The Snow Spider Trilogy. Jenny Nimmo

and then died.

      Except for a white shirt Mr Griffiths was dressed entirely in black. He stared at the table in cold disbelief.

      The shock of the electric light jolted the party out of its homely cheerfulness. The birthday table looked spoiled and untidy; someone had spilt orange juice on the white cloth.

      ‘What’s this? Celebrating are we?’ Mr Griffiths’ mouth was tight, his face white with displeasure.

      Siôn was still wearing the spectacle mask and his brothers began to giggle. He did resemble Mr Griffiths.

      ‘It’s Gwyn’s birthday, Ivor,’ Mrs Griffiths explained nervously. ‘You’re just in time for . . .’

      ‘I know what day it is.’ Her husband spoke the words slowly, through clenched teeth, as though the taste was bitter. ‘There are candles wasting in the kitchen, chairs on the floor, and look at this – litter!’ He flung out his hand, indicating the table.

      ‘Sit down, Ivor Griffiths, you miserable man,’ said Nain, ‘and celebrate your son’s birthday!’

      ‘Miserable is it?’ Mr Griffiths big red hands were clasped tight across his chest, one hand painfully rubbing and pressing at the other. ‘Miserable is it, to be remembering my own daughter who is gone? My daughter who went on this day, four years ago?’

      Suddenly Mrs Griffiths stood up. ‘Enough! We’ve had enough, Ivor!’ she protested. ‘We remember Bethan too. We’ve mourned her going every year on this day, for four years. But it’s Gwyn’s birthday, and we’ve had enough of mourning! Enough! Enough!’ She was almost crying.

      Gwyn turned his head away. He did not want to look at the bright colours on the table; did not want to see his friends’ faces. He knew that his birthday was over. His mother was talking, but he could not listen to the words. She was taking his friends away, he heard them shuffling into the kitchen, murmuring good-bye, but he could not move. His father was still standing by the table, sad and silent in his black suit.

      ‘How could you do that, Ivor?’ Nain reproached her son as the front door slammed.

      ‘How could I? I have done nothing. It was that one!’ and he looked at Gwyn. ‘She is gone because of him, my Bethan is.’

      It was said.

      Gwyn felt almost relieved. He got up slowly and pushed his chair neatly back to the table then, without looking at his father, he walked out to the kitchen.

      His mother was standing by the sink, waving to the Lloyds through a narrow window. She swung round quickly when she heard her son. ‘I’m sorry, Gwyn,’ she said quietly. ‘So sorry.’ She came towards him and hugged him close. Her face was flushed and she had put her apron on again.

      ‘It was a great party, Mam! Thanks!’ said Gwyn. ‘The other boys liked it too, I know they did.’

      ‘But I wanted your father to . . .’

      ‘It doesn’t matter, Mam,’ Gwyn interrupted quickly. ‘It was grand. I’ll always remember it!’

      He drew away from his mother and ran up to his room, where he sat on the edge of his bed, smiling at the memory of his party and the way it had been before his father had arrived. Gwyn knew his father could not help the bitterness that burst out of him every now and again, and he had acquired a habit of distancing himself from the ugly words. He thought hard about the good times, until the bad ceased to exist.

      A tiny sound caused him to go to the window. There was a light in the garden, a lantern swaying in the evening breeze.

      Gwyn opened the window. ‘Who’s there?’ he called.

      He was answered by a high, girlish laugh, and then his grandmother’s voice, ‘Remember your gifts, Gwydion Gwyn. Remember Math, Lord of Gwynedd, remember Gwydion and Gilfaethwy!’

      ‘Are you being funny, Nain?’

      There was a long pause and then the reply, ‘It’s not a game I’m playing, Gwydion Gwyn. Once in every seven generations the power returns, so they say. Your father never had it, nor did mine. Let’s find out who you are!’

      The gate clicked shut and the lantern went swinging down the lane, while the words of an old song rose and fell on the freshening wind, and then receded, until the light and the voice faded altogether.

      Before he shut the window, Gwyn looked up at the mountain and remembered his fifth birthday. It had been a fine day, like today, but in the middle of the night a storm had broken. The rain had come pouring down the mountainside in torrents, boulders and branches rumbling and groaning in its path. The Griffiths family had awakened, pulled the blankets closer to their heads and fallen asleep again, except for Gwyn. His black sheep was still up on the mountain. He had nursed it as a motherless lamb, himself, tucking it in Mam’s old jumper, cosy by the fire. Feeding it with a bottle, five times a day, until it had grown into a fine ewe.

      ‘Please, get her! Please, save her!’ Gwyn had shaken his sister awake again.

      Bethan had grumbled but because she was older, and because she was kind, she had complied.

      The last time Gwyn saw her she had been standing by the back door in her red mac, testing the big outdoor torch. It was the night after Halloween and the pumpkin was still on the windowsill, grimacing with its dark gaping mouth and sorrowful eyes. Bethan had become curiously excited, as though she was going to meet someone very special, not just a lonely black ewe. ‘Shut the door tight, when I am gone,’ she had whispered, ‘or the wind will howl through the house and wake Mam and Dad!’ Then, swinging the yellow scarf round her dark hair, she had walked out into the storm. She had never been afraid of anything.

      Through the kitchen window, Gwyn had watched the light of the big torch flashing on the mountainside until it disappeared. Then he had fallen asleep on the rug beside the stove.

      They never saw Bethan again, though they searched every inch of the mountain. They never found a trace of her perilous climb on that wild night, nor did they find the black ewe. The girl and the animal seemed to have vanished!

      

      Unlike most Novembers, calm days seemed endless that autumn. Gwyn had to wait three weeks for a wind. It was the end of the month and the first snow had fallen on the mountain.

      During those three weeks he found he could not broach the subject of his ancestors, though he dwelt constantly on Nain’s words. Since his birthday the atmosphere in the house had hardly been conducive to confidences. His father remote and silent. His mother in such a state of anxiety that, whenever they were alone, he found he could only discuss the trivia of their days; the farm, the weather and his school activities.

      But every morning and every evening Gwyn would open his drawer and take out the yellow scarf. He would stand by his window and run his hands lightly over the soft wool, all the time regarding the bare, snow-capped mountain, and he would think of Bethan.

      Then, one Sunday, the wind came; so quietly at first that you hardly noticed it. By the time the midday roast had been consumed, however, twigs were flying, the barn door banging, and the howling in the chimney loud enough to drive the dog away from the stove.

      Gwyn knew it was time.

      ‘Who were my ancestors?’ he asked his mother.

      They were standing by the sink, he dutifully drying the dishes, his mother with her hands deep in the soapy water. ‘Ancestors,’ she said. ‘Well, no one special that I know of . . .’

      ‘No one?’ he probed.

      ‘Not on my side, love. Your grandfather’s a baker, you know that, and before that, well . . . I don’t know. Nothing special.’

      ‘What about Nain?’

      Gwyn’s