Winterbringers (6 page)

That evening I made some excuse to leave the house and walked out over the fields to the place where we’d set the boat afloat the night before. Beatrix and Janet were already there, flushed and bright-eyed with excitement, the way I felt myself.

We looked about for a minute to be sure no one was watching us, then Beatrix took the phial out of her apron. We passed it between us, watching the evening sunlight glance off the smooth, shining faces. It looked quite empty.

I handed it back to Beatrix. She glanced at Janet, then at me.

“Now?”

We nodded.

Biting her lip in concentration, she twisted the glass stopper. It moved smoothly in her fingers. She paused for a heartbeat, then pulled it gently free.

A warm breeze sprung from the bottle, fragrant with honey and roses and summer rain. It swirled around us, moving the grass and shaking the leaves on the trees. Round and round us it traced a widening spiral until the crops and grasses and twigs were moving everywhere. Then it dropped away to nothing, leaving a fugitive scent of honey.

Beatrix put the stopper carefully back in the bottle, her hands shaking a little as she did so.

“Well,” she said, “that’s that.”

“Wait,” said Janet, pointing to a little group of trees across the corner of the field. “There’s someone there.”

Sure enough, a figure came darting out, running towards the village. I peered into the thickening light, trying to make out who it was, and was relieved when I did.

“Ach, it’s only that fool of an apprentice of my father’s, Patrick Morton.”

Janet grinned and tutted, shaking her head in feigned disapproval. “Has he been following you again, Agnes? You know he wants to court you, don’t you?”

I spat on the ground. “I wouldn’t have the idiot if he came in a gold box.”

Beatrix cut in. “Be serious you two! Do you think he saw anything?”

“What was there to see?” said Janet dismissively. “Three women talking and a wee bottle with nothing in it.”

 Beatrix looked worried. “All the same. Be nice to him for a bit Agnes, just in case. You never know what’ll set folk’s tongues
wagging. We must be careful.” She handed me the phial. “You keep this. If he asks, show it to him, so he can see it’s nothing strange. Tell him we found it by the stream.”

“All right.” I tucked it in my pocket.

“Maybe we should stay away from each other for a bit … just in case,” Beatrix went on, still looking worried.

“Maybe you’re right,” said Janet, standing and stretching. “At any rate, we should be getting back. It’ll soon be dark.”

It was a good harvest – more than good: the best anyone could remember. Since midsummer the weather had been warm and the sun had shone and enough rain had fallen when it was needed; and when the harvest came in, everyone was happy, for it meant that this winter at least, no one would go hungry. As Beatrix had suggested, we stayed away from each other, her and Janet and me, but when we met by chance we couldn’t help but catch each other’s eyes and smile, as folk talked of the full barns and storehouses.

I let Patrick Morton put his arm around my waist and follow me around and talk to me, but he was still an idiot, so I slapped his face when he tried to kiss me. It didn’t put him off though, more’s the pity.

Maybe that’s why … maybe it was my fault. Or maybe it was his hand on my waist that has saved me this far.

After they had gone, and the snow on the cave floor had melted, he stood at the entrance to the cave and watched the sky. It was a calm evening, the waves running gently up the shingle in front of him. Already, he could see the crystals of frost beginning to form on the clumps of grass and scrubby bushes just outside. When the dark came, he retreated inside and sat down against the back wall. He closed his eyes and gathered his waning strength to oppose the forces of Winter.

Josh was astonished to realize it was still only mid afternoon when they got back to the Ferguson house. He felt exhausted; not just from the unaccustomed long distance cycling, but from their strange encounter in the cave and all the anxiety that had been building up inside him for the last couple of days. He felt he was on the edge of something that might change his life forever, sweep away everything he thought of as fixed and certain.

Callie was silent as they wheeled the bikes into the garage and put the helmets away. “Do you have time to come in?” she asked as she shut the garage door.

He nodded.

Luath rose from his blanket filled basket as they came through the front door, making a sort of grumble that wasn’t
quite a growl. Callie scratched his head absently as she went in. Josh hardly noticed him, then realized he hadn’t and was so surprised that he stopped and dared to stroke him. Luath’s tail banged against his legs in pleasure.

They went through to the kitchen and Callie unpacked the remains of the picnic, while Josh teased Chutney Mary with a teaspoon.

“It makes sense you know.” Callie spoke without preamble.

“What does?”

“What he said about the ice coming. You just have to think how cold it’s been over the last few days, and how the weather’s changed during the last few years. Global Warming? Huh! Even in George and Rose’s garden there are fewer and fewer things that will grow each year.”

“It’s got hotter some places – look at the droughts in Africa – look at what it’s like where your parents are.”

“But that’s only temporary. The whole of Northern Europe’s getting colder, not just Britain; and the weather’s gone crazy everywhere: droughts and hurricanes and mudslides and ice storms and people dying of heatstroke. It’s all out of control.”

“If you believe what he says.”

