Sabrina Fludde (15 page)

He kicked the fire. Through a cloud of ashes Abren saw her mother emerging from the forest. She waved frantically.

‘You can tell her yourself! Here she comes …'

She turned back – only to find that the man had gone. His dogs had gone too, and only the ashes remained, settling back on the cold ground.

Abren cried out. Her mother came up the open grassland, panting from her climb. Gwyn rushed ahead of her, and Abren flung herself at him.

‘There! Just there! That man!
Did you see?'

‘See who?' Gwyn said. It was the first time he had spoken to Abren, and his voice was cold, as if he'd just about had enough of her.

‘That man!'
Abren said. ‘You must have seen him.
That mountain man with his dogs!
I don't know how he did it – one minute he was here, and the next he was gone!'

Her mother came and joined them. ‘What are you talking about? What man?' she said, resting her hands on her knees and struggling to catch her breath.

‘He said that you were old friends,' Abren replied. ‘He was glad to hear that the lights were on at Blaen Hafren. Glad that you'd found me, and said to tell you that we'll all meet up. Very soon, he said. Oh, and
he hasn't forgotten
. Whatever that means.'

Abren's mother turned to stone. At first Abren didn't notice. But when she turned to go, her mother remained staring at the ashes. She didn't know whom Abren could be talking about, she said in a cold stiff voice. Was she sure that she'd really seen someone? Sure that she wasn't making it all up?

Abren swore blind that she wasn't, and her mother shivered. Gwyn came and put a hand on her shoulder. Perhaps now they were here, he said, they should carry on to the top. He looked straight into his mother's eyes, as if he were trying to tell her something, but she turned her face away.

‘Not tonight,' she said with sudden urgency in her voice. ‘We've got to get back home. There's a storm on the way. Can't you feel it? If we don't leave now we'll regret it. Come on, both of you. Don't just stand there.
Hurry up!'

There
was
a storm. It lasted all night. The first few drops started falling as they made their way along the smooth top of the waterfall, and by the time they reached Blaen Hafren, rain was running down its roof in sheets. Gwyn slammed the door behind them and even bolted it, ‘in case the storm blows in'.

Their mother made them supper – oven chips and greasy tinned beef. For a welcome-home meal it wasn't a patch on stew and dumplings, or even on eel pie! All the while they ate, the storm ranted overhead – an angry monster shaking Blaen Hafren within an inch of its life. Abren's mother listened to it with a long face. Rain came dripping through the ceiling and she sent Gwyn dashing about, catching it in buckets and bowls. She shuttered the windows and stuffed towels under the doors. But still it found its way in.

Abren suggested that they watch the television to take their mind off things. But her mother said it wouldn't work in a storm like this. Abren suggested phoning the Morgans, just to let them know that she had arrived. But her mother said that the phone line was down.

In the end, bored and restless, Abren went to bed. It was a funny sort of homecoming – not what she had hoped for. Downstairs she could hear her mother raking out the living-room fire and turning out the lights.

Abren closed her eyes and tried to sleep, telling herself that despite everything it was still good to be home. But the storm kept her awake and she tossed and turned, missing her comfort blanket more than ever. Slates slid down on to the front path, and rain found its way in, dripping round the bed. Abren told herself that the storm would soon be over. But her bedroom was freezing and damp, the ceiling was springing more leaks by the minute, and her windows were shaking fit to shatter.

Finally, unable to stand it any more, Abren got up, put on her newly bought dressing gown and headed downstairs, hoping there'd be a bit of fire left in the grate. She expected to find everywhere in darkness, but when she passed the kitchen door she found the light on and her mother sitting at the table.

Her face was turned Abren's way, but she didn't see her at the door. Abren stood behind it. There was something very still and solitary about her mother. Something almost bleak, which made her want to rush in, throw her arms around her and own up about her memory. It was as if it lay between them like a barrier, cold and awkward, and growing all the time – particularly since they'd arrived at Blaen Hafren.

But before Abren could do anything, Gwyn stepped out of the shadows at the far end of the room.

‘I
still
say we don't know it's him,' he said. ‘It could be anyone remembering the old days, and looking for lights on at Blaen Hafren! You shouldn't worry so much. It'll be all right. We've got her back, after all. And we're the ones who've done it –
not him!'

The windows shook behind their shutters. Abren's mother tilted her head. ‘Whose dogs are those,
barking in the wind?' she said. ‘You may not think it's him, but just you listen!'

Abren listened too, but she couldn't hear anything. Neither could Gwyn. He laughed at his mother. ‘This is ridiculous!' he said. ‘You're worrying about nothing. You'll see tomorrow, when everything's just fine. I'm off to bed …'

Abren's mother let him go without a word, melting back into the shadows. She sat for a long time staring at the table and Abren thought about going to bed herself. Suddenly, however, her mother got up, an expression of determination on her face, fetched a bucket and a brush – and started scrubbing the table!

It was a strange thing to do in the middle of the night, in the middle of a storm, but she carried on until the table was raw. When she'd finished, she got a towel and rubbed it bone dry. Then she went into the cupboard and came out with something rolled up in a piece of red cloth. She laid it on the table, removed the string, which she wrapped around her wrist, and unrolled – a thick black candle.

‘Let's see if tomorrow really will be
just fine
!'

Abren didn't have a clue what was going on. She watched her mother take the candle and set it in the middle of the table, go off and make herself a cup of strong tea, drink it down as if to steady her nerve, circle the table a couple of times, her apprehension plain to see, and finally light the candle with a long match, standing well back.

Immediately, a dusky, beautiful glow rose through the kitchen, transforming everything and shining into every corner. It lit up the dresser, the sink and the rugs on the quarry-tiled floor, and even the rainwater in the
bowls and buckets. Lit up the shutters, and lit up Abren's mother, with her tight, pale face.

For a moment Abren's mother stared into the yellow light, then she leant across and blew out the candle. The glow disappeared as quickly as it had come, and the room looked tawdry in the ordinary light. But a single strand of smoke remained, rising like a wish. A secret smile crept over Abren's mother's face. There was no storm outside – only this. She watched the smoke reach the ceiling and start snaking round the room.

Abren watched it, too. As if it were a living creature, the smoke passed beneath the old oak beams, drifed over the dresser, coiled across the sink and wafted across the floor. It sniffed its way towards the door, and for a terrible moment, Abren thought it was going to seek her out. But it carried on round the room until it reached a bowl of rainwater under the far window. For a moment it lingered over the water. Then it sank beneath the surface and disappeared from sight.

Abren's mother sighed.

‘Well, there it is.'

It wasn't she who spoke, but Gwyn, who hadn't gone to bed after all, stepping out of the shadows. ‘Perhaps it
was
him, like you said. But tomorrow will be everything we wanted. He can't stop it. The corph candle's spoken. It's in the water, plain to see. This is our chance. A death by drowning –
at last!'

Abren awoke feeling troubled, but not knowing why. The sun was shining, the storm had gone and the morning outside her window was crystal clear. She stood looking down the long glen. All the way to the forest she could see sunlight and bright colours. It was a perfect morning.
So why so downcast?

Her mother came into her room, singing a song. The storm had gone, she said, and it wouldn't be back. The weather had changed for the better, and she had promised Gwyn that they'd go up the mountain to their favourite picnic spot. There'd be no jobs about the house – not today. This wasn't an ordinary day. It was Abren's first proper day back home – and they were going to spend it celebrating!

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.