by Pauline Fisk
11
The White House
I awoke to find myself in a white house made of snow. Everything around me shone, and I thought at first that I’d died and gone to heaven. Snow lay across me in a blanket as soft as lamb’s wool, and the air around me glittered with tiny crystals.
I lay perfectly still, frozen by the moment like a new-born baby before the first yell. In the walls around me I could see crystallised flowers and leaves, and icicles hung over my head like Christmas tree baubles.
‘Is this place real?’ I asked myself. ‘Am I dead? And, if not, what’s happened to me?’
I got up to investigate. The floor beneath my feet was carpeted with snow and the air was icy cold. But, strangest of all, leaning out of a window, I could see Plynlimon Mountain spread out around me. Instead of being where I’d thought I was, somewhere between the village and the main road back to Pengwern, I was on the open mountain with views that stretched to the horizon.
It was a brand new day and the sun was shining. Yesterday’s snowstorm had blown itself out, and I could see hills and silver rivers, ridges of dark forest and villages clustered beneath smoking chimneys. Over it all was spread a bright blue enamelled sky and, on the very edge of the sky – at the point where it joined forces with the land – I could even catch a glimpse of the sea.
It was just a strip of gold, shimmering in the distance like a hot road on a summer’s day. But at the sight of it, my heart skipped a beat. I had always loved the sea, and now I could almost smell its salt tang and feel the tidal pull of its horizon, full of promise and adventure. I watched it winking on the edge of my vision, full of life, moving to a rhythm of its own, and I wanted to be there more than anywhere else. Here I was, stuck on Plynlimon by some extraordinary misdirection that I couldn’t quite work out. And there it was – the gateway to a land beyond the winter snows.
I turned away, only one thing on my mind – getting back into the world that I could see from the window. But the house was bigger than I’d expected, and I couldn’t find the way out. Every staircase led to another, and every corridor did the same. It almost felt like a city, with high roads and low ones, and deadend back ways, and evidence of life everywhere but not a soul in sight.
I passed through snow-white bedrooms with slippers frozen to the floor and dressing gowns frozen to the backs of doors, high-ceilinged bathrooms full of burst pipes sporting water sculptures frozen into weird shapes, frozen remains of half-eaten meals on plates, and even toothbrushes in bathrooms, sitting in glasses of solid crystal. But I never saw a single person. And, when I called, ‘Is anybody there?’ I never got any reply.
It was as if the house had been abandoned and the elements had taken over. I ran down corridors that felt like crevasses, getting colder all the time, and narrower as well. This place was impossible to escape. I turned towards its lower regions, but even down there in the basement, I couldn’t find a way out.
I stumbled from one room to another, lit only by occasional windows, looking out on patches of darkening sky. ‘Is anybody there?’ I called again, but I still never got any reply.
In the end, I decided to turn back. I was beginning to get frightened. I’d been here for what like felt like hours, and was no closer to finding the way out. The house wasn’t a city, I decided – it was a maze. I felt my way along the wall, and suddenly I heard the bark of dogs in the distance. It was the first sound of life I’d heard all day, and I turned towards it. I hoped to find a yard somewhere with a gate on it, but when I stumbled through a door, pushing it open, it wasn’t a yard I found on the other side.
It was another basement room – and no sooner had I entered it than the door closed behind me, seemingly of its own accord! It melted into the wall and I was trapped. In a panic, I flung myself at the walls, trying to find the way out. Then I heard the dogs again, and realised that they were in the room with me, hidden somewhere in its shadows. I spun round, certain that I could hear them breathing. Then I heard something else as well – and I couldn’t have said why exactly, but the sense of another person in the room with me was overwhelming.
I wasn’t alone, and suddenly I knew it. I peered through the darkness and, for the first time, noticed a pinprick of light. I moved towards it, and a pair of eyes came into view, lit by a stub of candle cupped in a pair of hands.
A stub of black corph candle.
Just for a moment, everything stopped. I couldn’t hear a sound, not even the dogs. Then a figure stepped out of the shadows, and I knew who he was. I’d never really believed in him, despite all Grace’s stories – but he was real after all.
