Scarlet in the Snow Read online

  The shock jolted me so that I could not utter a word, only stare at him as he calmly looked back at me. I had not noticed his eyes before. They were blue – a clear, shallow blue, and unblinking. ‘Mam’selle Kupeda,’ he said, in a soft, sibilant whisper, with an accent I could not place. ‘The post office told me Professor Feyovin might be found here.’

  ‘What? No. They were wrong.’ The eyes were having a strange effect on me. They were so clear and blue I felt almost as though I could see right to the back of them, to the back of his skull. For there was nothing in them, no emotion I could place at all.

  ‘Oh, that is a pity,’ he said tonelessly. ‘Perhaps then you might tell me where he is to be found? I am most anxious to see him.’

  ‘Why?’ I said. My skin was creeping, my neck prickling.

  ‘I am a friend of his, Mam’selle Kupeda. We were students together. I know he will be glad to see me.’ He smiled, unsettling me.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ I managed to say. ‘Get out. I have nothing to say to you. Nothing.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ the man said, and in two strides he was upon me. I would have run, I would have struggled, I would have screamed for help, but I could not. Every one of my muscles seemed paralysed, every movement impossible. Then he pointed his index finger at me and said something in a voice that seemed to come both from inside and outside of him. I instantly was seized with such a terrible pain in my chest that I almost blacked out.

  ‘Do you still have nothing to say to me?’ the man said, his blue eyes fixed on me. I could see something behind them now, something that lurked at the back – no, not at the back of his eyes, but further still – behind him, a sense of another presence, as if the man standing before me were a mere puppet or a ventriloquist’s doll. ‘Tell me where he is,’ he said. ‘That is all you have to do.’

  I found my voice. ‘Never,’ I said. ‘I will never tell you.’ Summoning all my strength, I reared up and spat in his face.

  ‘That was not clever,’ the man hissed. ‘Not clever at all.’ He raised his index finger, but as he did so, a deep growl resounded in the room, and the blond man fell back, staring up at the mantelpiece mirror in shock.

  ‘Oh, Ivan,’ I gasped. ‘No, no, no . . .’ Hulking and terrible in his abartyen form, he stood there beyond the mirror, eyes burning like wildfire in the peeling ruin of his face, the skin underneath as raw as if it had been burned, lips drawn back in a wolfish snarl.

  He did not look at me but straight at the blond man, and his voice rumbled with menace. ‘Touch a hair on her head again and I will tear you apart.’

  ‘Well, well, how very touching.’ The blond man had recovered himself. ‘After all this time, you walk right into my trap. But then you always were a reckless fool.’ The cold blue eyes flicked to me, and again I found myself pinned by their gaze, unable to move a muscle or say a word. ‘Threaten me again,’ he went on in sinister calm, ‘and she’ll be dead in an instant. Though, come to think of it, she’ll be of more use to my master alive. He’s been needing a new subject for his work.’

  Ivan’s clawed hands twisted against each other and his eyes flashed with fierce hatred as he said, very softly, ‘Leave her be, Felix, or you’ll be sorry.’

  ‘Don’t make me laugh! You are powerless. You can do nothing to help her.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong.’ A spasm crossed Ivan’s face. ‘I still have this: leave her be and you can deliver me to your master.’

  The blond man started. For an instant he looked baffled. Then he smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. ‘You swear?’

  ‘I swear.’

  ‘Very well. Your bargain is accepted.’ And so saying he stepped towards the mirror.

  ‘No!’ I cried desperately, regaining my voice and my power of movement now the blond man’s gaze no longer rooted me to the spot. ‘No, Ivan, please, listen. You can’t do this. Luel won’t let you – she won’t –’

  ‘She cannot stop me,’ he said. ‘And neither can you.’ His voice and his glance were so harsh and cold with pain that it cut me to the quick.

  ‘Oh, Ivan, my dearest Ivan, don’t do this, I cannot bear it,’ I wept. ‘I love you.’ The words were torn out of me, expressing what I had not accepted or even understood until that very moment, a realisation that shook my whole world. I saw the shudder that went through him and knew why he’d sent me away so abruptly – he had known what lay between us long before I had. He had known because he had already loved me and was afraid for me. Trembling, I whispered, ‘Yes, I love you, with my whole heart and of my own will. So the spell must from this moment be broken.’

  As I spoke, Ivan began to change. The abartyen skin lifted up as though it had been a mask, his features remoulding themselves into human form, distinctively handsome planes of bone and flesh and skin, his hair thick and shining, his body straightening into that of a tall, broad-shouldered young man, and his hands no longer clawed and scaly but strong and shapely. I saw his lips form my name, and his beautiful eyes were filled with such love and such sorrow that I cried out in fear. ‘Oh, my love, what is it?’

  ‘It is too late, for he has bound himself to my master in order to save you,’ said a mocking voice beside me. ‘Oh, he will not die, for that would be too easy. He will for ever be out of your reach, and nothing will change that now.’ And the man my love had called Felix pointed his index finger at the mirror, which shuddered and rippled like water. At once his body shrank and changed shape, and in the blink of an eye he had turned into a crow, which flew into the watery glass and vanished. Then Ivan, the crow and even the reflection of our room were gone as the mirror went black as night.

