Winter’s Children (21 page)

By the time Agnes arrived it was time to load the carts for the return journey. She was pale and very shaken. There’d been some mishap on the way with the cart, and she refused to put Mary back in it, but Jo and Will fought over whose turn it was to take a ride.

From farm to farm they went making visits until Jacob was ‘brossen’ with roast and pie, pound cake and puddings. No one could say they didn’t know how to entertain in the dale.

Jacob was proud to be one of the first to sport a magnificent Christmas tree, with candles flickering on the branches, and a bucket of water just in case. He had cards printed and posted around the district, cards with beautiful scenes of coaches and horses in the snow.

The feast itself was a right rib bender, and the cordial flowed all night, while the dancing in the hall shook the pictures on the wall. Agnes was quick to hang up the new portrait of their prize-winning heifer in place of the Turner sketch. Joss looked on, saying nothing, but Jacob hadn’t the heart to stop his wife and gave the painting back to his father to keep in his room.

Funny how every year he woke up on Boxing Day with a belly like a pig and his tongue feeling like a scrubbing brush, but it was all worth it. To see his children’s faces when they fished in their stockings for penny whistles, tangerines and coins was his joy. There were wooden toys for their farm and Noah’s Ark. For Agnes, there was always some trinket from the jeweller in town – a brooch, a pin or a bracelet of coloured stones. He would have given her the sun and the very moon from the sky.

When the children were asleep he found her outside pacing across her patch, shrivelled with frost, looking up at a stretch of stars in the night sky.

‘The darkness is broken and the new life is reborn,’ she sighed. ‘Blessed be.’ Then turning to him, she smiled with twinkling eyes. ‘Come and sit by the yule fire with me, my own Mister Christmas, and let’s sup a cup of cheer.’

‘The cup that cheers but does not inebriate,’ he added, thinking of tea, and she smiled and sighed.

‘This night calls for something special. I want you to try out one of my new recipes from our beehives,’ she said, and he nodded. How could he refuse? Her experiments were always exceedingly tasty, even if they did give him a splitting headache the following morning. He could never understand just why. Perhaps it was better not to know but he was sure the Lord would not begrudge them high jinks and spirits on this day of days.

Nik woke from his dosing. He looked at the spidery writing. So my great-grandmother was really a witch. There were pages of instructions and recipes that might fetch a bomb on the occult market. Yet he felt protective of this stuff. It had been handed down, hidden for a reason, and not burned as could so easily have happened with his pious ancestors. He scanned the pages, taking note of the recipes.

‘How to settle an unquiet spirit.’ So the old hag had plagued them too.

‘How to make a circle of protection when awake …’ How long had these hauntings been going on? For centuries, if his forebears were dabbling in this stuff. No wonder Agnes and Jacob looked so forbidding in their portrait on the hall stairs. There was even a drawing of a place he recognised. What had the Celtic wall got to do with anything? Why had she ringed it round with a pointed star? When he had more time he’d examine this more closely. Not that he believed a word of it, and yet …

Hepzibah watches the boxes slipping out of sight with a sigh. Bit by bit the master of the house is stripping the house of all he holds dear. Perhaps for family gain, but some things ought not to be meddled with. A few trinkets may fetch a mickle of coins, but the old mistress’s receipts should not leave this place. She served here in her own way. In Hepzibah’s own day she would be burned at the stake for her troubles.

We all leave signs of our presence, she thinks: oak chests, settles, pewter, pictures, fresh chambers and hearths. The gypsy girl was a wild spirit who, like moor-bred horses, needed a tight rein from her sire but she kept her kin safe for many a year.

Snowden men have a taste for pickling-spiced brides, sweet or sour, easily befuddled by a fine head of hair. One thread of wild tresses can draw a hundred yoke of oxen, they say. This master be no different, methinks, she chuckles.

Now the old mother is abed with sickness, the son unheeding and a child sleeps in the byre. This is not the time to be off watch when a hungry ghost roams abroad.

