The Winter of the Sea Dragon
By Mary Davies
Illustration by Melina Bourne
Published by Mary Davies at Smashwords
Copyright 2012 Mary Davies
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This book is dedicated to
Melina and Aimee
Contents
The Beginning: Five Come Together
The Faeries on the Mountain Top
The Beginning: Five Come Together
A lamp shone from the ceiling, brightening the room beyond the light that slipped in through the windows. An exhausted young woman lay on a bed, back against a stack of pillows. Her hair was striking against the paleness of her face and the whiteness of the pillows; long blue tresses mixed up with brown ones. Two nurses tended her, easing the sweat-laden sheets from beneath her and replacing them with fresh ones. When they were done, one of the nurses picked up the sheets, put them into a trolley and wheeled it out of the room.
The woman, Junie, turned her head weakly and looked down at the crib that stood next to the bed, gazing at her newborn twins.
‘My babies,’ she whispered, ‘My Maia, my Polly...’
Polly, the second-born, wriggled quietly and looked at her mother’s face, but Maia, older than her sister by three short minutes, lay red-faced and squalling.
The remaining nurse picked her up and held her close, reassuring the young mother, ‘Neither the midwife nor the doctor can find anything wrong with her.’
The baby turned her head inside her swaddle to reveal a shock of dark brown hair shot through with strands of lapis-blue.
‘Just like her mother’s,’ said the nurse.
Junie smiled in spite of her exhaustion, which caused the nurse to look at her and her tiny daughters sadly.
‘I’m dying, aren’t I?’ said Junie.
‘I’m sorry,’ said the nurse, ‘We’ve done everything we can.’
‘Leave me,’ said Junie.
‘I can’t do that,’ said the nurse.
‘Leave me,’ insisted Junie, ‘I want to have a few moments alone with my children.’
‘We-ll,’ said the nurse, hesitating. ‘Perhaps just a few moments then, if you’re absolutely certain.’
She fussed about, placing Maia back in the crib with her sister and pulling the bell on its long cord over Junie’s shoulder so it lay in her lap. ‘Ring right away if you need me.’
She left the room, giving a concerned backward glance at Junie and positioning the door so it stood ajar.
Maia’s crying subsided as she and her sister made eye contact. They waved their arms about, trying to touch them together. Without taking her eyes from them, Junie called softly, ‘Shuffle-lizard, bring me my weapon!’
A pendant suddenly appeared in her lap, next to the bell. It was carved from dark green jade and formed the shape of a powerful, thickset human warrior.
Junie pulled her gaze from her children to look at the pendant, taking it between her fingers and rubbing it reverently. She spoke again, giving what sounded like a command – ‘Jewel, come to me.’
In an instant, a long-tailed shuffle-lizard was falling from her shoulder, rolling down her front and landing in her lap with a dull thump, next to the pendant and the bell. She was a striking creature, blotched all over in shades of grayish-gold, her tail holding tones of pink-gold all the way to its tip.
‘My friend Jewel,’ said Junie, indicating the crib next to her, ‘These are my children, Maia and Polly. Maia was born first…it will be her duty to take care of the pendant after me.’
‘I understand,’ said the shuffle-lizard, ‘She is your heir.’
‘Yes...look after her well, Jewel…make sure no harm comes to her.’ Junie’s voice, up until now so weak, took on a pleading tone.
‘I will do as you ask, faerie-daughter.’
Junie’s head lolled on her pillows, and the shuffle-lizard took her leave, disappearing into thin air. The pendant vanished with her.
Maia began to make noises again, and her cries quickly brought the nurse, plus a midwife and doctor, running back.
‘Poor motherless wee mites,’ said the nurse, picking Maia up and handing her to the doctor, as the midwife pulled Junie’s sheet up over her face, ‘They’ve got no other family either.’
*
Polly remained a happy contented baby, but Maia, who felt pain in almost every part of her body, was still crying most of the time when, some weeks later, she and Polly were transported to the orphanage in Little Gloster and handed over to the care of their new guardians, Ruth and Zac.
The orphanage lay near the top of the highest, broadest hill in Little Gloster, not far from the hospital where Maia and Polly were born. It was an old house with a large entrance, peeling paint and three floors joined by a winding staircase. It could be seen from miles away, its red brick chimney jutting up from the tiled roof, puffing out smoke as grey as the cloud that hovered above whenever the weather was stormy.
Maia’s howling continued. One desperate afternoon, when Ruth couldn’t stand it for another moment, Zac took Maia into the vegetable garden and laid her on a blanket while he thinned the newly-planted spring carrots and lettuces; and Maia, distracted by all the new sights and sounds, grew quieter than she had ever been before. After that, she was taken into the garden every day, even when it rained. Sometimes Polly was brought out too, as the two girls were happiest when they were together.
There were around thirty busy children living in the orphanage, and that’s why it was easy for Zac to forget all about Maia one day, leaving her outside when he went in for dinner. Maia was content enough for a while, watching the darkness fall and light after light in the Home flick on and shine out of the small squares of windows, but then it grew cold and she began to cry.
The sound rose into the night and was heard by Jewel, who often checked on the baby, just as she’d promised Junie. Jewel padded her claws over Maia’s tummy, trying to soothe her with shuffle-lizard baby songs, which only made Maia cry all the harder.
Jewel winked out of sight, reappearing moments later in the home of Griff, an ogre who lived beneath a marsh that lay at the very top of the hill above the orphanage. She had a small clay pot filled with tiny nuggets of burnished gold balanced in her front paws – it was tradition for a gift to be brought when unexpectedly visiting the home of another, especially if a request for help was about to be made. Jewel let the pot fall into Griff’s hands.
‘Marsh ogre Griff,’ she said, ‘There’s a human baby who needs your help! She may save us all one day!’
