Winterbringers (10 page)

Rose was up just after six, although she had been awake for an hour before that. Taking Luath with her, she walked slowly around the edge of the garden, as she had done the night before, checking for any signs that the Winterbringers had broken through her defences.

There were no traces of sand or shell or weed anywhere in the garden, just a bit of the back wall where the snow had been knocked off and some confused footprints between there and the back door. She stared at them hard for a minute, then dismissed them as unimportant: just some of the village kids larking about no doubt; certainly not the work of the ice-creatures.

When she reached the gate she put out the candles with a wave of her hand and bent to pick them up. As she did so she noticed the sea-flotsam signs of the Winterbringers on the other side of the gate and, inspecting it more closely, she could see the gouge marks from heavy, flat nails tearing at the wood. She shivered in spite of herself, picked up the candles and went back into the house.

In the hall, she picked up the phone. Nothing; the lines must be down. Sighing, she put it down again. She listened for a moment to see if anyone else was up and around, but the house was silent, or at least as close to silent as an old house ever gets, so she went into the kitchen, filled the washing-up bowl with water, and set it down on the kitchen table.

She looked intently into it for a few seconds, closed her
eyes and said something under her breath, then opened them again and waited.

After about five minutes, the surface of the water grew cloudy, as though someone had poured milk into it, and then a face appeared, looking up out of the water.

“Oh, it’s you,” said the face.

“Don’t sound so surprised,” said Rose. “There’s only the four of us, so I can’t be that much of a shock.”

“It’s a bit early, that’s all. I was asleep.” Bessie Dunlop yawned as though to emphasize the fact, then looked at Rose more closely. “You don’t look as though you’ve slept much.”

“Och, I’ve not done badly, considering. Bessie, I’d to cast the net round the house last night. The Winterbringers are on the move. Only at night so far, but more of them and for longer, every night.”

“Did it work?”

“Of course it did! They’ll have to get a lot stronger before they can break through that.”

Bessie’s face grew serious. “The thing is, my dear, that they will.”

“What was it like in town last night?”

“Cold. Dark. I feel sorry for all these modern people who got rid of their coal fires and gas cookers. I was quite cosy myself, considering. Have you spoken with the others yet?”

“No. I didn’t want to disturb them too early.”

“Hmmmf. I see … whereas it doesn’t matter if you wake me up?”

“You know perfectly well what I mean Bessie. The others have got families with them in the house whereas you …”

“I am a Little Old Lady Alone. I know.”

“Well, hardly. I’m not sure I’d describe you as a Lady, for one thing, and …”

“I think we’ll just stop there, thank you.”

“Anyway,” said Rose. “I had a thought.”

Bessie waited, silent.

“Maybe together, we could force a way into the Kingdom.”

Bessie sighed. “And if we could, what then?”

“I don’t know,” Rose admitted, “but there’s nothing else I can think of to even try, and I’m not ready to give in just yet.”

“That’s the spirit, girl! Go on, get the others out of bed and let’s get thinking. Maybe something new will occur to one of us. After all, it’s not as if we’ve already been wracking our brains about this for years.

“And while you’re waking them up,” she added “I can get some clothes on instead of sitting freezing in my nightdress, staring into a pot of water.”

The image of Bessie’s face faded, and Rose was once more looking into a washing up bowl full of nothing more than water.

She sighed and prepared to summon the others.

Josh was running as fast as he could. Below his feet the snow had crusted over with ice. His feet broke through at every step, into the cold, soft snow below. He had to reach the cottage before the Winterbringers caught him. Even with its caved-in roof it would be a refuge from them. He just had to reach it before they reached him.

As he thought this, the ice ahead of and around him began to fold and ripple and crack. He slowed, fascinated almost against his will by what was going on at his feet.

As he did so the ice shaped itself finally and a forest of hands pushed up from its crackling surface, feeling blindly, reaching for him.

He swerved wildly, trying to elude the cold grasping fingers,
but it was no good. They had him. They had him …

“Josh, wake up! Come on; it’s after ten.” The hands had him, shaking him …

“Hmmmf … let go!”

