by Jenny Nimmo
‘On the bridge!’ Nia cried. ‘They’re here, aren’t they?’
Gwyn didn’t answer her. ‘There’s something I never told anyone,’ he said. ‘Bethan tried to take me back with her and part of me wanted to go, but I belong here, I feel like I’ve got roots going very deep, down into the time when there were magicians where we live now.’
‘Emlyn hasn’t,’ Nia said. ‘Emlyn hasn’t got anything. He’ll want to go.’
‘So we must find his mother and then he’ll have something, won’t he?’
Nia nodded, knowing that Gwyn was going to ask something of her. ‘Your auntie, Elinor, she isn’t out there, is she?’
‘No, she’s still here and my dad knows where, but I can’t ask him. He thinks he’s saved her, see. He doesn’t know Emlyn like we do.’
‘So, what must I do?’
‘Put on the dress!’
‘Over my clothes?’
‘Over your clothes. Don’t be afraid.’
‘What if someone comes?’
‘Do it!’ he said solemnly. ‘Arianwen shows us what she thinks we should see, whether it’s hours or years or miles away. Time and distance, they’re all the same to her.’
Nia slipped the dress over her head. Nothing could interfere with what she and Gwyn were about to do. She felt the cool silky stuff sliding against her skin. If there was a place for spells then it was surely here. The beasts and butterflies, the long windows and the many-coloured paintings began to drift out of her vision; a boy with brown hair looked down, smiling, from beside a river, and then he was gone behind a shining, widening screen of gossamer. Gwyn’s spider was spinning; climbing and falling, weaving and swinging across the wall beside Emlyn’s bed.
‘Hold tight! Stay very still! Don’t run, even if there’s pain!’ Distance or time had come between her and the voice but the words, though faint, held her fast. She could see the dress now, in the web that was a mirror; she could see the face that wasn’t hers, and the dark hair. She felt unaccountably sad. Beside her a baby cried, on and on, above the clamour of the wind. She was angry now and shouting, pushing out at the thing that had made her angry.
‘What am I doing? Where am I going? Who am I? Gwyn?’ She called, and again, ‘Gwyn, where are you?’
And the old, wise voice replied, ‘Stay, Nia! Don’t run!’
Flames crept into the web; guttering gold streaks flared into silver; dazzling scarlet fingers caught at the dress and leapt up at her face.
‘Help me!’ she screamed. ‘I hate you!’ she shouted to someone she couldn’t see.
‘Don’t move, Nia!’
But she couldn’t help herself. While small, frightened Nia clung to the space in which she existed, her reflection fled through dark fields carrying a baby. She ran along familiar paths, down into a valley where moonlight made strange shapes and shadows, towards small, ancient trees that bent under a canopy of blossom; an orchard planted in a crescent – like the moon!
‘Where are you going, Nia?’
‘I’m going to the moon,’ she cried. ‘Of course, the moon! The orchard of the moon! That’s where she is – Perllan yr hanner Lleuad. Those were her words, but Emlyn only heard her say ‘half-moon’. Elinor Llewelyn is in the valley where the cold flowers grow!’
‘Come out then, Nia! Step back, towards my voice!’
But Nia couldn’t move. She was caught in the web. A silly fly bound by strands of the past and another person’s life. The spell was too powerful, she couldn’t break out.
‘Nia! Nia!’ The voice was nearer, its power increasing.
Nia held her breath, leant backwards and took one laboured step away from the mirror. As she did so, the glittering glass rippled like the sea and tore apart. Branches of blossom drifted up through the sky of butterflies, fragmenting into tiny flakes that melted to nothing.
She felt a hand on her shoulder; someone tapping gently.
When she turned she saw a face as old and as tired as she felt. Gwyn looked utterly exhausted.
‘It’s as though we’ve been asleep,’ she said.
‘Not me. I’ve never worked so hard,’ he replied. ‘And we can’t rest now. There’s more to do.’
‘Yes,’ she said meekly.
She stepped out of the dress and laid it on Emlyn’s bed while Gwyn took his spider from the bedpost, where it had come to rest.
‘We must go to my aunt now,’ he said, ‘and make her come back to her family before it’s too late.’
Gwyn opened the chapel door and almost walked into Idris Llewelyn who stood there, angry at finding strangers in his home, astonished to see who they were. ‘Beth wyt ’in eiseau, Gwyn Griffiths?’ he asked coldly. ‘What do you want?’
