Here Be Witches Read online

  ‘But because they tainted his heart, he’s flying through the skies towards Draco to take up his place as a star there and can nevermore be on earth,’ I rush out.

  Maybe it wasn’t a rustling, more like a gliding, or a whispering.

  ‘You love him, don’t you?’ says Idris.

  I blink. How did he figure that out?

  ‘That is why you are the chosen one,’ asserts Idris.

  ‘If we cannot purify his heart, then he can’t return to fight the White Dragon – then this winter will never end, and then … ’

  My voice trails away. It is too hard to think about the ‘and thens’. It was hard enough to think of him interred under Dinas Emrys, but at least he was nearby. If I listened sometimes, in the dead of night, I could almost feel his great heart beating inside the mountain.

  ‘Only the true heart can purify the tainted one,’ prompts Idris.

  But now he will be as remote as the stars. Literally. And I won’t even know which one of the stars he is. He will be lost forever.

  And I don’t think I can bear it.

  ‘Be not afeared. I too know what it is to love.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘And to bear a long parting; to even choose that parting.’ His voice breaks. Briefly he shuts his eyes.

  When he opens them, I see something new in them, something as hard as steel.

  ‘This night,’ says Idris, ‘will give dawn to 20 March. It is an auspicious date – for as you well know – tomorrow heralds in the vernal equinox, when all things will reach equilibrium. When one day will equal one night – when good will equal bad – when all will be balanced in perfection at exactly the same degree. At first light it will be decided whether or not the spell over Snowdonia can be broken, whether the heart can be purified and spring will start, or whether the dark will rise and swallow the light, and the Fimbulvetr never thaw.’

  The whispering, gliding thing slips nearer. I can’t see what it is, but I grow colder.

  ‘There is only one place where the heart can be purified, and that is where the pure in heart dwell.’ Idris straightens up, seems even taller. ‘I am reluctant to help you get there, for to break the spell will be to BREAK MY DREAMS FOREVER.’ His voice booms out.

  I want to cover my ears, but I don’t dare.

  ‘I don’t understand?’ I say.

  ‘The only place where that heart that you carry CAN BE PURIFIED IS AT THE MENHIR OF MAWR IN THE VALLEY BENEATH THE CAVE OF THE SLEEPING KNIGHTS.’

  His voice is loud enough to wake the dead. George, though, does not stir.

  ‘In the Pass of Arrows?’ I hardly dare ask, but I must. I have to save Henry.

  ‘THE SAME.’

  I must admit at this point, I think: we have just trekked all the way over here; we haven’t got another day to trek all the way back … I don’t know why my brain does that: goes all practical when I’m feeling scared and upset.

  ‘But you must know that my beloved one, Angharad Golden-Hand, sleeps on the other side of my mountain. She is my true love and I am hers. For these last aeons we have been parted, for she died as a result of a witches’ curse, The Nine Witches of Gloucester – evil women. May the Devil, Gwyn ap Nudd, take their souls and the Cwn Annwn hunt them for eternity!’

  Idris towers over me, and as he bellows, the rocks shiver.

  ‘I HAVE NO LOVE FOR WITCHES.’

  Suddenly I’m really glad bwitchy Rhiannon isn’t here.

  ‘And I laid my beloved to rest myself – under the capstone of her dolmen, and I alone raised a mound over her.’

  And I know he’s not bellowing at me, because I know what it is to have your true love buried deep in cold earth.

  ‘Yet,’ a sad smile flickers across his face, ‘for the last two nights, she has risen from her barrow and climbed up the mountain, and we sit together upon this bed of rock, and I put my arm around her and she lays her gentle head against my shoulder, and together we look up at the stars and search them to see our destiny.’

  And Idris throws his arms wide. Suddenly he looks so happy, just as sunlight banishes shadow, all the pain in his eyes evaporates.

  ‘I have sat here alone for hundreds of years, but now Angharad Golden-Hand has awoken and we sit here together.’

  Angharad Golden-Hand – the name sounds familiar – wasn’t she a girl in the Mabinogion who all men fell in love with? I stare at Idris. Is that how long he has waited to see her?

