Riding the Storm Page 2

  ‘You awake?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The night light caught the top of Huw’s black spiky hair and the shoulders of his bright red pyjamas.

  ‘He’s there!’ whispered Huw, putting his fingers to his lips.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Rhiwallon. In the cupboard mirror over there . . .’

  Alun looked as if he didn’t understand and Huw went on urgently. ‘In class Mrs Parry was reading us “The Lady of Llyn y Fan Fach”. Rhiwallon was one of her sons. He was a physician. You know, from up in the Black Mountain. He became a ghost.’

  ‘I don’t know and I don’t believe in ghosts,’ said Alun under his breath, but he was intrigued and when Huw leaned further and further forward he said, ‘Move back then. You’re in the way, aren’t you?’

  Huw flopped against his pillows and Alun stared at the mirror. All he could see was the reflection of the moonlight crunched into a silver nugget. Behind, there were shadows that reminded him of the prison in which he lay. And behind them other shadows that led his imagination deeper and deeper into that night when the wind had blown him off his bike. He still couldn’t remember why he was going down Castle Hill at such a speed but he could see himself whizzing down, the wind in his hair, its strange high boom inside his head as if it was the sound of his own voice.

  He brushed his cheek with his good hand and the padlock grazed his skin.

  Huw’s voice seemed far away. ‘. . . Rhiwallon became a healer and his sons after him. You must have heard of the physicians of Myddfai. Believe me Alun, that’s his ghost in the cupboard. I know it’s him because he’s holding a black calf. Don’t you understand, he’s come to heal us!’

  Alun stared at the nugget of light, the shooting rays. He wasn’t sure what Huw was talking about. ‘Don’t be thick, it’s moonlight,’ he said, flatly.

  Huw pushed himself up slowly, easing his plastered leg. ‘I’m not thick. He’s still there. Can’t you see his face?’

  But the pain was in the way and Alun groaned; he couldn’t help himself.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Huw, ‘I forgot. Do you want anything?’

  I want the pain to stop, thought Alun, I want to know why my head is blank and black. I want to know where my Dad is. But he said nothing – for in a funny way Huw was cheering him up and he wanted him to go on.

  ‘How old are you?’ he asked Huw.

  ‘Ten. Why?’

  ‘That’s it then,’ said Alun. ‘I’m older, see. It’s different. When I was ten I believed in –’

  What did he believe in?

  ‘Father Christmas?’ asked Huw.

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘God?’

  ‘Don’t be daft. Well, my dad did, so –’

  ‘I do. God I mean, not Father Christmas. We all do in my family. Mam has a lot to do with the church. But only my little sister believes in Father Christmas. She’s five. She’s called Ffion –’

  ‘Does she believe in ghosts like you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Huw, looking back at the mirror. ‘Anyway, it’s not just believing. I’ve seen Rhiwallon with my own eyes.’ He stared at the mirror. ‘He’s gone now, though.’

  ‘It’s your imagination,’ said Alun irritably. He had enough on his plate without a ghost story. But Huw smiled. ‘Mrs Parry will get you to read the story tomorrow then you’ll understand more. We’re going to do our own projects on it. You must join in.’

  ‘Hate school,’ said Alun half to himself.

  ‘You won’t hate this one,’ whispered Huw. ‘It’s more like – well – it’s hard to describe. We have to work and everything but it’s so small.’

  ‘I’ll never like school,’ said Alun.

  They fell silent as the nurse’s footsteps came back from the babies’ ward. She stopped by Alun and smiled and patted his head as he told her about the pain.

  ‘I’ve got something for that,’ she said quietly. ‘You’ll soon be asleep.’

  Next morning a lady stood over Alun. She had long fair hair and wore a white lacy blouse and a soft long brown skirt Mam wouldn’t be seen dead in. She wasn’t his idea of a teacher and it threw him. Out of the darkness in his head he had a sudden flash, as he did nowadays, of the art teacher at his real school, a middle-aged man with an old grey pullover. The only teacher he liked.

  The lady was holding a bunch of ferns and a basket full of small stones.

  ‘I’m Mrs Williams, come to help Mrs Parry. This afternoon we’re going to look at the patterns of nature in the Black Mountain.’

