Phoebe shook her head and blew into her hands to warm her fingers. ‘I’m almost certain that if our snowman could speak, he’d use words like flumping.’
Herbert wagged his tail to show that he agreed then his eyes grew large as a dark shape swaggered through the snow towards the kennels.
Phoebe tensed. ‘Not Slobber. Please not Slobber.’
There was a growl and the pit bull terrier paused before the entrance to the kennel, his narrow eyes flicking between Phoebe (Herbert was now sensibly cowering beneath the rags) and the snowman. He prowled around their creation and for a moment Phoebe thought that perhaps that was all he was going to do – that he just wanted to snoop – but then he lowered his jaw to the ground, let the drool slop out, and headbutted the snowman. Phoebe’s guardian wobbled and his pencil nose dropped out then Slobber reversed a few strides before charging full pelt and knocking the snowman’s head clean off his body.
‘No!’ Phoebe cried, straining against her chain. ‘Please don’t!’
Slobber trampled on the head, sending snow and buttons and reels of thread flying, then he stood very still and growled into the kennel again.
‘We just wanted one moment of magic on Christmas Eve!’ Phoebe cried.
Slobber narrowed his eyes then he stamped through the scattered remains of the snowman before disappearing into the orphanage – and inside the kennel, Phoebe curled into a little ball beneath the rags.
Hours passed and still Phoebe lay, shivering, in the kennel. Her eyes were blotched from crying and she could no longer feel her toes, but she held the sausage dog tight. It had stopped snowing now and the sky belonged to the owls and the moon. A shooting star cast a path of gold through the dark and Phoebe pointed to a fox slinking through the shadows. Then all was still for a while.
Phoebe was about to suggest to Herbert that they should try to sleep, when a movement caught her eye. It was nothing dramatic – just the feeling of an image half glimpsed and the need to look again. But when Phoebe did look again, she saw that something extraordinary was happening outside the kennel.
The trampled snow – where the snowman had been – was moving. Phoebe blinked. Perhaps it was a trick of the light? Or a sudden gust of wind? Or maybe it was Griselda and Slobber coming back to deal out a midnight punishment? And yet Phoebe had seen the light in their bedroom turn off, and there was no wind rustling through the trees . . . She peered closer. The snow in front of the kennel was indeed shifting, the snowflakes twisting and spinning until they rose before Phoebe in a swirl of glittering silver.
Phoebe crouched in the entrance of her kennel. ‘It – it can’t be . . .’ she whispered.
The snow was hardening into a shape Phoebe recognized: a long, swishing tail that finished in a cluster of icicles, a huge body sprouting jagged wings and a large, kind face with two shining black eyes and a pair of enormous ears. This, right here in the grounds of the orphanage, was a dragon – and its snow-carved body glinted silvery blue in the moonlight.
Phoebe craned her neck to get a better view and the chain attached to her ankle clanked. She froze, her heart thumping against her ribs as the dragon’s mighty head swung towards the kennel. It paused, just a few steps away from Phoebe and Herbert, and Phoebe noticed there were white hairs as fine as spider-silk arched over the dragon’s eyes – eyebrows, perhaps – and more wisps dangling beneath its chin and fringing its ears. The girl and the sausage dog stayed where they were, breathing in the dragon’s smell, of pine trees and wild winds.
And then the dragon spoke – not a roar or a telling-off. His voice was soft and feathery and he simply said: ‘Hello.’
Phoebe let the word rumble inside her. It felt wise and good and somehow she didn’t feel afraid.
‘Hello,’ she found herself saying. ‘I’m – I’m Phoebe.’ Herbert nudged her side with his paw and Phoebe lifted the sausage dog into her lap. ‘And this is Herbert, but you can call him Herb.’ She glanced at the dragon’s enormous limbs and his hooked talons splayed across the ground. ‘If you want. Only if you want.’
The dragon smiled through icicled teeth. ‘I’ve never met a Phoebe or a Herb before.’ Phoebe beamed and the dragon chuckled, a warm laugh that reminded Phoebe of a fire crackling. ‘B is one of my favourite letters so I’ll enjoy saying both your names out loud.’
