by Jenny Nimmo
Nia, wishing she was a hundred miles away, could only focus on the prince as he paced the rainy beach, roaring with terrible laughter. And then, as he slipped down on to the stones, until he was almost lying in the water, his laughter gave way to the howl she’d heard before, a dreadful sound that sank deep into her and made her sob against her hand, ‘It isn’t him. It isn’t him at all!’ Catrin had seen the terrible brimstone eyes, she’d seen the monster and been kissed by him. At that moment Nia hated Evan, not for hurting Catrin but for kissing her.
Soon the only sound about them was the rain. Nia grew stiff with waiting. Her eyes ached with watching the solitary form beside the water. She couldn’t move for his gaze seemed to bore straight through the reeds that concealed her. She became convinced that he could see her, but at last he stood up, wearily, and began to walk upriver. She watched him slowly recede into the curtain of rain, stumbling through the pools but still tall and straight, welcoming the weather as a sort of sanctuary. When she lost all sight of him she ran home, slipped upstairs and managed to change out of her wet clothes before anyone saw her.
Evan didn’t appear for supper. Catrin’s eyes were red and she had dried her hair carelessly into a great mound of yellow candyfloss. Her wild appearance caused Nerys to remark, ‘Good grief, Cat, you look as though you’ve been ravaged by the hounds of hell!’
Catrin leapt up with a screech, and made for the door, shouting, ‘Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!’ to all the walls and furniture, before she ran out.
Mrs Lloyd frowned reprovingly at Nerys. ‘Why can’t you be more sensitive?’ she sighed.
‘I am sensitive,’ Nerys returned, ‘only none of you realise it. You all think she’s the only sensitive one because she fits the picture of a talented and temperamental person. Well, I’ve got feelings too. But no one tells me, “How pretty you are!” “How lovely your hair looks today!” You don’t even notice what I’m wearing.’
This uncharacteristic outburst stunned Betty Lloyd, who began to look at her eldest daughter with dawning sympathy, but Iestyn, refusing to believe his daughter’s moods had anything to do with growing up, said ‘You’re all working too hard. Exams for this, exams for that, music as well!’
No one argued with him.
At eight o’clock the big oak dresser gave a little shudder while Nia and Nerys were washing up. A drawer fell out and cutlery jangled on to the tiles like an eerie percussion. At half-past eight a glass rolled off the bathroom shelf. Ten minutes later the bookcase in the hall emptied itself. It did this in a helpless desultory way, dripping books on to the floor one by one, as though it was trying to disguise its tipsiness. ‘This house is crooked,’ Alun complained as he attempted to stem the flow of ancient weighty tomes.
At nine o’clock the television trembled into silence, the news presenter glowed brilliant pink then vanished and a blank screen seemed to advise that bed was the only answer. Then the lights went out. A power cut, they thought, to wind up their unhappy day. They all took candles and went upstairs in a defeated weary way, longing for sleep but, somehow, not expecting it. The rain became a steady downpour, beating through their dreams.
It was past midnight when the knocking began. Except for Bethan the household was awake but they seemed to think that if they didn’t acknowledge the noise, it would disappear.
It grew louder. Nia switched her light on and sat up. The room was shaking now. The temperature had risen by twenty degrees at least. Sweat trickled down her back. Downstairs a deafening crash sent the family tottering to their doors, calling to each other, ‘What’s that? Mam, Dad, what is it?’
Mr Lloyd, candle in hand, went down to the kitchen. ‘By heck, it’s the dresser,’ he exclaimed. ‘Smashed the table, right through. Duw! We can’t do anything about it now.’ Something roared above him, the ceiling cracked and flung hot plaster through the air. He leapt out of the kitchen crying, ‘It’s a quake!’
The Lloyds clattered downstairs and huddled together in the front room, blessing the day they had decided to bring the oil lamps from T Llr. They sat very close to each other, Bethan clinging to her mother, too afraid to cry; the girls holding hands, tense against the sudden jerks that followed the thunder.
‘It’s so hot,’ Alun remarked in a whisper. ‘Like there’s a fire in the cellar.’
‘Is it the end of the world?’ Sîon asked.
