Beneath (10 page)

Jess and the wolves stared at each other unmoving for what seemed a very long time. For the first few seconds her mind was blank with panic.

She tightened her grip on the sickle and stayed absolutely still as she tried to think.

A thought hammered for attention.
They’re huge. I’ve never been this close to wolves, but surely they’re not this big?
She thought of the stories of black wolves she’d heard recently and had to remind herself that no one could remember an adult being attacked near here.

What are you going to do?

I suppose they might be frightened of me if I ran at them and shouted.

She looked at their steady yellow eyes.

On the other hand, they might not be.

Just at the moment, that seemed more likely.

If I stay still, maybe they’ll go away. But how can I be sure they’ve really gone?

The wolves looked as though they could outlast her if it came to a waiting contest anyway.

That just left the tree.

If she could get back up there she’d be safe, and eventually someone would come looking for her. But to get up there she would have to move. And she would have to let go of the sickle. Could she get herself off the ground fast enough?

One of the wolves took a single, tentative step towards her. That decided Jess. The longer she waited, the less chance she would have.

Treading carefully, she began to move backwards, trying to remember exactly how she had climbed, but not daring to
look round. As she did so, the lead wolf took another step and began to growl softly in the back of its throat, the ruff of coarse hair round its neck rising as it did so.

Jess kept moving, trying not to think of the moment when she would have to turn her back if she was going to climb.

All three wolves were on the move now. The growling was louder and their lips were drawn back from their long teeth.

Backing away, Jess stumbled on a root and almost fell. She saw the first wolf poised to leap at her.

And then another huge dark shape erupted from the trees on her right and hurled itself at the wolves without a second’s hesitation.

Everything happened so quickly that it took Jess a few seconds to work out what she was seeing. She stared transfixed at the scene before her. Rearing and plunging in the clearing, trying to strike the wolves with its great hooves, was a black horse. It was gaunt and shabby-maned and she could see its ribs under its dull coat as it reared and plunged again. The wolves leapt at the horse and it spun madly, trying to avoid the snapping jaws and raking claws.

Jess took all of this in in a few numb seconds before she came to her senses and fled. She ran as fast as she could, jumping logs, heedless of the branches that whipped at her, imagining that any second she would feel a wolf’s hot breath at her back, hear it gaining on her.

On she ran, breath sobbing. She burst out of the trees and kept going, somehow, until she reached the farmyard.

Gathering a single, ragged breath, she shouted, “Wolves!” and heard the sound of tools being dropped and running footsteps. Ian and the two farmhands ran towards her, looking round as though they expected the wolves to be there with her.

“Are you all right?” Ian yelled before he even reached her.

She nodded and suddenly realised that she was still clutching not only the sickle, but the mistletoe too.

“What happened?” her father asked as Martha, Ellen and
Ashe appeared from the house.

“I was up the hill behind the orchard cutting mistletoe. There were three of them watching me – huge black ones.” Jess stopped to gather more breath and for the first time wondered what else to say.

She needn’t have worried. Ian didn’t seem to need any more information.

“Get weapons,” he said to the other men. “We’ll go up there now.” He turned back to Jess. “You’re sure you’re all right? They’ve never come down this early before.”

Jess nodded, her mind in turmoil.

“Stay inside just now,” Ian said to Martha, and turned to go after the men.

Martha ushered her family inside and latched the door behind them, then gently took the sickle and the mistletoe from Jess, who was still grimly clinging to them.

“Take your jacket off and come and sit down in the kitchen. You’ve had quite a fright,” she said.

Jess followed her mother into the kitchen.

“They seemed much bigger than normal wolves, but maybe that’s just because they were so close. And they were black,” she said.

“Like Arnor’s wolf?” Ashe suggested.

“Yes.” Jess hadn’t thought of that before. “Just like Arnor’s wolf.”

Ellen spooned honey into a cup of one of her herb teas.

“Sit, lass. This will settle your nerves,” she said to Jess.

Jess sat obediently, and to her relief, everyone left her alone to collect herself, leaving Jess to think properly about what had happened under the trees.

The horse that had come to her rescue couldn’t possibly just have been a normal horse. But it wasn’t Finn either. The creature that had saved her had been a poor, broken-down-looking beast. Only the colour was the same. It couldn’t be him. She thought fleetingly of the red weal left by the halter
around his neck.