“Josh! Get up. We need to get to work.”

He woke properly then. The hand grasping his shoulder was Callie’s, not something that had erupted from the icy ground.

“Sorry,” he said, sitting up. “I must have been dreaming. Did you say after ten?”

“Yes, and the power’s back on.”

“Well, that’s good anyway. What about the snow?”

“No more since last night, but it’s very cold.”

“Have you had breakfast?”

“Ages ago. Everyone’s up but you. Your mum’s been telling us all how much you like your sleep.” She grinned evilly.

“Oh no,” he groaned, pulling the pillow down over his head. “Don’t give me any details please. I’ll be through in a minute. Then you can all laugh at me.”

When he got up he found everyone in the kitchen – as usual – listening to local radio. It was giving information about where there were still power cuts and phone lines down, which seemed to be a lot of places. The police were telling people to stay off the roads: very few were passable and more snow was expected later.

“It looks as if you’ll be here until tomorrow at least,” said George.

“Yes, it does,” sighed Josh’s mum. “I’m sorry to impose like this. I suppose we could go back to the cottage now the power’s back on. We did pay for the whole week.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” said Rose. “It’ll be freezing cold up there. You’re much better here with us. Anyway, we’re all company for each other.”

“Well, if you’re sure …”

They turned their attention back to the radio, listening to reports of weather conditions from the rest of the country. All the major rivers – even the Thames – had frozen. Cities were virtually cut off and panic buying had emptied supermarket shelves across the country.

Rose sniffed disdainfully. “At least folk here have a bit more sense than that. Don’t these people know what store cupboards are for?”

“Probably not,” said Callie, “but they’d say ‘doesn’t she know what a microwave’s for?’ about you.”

“Much good their microwaves will be doing them now,” retorted Rose, unimpressed.

Josh and Callie escaped to her room as soon as they could and pored over Agnes Blair’s journal to find out as much as possible about what they had to try to do.

They made a tiny boat of birch bark, that could sit in the palm of your hand. They painted an eye on the prow, so it would find its way, then we each pricked our thumbs with Janet’s knife and let a drop of blood fall into the boat so that it would know us.

Beatrix had a long coil of white silk thread. She tied one end to the boat and the other to a trailing branch, so the boat would find its way home, then set it down on the water of the tiny stream that flowed through Pitmillie.

“Well, that sounds clear enough,” said Callie.

“Birch bark?”

“There’s a birch tree in the back garden.” She looked at
him narrowly. “You do know what a birch tree looks like, don’t you?”

“Yes, of course. No.”

“It doesn’t matter. I do. Knife, yes. White silk thread … there’s bound to be some in Rose’s embroidery box … paint …”

“What about the stream? Where is it? Is it still there?”

“The only stream that flows through Pitmillie now is the one we walked beside when we saw the deer.” She frowned. “But it doesn’t really go anywhere. It just peters out into a sort of a drainage ditch in the fields up the road a bit.”

“Well, we’ll just have to hope it’s the right one.” Josh folded Agnes’ papers carefully and put them back in the box. “Should we go and see the King just now, do you think?”

Callie shook her head. “I think we should get everything ready first. But he was so weak last night – I think we need to hurry.”

“Let’s go and get this bark then and try to make a boat.”

It was breathtakingly cold outside: much colder than it had been during the night. They stood looking at the birch tree.

“How much do you think we need?”

“Agnes said the boat fitted in the palm of her hand.” Josh held his own hand up, trying to estimate.

“Okay. Keep an eye on the house. I don’t want George to find me doing this.” She pulled a penknife from her pocket and scored the bark carefully in a rectangle about twice the size of her hand. “That should be enough, shouldn’t it?”

Josh nodded.

Callie levered up a corner of the bark with the point of the knife and began to peel it carefully away from the trunk.

It came away much more easily than she had expected, and a couple of minutes later she was holding a ragged-edged
sheet of birch bark.

“Right. Let’s get back to your room and make this boat. Do you think we’re allowed to use glue?”

