Sabrina Fludde (18 page)

‘Help me! Help me, help!'

The figure carried on, and she saw it was her brother.
It was Gwyn!
He came towards her across the mountain grassland, and Abren wept with relief. His face and arms were swollen with bee stings, but whatever had been between them belonged in the past. Everything was different now. Nothing would stop her brother rescuing his sister nor her mother either, coming up behind him. Abren cried for help and her mother's face, swollen with bee stings too, crumpled into a smile. And suddenly Abren realised. Suddenly she knew. ‘
A death by drowning
,' the smile said, and it wasn't her mother's smile, nor were the cold eyes that stared at her predicament her mother's eyes.

They were a false-mother's eyes, belonging to a woman she had never recognised. A woman whom she now knew was – Queen Gwendolina.

Abren cried again. There was only one story in her life, with only one conclusion.

She held out her arms, but without hope. The false-mother smiled again and Abren knew that she would die. She whimpered like a baby, and the bog whimpered back at her, sucking and whistling, and pulling her down to a world where mountains and streams and forests were all gone. Where Pengwern was gone, and all her friends and every hope of rescue.

Abren fought and struggled, but it made no difference. She felt herself slipping into the darkness. Felt the bog close over her, its peaty blackness all around her. Felt it push her down like a dead weight, clutching her in an iron embrace which would squeeze the last life out of her.

She braced herself for it. Waited for the end – and
suddenly found herself rising instead of sinking! The bog pulled one way and something pulled the other. What was going on? It was like being on the island again, underneath the railway bridge. Something had got her under the shoulders, and she was rising like a cork drawn from a bottle.

She was bursting free, like a newborn baby. Light greeted her – the dull light of a cloudy mountain top, but for Abren it could have been the brightest sun. The world roared around her and for an exhilarating moment she felt as light as air. Then gravity took over and she found herself flat out on the ground, with hard hands pounding her back to life.

‘That's it! Good girl! Breathe, yes –
breathe
!'

Black stuff oozed and spluttered out of Abren's mouth and nose and every pore. She lay in a mass of tangled arms and legs, unable to move except to blink open her eyes. She looked up slowly and there above her was –
the mountain man
.

He looked down at her, his eyes as dark as ever and his silver charms dangling round his neck. His dogs panted over her, and Abren tried to find the words to thank him. He smiled at her, and the expression in his eyes was unfathomable. It could have been anything. Could have been love. Could have been pity. Could even have been hate.

Abren closed her eyes again. All around her she could hear the grey dogs whining and the ground sucking and burbling. She could feel the ground shaking, and when she finally dared look it was Gwendolina, this time, who was stuck in the bog. Gwendolina fighting for her life.

What had happened to bring this about?

Abren watched in horror as the false-mother struggled to get free. The dogs whined again and the mountain man shouted at them to shut up. And at the sound of his voice Abren caught a whiff of something cold and manky coming off Gwendolina. She had never smelt it before, but she knew what it was.

It was fear
. The smell of it driving the dogs crazy – and the mountain man had to shout at them again. He rose to his feet, and Gwendolina trembled before him. ‘I never meant to cross you! I only meant to put things right! All I wanted was the chance to prove myself!'

‘A chance like that comes at a price!'

‘I owed it to myself.'

‘No, you owe me!'

The two of them stood locked together. The dogs snapped their teeth, but the mountain man still held them back. Their coats bristled, the red spots on them standing out like wounds. Gwendolina sank back from them into the bog, the smile wiped off her face, never to return. She called for Gwyn, and he came rushing to her aid, fool that he was.

Immediately, he started sinking too. The mountain man watched without expression on his face, but Abren stared in horror as the bog rose around them. A thousand feelings clamoured, starting with revenge and finishing with simple human fellow feeling. She wanted them to sink, and yet she couldn't just stand by. Wanted them to die, but knew she had to do something.

