Дженни Ниммо - The Snow Spider

Gwyn did not know how long he stood by the window. He was not aware of any sound until the search party began to arrive. The grapevine in Pendewi worked fast. Sometimes people even sensed the news before they heard it. Ten men set off to look for Alun Lloyd, and later Mrs. Griffiths and another mother followed them.

The search did not last long. Gwyn heard the defeated stamping of boots in the snow, the grave, deep voices, and the kettle whistling on and on and on!

Hunger and curiosity drove him downstairs. The kitchen was so crowded he could not find a chair, nor reach the bread bin. He managed to sneak a plate of cookies from the table, and then retreated with it to the door. He leaned and listened, waiting for someone to mention the mountain and whatever it was that Arianwen had built there.

They were all talking at once, yet avoiding what they wanted to say. They were adults and did not know how to discuss something that was impossible, something they did not understand.

Pools of water on the kitchen floor mingled with crushed cookies and cigarette ash. Iolo was under the table, snivelling, but everyone had become accustomed to that sound and ignored him. Gwyn remembered that other search, four years ago, when he had sat under the table and cried because his sister was lost.

And then the words that he wanted to hear began to drift towards him.

"Did you feel it?" "Bloody peculiar!" "Like a net!" "A cloud?" "No, not that!" "Ice!" "A frozen cloud?" "More like a wall!" "Never heard of anything like it!" "Call the police!" "What can they do?" "Can't see a bloody thing out there!" "Searchlights?"

Gwyn sidled out the door and carried his plate of cookies upstairs. He heard the police arrive. Eirlys, the last person to see Alun, was called down to speak to them.

Everybody stopped talking when she came in. They drew back and gazed at the frail, white-faced child, so insubstantial and fairylike in her white nightgown and borrowed gray shawl. She brought to mind that other time, in the same farmhouse, when they had come to search for a girl like this one, so very like this one. Only the other girl had been dark and rosy-cheeked, and they had never found her. Now they bent their heads, straining to hear the words she spoke so softly. And when she had finished, they all began to sigh and murmur about mists and mountains. Officer Perkins had to erase half his notes. He was new to the area, just up from the city, and he felt like a stranger among these superstitious and excitable farmers. Their melodious voices conveyed nothing but confusion to him.

He left with his partner, Officer Price, and they walked up the road for a bit, to find out what they could. They returned before long, and drove away without a word.

It'll be in the papers, thought Gwyn. They'll call it a phenomenon and then they'll forget about it.

The searchers departed in ones and twos. "We'll be back in the morning!" they called. "We'll find him!"

The Lloyds were the last to leave. Iolo had fallen asleep in his father's arms, but now Mrs. Lloyd was crying.

It was such a long, long night. Gwyn could not sleep. He sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the window. Eirlys came up and kept him company. They did not speak, but her presence was comforting. Just as she was about to go, a sound came from the mountain. A long, wailing sigh!

"Did you hear that?" Gwyn whispered.

"Was it the wind?" she asked.

"No, not the wind!"

The sound came again, louder this time. An anguished, melancholy howl. It crept down Gwyn's spine and made him shiver.

"It's like a wild animal," said Eirlys.

"Trapped!" he added.

The howling gradually died away, and Eirlys returned to her bed. But later that night it came again, louder and more terrible than ever, though it seemed to be only Gwyn who heard it. It got into his head, and he had to rock back and forth to endure the sound. He knew who it was, of course, and agonized over what it might do to Alun, if it found him.

And then he became aware that the sound was in the room. It was in the silver pipe, lying on the bedside table.

Gwyn jumped out of bed, seized the pipe, and ran with it across the room. He thrust it into his drawer and slammed the drawer tightly shut. But to his horror, the voice within the drawer merely seemed to intensify, until the whole chest vibrated with the sound.

Gwyn put his hands over his ears and stumbled backwards to the bed. He knows about the pipe, Gwyn thought. He's using it to fight me. But he won't get out! He won't! He won't! Arianwen and I are too strong for him!

It ended at last. Gwyn lay back, exhausted, and fell asleep on top of the blankets.

He was awakened by another sound, a muffled, intermittent tapping on his window. Someone was throwing snowballs.

He went to the window, opened it, and looked out. A shadowy figure was beside the apple tree, but he could not make out any features. "Who's there?" he called.

"Alun!" came the reply.

Gwyn ran down and opened the front door.

Alun was standing on the porch. He was pale, but certainly not frozen. He was holding something small and dark in his hand, and he had an odd, vacant expression in his eyes, as though he was not sure why or how he had come to be there. He stepped into the house and wordlessly followed Gwyn into the kitchen. He laid the thing that he had been holding on the kitchen table. It was the broken horse!

Gwyn stared at it. "Where've you been?" he asked gently.

"Out there!" Alun jerked his head towards the window.

"I know, out there," said Gwyn. "But where?"

Alun wiped his nose on the sleeve of his coat. He did not seem inclined to answer any more questions.

"Better take some of that off," said Gwyn, nodding at his friend's soaking clothes.

Alun removed his coat, his boots, and his socks, and then he sank onto a kitchen chair and wiped his nose, this time on his shirt cuff.

"Wish you could tell me about it!" Gwyn bit his lip. He realized that it was no use trying to force Alun to talk. He would have to wait until his friend was ready.

"Aw heck!" Alun scratched his head. "I don't know. It's all so peculiar, like. I don't really understand what happened. I was following your footsteps in that blizzard, and I got lost. So I turned around to come back — and I couldn't. There was something there, like bars. Ice-cold they were, but hard as anything. At first it was all cloudy, and I couldn't see, but then it got brighter and brighter and I saw what I was caught in. It was a sort of cage, bars all round in a pattern, like a. . like a. ."

"Cobweb?" Gwyn suggested.

"Phew!" Alun looked hard at Gwyn. "You know, don't you? It's funny though. All those things you said. They were true, weren't they?"

"Yes, they were true!"

"Well, I suppose you know about the man, then?"

"What man?" Gwyn stepped closer. "Was there a man in there with you?"

"A kind of man. He scared me. He had red hair and he was dressed all in kind of bright stuff, jewelry and that, with a cloak and a gold belt with a big sword in it. And he was beating at the bars with his fists, tearing at them, banging his head on them, yelling. I was scared, I can tell you. But he didn't see me. It sounds funny, but I felt very small and kind of. . like I had something round me, very warm and soft, like feathers. Anyway, he kept on and on at those bars for hours and hours. I fell asleep, and when I woke up he was still at it — moaning and crying. And then something awful happened!"

Gwyn waited. He could hardly bear the suspense, but he dared not ask a question.

"He began to disappear," Alun continued, "just shrank. Sort of faded away, and so did the bars of ice, until there was nothing left there, except. ."

"Except what?"

"That!" Alun pointed to the broken horse.