But a feeling of panic grab at my throat like a stealer in the night. What am I gonna do if the boat been gone before I get to the sea? What am I gonna do then?
The still bare branches arch up over the riverbed. The drip of the melt starting good and proper. Little yellow holes in the few
patches of snow where the water been dripping down like rain on the forest floor.
A dipper swoop low along the water and land on a rock, bobbing, his tail flashing. He see me and whir and dip down the river in fright. I slide down the bank on the soggy brown leaves and patches of snow. Down to the water’s edge, where I can pick along the riverbed at the bottom of the gully.
I see it then. A movement under the shadows of the branches. Far up ahead. A pony and rider.
Hand on the pony’s rump, the rider look about a bit, nudge the pony on. They disappear round a bend in the riverbed.
I get back up the bank. Follow them quiet. My heart thump hard as I climb the steep bank and scrabble along the top of the ridge.
I stop. Breathing fast. Catch a movement down in the gully again. Stout gray pony slipping between the trees. But they’re alone. The rider hunched over ducking under branches.
I stumble above them quiet as I can. Up ahead the trees thin out. I can see the rider is a girl. Something in the way she sit. In the way she look about. I see hair coming out from underneath her hood. She dig her heels in and the pony trot up through the patchy snow and come into a clearing by a small pool.
My heart beat faster.
She’s looking back through the trees. Wiping a hand across her face. Fiddling with the packs hanging at the pony’s neck.
I creep closer. A twig snap underfoot. The pony hear me. Its ears prick forward. The girl sit up. Look about. I been close enough to call out.
“Hello.”
Girl start up scared. The pale oval of a face under the hood turn in my direction.
“Who is it? Where are you?” She gather the reins in her hands.
I slip down the bank. Through the trees. Toward the clearing.
“Who’s there?” She got fear in her voice. “Who are you?”
That good little pony stomp on the ground.
“I can’t see you. Is it you, Da? Who is it?”
I can see
her
face good and clear though.
I pull down my hood. Step out of the trees.
The whole world and everything in it shining in the weak sun like it just been born.
“Mary,” I say. “Mary. It’s me.”
Mary slide off the pony. Mary coming to me.
“Willo?” she say, eyes wide.
Mary putting her good warm hand up to my face.
“I didn’t think I’d see you again, Willo.”
But Mary pull her hand away then. Her eyes get dark. “You left me. Why did you go without telling me?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I thought you were my friend.”
“I am. Mary. Please.”
“So why did you go?”
“It’s a long story but you. You got out of the settlement?”
“I left with the others.”
“Others? Why?”
“The boat. We’re going to the boat. I’m waiting. Waiting for Da.”
“Your dad?”
“Da’s going to come. He promised.”
“Your dad’s dead, Mary. Remember? He been dead up on the mountain. He aint coming back.”
“No he’s not. He’s alive. He didn’t die—he made it back.”
“He come back?”
“Yes. That day when he went out to look for food, he got
caught in a blizzard and lost his way. When you found me in the house on the mountain.”
She step up quiet. “I never thought I’d see you again, Willo.”
A hot wind blow in my head. We been standing close. Mary holding the reins of her pony.
“When he came back to that little house all he found was Tommy. Dogs had got him. He thought the dogs had got me too. So he made his way back to the settlement.”
“How did you get by?”
“I stayed wi’ Piper for a while. I waited for you. But I thought you’d gone forever. Then Vince gave me work at the beerhouse. Enough to get by on. Somewhere to stay. That’s how I found Da again. He knew everything. When the boat was going. All that. And he got the pony and I came up wi’ the ponymen. To the pastures. Da was supposed to meet me. But I know he’ll come. He promised … .”
“Where do you think he been now?”
“I don’t know. He had to go back to the city. To get someone.”
“Who?”
“John Blovyn’s son. He had to get Blovyn’s son.”
“—the boat. It’s ready. You must try and get away. And help her. Please. My daughter. She’s waiting for me … .”
I think Mary see something in my face then. Cos a look pass across her mouth like the shadow of those clouds growing in my head.
“Callum Gourty?”
“Yes. Callum Gourty. How do you know, Willo?”