‘You’re the Red Judge of Plynlimon!’ I said.
The man looked down at me, but didn’t answer, his eyes as black as curses. My mouth went dry. I was caught, like a fox run to ground. And yet it wasn’t fear that gripped me. Instead, it was the strangest sense of opportunity. I looked at the candle. If it burned for me, I reckoned, then it also burned for Cary. The two of us together. That was what I’d felt on my way up the mountain, and now I felt it again. Ever since the accident, I’d longed for a chance to say sorry and put things right. Now here was that chance. It was what I’d set out for, not knowing where I was going. This wasn’t a trap after all – it was my chance to make amends.
Alarm bells rang inside my head, but I wouldn’t heed them. ‘You’ve got to help me,’ I begged the red judge. ‘You’re the one who’s got the power. I’d pay any price to save my sister’s life. I’m to blame for everything. I got her into trouble and I’d do anything to get her out. I’d go through anything. I’d give you anything. I’d even give you my own life. I really mean it. I really do. I know that you can do it, too. Save my sister, and take me instead!’
12
Red Mist
I came to myself to find that I was huddled against an upturned tree root, covered with a blanket of snow. I had no idea that I was on Plynlimon, and certainly no memory of that strange white house. Pawl’s old, black flapping coat was pulled round me, and my body was curled up tight. On every side lay open moorland and, as far as I was concerned, I’d just survived a night sleeping rough in the sort of conditions that should have taken my life.
I sat up slowly, stiff all over. It was a dark day, with not a hint of sunshine anywhere. But at least I’m alive, I thought. I should be dead, and yet I’m not. I’ve got through a whole night out in the open, and somehow I’ve survived!
In the distance, I could hear bells ringing. My sense of achievement was so great that I actually felt as if they were ringing for me. For a moment, I sat listening to them, but then my thoughts returned to Cary, and everything came crashing down.
It was like waking from a bad dream only to find that real life was worse. Yesterday I’d started out for Pengwern, but I’d lost my way and now a whole day had been wasted. I staggered to my feet, and set off again through the snow, not knowing where I was going but praying that I’d somehow manage to find the road that I’d been looking for the day before.
The moorland fell behind me and I slipped into the forest. Tall trees surrounded me, weighed down with snow. The bells stopped ringing, not a creature stirred and silence fell. The forest was in a sombre mood. I hummed to keep up my spirits, but it was an impossible task. I didn’t like this deep, quiet forest. Fingers of mist worked their way towards me, and I didn’t like them either.
In the end, I broke into a run. I felt as if something was stalking me, stealthy and determined, like an unwanted memory. A huge black crow went winging through the forest, crabbing like a grumpy old man whose morning lie-in has been ruined. The echo of its complaint lingered long after it had gone.
I ran and ran, but the mist reached out for me – and it was winning, hands down. I couldn’t get away from it, and the coldness that it brought was like the presence of ghosts. I felt them gathering, like a haunting. Saw shapes in the mist, and heard a little moaning noise that sounded like the whine of dogs.
By this time, I was running full pelt. But th
e more I ran, the more the mist wrapped itself around me. There was nothing I could do to shake it off. Even when I found a snowplough in the forest, digging a path through the snow, there was no hope of rescue. I waved and yelled as its yellow flashing light disappeared between the trees, but its driver never saw me. I caught a glimpse of him laughing to himself, as if he loved the forest and was a happy man, but then the mist came down between us and he was gone.
I was on my own again – and something very nasty was coming after me. By this time, I could see shapes in the mist – mottled coats and pale eyes, and I could hear a panting sound as well, growing steadily closer. I pressed on, heart thundering, legs buckling, thinking that I’d had it, and might as well give up.
I don’t know what I would have done if a small black cat hadn’t popped up in front of me and become my rescuer. There it suddenly was, right in front of me. It saw the strange misty creatures coming after me and shot off through the trees, luring them away. The creatures were fast, but the cat knew the forest better than they did. You could see that from the way it wove a path between the trees, playing ‘catch me if you can’.
