by Pauline Fisk
Abren turned from the window and followed her mother downstairs to the kitchen, where she found Gwyn at the breakfast table.
‘Good morning,’ he sang out, as if the mood were a disease and he had caught it too.
Abren sat down opposite him and started eating. Their mother brought a knapsack out of the pantry and started packing it with their lunch. They were going to leave early, she said. Leave straight away and make a day of it.
‘Hurry up with your breakfast, you two,’ she said.
After breakfast, Abren asked about the phone. She wanted to ring the Morgans and speak to Phaze II, but her mother said that the line was still down. Abren tried not to be disappointed, but she would have given anything to hear Pen’s voice. To know what Sir Henry was getting up to today. To find out if Phaze II was all right.
‘Go and get dressed, quickly!’ her mother called. ‘Don’t just stand there!’
She clapped her hands and Abren scuttled upstairs. Something felt wrong, for all the brightness of the morning, but she couldn’t have said what. Only when she went to wash herself, pouring water from the jug into the china bowl, did she remember her dream. What a strange dream it had been, disturbing and mysterious! She stared into the bowl of water, and remembered her mother’s face as she’d scrubbed the table clean; the way she’d prowled around the kitchen as if afraid to strike that match; the way the smoke had risen round the room as if it had a life of its own. She remembered Gwyn saying strange things which left her feeling funny inside. Things about water, and about candles speaking, and about …
A death by drowning!
That was it!
Abren stared at the bowl, seeing that other bowl, with the smoke sinking into the rainwater. Suddenly she felt sick. She stared around her, and her bedroom stared back – a cold room with no pictures on the walls to comfort her, not even a family photograph.
‘Come on, Abren!’ her mother called.
But Abren wasn’t listening. Where were the family pictures? she asked herself. Where were the photographs? The Morgans had them everywhere, and so did Bentley and his family. Photographs of growing up and doing things together – of special moments and school events. And photographs of their uncles and aunts, cousins and grandparents, and of their friends too.
So where were Abren’s photographs?
Why weren’t they here?
Abren tore into Gwyn’s room and found it bare too. There were no photographs, CDs, stereo, books, posters, clothes tossed in corners, old toys left over from his baby days, computer games or anything else.
What was going on here?
Abren ran on to her mother’s room. Here again there were no personal things. No bills and letters lying about, no photographs or paintings on the walls, or dirty clothes in the linen basket. There was no linen basket, nor any other signs of ordinary family life.
Abren felt herself go cold all over. Suddenly, it felt as if this musty house had never been her home. She looked down at the bed. Her mother’s nightdress lay on it, carefully folded over. A pair of shoes sat on the floor, and the clothes she’d worn in Pengwern hung over the wardrobe door. But that was all. There wasn’t as much as a hairbrush on the dressing table – and when Abren leant across and started opening the drawers, they were empty.
She worked her way through them, quick and silent, waiting for her mother to call up the stairs yet again. Finally, she opened the last drawer – and there lay the black candle.
Abren stared at it, rolled in its red cloth. The string was missing – and she didn’t need to ask herself where it might be. It was wrapped around her mother’s wrist!
‘It all really happened,’ Abren whispered to herself. ‘Everything from getting the candle out of the cupboard, to standing it on the table. And circling round the table, and striking the match, and leaning over and blowing it out. It wasn’t a dream. The smoke really rose round the room, and Gwyn really said that thing about the death by drowning.’
Abren closed the drawer. She returned to her bedroom, the picnic forgotten. She didn’t know what had happened downstairs in the kitchen in the middle of the night. Didn’t know what it all meant, but one thing was for sure.
‘Something’s wrong. Very wrong. I’ve got to get out of here.’
Abren didn’t dare go downstairs. Instead, she forced the window open, and clambered down the front of the house with the agility of a girl who could manoeuvre herself up and down girders in the dark. Her mother would be furious after all the trouble she had been through bringing Abren back to Blaen Hafren. But this wasn’t Abren’s home. She was sure of it. And something bad would happen if she stayed. She was sure of it.
