In The Grip Of Old Winter (36 page)

She glared at him, opened her
mouth and screamed. “Granddad!”

***

Day and night flickered. The
high wind keened. Hundreds of years lasted less than a second.

Peter reeled, sick and dizzy.
He stood in The Hall and the fire burned in the hearth and the Christmas tree sparkled.
He let go of the staff and it landed with a clatter on the flagstones.

The spae-wife took off before
the staff hit the floor and circled up to the rafters. Peter dropped onto one
knee and his stomach heaved. If he grabbed the staff and yelled ‘Leonor,’ he’d
go back to the skin-walkers. They’d tell him what needed to be done, but if he
left The Hall the spae-wife might go anywhere. She’d hide again and be
impossible to find. He pinched the seal-amulet. Cold, as it hung black and dead
against his chest.

High above, the spae-wife
clung upside down to a rafter. Her head arched back as she watched.

The sound of footsteps came
from the passage and then granddad’s voice. “I thought I heard something.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t in
the kitchen?” Almina’s voice. “You shouldn’t have let Peter escape. You’re too
soft.”

“No,” said granddad. “I heard
something drop or fall. In here, I’m sure.” He half-ran, half-stumbled into The
Hall followed by Almina.

Peter called. “Grandad.”

“I was right, there you are.”
He hurried across. “What’s happened? Are you hurt?” He hooked an arm under
Peter’s shoulder and helped him to his feet.

Peter bent and picked up the
staff. “It’s the spae-wife.” He pointed up to the ceiling. “She mustn’t escape.
I’ve got to go and fetch the skin-walkers.”

Grandad squinted as he peered
to where Peter pointed. “The what?”

“The spae-wife,” said Peter.
“There.” He jabbed the staff straight at the rafter where she clung.

“I can’t see anything,” said
granddad.

“Nor can I,” said Almina.
“Unless... is it a butterfly? Poor thing, it must be looking for somewhere warm
to shelter or it will never survive in this cold.”

Peter’s stomach wrenched with
frustration. “You must be able to see her; she’s there, staring straight at
us.” Granddad’s eyes might be old, but Almina must be mad to think that the
spae-wife looked like a butterfly.

Almina said, “Have you taken
a nasty bang to the head? You must be tired. Stay here now. Let’s go into the
kitchen and I’ll make you a drink.”

“Yes,” said granddad. He took
hold of Peter’s arm. “Then you can tell us what’s happened to the sideboard and
my stepladder. Ah! You still have the...”

Peter broke free. “No.” He
ran to the passage. “We’ve got to trap her in here and close off this passage,
somehow. Then I’ll go and fetch the skin-walkers. Or...” he took hold of the
seal-amulet. “If I can make this work. Freeze her in ice like Wulfwyn and
Leonor.” He clenched his fists, stamped his feet, gave a loud shout, gritted
his teeth, forced angry thoughts into his mind about leaving Wulfwyn and Leonor,
cold and stiff - for not being able to help the wounded Godwine, for all the
hurt the spae-wife caused.

“Give that to me,” said
Almina. “I don’t know what you are trying to do, but you’re too young to have
something so special. Granddad, take it from him.”

The seal-amulet blushed
crimson for the length of a heartbeat, but no more.

“Would you look at that,”
said Almina. “It is magic! The price it might fetch...”

Peter flung it back against
his chest and faced granddad. “What can we use to block the passage?”

Granddad and Almina stared
back, first at the seal-amulet and then into his eyes and Peter faltered. For
their faces showed no compassion or consideration, no concern or fear about the
spae-wife. Almina took hold of granddad’s hand and their fingers intertwined.

“Come, Peter,” said Almina.
“We want to help you. Listen to yourself. You’re overtired and need a rest.
You’re safe now. There’s nothing you need to worry about. Give me the
seal-amulet and then go and have a lie down.”

They came closer, not fast or
slow, but determined.

Peter’s mouth went dry. Fear
choked his ability to move. What he thought he knew about adults, these adults,
what he understood, accepted, trusted, feared, no longer held any truth. Did
the spae-wife work some spell upon them?

