The Snow Spider Trilogy. Jenny Nimmo

and, filled with rage and hatred, he cut off the horses’ ears and their tails, their eyelids and their lips, until they screamed with pain, and no one could touch them!”’

      Silence filled the room and Gwyn said, ‘You’re sorry now, I told you!’

      ‘No!’ Eirlys had drawn the quilt around her neck. ‘We had to know. Perhaps that mad prince never died, but became locked in the broken horse because of what he’d done!’

      ‘Nain tried to burn the horse, but she couldn’t,’ said Gwyn.

      ‘It couldn’t be destroyed so it was given to the magicians to keep safe,’ Eirlys suggested. ‘They were the most powerful men in the land in those days!’ She paused and then said, ‘Well, you know who you have to catch!’

      ‘I know his name, but I can’t see him. How do I know where he is?’

      ‘He’s on the mountain, for sure. You’ll be able to feel him. And you have Arianwen to help you!’

      Gwyn went to the window and drew the curtains wide. It was light now and snowflakes were flying past the window; some would linger in their journey and dance gently up and down against the pane, before drifting on to the apple tree below.

      ‘Perhaps you’d better wait,’ said Eirlys, when she saw the snow. ‘There’ll be a blizzard on the mountain.’

      ‘No! I daren’t wait. Something will happen if I don’t stop him now. I won’t go far. I know what to do. Tell Mam I’ve gone to see Nain.’

      Mrs Griffiths was in the kitchen when Gwyn slipped downstairs, put on his mac and boots and, for the second time that morning, crept out of the house.

      He realised, as soon as he was through the door, that he would not get far. Eirlys was right. There was a blizzard on the mountain. The wind and snow lashed his face and he had to screw up his eyes and look down at his boots in order to make any headway. But he knew the way, and he knew what he had to do.

      When he arrived at the stone wall from where he had flung the broken horse, he took Arianwen from his pocket and held her out into the snow. She clung to his hand for a moment, bracing herself against the wind.

      ‘Go!’ Gwyn whispered. And then words came to him that he had never known and did not understand, and he began to chant.

      The spider rolled off Gwyn’s hand and drifted up into the snow. He watched her, shining silver, amongst the white flakes, and then he had to shut his eyes against the blizzard. When he opened them the spider had gone, and already the wind had slackened. There was a sudden stillness as the mountain held its breath. Clouds of snow began to gather on the summit; they intensified and rolled downwards in a vast, ever-thickening ice-cold wave. In a few seconds Gwyn could hardly see his hands. He felt for the stone wall and found instead, something smooth and tall – a pillar of ice!

      And then Gwyn ran. Or rather threw himself, snow-blind and stumbling, down the track and away from his spell. Arianwen had begun to spin!

      At that moment, someone was knocking on the farmhouse door. Mrs Griffiths, when she opened it, found Alun Lloyd on the doorstep.

      ‘It is Alun, isn’t it?’ she asked, for the boy was muffled up to his eyes in a thick red scarf.

      ‘Yes,’ Alun mumbled through the scarf.

      ‘You’ve not gone to school, then?’

      ‘No school,’ the reply was just audible. ‘No bus – blizzard – where’s Gwyn?’

      ‘Stamp the snow off those boots and come in!’ said Mrs Griffiths. She took the boy’s anorak and shook it outside before closing the door. ‘Gwyn’s upstairs with the girl,’ she went on. ‘Poor little thing had an accident yesterday. She’s in bed!’

      ‘I heard,’ muttered Alun. ‘Can I go up?’

      ‘’Course love. First door on the left. Don’t stay too long, mind. She’s still a bit . . .’

      Alun had sprung up the stairs before Mrs Griffiths could finish her sentence. He opened the door and saw only the girl. She was sitting up in bed, reading a book.

      ‘Where’s Gwyn?’ Alun asked.

      ‘With his grandmother,’ the girl replied.

      ‘No he’s not. I’ve been there!’

      The two children stared at each other across the patterned quilt.

      Alun decided to put his question another way. ‘Is he in the house? Won’t he see me?’

      The girl regarded him gravely and he had to look away from her strange, greeny-blue gaze. He did not like her eyes; they made him feel cold.

      ‘OK. You’re not going to tell, are you? I’m sorry about – about your falling down an’ that, an’ I came to say so.’ He glanced briefly at her pale face, then quickly averted his eyes again. ‘But I want to tell Gwyn about it. I want to talk to him, see? An’ I’m going to find him. I don’t care if it takes – forever!’

      Alun turned swiftly and ran out of the room.

      A few seconds later Mrs Griffiths heard the front door slam and called out, ‘Was that Alun? Why didn’t he stop?’ Receiving no reply, she returned to her washing, still unaware that Gwyn was not in the house.

      Outside, Alun saw footsteps in the snow, and began to follow them.

      Gwyn returned only minutes later and, having quietly divested himself of snow-soaked garments, crept barefoot up to the bedroom.

      ‘It’s done!’ he told Eirlys. ‘The spell’s begun!’

      ‘Your friend was here!’ she said.

      ‘Alun? What did he want?’

      ‘To see you! He was angry!’

      ‘Where has he gone?’ Gwyn began to feel a terrible apprehension overwhelming him.

      ‘I think he went on to the mountain,’ Eirlys replied with equal consternation.

      ‘I didn’t see him. He must have missed the track!’

      ‘He’ll get lost!’

      ‘Trapped!’ cried Gwyn. ‘Trapped and frozen!’ He tore down the stairs and out into the snow, forgetting, in his panic, to put on his boots, or his mac, or to shut the front door. He called his friend’s name, again and again as he ran, until he was hoarse. The snow had become a fog, still and heavy, like a blanket, smothering any sound.

      He found his way, with difficulty, to the place where he had touched the pillar of ice. There was another beside it now, and another and another; they rose higher than he could reach and too close to pass through. A wall of ice! Gwyn beat upon the wall, he kicked it, tore at it with his fingers, all the while calling Alun’s name in his feeble croaking voice, and then he slid to the ground, defeated by his own spell.