Another Nykur then? But why would any of the others help her? In fact, why would Finn even help her? She had brought them nothing but harm.

What was happening up on the hill now? She shivered, wondering what the men would find. Had the horse managed to escape? She felt sick suddenly, thinking of those slashing teeth and claws.

Should she tell her grandmother what had really happened? Jess thought about Ellen’s reaction to the poisoning of Roseroot Pool and decided to stay silent.

The men came back about two hours later.

“Well?” asked Martha, as Ian kicked his boots off at the back door.

“The snow’s all churned up where Jess was. There’s a fair bit of blood; they must have caught something. No sign of it though. We followed their tracks back up the hill for a bit, then we lost the trail. It looked like they were heading back up to the tops.”

What about hoof prints?
Jess wanted to ask.
What about the horse?
She waited for her father to say something else, but he didn’t. He looked at Jess keenly, as though trying to guess her thoughts. She returned his gaze, hoping she looked calmer than she felt.

“I don’t know what’s brought them right down this early in the winter,” Ian said, “But from now on no one leaves the farmyard without letting me know.”

That night, it began to snow in earnest. Great stacks of yellow-grey cloud pushed down from the north until the sky seemed impossibly full. Then the wind died and the snow began.

It was still falling when they got up next morning. A sickly light reflected from the clouds and the lying snow, which was now ankle deep. Tracks across the yard showed where Ian and
the other men had already crossed and recrossed this morning.

It wasn’t a day when anyone planned to be outside much anyway. The animals were always put in the barn together for Yuletide, even when the weather was mild and there were no wolves to worry about. It was a busy day, though: family tradition dictated that the house had to be cleaned from attic to cellar and the evening meal prepared before sunset.

Everyone helped, even Ian, once he had sent the farmhands off to their families for Yuletide. Jess and Ashe stood in the falling snow, shaking dust out of the rugs.

“I wonder how deep it’s going to get? Ashe mused.

“I don’t suppose it’ll go on much longer. It’s still too early in the winter for a big fall.”

They went back in, passing under the precious bunch of mistletoe, now fastened securely to the lintel. In the house, holly was pinned over every window and chimney. Ivy twined round the handrail all the way up the stairs, and garlanded the Yule Log, waiting now in the big fireplace in the sitting room. It would be lit at sunset from a chip of wood from last year’s log, carefully hoarded since then for this task.

Jess and Ashe put the rugs back. Ian was busy with the log, splitting off a fragment for next year, and cutting slits in the bark for later.

He looked up.

“Have you written your wishes?”

“Not yet,” said Ashe.

“I’ll see if Mother wants any help first,” said Jess.

He nodded and went back to what he’d been doing.

The whole house smelled of beeswax polish and cut wood and spices and, underlying it all, the fugitive chilly tang of snow. Everything seemed calm in the kitchen. On the table stood a blue-and-white plate piled high with a pyramid of ginger biscuits that made Jess’s mouth water as she looked at them.

“Just one?” she said pleadingly, knowing it was hopeless.

“Not until sunset. It’s only another hour or so; you’ll
manage.” Martha was merciless.

“But I’m hungry.”

“Then eat an apple. Or some bread.”

“Not that hungry.” She looked out of the window. “It’s going to be hard to know when it
is
sunset, there’s so much cloud. At least the snow’s stopped though.”

“Hurry up, Jess!” came Ian’s voice up the stairs. “It’s nearly sunset.”

“All right. I’ll be there in a minute.”

She stared hard at the paper she was holding, then crossed out the wish she had started to write. Dipping her pen back in the ink pot, she wrote quickly, before she could change her mind and do the sensible thing.

I wish I could see Finn again.

As soon as the ink was dry she folded the paper up small, then hurried downstairs.

She was last to arrive. The rest of the family sat or stood round the unlit log, each holding a folded paper. A single beeswax candle burned on top of the fireplace.

Ashe went eagerly forward and poked his wish into one of the slits Ian had cut in the log earlier. Next came Jess, then Martha, Ian and finally Ellen.

“And oldest kindles the flame.”

Ian handed the little piece of last year’s log to Ellen, who held it in the candle flame until it caught. Once it was well alight she bent and touched it to the bed of kindling on which the log lay, moving across to set it alight in several places. Finally she set it, still burning, on top of the new Yule Log.

