Winterbringers (3 page)

“Part of the house used to be the village smithy, long ago. I’ll show you next time you’re there.” Abruptly, she swung the torch to point at the roof of the cave. “There are meant to be animals carved into the rock up there. I’ve looked and looked, but I can’t see anything that looks like an animal. Can you?”

Josh squinted up as she moved the light across the rock. He couldn’t see any animals either.

“There are lots of crosses cut into the back wall that you can see at least.” She moved the torch beam to show him. “There are all sorts of legends about this place: that it was a magic forge, or a hiding place for monks, or that a king called Constantine was murdered here by the Danish Sea Wolves. That’s where it gets its name – Constantine’s Cave.”

Callie was tracing some of the crosses in the wall with her fingers. Josh could see that a narrow passage led on from the back of the cave.

“How far back does it go?”

“Only a few more feet,” said Callie dismissively. “It’s not very interesting. Here, take the torch and have a look.”

As we watched the boat it seemed to shiver, and then to swell like an oat in water, until it lay swaying gently, a small boat still, but big enough for the three of us, tethered to a branch by a glimmering white rope.

Beatrix and Janet and I stepped down into the little boat, its silvery-brown hull stained dark red in three places, and sat. The stream seemed to have swollen as well. Normally you could step across it, but now it seemed to be six feet across or more, cut deep
within its banks.

“We’ve no oars,” I said. “How do we row?”

“Wait,” said Janet.

After a moment, the boat began to drift downstream, but as though it moved with purpose. The white rope uncoiled behind us as we moved. Trees leaned in above us, their branches closing in until we slid through a leafy tunnel, green and silver and then green and gold as the sky above and before us changed and the tunnel of branches was bathed in sunlight, not moonshine.

The water flowed smoothly now, as though it was deep, and was clotted with plants. We drifted through them, speechless, struck dumb by a combination of fear and wonder at what we had done.

I never knew if we were in the boat for hours or minutes. In the Kingdom of Summer, time seemed to forget what to do.

At last, or perhaps after a few minutes, the stream widened to a still pool starred with white lilies, and the boat stopped at a little jetty of silvery wood that pushed out into the water. There was not a living creature to be seen: no man or woman, not even the song of a bird or the buzz of an insect among the branches.

We looked at each other.

“We must get out now,” Beatrix whispered, but the silence that she broke was so perfect that we all winced at the sound of her voice.

We climbed carefully out onto the jetty. “Wait here,” said Janet to the boat as we set off along a winding path of short grass that twisted away in front of us through the trees.

Josh edged carefully into the passage. The torchlight reflected back at him oddly from the walls, and it was suddenly very cold. He put out a hand to touch the rock. It was icy, and wet under his fingers, and when he shone the torch at the floor there was water pooled under his shoes.

“You didn’t say it was wet back here,” he yelled over his shoulder.

“It isn’t usually. The rain must be coming in somewhere.”

That made no sense. It was a passageway worn out of solid rock. He edged forward a bit further and came to an abrupt halt, the torchlight flashing back at his face. Cautiously, he reached out a hand to what blocked his way.

Ice.

He swung the torch beam up and down. The way forward was completely blocked by a wall of ice, smooth as a mirror except in one place, where a spur of rock poked through at about shoulder height. Disconcerted, he backed out into the main chamber, aware of the rise in temperature as soon as he emerged.

“What?” Callie was looking at him enquiringly. “What is it?”

“The ice. Is it always like that?”

“Ice? What are you talking about?”

“Look for yourself.” He handed her the torch and she disappeared into the passageway.

A couple of minutes later she re-emerged, looking puzzled.

“That’s totally weird. I’ve never seen that before. It’s not even cold enough for there to be ice.” She glanced at her watch. “George should be finished by now. Maybe he’ll know why it’s like that.”

“Can I have another look?”

“Sure.” She passed him the torch. This time, he shone the light at the roof, looking for signs of water leaching in, but the stone above his head was dry. He turned the light to the ice at the end of the passageway.

“What the …” he muttered, moving closer.

The spur of rock that had been poking through the smooth surface of the ice was now no more than an egg-sized bump.

The ice was growing.

As he was about to call Callie, he heard her shouting. “George – come here! There’s something strange in the cave.” He looked over his shoulder and saw her silhouetted against the bright halo of the entrance. When he turned back, the piece of rock he’d been looking at was barely visible any more.

Moving the light across the ice, he was again about to call to Callie when something made him gasp and jump backwards. His elbow hit the wall hard and the torch fell from his tingling fingers and went out.

With a yelp, he scrambled backwards from the passage into the main chamber of the cave and stumbled out and on to the beach. As he did so, he blundered into Callie, George beside her.

“Josh? What’s wrong?”

“I … nothing. I dropped your torch; I’m sorry. I think the ice is getting thicker.”

Callie gave him a strange look, but said nothing.