‘Where is she?’ asked Griff, perking up.
‘On this very hill – a bit further down, in the garden of a human orphanage.’
Jewel winked out of sight again, back to where Maia lay, and sat on a nearby rock waiting and watching.
Very soon Griff came stomping through the night towards the cry of the baby. He was big and tall, slightly stooped, with long red hair that hung down from his head in wet, slimy strings. His pale skin was tinged a muddy-green colour and his clothes were made from animal skins; some of them only partially cured. His body dripped with muddy water and he smelled as if he’d just climbed out of a wallow.
Jewel vanished yet again, this time to her own home, trusting that Griff would take care of Maia.
The ogre looked down at Maia for some moments, wondering what to do. Then he dropped a leather bag to the ground and took several fresh grubs from it, mashing and mixing them with some green leaves from Zac’s vegetable garden, ripping them up into tiny pieces that would fit down her throat without choking her. He fed her, fingerbite by fingerbite, all the while chanting and singing songs to her.
Maia relaxed and ate every mouthful, watching the ogre’s face intently. Later, she began to whimper with the pain that had been with her since birth, so Griff turned her onto her tummy and gave her head, neck, shoulders, back and legs a gentle but deep and prolonged massage. It was nothing out of the ordinary for Griff – ogre babies suffer terrible growing pains in their first few years of life and need lots of massaging. One by one, as Griff kneaded and pressed and rolled, Maia’s bones and muscles squared up and moved into their proper places, and she was cured forever of her pain.
At two o’clock in the morning Zac remembered that thing he’d spent his whole evening sure he’d forgotten. He sat bolt upright, cried ‘Maia!’ and jumped out of bed, rushing to the garden where he found her sleeping peacefully in the moonlight, wrapped up in a soft blanket of rabbit fur.
The next day, when Maia was taken into the garden, a big bunch of marsh weed grew by her rocker. Zac was puzzled, quite sure he’d never seen marsh weed in the garden before, but Maia just gurgled with delight.
*
At the age of four, Maia took to sneaking out after sunset to visit the garden every time she found a new clump of marsh weed, knowing it meant Griff would be there, waiting to see her. Polly thought her daring to go sneaking out at all hours of the night to visit her friend, especially as Ruth tended to be very unforgiving towards the children when they broke the rules, but Maia loved Griff too much to miss out on seeing him. She would listen for hours while he told the story of how Jewel had saved her that night when she’d been left out as a baby. Griff would finish the story by musing, ‘She thinks highly of you indeed, to have brought us a gift of gold. The shuffle-lizards do not easily give away their riches…’ He didn’t mention that she was earmarked to save everyone one day – that was too much of a burden for such a young child.
Sometimes out of the corner of her eye, Maia fancied she saw a quick movement and the golden flicker of a tail disappearing out of her sight, but when she looked properly there was never anything there.
*
The years passed. A set of triplets moved into the Home when Maia and Polly turned six, and, being very close in age, the five children quickly became best friends. Maia was fascinated by an uncanny ability the triplets had – they were able to sense how another triplet was feeling just by focusing on them, even if they were nowhere in sight of each other. ‘I wish we could do that,’ she said, but it didn’t work for herself or Polly no matter how much they tried.
Maia, Polly and the three boys often talked about Jewel and Maia’s meetings with Griff, and sometimes the five of them would go up to the hill top and play by the marsh, calling out and hoping Griff would come. Of course he never responded; and it was still only Maia who got to meet him, and only ever in the vegetable garden at night. When Maia asked him about it he simply replied that it was dangerous for ogres to have too much contact with human beings...‘Did you know, young Maia, that we ogres turn into stone if we get fingered by daylight?’
Maia and Polly’s tenth birthday came and went, and the next summer arrived, hot and sunny. The twins and triplets, along with the other children in the orphanage, went swimming every day down in the bay.
Then, odd things began to happen with the weather.
The nights turned chilly and the mornings frosty. The swimming came to an abrupt halt. At first people thought it must simply be a cold front crossing the country but when the depression continued to deepen it became the focus of their concerns.
Maia still met up regularly with Griff in the garden. One morning there was a whole group of marsh weed plants growing next to some cabbages, and when Maia entered the garden that evening Griff was leaning against a sturdy fence post, looking more serious than she’d ever seen him.
‘My people are worried about the cold weather. It’s causing rabbits to die in large numbers, especially the young ones, and they are one of our main food sources. There aren’t so many weeds for us to pull up either; and we can’t make nearly enough even using our most powerful magic. We’re fishing in the bay a lot more.’
Maia said, ‘Ruth and Zac and the teachers at school are worried too. They hardly talk about anything else. The crops have stopped growing and the spring lambs and calves are dying.’
Maia thought how funny it was that while all the adults worried, she and Polly and their friends were only excited by the unusualness of it. She noticed that Griff had his foraging basket with him so she began plucking the marsh weed, along with a few leaves of silver beet, spinach and sorrel for him to take back to his clan, hoping that would help them out. If Zac noticed the latter missing, he would only think the children had been at it again – and he never minded how many raw vegetables they ate, fresh from the garden.
‘I came to give you some news,’ said Griff, letting the basket slide from his back onto the narrow path that separated one row of vegetables from another. ‘I’m off on a journey to visit the other ogre clans round the country, both those of the marshes and of the forestlands. And some of the other races too – for example, the birds may know something.’
‘Birds, know something?’ said Maia, passing Griff the leaves and helping him stuff them into his basket. ‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know, but there’s something fishy going on. My brother, Bandorg, the chief of our clan, wants me to see if I can find out what, which means it may be some time before you and I can meet again.’
Maia was dismayed. ‘When will you be back?’
‘No fretting, now, Maia, you’ll know soon enough when I’m back, and I’ll let you know everything I find out,’ said Griff. ‘It can’t be helped – this is a matter of great importance.’