  ‘If I help you to break the spell over Snowdonia, she will no longer come here. The Olde Deepe Magicke, which awoke her, will lose its dominion. She will remain forever shut up in her barrow again; and if I should die – for even giants cannot live forever – who will remember Angharad Golden-Hand, and worship her beauty? She that was so beloved in bygone times – by so many – but worst of all by Peredur.’

  Idris suddenly yanks a HUMONGOUS rock off the top of the mountain and hurls it over the precipice edge of Craig Cau.

  Whoa. Go easy.

  I back away from him a bit. This Peredur character may have belonged to bygone days, but he’s certainly ticked Idris off.

  The whole mountaintop kind of shakes as Idris picks up another great boulder and throws it over the edge too. It crashes down the hillside joining the first with a rattle of stones.

  I don’t know what to say.

  ‘Cursed be Peredur! He sought to take her from me.’

  ‘Yes, curse him, the slimey git,’ I say, joining in. ‘I know how it feels. Sheila is always trying to get Henry off me too.’

  ‘And because of him, the nine witches slew her and took her from me forever.’ Idris’s voice cracks, goes hoarse. Pain floods back in.

  ‘I thought you said she comes to sit with you now?’ I venture gently. Don’t want him to get toooo upset. You know: avalanche, landslide …

  ‘She does,’ he says, ‘because just three days ago, the High Magick was broken and now she can rise again and be with me. But if I help you break their spell, then her ghost will awake no more, and I will sit up here alone again.’

  I think about ghosts, and the memory of the nun in Caernarfon police cells flashes across my mind. Of course, with Merlin’s Magick broken, ghosts can walk abroad too.

  Yikes.

  ‘Oh,’ I say.

  I look at him. I understand, because to lose the one you love – even the ghostly shadow of them – even though you can’t touch or hold them, is to face the loneliness of sitting all by yourself, year after year, knowing that you will never again see that beloved face, hear that beloved voice.

  He turns to me. ‘And you would have me forgo this last of all joys that I have waited an eternity for. To cradle her ghostly form, knowing that I do not have to lie upon my bed alone any more. And for what? So that you can save a love that you will never hold either?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I say.

  Never hold Henry again?

  ‘If the Red Dragon can be recalled, he will not come back to you. Once he has subdued the White Dragon, he must descend under Dinas Emrys again, as myth dictates, and he must stay there until his time comes around again, when he can become a man – if such be his wish – by which time you may well be dead.’

  Hmm, thanks for reminding me of that little gem, Idris.

  ‘I have seen it all in the stars. And for this, you would have me forsake an eternity of being with the one I love?’

  I think about it. I don’t have an answer.

  ‘But,’ I say, ‘it’s not just about us any more; it’s about the whole of Wales. The White Dragon has been released and if we don’t try to stop him, the Fimbulvetr will spread – a new ice age will begin.’

  I don’t know quite what else to say, because somehow myth and magic and reality have all got mixed up inside my head, and I don’t actually know what will happen any more.

  Idris doesn’t reply. He throws himself down on the stone bed beside me, and stares straight up at the night sky.

  ‘OK,’ I say at last. ‘If it’s too m
uch for you, I get it. But I’ve got to try and stop Oswald anyway. Will you at least tell me the way down the mountain? I’m going to try and reach the Pass of Arrows.’

  And then I get a sinking feeling, like everything in me has drained out, the energy in every cell flattened. We have come all this way for nothing. Plus I’m not going to make it. Even if the ponies have waited for us at the foot of the mountain and are willing to carry me: we’re not going to get back to Snowdon by daybreak, are we?

  I look up at the stars and blink back tears.

  ‘I cannot help you to go or stay,’ Idris says. ‘And I cannot decide whether or not I should intercede with the stars for you. There is only one person who can decide that matter and she herself is near, for the hour of midnight has come, and my beloved has risen again. Angharad must decide her own destiny. She must be given that choice.’

  Angharad – coming here?

  ‘When the stars are at their brightest, she will come. When the Pole Star twinkles high above us, then you can ask her what her will is.’