  Behind me there was a gasp and the crash of breaking crockery. Sveta had come back just in time to see what had happened.

  ‘Sveta, listen to me.’ I was cold all over but calm, strangely calm, as I bent down to help her pick up the broken china. Sveta was almost hysterical, crossing herself repeatedly, crying that she’d let a demon into our house, that we were all cursed now and that it was all her fault. ‘He’s not a demon but the tool of a wicked magician, and it’s not your fault, dear Sveta,’ I said gently. ‘But you must listen to me, for I do not have much time, and you must remember what I’m about to tell you. Will you promise?’

  She looked at me with wide, frightened eyes and nodded.

  ‘You must tell Mama this: the man you glimpsed in the room beyond the mirror, the young man with the grey eyes, is the man I love. He was under an evil spell through no fault of his own. I have called him Professor Feyovin but that is not his true name. I do not know what it is. All I know is that he is in mortal danger from that sorcerer and that I must do everything in my power to find him. Do you see?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said softly.

  ‘Tell Mama I understand now what she meant about going through anything for the one you love. And tell her not to worry about me. I will write as soon as I can.’

  ‘But, Natasha, where will you go? And what will you . . .’ I did not hear the rest, for I was already running up the stairs, two at a time. Back in my room, I put on my coat and walking boots, flung two changes of underclothes, a nightgown, the cashmere dress, the dictionary, the pamphlet, and my notebook and purse into my bag. But the scarlet petal I held in my hand, close to my face. I stepped up to the wardrobe, facing the long mirror, breathed on the petal and said, ‘Luel, bring me back.’

  I had no idea whether it would work. No idea what had happened to her enchantment now the spell was broken. No idea what Felix might have done to her, only that he could not do much, for after all she was an immortal – a feya. No idea if she was even there any more. I knew none of these things save that I must speak with her and this was the only way I knew.

  An instant passed in which the mirror remained stubbornly reflective of my own pale, drawn face. I was about to speak again when something made me stop. And there, in a corner of the mirror, a ripple began. It grew and grew and grew till the glass became like clear dark curtains of wa
ter, and behind it, unmistakeably reflected, was Luel, beckoning me through. I swallowed, tucked the petal into my bodice, against my breast and over my heart. Clutching my holdall firmly, I stepped right into the mirror . . .

  And straight into what felt like a howling snowstorm, so intense and violent that I was blinded and deafened, ears popping, skin freezing, tongue heavy in my mouth, limbs paralysed – all my senses deserting me in an instant. The storm caught me and tossed me like a rag doll in the air, stinging shatterings of thin sharp crystals exploding all around me, and I felt my heart slow to a crawl and my mind blink and go out. Just before it did, the whiteness was ripped aside like a veil and behind it I saw a face looming over me, a malevolent face, skeletal with eyes sharp as daggers, pointed teeth bared in triumph, and I gave a great cry of despair. And died.

  ‘No, you foolish girl, you did not. You are alive and well. But not for long, if you don’t hurry.’

  I opened my eyes. I was in the cellar, lying in the pulverised remains of the mirror. My coat and dress were torn, and I felt bruised all over. My bag had vanished and all my belongings with it. And she was sitting there, looking at me with small black eyes gleaming in the dull grey skin that was tightly stretched over the bones of her gaunt face. I’d never seen her before, not in the flesh, if you could use such a word for a being old as time, old as whispered stories around ancient firesides, warnings of not straying too far into the forest, where she held sway. I’d never seen her and yet I knew who she was. There might not have been a confirmed sighting of her for decades but she had never gone away. And she never would. Hers was a timeless world that cared nothing for the silly human notion that we had moved beyond her. But why was she here?

  ‘The stranger followed her nursling,’ Old Bony said, watching my face. She could read my thoughts – that was clear. ‘You don’t have much time. Get up.’

  Groggily, I staggered to my feet. The walls of the cellar were webbed with cracks and the floor heaved under my feet. A rumble started from deep below, jerking me out of my numbness to the danger I was in. I sprinted for the stairs, ran up and through the open door, down one corridor and into another. All the while the mansion was shaking and rumbling and things were flying around me – broken tables and chairs, shredded carpets, shattered lights, torn books. Still I ran and ran for what seemed like an age till I finally reached the hall and saw out of the corner of my eye that the pictures had gone from the walls, as though they were never there. But I had no time to think about it, for the hurricane of ruin was bowling into the hall after me, and if I didn’t hurry, I’d be swept off my feet.

  I reached the front door and had already pulled it open when something caught my eye – a scrap of paper sticking out of the corner of a book, spinning madly in the wild air. I snatched the book and shoved it in my pocket, then took off through the entrance and down the front steps just as there was an almighty bang and the mansion collapsed in on itself like a pack of cards. I was sent flying into the air, and thudded painfully down on the grit path. I immediately picked myself up and ran, and as I did, the trees that lined the path moved closer together while the hedge at the end grew taller and taller, turning into dense forest. I knew that if I did not reach the hedge in time, before it completely transformed, I was doomed – I would be trapped within the ruins of this enchantment for ever. The hedge seemed impossibly far, but I forced my legs to go faster and my heart to pump harder till I thought it must explode.