In silence Maia and Griff finished topping up the basket with vegetables. Griff hoisted it onto his back.
‘Good luck, Griff,’ said Maia.
‘Take care, youngster,’ said Griff.
The two hugged each other. They left the vegetable garden and walked to the front door of the Home, then Maia stood on the verandah and watched until Griff was out of sight in the darkness before she quietly opened the door and snuck upstairs to her bed.
*
Maia shared her eleventh birthday with Polly, a simple affair in the Home with a cake instead of dessert, eaten in the lingering happiness of everyone singing Happy Birthday to them.
The weather grew worse than ever, with snow falling nearly every day, coating hills and houses and causing the trees to bow so low that their branches swept the ground. A few children in the Home managed to break arms and legs from slipping on the frozen ground, and Maia gave up visiting the vegetable garden so often to check if there was any marsh weed growing; the signal that Griff had returned.
Lost in the Storm
Late one afternoon, Maia scrambled up the hill behind the home with Polly in her wake, panting with exertion. It was misty, but above them the girls could hear the whoops and cries of the other children, sledding on the hill top. Somewhere else a few voices were singing carols. It was nearly Christmas.
The twins’ long dark-brown hair swung beneath their brightly coloured, stripy hats. Despite being identical, they were easy to tell apart because of the blue streaks in Maia’s hair that had been with her since birth. Polly’s was a plain dark brown.
Maia and Polly reached the top of the sled run and drew up to where their team mates, the triplets, were gathered round their sled. The triplets had short, thick light-brown hair and like the twins, were identical. The only way to tell them apart was by their clothing – Davey always dressed in blue, Otis red and Titus green.
‘Where’ve you two been?’ demanded Titus, the youngest of the triplets, crossing his arms over his chest.
‘Detention,’ said Polly, gesturing towards her sister, ‘Maia kept going into day dreams during social studies.’
Maia was known to be a dreamer. The boys laughed and Davey said, ‘What’s new?’
‘I don’t go into day dreams that often,’ said Maia, somewhat defensively, before going on, ‘Anyway, who cares about that – how did the sled go?’
‘Haven’t tried it yet,’ said Davey.
‘We’ve only just managed to get it up here,’ said Titus, ‘It was really heavy – it took us a while to lift it out of the shed.’
Davey had built the sled. He was friends with Stan who managed the Little Gloster rubbish dump. Stan saved anything he thought Davey might like, including an old battered pair of wooden skis which Davey had turned into runners for the sled, sanding and polishing them with a tin of varnish he had been given the year before until they shone with a beautiful grain of knots that seemed to twist and turn in all directions.
‘Well, here goes,’ said Titus, taking the rope and sitting down on the long, smooth planks, with his knees bent and his feet pushing up against the kickboard.
‘Should you really go in this mist, Titus?’ asked Polly. Polly was always the one who worried most.
‘Yeah, should you, Titus?’ said Maia, mimicking her sister, ‘If you’re too scared I’ll have the first turn.’
Polly knew her sister too well to take offence and she grinned.
‘You’d be lucky,’ said Titus.
All the other teams crowded round to watch. Somebody held out an antique stopwatch. ‘Thanks!’ said Otis, taking it.
The mist thickened and flakes of snow began to drift down. The painted red streak marking the finish line at the bottom of the run could no longer be seen.
Otis got the stop watch ready and counted, ‘1-2-3-go!’
Titus launched himself down, quickly whizzing out of sight.
Davey, keeping a watchful eye on the runners, stood staring after the sled, puzzled. Considering the trouble they’d had earlier lifting it out of the shed, it was odd the way it moved so easily once it was down on the snow.
They heard Titus yell as he crossed the finish line.
Otis pushed in the knob on the side of the stopwatch and called, ‘Twenty-three seconds!’
Everyone cheered. Titus’s time was faster by several seconds than the previous top time.
‘My turn next,’ said Maia, ‘We’ve got time.’
‘Only if Titus hurries back,’ said Otis, setting the hands of the stopwatch back to zero.
The wind got up, buffeting the snow and mist about, and the temperature plummeted. Most of the children, shivering, began taking their sleds downhill to the Home. Besides the cold, some of them were rostered on to help get dinner ready.
Maia pushed her hat back from where it threatened to slip down over her eyes. Polly and Otis tugged theirs downwards, stretching and pulling them over their ears, trying to prevent the wind from whistling in. They didn’t have much success.
‘We’ll have to spend more time and knit them longer next time,’ said Otis, his hair sticking out from beneath his hat on all angles.
Polly nodded, while Davey made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. He hated knitting.
‘Shouldn’t Titus be back up by now?’ Maia asked impatiently, ‘Can you boys sense him?’
Davey and Otis put their ability to sense how another triplet was feeling, concentrating hard on Titus.
‘That’s funny…’ began Davey, in surprise.
‘…I think he’s still going,’ finished Otis.
‘I hope he’s not near the bluffs,’ said Polly, ‘There’s no way he’ll be able to see much in this mist.’
The boys suddenly tensed up.
‘Something’s scaring him big-time,’ said Davey.
‘We’d better go help him,’ said Otis, slipping the watch into his pocket.
‘The bluffs are the only scary thing he could’ve reached,’ said Maia, ‘We should be able to follow the sled tracks.’
‘The weather’s getting worse,’ said Polly anxiously, ‘I think we should go and tell someone.’
‘Like who?’ said Davey, ‘Anyway, it would take too long. If we go ourselves, right now, we’ll be back at the Home before you know it.’
Seeing her sister’s face, Maia said, ‘It’ll be fine, Polly.’
Without waiting another moment, Davey and Otis, with the twins following behind, dashed off, slipping and sliding in their plastic school shoes.
