Sabrina Fludde

by Pauline Fisk

  Bentley glanced up at the sky, its clouds still low and no end in sight. A raw wind blew into his face and howled off along the walls. Briefly, Bentley thought that he could hear the baying of dogs in it. So did everybody else, crying, ‘What was that?’ and looking about.

  Bentley didn’t wait to find out. He headed for home. The dogs could have been a trick of the storm. But they could have been something else. There was something strange going on. Something different about this storm.

  It was a relief to get home and slam the front door behind him.

  ‘Is that you, Bentley?’ his mum called, concern in her voice, as if she’d regretted sending him out. ‘Are you all right?’

  Bentley went up to the bathroom for a towel, then came down to the living-room where everything was snug and warm. A fire burned in the grate, and lamps and candles had been lit because the electricity was off. Bentley felt safe from the storm. He assured his mother that he’d delivered the package right into her customer’s hands, then sat down to dry himself by the fire.

  As he did so, he caught sight of Abren’s postcard sitting on the mantelpiece. He picked it up, suddenly missing her again. Turned it over and read her message about being fine. He hoped that she was. The word round town was that the child found under the railway bridge had gone back to her family. He hoped that child was Abren, for her own sake at least.

  His father came in, and Bentley asked him if he’d heard any news of Abren. But the only news his dad had heard was of the Welsh Bridge being cut off, the wild west end in trouble and every able-bodied man being needed to fight the flood. He dashed out again into the stormy night, bright-eyed and excited. Bentley’s question was left hanging in the air.

  ‘There are things that they can do for us – these able-bodied men!’ sniffed Mum. ‘And there are things that they pretend to do – like delivering packages, for example, right into a customer’s hands. And there are things that they can do nothing about. And fighting floods is one of them! Nobody can stop the path of a flood!’

  She went up to bed with a candle and a book for company. Bentley was left to marvel at the things his mother knew, no matter how he tried to hide them. He followed later, getting into bed with a candle and a book too, promising himself to listen out for Dad. But he fell asleep almost straight away, and didn’t hear a thing until a gust of wind struck the roof, sending tiles crashing down into Dogpole Alley.

  Bentley awoke in a panic. The candle had burned down, and in the darkness he heard someone laughing. At first he thought it was someone in the house. But then he realised it was outside, caught up in the wind, like that baying of the dogs. And there was triumph in the laughter. There was something cruel.

  Bentley leapt out of bed, his heart thundering. He flung on his clothes, went to look for his dad and, when he saw he wasn’t back, went out to find him. What had he been thinking of, lying in bed when the town needed every able-bodied man, woman and child, to fight this terrible storm which had come upon them all?

  Bentley left the house and tore across the alley, starting down the Seventy Steps towards the bus station and the wild west end. But at step number fifty-two, counting from the top, he met the river. It stretched out from the step, across the main road, over the bus station, past the houses and pubs around the railway station and out of sight.

  Bentley stared at it, shining darkly in the searchlight of a circling helicopter. He had never seen his town like this before. It was a terrifying sight. No army of able-bodied men, women, girls, boys, experts, volunteers, emergency services and circling TV camera crews could possibly make any difference. And the rain was still pouring.

  And it was going to get worse.

  Abren in flood

  Abren swept downriver on a white-knuckle ride. Rain beat upon her as it had done for half the night and all day long, pouring from the sky as if its stopcocks had been left full on. All around her, the river was breaking its banks, bursting everywhere and spilling across the land. And Abren flowed with it, water within water. She was unable to stop herself.

  She crashed over river paths and swirled through woods and meadows, running towards Pengwern on a river which was being punished for daring yet again to help Abren. It was as if its wells were being emptied, deep under the mountain, its hidden reservoirs banished, never to return.

  And half the land was washing down with it – peaty glens and trees torn from their roots, stone walls and dead sheep. The flood took everything, pouring over roads, cutting off river loops and turning them into lakes, running after animals, and swirling through houses, whose shocked inhabitants were forced to flee.