Phoebe was about to say that B was also one of her favourite letters – especially in the words ‘goblin’ and ‘bubble’ – but then she remembered she was a Word Murderer and she kept her mouth buttoned up.
The dragon frowned. ‘Oh, I don’t think the suit jacket will do.’
Phoebe glanced at the broken thread where the buttons had been. ‘I’m sorry that it’s all scrappy. I removed the buttons to make my snowman’s mouth.’
The dragon nodded. ‘But of course. Quite a sensible place for buttons, I would have thought. What I meant, though,’ and Phoebe noticed that his eyes were shining, ‘is that I have never known anyone set off on an adventure in a suit jacket. A conference or a meeting perhaps,’ he shuddered, ‘but not an adventure.’
Phoebe’s chest swelled. ‘We’re – we’re going on an adventure?’
The dragon nodded. ‘All over the world, on Christmas Eve, dragons stir.’
Phoebe’s eyes grew large because that was quite simply the best sentence anyone had ever said to her. She glanced at the ridge of spikes on the dragon’s back. ‘Are all dragons like you?’
The creature drew his vast body beneath him so that he was sitting before the kennel. ‘All dragons are a part of the landscape around them,’ he said, and Phoebe noticed that as he spoke his breath puffed out into a mist of snowflakes. ‘I am a Snow Dragon, but there are Cloud Dragons, Tree Dragons, Rock Dragons, Sea Dragons and even Fire Dragons out there.’ His nostrils twitched. ‘If you ask me, Fire Dragons are somewhat hot-tempered.’
Phoebe giggled and Herbert couldn’t resist a quick moonwalk inside the kennel to show his delight at the conversation.
‘I’m glad that we got to meet a Snow Dragon,’ Phoebe said. ‘I can’t imagine Fire Dragons would have ears as glorious as yours.’
The dragon wiggled his ears and as the strands of hair rippled, a trail of snowflakes scattered into the night. ‘Fire Dragons do have rather pokey ears.’ He smiled and then he looked at Phoebe thoughtfully. ‘Dragons only appear to those who need them, Phoebe. They stay for one adventure and then they melt back into the landscape.’
Phoebe thought of the ruined snowman and of how she had shouted to Slobber that she had only wanted one moment of magic on Christmas Eve. Then the dragon had appeared, as if he had listened to it all, as if he had heard the sadness rocking in her heart.
The dragon drew himself up. ‘So, Phoebe and Herb, I suggest we get going. You can be late for many things in life, but you should never keep an adventure waiting.’
As he spoke, the cuff around Phoebe’s ankle clicked open and her suit jacket vanished. For a second Phoebe shivered and then her mouth fell open as folds of thick white fur materialized around her body and up over her head. Phoebe snuggled into the mysterious fur coat, then she gathered Herbert up and crawled outside the kennel.
The dragon lowered his body to the ground and then nodded towards his shoulder. ‘Always board a dragon from the front legs,’ he said. ‘I had one boy try to climb up my tail and he ended up with a bruised armpit.’ He shook his head. ‘I did try to warn him that icicles are stubborn little blighters . . .’
Phoebe glanced at the dragon’s spiked tail and climbed carefully up his leg, before settling herself and Herbert into the bend of his neck, just below his giant ears. She glanced at the orphanage and sniffed as she thought of what Griselda had said just hours before: that she was forgettable, a stupid little runt whom no one wanted to adopt. But it was as if the dragon could sense Phoebe’s sadness and in response, he flapped his ragged ears.
‘Do you know why my ears are so large?’ Phoebe shook her head and the dragon’s weight shifted as he stood. ‘So that I can
listen to all of the wonderful things that you have to say, Phoebe.’
And on hearing those words, Phoebe’s little heart glowed. There might be a woman in pinstripe who wanted to tear her down, but here, on Christmas Eve out by the kennels, there was a dragon determined to build her up.
The creature flexed its wings either side of Phoebe and Herbert, which sent the leaves on the holly tree rustling, and then the dragon lumbered forward. One stride and he was over the gravel, another and he was past the flowerbeds, and just as Phoebe thought they would career into the trees, he surged into the sky, his silver-blue wings beating around her.