The tracks of the sled were only just visible in the growing gloom. It was still day time – in this southern hemisphere country night wasn’t falling until about ten o’clock in the evening – but it was dark with storm.
At the bottom of the run they stopped. From the tracks, they could tell that the sled had continued past the fading red finish line only to be knocked off course by a rock poking up through the surface of the snow. It was no surprise that the new direction headed off round the hill, north towards the bluffs.
Polly looked at the boys, ready to press her point about getting some help, when the boys suddenly relaxed.
‘It’s okay now, he’s okay, he’s saved himself from the danger, whatever it is,’ cried Otis, ‘He’s feeling relieved, and…and…wonderstruck!’
The group stumbled on until they reached the steep upper slopes that led to the bluffs, where the faintest of parallel dips in the snow disappeared over the rounded edge into thickening storm cloud.
Davey and Otis made funnels with their hands, calling, ‘Ti-i-tu-u-s!’
Maia added her voice, sending it skating off down the steep slope, ‘Yoo-hoo! Ti-itus! Are you the-ere?’
They listened. In the next instant there came a muted cry from directly below.
‘Here! I’m here! Coming up!’
The children lay in the snow and leaned their heads out over the edge.
‘Keep yelling!’ came Titus’s voice, ‘I can’t see where you are!’
Eventually he appeared out of the mist, moving slowly as he carefully placed each footstep before taking the next. When he reached the top his face was pale. ‘Someone saved me on the upper slopes, just before I went crashing off over the bluffs,’ he gulped.
‘Someone saved you?’ said Maia. She wanted to ask him more about it, but the storm was making it impossible. The wind had risen with a fury that screamed around them, muffling their voices.
Davey took the sled off Titus while the rest of them grabbed him and pulled him into their shivering huddle. Everyone was frozen by now – their jerseys were sodden and the loose weave let the cold right through.
‘We’d better start back,’ said Maia, pointing to indicate her meaning, knowing her voice wouldn’t be heard.
They could barely see in front of themselves as they headed back round the hill in what they thought was the direction of the Home, when Maia, out in front, suddenly broke free and careered off downwards. She scrabbled to dig her arms and legs into the steep snow slope and slowly came to a burning halt. Terror mounted within her. ‘We’ve gone in a circle! We’re back on the upper slopes and we didn’t even know it!’ As she lay there, shocked and winded, she barely registered a small movement off to one side; a tail flicking off out of sight. She was too scared to move – frightened that if she tried to get up, she might lose her balance and slide the whole length of the upper slopes until she was free falling over the sheer bluffs.
All of a sudden, unexpectedly, there was a voice in her ear. It sounded like a woman’s voice, old and very far away, and a bit crackly like a radio station out of tune. The voice was saying, ‘Get yourself up, child; climb to the top. It’s all up to you – you, and only you, have the power to stop the great evil that comes at your world…it’s all up to you…’
‘I have the power to stop the great evil…what great evil?’ thought Maia.
The voice faded out and Maia was left wondering if she had imagined it.
At least her terror had been broken, especially as the voice had seemed confident she could get herself back to the top. She took several deep breaths and dug her feet deep into the snow, then stood up, buffeted this way and that by the gale until she was forced down again, onto her hands and knees. For the first time, she understood why all the adults were so worried. ‘Polly, the boys and I could all die out here…really, truly, die.’
She edged her way directly up the slope, back to the top where she bumped into the rest of the children. They hadn’t moved, hoping she would make it back up just as Titus had. Polly was in a panic, flailing her arms about.
Maia grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. ‘Come on, Polly!’ she said, grimly, pointing in a direction opposite to the one she’d just scrambled up. This time they would make allowances for the wind – it must have been the wind that pushed them back towards the bluffs last time round, without them realising it.
‘We’ll keep moving, on and on, all night if necessary!’ she said, gesturing again to show everyone what she meant.
The boys nodded their ashen faces in agreement.
They got moving; creeping forwards on hands and knees, Maia in the lead. The wind shoved them about and slapped stinging bits of frozen snow into their bare faces. Davey lost his hold on the sled rope and couldn’t find it again. He tried calling out to tell the others but his voice was flung away.
Maia was sure they were heading away from the upper slopes this time, but she knew there were other dangers. She hoped they wouldn’t come across the treacherous pools of the marsh that lay on the hill top, the one Griff and his clan lived beneath. If they hit that, the children would fall through the snow and drown before they had time to be aware of what was happening. She hoped against hope they would come across a familiar landmark that might give them a hint of where they were – one of the makeshift huts they’d built over the years; or one of the flax and cabbage tree groves that grew between the marsh and the Home; or even one of the big boulders that lay scattered about.
At some ghastly point, long after night had fallen and the storm raged about them without letting up, Titus tugged Maia to a stop and said raggedly into her ear, ‘We’re on our own. The others are gone.’
Maia felt her heart sink even further than it already was.
Then out of the darkness, right next to her, boomed a familiar gruff voice. ‘Maia! It’s good to see you again. We’ve spent hours searching for you – we must’ve been chasing one another all this time!’
‘Griff?’ said Maia, through near-paralysed lips. She could barely believe it was Griff, right there when they needed him most. Relief swamped her.
She felt a big fur blanket go round her then she was lifted up into Griff’s arms. The same thing happened with Titus, only he was picked up by another ogre. Maia guessed him to be Bandorg, Griff’s brother and chief of their clan. Griff had mentioned him many times in the past.
‘The others…’ said Maia, forcing the words out through her frozen lips.
‘Don’t worry about them, Maia, we found them earlier, sheltering beneath a large boulder, and carried them home,’ said Griff, close to her ear.
‘…they okay?’ Maia said.
‘They’re fine, just a bit cold, that’s all. Now, we’re so close to the marsh that if you’re up to it you can come and warm up in my dwelling. There’s plenty that needs talking about.’