  ‘That’s where the lake is,’ whispered Huw. Alun stared dumbly at the teacher and the other children listened, waiting for him to speak. But he had nothing to say.

  ‘Think of those scattered treeless peaks soaring northwards from Ammanford. Do you know which is the highest peak?’

  ‘Fan Brycheiniog,’ said Morgan quickly. ‘I’ve been up there. You can see Exmoor from there, and Cader Idris.’

  Mrs Williams laughed. ‘Your photographic memory serves you in good stead.’

  ‘Mamgu and Tadcu live in Llanddeusant,’ said Sara. ‘It’s on the way to the lake. I’m going for their Ruby Wedding.’

  Mrs Williams came up to Alun. ‘What about you?’

  ‘Kids’ stuff,’ he said, testing her.

  ‘You’re right,’ she replied smoothly. ‘All art is kids’ stuff. Seeing with eyes that aren’t spoilt.’

  He didn’t know what that meant either and pointed to his right hand. ‘What am I meant to do with this?’

  ‘Try your left,’ she said, and meant it. She swung round his table and adjusted it so that it sloped away from him. She clipped a large white piece of paper to the sloping surface then gave him some ferns. They clung stickily to each other but she prised them apart.

  ‘Do you like drawing?’

  Alun shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘I dunno.’

  The teacher walked away and he felt strangely disappointed. He closed his eyes. Once again the blackness prowled inside him like an animal he could neither see nor hear. Sleep was the way out. Not this drawing stuff. But Huw’s voice pulled him back.

  ‘I’m doing a pattern of stones.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ Alun found himself asking.

  Huw was sitting up with a large paint brush poised over his paper. ‘Before we climbed the Black Mountain we went to the Dan-yr-Ogof caves. I found this really great fossil nearby. And then there are all the stone outcrops on the mountain.’

  Alun watched the yoghurt pot swerve as Huw stuck his brush into it and pulled it out laden with thick grey paint. Then Mrs Williams put the music on, the sort Dad liked and Mam hated. Fiddles and a highpitched little pipe, with a harp somewhere in the background, being stroked hard as though someone were giving it a good combing. ‘These are traditional folk songs from the area,’ said Mrs Williams. But there was no singing, only waves of instrumental music as they painted on. The music somehow reminded Alun of the bluebell wood picture that his father had brought home.

  ‘Wasting your money again,’ Mam had said, as he put it up. By the time Dad had fixed the picture above the table there had been so much shouting Alun could hardly bear to look at the bluebells and the white ghost that marked the end of the wood. Mam never changed her mind, and when Dad had gone and Tony moved in she made him take it down and put it in the shed. A white oblong blank marked the place where the bluebell wood had been, like a picture of nothing at all. Like the sheet of paper before him.

  Alun screwed up his eyes tightly to try and forget.

  ‘Still one blank page,’ said Mrs Williams when she passed. ‘We’ll have to get Mrs Parry on to you.’

  Alun kept his eyes tightly shut. They weren’t going to get anyone on to him. Not today. Not ever.

  The next thing he heard was Mrs Parry’s voice. He kept his eyes shut. He was used to listening to voices in the dark and trying not to understand. At home Mam’s voice grumbled up through the floorboards like a mouse until it grew louder
, angrier. Then the mouse turned into a tiger and he had to stuff his ears. But Mrs Parry’s voice was different. It was bright and clear and near at hand. In the end he had to listen. The names she listed seemed familiar. Didn’t he remember Olwen from school – the girl with long brown hair? And come to think of it, didn’t he remember Sara as well, the one in the wheelchair with the high laugh? Bryn was the boy opposite with bright orange hair and Morgan was the one with a sharp voice who was always butting in with an answer.

  ‘Is that cupboard really old?’ he was asking now.

  ‘Very old indeed.’ Mrs Parry replied, ‘And rather special. Isn’t that so, Sara?’

  Sara nodded. ‘That’s what Mamgu says. That’s why she gave it to the hospital. It was a thank you for keeping me going when I was a baby.’

  ‘There is something special about that cupboard,’ said Huw.

  Alun opened his eyes. There was Sara in her wheelchair wearing a bright red dress over her small legs that curled beneath. Her hair was cropped and silky as if it belonged to another body. Olwen was sitting on a chair with her brown hair loose and her leg propped up on a stool. Mrs Parry was standing by his bed holding a book. It didn’t look like school at all. And here they all were, going on about a cupboard!