  Idris looks so sad.

  ‘She alone will decide.’

  ‘Oh, OK,’ I say.

  ‘And while we wait I will light a great fire to guide and welcome her.’

  Idris lifts great slices of dried peat, piles them high, lights them, blows the embers until a fire roars.

  I draw near to it and wait impatiently. If she’s going to say no, then I’d be better off starting out right away. I mean, I’d say no if I was her.

  I think about that. Whether I could actually choose never to be with Henry again, never to see him.

  Or George.

  Oh George.

  I glance down at his cold, still form. ‘You did not have permission to die,’ I say, poking his icy shoulder. I take my coat off and cover him with it.

  And then I burst into tears.

  FORTY

  The sound of whispering is faint. I think it’s only the wind strirring the snow, whispering up the mountainside.

  Idris stops and listens. He smiles. ‘She’s here.’

  I focus on the gentle swishing, the slight kiss of air on ice. I hear the smooth brush of something moving over the snow. There is no creak or crushing. I wait to hear anything definite. But there are no footsteps.

  Idris beams. He jumps up from the fireside. ‘Angharad!’ His voice breaks with happiness.

  A slight breeze whips up the snow on the top of the drifts, where it has frozen hard. The powdery snow spins. I watch, mesmerised.

  When I was a little kid, I had a lava lamp. There’s something about staring at shapes that form and morph that keeps your eyes glued. As I watch, the powder whirls and sways. I strain to hear the footsteps. More icy dust and the crust on the snow crumbles. It turns in an eddy of swirling. It begins to form into a pale, ghostly figure.

  For some reason, I am not in the slightest bit afraid. The phantom is graceful, pure white like a swan, and as soft as spun candyfloss. Her step is light; a garland of fresh snowdrops adorns her long hair. On the cold hillside a lady stands, beautiful, unearthly, and she smiles, and sees nothing else but Idris.

  Without a doubt, I know Angharad has the kindest heart.

  But at her back, I catch the fleeting glimpse of pale princes, pale warriors, all deathly pale.

  Shadows of the past …

  I rub my eyes. They’re doing that vision stuff again, like when I first saw Davey.

  Angharad realises she and Idris are not alone. She looks from face to face – up at Idris’s smiling one, across at me, over at George and Davey. She sighs. ‘There has been some great sorrow here, I can feel it,’ she says.

  ‘Great sorrow, my beloved,’ he says, ‘and great joy now that you have come.’

  He reaches across and holds out his hand. She lays her ghostly one in his.

  ‘Then let me share your heart’s pain,’ she says.

  ‘I would share everything with you, but this sorrow is so heavy to bear. I am loath to lay it on your slim shoulders – come, before the heartbreak – come, let us be merry! Won’t you sing for us my beloved?’

  She smiles a sweet sad smile. ‘It will not do,’ she says. ‘There cannot be joy until we lay the sorrow down, and until I feel its weight, I cannot do so.’

  ‘Come, it will keep,’ says Idris.

  ‘No,’ she says, ‘it will not keep.’

  I’m afraid Idris will grow crazy and tear another huge boulder from the pile on the summit and hurl it somewhere, maybe at the stars – maybe at me.

  ‘Is it something you have seen in the heavens?’ asks Angharad.

  ‘No, it is something in the heavens,’ I say. I send Idris my best pleading look.

  Angharad turns to me. ‘We have not met,’ she says, ‘but already I want to know you. Your directness is refreshing. You remind me of myself, once long ago, when I was a girl … ’ She looks at me, kindly, and immediately I like her.

  ‘Come,’ says Idris, ‘then if the sorrow must be felt, come then and sit beside me, and I will tell you of the heaviness of my heart, and once I have shared it with you, then there will be no more songs and no more kisses and no more gladness in the world.’

  ‘Is it so serious then?’ she says, her face searching ours.

  ‘I would have rather smashed this mountain of mine to the ground than tell you, for I know your heart and I know which way you will choose; and I know that even though you will do so with a smile, inside your heart will break.’