‘We are looking for your wife,’ Gwyn said.
‘You won’t find her here!’ Idris Llewelyn took a step towards Gwyn. His fists were clenched.
Gwyn stood his ground. ‘I know, and it’s wrong,’ he said. ‘She should be here and she will.’
‘And who are you, boy, to think that you can reconcile people who were torn apart by your own family?’
Nia saw arrogance flare up in Gwyn but he resisted the temptation to tell who and what he really was. ‘I’m going to do what you should have done, long ago, for Emlyn,’ he said. ‘You never bothered even to search for your wife, so proud you are, Idris Llewelyn!’
To Nia’s horror, the painter laughed. It was not a happy sound. On his face Nia saw a loss that was too unbearable to speak of. She plucked at Gwyn’s arm, hoping to stem any more unpleasant truths that he might fling out. But Gwyn had not finished.
‘You’re going to lose Emlyn, too,’ he said. ‘Where is he now?’
Idris Llewelyn wasn’t laughing when he answered. ‘He’s been gone all night!’ And turning to Nia, he said, ‘I’m worried, girl, like you. Find him for me, will you? You’re the . . .’
He could not say what he intended, for they were interrupted by the screech of brakes. Gwyn’s father glared out from his Land Rover. He could see the children standing inside the open door, beyond Idris Llewelyn. ‘What’re you doing there, boy?’ he shouted.
Idris swung round. The two men looked at each other, but said nothing.
Gwyn ran past his uncle and Nia followed. They climbed into the back of the Land Rover while the engine was still throbbing, but as they drove off Nia called to the lonely man on the chapel steps, ‘I’ll find him, Mr Llewelyn. I promise I will!’
Gwyn’s father accelerated away from the chapel. The Land Rover roared up the hill. He committed a crime here, Nia thought: kidnapping, of a sort, and he doesn’t like visiting the scene of his crime.
Mr Griffiths was not in a mood for questions it seemed. He drove fast and remained silent. When they reached T Bryn, however, and the children climbed out, he suddenly asked, ‘What’s Nia Lloyd doing here, then?’
‘She’s come for tea,’ Gwyn airily replied. ‘We’re going up the mountain first to look for something.’
Did his father guess? If so, he gave no sign. ‘What were you doing in that – place?’ He couldn’t bring himself to say the name.
‘They’re relations,’ Gwyn retorted. ‘Everyone needs relations!’
He took Nia’s hand and led her back on to the lane that wound and narrowed between thick hedges until it became a sheep track in an open field.
‘I’m going to run now,’ Gwyn warned her. ‘Can you keep it up?’
Nia nodded. His urgency inspired her. ‘I’ll probably race you,’ she said.
They took off and ran side by side, away from the track and across the steep field where their feet twisted into unaccustomed angles on the hard, listing land.
Gwyn drew ahead and reached the valley before her. He waited until she was beside him again and they looked down into the Orchard of the Half Moon. Frost had snapped at the blossoms and petals were drifting from the bare branches on to the white flowers beneath.
‘They’re so bright,’ Nia said. ‘You could see them from miles in the air.�
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‘Even further,’ muttered Gwyn. ‘They have seen them.’
They began to walk down into the valley, through the oak wood and through the flowers that had grown knee-high, turning the atmosphere above them into arctic air.
And there was the stone cottage, with a light in the window and wood smoke curving from the chimney.
Gwyn marched up to the door and knocked. Elinor Llewelyn opened it: she stared at Gwyn for a moment, then smiled, relieved to recognise her visitor. ‘Gwyn!’ she said. ‘Your father told you, then?’
‘My father told me nothing,’ Gwyn answered. ‘Can we come in?’
The woman hesitated. She had not seen Nia at first. ‘Who is this?’ She had become nervous, her hand plucking at a string of beads round her neck.
‘It’s Nia Lloyd from T Llr. You remember!’
Elinor Llewelyn relaxed. ‘I thought it might be . . .’
‘Bethan?’ Gwyn said. ‘No. She’s gone!’
‘Of course!’ His aunt stood back while they passed her into a dark room that was sparsely furnished, clean and tidy: a fire burned in a small black grate. The floorboards were polished, the rug thin and frayed. A boy of two or three played on a bench beside the window.