  Mrs Parry was smiling at Huw. ‘You might be right! The cupboard’s been locked up for some time. It doesn’t officially belong to the school, you know. It belongs to the hospital, and no one else has bothered with it.’

  ‘It’s spooky,’ said Huw, ‘in a nice sort of way.’

  Mrs Parry turned to Alun. ‘Here we are: THE LADY OF LLYN Y FAN FACH. You must read the story for yourself so that you can catch up with the rest. It’s not too long.’

  She opened a book with large print and propped it up on the wooden stand that was attached to his bed.

  His eyes were not like they used to be but he could just read the big print. Half way through he recognised the legend. Of course, Dad had often told it to him as a bedside story. Then one day he took him up to see the lake. In one of those flashes that lit up corners of his blank mind, Alun remembered the walk from Blaenau farm. They went down to the riverside and crossed a bridge and went along a stony track. They came across a building and two gates and one or two dams across the river. They went round the corner and there it was.

  ‘The highest Carmarthen Fan,’ Dad said. ‘It’s a great thing to see.’

  From the top of the track they followed a plain grassy path. There was another building, another small dam and then the lake. It gleamed darkly, mysteriously and he remembered looking at the water, certain the Lady would appear. He waited and waited but she didn’t come and now the lake merged into the darkness of his mind.

  ‘Are legends ever true?’ Huw was asking.

  Mrs Parry stood up. ‘There’s usually a truth in them. One of you might like to find out more about this one.’

  ‘I will,’ said Sara. ‘Mamgu knows everything about local legends. I’ll ask her when I go to Myddfai for the

  Ruby Wedding.’ Huw rolled his eyes. He’d obviously heard enough about this family celebration.

  Mrs Parry looked down at Alun. ‘Perhaps you could find out more about the healing.’

  Morgan shovelled in his school bag and brought out a tatty old book. ‘Here we are – everything you need. Listen to this –’ he looked knowingly at Alun.

  ‘For an injury in the elbow,

  knee or legs. Take lard, or pig’s fat once melted, spread on a cloth or flannel, and apply to the swellings. If to the elbow or knee, mix some juice of rue therewith, and it will cure an injury of the joint. It is proved.’

  He looked up and laughed. ‘It’s a recipe from the Physicians of Myddfai. And I’ve got it in Welsh.’

  Mrs Parry smiled. ‘We can turn it into a Welsh lesson as well. Will you read it to us, Morgan?’

  Morgan cleared his throat: ‘Mêl gloyw . . .’

  Alun switched off. Strange that a book of instructions still existed; he half wondered if there could be anything in Rhiwallon’s healing power. If only he could heal the blackness in his head.

  That night the flimsy curtains let in a pool of light that lay across Alun’s and Huw’s bed. Bryn was snoring and somewhere in the next ward there were footsteps and low voices and a baby crying. The pool of light lit up the folds on his white blanket and Alun turned them into the country track that led to the lake. Now he was floating above the track; the moon lit up the barren smoothhumped peaks and rocky escarpments of Bannau Sir Gaer and Fan Brycheiniog. And there was the lake, gleaming silver-black. He swooped down but no one was there so he flew over a landscape of hedgerows, furrowed fields, sheep and cattle. Now he was running down the stony track, leaning over the bridge that crossed the river. Rhiwallon was looking up at him from the water. And there was Dad, crying so hard he filled the river with his tears. In the dream Alun struck the water angrily with a stick, so the ripples broke up the image and he did not have to see his father crying like a child. But Rhiwallon did not go away. He held out his hand and offered Alun something that he could not see.

  Chapter Two

  THE CHALLENGE

  Alun woke to find himself threshing the bedclothes with his left hand.

  Huw and Bryn were talking in low voices.

  ‘Of course it was,’ Huw was saying, his dark blue eyes glinting in the half-light.

  Bryn scratched his thick hair so it stood up like a brush. ‘Come on. You don’t really believe in Rhiwallon’s ghost do you? Anyway, how do you know it is Rhiwallon?’

  Huw ignored Bryn’s doubts.

  ‘I tell you I saw him again, in that mirror. I think he wants us to open the cupboard.’