Finally it disappeared, and its pursuers disappeared as well, taking the mist with them. Slowly I began to make out trees again, and the sky above them. I saw the snowy forest floor. Saw the sun shining down long avenues of spruce and pine, and saw the valley down below them.
That was when it came to me that I was on Plynlimon Mountain. I stopped in my tracks and stared at the valley. I didn’t understand. Birds sang in the clear sky. A little breeze blew against my face. The sun caught particles of snow and made them sparkle as if the very air itself was made of silver.
I can’t be on Plynlimon, I thought. How could I ever have got here? But then I saw a gate, and Clockvine House was behind it, and I was on Plynlimon, no two ways about it. I mightn’t know how come, but this was where I was.
I hurried towards the house, imagining hot baths, hot food, dry clothes and a journey back to the village in the Katterfeltos’ tour bus. It was then that I saw my rescuer again. He was lying on the drive. One of his ears had been torn off, and his face was full of blood. I cried out in horror but, as soon as I moved towards him, the small black cat got up and limped away as if afraid of me. He hid in the stable-block, down the side of the Katterfeltos’ tour bus. I went after him, pushing my way into the darknesss, calling, ‘Come on, come on, it’s all right. It’s only me.’
And there they all were, waiting for me! My shadowy pursuers. They were everywhere. Between the stalls, behind the bus, in the deepest darkest corners – even hanging in the air! The place was full of them. Great grey dogs, with burning eyes that told me what I should have known already – that they were the Cŵn y Wbir!
‘No!’ I whispered, looking for the cat, as if the two of us were in this together and together we would stand. But the cat walked away. It wouldn’t look at me. It sauntered off, without a limp. And then I knew.
This was a trap.
I’d been set up.
I’d been served up, like dinner on a plate!
All around me, I heard dogs panting, and felt their hunger in the air, as thick as lust. A lust to kill. And suddenly I felt that lust as well!
In the past, I’d always seen black when I lost my temper – a black cloud would come over me and everything would seem to throb. But this time I saw red. It started at the corners of my vision and rolled inwards like a mist. Everything was hazy; everything was indistinct. The only thing I could see clearly was the small black cat as it picked its way across the stable yard, getting out before things started turning nasty. It was a prissy cat. It was fastidious. It had had its bit of fun, but it didn’t want to stick around for the kill.
And suddenly I hated it. I wished it dead. The dogs were closing in on me, but all I could think about was the cat. It had done this to me. Tricked me, and played with me, and lured me here. And, if it was the last thing I ever did, I had to pay it back.
Pay it back?
I HAD TO KILL IT!
It wasn’t hard to do. My weapon was at hand – a mallet hanging from a nail. I snatched it up, swung it over my head, and never afterwards would I be able to claim that I didn’t know what I was doing. For I knew perfectly. I knew it in every muscle, bone and sinew of my body as the mallet flew down the stable like a guided missile, and my voice flew after it, yelling, ‘Go to hell!’
13
The Conjuror’s Revenge
The red mist cleared inside my head, as if the words I’d shouted and the thing I’d done had killed it dead. On the ground in front of me lay Gilda Katterfelto. She, too, was dead. A pool of blood spread out from her head. The cat had gone – I mean, there was no cat – and there were no dogs either. The stable-block was empty except for Dr Katterfelto’s tour bus, and so was the drive beyond it. The dogs had disappeared, leaving not a trace behind.
I leant against an old stall, feeling sick. Daylight was fading beyond the stable door, but I could still see what I’d done. I looked at Gilda’s eyes, which had filled up with blood. Looked at the place where the mallet had smashed into her head and, like a drunk waking from a rampage, couldn’t quite believe that it was anything to do with me.
There are things you never want to think about. Moments that you don’t ever want to revisit but, for all your trying, they still haunt you. Well, this is one of those for me. Sometimes it wakes me still in a panic. I feel the way I did then, sick and giddy, falling over an abyss with nothing underneath me. Falling through darkness. I remember the awfulness of picking up Gilda’s body and dragging it under the tour bus, telling myself that nobody would find it there, not for days.