She wonders why Cousin Blanche has not come calling, for the Twelve Days of Christmas cannot be far off.

She makes the sign of the cross, sensing that Blanche will be out there somewhere, hiding in the scrub, bushes or in the copse. She is trouble on the wind, keeping vigil with eye ever watchful.

It is allus maids, young maids, Blanche seeks out. Surely it’s time this mischief must end and peace return once and for all, Hepzibah prays.

In the days that followed, Kay found herself running to and from the Side House Barn to check on the old lady, who lay limp, racked with coughs, hardly able to breathe. The doctor came and went, and Nik did what he could but a man never saw what really needed doing.

She lit a fire in Nora’s bedroom to air the dampness. She changed her sweaty sheets, brought tissues and sponged her down, making sure there were plenty of drinks by her bedside table. She lit an oil burner with eucalyptus and tea tree oil to freshen the room.

Nora Snowden slept in fits and starts, and needed persuading to eat a little soup. But slowly, she began to pick up and listen to her radio while Evie wandered all over the house, looking for her imaginary friend, the Lavender Lady.

Kay was glad Evie was out of her hair, for the child’s excitement was mounting by the hour and it was very wearing. They needed to be stocking up food for when the shops were shut over the coming holidays. This was the downside of living up a track miles from anywhere. She just couldn’t be bothered. She couldn’t face the crowds or the bustle and Christmas shopping brigade jostling for bargains.

It was enough that Evie was plastering the walls of the barn with cards and Christmas clutter. Soon she would be too old for all the Father Christmas malarkey but now she still believed in ghosts and fairies. Now was not the time to spoil her innocence.

Why did Christmas evoke such strong emotions? All over the world there must be people just like herself, counting the days until it was all over.

Blanche thinks she hears music through the walls of the old byre, the tinkling of a spinet, music and laughter. Her child is within and she bangs on the door but no one answers.

Her strength is failing, weary of travelling in circles down the centuries of time, stumbling like a lame hound, her resolve weakening. There are strange apparitions before her eyes, candles flickering, loud noises ringing in her ears, faces she no longer recognises, and the ever-changing shift of familiar buildings reshaped by time. She is losing control, losing power, losing the white heat of her fury. It has grown cold, crippled by age.

It takes so long now to shuffle from hill and dale, barn and cottage even by the simplest paths. Her power fades like the slowing hands of a timepiece unwound grinding to a halt. She can no longer measure the passing of the seasons, her mind uncoils like a rusty spring.

There must be no rest until I find my child, let these bones creak and stiffen, these eyes dim and mist over, she sighs. A beggar’s life is a wearisome living. I creep where once I ran, chasing phantoms in the snow. I no longer know what path to take … the fight is gone out of me.

One last time, she cries. I am ice and fire, summoning all my angry grief that cannot be consoled. I call her name but she will not come. My hackles rise in a roar of pain that spews out from me like dragon’s breath shooting flames into the night air. Sparks of blue light crackle over the rooftop like forks of lightning rending the darkness.

The barn house sleeps, the heating clicks off, the log fire guarded by a rail and the lights on the little tree are dimmed. Holly curls over the wooden shelves. Christmas garlands hang limp, the wind is silent. Only the owl hoots from the sycamore tree. Then a surge of energy bursts through the plug, a flash, a crackle of electricity, surging like a gush of wind rustling through the wires. Sparks are showering over the room, alighting on the crinkled edges of a paper chain, and it smokes into life, feeding on the dry air.

The flames creep along the chain, link by link, and the paper Santas hanging from the branches with cotton wool beards curl and bow to the heat. It lingers, devouring stars and angels, dried pine needles, and reaches out to touch the curtains and Christmas cards dangling from the low beams. Flames rush down the walls, gathering power, magazines, books and newspapers feeding its frenzy. The room is ablaze and the hungry smoke curls under the door into the hallway where draughts fan its fury.