Time stand still in that shady clearing by the pool. It got to be me telling her. That man been Mary’s dad. He aint been no stealer. She tell me that up on the Farngod. But I aint been listening then.
“He’s dead, Mary.”
“No, Willo, he isn’t dead he’s alive, he …” The shadow rest on her face good and proper now.
“Callum Gourty. Your dad. He aint coming.”
She turn away from me. Walk to the edge of the water. Her hands to her face. I see it and look away. The pony drop its head, snuffling in the leaves.
“How do you know?” Her words are quiet like the murmur of the water.
“Mary.” I step toward her. “He told me to find you—”
“How do you know?” She look at me. Her eyes red.
“I—”
“How do you know, Willo!”
I go to her.
“I’m sorry. I am.” I put out my hand. “Believe me, we aint got time for talking, Mary. There aint much time.” She aint hearing me though. “We got to hurry, Mary.”
“How do you know he’s dead?” Mary swaying like a sapling.
“Your dad come for
me
. I aint got a clue he been your dad. Not til now.”
“On the mountain?”
“No, Mary. In the city.”
“Why?”
“He come to find me and then we got taken. They gonna come looking for us too. We got to get to the boat. We got to go.”
The clouds break. Mary got that storm inside her now. Look like the rain coming down like an ocean. She fall down on the wet rocks. Great sobs and calling out for her dad. I pull her up.
“Who took him? Willo! What happened? I can’t go without him. I—”
“I aint got a clue why it happen, Mary.” I get her up, hold her tight. “So many things aint no one told me all my life—”
“But why you?”
“Because … I—”
“Because what?”
“Because of my dad, Mary. He’s dead too. My dad’s dead too. It’s just you and me.”
“But why did Da go back for
you,
Willo?”
“My dad be John Blovyn, Mary. That’s why he came for me. Aint my fault.”
Through her wet eyes she look into my face. “John Blovyn? You? You’re his son?”
“Yes.”
“But
you
?”
“I can see why your father was so disappointed in you, Willo. You. Son of the great John Blovyn. Running about the hills like a wild dog. His simpleton son.”
“Now aint the time for talking on it, Mary. We got to go. Get to the boat before it’s too late.”
“I can’t, Willo—not without Da.”
“You got me.”
There’s so much I want to say but talking don’t help when you been swallowed up in grief. We got to keep going. It aint over yet. When the weather turn, you just got to bury yourself in your collar and bend with the wind.
I get her up on the saddle. Lead the pony on, snorting as it pick its way along the rocky riverbed. There’s a kind of rhythm to it lost inside our dark clouds.
The pony feel warm. It’s a good little pony. Strong and keen. Its wiry mane long and thick, falling over its neck this way and that. Mary got her hands buried in it. And Mary feel warm too. My arm holding her up.
You’re on your own now, Willo.
I look quick behind us. Aint nothing there.
But the dog telling me I got to be Number One.
For Mary.
“We got to hurry. What we gonna do if the boat go without us.” I say it quiet. “We got our whole lives for crying. But that boat aint gonna wait for two kids no one know about.”
Mary pull the pony up.
“I don’t want to go on, Willo. There’s nothing left.”
“But, Mary, you got to. What you gonna do? Lie down under these trees? It aint gonna go away.”
She start crying again in great sobs. I get her down off the saddle.
She’s like a bird fallen from the nest. I remember her thin frozen body when I get her warm in that broken wincone on the mountain. Her hands tight round my neck when I carry her up through the snow. It been a miracle she aint died right then. But she’s strong under her skin. I know it.
“Mary. You aint the sort to just lie down and give up. We got to get to the boat. Wherever it’s gonna take us.”
I can’t bear to see her face so wet and broken.
“Far away,” she say, her eyes all distant. “The Island. The boat’s going to take us somewhere far away. Somewhere safe. Away from here. That’s what Da said. He said it was going to be a new beginning. New everything—”
“Yes, it’s what your da wanted Mary. He wanted you to get on the boat. He told me.”
“He said that to you?”
“He was right Mary. Aint nothing much left here for us, is there?”
“No.”
That picture of Dorothy burning in my head. Patrick. His foot against my face. The things he say. The things he done. To my dad. And Magda. All of them gone.