“May our Yule be merry and our winter short,” she said, and Yule had begun.

Martha brought mulled ale and the biscuits from the kitchen while Ellen lit the oil lamps. The room glowed with
firelight and lamplight.

“At last,” sighed Jess, reaching for the first of many biscuits, and they settled down to watch until the wishes burned and the ashes flew away up the chimney, carrying their words into the sky.

It snowed for most of Yule day itself, though no one really cared, immersed in food and drink.

The light faded, the Yule Log diminished to nothing but embers, and still the snow fell. Yule was over.

As she closed her shutters, Jess wondered if the wolves had sensed this weather coming.

Where were they now, and where was the bedraggled horse?

They woke next morning to a frozen wasteland. The snow had stopped at some point during the night, but a wind had sprung up to blow what had already fallen into drifts against the sides of buildings.

There was ice on the inside of Jess’s window. She and Freya had half arranged to see each other tomorrow, but no one would be able to go anywhere with the snow this deep.

It took Ian over half an hour to dig a narrow path to the barn. Muffled in several layers of clothing, Jess and Ashe edged along it, the snow on either side well above their knees, to help with the animals.

They were all used to hard winters of course, and this was nothing out of the ordinary, but it was early for this much snowfall. If it went on all through the winter… As they worked, Ian started to calculate how much fodder they’d need to see them through. Just as well it had been a good summer for hay.

“Go on, you two. I’ll finish up,” he said, heaving a fork load of dirty straw onto the barrow.

Jess and Ashe pulled hats and gloves back on and went outside. The sky lowered, promising more snow soon. As Jess stood looking around, Ashe took his chance and shoved a handful of snow down her neck. Taken by surprise, she let out a scream, and whirled round for revenge, only to find that he had thrown himself off the path and was flailing his way through the unbroken snow, laughing like a madman.

“Just wait!” she shrieked after him. “You’ll be sorry you started this.”

With the advantage of longer legs and the fact that Ashe
was having to clear a path for both of them, she was soon close enough to start snowballing him hard.

He roared in outrage and turned round to retaliate. They were so close that most of the snow found its mark and they were soon covered and almost helpless with laughter. Finally, one of Jess’s snowballs caught Ashe on the side of the head. He lost his balance and toppled backwards into the unbroken snow, only his boots sticking out.

Jess went over and helped him lever himself out.

“That was good fun,” he said, and Jess nodded, breathless.

“I doubt Mother’ll agree when she sees how wet we are,” she added ruefully, but Ashe wasn’t listening.

He stared at the orchard, each tree swaddled in white.

“What’s that?” he said, pointing.

Jess followed his finger to something dark lying in the snow between the trees. She couldn’t make out what it was.

Ashe was already pushing his way closer. He got as far as the half-buried fence at the edge of the farmyard and stopped, Jess just behind him.

“It’s someone,” said Ashe in a quavery voice. “Someone’s died in the orchard.”

“Go and get Father. Run.” Jess climbed over the fence and fought her way through the snow towards the still thing on the ground. Her heart gave a lurch of horror as she drew close enough to make out more of the motionless figure.

Let me be wrong. Please let me be wrong.

She heard her father coming up behind her and pushed forward even harder until she was close enough to be sure that she wasn’t wrong.

It was Finn.

Jess came to a halt as though she’d run up against a wall.

“Let me go first, Jess,” Ian said, catching her up, and ploughed on towards Finn.

Jess was almost too frightened to go any further, but she forced herself on. It was another five minutes before they
reached him and in all that time he hadn’t moved at all.

He lay half buried in the snow, curled on his side. Jess pulled off a glove and put out a hand to touch his face. His lips were blue, his skin like ice, utterly without colour.

Ian reached inside Finn’s sodden tunic, feeling for any pulse in his throat. For ten long seconds he was silent, then Jess heard him catch his breath.

“He’s not dead.” He got to his feet, began scraping snow away so that he could get a proper hold of Finn.

“Go back to the house. Tell your mother. Help her get things ready. She’ll know what needs to be done.”

Shocked to a place beyond words, Jess turned and pushed her way as fast as possible back along the narrow alley they had carved through the snow.

Ashe stood by the fence, wide-eyed.

“Is he dead?”

“No.” Jess didn’t pause.

“Who is he?” Ashe called after her.

“I don’t know,” she lied.