“Let’s have a look then,” said George, pulling his car keys
from his pocket. Josh wondered what he was doing until he saw a little torch like Callie’s attached to it. He strode into the cave.

Callie turned to follow him. “Are you coming?”

“In a minute. I just want some fresh air.”

She gave him another funny look, then followed George. Left alone on the beach, Josh listened to his heart slow down to something like normal.

He ought to go back in.

His feet didn’t seem to want to take him.

Come on. You’re being stupid
.

He forced himself into the mouth of the cave just as Callie stepped from the passageway.

“The torch is fine,” she said, waving it. “I think you’re right about the ice,” she wrinkled her nose, “but I don’t understand how it can be doing that.”

“Very interesting,” said George, emerging behind her. “I’ve never seen that before, or heard of such a thing. We’ll ask Rose, Callie. She knows lots of things that I don’t. We’d best be getting back now anyway. I’ll take you round to the cottage Josh.”

The rain had gone off. As they walked back along the beach towards the car Callie looked sidelong at Josh. “Are you all right? You were really pale when you came out of the cave and bumped into me.”

“I’m fine. I bashed my elbow really hard on a rock when I dropped the torch. That must be why I was pale,” he lied.

She didn’t look convinced.

He couldn’t tell her the truth. She’d think he was off his head. He couldn’t tell her what had frightened him so much that he’d dropped the torch, because obviously she and George hadn’t seen it, so obviously he’d imagined it.

Obviously. But it still seemed real. He’d shone the torch
across the ice, and for a moment, he’d seen a man’s face behind it, watching him.

Rose listened intently to George and Callie’s description of the mysterious ice in the cave, brows drawn together in concentration.

“What do you think, Rose?” said George.

She dusted flour off her hands. “It all sounds very interesting.”

“But what do you think could be causing it?” asked Callie.

“Causing it? I’ve got no idea.”

Later, when they were eating their soup at tea time, Rose said suddenly, “George, did I remember to tell you I’m meeting the girls for coffee tomorrow?”

“I don’t believe you did, my dear. Or perhaps I just forgot. Usual time?”

“Yes. Pass the bread please Callie.”

All that evening, the image of what he’d seen in the cave drifted through Josh’s mind, and he could do nothing to dislodge it.

“I got a lot done today,” said Anna. “I think I’ll give myself tomorrow morning off. We’ll go into St Andrews and do something. I take it lunch wasn’t as bad as you expected?”

“No. Callie’s okay when you get talking to her. And I hardly saw the dog.”

“Told you.”

“I hate it when you say that.”

“I know.”

Unobserved by anyone now, the ice advanced to the end of the narrow passage then beyond, hour by hour, inch by inch, until the moonlight gleamed off a great slab of ice that filled the cave mouth. A trickle of water came from it and sank immediately into the sand.

As the night wore on, the trickle of water continued and the ice slowly receded, retreating back to the passageway, leaving behind in the centre of the outer chamber what it had carried with it.

A man.

Curled on the floor, icy and soaked, barely breathing, hair darkened by water, his hands clawed into the sand as if to hold himself to the earth, so that the ice could not carry him back again.

After some time he gathered the strength to raise his head.

“Come back,” he whispered.

Come back.

The words floated into the middle of Josh’s dreams. Fast asleep, he saw the face of the ice-man.
Come back
, he said, and Josh woke with a jump, his heart pounding.

It was frosty the next morning, white tips to every leaf and blade of grass.

“Frost in July!” said Anna. “This would never have happened when I was young.”

They drove down the long hill towards St Andrews, a skyline of towers and spires, the sea shining on their right, steel blue.

“I bet that’s cold,” she went on.

“Mmnnn … I’ll stick to the pool thanks.”

They found a parking space near Janetta’s ice cream shop.

“Come on. Let’s go up St Rule’s Tower.” She pointed to a tall, square tower beside the ruined cathedral.

“Why?”

“It’s a great view from the top. Come on, you’ll like it once you’re up.”

“It’s the getting up I don’t fancy.”

“My son, the couch potato.”

In the West Port Café, Rose Ferguson sat at a table with three other women about her own age, admiring a new hat one of them had just bought.

“It’s lovely, Bessie,” she said, “but tell me – why do you need
another
new hat?”

Bessie Dunlop smoothed the scarlet feathers around the crown and shrugged. “I just like to buy them. Then I know I’ll always have the right one if I’m invited anywhere fancy.”

Isobel Adam brought four chocolate biscuits out of her bag and handed them out, rather surreptitiously, to the others. “I don’t know who you think is going to invite the likes of
us
anywhere fancy enough to wear that!” she said mildly.

Bessie sniffed dismissively and put the hat back in its box. “Speak for yourself dear. At least
I’ll
be ready. I might go on an exotic holiday like Barbara does and have to dress for dinner.”

“I’ve never had to wear a hat for dinner,” said Barbara Napier, “I don’t know anywhere
that
exotic!”