Blanche can see dancing fire, mischief and destruction. She smiles, seeing that her breath has still the power to consume all before it.

Shadow Fire

 

Kay could hear a strange buzzing in her dream. She struggled awake, knowing that the sound was outside her. The buzzer was loud and urgent, and suddenly she recognised the alarm. She could smell smoke and was out of bed in seconds. The smoke alarm at the foot of the stairs was on alert. She opened the door to a gush of smoke swirling up the stairs. No time to think. Instinct took over as she leaped into the second bedroom and grabbed the sleeping child from her duvet.

‘Wake up! Fire! Come on … into my bedroom.’ Close the door, plug the gaps, wet towels by the entrance. Windows … windows, open the curtains … open the window and get the hell out! Keep calm! Wrap Evie in the duvet. The mobile … dial 999, but her fingers wouldn’t hit the right pad. Stay calm and ring for the fire brigade.

Years of living without Tim at her side made a habit of having a phone by her bed and she prayed the signal would work. What was the number of the big house? Damn it … it was stored somewhere in her phone. She pressed the buttons on her mobile almost at random. There was a connection.

Answer the phone, please.

There was a voice barely conscious, but a voice.

‘Nik! The Side House is on fire. Help us. Bring a ladder.’ Kay’s voice sounded calm and cold as she heard the roar of flames and the sickening stench of acrid smoke. Then she was flinging everything she could soak by the door, throwing everything in her room of any value out of the window. Evie was watching wide-eyed with terror.

‘Darling, we’ll be fine. See, we can still breathe. Nik is coming and you must get out of the window when I tell you.’

Thank God for an en suite bathroom, she thought. There is water to fight the flames if the worst comes to the worst, and a vase full to the brim to sprinkle down the door before it bursts.

Where is he? She was standing on a chair, pushing at the window, seeing Nik running in wellies and boxer shorts.

‘Hold on! Stay calm!’ he yelled, but she was beyond instructions now. Her only thought was to get her child out of this inferno. The ladder was short but Evie must be pushed through the Velux like a snake. It had an up-and-over window, hard to budge but it yielded to her effort and she pushed the child to the opening.

‘Come on, Evie, slide through,’ the farmer called.

‘I can’t.’ Evie was hesitating.

‘Just get out of that window this instant!’ Kay yelled, her adrenalin pumping an icy calm into her voice. ‘You can do it. Nik will help you. See, he’s waiting at the top of the ladder.’ There were blue lights flashing over the moorland top road. How quickly they were responding. It gave her the courage to force her child through the window into Nik’s waiting grasp.

He climbed down carefully before bundling Evie into a duvet on the ground and shouted up, ‘Now it’s your turn.’

Suddenly Kay froze with fear at the sound of the fire, the smoke and her natural fear of heights. This cannot be happening to us. But the smoke was seeping through the walls and she had to go forward to survive. Shutting her eyes, she edged forward, wriggling under the window as best she could, gasping for air. The siren bells were getting closer. It gave her courage as she stuck, wedged tight in the gap. ‘If only I was a size ten not a fourteen,’ she heard herself murmuring.

Suddenly there were hands and voices and arms, and a lift and the coolness of fresh air. There were bursts of tears as she was bundled up like a parcel, manhandled down from the firestorm towards the safety of Wintergill House.

The rest was a blur of sweet tea, being checked by the paramedics, a gentle man testing her chest and her pulse and her reactions, asking her questions. She was reunited with Evie, who was sitting with a black face and white eyes like a Pagliacci clown. They sat hugging each other, unable to speak while all the fuss went on around them. The firemen struggled to control the blaze, soaking the building with bursts of water, hosing down her car, the stone walls, smashing windows and doors, opening up the flames to their hose pipes.