  ‘Only think?’ said Morgan, mockingly.

  ‘Shut up,’ called Sara from the girls’ end. ‘You’ve woken us all up.’

  Alun turned his head. By the low light he could just see Sara looking cross and Olwen opposite with her long brown hair catching the light. Funny we’re all here together, he thought and had a flashback of Olwen talking to him in the school corridor.

  ‘I’ve hardly slept,’ she was saying now, ‘what with you lot.’

  ‘Better shut up,’ whispered Alun to Huw but he found himself looking at the cupboard at their end of the ward. The mirror was cloudy with moonlight and shifting shadows. Maybe there was something in what Huw said.

  After all, a hospital was just the sort of place Rhiwallon might choose to haunt.

  ‘There,’ whispered Huw, ‘behind the shadow. That’s where he was.’

  Then the phone rang in the office and they could hear the nurse answering.

  ‘Touch it then,’ challenged Bryn. ‘Go on, I dare you. Touch it!’

  Alun pulled himself up, dragging at the weights on his legs. His head still ached but the ghost took his mind off the pain. He watched Huw reach for his crutches and slide very carefully off the bed. The night nurse was still talking as Huw stomped up the ward, his back rounded and determined. When he reached the cupboard he put out his hand and quickly touched the cloud of moonlight.

  ‘There,’ he whispered, turning his head to Bryn. ‘But , that wasn’t Rhiwallon. He was here, I tell you, but he has disappeared.’

  ‘Daft,’ said Bryn, putting his hands up and rubbing his head. ‘But there might be something inside the cupboard, you never know.’ He laughed at Huw. ‘While you’re there, what about trying to open it?’

  ‘Haven’t got a key,’ said Huw, rattling the door.

  ‘She’s coming,’ whispered Olwen.

  ‘What the heck?’ said the nurse, striding up the ward.

  ‘He was sleep-walking,’ said Bryn in a challenging voice.

  ‘Then it was a good job he got hold of his crutches,’ said the nurse coolly.

  ‘I was stretching my legs,’ said Huw, trying to sound nearer the truth.

  ‘Then stretch them back to bed, young man,’ said the nurse.

  ‘What a tired lot,’ said the doctor next morning. ‘All-night partying or what?�
�� he joked, then turned to Sister and the procession of medical students. Alun wanted to tell him about the ache in his head and how it blurred his eyesight and made his mind blank so he couldn’t remember anything, but somehow he couldn’t put it into words. The procession moved on and he closed his eyes again. If he kept them shut the day would disappear. But he didn’t sleep and even the next night he woke up in the dark. Perhaps it was the babies’ crying or the cold full moon that shone blue-white through the thin curtains and brought in a feeling of frost. Or maybe it was the others who were also awake.

  ‘He hasn’t come tonight,’ Huw was saying. ‘Maybe we frightened him away.’

  ‘Ghosts don’t get frightened,’ said Bryn, ‘only girls . . .’

  ‘I’m not frightened,’ said Olwen quickly, ‘nor is Sara – are you?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Sara and stared scornfully at Bryn. ‘You should hear the stories Mamgu tells. Anyway, I’ve never seen a ghost and there must be a first time.’

  She looks different at night, thought Alun, almost beautiful with her pale skin and silky gold hair shining in the moonlight and her body hidden. He tried to remember what class she was in at school but without success.

  ‘Why don’t we try to open the cupboard again?’ said Morgan. ‘There might be something in there more substantial than a ghost!’ He made a mock frightened noise. ‘There might be a sk-e-e-le-ton . . .’

  Huw turned to Bryn. ‘It’s your turn,’ he said.

  Bryn sat bolt upright, his brush of orange hair caught in the night light.

  No sleep for the wicked, thought Alun. He pushed himself up on his left elbow and like the others listened carefully for the sound of footsteps.

  He didn’t mean to say anything but somehow he found himself whispering to Huw. ‘It’s in my locker but you’ve got to give it straight back.’

  ‘What?’ said Huw yawning widely.

  ‘The key to my padlock. It’s in my locker – it might open the cupboard. After all, there might be something inside.’

  ‘That’s brilliant, Alun. Thanks.’ Huw sat up and stared at the mirror. ‘Perhaps Rhiwallon will help us tonight,’ he said.