She turned and looked at him properly. “It’s hard not to, when you talk to him. You do, don’t you?”

Josh nodded. “I do. I saw him in the ice. I know he’s more than a madman.”

“But there’s nothing we can do?”

“He said there wasn’t. I can’t even imagine anything we could do, can you?”

She shook her head.

George and Rose got back about five, shortly after Josh had crunched off through the frost back to East Neuk Cottages.

“How was the exhibition?” Callie asked them.

“Oh, very interesting. Lots of things in boxes,” said George, bafflingly.

Rose seemed unusually preoccupied, moving around the kitchen automatically, putting together a meal.

Callie watched her for a few minutes. “Are you all right Rose?”

She looked round, her eyes caught somewhere far away for a second, then smiled, her mind coming back to the kitchen. “Yes, of course dear. Just thinking about all the things I saw today.

“I think we’ll eat early, shall we? I have to go into St Andrews for a while after supper.”

“What for?”

“Oh, nothing really. I promised Barbara I’d help her with some … baking.”

Callie gave Rose a puzzled look, but her expression in return was quite blank.

Although they had turned up all the heating in the cottage to full, it wasn’t very warm. Anna turned on the television as they ate their pasta and they watched news reports about the record low temperatures for the time of year.

“Some summer holiday I’ve brought you on,” said Anna.

“It doesn’t sound as though it would have been much better anywhere else – unless you prefer somewhere that’s burning up in a drought.”

They watched the weather forecast in glum silence: hard frost for the next few nights and even a suggestion that it
might snow in some areas.

Rose drove carefully through the dying light down the long hill into St Andrews, going over the situation in her head for the hundredth time. She parked the car near the Cathedral and got out, a shapeless figure muffled in layers of fleece topped off with an old duffel coat, a knitted hat pulled down hard round her ears. She reached back in for her basket and shut and locked the car door, looking round. At this time of year the streets used to be lively with tourists up for the golf or a family holiday, but tonight there were only two heavily dressed figures hurrying through the frost-sharpened air towards the refuge of home.

She checked that no one was watching, spoke to the gate in the wall around the Cathedral grounds and walked quickly through it when it swung open.

Ahead of her there were already sets of footprints cut into the frosty grass leading towards St Rule’s Tower. She followed them and found the narrow door at the bottom ajar.

Inside, Barbara and Isobel stood, muffled as she was against the weather, each carrying bags. They waited in silence for the five minutes until Bessie arrived. She was wearing her new hat.

“You’re late!” hissed Barbara.

“I am not,” retorted Bessie indignantly. “The moon’s not up yet.”

“And what on earth are you wearing
that
for?”

“I might not get another chance. Anyway …”

“Never mind about that,” Isobel cut in. “Let’s get on.”

They began to climb the narrow staircase, saving their breath for the moment. A few minutes later, they emerged,
panting, onto the open platform at the top of the tower, where Josh and Anna had stood the day before.

It was darker than it should have been for the middle of August, a great mass of grey cloud off to the west smothering the last of the sun’s light. The evening star burned wanly, low in the sky to the south.

They busied themselves with preparations as they waited for the moon to rise, unpacking an odd assortment of bits and pieces from their various bags and baskets.

Isobel produced an elderly and blackened wok, and proceeded to build a sort of nest of small twigs inside it. Rose brought a jar containing a piece of honeycomb out of her basket and set it down nearby, as Bessie carefully unwrapped a rose cut fresh from her garden, dark red, newly opened from the bud, the edges of its petals blackened and crimped by the frost.

Barbara’s bag contained a little garland of woven grass, a handspan across, the grass braided in an intricate pattern. Lastly, Isobel reached into a pocket and shook a single long feather out of an envelope.

“How long have you had that put aside?” asked Rose.

“Five years. That’s the last time I saw a swallow. I’ve another two still, laid away safe at home.”

“Are we ready?” Barbara said, stamping her cold feet. The others nodded. “Then let’s light the candles.”

They stood as the moon rose, one on each side of the square platform of the tower, facing in towards the things they had brought with them. Each of them held a candle. Rose’s was in the shape of a Santa Claus, the wick sticking out of the top of his hat.

The others looked at her.

“It was the only one I could find!” she protested. George has tidied them all away somewhere, and I was in a hurry.
Anyway, you know very well it doesn’t matter what the candle looks like.”

There was a second of silence, then the four of them burst into laughter, a welcome release of the tension they all felt.

“Let’s light the candles,” repeated Barbara.

Each of the women held a candle in her left hand and cupped her right hand over the wick. When they took their right hands away, the candles burned steadily, Bessie’s with a red flame, Isobel’s blue, Barbara’s green and Rose’s golden.

They bent down and pushed the bases of the candles into the network of twigs in the wok. The candle flames spread as the twigs caught, crackling, and the coloured flames ran towards each other and joined and mixed, until the whole bowl was filled with hot, white fire.