She struggled to her feet – but it was already too late. The false mother toppled forward on her face, followed by Gwyn. He tried to right himself, but only sank in deeper. Abren made to spring towards them,
unable to contain herself any longer.

But the mountain man wouldn't let her. He held her back.

‘There's nothing we can do!'

At his words, Abren felt herself turn as cold as death. She couldn't believe that the mountain man – who had rescued her – wouldn't do the same for Gwyn and Gwendolina! She tried to tear herself away from him. To rescue them herself. But as if she didn't want Abren's help, Queen Gwendolina screamed at her:

‘
May you never rest in peace! May you never love! May you never, ever find your true self!'

She screamed the words as if a curse. An age-old curse upon them all, and not just Abren. Upon the king, her husband, who'd betrayed her. Upon the elf-maid, Effrildis, who'd driven her out. Upon their child, Abren, who had stolen her child Gwyn's place in their father's life and in his heart. And upon the mountain man, too, who had turned on her in the moment of her triumph, and snatched it away.

Abren understood. She bowed her head. And the mountain man must have understood too, for suddenly his dogs tore from his side and before the false mother could call down yet more curses, they were upon her, yelping and howling, churning up the bog and calling down a nightmare upon her and her hapless son.

Abren screamed. She'd have hauled the dogs back if she could. But she didn't have the power – and the mountain man wouldn't let her, anyway. He held her tight in his arms. All she could do was watch as a swirling cloud of giant shapes, dark as night and
speckled as if with blood, trampled the bog as if it held no fears for them, then rolled across the mountain, melting into the mist, baying as they disappeared.

When silence fell at last, the bog was flat. Nothing of Gwyn remained. Nothing of Gwendolina, except the little piece of string which she had taken off the corph candle. It lay among the reeds on the edge of the bog. The mountain man stooped and picked it up.

‘If you play with fire, then it will get you,' he said.
‘
If you light the corph candle, then the death by drowning you call down could be your own!'

He tucked the string into his pocket. There were no signs on the bog that there had ever been a struggle. Not a mark of pounding dogs.

‘What
are
those creatures?' Abren said. Her voice was shaking.

The mountain man looked down at her.

‘Those were the
C
ŵ
n y Wbir
.'

Abren clung on to the mountain man. Whatever he had allowed to become of Gwyn and Gwendolina, he was still her rescuer. She was safe from the bog – and it was because of him.

‘They'll never bother you again. Never touch you, little Abren,' he said.

Crushed against his chest, Abren felt his heart flutter as he spoke. Who
was
he, she asked herself, who had snatched her from the pit of death, and now held her as if he'd never let go? Who
was
he, calling her ‘little Abren', as if she meant something to him? Something special – precious, even.

Abren looked up at the mountain man. Surely she didn't need to ask. She knew already.
It was obvious
. The man who held her in his arms was every inch a king! Every inch a figure out of legend, with clouds swirling around him and his black eyes just like hers!

‘You're the king of Pengwern, aren't you?' Abren, scarcely dared to speak the words. ‘
You're my father!'

She looked up. Here was what she'd looked for all along – the heart of her story, at long last, and
her own flesh and blood
. She held her breath, waiting for acknowledgment to write itself upon the mountain man's face.

But instead he threw back his head and laughed. And when Abren looked into his eyes, there wasn't
any humour in them. Wasn't the ‘welcome home' that she had hoped for, or a father's recognition.

Abren knew that she'd made a terrible mistake. This man wasn't her father, after all! His heart might beat like flesh and blood, fluttering at the mention of her name, and he might even look like her, with the same black eyes – but he was just a stranger. And not just any stranger, either!
What had she been thinking of?
This man was a murderer! She'd seen what he'd allowed to happen to Gwyn and Gwendolina. And now here he was, holding her in his arms as if she were his prisoner!

Abren tried to tear herself away, but the mountain man held on.

‘Not so fast, little Abren,
'
he said in a cold, tight voice which Abren knew she'd never forget.