Grandad said, “This winter
has been one of the worst for snow and one of the best for cold. On this
ancient land, the old ways blossom when the ground freezes and what lies
dormant for many years thrives in the frost.”

They came closer and granddad
held out his hand. “Come Peter. This winter has seen old loves, old customs,
old habits return to the world. That must make you happy. As happy as Almina
and I feel, now that we can be together.”

Almina smiled and her painted
face creased into the deep lines and gaudy colours of a mask. “We hoped to be
gone before you returned, but you’re sharper than we thought and quicker and -
you see too much.”

Granddad’s fingers curled to take
Peter’s arm. The old man’s sudden closeness jolted Peter with the sharp sting
of an electric shock and he leapt away and sprinted down the passage.

Granddad and Almina advanced
at the same steady pace.

Peter shouted at Almina. “You
came to the skin-walkers. You promised to help dad.”

Almina’s teeth gleamed white
against her orange lipstick. “I’m sorry, Peter. I lied.” She leaned into
granddad’s shoulder.

Peter yelled. “You pushed dad
off the ladder.”

Almina nodded. “I did, yes.
And I chased that horrid smelly cripple away. He was hanging around by that
burnt branch. ‘Where’s the boy,’ he asked. I hit him and he touched the branch
and sent me to those creepy wizards. Me and granddad pretended he pushed
Richard off the ladder to make you return with the seal-amulet, because I want
it. Such a valuable trinket. And, of course, I worried that your dad and the
cripple might disturb that old woman in the ice house as she woke up and found
the strength to move.”

Peter’s heart thumped.
“What?”

Grandad said. “I told you
when you arrived Peter, this old house holds strange memories. I shovelled out
a den in the ice house for Almina and I to meet in secret, many years ago. Hidden
at the back, behind the shelves, I found a corpse... that breathed. It didn’t
bother us.”

“We let it be,” said Almina.
“Though we did notice it waking up when the weather turned very cold. And this
year it woke up and walked out. Your granddad was very good about covering the
tracks, all that snow he kept shovelling.”

Behind them in The Hall, the
spae-wife dropped into view and hovered.

Peter wished that he slept,
that this dream, this nightmare might scare him awake and make him scream. If
he hit the staff on the floor and shouted ‘Leonor,’ he’d be gone, but what
then? He needed to warn grandma and mum and dad. Granddad and Almina might hurt
them or throw them out into the cold to freeze to death, or let the spae-wife
crawl into one of their mouths.

He held the staff in both
hands, ready to swing at them as they came closer. “Don’t touch me. I’ll hit
you.”

“We’re not going to hurt you,
Peter,” said granddad.

Almina reached into her cape
pocket and pulled out a small bottle made of clear glass. Like the ones in
shops filled with alcohol, thought Peter.

She held it by the neck.
“This is a sleeping potion. I meant to use it on all of you. Strange how events
change the decisions we make. Perhaps it is fate - who knows? Just one or two
drops, that’s all.” Her voice hushed. “Too many and... well... ‘bye ‘bye,
birdie.”

Granddad snatched hold of the
staff and pulled. His speed took Peter by surprise so that he didn’t let go,
but held on. He stumbled into their arms and granddad grabbed Peter’s
shoulders, kicked his legs out from underneath him and pushed him to the floor.
He knelt on Peter’s arms and Almina sat sideways on his legs. The staff rolled
away out of reach. The seal-amulet slid off Peter’s chest and hit the
flagstones with a dull
clang.

“Keep him still,” said
Almina. She unscrewed the bottle top, held it upside down and tipped the bottle
just enough to drip a few drops into the top. “Now, we need to get his mouth
open.”

Granddad pinched Peter’s
nose. Peter squirmed and wriggled, but his strength didn’t match granddad’s
weight and his lungs tightened from a lack of air. With a gasp, he opened his
mouth and granddad grabbed his jaw, squeezed hard and pulled it wide.

The spae-wife flew over
Almina’s shoulder and landed on Peter’s chest. She ran across granddad’s hand
and her face grinned with triumph.

“Oh look,” said granddad. “Is
that the butterfly you meant? It tickled my hand.”