Nik was doing what he could to help, rushing from house to fire, blackened from head to toe like a chimney sweep, his legs sticking out of his wellies. It was all so ridiculous, sitting wrapped in blankets, with hardly a stitch of clothing between them in the middle of the night. Only as the shock began to kick in came the shivering awful realisation they could have been burned alive. Only then did the shakes begin and she crumpled. One simple battery-operated alarm had saved their lives, giving them precious minutes to defend themselves against the fury of the flames.

Everything was gone: laptop, furniture, handbag and credit cards, and all her Christmas shopping hidden under the cupboard stairs.

They were safe now, but what if she had had no phone? Would they have jumped to the ground in panic? It was strange how she had been on automatic pilot, going through some fire drill, as if in a dream. The Side House was almost burned to the ground with only the stone walls left. How did it happen?

Kay was trying to check over her night-time routine: lights off, fire guard, door shut, or had she …? The aromatherapy candles, her constant companions, were blown out or were they? A familiar shaking panic began to creep over her. Had she left a pan on the hob and caused something to catch fire? No, she was sure she had had a blitz in the kitchen and everything was put away. She was always nervous in someone else’s kitchen. Had Evie been playing with matches? How easy it is to be careless and cause a catastrophe. But her mind wasn’t clicking into gear any more.

She felt so bone weary that she was almost asleep. She felt punch drunk, flopping on that saggy sofa in the kitchen full of dog hairs, and crumbs scratching her bare bottom.

‘It’s under control now,’ said a grim-faced Nik Snowden. ‘Are you OK?’

At the kindness of his concern she promptly burst into tears. He put his arms around her and she sniffed the warmth of the smoke and sweat on his fleece. ‘What are we going to do? It’s almost Christmas – where shall we go?’

‘That’s the least of your problems,’ he smiled. ‘I’ve made up a bed in my room for the two of you. Upstairs now. It’s a bit of a mess in there but I don’t suppose you’ll notice tonight. Ah, here comes the doc …’

A cheery young man not long out of short pants plonked his bag on the table and proceeded to examine them both carefully. He pronounced them remarkably unscathed from their experience and said there was no need to send them thirty miles to the nearest A&E, but what they needed most was rest. Somehow they were escorted up to a bedroom with a huge double bed that swallowed them both whole and they fell into a deep sleep.

Kay awoke late in the morning, looking up at a damp patch on the ceiling stained like the map of the world. This was not the sloping barn roof or Glenwood Close. Where was she? Then a panic of sensations seized her limbs, paralysing her for a second with fear. Fire! She was out of bed searching for Evie until she saw her golden head tucked under the air cell blankets.

It was the old-fashioned sort of blanket bed. The bedstead was mahogany inlaid with mother-of-pearl leaf scrolls, with a matching tallboy and wardrobe. The gracious room had a fireplace and marble surround, and long velour curtains on a pole. The rest was a clutter of clothes and
Farmers Weeklys,
CDs and books. There were dirty shirts hanging over the chair and a basket full of laundry. A bottle of Lagerfeld aftershave and a tortoiseshell brush set sat on a dressing table cluttered with pipe cleaners, cufflinks and a photo of Nik in his youth, scowling like James Dean on a motorbike.

Thank God for his bedside phone and her mobile. She could sense again the long night’s terror flashing before her eyes, the smell, the crackle of flames. Now their stay was over. This house for winter was yet another disaster in this horrible year. What on earth was she going to do now? They would have to return to Sutton Coldfield, back to all the fussing and ‘I told you so’s, but it was not a prospect she had the energy to contemplate.

Nik was pacing outside the shell of his old barn, his heart thumping at the sight of the mess. The inside was blackened with smoke and charred beams, the walls hosed down to curtail the fire’s path. He could hardly bear to look. The cause of the blaze was still a mystery. It was not one of the usual suspects in a domestic fire: burning chip fat, lighted cigarette, a fallen log, or spilled fuel. It was beginning to look like an electrical fault in the wiring that had sparked off a small fire, aided on its way by the Christmas clutter and perhaps the tree lights.