‘This is Geraint,’ she said, and the boy ran and hid his face in her skirt. ‘He doesn’t see many people,’ she explained. ‘Will you sit down? I’ve got orange juice, I think, and . . . and biscuits.’
Her voice was ordinary, light and pleasant, and her face was not as beautiful as the reflection Nia had come to know. This woman looked older, her hair greyer, her eyes deeper and ringed with blue shadows.
‘If it wasn’t for your father, I wouldn’t see a soul,’ she went on. ‘I don’t go out much, see. I can’t since . . .’
‘It must be lonely,’ Nia said, looking at Emlyn’s little brother.
‘Well . . . I suppose . . . but . . .’ again the woman seemed unable to form a sentence. She backed away to a tall green cupboard where she found mugs and orange juice, and a tin of biscuits.
The children took her offerings and sat side by side on the bench amongst Geraint’s toys.
‘I think you’ll have to come out soon, Auntie Elinor,’ Gwyn said.
‘Come out?’ She didn’t sit with them but paced nervously beside the fire while little Geraint still clung to her.
‘For Emlyn’s sake,’ Gwyn said. ‘Your other son. He needs to see you. Something is happening to him. They will take him away.’
‘Take him? But his father is good to him? Ivor, your father, tells me what I need to know. He tells me they’re well, my husband and my son. And . . . and I could never go back to them, now . . . I don’t like going out.’
‘Are you ill, Auntie Elinor?’ Gwyn asked, carefully.
‘Ill? Yes!’ she replied. ‘Since the fire, you see. I feel safe here. Your father brings me all I want. And your mam, Glenys, she brings my pills and clothes and toys for Geraint, little things you didn’t need, Gwyn.’
Nia suddenly remembered the knitted woollen soldier she had found at T Llr.
‘Mam said she’d taken them to Oxfam,’ Gwyn said, almost to himself.
‘Oh we do go out, you know,’ Elinor went on, ‘early when no one’s about, don’t we, Geraint? Sometimes we walk to the top of the track. Ivor picks us up in the Land Rover. But we never go to Pendewi. I could never go there again, never. They know what’s best for me, don’t they?’ She began to bite her nails and Nia was reminded of Alun who used to do that when he was angry and only eight years old. He’d grown out of the habit long ago.
The children stared at Elinor Llewelyn in dismay. She appeared to have an illness that couldn’t be named. Could such a frightened and sick person help anyone?
‘Who planted those flowers?’ Gwyn asked, hoping to jolt his aunt away from memories that distressed her.
‘Oh those? A girl,’ Elinor brightened visibly. ‘Such a lovely girl, like Bethan, only fair. She stumbled in here one winter time, when Geraint was a baby. It was quite wonderful. There’d been a heavy fall of snow and we hadn’t seen a soul for weeks but there she was, smiling in at the window. I brought her in, of course, but she didn’t seem to feel the cold. Such a funny child; we talked about flowers, I don’t know why, and trees, the things that I shared with Bethan.’ She was calm now, recalling happier times. ‘Before the girl left,’ she went on, ‘she gave me some seeds. “Plant them under the trees when the snow has gone,” she said, “and next year you will have flowers in your orchard, flowers like stars, and then we can always find you.”’
Nia felt Gwyn tense beside her. He put his hand on hers, whether to alert her or comfort himself she couldn’t tell, but his taut fingers pressed so hard she almost cried out.
‘What was her name?’ he asked.
‘Eirlys!’ His aunt was smiling now. ‘I remember because it’s the Welsh for snowdrop and she came in the snow.’
Gwyn jumped up, pulling Nia with him. ‘We have to go now,’ he told his aunt, ‘and if Emlyn comes here, tell him to wait for us!’
‘Emlyn? Oh no! He won’t. You mustn’t tell him!’ The woman instantly became anxious again.
‘Don’t you want to see him?’ Nia asked accusingly.
‘I do! do! I wanted to go back for him so many times. But he knew where I was and he never came. Besides Idris would have made me stay and I couldn’t. You’re only children. You don’t understand what it’s like, wanting something but being afraid. The pills help me to forget, and it’s best like that.’
Nia began to wish she had never found Elinor Llewelyn. But she had reason to thank her. She pulled the knitted woollen soldier out of her pocket. ‘Geraint must have dropped this in my garden,’ she said, ‘when you went to look after my poppies.’
