Here Be Witches

by Sarah Mussi

  Frankly, I didn’t know what to say. Ellie, I don’t really know what’s going on. Please ring and explain. Granny Jones keeps telling me IT WILL ALL BE OK. So I’m trying to believe that. But when you don’t pick up, I still worry. Xxx love u lots Mum. With all this snow I’m doubly worried.

  Caernarfon County Court

  This is to remind you of your court appearance on 20 March at Caernarfon County Court at 13.30.

  Oh God! Poor Mum. I’m going to have to do something. Ring her? It’ll be too hard to explain. Text then? Yes. Better text her right now.

  Recent updates from Ellie:

  Ellie to Mum

  Mum, I’m OK. It’s a long story. But I can’t explain it right now. Check for a letter behind the clock on the mantelpiece – it’ll put you in the picture a bit – then ask Gran – she knows everything. And just continue to trust me; however bizarre it all sounds. I love you so much XXX Ellie.

  Ellie to Meryl

  I’m fine. With Rhi and George – something came up. Fill you in later XXX E

  Ellie to Sheila

  Not over in Bangor, you nutter, but away with R & G with patchy coverage.

  I wish I could tell Mum more. It really isn’t fair on her. I mean not knowing anything. But she needs to read the letter I left her first, then talk to Gran about it, before I tell her the rest …

  Plus if we don’t make it, if the spell can’t be broken, well then she’ll understand: the winter won’t end; ancient curses and monsters from the deep won’t stay hidden for long.

  Then everyone will believe everything.

  I try not to think about that.

  We can’t afford to fail.

  We must hurry and get to Cadair.

  —

  The ponies are refreshed. They get a good pace going. The snow has stopped, settled into a thick crisp topping over everything. There’s no wild wind, thankfully. People are on the move. The main road to Dolgellau has been sorted. They’ve got the snowploughs out and one lane of the A470 has been cleared down to the tarmac. As we trot along, a few cars pass. I imagine they’re thinking: Ha ha – look at those stupid tourists, pony trekking in the snow! Lol.

  Then George starts doing this pathetic thing. It starts like this: a car slows down, and as it passes, a window rolls down, some bright spark shouts out, ‘On yer bike!’

  So George shouts back: ‘Knockers!’

  I mean …

  And from then on he manages to work the K word into every conversation. Starting with: ‘It’s all Knockers to me.’ Even: ‘I’m really Knockered.’

  Please don’t even snigger. It’s not even funny. Particularly because Rhiannon was going to explain what happened to her last night. But when she starts with: ‘They told me I was The One, a fulfilment of their ancient prophecy … ’ George shouts out: ‘A Knocker prophecy!’ and then gets the giggles. Honestly, he’s so immature.

  After that, Rhiannon wouldn’t say a word. Now she just sends George dagger eyes and hums to herself.

  I do try. I say, ‘Don’t mind him, Rhi. You know what George is like.’

  But all she says is, ‘I hate this mission. I hate horse riding. I hate everything.’ Which isn’t very uplifting and doesn’t explain anything.

  And then she hums even more furiously. I catch a few phrases of the tune. It sounds oddly familiar – sweet and sad.

  —

  We cross down the far side of Snowdonia, south of the Vale of Ffestiniog and reach Ganllwyd. The Druids Way merges with the old Roman road, Sarn Helen. Just ahead of us lies the prehistoric forest of Coed Ganllwyd.

  Great, unbroken sheets of snow stretch across the countryside. A cold, clear, crisp breeze numbs my cheeks. Black dots wheel above us in the sky.

  Ravens?

  Crows?

  That does not make me happy. Nor does it make Keincaled ecstatic either. I can see the way he rolls his eyes at them.

  Ravens are OK though, aren’t they? At least ravens might be on our side, or at worst leave us alone. Keincaled swishes his tail, as if he reads my mind. But what if they’re carrion crows? An image of the inside of the lambing shed flashes before my eyes again. I bite my lip. My poor poor babies.

  At least the birds can’t sight us when we enter the forest. Snow-covered pine branches drop great loads of white on us as we ride under them. One lot goes right down the top of one of my hiking boots and soaks my sock.