But the lights had been switched off when he went for his late evening stroll across the field with the old dog the night before. He could see through the open curtains that Kay and Evie were in bed. The fireman said Christmas was a terrible hazard with all those candles and floating decorations, not always fireproof, but their regulation smoke alarm had done its job.

Nik felt sick when he thought of what might have happened to their guests. The barn was a ruin, his pension gone up in smoke, but at least he didn’t have two lives on his conscience. The worst of it was he had meant to renew his insurance policies for buildings and contents together. Wintergill was on a separate policy and he had paid that promptly, but as for the rest of them? There was a pile of bills waiting to be sorted out, but with the upheaval some stuff got forgotten. He had simply shut his mind to them all.

He looked up at the ruins, the blackened stone walls standing and most of the roof. The upstairs was charred and gutted. He was looking at the end of Wintergill. This venture was supposed to have seen them through. It had earned nothing all summer. Now it would earn nothing until it was refurbished and restored. Now was not the time to contemplate how that might be achieved.

‘When will my luck change?’ he muttered out loud, staring down the valley to the river plain and up to the empty sky. God knows, I’ve tried, but we’re finished now.

‘What’s going on?’ Nora came staggering through her front door, still weak from the flu. She could smell smoke and rushed out, seeing the mess scattered everywhere. ‘Oh my holy aunt, the barn … Evie! Kay! Oh, no! Nik!’

‘Keep your hair on, Mother! Everybody’s safe. It was an accident in the night. The fire brigade did us proud. The building’s ruined … Don’t look inside, it’ll break your heart.’

‘What happened? Where are they?’ she cried, rubbing her eyes in disbelief. ‘And I slept through it all? Why didn’t you wake me, son?’ She was standing in her carpet slippers, her hair like coiled wire standing on end at the back.

‘You slept through sirens and engines and shouting and smoke. You could sleep through a blitz! What was the point of waking you to all this?’

‘I could have made tea like the WVS,’ she snapped. ‘I must see to the guests, poor mites! Oh, Nik! What’ll we do now? Four days before Christmas … poor little mite! Are you sure they’re OK?’ She could feel her heart thumping through her chest.

Nik shook his head. ‘Don’t fuss, Mother. The doctor’s been. They’re fine, thanks to the smoke alarm. It’s happen an electrical fault sparked it off. All their clothes and stuff’s gone, though. They’ve only the nighties they’re standing up in. I put them in my bed.’

‘Did you change the sheets?’ she asked.

‘No, and I don’t think they’ll notice,’ Nik snapped back.

‘Little Evie was so proud of her decorations,’ she said, staring at the blackened building.

‘That’s what did the bloody damage. It sent the whole room up in smoke.’ This was no time for sentiment, thought Nik.

‘Still, we are insured,’ Nora sighed. ‘They won’t lose out. We can make it all straight. Better get on to Laytons Insurance brokers this morning. They can come and see for themselves.’

Nik nodded. He would have to bide his time to break it to her gently. What a bloody mess!

So it begins again, sighs Hepzibah, sensing alarms and excursions in the night: a night of shadows and a fireglow like Hallowe’en bonfires. The sun is dead and the moon is hidden, but the shadows dance across the house. It is a night of mischief and all Blanche’s work. The time is come at last.

She watches from the copse as the flames lick over the stones, satisfied. The orange golden light of the flames warms her. They do not heed my pleas so they must learn the hard way. I am fire and ice, shadows and brightness. This is my terrain and I will do as I please.

She sees the man running, she sees shadow figures in the darkness silhouetted against the flames and cannot comprehend how men can fly on the wind to make such a rescue. There was no one to save her child in the night from the wolf’s claw, no guiding hand for Nonie to hold.

She does not understand what is happening but senses her will has been thwarted and turns away into the darkness, sniffing the night air and a change of weather, her eyes sparking like flints on rock.

If not by fire, then by ice.