Sabrina Fludde (22 page)

Down through the stormy night, as if they owed the Chadman one for all those feasts back through the years! Down from trees and flooded gardens, from gutters and ruined palace walls. Not just black crows in funeral dress, but soft, grey pigeons and pink-and-gold finches, small, brown wrens and red-breasted robins, bright little wagtails and bully-beef magpies, tawny thrushes and spangled starlings. Every colour imaginable, and every shape, birds that sang and birds that were silent, green birds, blue birds, yellow ones, turquoise, brown birds and white.

Yes, even snowy swans, wheeling through the sky as if they had it in them to do more than just kill! And ghostly herons, too, as grey as morning light, and shags like prehistoric creatures, and darting little gold-and-turquoise kingfishers. From the shyest to the boldest –
they all came down
.

And everybody watched them, standing at their windows, holding back their curtains. All the people of Pengwern, watching as a great company of birds, big enough to fill the sky, fell down upon Abren and the Chadman, plucking their clothes, latching on to their hair, stretching their talons across them and getting them in their webby, spidery, clawlike grip.
They watched them get hold of arms and shoulders, neck and hands, legs and knees, and lift them upwards, dragging them off their feet.

Then the whole great cloud – beating like a single pair of wings – rose into the sky. A single bird of power, it carried them through the storm, and nothing could stop them. The Chadman cried as if he'd always dreamt of flying free at long last, but never believed that it would happen.
And certainly not like this!

And Abren cried as well. Behind her, she could see an astonished Bentley climbing into a tree, the better to watch their journey across town. He waved them on their way, and everybody else waved too – the people of Pengwern, wishing them godspeed.

Abren waved back. The birds carried her over Dogpole Alley, up Pride Hill, past the old town cross, down past the castle and finally to the railway station. Here the flood had changed the landscape beyond recognition. Abren stopped waving, and her heart sank. She had come too late! The main building lay under water, and so did the platforms. The Guinness hoardings stood half submerged, and every trace of the once-great iron railway bridge had gone.

It had completely disappeared
.

They flew over the spot where it had been. Abren looked down, imagining thick, black waters flowing between the bridge's hidden arches and its girders, filling its chasms and soaking through its dark places. She imagined it finding all the hidden corners and filling them with black poison, clogging up the stairways and flooding the waiting rooms fit to burst.

Nobody could survive those flooding waters.
Not
even Old Sabrina could hold them back
.

The birds circled the abandoned waiting rooms, and Abren could have wept. One half of the roof remained, but the other half had caved in. There was no sign of Old Sabrina, but as if the birds didn't realise that the battle was over, they deposited Abren and the Chadman on the remains of the ridge, between the chimney pots. Then, as if their job were done, they rose back into the sky – not a single tight cloud any more, but every bird for miles around making its own way home.

The Chadman waved a wild goodbye, as if he hadn't realised yet what Abren could see plainly –
that they had come too late
.

‘I always dreamt of heights,' he said. ‘Of tightrope walking between spires. Of flying over rooftops. But I never thought I'd do it!'

‘You always were a dreamer –
and a fool!'
a new voice said.

They turned around – and there was Old Sabrina! She sat propped like a broken doll against the chimney pots, her feet stuck out beneath her skirt like bits of perished rubber, her clothes tattered and soaked, her eyes as flat as stitched-on buttons, and her head twisted at a funny angle as she looked out over the flood.

The Chadman saw her – and the smile froze on his face.

‘Well may you look like that!' she burst out. ‘You cruel deceiver, you – thick with lies and syrup-promises! Look what you have done! All these years far from my mountain! And all these years without my child! Never laughing, always grieving. Never
dreaming that I might find her. And now I have,
and it's too late!'

Old Sabrina glared at the Chadman from underneath her mop of bird's-nest hair. She could have killed him with a look. And, glaring back, he could have killed her too.