Martha listened intently to Jess’s half-coherent speech. “Your room,” she said.

“What? Why?”

“It’s warmest. Go and see to the stove. I’ll get extra quilts.”

By the time Ian tramped heavily into the kitchen carrying Finn, trailed by a silent Ashe, everything was ready.

“Take him up to Jess’s room,” Martha said.

Ian nodded, breathing too hard for speech, preparing for one last effort.

Jess was tucking the hot-water bottles into the bed when Martha pushed the door open for Ian.

“Put him on the floor until we get his clothes off.”

Ian set his burden down as gently as he could and stood back to catch his breath and warm his frozen hands as the women fumbled with the buttons on the boy’s jacket and
tunic.

“He’s not even dressed to be out in this. What was he thinking?” Martha wondered. “Oh my…”

They had pulled off his sodden jacket, aware that it and the tunic under it were torn and stained, and now they saw why. The boy’s arms and shoulders were scored with the marks of claws and teeth.

Jess stared at him in horror.

“What’s happened to the poor soul? Ian, should we clean these wounds?”

“Let’s see if he’s going to live first. Jess, go and get a towel.”

“Don’t you need me to help?”

“Not just now. Go and get it.”

By the time she came back, Finn’s clothes lay in an oozing heap on the floor, and he was in her bed, buried under layers of quilts, only his head visible. Jess stared at his white face. He was almost unrecognisable, his face gaunt and sunken-eyed. She thought of the broken-down look of the horse that had saved her from the wolves. That had been Finn, she knew it. He must have been ill before that. What could have happened to him to reduce him to this? Guiltily, she remembered the halter.

“Will he be all right?” she asked.

“We don’t know yet,” Martha replied gently. “He’s so cold. All we can do is get him warm and hope that he’s strong enough to survive.” She looked down at the still figure and grimaced. “I”m afraid he doesn’t look very strong.”

“You’re wrong,” Jess said vehemently before she had time to think about it.

Martha looked at her curiously. “Let’s hope so,” she said.

“I’m going to change,” said Ian, on his way out of the room.

Martha held out her hand for the towel and began to rub Finn’s hair dry. “I’ll sit with him just now. Go down and keep an eye on Ashe, would you? And help your grandmother with the cooking.”

Not knowing what else to do, Jess went out, shutting the
door behind her.

“Is he dead?” asked Ashe as soon as she went into the kitchen.

She fought down an overwhelming urge to slap him.

“No.”

“Has he woken up yet?”

“No.”

“Can I go and see him?”

“There’s nothing to see. Go and ask Mother if you really want to. She’s staying with him.”

“Until he dies?”

Jess closed her eyes and counted very slowly to five.

“Until he wakes up.”

To her relief, Ashe ran out of the room.

Jess managed to keep herself busy enough to be distracted for almost an hour, but that was as much as she could stand. Outside her room she took a deep breath and pinned on a smile before she opened the door.

“I’ll sit with him just now. You go downstairs.”

“All right.” Martha got up. “He hasn’t moved.”

They both stared at the white face on the pillow.

Jess sat down, waited until she heard her mother’s footsteps descending the stairs.

“Finn?” she whispered. “Finn, it’s me, Jess. Wake up; please wake up.”

There was no response.

Cautiously she touched his hair, then his cheek. His flesh chilled her fingers. He looked like a corpse.

Panicked by the thought that perhaps he had died without her noticing, she bent her head close to his mouth, her hair brushing his face as she listened for his breathing.

Yes; yes. He was breathing.

She sat down again, clasping her trembling fingers in her lap until they stopped shaking.

“What were you doing here?” she said to him, although she
knew he couldn’t hear her. “What’s happened to you?”

She thought with a pang of her Yule wish.

For a few minutes she sat silently, watching him, then she lifted a corner of the heaped covers to look at the wounds of the wolf attack, trying not to imagine what it must have felt like for Finn as they tore at his flesh. Her eyes strayed to his neck and she caught her breath.

A thin scar, dark red, circled his throat. She bit her lip, fighting back tears. What had she done to him? Would it be her fault if he died? She tucked the covers firmly round him again.

“Please don’t die, Finn. Please.”

She had no idea how much time passed before she heard Ellen’s slow footsteps on the stairs. She’d long since run out of tears, but she wiped her eyes anyway, convinced they would have left some trace.