Even though Maia’s brain was sluggish with cold, a feeling of anticipation ran through her. She had never been in Griff’s dwelling before. Polly, Davey and Otis were all okay, so… ‘’C-course we’re up to it,’ she mumbled.
The Ogres Under the Marsh
It was pitch black and the wind lashed at them but Maia felt sheltered and safe tramping through the storm in Griff’s arms.
‘Here we are,’ said Griff.
Maia pulled the blanket from her face to see an entrance way before them, set like a pit into the ground. Griff pushed the door open and he and Bandorg carried the children down a long, muddy flight of stairs lined with stones.
At the bottom was a big room, framed out in the same rough-sawn timber as the entrance way. Drips fell continuously from the ceiling, splattering everything with mire. The floor was a thick layer of oozing mud, squelching beneath their feet. The smell was earthy and rank. All over the ceiling and wherever there was a spare piece of wall clung thousands of glowworms, their tiny points of light adding together in what looked like luminous equations all over a blackboard.
‘We’re really in Griff’s dwelling,’ Maia thought to herself excitedly, as the ogres put her and Titus on their feet, steadying them. She was feeling colder than she’d ever felt before, but it didn’t stop her from asking, ‘Wh-when d-did you g-get back, Gr-Griff? A-and how did y-you know to come lo-lo-looking for us in the storm?’
‘Let’s get you warmed up and fed; then we can talk,’ said Griff.
Bandorg leaned into a passageway that led off one wall through an arched opening and called for some dry clothes for the children. The passage opened onto other rooms, and the children could see more ogres moving about in the gloom. Several of them poked their heads in to stare. It didn’t bother Maia or Titus, who stared back with just as much curiosity.
Suddenly, the stairs they had used to enter the dwelling began to fade away until there was nothing left but the earthen walls of the rest of the room.
‘Huh?’ Maia and Titus blinked, but the stairs were gone.
‘Someone else wants them in another part of the marsh,’ explained Bandorg, ‘There is only one stairway, but it can be anywhere.’
An ogre passed in some clothing, all made of fur, and the children took turns to enter a small bathroom to pull their wet clothes off and put the dry ones on, finding that they fitted well enough.
When they were ready, Griff pointed out an alcove and said, ‘Sit there. It’s the driest spot in the room. I’ll bring you some food – you must be starving.’
The children settled into the alcove, wrapping themselves up in a pile of fur rugs on the floor.
‘These clothes stink,’ whispered Titus.
‘At least they’re dry,’ Maia whispered back.
Titus focussed his mind on his brothers. Aloud, he said, ‘Davey and Otis are okay – most of what I’m getting from them are feelings of relief.’
‘Then it must be the same for Polly,’ said Maia, ‘Sweet.’
Bandorg came over with mugs and a pitcher and poured each of them a drink of dark red liquid. ‘Drink this – it’ll make you feel better.’
‘What is it?’ asked Titus, sniffing at it.
‘Brew – juice made from the crushed berries of the fuchsia tree, which fruits in the dead of winter. The tree has been producing nonstop for many months now, so we’ve been drinking quite a lot of it.’
Bandorg sat down in an armchair while the children sipped at the brew. It slid smoothly down their throats with a taste that was both sweet and tangy.
Maia looked around. The alcove they were in was full of shelves of books that reached from the floor to the ceiling. Armchairs were spread around on either side of the one Bandorg was sitting in, and two small tables sat before them. One corner was made up of a kitchen, and it was here where Griff was busy at work, preparing food with his bare hands and laying it out on a wooden, bloodstained platter.
Titus, watching, realised what they were about to be served. ‘Rabbits’ heads?’ he said, horrified, his mouth dropping open.
‘And skinned mice,’ said Griff, with the ghost of a smile. He knew from his meetings with Maia over the years how disgusting the human race found the eating habits of an ogre.
‘What’s wrong with a bit of raw meat?’ asked Bandorg, ‘There’s nothing tastier!’
‘It’s only good when it’s cooked,’ said Titus.
There was an instant reaction from Bandorg to these words that could only be described as disgust – one that reflected exactly Titus’s own disgust at the way the ogres themselves ate.
‘What’s wrong with cooked meat?’ Titus said, lifting his chin.
Bandorg shuddered, ‘We hate fire for a start, and secondly cooked food is ruined food. It goes all soft and loses its goodness. I don’t know how you humans can stand it.’
Griff brought a clay bowl for Maia and offered her the platter. It was piled high with raw meat and fish, grubs, worms, rabbit droppings, dandelion leaves, marshweed, watercress, fuschia berries and a variety of dried roots and fungi that looked remarkably like bits of white, grey, brown and orange rubber. Maia took the bowl and chose some vegetables, grubs and some bits of roots and fungi to munch on, but even she, who had eaten with Griff before, couldn’t stomach the rabbit droppings or the raw meat.
Griff offered the platter to Titus next, saying, ‘I suppose you can’t be tempted with a few leaves?’
Titus replied, ‘Ugh, they’re touching the rabbit dung! I’m not that hungry – the drink will do me.’
‘Try a grub at least,’ said Maia, choosing a fat, juicy one from her bowl and holding it out to Titus.
Titus pulled a face and said, ‘Yeah, right!’
Maia shrugged her shoulders, wrapped it in a dandelion leaf and popped it into her own mouth.
Griff put the platter on a small table by the armchairs and sat next to Bandorg. They filled their bowls and began eating, chewing with relish and wiping dribbles of blood that ran down their chins with the backs of their hands.
The ogres ate heartily until the platter was empty, then Griff gathered up the dishes and stacked them in the kitchen. He returned to his seat and joined Bandorg in leaning down to scoop mud from the floor to slap over themselves.
‘You still haven’t answered my earlier questions,’ said Maia, ‘We’re dry now, and much warmer.’