Abren hit the track and didn’t stop, tearing down it until Blaen Hafren was out of sight and she could see the road ahead. She headed for it at full pelt. Perhaps there was a simple explanation for everything that had happened – perhaps her mother could account for everything, if only Abren would wait. But she didn’t dare to risk it.
She reached the road and started down the glen. A pair of red kites wheeled overhead, and sheep looked up from their grazing to watch her pass. Abren glanced behind. Nobody was coming after her yet. But they soon would! Her mother would go upstairs, fed up with waiting. Either that or she’d send Gwyn. They’d find that she had fled again, and then they’d come after her. Nothing would stop them. They’d be in the Land Rover, MOT or not, and the road wouldn’t be safe any more.
Abren plunged into the forest, relieved to hide herself beneath its canopy of leaves. She ran until her heart was bursting and her legs were almost giving way. She wanted to stop and rest, but didn’t dare. Her mind was a whirl. Nothing had been right since leaving Pengwern. It wasn’t just the strange events in the kitchen last night. It was her mother too – something changed about her ever since they got on that train. And it was Gwyn as well, and the way he never smiled at her. And it was even the journey here – the whole long journey, bringing her to a place with no dirty linen in the basket and no photographs on the walls.
Now Abren tried to turn the journey on its head, running back to Pengwern, convinced that she could really get there if she only kept going. Behind lay everything that she had been led to believe was her old life, but ahead lay her real life – her life with the Bytheways and Morgans, with Old Sabrina and Phaze II and, most of all, the river.
The river she’d often longed to get away from, as if it held her prisoner! But now she simply longed for it.
And she would have it.
Abren was determined. She would return to Pengwern, and nothing would get in her way. If there was a simple explanation for everything, then her mother could come and tell her there, where she felt safe. She could come for her again, and they could start all over. They could do it properly. No secrets this time. No funny goings-on in the kitchen at night. No swearing blind not to know people who sent their greetings and said that they were old friends.
Abren would explain about her memory, and her mother would explain about a death by drowning. She’d explain about the mountain man, and about the strange corph candle. Then, with Abren’s friends around her, and in the safety of Compass House, she and she alone would decide what she wanted to do.
Abren ran out of the forest with a new sense of purpose. How she’d make those miles back to Pengwern, she didn’t know. But she was on her way. And she would get there if she just kept on! There was a world beyond this mountain – a world that was her own, and she would find it!
She ran over the brow of a small hill. Ahead of her stood a cluster of stone buildings. She headed for them, stumbling into Old Hall.
Old Hall
Two bells rang every day in Old Hall. The first was the church bell, and the second belonged to the school – a stone building with walls as thick as a castle’s and a big turf roof. Abren could hear the second now, ringing for breaktime.
She drew towards it, longing for a break herself. She had run and climbed, ducked and dived for hours, yet the weariness she felt went d
eeper than aching bones and muscles. She looked at the playground, set between trees, with children pouring out into it. Some of them were singing a song and Abren listened with envy.
Why can’t I be like them? she thought. Why can’t I learn the things I need to know by singing songs, playing games, learning lessons in a classroom with a turf roof? Not running like a crazy child through a world that’s even crazier!
Suddenly the fight went out of her, and all she wanted was to rest. She turned away from the school, and her eyes settled on a grassy bank. It was set well back from the road, shaded by yew trees. Nobody would find her there if they came looking for her, she thought, not beneath those shaggy branches.
So Abren headed for it, wading through the stream and climbing out on to the bank, which was full of daffodils. She flung herself down and straight away fell asleep.
How long she stayed like that, stretched out flat upon the good earth, she didn’t know. The sun moved between the trees, but she never noticed. Blackbirds sang to each other across the stream, but she never heard them. Never heard anything – until a voice awoke her.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you, but I wouldn’t stay here, if I were you. The bees might get you!’
