Sabrina Fludde (19 page)

Abren watched him go. And when the bog rolled over her, she didn't fight. What was the point? It wasn't Gwendolina she was up against this time. It was this man who owned the mountain, with its storms and bogs and clouds, its forests and its streams. Who owned everything that moved upon Plynlimon.

And now he owned Abren too.

She closed her eyes. The bog slipped round her shoulders and under her chin, like a cold blanket of death. It oozed into her mouth, however tightly she tried to keep it shut, and filled her nose. It filled her ears and soaked through her skin, found her veins and infused them with black poison, clogged her arteries and flooded into her lungs.

So this was how her story ended, after all her struggles to make sense of things! Underneath the mountain in the dark; far from Pengwern and her
friends; far from the river whose source she'd never found: far from that room where she had been a happy child, and far from her mother.

Abren sank down and down. A kaleidoscope of fleeting memories jumbled up together until only blackness remained. It filled her and she couldn't feel, breathe, think, speak. Couldn't find that will to live which had stopped her story ending on chapter one. Couldn't cry out, as she had done then, for,
‘Just a chance – that's all I ask.'

Now her chances were all spent. She free-fell through the darkness, wanting nothing but oblivion – short and sharp and
let's get on with it
. But somewhere underneath her, Abren heard something. Heard it as she'd heard it before, under the railway bridge, and in Bentley's living room at Christmas, and on the willow island only last night. And it wasn't oblivion that waited for her, after all.

It was ‘her tune'!

It bubbled up, as sweet as candy and as fresh as air. The tune that said that she was
just fine
. That she was brave and strong and where she should be. That there was nothing to be frightened of. And Abren hadn't lost the river, after all.

She had found its source!

She felt it underneath her, buried deep but rising all the time, bubbling up as fresh as air. And its tune grew as it rose. And the words it sang were,
‘TRUST ME'
.

And Abren did! She let the river take her, as it had taken her once long before. The mountain man was wrong to say it wouldn't dare. She felt the clear, fresh water of the Sabrina Fludde soaking through her pores, flushing through her lungs, chasing through her
veins. Felt it racing through her heart and freeing it to beat again.
She was alive
. No black corph candle, summoned forth by Gwendolina, could stand in her way! No howling C
ŵ
n y Wbir – and no mountain man!

Nothing could stand in Abren's way!
The river flowed into her and she flowed into it, merging together until no longer could she say ‘this is me' or ‘this is it'. Her limbs turned into flowing water. Her child's body turned into flowing water. Her face turned into flowing water – eyes, ears, mouth, nose, cheeks, chin and even her hair.

Suddenly she found herself moving and breathing with the river's secret rhythms and its life. Flowing as it flowed, underneath the mountain where nobody could see. A river on a hidden journey underneath the bog – and Abren travelled with it and not even the mountain man could see.

She ran beneath the open grassland, ran beneath grazing sheep, ran deep down beneath banks of peat until the stream broke out into the light; until the mountain top was behind her, and the forest greeted her. Then she ran over its rocks and roots, through its pools and out again, down deep, fast gulleys to the waterfall above Blaen Hafren.

Here, water within water, she tumbled past the house and down the glen, flowing fast and never looking back. Past the quarry she flowed, and under the road. Back into the forest, and down through Old Hall. And once she would have changed lives with those schoolchildren, wending their way home at the end of the day. But now she wouldn't be anyone but Abren, travelling with the stream, and giving it her name.

On she flowed, past St Curig's House, where she looked for the Misses Ingram but couldn't find them, out of Old Hall and down the valley. She flowed past the willow island where Gwyn had found her, and carried on until she couldn't see the great bulk of Plynlimon any more. It lay lost amid its forests, swathed in clouds. Suddenly, Abren was free of it.

At last
. She felt herself stop rushing in a panic, and began to flow more gently. With quiet dignity the stream carried her through the little town with the railway station and on into a wider world, where if anyone noticed anything, it wouldn't be a body on the water. It would be a silver river threading home.