  And Abren ran with it. She had felt the river’s rhythms, and felt its life. And now she felt its death. Logs as fast as crocodiles crashed into her like guided missiles, programmed to seek and destroy. Waves ran over her like cold knives. Rain beat down on her like a pitiless jungle drum, and Abren rushed on, taking the fastest ride of all, in the middle of the river where the flood was at its wildest, heading for Pengwern as if it were her only hope.

  Finally, the water tower which marked the town’s approach appeared against the stormy skyline. Abren rushed towards it, weak with relief. Ahead lay her home, and her only hope of safety. If she could reach those old town walls, they would would wrap themselves around her. Fortress walls of old, they would hold her like a mother, and keep her safe. No flood could rise up that hill where her father’s palace had once stood! No mountain man could reach her if only she could get to it!

  So Abren plunged towards the town, breaking over jetties, flooding boat sheds, rising up into gardens and reaching houses that stood high above the usual flood plain. She poured into basements and out again, under back doors and through front ones, into car parks and out again until the town was right upon her.

  She had reached it at last! She flooded through the loading bays of the new shopping mall, against the Seventy Steps and on into the wild west end where she slapped against the doors of the market hall. The selfsame doors where once she’d stared at her reflection, not knowing who she was. And here she was again, knocking on its doors, looking for dry land!

  Abren flowed on down the street. All around her, it was getting dark – night-dark as well as storm-dark. There were no lights to brighten the gloom, and Abren saw that she was in the midst of a vast, black lake, with shops and old town mansions rising up like islands. Only the high town remained dry.

  Dry and unreachable! Abren rolled towards it, but a council lorry drove her back, dumping sandbags in her path and forcing her towards the main flow of the river. She whirled away, watching dry land disappearing. The river carried her under the Welsh Bridge and past a row of submerged night clubs, along a tree-lined path and into the Quarry Park, its sloping lawns turned into another vast lake.

  For all Abren’s longing to return to town, she never would have wanted it like this! She flooded over flowerbeds which had once been the town’s pride and joy, and along avenues where cyclists once had ridden and families strolled. She washed across the bandstand, sent great statues toppling, reached the school shed which had once given her shelter, crashing against it and breaking it to pieces.

  Then she swept on to the quiet haven of Compass House, which was quiet no more, its jetties swept away and its boat shed lying under siege. Its terraced garden lay under water and lights were on all over the house, as if Pen and Sir Henry had realised, though they lived up high above the water, that they were in danger as much as anybody else.

  Abren would have stopped to help them if she only could. But the waves drove her on, and the wind beat down on her, fiercer than ever. And in it she could have sworn she heard the howl of the Cŵn y Wbir.

  She shuddered and hurried on, telling herself that she had imagined it. Ahead of her stood the English Bridge, its stone arches all but submerged. She swept beneath them with only inches to spare – and suddenly, there in front of her, was the last bridge of all.

  The railway bridge.

  It sat in the
shadow of the castle, on the wildest stretch of river, taking the full brunt of the flood. And the first time Abren had seen it she’d thought it was a monster. But now she knew it was a friend. She knew it was all that stood between her and the mountain man. It was her last chance to save herself.

  Abren dashed towards the bridge, past a scene of devastation. Gone were the football pitch and the car parks next to it, and the roads out of town. Gone, too, were the houses behind the pitch – rows upon rows of them had disappeared into the dark flood waters.

  Abren could have wept for all those people with their ruined homes. But she dashed on, water within water, unable to do anything else. The railway bridge drew close, and whirlpools slapped their way beneath it. Black waves broke over the girders in sheets of white foam, and Abren rode the waves as the bridge loomed overhead. If she was going to save herself, she had to do it now, out in the middle of the flood, where the waters were at their fastest and the waves at their highest.

  She reared up with them, reaching for the bridge. First time she wasn’t high enough, but second time the waves broke over an iron walkway where she had once run, and sat, and played. And she broke with them. And when the waves fell back, the little bit of water that was Abren remained. The flood flowed on, and a little pool of water lay on the girder, quietly unnoticed.