  ‘The large area of ancient oak and pine woodland here is called Coed Ganllwyd,’ announces Davey. He’s a tour guide now.

  ‘Do you think he’s memorised all of the Hikers’ Guide to North Wales?’ I whisper at Rhi.

  ‘It has two trees dating from the Dark Ages,’ he continues.

  That sounds spooky: the Dark Ages. A bit like the Ice Age. Which might come again if we can’t break the spell.

  ‘I think he’s just trying to take our minds off all the worry,’ says Rhiannon. Then adds charitably, ‘He just isn’t used to people’.

  I blink. She’s right. I look at her. She’s actually put her finger right on it. I love Rhiannon sometimes.

  She starts humming again, catches me looking. ‘It’s the song they taught me,’ she says. ‘I don’t want to forget it.’

  ‘Why did they want to teach you their song?’ I ask.

  ‘One of the trees stands alone in a meadow, it’s the second largest in Wales, apparently,’ continues Davey.

  (I mean, did he just randomly know that?)

  ‘Hang on,’ says George. He rides over to a national park sign, reads it out:

  Coed Ganllwyd ancient forest supports a

  variety of wildlife: deer, red squirrels, pine martens,

  polecats, otters, and birds from black grouse

  to merlins, buzzards, and red kites.

  It doesn’t mention Knockers, white wolves, dragons or the Coraniaid. I wonder whose side the polecats might be on, or the black grouse. It is not a comforting thought.

  However, we see nothing. Just gnarled limbs decorated with icicles.

  And snow.

  The Roman road – Sarn Helen – isn’t easy to trek along like the Druids Way. It’s pocked with dips and hollows. Slabs of stone lie hidden underfoot, all seem placed to trip us up. Even our mountain-bred ponies stumble. The snow hides treacherous pitfalls. Bayard, who heads our straggling line, sinks flank deep in a hollow. Precious minutes are wasted digging him out, and by the time he’s free, we’re soaked and freezing.

  ‘They want me to free them from the sinker,’ whispers Rhiannon.

  ‘The sinker?’

  ‘It’s a monster that attacks them when they go down to pan for gold in the underground rivers,’ says Rhi.

  ‘Sarn Helen was built by the Romans. I say, “built”, but it was reinforced. Sarn Helen follows the Druids Way, a sacred route from long before the Roman invasion – here travellers could pass hidden from prying eyes. They say its banks were filled with wild flowers all the way.’ Davey sighs, like he remembers walking the Druids Way himself – I swear, it sounds like he’s getting all tearful.

  ‘Before stones were laid and legionnaires tramped them into the sod, from Neath in the south to Tomen y Mur and on to their stronghold at Segontium, Caernarfon, the Old Ones passed this way. Their footsteps echo on the road – as we pass into this ancient forest.’

  Yes, in his own way, Davey is trying.

  Very trying.

  ‘There’s something about travelling along a track that thousands have walked before – over thousands of years – that’s spooky,’ says George. He gets out his axe as if he’s expecting an ambush.

  I want to ask Rhi: but why you? But that’d be mean of me. After all, why not her?

  ‘They think I’m The One,’ says Rhi. ‘You know like Neo in The Matrix.’

  ‘They do?’

  ‘But I don’t think I am,’ says Rhi quickly. ‘I don’t even like monsters, so why would they like me?’

  I start to worry. Monsters. Girls. Bad memories. Oswald and why he needed girls
…

  ‘I’d stay out of their prophecy wotsit,’ I whisper. ‘Things might get nasty.’

  ‘But I can’t,’ sighs Rhiannon. ‘The Knocker Queen said if I don’t fulfil the prophecy, the sinker will kill us all.’

  THIRTY-SIX

  The ponies struggle on. The temperature drops. An arctic wind springs up and rushes down the slopes of the mountains straight at us.

  At least by afternoon we’re well towards the southern reaches of Snowdonia. It feels like the Fimbulvetr is less fierce here, but that might be wishful thinking. The afternoon sun shines high above us. The snowfields glint brightly.

  When we get down from the vale of Ffestiniog and across towards Dollgelau, it starts snowing again. I pull up my hood, and button my coat tight against my chin, as we push on towards Cadair. We have to reach there today.