Up and up they went, over the orphanage wall, before crossing the road and spiralling high above the church steeple. Phoebe laughed. Riding a running dragon had been bumpy, even bumpier than sliding down the orphanage roof, but riding a flying dragon – now that was like riding the wind.
They glided over the yews and Phoebe opened her mouth and drank in the wideness of the night. There were no walls to box in the world now and as the dragon wheeled above Whistlethrop, Phoebe threw back her head and laughed again.
‘Look, Herb!’ she cried, pointing to the streets below. ‘They look like gingerbread houses! And there, on the bench in that garden, it’s the old lady who watches the moon!’
Herbert wagged his tail in delight, and Phoebe’s eyes widened as she realized they were flying over the vicar’s house. He was in the bathroom – it was a Wednesday after all – and his naked yoga was in full swing . . . Phoebe cringed into her coat, but the dragon simply chortled, and seconds later, Phoebe found herself chortling, too, because magic with a sense of humour had to be a good thing.
She smiled at the Christmas trees winking beyond sitting-room windows and at the stockings hooked above fireplaces and as the dragon reached the end of the High Street, Phoebe noticed a gap in somebody’s bedroom curtains. Two children were sitting up late on a bed and in between them there was an unopened present.
Phoebe thought of the letter Jack had promised to write her. Perhaps he’d send a Christmas present, too . . . And how exciting it would be to unwrap a gift that held an object somebody had picked out especially for her! But when Phoebe peered at the children more closely, she saw that they were snatching the present back and forth. She frowned. There was a lot more grabbing and wrenching at Christmas time than she had expected.
Phoebe pulled off her hood and leaned towards one of the dragon’s ears. ‘Why are they fighting?’
The dragon nodded. ‘They do not realize how lucky they are, Phoebe.’
Phoebe stroked the sausage dog in her lap. ‘How can they not realize?’
The dragon wheeled away from Whistlethrop and began soaring out over the countryside. ‘Because they are always wanting more. They don’t stop and look around, but if they did, they would know, like the old lady who watches the moon, that everything they could ever want is right here already.’
Phoebe looked down at the fields blanketed in snow and tried to imagine what it might feel like to have a family of her own, to sit around a kitchen table with people who didn’t think she was forgettable or infuriating. And as they flew through the starry night, Phoebe made a promise to herself that if she was ever lucky enough to become part of a family, she would be happy just to know that she was loved.
The dragon raced on over country lanes dusted with snow and lakes locked in the cold, hard gleam of ice. The world was asleep now – curtains were drawn and lights had been turned off – but the landscape around Phoebe had never felt more alive. Sounds that she had missed before – the near silent footfall of a rabbit, the ruffling of a blackbird’s feathers and the crack and groan of ice – were stirring all around her. A wisp of cloud drifted across the moon and the landscape changed again: new shadows shifted, hidden snowflakes sparkled, and the wildness of it all made Phoebe shiver.
She pulled her fur hood up around her face. ‘Where are we going, Snow Dragon?’
The dragon’s wings beat on. ‘What do you like best in the world, Phoebe?’
Herbert gave a little bark from her lap. ‘Other than Herb,’ Phoebe said, ‘I love trees. And mountains, though I’ve only really seen them in books.’ She paused. ‘And I think the sea looks very promising, too.’
The dragon chuckled. ‘We’ll go north a while, then, where the forests are bigger, the mountains are higher and the seas are deeper.’
And north they went, the dragon’s wings shredding the pearly night. They passed villages and farms and marshes and rivers until they came, at last, to a very large forest. It spread below them, a rise and fall of fir, pine and spruce trees, every branch shelved with snow. The dragon dived, breaking just before the canopy, and Phoebe whooped as he let his tail sweep the snow from the treetops. She stuck out her arm and grabbed a fistful for herself then she held it before Herbert with large, round eyes.
‘No one, except us, has touched this snow, Herb.’
The sausage dog gave it a little lick and Phoebe smiled to think that Griselda had insisted the idea of magic was ridiculous, and yet here she was, on the back of a dragon, exploring an untouched kingdom of snow and ice.
‘Only the buzzards and the kestrels and the falcons get up here,’ Phoebe whispered then she hurled her snowball out across the trees. ‘We’re like birds, Herb! As free and as fast as birds!’