  She had done it! She was safe.

  Exhaustion overwhelmed Abren. She had been crushed, but not broken, battered and pulled, thrust and hurled. She had been turned into water, and now as water she lay – a little pool of stillness, taking her deserved rest.

  And the rest was sweet. No mountain man could see her with his black eyes which saw everything. Not here, under the dark railway bridge. No Cŵn y Wbir could call her, and her rest was silent.

  When she awoke again, she was herself.

  She felt her arms and legs and body, felt her eyes and mouth, her nose and chin. Felt her wet hair dripping down her face. No longer was she water within water. She was Abren again.

  She laughed out loud, looking at the railway bridge, and knowing that she’d come home. Somewhere nearby was her father’s palace, and somewhere, too, were memories of better days. Not nightmare memories, stalking her through streets. But memories of a life that any child would want to live. And Abren wanted it again. She wanted to play with skeins of thread at her mother’s feet. Wanted to see her mother’s face.

  Abren scrambled to her feet. She had no idea how she was supposed to find her mother, after all this time. But as if there were no flood rising under her, seeking to destroy the town and flush her out, she started making her way along the girders. She jumped the jump, slipped through the darkness of the black stone arches and finally ended up in Phaze II’s room, stripped bare, just as she’d left it.

  What was she going to do now? She looked down the room, and the door to Old Sabrina’s room stood open. A little light came seeping through it and Abren knew for sure that Old Sabrina was still there. She was in that room, holding her life together against vandals and floods. And she mightn’t be Gwendolina, as Abren had once thought, but there was only one story in Abren’s life, and whoever the old woman really was – she had a part to play.

  Effrildis

  Old Sabrina sat as if she hadn’t moved for weeks. A spider ran across her face on a cobweb track between her cardigan and bird’s-nest hair. Her plate of food lay mouldy on the floor, and her feet rested in a pile of ash, blown down the chimney.

  Ash covered everything, from the old woman to the piano, and from the chandelier to the mirror in which she sat reflected without moving. Was she alive or was she dead? It was hard to tell.

  Abren took a closer look – and lying in the old woman’s lap she saw her little comfort blanket. Her blanket, which she’d thought she’d lost! She let out a cry, and Old Sabrina finally noticed that she had company. She twisted her head and looked up at Abren for the first time. Abren felt herself turn cold inside. There was something hidden in the old woman’s face. Something underneath the ash and grime. But what was it?

  ‘I d– didn’t mean to startle you,’ she said. ‘It’s just that you’ve got my –’

  She broke off. Old Sabrina was staring at her, clutching the blanket tight, as if she’d never let go. Her mouth was moving up and down, but nothing was coming out. Her face was peering up through the shadows of her bird’s-nest hair. And Abren had seen that face before.

  ‘No! Never! It isn’t possible! IT CAN’T BE …!’

  Rain came bursting through the ceiling – a sharp reminder that the flood was out there, and still rising. But Abren never saw it. All she saw was Old Sabrina’s face, staring at her as she’d never stared before. And it looked so tired, that sad old face. It looked so cold and bitter. It was impossible to imagine that it had ever been different from what it was now. And Old Sabrina’s hands, too, clutching the blanket. It was impossible to imagine stiff old fingers like these ever holding a needle, or embroidering fairy stitches, or fastening off with a flourish, crying, ‘There, it’s finished!’ with a smile as she spoke.

  Impossible to imagine this half-dead old woman ever smiling at all, or being beautiful enough to win a king, or loving him, or giving birth to a child, or calling that child …

  Abren turned away with a small gasp. This was it – the moment that she’d waited for above all others! The one she’d pleaded with the mountain man to let her see. And yet it couldn’t be. It wasn’t fair!

  Not her! she thought. Not a terrible old woman like that! Why can’t she be somebody like the Misses Ingram with their honey cakes and amber tea? Why can’t I go home to a garden full of bees and yew trees? Why can’t my mother be the one I want her to be?