‘No, No! It’s a disturbance, that’s what it is,’ their father reassured them. But he sounded too confident. ‘Weather patterns all gone wrong. It’ll sort itself out,’ he added emphatically.
Nia bravely joined Gareth by the window. The street lights were out, and there wasn’t a flame or a glow to be seen in any of the neighbours’ windows. Perhaps they were sleeping through the storm. Hail began to tap against the panes; for a few seconds each tiny stone glowed red as though it was an ember from some monstrous bonfire in the sky.
Nia and Gareth stepped back while, behind them, their family gasped, ‘It’s impossible, It can’t be! What’s happening now?’ And then a groan descended through the storm, hardly distinguishable as human. They all knew where it came from but no one mentioned it.
He’s alone, Nia thought, but they’re pretending he doesn’t exist. They don’t want him in here with them.
She took her candle from the sideboard and went to the door.
‘Where are you going, cariad ?’ her mother whispered.
‘I’m tired,’ Nia replied. ‘I’m going to bed.’
‘Careful on the stairs,’ her father advised.
Before anyone could decide to follow her, Nia slipped out and closed the door. She slowly mounted the stairs, while the candle flared in sudden draughts that disarranged the neat shadow creeping behind her. There were sounds in the house that she could not identify; rustling, hissing noises that might have been raindrops but when she tried to picture them, she could only imagine little buds of flame sprouting through the walls. Try as she might she couldn’t calm the shaking hand that held her candle on its saucer. On the landing the sounds intensified, they rippled towards her down the narrow corridor like amplified waves in a tunnel. She longed to let the tide drive her away but, instead, clung to the balustrade for a moment and then set off to the room that held that secret fire.
It seemed such a long journey. So many times she might have turned back, but each time she felt a quiet and desperate call tugging at her, and pressed on. At the end of the corridor she put a hand on Evan’s door. It almost burned her. Nia, who believed in ghosts and magic, did not believe that disturbing weather patterns had caused this terrible heat. Nightmares had overflowed into their home.
She opened the door and stepped into a room that sweltered like a melting pot. Colours flared across the walls: scarlet, orange, green, too bright to watch. They sang and crackled in a shining circle; tormenting little flames that threatened to break into the room, greedy for life. Nia stood on the threshold, petrified, telling herself that nothing was real except the man surrounded by his dreams.
Evan was lying on the floor. Whether he had fallen there or had chosen this position she couldn’t tell. His head was turned towards the curtained window and his eyes were closed. His face glistened with sweat.
Nia tiptoed carefully round the tall prone figure, drew the curtains and flung open the window. A wonderfully cold breeze rushed past her, breathing reality into the room. For a moment the flames brightened, angrily fighting back, and then they died. Evan stirred and gave a low moan but he didn’t wake. Nia set the candle on the floor and, kneeling beside him, gently touched his damp head.
‘Please help this poor soldier,’ she implored the cool night air. ‘His dreams are burning him up!’
Nia told no one that she’d seen the epicentre of their fiery storm. She left Evan, still sleeping, but more peaceful. She liked to think that she had coaxed a calm spirit into the room. The thunder gradually receded and a cool nocturnal breeze roamed through the house, comforting the Lloyds into a few hours of sleep.
&nbs
p; When Nia went downstairs next morning she found that Evan had left the house. He had gone even before Mrs Lloyd made her way to the kitchen to discover how she could make breakfast in a room full of broken china. Confronting her, the huge oak dresser lay at a treacherous angle across the broken table, blocking the light, daring the family to touch it.
‘I’ll ring Morgan-the-Smithy and we’ll have it right in no time,’ Iestyn said with forced cheerfulness.
Morgan, proud of his strength, was always ready to oblige. ‘By heck,’ he said when he saw the chaos. ‘Have your lads done this?’
‘It was an earthquake,’ Iestyn told him gravely.
‘Never,’ said Morgan winking at the boys. ‘There was a bad storm, but no quake, Iestyn. What were you drinking last night?’
The onlooking family didn’t laugh.
They soon learnt that, although their neighbours had suffered a power failure, none of them had noticed a rise in temperature or seen glittering hailstones in the sky, they hadn’t even had their houses rocked.