  But you can’t hurry the ponies. They stick to a trail that I can hardly make out. Their hooves crunch softly into drifted banks of white. In our wake, the punch holes quickly fill again with fresh snowfall.

  Beside sedge and stone wall, beside lake and hill, we plod on.

  Until at last we see Cadair, rising up above us, through veils of pale cloud, beautiful, magical.

  A few more miles and we’ll be there.

  But no sooner are we started on its slopes, than the breath of the great king descends. The Brenin Lywdd is on us like a fist. Cold mist smacks out all vision, stinging bare skin, bruising our chests as we struggle to breathe in icy air.

  For some weird reason, I thought we’d left the Brenin Lywdd behind, clinging to the slopes of Snowdon, that it couldn’t hold so much power down south.

  I was wrong.

  ‘Cadair is the stronghold of the Grey King,’ explains Davey.

  Annoyingly.

  A spectral breath and a grey mist descend around us. Strands of icy air slice into eyes and assault nostrils; snowflakes whirl, not in the same way that they had on Snowdon. This is a completely different kind of menace.

  Instantly we are isolated. Total white-out.

  Tbh, if not for the ponies we’d be dead. I mean it. I can’t see further than one metre ahead. There just isn’t a path. When I do catch a glimpse of it, there’s a sheer drop: first on the left, then on the right.

  I’m not joking.

  One metre from the trail.

  Sheer drops.

  I actually close my eyes, squeeze them shut. My heart thuds. I feel dizzy. I hang on to Keincaled’s mane, grip it, icicles and all, and whisper, ‘Thank you, thank you! You’re amazing Keincaled.’ I kiss his rough neck. Oh my God.

  Keincaled snorts, half turns his head and breathes lovely warm pony breath at me. It helps. He’s bravely journeyed all the way, straight through the morning, through the afternoon, through the descending chill, though it has battled against him, and now that it seems to steal the air from his lungs he snorts to encourage me. O. Totally M. G. I think I am falling in love with him.

  Sorry Henry.

  Suddenly the mist rolls back a few metres. The shores of a wide llyn open up before us. Keincaled rears in abrupt alarm. I nearly fall, but Keincaled twists under me, sort of catches me, then snorts again. But this time it’s not a warm, rushy breath of comforting air. His nostrils flare. Even Graine lets out a piercing squeal. At least I think its Graine. I can’t see anything.

  ‘What’s up?’ I call out to the others. They must be still there. My voice falls flat, swallowed up in the blanket of white.

  ‘Can we go round the lake?’ I shout.

  ‘Not sure,’ calls George. ‘Can’t see a thing.’

  ‘There’s no way round!’ shouts Davey. Up ahead, his dim figure swims into view. ‘Not from here. Landslide.’

  Typical. This must be a trap.

  ‘What’re we gonna do?’ shrieks Rhiannon.

  ‘Wait?’ I call. If it’s a trap, we should be prepared.

  ‘We need to get up the mountain soon,’ hollers George. ‘We can’t climb Cadair in the dark.’

  We can’t climb it in a white-out either.

  There is something about this place. I can hear the water of the llyn lapping innocently enough. But there’s something …

  The white haze seems to thin a bit. At last I can see the others. They are grouped together, dark outlines in the haze.

  One of the ponies, I think it’s Graine, rears, whinnies out in sudden terror. George (must be) tries to hang on. All the little hairs on the back of my neck prickle.

  ‘We must get away,’ says Davey, a note of alarm in his voice. ‘This is Llyn Cau. It’s bottomless. If you throw a stick into it, it’ll sink. It’ll be sucked down under Cadair and appear on the far side, and there are things down there – ’ He stops, as if to name them would be to call them.

  How the hell does he know this is Llyn Cau, though? We could be anywhere.

  Davey coughs. ‘It’s probably not as bad as I think,’ he says, trying to reassure us. ‘It’s just that under Snowdonia is a vast labyrinth of rivers. They run through the slate caverns and link this lake up to all the other llyns in Snowdonia, and through these lakes swims the Afanc.’

  ‘Oh My God!’ shrieks Rhiannon.

  Is it me, or is there something that Davey and Rhiannon know about that I don’t?

  ‘It’s probably miles away, there’s really no need to – ’

  The white haze clears. In the distance, I see the dim shape of the mountain.