Elinor took the soldier. ‘So he did!’ She smiled. ‘Thank you, Nia. There was no one there, so I took it on myself to do a bit of gardening. It was sad to see lovely T Llr so empty and alone.’
Gwyn was already hovering impatiently outside the door. Nia joined him and they began to run, calling goodbye to Elinor Llewelyn, though she had already closed the door.
They ran through the cold flowers and up the path, and this time Nia did not panic, because Gwyn knew the way. He had been there before, when the cottage was deserted, but never since his aunt had lived there. ‘Dad told me it wasn’t safe,’ Gwyn said. ‘I didn’t think to ask why. I just never bothered to come and look.’
When Nia climbed out of the valley, Gwyn had increased the distance between them. He was leaping ahead like a wild animal, but when the farmhouse was in sight he stopped and waited for her.
Nia caught up with him and as they walked down the track together she asked, ‘Is your aunt mad then, Gwyn? To run away from her own family, to want to forget them?’
He shook his head. ‘It was the baby,’ he said. ‘Mam told me that mothers do strange things when they are frightened and have a baby. It’s protection, like animals and birds. Even our old hens go mad if you touch their chicks.’
‘They don’t stay mad,’ Nia remarked, ‘when the chicks are grown.’
‘No. Then it’s something I can’t explain. My dad went mad when Bethan disappeared. Perhaps that’s why he took special care of Auntie Elinor: he understood. He didn’t get better until . . .’ Gwyn began to run again.
‘Until what?’ Nia tried to keep up though her legs and her ribs were aching.
‘Until she came back. Until Eirlys came. I’m scared, Nia,’ he confessed, ‘about the flowers she planted.’
‘She?’ Nia was confused.
‘Don’t you understand? Bethan was Eirlys!’
She stood quite still. Pieces of a jigsaw began to move closer. It was like glimpsing a picture through spaces in a cloud. ‘Bethan?’ she breathed.
Gwyn stopped too. He looked at her. ‘She must have had seeds with her, in her pocket, when they took her to that other place, and when she came back she brought the seeds with her, only they had changed, like she had. Things that gro
w in the dark, they’re pale. Bethan meant no harm; she only wanted to find her way back to Perllan yr hanner Lleuad. But they’ll see them, the others, it’s like a landmark, shouting at them, and they’ll go there, where it’s safe and quiet, and they’ll wait and take someone, a child, they only take children.’
‘But they’re here already!’
‘Only five, you said. There’ll be more, many more.’
‘We must tell someone. Get help.’
‘You can’t explain things like this,’ Gwyn said. ‘I know; I’ve tried. It’s too hard for people to understand.’
‘What must we do?’
‘There were three of us once,’ he muttered. ‘We’re stronger together.’ He was looking into a space above her head, and then, becoming aware of her scrutiny, he said, ‘Wait, and think!’
They went into the farmhouse and Mrs Griffiths, so happy to see Nia again, did not ask why she was there, but spread the table with hard-boiled eggs and salad and a newly-baked malt loaf and chocolate cake. Nia did her best to do justice to such treats, but her stomach refused to accept more than a few mouthfuls.
‘What is it, cariad? Are you going down with something? How are they at home?’ Mrs Griffiths asked, concerned for her favourite visitor.
‘Gareth’s OK. His leg gets in the way, though,’ Nia said. ‘And Mam’s that tired. I expect it’s the sponge I had for dinner. I’ll feel better soon. Can I take some cake home with me?’ She was glad Nerys was not there, to glare at her for asking such a question.
‘Of course! You might have to wait a bit, though. Gwyn’s dad wants to do some fencing on the lane before dark, those T Llr lambs keep getting out.’
‘Dad never did his fences proper,’ Nia said, and then, because she’d been disloyal, added, ‘He’s good at butchering, though. He’s great at that; people come for miles!’
‘That’s nice, isn’t it?’ Mrs Griffiths smiled uncertainly.
The children helped to clear the table and then went to see Gwyn’s white rabbits in the orchard. They were in separate hutches now. Gwyn lifted a hinged door above the female’s sleeping quarters and Nia, crouched beside him, saw a bed of soft fur. ‘It’s where the babies will be born,’ he told her, ‘but we don’t dare look for a while, or she’ll eat them. They go peculiar-like when they give birth.’