“Anyway, that’s enough about hats and holidays. Rose, when you asked us to meet here yesterday, you said it was important. What’s going on?”

They all turned to Rose, attentive and serious now.

“Girls, I think things are coming to a crisis.” She told them what George and Callie had seen in Constantine’s Cave.

“Do they have any idea what it means?” asked Barbara.

“George has an inkling, though even he has no idea how bad things would be if this really is the start of the Black Winter rising. Callie …” She shook her head. “We must find a way to put this right. We’ve all seen how the weather is changing and how the changes are speeding up. We
must
find a way.”

Isobel put a hand on her arm. “I know my dear, but haven’t we been trying for years already? What can we do that we haven’t done before?”

They fell silent.

Josh was relieved to hear his mum breathing harder than him as he came out behind her into the cold sky at the top of the tower. He looked round.

There was a solid looking wooden barrier to keep anyone from getting right to the edge.

“Huh! When I was a student you could sit right on the edge if you wanted to. Blooming health and safety people! Anyway, they can’t take away the view. I told you it was worth it.”

Even Josh was impressed. On one side the sea, gleaming like sheet-metal; the town spread like a quilt around the base of the tower, and beyond, farmland and hills to the edge of vision, all silver-chilled with the last of the frost.

He leaned as far as he could over the wooden rail.

“Didn’t anyone fall off when you could sit on the edge?”

“Not as far as I know. I mean, it was pretty obvious you’d
to be careful not to lean too far back. They had to watch out for drunken students of course, but they just didn’t let them up. It seemed to work.”

Josh was looking at the landscape below them again. “It’s frostier that way than it is down towards the village.”

She screwed up her eyes against the sun and the frost glitter to see better. “Yes, you’re right. Maybe because we’re nearer the sea. I think I remember reading that keeps the land warmer. I mean, you hardly ever get snow right down by the shore anywhere in Scotland, even now.”

Josh remembered the ice in Constantine’s Cave and wondered about that. A voice said in his ear, “Come back.” Startled, he whipped round, half-expecting to see the man from the ice, but there was no one on the tower besides the two of them. He gave a shudder, the hair standing up on the back of his neck.

“It’s freezing up here. Let’s go down.” He shivered.

“All right.”

Now that the ice-man was back in his head, he wouldn’t leave Josh alone, the face in his memory, the words unavoidable. He
must
have imagined it, but he could still remember the shock of fear when he saw the face. He had to go back to the cave. That was the only way he’d be able to get rid of this feeling that he couldn’t put a name to.

They went for hot chocolate, then shopped for food. As they drove back to the cottage Josh said tentatively, “I might see if Callie wants to do something this afternoon, if that’s okay.” Anything to derail his imagination.

“Of course. Why don’t you invite her over for a swim or something?”

“Yeah, might do. You can drop me at her house as we go past, then I’ll walk up to the cottage.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, of course. What do you mean?”

“Offering to walk. That’s not like you.”

“Must be the country air or something.”

Callie came to the door with a tortoiseshell kitten climbing up her sweater.

“There’s no one else in,” she said. “Just me and Chutney Mary, not even Luath.” She turned and went inside, leaving him to follow.

“Chutney Mary?”

She detached the kitten from her chest and held it out to Josh. “This is Chutney Mary.”

“Why?”

“Well, she has to be called something and George and Rose don’t seem to think Come-here-you-stupid-cat is good enough.”

The kitten was trying to chew his thumb off. “Ouch. I never knew their teeth were so sharp. Isn’t Chutney Mary a bit of a … weird name?”

“Probably no weirder than any other name seems if you’re a cat.”

There didn’t seem to be an answer to that.

“What do you want anyway?”

“I wondered if you wanted to come over to the cottages, if you’re not doing anything. We could have a swim, or watch a film or play pool or something. Only if you’ve nothing better to do of course.”

Why did he always feel such a prat when he talked to her?

To his surprise she looked delighted. “Can I come with you now? I’m bored out of my mind.”

“Eh … yeah. Of course.”

“Hang on, I’ll just shut Chutney Mary away so she doesn’t shred all the curtains.”

She disappeared with the kitten and reappeared a moment later with a heavy jacket over her fraying sweater. “Right,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Bathed in golden light, we followed the path through groves of oak and birch and rowan, and other trees that we did not recognize. The sun cast rippling patterns of light and shade on the bark and at our feet, as a breeze moved the leaves above us.
We moved, speechless, as though we were caught in a dream. Perhaps we were.

The path rose steadily. We walked one behind the other, Beatrix in front. She stopped suddenly, and Janet and I caught up to her and together we looked out from the edge of the wood.

Below us was a grassy valley, smooth as a bowl, wide and shallow. It seemed to catch all the light in the sky and throw it back. And at its centre, like the pupil of an eye, was a building such as we’d never imagined, much less seen.