  ‘What’s the Afanc?’ I say. Haven’t we had we enough with wolves and winter and weirdos? A shiver runs down my spine.

  ‘You don’t know?’ squeals Rhiannon, a full octave higher than before.

  ‘I think I can guess,’ I say. ‘Something ghastly with long tentacles that’ll pull us down and drown us all – and definitely sides with Oswald?’

  At the edge of the llyn a wave ripples out and hits the shore.

  I stare at the swelling water. ‘If it’s worse than that, then I don’t want to know.’

  George dismounts, tries to calm Graine. ‘Get off the ponies,’ he says. ‘I think Graine’s trying to say this is where they quit.’

  ‘Actually get off the ponies?’ repeats Rhiannon.

  Another ripple hits the shore, larger than the last. It breaks with a sharp slap on the pebbles. ‘I think,’ says Davey, ‘we’re about to meet the Afanc. You will be able to check out if you are right or not about the tentacles,’ he says to me as he points at the lake.

  That’s it. The Afanc. The sinker!

  Right in front of us, gargantuan waves seem to be radiating out from the centre of the llyn – as if the waters are being stirred by some giant hand.

  ‘Quick!’ yells George. ‘Climb! There! Before we’re washed away.’ He points at a broad slate bridge that straddles an inlet.

  From the centre of the llyn rises a gigantic breaker.

  Davey and George sprint for the bridge. Rhi just stands there looking stunned. I grab her hand. ‘Rhi!’

  In the centre of the lake, the water boils up.

  ‘What about the ponies?’ she says.

  ‘Bayard,’ calls Davey. ‘Save yourselves! Run!’

  With alarming speed, the ponies turn on the spot and bolt back the way we’ve come.

  ‘There goes all the grub,’ groans George, as the dark shapes are swallowed up in the mist.

  I shake Rhiannon. ‘Move!’

  ‘I don’t think I can do this,’ she sobs.

  ‘No choice Rhi.’

  ‘That’s the problem,’ she whispers. ‘They said there was no choice.’

  —

  We make it to the bridge.

  The wave swells to an impossible height, as if some monstrous thing is forcing all the water out from the llyn. Where the water has frozen near the inlet, sheets of ice as thick as stone walls break with a screech. The bridge lurches. The massive slate slab we’re balancing on shifts. A rush of air, I stagger, the shift catches me off balance. I stumble backwards. George flings out an arm, catches me.

  ‘Ellie!’ shr
ieks Rhiannon, her face white as death.

  And then the wave breaks.

  Carrying chunks of ice, it strikes the bridge with a terrible blow. The wooden rail splinters, the slate slab cracks, crumples underneath us. There is no time to grab at each other or defend ourselves – although George tries. He yanks his axe free and swings it wildly, but he misses everything and the thing, the Afanc, rises: one mass of crusted ice.

  It strikes. The bridge splinters into shards. Pieces of slate skim out wide across the lake.

  And I’m falling.

  Cold.

  Sub zero.

  My bones!

  The grip of freezing water. The touch of ice.

  In a split second, I see the thing open its jaws and with one great swoop grab hold of the entire broken bridge.

  And then I’m sinking.

  George, Davey, Rhiannon!

  Oh my God …

  My mind numbs.

  Relentlessly, the Afanc drags us down. Impossibly deep.

  Down underneath the icy surface of Llyn Cau.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  There is a rushing in my ears. A deathly chill takes hold of me. My teeth rattle. My blood freezes …

  I think, so this is it then. This is the end of all love, of all adventures.

  Oh Mum.

  It seems weird that here I am – dying – miles from home, on the shores of some place I’ve never visited. I could almost smile. I imagine trying to tell Mum how an Afanc, indescribable, bone-pale, appeared out of the lake and grabbed me and drowned me and that is the last thought I have.

  —

  Until I hear the singing.

  ‘She was in a subterranean ice cave, dressed in a cloth of gauze; her voice was playing over the flowing walls. She wove the spell around him thrice, intoning the hours of the earth, chanting the way to paradise … ’

  Music.

  Ethereal.

  Beautiful.

  Coming from the dark depths of the water. Coming in waves of harmony.