She struggled like a bird caught in a trap.

‘What are you doing? What's the matter with you?
Let me go!'

She kicked and fought, but it made no difference – the mountain man held her tighter than ever.

‘I want to show you something,' he said. ‘Something that you've searched for and would give anything to see. And here it is, at long last. Call it a gift, if you like. A farewell gift from me. Look here,
in my eyes …
'

The last thing Abren wanted was to look again into the mountain man's eyes. She tried to turn her face away, but it was impossible to avoid his gaze. It bore down into her and everything else seemed to fade. No longer were the eyes black, but silver like a mirror. And there was a world in that silver light, shining as if reflected. In it, crows wheeled through the sky. And trees swayed on a hill, with a river running round it.
And a palace stood upon the hill. A pure white palace. Abren recognised its high white walls, built to keep out every danger. Recognised its gateways and its towers.

It was her home
.

Abren cried out, staring into the mountain man's eyes, and reaching for a world which wasn't just reflected, but real. Real enough to touch and real enough to visit, passing smoking hearths with maids and soldiers clustered round them. Sweeping up staircases. Peering into room after room. Reaching one room in particular, and peeping like a little, playful child round the door. And there, at a window, a woman sat stitching, her needle catching the sun.

Abren saw it flashing –
and remembered
. She remembered the room, and she remembered the woman's hair falling over her face, casting it in shadows. She didn't need to see the face to know.
This was her mother's room!
Her mother's, and hers too! The one where she'd been born and had grown up as a child. The one where she'd lived happy days, and slept at night in a narrow bed. The one where she had sat at her mother's feet, jumbling her skeins of thread, copying her fairy stitches, sharing the moment when she'd finished her embroidery and held it up, smiling and crying out, ‘There! At last! What do you think?
It's for you …
'

And
it
was Abren's little blanket! Her comfort blanket which her mother had given her, sliding it around Abren's shoulders and knotting it under her chin. Abren remembered the moment as if it had only been yesterday. Remembered being a child in this room. Not a child in a homework poem, or the
heroine in a legend which had grown around her life. But the real her. Abren. Here she was, at last. She could see herself.

And she could see her mother, too, looking down at her with the litttle blanket round her shoulder. And surely this was the moment which she had waited for ever since the night mists parted and she had floated through – a body on a river without a memory or name.

Abren raised her face to meet her mother's gaze.

‘Enough of that!
The peep-show's over!
'

The mountain man blinked – and it was all gone. Abren came to herself upon a lonely mountain top. There was no palace made of white stone. No room with narrow bed and stone floor. No mother looking down at her, ready to receive her daughter's gaze.

‘Please,' Abren whispered. ‘Not yet, please!
Bring her back!
'

The mountain man looked away. He didn't answer. Didn't curse at her, like Gwendolina. Didn't shout at her, nor waste his time on a final speech which explained who he was and why she deserved his hate. He just picked her up and marched out into the bog.

‘The river may have helped you once, long ago,' he said. ‘It may have saved you from that poor fool Gwendolina! But it won't help you this time! It won't dare. If you want a thing done, you have to do it yourself! You're not her kill this time –
you're mine!
'

Peaty water splashed around them, but the mountain man strode through it as if the bog couldn't touch him. Abren beat his chest, slapped his face and tugged his hair. But it was a pitiful little battle, lost before it ever started. The mountain man strode on
until there was nothing but bog on every side of them – an unrelenting view, with not a tree or bush or rock in sight.

At last he stopped. Clouds swirled around them, and he looked down at Abren with a grudging hint of cold pity. Abren stopped hitting him, and clung on for dear life.

‘Please, oh, please,
oh
,
please!
' she said.

It made no difference. There was no reasoning with the mountain man. He prised her helpless little body off him, and laid it down in the bog! Laid it like a baby being tucked up for the night – then turned away like a cruel father, leaving his child without a light, even though he knew she feared the dark. Then he walked away without looking back.