‘I don’t think they believe us,’ Mrs Lloyd complained. ‘They still think we’re superstitious mountain people!’ She rang the Griffiths’ farmhouse where she knew she’d always find sympathy.
Gwyn heard the news just before he left for school and wondered if he was responsible. The previous evening he had collected a small carved soldier from Emlyn. He had taken it high on to the mountain, where shining clear water sprang from the rocks, filling a dark ice-cold pool. Gwyn had thrown his wooden soldier into the centre of the pool, watched it vanish and chanted a tranquil poem across the water. Widening concentric ripples spilled towards him and he had begged the spirit of the pool to forgive and heal Evan Llr. He had waited in vain for the light wood to surface but the water had swallowed it up. He had thought it a good sign at first, the spring water had taken the soldier to its heart and would cure him. But as he had walked home the clouds had felt leaden and wrathful about him, threatening to disgorge something far worse than rain on to his bare head.
So he was not entirely surprised to hear Alun’s unsure voice recount the night’s disturbance. Gradually Gwyn learned of the shaking walls, the display of hailstones and the inexplicable smell of burning that had crept through number six.
‘I only made him angry, then,’ Gwyn muttered.
‘What’ve you done?’ Alun asked, not really believing his friend could have been responsible for such amazing incidents. He knew Gwyn had a power he didn’t understand, but he disliked the supernatural.
Gwyn hesitated to burden Alun further. ‘I can’t explain now,’ he said. ‘I’ll pop in after school.’ He was eager to discover, for himself, any trace of the extraordinary fire that Evan had, without a doubt, drawn about him.
It was far worse than he imagined. The house was possessed by a quiet chaos. Alun’s mother sat beside the broken table while her husband wearily hammered and plastered the ruined room about her. Mrs Lloyd mumbled about hallucinations. It was like a giant had thumbed through her house, she said, tipping up furniture, breathing filthy smoke into the rooms.
Embarrassed by their mother’s temporary madness, the children foraged for bread and biscuits. Nerys made the tea and tried to cheer her mother, while Catrin withdrew to share her troubles with the piano. Tragic and unfamiliar music began to penetrate the house, even following Alun, Gwyn and Nia to the very top, where they had retreated to discuss the night’s events.
They sat side by side on Nia’s bed, staring at Iolo’s reproachful empty one, while Gwyn described his attempt to rid Evan of the dreadful prince he harboured.
Alun’s face was a mixture of distaste and alarm. He might have dismissed his sister’s stories, but he couldn’t argue with his friend. ‘You really believe in this demon, don’t you?’ he said glumly.
‘I know it almost as well as I’d know a friend, now,’ Gwyn told him. ‘And I honestly thought I’d help Evan to fight it. But it’s stronger than I dreamt!’
‘And the fire in our house was his nightmare, wasn’t it?’ Nia said, peering at him.
‘It was real,’ Alun insisted.
They both turned to Gwyn for confirmation. ‘Nia’s right,’ he said. ‘But – which nightmare? How can we know if he was dreaming of the fire that burned his friends, or that other one nearly two thousand years ago.’
‘Aw heck,’ Alun groaned. ‘How can you have someone else’s dream?’
‘When you’re possessed,’ Gwyn told him fiercely.
Still Nia kept the secret flames to herself. They belonged only to him, she thought. She had trespassed and shared his nightmare. Nain Griffiths had told her she would be the one to find a happy ending.
Alun kicked the bedpost, hating the inexplicable. ‘OK,’ he said at last. ‘Supposing it’s true what you say and Evan is – possessed by an old Celtic prince, supposing he’s reliving terrible memories, trying to murder Iolo, stealing Catrin, burning our house, what are we going to do about it?’
A crash from below diverted Gwyn from an answer. They leapt to the door and ran down the first flight of stairs, expecting more of the same sounds to follow. But on the landing Gwyn held up his hand, warning them not to approach the second flight. The melancholy piano had stopped but the ensuing silence was, somehow, even more menacing.
Peering cautiously over the balustrade they saw Evan standing in the hall. He wore a huge scarf round his shoulders, deep crimson striped with gold, and a brooch glittered on his chest. There were rings on his hands and a gold band peeped from the edge of his sleeve. He had flung the front door open so violently that it had crashed back too far, fracturing the wooden frame. The fanlight, too, had cracked and slithers of glass suddenly fell on to the floor with a muted little tinkle.