  There was no answer to Abren’s question. Nor could there ever be. But suddenly, as if the old woman had heard it and wanted to set the record straight, she struggled to her swollen feet. Abren rushed to help, but she wouldn’t have it. Maybe she was too proud. Maybe Abren had hurt her with her silent indignation. But straightening herself up, she leant across and slid the blanket round Abren’s shoulders, pulling it straight and tying it under her chin. Her fingers fumbled over the knot, and her eyes were full of pain. But she smiled, all the same. Smiled as if to say, ‘You were wrong. I can do it! I can smile. See?’

  And Abren saw. How could she not? The face that smiled at her was her mother’s!

  At long last.

  ‘I thought I’d never find you,’ Abren said, as if in a dream. ‘Thought I didn’t stand a chance. And now here you are, and the things I tried to find were here all along, hidden underneath the railway bridge. No wonder the river always brought me back to it!’

  Old Sabrina eased herself back into her chair, as if the pain of standing were more than she could bear. Yet more rain poured through the ceiling, bringing plaster with it – and she seemed to notice at last.

  ‘I think that we’ve been found,’ she whispered in a low voice, which wasn’t used to speaking. ‘Finally flushed out. This always was a safe place. So dark and quiet. But now I think he knows where we are.’

  Abren felt herself turn cold all over. ‘The mountain man? You know him?’ she said.

  Old Sabrina looked at her. The sadness in her eyes could have filled a lake.

  ‘Who told Gwendolina where to find you, all those years ago?’ she whispered in a croaky little voice. ‘Who told her all about you in the first place – seeing my little struggles to be happy and playing us both like pawns in his game? Of course I know who he is!’

  ‘Tell me!’ Abren cried out. ‘I want to know. And tell me why he hates me so much?’

  Old Sabrina lowered her eyes. For a moment she couldn’t speak, then, ‘It’s all because of me,’ she said. ‘Because of what I did to him. It’s me he’s out to get, not you. He’ll punish you to get at me. He’ll even destroy Pengwern if he thinks that it will hurt me. He’s my father, you see!’

  ‘He’s your …?’

  ‘He’s your grandfather.’

  Another piece of pla
ster came crashing from the ceiling, but Abren never saw it. Instead, she saw the mountain man’s eyes, which were black like hers, and felt the way his heart had fluttered when he’d called her ‘little Abren’.

  ‘It can’t be!’ she cried out. But in the cold places deep inside herself, it all rang true.

  ‘He always swore he’d get me,’ Old Sabrina said. ‘I was his elf-child. That’s what he called me. His baby daughter, born on the mountain when it was young. When its rivers were like sisters, and we played together like best friends. And the mountain was my inheritance, and I turned my back on it. I gave it up – for love.’

  There was something dreadful about the way the old woman said the word love.

  More of the ceiling crashed down, and water came seeping through from Phaze II’s room. The flood had reached the railway bridge, rising through its chasms. But neither of them noticed.

  ‘The king of Pengwern said I was his love,’ Old Sabrina said, remembering back. ‘He wooed me with false promises. He was your father, and he promised me you’d be his heir. I never knew about his son, who you’d displaced. Never knew about his queen, cast out on my account, cursing me and plotting her revenge. All the sorrow I’ve endured, all the pain and suffering, all the life we never lived together, you and I – it’s him I blame. And I blame him, too, for what he brought out of your grandfather. Things I never knew were there. He wasn’t always what you see now – and neither was I! This is what he’s made me! Not Effrildis any more, giving up my mountain in the name of love. But Old Sabrina, full of hate!’

  Hate again. Abren shivered, remembering the Misses Ingram’s warning about something brewing on the mountain. It had been hate then, hadn’t it, and now it was just the same. Dark, old, cruel hate, as if they’d all been cursed by Gwendolina never to forgive, and never love. So this was where the story ended – in this flood where the only king was hate.