I feel her close then. Our bodies together. The pony standing quiet beside us.
“I aint never thought people gonna be so bad, Willo.”
“They aint all bad.”
“I know. But it’s hard to forget.” She put her face in my neck. “Why do they want to hurt us?”
“They don’t like people like us because they got scared. Scared we’re gonna make it. That’s why we got to go.”
She’s still crying soft in my ear. Arms all around me. The trees around look sharp like I never seen them before. The world is under those trees with the water running gentle and Mary in my arms.
“I been thinking about you all the time, Mary … thinking about taking you to the house on the mountain—”
“So why did you leave me? … I don’t understand.”
“I don’t know. Dog got up inside me. He come down from the hills. Calling me. And then it been too late. I know I got to come back to you, but it been too late. Things happen. I got stuck in the city. But I aint stopped thinking on you. I—”
The pony shy up in fright.
Rocks on the riverbed tumble in the shallow water.
“What’s that sound, Willo?”
The water lap at our feet. The horse whinny.
Strange sound coming down the gorge.
“Quick! Mary! Get up the bank.”
“Willo! What is it?”
The sound get louder, the ground shaking. And I know what’s coming. Can’t believe I been so stupid.
“The meltwaters, Mary!”
The pony break free and leap up the bank.
Water rush across the rocks. And that sound. Like a monstrous beast. Coming from behind the bend in the river.
“Mary!”
I grab her hand. Pull her. Pull her toward the higher ground. Scramble up grabbing at branches. The rumbling booming meltwater breaking down from the lake.
Mary slip on the wet leaves, hanging on to me with her hand, grabbing at a tree trunk. I cry out but my voice get lost in the roar of the wave. A great wall of water from the lake above. Rumbling and thundering and filling the gorge. Swelling and crashing through the trees. Aint nothing gonna stop it. Nothing gonna get in its way.
I see it now and it take my breath away. Crashing and pummeling and grinding, a mountain of water. Towering over the riverbed. Filled with rocks and ice—crashing down the gully, engulfing the trees, uprooting them from the ground. Splitting them like matches. Washing down the gorge like an almighty storm. Scouring the banks. I can feel the mist of it spraying on my face. Ripping and roaring and unstoppable.
“Willo!” Mary mouth a scream.
I haul her up with all my strength. Pull her up the slope. The pony scream out. Stamping beside me. Nostrils flared. I grab the loose stirrup hanging at its side. Just in time as the icy waters of Cym Bachan shudder against the banks. Crashing just below us.
The pony drag us up neighing and foaming. We been breathless on the wet ground. A huge tree swirling in the waters below our feet. Thudding against the bank. Huge tree ripped from the ground like a stick. The waters muddy and icy and angry emptying themselves into the valley.
I should have known. I should have known not to be down on the riverbed this time of year. When the melt come you aint gonna stand in its way.
We lie on the bank breathing hard.
And a laugh like a storm got up inside me good and proper. The black clouds break open. I can feel the rains come. It come up from deep inside. I been laughing in great bursts with tears in my eyes. Lying safe on the bank with Mary at my side. All the fear and the hurt and the pain and the joy just bursting out of me in that laugh. From deep in my guts. Laugh ringing out above the sound of the swirling waters below us. Everything flood out in that laugh.
“What? What, Willo?”
I say nothing just turn to face her. Put my hand up to that good pale face. Then I see the hare. Running from the river.
“Shh! Look. Over there.”
I grab Mary’s hand. Like it been the most natural thing in the world. “There! The hare.”
Big brown hare racing into the bare hawthorn. Young leveret at its side.
“Come on, Mary.” I crouch down. “Look. The leveret.”
The hares disappear under a hedge. We get down and crawl through the bushes. Push out from under the branches into the light.
And we been up on a high flat rock looking across the flats down to the sea.
“Look, Willo!”
It all stretch away as far as the eye can see. The sky wrapping around us. The horizon bending around all about. Bending
“cos the earth is round, Willo.”
And you can see it from up here. The great wholeness of it and the sky clear and the thin wispy clouds floating on the edge of the world. The great wide world. My world.