The moon was high, and the day was over, at long last. The stream flowed through the darkness, and Abren flowed with it, knowing that nothing could frighten her any more. She laughed as she flowed, and the stream laughed too, drawing new streams to itself and growing into a river big enough to shape a landscape. Hills here, valleys there, towns here, roads there. No one could fight a river which could shape a land like this! Not even the mountain man.

Abren laughed again, flowing on and on as if child and river, day and night, past and present, were one and the same thing. And all that lay behind her was forgotten, and all that lay ahead was –
Pengwern
.

Abren moved towards it like a conqueror returning home. She imagined its towers and spires waiting for her up ahead. Imagined Pen and Sir Henry, Phaze II and Bentley, Fee and Mena – her friends, all ready to forgive her for the things she hadn't told them yet.

But soon she would! Oh, how she would!
Abren laughed again, imagining the cosy fire in Bentley's living room, and all of them gathered round while she told her story.

And suddenly someone laughed back
.

The laugh was cold – and Abren froze. She knew who it was, of course. How could she not? She could almost see his eyes, tightening like lenses in his head. See him smiling because he'd found her. What a fool she'd been! She'd thought that she had won. But the battle wasn't even half begun!

Abren took a last glance at the river, as she always wanted to remember it. Then the wind got up, and the moon disappeared. The stars went out, and the mountain man's laughter ran down the water like an electric shock.

Abren felt it strike her, and cried in pain. She had felt his pity, cold and cruel. She had felt his hate.

And now she felt the mountain man's power
.

Rain fell in sheets from a low-flying sky. It hailed down like bullets, riddling the roofs and spires of Pengwern and emptying the streets. It emptied the Quarry Park and left the town centre deserted. Saturday midday – the busiest time of the week – saw scarcely a shopper struggling up Pride Hill against the torrent pouring down from its drains and gulleys. Even the indoor shopping mall was nearly empty, and the market hall was no better, all its stalls set up but nobody in to buy anything.

It wasn't just the storm. People were afraid of coming into town for fear of what the river might do. There had been floods before in Pengwern, but nobody had ever seen the river like this. They stayed indoors, grumbling about the weather report not warning them of trouble, the water authority not ‘doing anything' about the water levels, and the town council not getting out the duckboards.

‘Just look at it!' they grumbled to each other. ‘Look at all that water on the roads! And those cellars flooding! And those drains rising, all over town! This is meant to be the twenty-first century! What's the modern world coming to? Why can't somebody control a little river?'

It was a good question. One which even Bentley asked as he splashed through the rain, delivering a package to one of his mother's customers. Beneath the
high town walls, he could see the river swirling like a thick brown stew. Usually it flowed on its way, looking so tame, but now it flooded over pavements and crept up people's gardens, heading for their front doors and sweeping away everything in its path.

There was nothing anyone could do. Bentley shivered with excitement. He reached the customer's house and rang the bell. When there was no reply, he left the package round the back and hurried off to the town walls. Here a small crowd had gathered to take photographs, snapping away undeterred by the rain.

‘How could the river rise so fast in just a few hours?' they wanted to know. ‘Where's it come from?' ‘What's going on?' ‘How high is it going to get?'

Bentley glanced up at the sky, its clouds still low and no end in sight. A raw wind blew into his face and howled off along the walls. Briefly, Bentley thought that he could hear the baying of dogs in it. So did everybody else, crying,
‘What was that?'
and looking about.

Bentley didn't wait to find out. He headed for home. The dogs could have been a trick of the storm. But they could have been something else. There was something strange going on. Something
different
about this storm.

It was a relief to get home and slam the front door behind him.

‘Is that you, Bentley?' his mum called, concern in her voice, as if she'd regretted sending him out. ‘Are you all right?'