They joined hands and Rose began to speak.

“Queen of Summer! Queen of Summer! Hear our plea. Far from the Kingdom of Summer we call to you. Summer has bled from these lands; has fled from these lands. The Winterbringers are abroad, and all the land will soon be locked in ice. Hear our plea, Queen of Summer. Send the summer in. Send the summer in. Send the summer in.”

They let go of each other’s hands and Isobel stepped forwards and bent to pick up the Swallow tail feather. She dropped it into the fire, where it lay untouched by the flames around it.

“Send the summer in, Queen of Summer. Send the swallows back to tell us summer has returned.”

Isobel was replaced by Barbara, who tossed the garland of grass into the flames to join the feather.

“Send the summer in, Queen of Summer. Send the sun to ripen the hay.”

Bessie stepped forward next. She sniffed at the rose before she let it fall into the fire.

“Send the summer in, Queen of Summer. Send the flowers to feed the bees.”

Last of all, Rose came forward. She tipped the jar up, and the piece of honeycomb slid out and fell into the wok. The four objects they had brought lay untouched within the white fire.

“Send the summer in, Queen of Summer. Send back the bees, the keepers of memory, the memory of summer locked in each comb.”

The fire blazed up, sudden and fierce, consuming what had been fed to it. The chilled air around them warmed, and scents of roses and hay and honey wrapped them round. They turned now to face outwards and linked hands again and spoke all together.

“Queen of Summer! Queen of Summer! Hear our plea. Send the summer in. Send the summer in. Send the summer in.”

Fire shot upwards in a towering white column that only they could see, then broke like a wave and poured down the sides of the tower and rolled away from it across the town and the countryside in all directions.

The four women stood on top of the tower, eyes closed, hands linked. The fire they had conjured died away to nothing and there was just an old black wok, some burned twigs and the twisted remains of four candles.

Rose gave a great sigh. They let go of each other’s hands and turned inwards again.

“Well, we have done all that we can,” Rose said.

“But I wonder if it’s enough?” mused Bessie, bending to pick up her bag.

“We’ll know by the morning,” said Rose, half to herself.

They collected their bits and pieces and came slowly down the tower stairs. At the gate that led back onto the
street they separated to go back to their own homes. Rose got into the car and drove very slowly back to the village, too tired to dare go any faster.

When she came into the kitchen, George looked up, trying to read her expression.

“Did everything go all right?”

She shrugged. “It seemed to, but who knows? There’s nothing more we could have done anyway.

Where’s Callie?”

“In her room. She’s in a funny mood. Do you think she senses …?”

“I shouldn’t think so. More likely to be something Josh has said to her I should think.”

“Do you want anything?”

“No. I just want to go to bed. Will you make sure everything’s locked up?”

“Of course.”

“George – I mean
everything
.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll do it properly.”

The night wore on. In the Ferguson house Callie and Chutney Mary slept twisted together; George snored beside a sleepless Rose, and Luath dozed fitfully, head on his paws, tantalizing traces of scent troubling his sleep.

At East Neuk Cottages, Josh and Anna slept burrowed under downies and extra blankets, trying to escape the cold.

In Constantine’s Cave the Winter King sat against the cold stone, his arms wrapped round his chest, concentrating all his strength on forcing back the cold. Something had quelled it for a time earlier, but now he could feel it once more, struggling to break free of his control. He knew he did not
have the strength to keep it at bay for much longer.

But he had to try.

By Pitmillie beach, the sea slowed and thickened and glazed with ice. It clotted and bulged, groaning and cracking with its own life as two figures hauled themselves from it.

They were vaguely like men, but like statues only
half-shaped
, the hands and feet unfinished, club-like, the faces nothing more than blurred suggestions.

They stepped from the sea ice and lifted their heads and sniffed and set off ponderously up the beach towards the village.

At three in the morning Luath lifted his head from his paws and began to growl deep in his throat. Ears flat, he backed slowly away from the front door, the growl turning into a howl.

Within a minute George, Rose and Callie were all downstairs, Callie still half asleep.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.

“Nothing Callie. It’s all right,” said George.

There was a dragging sound outside the door and Luath edged further away from it.

“What’s that?” Callie looked from George to Rose, alarmed now.

George made to lift the curtain over the hall window.

“No George – leave it be,” Rose said sharply.

Callie turned to her. “What is it? There’s someone out there. What’s going on?”

“There’s nothing,” said Rose desperately.

“Of course there is,” Callie almost shouted. “You know what’s going on, don’t you? Tell me!”

“All right: I will, I promise, but please not now.”

The noise outside died away and Luath fell silent and moved cautiously towards the door, nose and ears twitching.

The three of them stood frozen to the spot as the smells of weed and water drifted in to them.

“Go back to bed Callie,” said Rose, in a tone of voice that Callie had never heard before, one that she wouldn’t have dared disobey.

When she went upstairs, George and Rose were still staring at the door.