‘I hadn’t forgotten, Maia,’ said Griff, settling back in his chair. ‘I got back yesterday night; and I knew to come looking for you because Jewel arrived, bearing a gift of a lump of jade, to tell me there were five humans lost in the storm and one of them was you. We set out to help as soon as the sun sank.’
Bandorg added, ‘Griff was more anxious than I’ve seen him for a long time about whether you could survive.’
‘I thought I saw her flicking out of sight!’ said Maia, ‘But how did she know I was there?’
‘She keeps a check on you,’ said Griff, ‘I believe she always has, ever since you were a baby.’
‘Why?’ asked Maia. It was the first time she had ever really stopped to ask this question, or to wonder why Jewel had saved her as a baby.
‘Shuffle-lizards guard items of value,’ said Griff, ‘at great cost to the owner, of course. We ogres mostly employ them to look after our weapons and best cloaks, but there are other things too – jewellery, original hand-written manuscripts, even important pieces of information.’
‘But what’s it got to do with me?’
‘Well, obviously, you or someone on your behalf has employed her to look after something valuable for you!’
Maia was bewildered. ‘What thing? Who? Why?’
Bandorg said, ‘We’ve been wondering the same things.’
Griff shuffled his feet on the floor, and said slowly, ‘Maia, I never told you before, but Jewel once said that you might save us all one day. I am beginning to realise that one day might be here right now, and that she must have been talking about this terrible beast and his cruel winter…’
Maia looked at him. ‘What terrible beast?’
Griff hesitated.
‘If she’s the one to help with his defeat, Griff, then she has to know sometime, and now’s as good a time as any,’ said Bandorg.
A shiver ran down Maia’s spine. She? Help defeat a terrible beast? What did Bandorg mean? His words reminded her of the old woman’s voice she’d heard out in the storm. She felt a dread settle in the pit of her stomach.
Griff said, ‘A thousand years ago or more, the human race found that sea dragons were creeping out of the ocean and up the rivers, destroying them as they came. Eventually the people began fighting back. Perhaps your ancestors were among them.’
A tingle threaded its way through Maia’s dread and wrapped itself around her heart. It was a special feeling to know that she and Polly, orphaned since birth, might have truly had a real family once. And Titus and his brothers too. ‘I’ve heard those stories,’ she said, thinking hard to recall what she knew. ‘The people tried to bargain with them, offering fantastic tithes so they could live by the rivers too, but the sea dragons took the tithes and enslaved and ate them anyway.’
‘We learned about that at school,’ said Titus, ‘I always thought it was myth, not true or real at all.’
‘Myth!’ snorted Bandorg. ‘Trust a human! If your lot hadn’t started killing those sea dragons back then, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now.’
Maia glared at him. ‘I’d call being pillaged and tortured and murdered good enough reason to kill them!’ If her ancestors really had been part of it, she would defend them to the last.
‘She’s right, Bandorg,’ said Griff, ‘Besides, they didn’t kill all the sea dragons, only the wicked ones, which brings us to the point. It seems that one of those wicked ones didn’t really die at all. He was just terribly injured.’
‘You mean there’s an evil sea dragon, right now, still alive?’ said Maia.
‘Indeed. His name was – is – Thunder Beast. In his day he was the most treacherous one of them all. His home was the mighty Treugorth River, all the way from its trickling headwaters in the eastern mountains to its broad estuaries in the west. He destroyed entire villages, even killing babies as they slept in their cribs. The humans fought him for months until he finally tired. He tried to escape by moving beyond his headwaters and into the mountains. But they caught up with him and dealt to him for the last time, or so they thought. How they rejoiced when they thought he was dead!
‘But instead, over the past few centuries, he has been slowly, steadily recovering. At first he sank beneath the earth and let the plants grow on top of him. Any creatures walking over his bed came under his power and were either eaten or forced to bring him food and water. Now he lies upon the surface, sucking all the warmth from the land about him as revenge for the injuries inflicted on him all that long time ago.’
Griff grimaced. ‘He is more powerful and evil than ever before, and very, very angry – vengeance is his number one priority, they say. He wants to take over the whole world.’
‘How do you know all this?’ asked Maia.
‘I’ve researched back through our written and oral histories, both here,’ Griff waved his arm, indicating the books behind the children, ‘and in the dwellings of other ogre clans. I met with some of the bird clans too. The hawks have recently flown over the site of that last battle. They say that although Thunder Beast lies above the ground, he isn’t yet recovered enough to move from his bed. The untrustworthy eel has gone over to his side with hopes of being his future ally, rather than his next snack. Thunder Beast hates humans above all other races, and has promised the eels their favourite type of flesh in exchange for their loyalty - human babies.’
Maia let out an involuntary gasp. She wasn’t one to spend much time with young children, but that didn’t mean she wanted to see them hurt. She had been a baby herself once. ‘He has to be stopped!’ she said.
‘Quite right – a great battle lies ahead!’ said Bandorg. ‘And it’s time we mustered every able bodied creature we can find in order to build an army. The ogre clans are already preparing.’
‘I wish we knew what it is that Jewel holds for you,’ replied Griff, looking thoughtfully at Maia. ‘If you knew, you could use it to summon her.’
‘Maybe I could just try calling her anyway,’ said Maia.
Griff nodded his approval, and everyone went silent for a few moments, busy with their own thoughts.
Maia was feeling befuddled. She, an orphan, was to save the world? She could hardly believe it. She was mulling things over in her head when she suddenly started. ‘What was that you said out in the storm, Titus, about someone saving you on the upper slopes?’
‘Oh yeah,’ said Titus, ‘It was a weird thing with that sled...as soon as I sat on it, it started zipping along like never before. It was fun at first, but then when I tried to get it to stop, it just went faster and faster until it was too late – I was on the upper slopes above the bluffs. But then a snowball rolled in front of me.’