Iestyn emerged from the kitchen. He sidled past Evan who neither moved nor greeted him. The butcher felt the splintered wood and closed the door, nervously murmuring, ‘It can’t be helped. I’ll see to it later!’
Mrs Lloyd came into the hall. She stared at Evan and the broken fanlight, rubbed her mouth with her knuckle and asked, ‘Evan are you – all right?’
A fearful sound came from him, an even deeper voice than the one they knew. Betty. Lloyd cringed away from it, moved round him, bent almost double, and knelt to pick up the broken glass. Evan strode further into the hall and turned to watch her as Catrin appeared, in the doorway of the front room.
Mother and daughter looked at each other and then at Evan. He kicked a fragment of glass he’d spied towards the kneeling. woman and crunched his heel upon another.
‘It’s not him,’ Nia croaked in a desperate whisper. ‘It’s not Evan.’
He looked up at that, and hurled an oath at them.
‘Who is snooping on the stairs?’ he roared.
Alun, Nia and Gwyn pelted back to the top of the house. They stood in the narrow landing, searching each other’s faces in the gloom and Alun, all at once believing everything, said, ‘What shall we do now?’
‘Something impossible,’ Gwyn told him.
Nia stared hard at Gwyn, trying to guess what he might have to do, but she realised that Gwyn himself was not entirely clear about what it was.
After a moment of silence she went down to help her mother with the broken glass. Music came from the room beside them and when she asked where Evan had gone Mrs Lloyd directed a quick frown at the closed sitting-room door.
They’re together then, Nia thought. Has Catrin recovered from the monster’s kiss, or has he captured her at last?
The front door creaked open again and Gwyn’s father thrust his head inside. ‘Was this the storm then?’ he nodded at the cracks that threatened to set the door free.
‘Indeed it was,’ Mrs Lloyd said, carefully avoiding her daughter’s gaping stare. But Nia had no intention of telling the truth.
‘He’s here, then?’ Mr Griffiths looked up the stairs to where Gwyn and Alun had appeared. ‘Thought he would be!’
‘Will you have a cup of tea now, Ivor?’ Betty Lloyd asked a little
unwillingly.
‘D’you need some help, Betty? You look real shaken up.’ She shook her head. ‘Morgan came round this morning.’
‘We’d best be off, then. There’s a heck of a lot to do.’
She knew, of course. She’d been a farmer’s wife and was beginning to wish she was back there, safe on the mountain, where there were no ghosts to trouble her children and shake her house.
Gwyn winked at Nia as he passed her. He hoped he wore a confident look but doubted it. She smiled bleakly at him and said, ‘See you at school.’
Mr Griffiths closed the door on harassed number six and climbed into the Land Rover after Gwyn.
‘Done quite a bit of damage then, that storm,’ he remarked as they drove past a broken gutter.
‘A heck of a lot,’ Gwyn agreed.
Mrs Griffiths was visiting her mother-in-law when they got home. Father and son helped themselves to tea and slabs of bread and honey before each went to his own work. Mr Griffiths to his cattle, Gwyn upstairs, ostensibly to do his homework. His room reeked of chemicals. Five hundred sheep had been dipped that week and the pungent smell would hang about the farm for days. Gwyn closed his window but made no attempt to get out his books.
He had to do something very soon, and he needed help. It wasn’t enough, this time, to rely on a trickle of energy through his fingers. He had two monsters to face, one reinforcing the other, not fighting it. And he’d been the cause. He’d bound that poor soldier into another story, sent him tumbling into a state of madness where he couldn’t forgive or forget the fire that had taken his friends. Gwyn knew what he had to do, of course. He had known for some time but had refused to recognise the directions his own small voice was giving him. It was such a very big step. He needed to think about it.
For a long time he sat watching Arianwen spinning in a corner. She was exceptionally busy today, providing an entrance to the country he would have to visit. Once Nia had slipped into the mysterious time beyond that web, but he’d been nearby to help her back. How should he return, with no one to guide him? He’d have to trust his familiar: a tiny spider that looked quite ordinary in daylight.