Abren came to herself with a start. She lifted her head, and a woman dressed in a white space suit stood in a patch of sunlight between the yew trees, looking down at her. Over her head was thrown a ghost’s white shroud, and in her hand was a tin can with a spout.
‘Bees?’ said Abren.
‘All around you.’
Abren looked around and noticed the hives. They stood off the ground on stilts: tall tiered boxes, with bees drifting in and out between their wooden slats.
‘And not just any old bees, you know,’ the woman said. ‘They’re St Curig’s bees. They’ve been collecting nectar from the mountain since the dawn of time.’
They looked like any old bees to Abren. She watched the woman putting on thick gloves. Obviously she was a bee-keeper, and this was her garden. Abren felt embarrassed that she had failed to realise it. Beyond the yews were flowerbeds and shrubs, deckchairs and gardening tools, baskets full of washing and yet more washing drying over bushes in the sun.
‘I’m sorry,’ Abren said, scrambling to her feet. ‘I was just so tired. I didn’t know that I was trespassing.’
She turned to go, but the woman called her back, reaching out for her with a gloved hand. She raised her veil and a few bees settled on her face. But she didn’t notice them, looking intently down at Abren.
‘You poor child! You are tired! Why don’t you come inside?’ she said. ‘The hives can wait till later. You look in need of amber tea.’
She turned and started up the garden, as if it had all been decided. Abren followed her past a row of headstones, which she hadn’t noticed before. Suddenly she saw a church ahead of them, its tall arched windows draped with curtains, and pots of geraniums on its sills.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘Is this a graveyard? I thought it was your home.’
The woman smiled. ‘It was a graveyard, long ago,’ she said. ‘But now, yes, it’s my garden, and the church you’re looking at is my home. Mine and my sister’s. You can see her at the window. She’s Miss Ingram, and I’m Miss Ingram too.’
Abren looked up at the church, and saw the face at the window that she had seen yesterday. It smiled at her between the geraniums, and Abren smiled back. The first Miss Ingram reached the big church doors, arched like the windows and carved with scrolls and leaves. She stood inside the porch removing her gardening shoes. Abren noticed a brass name-plate. ST CURIG’S HOUSE. INGRAM. NO HAWKERS OR CIRCULARS. GENUINE CALLERS ONLY, it read.
The first Miss Ingram took off her gloves too, and pushed open the big doors. Abren hoped she counted as a genuine caller. She passed through into a single, high-ceilinged room which might not be a church any more but still contained some pews, a smattering of stained glass, a shiny golden lectern shaped like an eagle, and rows of organ pipes.
Abren looked around while the first Miss Ingram peeled off her veil and suit, and hung them in a cupboard. The centre of the room was taken up with the biggest table Abren had ever seen. Upon it everything from home-made bread and cakes to books, and ironing, wine bottles and vegetables from the garden lay piled up in an untidy clutter. Sunlight shone upon them, making everything bright.
Abren walked round to the far side of the table, and a black stove with a wonky pipe came into view. It stood at the end of the room, above the old altar steps. Beyond it stood what might have been a lady-chapel, but was now a glazed conservatory. Here the second Miss Ingram sat surrounded by a clutter of yet more books, balls of wool in a basket, a row of plants in pots, jars of fermenting, golden liquid, an embroidered footstool and a small white dog.
‘Come and join us,’ the second Miss Ingram called, looking up from a sock which she was darning.
She cleared a seat and Abren crossed the floor to join her. She smiled as if Abren were an honoured guest, and carried on darning. A little pair of glasses sat on the end of her nose and her needle flew in and out of the woollen sock. She didn’t say anything, and Abren sat down. The little dog made room for her and she gave it a pat. Before she could think what to say, the first Miss Ingram appeared with the promised amber tea. It shone like gold.
‘Amber tea’s our speciality,’ the first Miss Ingram said, handing Abren a cup.
‘One of them,’ the second Miss Ingram corrected her.
‘Made from mountain nectar,’ the first Miss Ingram said, ignoring the correction. ‘The very best. We use it here for everything from medicine to mead.’