“I don’t think Agnes would have had glue, do you?”

“I suppose not. I’ll think of something. At least making models is something I’m good at.”

Back in Callie’s room Josh set to work with pen, paper and scissors to make a pattern for the boat before he cut the birch bark, while Callie went off to look for the thread.

When she came back he was surrounded by scraps of paper and was frowning at a new sheet.

“You
do
know what you’re doing, don’t you?” said Callie anxiously.

“Yeah – don’t panic. I just want to make sure I’ve got it exactly right before I cut the bark. Have you got a craft knife or something?”

However much Callie stared at the drawing Josh was looking at, she couldn’t see how it was going to turn into a boat.

“It doesn’t look like a boat,” she said, “but then I’m never any good at those maths things where you have to imagine something three dimensional into a flat shape.”

He couldn’t help but laugh. “You mean nets? They’re easy.”

“Maybe for you,” Callie sighed, “but not for me. They must have left that bit out of my brain.”

“The knife?”

“Oh, yes. I’ll find one.”

By the time she came back Josh had satisfied himself that the shapes were right. He drew his plan onto the smooth inner surface of the bark and began to cut as Callie watched. When he had finished he scored some lines, made a number of slits and set to work bending and weaving sections of bark
into each other.

Ten minutes later it was done. In the palm of his hand Josh held a tiny boat of birch bark, shaped rather like a canoe, with a high prow and stern and a flat bottom. They looked at it proudly, as though it was their child.

“Wow. That’s fantastic.”

“Mmmn. I’m quite pleased with it.” He passed the boat to Callie. “You do the eyes.”

With a thin brush she painted an eye shape on each side of the prow in black and gave the eyes blue irises and black pupils.

“They do this in Greece,” she said as she painted. “so the fishing boats can find their way home. I saw some on holiday once. I never thought I’d be doing it.”

She set the boat down on her desk. It looked beautiful and very fragile.

“Did you get the thread?”

“Yes.” She pulled it out of a pocket and tied one end to the boat. “And I’ve got a penknife for the blood.”

“And the Winter King has the Kingfisher feather.”

There was a short, weighty silence.

“Then we’re ready. And we should go and tell him.”

“Yes.” Josh got up from the floor and frowned as he did so. “Snow’s on again.”

Callie turned to look out of the window. The sky had darkened and fat white flakes like feathers were floating lazily down.

“Definitely time we went.”

They left the boat on the desk and went downstairs.

“We’re going to take Luath out for a walk before it gets any worse,” Callie said to George, who was making a pot of soup. “I thought I’d show Josh where mum and dad live.”

“All right. Wrap up warm and be back in an hour or your
grandmother will fret.”

Callie found a pair of wellies that more or less fitted Josh and they piled on their clothes.

“There’ll be some hiking boots and a ski jacket at the other house that you can borrow,” she said, looking at his rather inadequate layers.

She called Luath and they stepped out into the frozen white world of the front garden. Their breath plumed out in front of them and their feet crunched into the frozen snow.

Just like the dream
, Josh thought.

They passed a couple of people pointlessly shovelling snow from their paths, who said hello, but otherwise the village was quiet. There were lights on in the shop though, and through the window they could see the owners clearing spoiled food out of their freezer.

The clouds had covered the sun now, and the snow was coming down faster. Luath kept close to Callie’s side, ears pricked, nose working.

“He’s a bit twitchy, isn’t he?” asked Josh.

“Mmmn … he can smell something. Maybe it’s where the Winterbringers have been.” They had passed trickles of sand half-covered by new snow here and there, which Luath had sniffed at tentatively, but quickly backed away from.

They turned down the road to the beach. If you looked carefully, you could still see a trace of tyre tracks from last night. It all seemed dream-like to Josh now, and very long ago. He would hardly find it surprising, he thought, if there was no sign of the Winter King in Callie’s house.

He
was
still there though: asleep on the sofa with an arm over his face to shield it from the light.

They stood in the doorway and looked at him properly. Their other encounters with him had been in the cave, or at night. They really hadn’t had a chance to see him clearly.