Not until I’d got away.
It was a senseless thing to do, of course – completely crazy, just like everything else. For there could be no hiding what I’d done. Dr Katterfelto would know something was wrong the moment Gilda failed to return indoors. Even if he missed the blood on the stable floor – even if he failed, at first, to see my weasel footsteps sneaking off through the snow – he’d know that something was terribly wrong.
Later, I felt horror at what I’d done. But, at the time, I was in shock. I remember telling myself that a madman must be lurking about, having done this terrible thing, or a convict on the run or a burglar. I must have known that it was me, but I tore out of that stable block and off down the mountain as if whoever had done this thing might get me next.
Looking back, that entire journey is wiped from my mind. All I can remember is suddenly seeing the rooftops of the village ahead of me, lit by a clear sky. I slipped down the pass road into the village, telling myself that if I could only make it back to Prospect House then I’d be safe.
But I was fooling myself. I would never be safe again. I had changed, and my world had changed with me. Even Prospect House had changed, as if something subtle and catastrophic had happened to it. As it had, of course – and that something was me.
For ever afterwards, Prospect House would be notorious. A shadow would hang over it. It would be the birthplace of that famous local murderer, Zachary Fitztalbot. For that was who I was, and that was what I’d done. It hadn’t been a madman or a convict or a burglar who’d killed Gilda Katterfelto.
It was me.
Finally the full horror hit home. I imagined policemen coming after me with cars and helicopters and guns. Imagined my parents never speaking to me again as they died a thousand deaths of social shame. Imagined the village turning its back on me, and Pawl turning his face away, and even Grace turning in her grave, ashamed to share the same blood.
But worse than all of that – worse by far – I imagined Gilda Katterfelto being dead. I’d taken everything from her, from the way she tucked her hair into her green silk cap to the sparkle in her emerald eyes. She’d never again help her father with his magic shows, or bow to him as if he was the undisputed master. I’d taken that from him, as well. Taken it from both of them, along with everything Gilda might have done, or felt or been. I’d taken h
er whole life – and there was nothing I could do to bring it back.
I’ll have to give myself up, I thought, standing outside Prospect House, looking up at its dark windows. I’ll have to make a confession to the police. There’s no way I can hide a thing like this. Anyone who sees me will know what I’ve done. They’ll see it in my eyes. See it written all over me. I can’t escape from it.
I entered the house, determined to do the deed straightaway, before I changed my mind. Before I could get halfway down the hall, however, I saw a dark figure sitting on the stairs. I didn’t need to switch on the lights to know that it was Dr Katterfelto – and that he was waiting for me.
He stared at me, and I stared back, wondering how on earth he’d done that – found his daughter’s body underneath the bus, and put two and two together and come up with me, and then got down the mountain to the village ahead of me.
But that was what he’d done, and now his wait was over. He rose to his feet, and I started to stutter stupid words that wouldn’t come out right, and made no difference anyway. For Dr Katterfelto hadn’t come to hear me stumble over the word ‘sorry’, no matter how many times I tried to get it out. Nor had he come for the assurance that I was just about to hand myself in. He hadn’t come for anything that I might do in my attempts to make amends.
He’d come to get me!
To take the law into his own hands.
To punish me.
One look at his face, and I knew that I was done for. I turned tail and fled the house, knowing that there’d be no point in pleading for my life. I slammed the front door behind me, and the gate as well, gaining precious seconds, then headed down the lane in the direction of the bridge.
But Dr Katterfelto was right behind me. I slid down the side of the bridge and headed off across the meadow, but couldn’t shake him off. I tried to stay ahead, but didn’t stand a chance. I was too weary, and he was too fast. Finally he made a grab for me and held on tight. I tried to break away, and suddenly it was like a strange Christmas pantomime, full of mime but without the jokes. Not a word was said between us. Dr Katterfelto got me by the shoulders and dragged me to the water’s edge. I fought him desperately, but he was extraordinarily strong and I couldn’t escape.