Abren took the cup, which was made of white porcelain and looked fine enough to break at a touch. She sipped carefully and the Misses Ingram watched her, smiling as the tea went down. It tasted wonderful, sweet and rich and hot. When Abren finished, the first Miss Ingram poured a second cup.
‘Have some honey cake as well,’ she said.
Abren took a piece of cake, which crumbled in her fingers and was studded with chocolate chips, much to her delight. With every bite, she felt less daunted by the journey ahead. No longer did her bones ache. No longer did it matter if she learnt everything the hard way. The fight was on again.
She drained her second cup, ready to get going. The first Miss Ingram made her drink a third before she’d let her leave, and the second Miss Ingram produced a vial of mead wrapped in a twist of paper. She said it was a gift from the bees – to remind Abren that there were good things to be found, too, on Plynlimon Mountain.
Abren looked at the second Miss Ingram curiously, but she didn’t elaborate. She just slipped the little vial of golden liquid into Abren’s pocket, and the first Miss Ingram said:
‘The bees have been our life’s work. And the life’s work of our ancestors before us, living here in Old Hall for more years than you could ever count. Nobody knows those bees like we do. And nobody knows the mountain like the bees. They know when it’s at peace, and they know when trouble’s brewing –’
She broke off, glancing at her sister as if to check that she hadn’t spoken amiss. Her sister nodded, but didn’t say anything. They both looked back at Abren. Dimly it dawned on her that they were telling her something.
‘What is it?’ she said.
‘Take care on your journey,’ the second Miss Ingram said. She adjusted her glasses and returned to her darning, as if she’d already said too much.
The first Miss Ingram started clearing up the tea things. ‘Just a word of advice. Your safest bet is to keep to the stream.’
Abren took her leave of them. She turned back once, and the first Miss Ingram stood waving in the porch. Abren waved back. At the window she could see the second Miss Ingram stooped over her darning, her needle flashing in the sun. She didn’t look up, and Abren turned away beneath the yews, wondering if they’d ever meet again.
She left Old Hall, keeping to the stream. In and out of its golden waters she ran, over smooth stones and b
etween peat banks, around willow-fronded pools and over gravel shallows. Ahead of her lay the little town with the railway station. She headed for it, running without stopping, listening for her mother’s car but never hearing it.
Finally, it started getting dark. Still Abren hadn’t reached the town, and she started looking for a place of shelter, thinking that she’d rest for a few hours, then start again before first light. A barn looked promising, but farm dogs barked at her. A cottage looked empty, but it turned out to be inhabited.
In the end she found a willow island in the shallows of the stream. The last light was fading as she waded out to it, and a breeze blew down from the mountain. It reminded her that winter wasn’t over yet, just because of a few daffodils. She shivered as she dug among the willow roots, looking for her shelter. Night fell, and birds stopped calling to each other. The breeze dropped and the trees fell quiet.
The quietness wrapped itself around Abren, and she felt her spirit sink. Had she done the right thing in stopping for the night, or should she have carried on? It was lonely on the island, with only the stream for company, flowing off to its unknown destination. Scary, with her mother surely out there somewhere, trying to get her back.
Abren listened to the stream murmuring as it flowed into the darkness. She fancied that she heard something. A snatch of a new sound carried on the water. Just a whisper, but growing all the time – and Abren knew what it was!
‘You’re fine,’ the stream sang sweetly. ‘Really. Fine. You’re brave and strong and where you should be. There’s nothing to be frightened of. Trust me.’
Abren listened in astonishment. It was ‘her’ tune! The one she’d heard under the railway bridge, and again on Christmas night, played on Bentley’s saxophone. Now here it was again. Here in this stream. As Abren listened, voices took it up. Phaze II’s voice, and Pen’s and Sir Henry’s. Fee’s and Mena’s voices, and Bentley on his saxophone. The Chadman’s voice – yes, even him – and the Buddhist boys out peddling tracts on Pride Hill. And the buskers’ voices on the hill, and the beggars’ too.