“Any change?” Ellen asked as she came in.

Jess shook her head.

Ellen peered at Finn. “I don’t know. I think his colour’s better. Away you go and get something to eat.”

Jess didn’t want to leave, but she couldn’t say that without having to think of some way to explain it, so she went without argument.

Downstairs, she noticed dully that the snow had begun again. She ate soup and bread mechanically while Ian showed Ashe how to mend the hinges on a cupboard door. Martha was kneading bread dough at the other end of the big table, catching up with the chores she’d set aside to tend to the half-frozen boy. Jess felt as though she was in a bubble outside which normal life was taking place, sweeping her along, completely separate, in its wake.

She finished eating.

“I’ll go up and take over from Gran again.”

“No. Just leave her. She’s probably having a wee nap just now. Anyway, you’ve the dishes to do while I finish this.”

Jess closed her mouth and got on with her task, hoping to be allowed back up once she had finished, but Martha seemed to have an endless list of things for her to do, and then it was time to fight her way across to the barn with Ian to see to the cows again. When she got back, Martha had taken over from Ellen and she was thwarted once more.

At a loss, she watched Ellen slicing cheese and vegetables for a pie and found herself rolling out pastry.

“I’ll get the dish.” Ellen went to the cupboard as the door opened and Martha came into the kitchen.

“He’s awake,” she said with a smile, and went to put on the kettle.

“Is he going to be all right?” Jess asked.

“Well, he’s escaped freezing to death, but he’s half starved, and injured. We’ll have to see.”

“Has he said anything?” Jess’s heart thumped.

“The poor boy can barely understand what’s happening. He hasn’t said how he got here. But he did manage to tell me that he’s called Finn.”

There was a crash as the pie dish fell from Ellen’s fingers and smashed on the floor.

They all stared at the fragments for a second.

“That was clumsy of me,” said Ellen in a flat voice.

“Don’t worry, Ellen. Jess, clear it up, would you?” Martha made tea and spooned in honey. “I’ll take this up to him. Best if he just has to cope with one person for now.”

She went out, leaving an ominous silence behind her in the kitchen.

Jess knelt and began picking up bits of shattered dish, bending so that her hair swung forwards to hide her face.

“Is it him?” Ellen said sharply.

“Yes.”

“You’ve brought a Kelpie into this house?”

Jess looked up. “What should I have done? Left him to die in the snow?”

“Left him for his own people to find.”

“You know he would have died if we hadn’t found him when we did. It’s my fault he’s hurt. He saved my life.”

“What are you talking about, girl? He wouldn’t have done anything to help you if you hadn’t forced him to it with the halter.”

“No, no, not that. The wolves. They weren’t just watching me. They were going to attack me. A horse came out of nowhere and fought them.”

Ellen sat down, staring at Jess.

“Are you sure about this?”

Jess nodded.

“I knew it would just cause trouble if I told anyone what had really happened. I don’t know what there was to see when father went up there. He never said anything.” She picked up another couple of pieces of the dish. “The horse already looked ill – I didn’t think it could be Finn at first.” She got to her feet.

“Are you going to tell them?”

There was a long silence.

“He looks harmless enough for the moment… I don’t know.”

“Please, Gran. He couldn’t do us any harm even if he wanted to, and I’m sure he doesn’t mean to.”

“I won’t tell anyone today. I want to talk to him before I make my mind up to anything beyond that.”

“Oh, thank you. Thank you.” Jess put down the broken dish and hugged Ellen with relief.

“Come on. We’d better get this pie finished, or your mother will wonder what we’ve been doing.”

Jess wiped her sweaty hands on her apron, tried to look calm, and pushed open the door to her room. Martha looked up and put a finger to her lips, and for a fleeting second, Jess thought her mother must be able to hear her heart hammering, before she realised that she was to be
quiet because Finn was asleep.

Jess couldn’t help staring at him. He was a more normal colour, but he still looked terrible, his face hollowed by hunger.

“I’ll sit with him now,” she said.

“All right. Let me know if he wakes up again.”

When she was sure that Martha was safely downstairs, Jess leaned close to the bed.

“Finn,” she whispered. “It’s me, Jess. Wake up, Finn. I need to talk to you.”

Nothing. Gently, she touched his cheek. At last, it was warm. He moved his head on the pillow a little at her touch, and she pulled her fingers away as though she’d been burned.