‘Look what
you've
done to
me!
All those years trapped in those ruins, knowing I could never get away. Never have the chance to make a fresh start. And growing older by the day and week and year! And when I do escape at last –
here you are!
Witch! Bitch! Daughter of Plynlimon – I knew from the first day that I'd never get away from you!'

The Chadman shook – a bag of bones rattling with rage. Old Sabrina turned her bitter face away.

‘Tell your father
that I won't forgive him,' she said, addressing Abren. ‘Tell him it's too much to ask. I
won't
forgive what I can't forget. And I
can't
forgive what I won't forget!'

It was like a trap, and Old Sabrina caught in it.

‘Tell Effrildis
that I don't want forgiveness!' the Chadman said, addressing Abren too. ‘Not now, after all these years. I would have given anything for it once, but it's too late.
All I want is to be left alone!'

Abren's mother snorted.
‘Tell your father
that there
is
no Effrildis! Not any more. Tell him that she's gone, and now there's only Old Sabrina!'

As she spoke, the wind blew into her, tugging the hair back from her face so that what she had become was plain to see. The Chadman looked into her face, bleached white with pain and age and misery. He flinched, and stepped back.

‘
Tell your mother
that I'm not responsible for this. I
never meant to harm her. If I deceived her, I only did it for love!'

Old Sabrina drew in her breath. ‘Love!' she hissed.
‘You did it for love? Why, tell your father that TRUE LOVE NEVER LIES!'

For a moment, Abren thought that the old woman would hurl herself across the roof and start a fight. But then the storm did it for her. It came sweeping along the roof to send them crashing into each other like weapons of war. They would have destroyed each other, sliding down the roof, locked in battle, if Abren hadn't realised what was about to happen. She got between them, grabbing her mother on one side of her and her father on the other – and clung on to them for dear life.

And they clung on to her too – desperately holding their daughter as the wind tried to drive her off the roof. And she was safe between them because they'd never, ever, let her go. Not again. And suddenly, despite themselves, despite their crazy, mixed-up feelings and the past that lay behind them and the things they couldn't forgive –
they were a family!

They were Abren's family!
Maybe not the one she'd hoped for, but hers all the same. She held them as if nothing could ever prise them apart – not the flood beneath them, nor the mountain man, nor the legend built around their lives calling for a tragic ending. Not even Gwendolina's curse could prise them apart, for they were breaking it right now, locked together in something far deeper than an embrace.

Abren knew what they had done as soon as the wind dropped. She looked up. The rain was drying in the sky and the clouds were rolling away like BC boys
who'd been stood up to. Beneath her, the waves began to still, and the swollen flood waters calmed into a vast silver sea.

Abren cried out in astonishment. All around her – from towers to rooftops and attic windows – the people of Pengwern cried out too. And Abren knew that she would never forget them. Never forget this moment, which they shared together.

She turned to share it with her parents too – with Effrildis and the king of Pengwern. But the roof was empty. She stood alone. Her mother had gone, and so had her father. The past had passed on, leaving nothing but a handful of dust settling on the chimney pots like debris from a storm.

Abren took it up, rubbing it between her fingers. Just a pinch of dust, but she felt it full of life and stories, memories and peace at last. It was all that she had left of the past.
But it was enough
.

The morning stars melted and the sunrise edged over the rim of the sky. The swollen river shone like a sapphire in the first pale light, and Abren sat high above it, between the chimney pots. She would never know where the river ended, twisting out of sight. Her journey was over. She didn't belong here in this new day. She had done what she was meant to do. There were no curses to keep her here any longer.

Abren rubbed the feathered edge of her blanket against her cheek, looking at its embroidery. Had Effrildis realised, she wondered, that when she'd stitched her daughter's blanket she had charted out her life? Here it all was, the mountains and rivers, the birds and trees – even the town of Pengwern, rising like an island in the river's horseshoe loop.

