The Snow Spider Trilogy. Jenny Nimmo
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Sometimes it was palatable, most often it was not. Today Gwyn preferred not to risk it.
He waited until his grandmother had settled herself in the armchair and sipped her tea before he knelt beside her and took out the matchbox. He wanted her undivided attention for his revelation. Even so he was unprepared for the ecstatic gasp that accompanied Nain’s first glimpse of the spider, when he gently withdrew the lid. The tiny creature crawled on to his hand, glowing in the dark room, and Nain’s eyes sparkled like a child’s. ‘How did it come?’ Her whisper was harsh with excitement.
‘In the snow,’ Gwyn replied. ‘I thought it was a snowflake. It was the brooch, I think. I gave it to the wind, like you said, and this . . . came back!’
‘So,’ Nain murmured triumphantly, ‘you are a magician then, Gwydion Gwyn, as I thought. See what you have made!’
‘But did I make it, Nain? I believe it has come from somewhere else. Some far, far place . . . I don’t know, beyond the world, I think.’
‘Then you called it, you brought it here, Gwydion Gwyn. Did you call?’
‘I did but . . .’ Gwyn hesitated, ‘I called into the snow, the names you said: Math, Lord of Gwynedd, Gwydion and Gilfaethwy. Those were the only words.’
‘They were the right words, boy. You called to your ancestors. The magicians heard your voice and took the brooch to where it had to go, and now you have the spider!’ Nain took the spider from Gwyn and placed it on her arm. Then she got up and began to dance through the shadowy wilderness of her room. The tiny glowing creature moved slowly up her purple sleeve, until it came to her shoulder, and there it rested, shining like a star beneath her wild black curls.
Gwyn watched and felt that it was Nain who was the magician and he the enchanted one.
Suddenly his grandmother swooped back and, taking the spider from her hair, put it gently into his hands. ‘Arianwen,’ she said. ‘White silver! Call her Arianwen; she must have a name!’
‘And what now?’ asked Gwyn. ‘What becomes of Arianwen? Should I tell about her? Take her to a museum?’
‘Never! Never! Never!’ said Nain fiercely. ‘They wouldn’t understand. She has come from another world to bring you closer to the thing you want.’
‘I want to see my sister,’ said Gwyn. ‘I want things the way they were before she went.’
Nain looked at Gwyn through half-closed eyes. ‘It’s just the beginning, Gwydion Gwyn, you’ll see. You’ll be alone, mind. You cannot tell. A magician can have his heart’s desire if he truly wishes it, but he will always be alone.’ She propelled her grandson gently but firmly towards the door. ‘Go home now or they’ll come looking, and never tell a soul!’
The farmhouse was empty when Gwyn reached home. Mr Griffiths could be heard drilling in his workshop. Mrs Griffiths had popped out to see a neighbour, leaving a note for her son on the kitchen table,
SOUP ON THE STOVE STOKE IT UP IF IT’S COLD
‘The soup or the stove?’ Gwyn muttered to himself. He opened the stove door, but the red embers looked so warm and comforting he was reluctant to cover them with fresh coal. He turned off the light and knelt beside the fire, holding out his hands to the warmth.
He must have put the matchbox down somewhere and he must have left it open, because he suddenly became aware that Arianwen was climbing up the back of the armchair. When she reached the top she swung down to the arm, leaving a silver thread behind her. Up she went to the top again, and then down, her silk glistening in the firelight. Now the spider was swinging and spinning back and forth across the chair so fast that Gwyn could only see a spark, shooting over an ever- widening sheet of silver.
‘A cobweb!’ he breathed.
And yet it was not a cobweb. There was someone there. Someone was sitting where the cobweb should have been. A girl with long pale hair and smiling eyes: Bethan, sitting just as she used to sit, with her legs tucked under her, one hand resting on the arm of the chair, the other supporting her chin as she gazed into the fire. And still Arianwen spun, tracing the girl’s face, her fingers and her hair, until every feature became so clear Gwyn felt he could have touched the girl.
The tiny spider entwined the silk on one last corner and then ceased her feverish activity. She waited, just above the girl’s head, allowing Gwyn to contemplate her creation without interruption.
Was the girl an illusion? An image on a silver screen? No, she was more than that. Gwyn could see the impression her elbow made on the arm of the chair, the fibres in her skirt, the lines on her slim, pale hand.
Only Bethan had ever sat thus. Only Bethan had gazed into the fire in such a way. But his sister was dark, her cheeks were rosy, her skin tanned golden by the wind. This girl was fragile and so silver-pale she might have been made of gossamer.
‘Bethan?’ Gwyn whispered, and he stretched out his hand towards the girl.
A ripple spread across the shining image, as water moves when a stone pierces the surface, but Gwyn did not notice a cool draught entering the kitchen as the door began to open.
‘Bethan?’ he said again.
The figure shivered violently as the door swung wider, and then the light went on. The girl in the cobweb hovered momentarily and gradually began to fragment and to fade until Gwyn was left staring into an empty chair. His hand dropped to his side.
‘Gwyn! What are you doing, love? What are you staring at?’ His mother came round the chair and looked down at him, frowning anxiously.
Gwyn found that speech was not within his power, part of his strength seemed to have evaporated with the girl.
‘Who were you talking to? Why were you sitting in the dark?’ Concern caused Mrs Griffiths to speak sharply.
Her son swallowed but failed to utter a sound. He stared up at her helplessly.
‘Stop it, Gwyn! Stop looking at me like that! Get up! Say something!’ His mother shook his shoulders and pulled him to his feet.
He stumbled over to the table and sat down, trying desperately to drag himself away from the image in the cobweb. The girl had smiled at him before she vanished, and he knew that she was real.
Mrs Griffiths ignored him now, busying herself about the stove, shovelling in coal, warming up the soup. By the time the meal was ready and sat steaming in a bowl before him, he had recovered enough to say, ‘Thanks, Mam!’
‘Perhaps you can tell me what you were doing, then?’ his mother persisted, calmer now that she had done something practical.
‘I was just cold, Mam. It’s nice by the stove when the door is open. I sort of . . . dozed . . . couldn’t wake up.’ Gwyn tried to explain away something his mother would neither believe, nor understand.
‘Well, you’re a funny one. I would have been here but I wanted to pickle some of those tomatoes and I had to run down to Betty Lloyd for sugar.’ Mrs Griffiths chattered on, somewhat nervously Gwyn thought, while he sat passively, trying to make appropriate remarks in the few gaps that her commentary allowed.
His father’s return from the workshop brought Gwyn to life. ‘Don’t sit down, Da!’ he cried, leaping towards the armchair.
‘What on earth? What’s got into you, boy?’ Mr Griffiths was taken by surprise.
‘It’s a matchbox,’ Gwyn explained. ‘In the chair. I don’t want it squashed.’
‘What’s so special about a matchbox?’
‘There’s something in it, a particular sort of insect,’ stammered