Дженни Ниммо - The Snow Spider

Mr. Griffiths loved his black cows, loved to be close to them. He still milked by hand, ignoring the cold electric apparatus other farmers preferred. He stood in the cowshed suffering with his animals, dismayed by their condition.

"What is it?" he muttered. "It can't be the storm. I've never seen them like this."

"Leave them till later, Dad," Gwyn suggested. "They'll calm down when the wind dies."

"It's like the devil's in there," said his father, closing the big door on his cattle.

They waded back to the kitchen door, leaving their sodden raincoats and boots in the narrow porch outside. A cloud of water followed them into the room, but for once Mrs. Griffiths did not seem concerned. She was looking out of the window. "I'm thinking about Nain," she said. "The lane is like a river. Her front door rattles even in a breeze and you never fixed her roof in spring, like you said you would, Ivor."

"I'll go and see her in a bit." Her husband sighed and sank into a chair.

"I'll go," Gwyn offered. He wondered how Alun and the other Lloyds had fared in the storm.

The Lloyds were already at home. Fearing that her little ones would be soaked if they had to walk up the lane, Mrs. Lloyd had fetched her family by car. Just as well, for Iolo was wild with fear. He hated thunder.

Alun was in the room he shared with his brothers. He was standing by the window, watching the rain while the twins argued on the floor behind him. Alun enjoyed a storm. He relished the noise and the violence. He gazed at the contortions of the trees, hoping that one might fall. And then he saw something.

Someone was out in the storm, someone small and alone. A pale shape moving slowly against the wind and the water.

The figure stopped opposite the Lloyds' gate on the other side of the lane. Alun saw a white face looking up at him, and he knew who it was. Her hood had fallen back and her soaking hair hung in ash-colored strands over her hunched shoulders. She was holding one arm across her chest and looked frightened and exhausted.

Alun quickly drew the curtains and turned away from the window.

"What is it?" asked Gareth. "What did you see out there? You look funny."

"I didn't see nothing," Alun replied. "Only the storm."

"Looks like you saw a ghost to me," said Sion.

Gwyn was on the front porch, putting on his boots. His mother helped him with his coat, buttoning it tightly at the neck.

"Don't be long, now," she said. "Just pop in and see if your grandmother needs anything. Come straight back or your cold'll get worse."

"It's gone," said Gwyn. "The water's washed it away." He tried to laugh, but the sound stuck in his throat.

He ran down the side of the path where the ground was higher, leaping from island to island, his flashlight aimed at the lane ahead.

When he reached his grandmother's cottage the rain suddenly stopped, and beneath the clouds an eerie yellow light crept across the horizon. The dripping trees stood black against the sky. The only sounds came from innumerable streams gushing down the mountainside.

There was no light in Nain's cottage. Gwyn knocked but there was no reply. He opened the door and looked in. His grandmother's room was cold and dark. There was something dreadfully wrong about the place, an oppressive stillness that frightened him. He turned on the light and saw what it was.

Beneath a gray veil of ashes, Nain's treasures lay in ruins. Pictures hung at crazy angles round the room, and once-bright scarves dropped in colorless shreds. The canary lay motionless at the bottom of its cage, and all about the floor were fragments of glass, books ripped and spoiled, shattered beads, and dying plants.

Some terrible element had crushed and abused everything in the room that was a part of his grandmother. Every object that she had chosen, nurtured, and loved had been destroyed.

Beside the dead fire, Nain sat huddled in a chair. She seemed older, smaller than before. There were ashes in her black hair and her face was gray.

Gwyn stepped slowly over the broken possessions until he stood beside his grandmother. "What has happened, Nain?" he asked. "What has been here?"

Nain looked up at him and her black eyes narrowed. "You know very well, Gwydion Gwyn," she said. "You know and I know what you have done. You crazy, bad magician!"

"What have I done, Nain?" Even as he asked the question, Gwyn knew what the answer would be.

"You let it go! My great-great-grandmother trusted me, and I trusted you. You have failed us, Gwydion Gwyn!"

"You mean the broken horse, don't you?" Gwyn cried defiantly. "Well, say so then! Speak its name! It was all I had! Arianwen has gone, drowned perhaps, and I had to get her back. Eirlys said I must!"

"But why the horse? Why the horse?" Nain rose out of her chair and her voice rose with her. "Didn't I tell you to keep it safe? Never to let it go? The spider would have returned to you. A creature like that could never die! She belongs to you, and you can get her when you want to, if you really try."

"I didn't know," said Gwyn. "And I didn't mean to let the horse go. The wind took it. What is it anyway, that I have released? And how can I stop it?"

"Only you can find that out, Gwydion Gwyn," his grandmother replied. "And I am afraid for you. It is a strong and dreadful thing that you must capture!"

"But didn't you see it? It was here. Why did it do this to your room?"

"Ah!" Nain sank back into her chair. "I tried to stop it, see. When I heard that noise in the air, and all the birds stopped singing… when the hail began to batter the land and the trees trembled, then I knew what you had done. So I went to my great-great-grandmother's books and I tried to find out how to stop it." Her voice sank to a whisper. "I burnt leaves in a bowl, and some bones and berries, and I began to sing. But it knew, didn't it? It knew what I was doing and it came in through the door and knocked me down. It smashed^ my bowl and blew out the fire, so angry it was. It roared round the room and broke everything in its way, and then it went!"

"And didn't you see anything?"

"Nothing! It was in the wind."

Gwyn was silent. He was terrified of the thing that he had to face. But he was determined to make reparation. "I'll help you clean up, Nain," he said.

"Leave it to me!" she snapped. "They'll be needing you at home."

But Gwyn refused to go until he had helped his grandmother sweep the debris from the floor. They gathered the dying plants and put them in water, then dusted the furniture, and straightened the pictures. Gwyn picked up the torn pages and replaced them in the books, and his grandmother tenderly arranged them into piles again. He sifted out the broken china and she put it in order, ready for glueing. After a while the room began to come to life. But the canary still lay quiet at the bottom of its cage, its neck bent and its eyes closed.

"It could do this?" Gwyn asked, staring at the broken bird.

"It could do worse," Nain replied. "Go on now! And take this." From beneath the cushion on which she had been sitting, she withdrew the black book. "I kept one thing safe, you see," she said. "I knew you would need it."

It was dark when he left the cottage. The water was not so deep and the thunder had rolled away, but there was a strange turbulence in the air that disturbed him.

He was relieved to see that the lights had come on again in the farmhouse. It looked safe and welcoming. His father met him at the door. "Did you see the girl?" he asked.

Before Gwyn could reply, his mother said, "Why were you so long? What happened?"

"I had to help Nain," he explained. He would have said more if his father had not interrupted again.

"Did you see the girl?" he demanded anxiously.

"The girl? Eirlys? No, I didn't see her," Gwyn said.