Bentley went up to the bathroom for a towel, then came down to the living-room where everything was snug and warm. A fire burned in the grate, and lamps
and candles had been lit because the electricity was off. Bentley felt safe from the storm. He assured his mother that he'd delivered the package right into her customer's hands, then sat down to dry himself by the fire.

As he did so, he caught sight of Abren's postcard sitting on the mantelpiece. He picked it up, suddenly missing her again. Turned it over and read her message about being fine. He hoped that she was. The word round town was that the child found under the railway bridge had gone back to her family. He hoped that child was Abren, for her own sake at least.

His father came in, and Bentley asked him if he'd heard any news of Abren. But the only news his dad had heard was of the Welsh Bridge being cut off, the wild west end in trouble and every able-bodied man being needed to fight the flood. He dashed out again into the stormy night, bright-eyed and excited. Bentley's question was left hanging in the air.

‘There are things that they can do for us – these able-bodied men!' sniffed Mum. ‘And there are things that they pretend to do – like delivering packages, for example, right into a customer's hands. And there are things that they can do nothing about. And fighting floods is one of them!
Nobody can stop the path of a flood!
'

She went up to bed with a candle and a book for company. Bentley was left to marvel at the things his mother knew, no matter how he tried to hide them. He followed later, getting into bed with a candle and a book too, promising himself to listen out for Dad. But he fell asleep almost straight away, and didn't hear a
thing until a gust of wind struck the roof, sending tiles crashing down into Dogpole Alley.

Bentley awoke in a panic. The candle had burned down, and in the darkness he heard someone laughing. At first he thought it was someone in the house. But then he realised it was outside, caught up in the wind, like that baying of the dogs. And there was triumph in the laughter. There was something cruel.

Bentley leapt out of bed, his heart thundering. He flung on his clothes, went to look for his dad and, when he saw he wasn't back, went out to find him. What had he been thinking of, lying in bed when the town needed every able-bodied man, woman and child, to fight this terrible storm which had come upon them all?

Bentley left the house and tore across the alley, starting down the Seventy Steps towards the bus station and the wild west end. But at step number fifty-two, counting from the top, he met the river. It stretched out from the step, across the main road, over the bus station, past the houses and pubs around the railway station and out of sight.

Bentley stared at it, shining darkly in the searchlight of a circling helicopter. He had never seen his town like this before. It was a terrifying sight. No army of able-bodied men, women, girls, boys, experts, volunteers, emergency services and circling TV camera crews could possibly make any difference. And the rain was still pouring.

And it was going to get worse.

Abren swept downriver on a white-knuckle ride. Rain beat upon her as it had done for half the night and all day long, pouring from the sky as if its stopcocks had been left full on. All around her, the river was breaking its banks, bursting everywhere and spilling across the land. And Abren flowed with it, water within water. She was unable to stop herself.

She crashed over river paths and swirled through woods and meadows, running towards Pengwern on a river which was being punished for daring yet again to help Abren. It was as if its wells were being emptied, deep under the mountain, its hidden reservoirs banished, never to return.

And half the land was washing down with it – peaty glens and trees torn from their roots, stone walls and dead sheep. The flood took everything, pouring over roads, cutting off river loops and turning them into lakes, running after animals, and swirling through houses, whose shocked inhabitants were forced to flee.

And Abren ran with it. She had felt the river's rhythms, and felt its life. And now she felt its death. Logs as fast as crocodiles crashed into her like guided missiles, programmed to seek and destroy. Waves ran over her like cold knives. Rain beat down on her like a pitiless jungle drum, and Abren rushed on, taking the fastest ride of all, in the middle of the river where the
flood was at its wildest, heading for Pengwern as if it were her only hope.

Finally, the water tower which marked the town's approach appeared against the stormy skyline. Abren rushed towards it, weak with relief. Ahead lay her home, and her only hope of safety. If she could reach those old town walls, they would would wrap themselves around her. Fortress walls of old, they would hold her like a mother, and keep her safe. No flood could rise up that hill where her father's palace had once stood! No mountain man could reach her if only she could get to it!