The spae-wife’s claws pricked
Peter’s skin as she wriggled into his mouth.

“Yes,” said Almina. “It seems
to like Peter. Hold him still.” She leaned across, the bottle top pinched
between her finger and thumb, ready to tip in the colourless liquid.

The spae-wife’s claws sliced
into the soft tissue at the back of Peter’s throat. He screamed and a roar of
noise burst inside his head.

***

Fire whirled over granddad,
Almina and Peter. It spun like a tornado and its heat singed hair and skin and
clothes. Almina screamed and dropped the bottle top. Sleeping potion spattered
across Peter’s anorak and ran off in dribbles onto the floor.

Granddad raised his hands to shield
his head, slid off Peter’s arms and lay flat on the floor to escape the flames.
Almina waved her arms in frantic sweeps, in an attempt to beat back the heat,
and the bottle flew from her fingers and smashed with a tinkle in the hearth.

Peter’s jaw ached as the
spae-wife squeezed deep inside his mouth. His arms cramped where granddad knelt
on his muscles and his eyes smarted as they bulged with fear. He gripped hold
of the spae-wife’s abdomen as it squirmed against his lips. He screamed and
gagged from her claws needle-sharp pricks.

He didn’t let go, but pulled
harder, his eyes awash with tears. His muscles tightened as his heart beat
louder. A drop of poison glistened on the spae-wife’s sting, but Peter’s tight
grip held her abdomen firm, so she didn’t have the freedom to drive it home.

Peter wrenched the abdomen
from side to side. The spae-wife’s claws tore the skin inside his mouth and at
the back of his tongue and the pain shrieked through every nerve in his head,
but that forced him to fight harder, for the pain gave him strength. He gripped
her abdomen tighter, flung his head and shoulders back and with a sharp yank,
jerked his arms forward.

The spae-wife slid out of his
mouth in a flurry of blood and froth. Her legs clawed at his face and her
teeth, smeared with his blood, snapped, as her head strained and twisted to
bite. She beat her wings hard against his hands.

Peter’s breath bubbled as he
gasped for air and blood trickled up and down his throat. The taste of hot
copper, like a two pence piece when he pressed his tongue against it, made him
sick. He spat and shook his head to clear the tears from his eyes. The
spae-wife wriggled in a frantic effort to escape his grip.

The flames crackled. Peter
saw, in The Hall, the skin-walkers fire and then the skin-walkers, too. They
appeared, one after the other, in a line that led from the fire, out of The
Hall and into the passage. His heart throbbed with relief and hope.

They carried a rope of flame
that stretched from the bonfire to the nearest skin-walker. At the end of the
rope, strands of flame unravelled which snapped and writhed as if they hunted
for prey to grasp and hold.

“Keep a tight grip on her,
Peter.” Bear’s voice commanded above the noise of the flames. “Almost there.”

Peter spat out more blood.
“It hurts.”

“You have done well,” said
Bear. “Do not let her go.” He came closer. “You brought Wolf back to us and now
that we are complete, we can endure with all our strength.”

The spae-wife curled her legs
and jabbed her claws into the back of Peter’s hands.

“NO!” His pain, mixed with
fury, made him squeeze her tighter and she shrieked and drove her claws deeper.
They cut as sharp as scalpels and the pain exploded into agony. He shook her
and the drop of poison flew from her sting and evaporated with a
hiss
in
the flames.

Bear stood just a few paces
away. “Eagle is the last of us to pass into this Age. Care must be taken that
the journey is not hurried, for we have travelled farther than we have ever
known.” He raised the fire-rope and the loose flames at its end cracked and
sparks scattered in all directions.

Tears blurred Peter’s sight
and he shut his eyes, but that made the pain worse, for his mind focused on
just that and nothing else and so he opened them again and the tears cascaded
down his cheeks in a rush.

Almina and granddad cowered
on the floor. Wisps of smoke rose from Almina’s hair and she whimpered. Peter
wondered that the fire-tunnel’s heat brushed across his face and hands with no
more discomfit than a warm glow. Distracted and tormented by pain, his grip on
the spae-wife’s abdomen relaxed.