  And Idris cannot continue. He strides quickly to the end of the long saddleback, his form tall and grey in the mist.

  ‘You must not judge him,’ Angharad says to me. ‘He is the kindest and bravest of beings, and he has waited for me – though princes have claimed me and kingdoms have fallen and witches have conspired. He is as true as his stars, as fixed, as constant as bright Polaris, the Pole Star, itself.

  I think of the Pole Star and constancy and waiting for too many years and find I cannot say a thing.

  ‘There,’ she says, ‘now he is searching the skies for a sign, you shall tell me. To carry the bad news is enough, let us spare him the pain on my face and the anguish in my eyes when I learn of what this is.’

  And I look into her eyes, and realise that I have never seen such a beautiful expression anywhere before, and I can see why Idris loves her, and why he would wait through eternity to be with her.

  Tears well up in my eyes. I know before I even tell her my story what she will decide. I glance across at Idris. I understand. Because to be alone and sit on the mountain where your beloved is buried and to have little hope of ever seeing them again is a tortuous thing.

  I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

  FORTY-ONE

  But I tell her anyway, because it is not just about my longing to save Henry, or to be with him again. It is because, if somebody does not try to stop Oswald, the spring will never come; more lambs will die, their throats ripped out. Sheep will freeze in their snow holes. People will despair and the things that Merlin with his Magick hid, deep below the hills, will tunnel their way out to terrify and destroy.

  And the winter will never end and the next ice age will begin.

  But as I tell Angharad what has happened and what must be done and our only chance of saving Wales, her eyes darken with sorrow.

  ‘Ah,’ she says, ‘let me not be ungrateful for the two days and nights that I have already been given. It is indeed an evil curse that brings no one any joy. For the spell that your friend, the witch, cast has had one joyous unintended and beautiful effect. For I have risen from my barrow and again I can see the hills and smell the air and be near my beloved Idris. And for two nights we have stayed awake holding hands, entwining our arms, looking out over the mountains. And for this bliss it has been worth waiting in my deep barrow, under dark earth.

  Tears start rolling down my cheeks. I sniff; drag my hand across my nose.

  ‘And if this must come to an end at daybreak, then I do not want to be ungrateful. For it was unlooked fo
r, and gives me great hope. For now I believe that somehow in the future I will see my beloved Idris again – another chance will surely come. I must believe this.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I whisper.

  ‘It is not your fault,’ she says.

  She reaches out a ghostly hand and lays it upon mine. ‘Do not be troubled,’ she says. ‘Do not grieve for us. Where there is love there is always great joy and great sadness. I would not have lived my life in any other way.’

  The tears keep coming and, even though I swallow hard, I can’t speak.

  ‘I cannot sacrifice the future of our beloved Wales in order to sit here and hold hands upon the summit of Cadair Idris. And if I did,’ she sighs, ‘the sweetness would be gone from it. There would be a bitter taste in my mouth; my heart would despair, knowing the cost of being with the one I love.’

  The powdery snow whirls as she stands.

  ‘So, think only of your mission. Try to stop Oswald, and if you fail, know it will have freed me and Idris, and some other good may yet come of it – even if only for the shortest of times.’

  For a moment she turns and looks at me. She is more beautiful than sunrise.

  ‘Now, you wait here and I will go and tell Idris my decision.’

  More beautiful than the full moon sailing against the night sky.

  She floats over the snow to Idris. Not one footstep does she leave in the crusted snow, only a trail, a dusting of white stars.

  Angharad entwines her arm around his waist. She lays her lovely ghostly head against him. She, so small and slender; he, towering like an obelisk. They stand there and I know that she has told him, because I see his broad shoulders droop, his grip around her spectral waist tighten.

  —

  Now the decision is made, I want them to hurry.

  I know that sounds cruel. In a perfect world, they should have as much time as they need to be together, to think about the choice they’ve made.

  But hey, this isn’t a perfect world. In fact it’s so imperfect there is no time to lose.

  Their help will be of no use if we cannot persuade Draco to release Henry, if we cannot get to the Pass Of Arrows and the Menhir of Mawr at Cwm Dyli by daybreak.1