‘A snowball?’ said Maia.
‘It wasn’t an ordinary snowball. It kind of did a jump and turned into a person – completely white, very tall, wearing light trousers and a t-shirt just as if it was summer, with a long, tasselled scarf round his neck. At first I thought he was scared of me because he didn’t seem to want to get too close. But then he raced round behind and pulled the sled to a stop that way. I got out and found footholds in the snow and took hold of the sled rope so it couldn’t slip away. I started to ask who he was but before I could say anything he just twirled and leaped away, off round the upper slopes without seeming to worry at all about falling. Then I heard everyone calling out to me and up I came.’
Maia drew her breath in and said, ‘So cool…’
‘It sounds like one of the race of snow folk,’ said Griff, ‘They are true mountain-top dwellers. Where the bitterest cold blows and the deepest snow lies, that’s where you will find them. Our kin to the south of here say they’ve never seen so many as in these past few weeks. They’ve tried speaking with them, but the snow folk are very shy and run away.’
‘Well, if they like freezing weather and lots of snow this is sure the winter for them,’ said Maia.
‘They may not be enjoying it as much as you suppose,’ said Griff, ‘Anyone who has seen them say they seem anxious. Apparently they are looking for something.’
There was another short silence, then Bandorg got up and said, ‘We’d better be getting the two of you back where you belong. The night’s well past its middle age and we won’t be able to guide you once daybreak comes, storm or no storm.’
‘Wait, we have to put our wet clothes back on first,’ said Titus, ‘Ruth’ll have fits if we turn up in these furs.’
The children took turns in the small bathroom again, changing out of the furs and back into their own things. It was a miserable thing to have to do, and they came out shivering.
‘Will we see you again soon?’ asked Maia, looking at Griff and Bandorg, feeling desperate.
‘I suspect you’ll be seeing us lots more,’ said Griff, ‘If you need to talk to me, I’ll be waiting in the vegetable garden every midnight – but only come if the weather’s good enough; we don’t want you lost in another storm!’
The stairway reappeared, and the children, wrapped in the same blankets as before, were picked up by the ogres and taken out through the heavy door, back into the raging storm one more time.
Meeting Meg
Maia and Titus stayed tucked deep inside their blankets while Griff and Bandorg carried them through the wailing storm. When they reached the Home, the ogres deposited them on the verandah, next to the back door. The children returned the blankets and Maia hugged Griff before the ogres quickly disappeared back into the flying flakes of falling snow.
‘Let’s make sure we’re freezing again before we go in,’ said Maia.
They climbed down off the verandah, out from beneath the covered shelter, and felt their feet slide and sink in the snow. The wind was so strong that it tried to knock them over, so they grasped the carved support poles and held on. When they could stand it no longer, they climbed back onto the verandah and felt for the door. As Titus opened it a gust wrenched it out of his grasp, throwing it round and banging it hard against the wall. Together, he and Maia pulled it shut and then they were safely in the hallway.
It seemed abnormally quiet for a moment then the kitchen door further along the hallway opened and Zac came out, followed by Ruth and a police officer. There were others too, dressed up in mountaineering gear. They must be members of the local search and rescue team, brought in to look for them. Great! That wasn’t going to make anything easier for them as far as Ruth was concerned.
‘There you are – safe at last!’ said Zac, his grey hair bristling thickly over his head. ‘Come on, kids, sit by the fire, but not too close – you have to warm up slowly.’ He led the way back to the kitchen and stoked the fire under the large kettle on the range while the children settled on a bench away from the main heat. Steam began to rise from their wet clothing.
‘You’ll be able to go up and get changed in a moment,’ said Zac, ‘Just a quick drink of hot chocolate first.’
The police officer, Constable Kirk, got on his radio and called in the searchers still out in the storm.
Ruth’s low heels clacked across the wooden floor as she found two cups and banged them down on the table. Any anxiety she might have been feeling was gone now that all five of the children were back and accounted for, and was even replaced by anger. ‘Don’t think you’re going to get a day off school tomorrow just because it’s four o’clock in the morning!’ she snapped.
‘How’re the others?’ asked Maia, trying to ignore Ruth’s bad humour.
‘They ate the leftovers from dinner and went to bed,’ said Zac, spooning powder into the cups and filling them with boiling water from the kettle, ‘They’re fine.’
‘Of course,’ said Ruth, as she stirred the drinks and passed them to the children, ‘You’d already know that, wouldn’t you, Titus?’
‘I didn’t know they’d eaten, but yes, I knew they were back safely,’ said Titus, taking a sip of his hot chocolate.
Ruth and Zac had never believed in the triplets’ ability to sense one another. It seemed Constable Kirk didn’t either. He swung a leg onto a chair alongside the children and snorted. ‘They were exhausted, poor wee mites, and delusional. They told us you two would be along soon. Of course, we didn’t believe them; in fact, the search was intensified because we knew if they were still alive, then you would be too.’
The searchers on the hill top straggled in, looking weary.
‘How on earth did you manage to survive for so long?’ asked one, ‘It’s a death trap out there!’
Everyone looked at the children, who stirred uncomfortably. What could they say about Griff, and his brother, Bandorg, who was the chief of the ogres under the marsh? And what about Jewel – the shuffle-lizard who played such a mysterious part in Maia’s life and who had saved their lives on this very night? And the sea dragon, Thunder Beast, who was causing the long winter? How could they say any of that and expect to be believed? Along with Polly, Davey and Otis, they would also be called delusional.
‘Um…’ said Maia, ‘We found ourselves separated from the others, and we just kept moving, on and on and on, so we wouldn’t freeze to death. Then we crashed into the verandah, and that was us – safe and sound!’
The searchers began to leave.