And now it all was over. Abren waited to turn to dust, just like her mother had done, and her father, the king of Pengwern. They hadn't lived to see the sun come up over their town. But here it suddenly was – and the whole town was cheering as if seizing the perfect moment for a celebration. Maybe not with fireworks in the Quarry Park, toasting the sun with tea and coffee rather than champagne. But a better celebration than any stroke of midnight could ever be! For they were toasting new life, and the passing into legend of a moment which schoolchildren would write poems about one day.

But none of them would know what had
really
happened here in Pengwern, any more than the TV cameras knew, circling overhead, thinking that they'd seen it all. For what they knew was all they'd seen – a cloud of birds doing something odd on a day when nature was freakish anyway. They didn't know that what had happened here was a miracle of hope against all odds, and freedom not to hate.

A bell rang out. A solitary bell – and surely rung by Fee! Now would be the moment when Abren turned to dust. She braced herself. This surely was it – the bell of history tolling for her, and the words it tolled were:

‘Time for home, don't you think?'

When Abren finally realised that a voice was calling her, she looked down. There sat Sir Henry, bobbing in his coracle.

‘Anyone would think you liked it up there among the chimney pots! Come on! Can't you hear me? I said
time for home!
'

He put aside his paddle and held out a pair of long, skinny arms. Abren looked at them, and knew they wouldn't let her go. She looked into Sir Henry's eyes, full of laughter, as ever, and suddenly she knew that not all stories ended at the perfect moment, with the whole town cheering and church bells ringing.

She slid down the roof, crash-landing in the coracle. Sir Henry caught her, set her on the seat beside him, and started paddling through the waters, steering a course for Compass House. They passed submerged pubs and shops, scarcely recognisable by their roofs and chimney pots, passed the castle and the library and the old town cross, reached the old town walls and started along them.

Here the flood waters had retreated, and they could walk along the narrow pavement – Sir Henry with his coracle slung over his back, waddling like a giant turtle, and Abren carrying the paddle. The walls were silent, with not a car about and only the first few people venturing out. They reached Compass House and the tidemark on its wall showed how far the flood had risen. Sir Henry opened the front door, and to Abren's relief, the hall was just as fresh and bright as usual.

The same, however, couldn't be said for the kitchen at the back, which was brown and slimy, and stank. The waters had gone down, but it looked bereft. Everything of value had been dragged upstairs, the curtains had been hoicked up on their poles, the stove was out and the warm, humming room – once the heart of the house – was like a silent ghost.

‘Where's Pen? Why's everything so quiet?
Where's Phaze II?
' Abren asked.

‘They're in the garden.'

Sir Henry gave Abren a funny look. It was almost as if something terrible had happened and he didn't know how to tell her. She dashed outside. The garden lay under water, right up to the top terrace. There wasn't a soul in sight.

‘Where are they?'
she cried in a panic.

Sir Henry smiled for an answer, and gave her another funny look. He threw his coracle down on to the water and said, ‘You'd better get back in.'

Abren did as she was bidden. Her heart was thundering. They paddled out across the garden, and if something terrible
had
happened, Sir Henry was remarkably calm about it. He even paused to show
Abren how to manoeuvre the coracle by herself, holding the paddle straight in front of her and twisting the wooden knob at the top.

It was an effort at first, and the coracle spun like a corkscrew. But then Abren got the knack and they began to move forwards in a gentle dipping motion, drawing level with a cluster of trees which had their roots deep down in the hidden lawn. Suddenly, between the trees and in the place where the boat shed should have been, riding high upon the water – Abren saw a boat.

It wasn't one of Sir Henry's coracles, nor one of the dumpy river cruisers washed up by the flood. It was a sailing boat. An old-fashioned wooden vessel made of painted planks, its flat hold lying in the water, its single mast rising into the morning sky.

Abren shivered at the sight of it. The boat was like another jigsaw piece falling into place. She pulled round her blanket, and there was its perfect match – there, embroidered by her mother, as if to say that her story wasn't over yet!