The dragon sailed over the forest to where the trees parted and a railway line ran through the middle. Phoebe watched as a deer stepped over the tracks and melted into the forest then her ears filled with a new sound: the chugging of wheels against steel.
‘The night train from London,’ the dragon said, ‘rushing the last load of people to their families in time for Christmas Day.’
‘What if we’re seen?’ Phoebe gasped.
The dragon slowed and the chugging behind them grew louder then the train burst into sight, tearing through the forest as it made its way north.
The dragon followed its course. ‘Oh, they won’t see us, Phoebe. The passengers will be far too busy looking at their phones and their laptops to notice what is happening outside.’
‘But—’ Phoebe shook her head.
‘Don’t believe me?’ the dragon asked, and before Phoebe could reply, he swooped down to the train and then darted alongside it, his great wings brushing snow from the tips of the branches on their left.
Phoebe looked through the carriage windows. There were shopping bags full of presents on the tables and all around them, men and women, their heads bent low over glaring screens.
The wind rippled through Phoebe’s hair as they sped between the trees and the carriages and then she noticed something that made her jump. ‘Those two people – they’ve seen us!’
An old man and a little boy had their noses pressed up against the window. Their eyes and mouths were wide, but they did not reach for their cameras or their phones at the sight of the dragon and the girl with the sausage dog on her lap. They didn’t even turn to the other people in the carriage. They just watched, in silent awe, because the magic of what they were seeing held them that way. The dragon winked suddenly and Phoebe gave a small wave then the man and the boy blinked and smiled as the dragon pulled back from the train and climbed into the sky.
Phoebe stroked one of the dragon’s ears. ‘Why those two? Why do you think they saw us when no one else did?’
The dragon’s voice came soft and low. ‘We all have the gift of wonder, Phoebe. It burns bright in children if they keep their eyes and ears open – and often in old age it shines, too – but it can get a bit lost in the time between. We become busy and knowing and we forget how to take a good, long look at the miracles all around us.’
‘I won’t ever be too busy,’ Phoebe replied. ‘Or forgetful.’
And the dragon shook his head. ‘No. Because you are a fierce watcher, Phoebe – a peerer into corners, a looker behind doors. You see imps in clouds and castles in constellations’ – Phoebe reddened in case that was a bad thing, as Griselda had said, but the d
ragon went on – ‘and that is a rare and wonderful thing. It is a gift, Phoebe – one that you must never lose sight of.’
Phoebe cuddled Herbert to her chest. ‘I won’t ever stop watching, Snow Dragon,’ she said. ‘Never.’
She looked down to see that the landscape was growing rugged and that pages of the encyclopedias she had sneaked into the attic were opening up beneath her: valleys shrouded in mist, rolling moors and lochs crusted with ice. The dragon glided over it all and Phoebe realized where he was taking her – to the mountains in the Scottish Highlands where the peaks reached up and touched the sky. She had seen them in her encyclopedia, and they were the mountains she loved the most.
The ridges started small and gentle, but as they soared on, the land sharpened into peaks with plunging sides and crags so icy they could have been sculpted from marble. For as far as they could see there were mountains – dappled blue and silver and purple in the cold, hard starlight – and Phoebe watched them all, fiercely.
The dragon circled the highest peak and then sank lower, until his talons crunched onto the mountaintop. He folded his great wings in and they sat, Phoebe and Herbert tucked into the bend of the Snow Dragon’s neck, with the whole world spread out below them. The mountains were home to golden eagles, wildcats and stags, but, for this moment, they belonged to Phoebe and Herbert, too.
The dragon didn’t speak and neither did Phoebe. There weren’t words big enough to hold in all that lay before them. But into the silence, the sky began to change. Ribbons of green shimmered between stars and then swathes of purple coiled through, sending new shades twirling across the sky.
Phoebe swallowed in disbelief. ‘It’s the Northern Lights, isn’t it? I recognize them from the photos in my books!’
The dragon smiled and as the sky rolled with colour, Phoebe found herself struggling to her feet in an attempt to take it all in. She stood tall on the dragon’s neck with Herbert nuzzled into her ankles.
‘Would – would you mind if I howled?’ she asked quietly. ‘It’s just all so – so – wonderflible.’
Winter Magic Page 26