Constable Kirk stayed behind to give the children a scolding – in fact, exactly the same one he’d given Polly, Davey and Otis earlier. ‘I’m glad you’re back, that’s for sure, but you’ll have to be a heck of a lot more careful after this.’
Once they could hear the chains on Constable Kirk’s car tyres thunking away into the distance, Zac stoked the fire in the range and shut it down. The lines on his face were more furrowed than usual – he must have been really worried. Not that he would be the one to reprimand them – Ruth was the one who dealt with matters of discipline. The children waited with heads down for the expected slating, but to their surprise it didn’t come.
‘I’ll deal with you two later,’ was all she said, her mouth set in a straight line.
Maia and Titus finished their drinks, putting them on the draining board by the sink ready to be washed in the morning, and headed off to bed.
‘She wants to wait ‘til there’s an audience before she gets us,’ muttered Maia as they climbed the creaking stairs, ‘Tomorrow night before dinner, it’ll be.’
As Maia trod lightly into her room, a shape rose from the bed next to hers. ‘Maia!’ cried Polly, who hadn’t yet been to sleep, ‘What happened? What took you so long?’
The two girls had their own beds, but they still slept together sometimes, especially if one or the other was particularly disturbed or excited about something. Maia got changed, dumping her wet clothes on the floor, and climbed into bed with Polly, meaning to tell her all about her night, but before she could get many words out they had both fallen asleep, though Maia’s was broken up by unsettling dreams.
Titus crept into his dormitory, got changed and climbed into bed, listening to the regular snoozes of Davey and Otis and several other children who roomed with them.
Otis, who had just been dreaming about zooming down a snowy slope on a piece of carpet with ski runners attached, and off into an azure blue sky, unable to return, woke up enough to mumble, ‘Maybe you need some help, Davey.’
‘What with?’ Titus whispered back, not bothering to explain he wasn’t Davey.
‘Putting some brakes onto that sled. So no one else disappears.’
Titus grinned in the quiet darkness of the room and whispered back, ‘Okay.’
Otis mumbled and went back to sleep; and within a few seconds Titus was sound asleep himself.
*
The storm was short lived. All that was left of it next morning were a few ragged clouds in a cold, blue sky. There was a deep new layer of snow everywhere. The twins and triplets, after a rushed breakfast, followed in the freshly-broken trail of Home children who had gone on ahead to school. They couldn’t stop thinking about the events of the previous evening.
‘It was pretty cool – the ogres saved our lives!’ said Otis, ‘But what happened to you two, Titus and Maia? You were gone for hours longer than us last night!’
Griff took us back to his dwelling,’ said Maia.
Titus added, ‘The ogres think Maia has a part in stopping the long winter – that she’s going to defeat Thunder Beast.’
Polly, Davey and Otis stopped in their tracks.
‘Say, what?’ said Otis.
‘Maia?!’ said Polly.
‘They’re joking, right?’ said Davey.
‘Thanks, guys,’ said Maia, continuing to walk.
The rest hurried to catch up.
‘We didn’t mean it like that, Maia!’ said Polly. ‘But why should you have anything to do with stopping the long winter and saving us all? And who’s Thunder Beast?’
‘Apparently when we were babies, Jewel told Griff that I might save everyone one day. And you know when I slid away down the upper slopes last night? There was a voice in my head telling me that only I had the power to stop the great evil…’ Maia felt upset suddenly, at how little she really knew – it didn’t seem right if she was supposed to be the one to stop it all. She went on, ‘The only thing I know for sure is that the long winter is being purposely caused by an ancient sea dragon called Thunder Beast, and we have to stop him before he hurts us all!’
Polly looked anxiously at her sister, and noticed a new sort of, well, hardness in her face that she’d never seen before.
The children reached the red brick fence that lined the perimeter of the school grounds. The sound of a bell pierced the air.
‘You’ll have to give us all the details later!’ said Polly, urging everyone to run, ‘We’ll get detentions if we’re late, and we’re already in enough trouble with Ruth.’
There were too many children around to talk at lunch time, and the five found themselves eating their wrapped lunches in silence. Maia and Titus were ravenous – today’s breakfast and lunch obviously weren’t going to be enough to quell the hollow pangs in their stomachs after missing last night’s dinner.
The only other opportunity they had to talk together came in the afternoon, when all the classes in their year had to meet in the gymnasium for sports. Once there, the twins and triplets flicked their eyebrows at one another and one by one, before they could be chosen for a team, they crept out to meet up in the concrete alleyway between the school hall and the science block.
‘Right,’ said Davey, ‘Now tell us everything…’
But he was interrupted by the gym teacher, who stuck her head round the corner and yelled, ‘What do you think you lot are up to?’
Shaking their heads and shrugging their shoulders, they trooped back to the gymnasium. That was the main problem with being one of the twins and triplets – everyone was so interested that they noticed the moment one of you went missing. And if they noticed when one of you went missing, there was no chance of remaining anonymous when you all went missing together.
After school, they walked home together, and Maia and Titus finally got the chance to tell the rest everything that had happened to them the evening before. They walked slowly so they could have as much time as they needed.
‘I’ve got to try and call Jewel to find out what’s going on,’ said Maia, ‘Hmm…I’ll have to find somewhere private – I don’t want anyone after me with a strait jacket.’
‘I wonder why you, and not me as well?’ Polly broke in, ‘After all, we’re full sisters.’
‘I don’t know why,’ said Maia, hugging her sister, ‘Hopefully we’ll find out before long.’
‘I’m more of a scaredy cat than you – maybe that’s why,’ said Polly, ‘Jewel knows how brave you are.’
They reached the Home, and Davey said, ‘Let’s not go inside – let’s go straight onto the hill top and find the sled.’
But Ruth was watching from the front door, and pounced as soon as she saw them.
‘You lot can forget about going anywhere – making dinner’s the job for you.’