’s someone there.”
Sure enough, a figure came darting out, running towards the village. I peered into the thickening light, trying to make out who it was, and was relieved when I did.
“Ach, it’s only that fool of an apprentice of my father’s, Patrick Morton.”
Janet grinned and tutted, shaking her head in feigned disapproval. “Has he been following you again, Agnes? You know he wants to court you, don’t you?”
I spat on the ground. “I wouldn’t have the idiot if he came in a gold box.”
Beatrix cut in. “Be serious you two! Do you think he saw anything?”
“What was there to see?” said Janet dismissively. “Three women talking and a wee bottle with nothing in it.”
Beatrix looked worried. “All the same. Be nice to him for a bit Agnes, just in case. You never know what’ll set folk’s tongues wagging. We must be careful.” She handed me the phial. “You keep this. If he asks, show it to him, so he can see it’s nothing strange. Tell him we found it by the stream.”
“
All right.” I tucked it in my pocket.
“Maybe we should stay away from each other for a bit … just in case,” Beatrix went on, still looking worried.
“Maybe you’re right,” said Janet, standing and stretching. “At any rate, we should be getting back. It’ll soon be dark.”
It was a good harvest – more than good: the best anyone could remember. Since midsummer the weather had been warm and the sun had shone and enough rain had fallen when it was needed; and when the harvest came in, everyone was happy, for it meant that this winter at least, no one would go hungry. As Beatrix had suggested, we stayed away from each other, her and Janet and me, but when we met by chance we couldn’t help but catch each other’s eyes and smile, as folk talked of the full barns and storehouses.
I let Patrick Morton put his arm around my waist and follow me around and talk to me, but he was still an idiot, so I slapped his face when he tried to kiss me. It didn’t put him off though, more’s the pity.
Maybe that’s why … maybe it was my fault. Or maybe it was his hand on my waist that has saved me this far.
***
6. Send the Summer in
After they had gone, and the snow on the cave floor had melted, he stood at the entrance to the cave and watched the sky. It was a calm evening, the waves running gently up the shingle in front of him. Already, he could see the crystals of frost beginning to form on the clumps of grass and scrubby bushes just outside. When the dark came, he retreated inside and sat down against the back wall. He closed his eyes and gathered his waning strength to oppose the forces of Winter.
***
Josh was astonished to realize it was still only mid afternoon when they got back to the Ferguson house. He felt exhausted; not just from the unaccustomed long distance cycling, but from their strange encounter in the cave and all the anxiety that had been building up inside him for the last couple of days. He felt he was on the edge of something that might change his life forever, sweep away everything he thought of as fixed and certain.
Winterbringers Page 5