  And then I heard them. It was like the day I happened upon this place, only in reverse, as a wolf pack in full howling cry came after me. I almost gave myself up for lost; whichever way I went, I was not safe. Behind me, the howling grew louder and, stealing a look over my shoulder, I saw a sight that froze me to the spot. For it wasn’t a wolf pack in full cry behind me but a sleigh, drawn by three gigantic wolves – one red, one black and the other white. And standing in the sleigh, cracking a whip and grinning like a death’s head, was Old Bony herself. She had come to claim her victim, just as in the old stories. She had saved me from the ruins of the house only so she could enjoy the thrill of the chase, hunting down the human prey she thrived on, and soon enough my head would be another of the skulls adorning the fence posts of her forest estate.

  ‘Bah, you fool, if I’d wanted to do that, it would have happened long ago.’ Old Bony reached out a long arm and threw me into the sleigh beside her. Before I could recover my wits, she cracked her whip. The sleigh tilted, the wolves strained, and all at once in a stunning rush of power, we were off the ground and airborne. Rising above the hedge, which was rapidly turning into a tangled dense forest, I glimpsed the forest grabbing greedily at the ruins of the mansion, choking it with thornbushes and creepers and moss. Before my very eyes, Luel’s enchanted haven was no more.

  I had no words and hardly any thoughts for what was happening, only feelings. It wasn’t fear any more that churned in my stomach and prickled at my neck, it was shame. It was my fault that the only thing that had brought Ivan any measure of safety was no more. It was my meddling that had brought the Felix to our door. Yes, I’d broken the spell but that had only made things worse. I had delivered the man I love into the hands of his enemy, and now I was in the hands of Old Bony, for whatever dark purpose she wished.

  ‘Oh you are tiresome, girl,’ said Old Bony, breaking into my mind again. ‘What possible use are you to me?’

  I was stung into speech. ‘That, I can hardly tell you,’ I said tartly, ‘as I have no idea what you want and why you took me from that place.’

  ‘A promise made is a promise kept,’ replied Old Bony, ‘and I promised the stranger.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘So she would leave and never return. I only allowed her enchantment in my woods because, like her, I am no lover of sorcerers. But that doesn’t mean I wanted her to stay for ever.’

  My jaw dropped. ‘You knew they were here?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said scornfully. ‘Do you think I do not know whenever a stranger puts so much as a toe in my lands?’

  ‘But Luel never said –’

  ‘Of course not. We all have our pride. I expect I would do the same if I was in her place.’

  ‘But then . . .’ A mind-boggling possibility was opening before me. ‘But then you must have known I were there when I first stumbled onto their –’

  ‘Whose wolves do you think were after you?’ she said simply.

  My head was spinning. If Old Bony knew I was there – if she had in fact driven me to seek the safety of the enchanted mansion – then that meant . . .

  ‘It does not mean I cared about the stranger or her nursling,’ she said, reading my thoughts again. ‘Only that the breaking of the spell must mean they would leave and that I would have my woods to myself again.’

  ‘Well, you have that,’ I said sadly. The sleigh lurched and pitched as the wolves began a rapid descent to the earth, apparently following an unseen path down a current of air. There were no more words for the moment as I hung on for dear life, the wind rushing past my ears, my eyes watering from the stinging speed of our descent. In less time than it takes to write it, the earth was rushing towards us, a canopy of trees growing together so densely I thought we must be lost amongst them. But then lights came on below, lights flickering like fireflies, and the trees parted to reveal a way through. We landed smoothly, without a single bump, onto a path lined with skulls glowing like lanterns on poles. I could see the path led to a tall, narrow cottage perched on two long, thin posts like the legs of a giant wooden bird. Surrounding the house was a fence made entirely of bones placed in careful patterns and gleaming like old ivory in the dim light.

  I shuddered.

  ‘They were intruders and promise-breakers who deserved all they got,’ said Old Bony, reading my mind in her disconcerting way. ‘Now get out and follow me.’

  I did as I was told, for what else could I do? I was entirely in her power and it was useless to pretend that I wasn’t. But all the way along that terrible p
ath, with the empty glowing eyes of those skulls glaring down at me, I felt my heart sinking deeper and deeper and my courage shrivelling with it. I had been rescued from the destruction of the enchanted mansion, but now I had entered the realm of Old Bony, the kingdom of death. How would I ever get out?

  ‘You are impatient,’ Old Bony muttered over her shoulder. ‘That is your problem, and you must learn to be otherwise. I will help you on your way, for that too I promised. But I never do anything for nothing. That is my rule. You must pay me.’

  ‘How?’ I whispered.

  ‘You must work for me for three days and three nights. Do exactly as I say and do not complain once or ask me a single question during that time. In fact, you are not to speak at all. If you do as I say, you can leave and I will help you on your way. If you do not and you break even one of those rules, you will remain here for ever.’ She gestured at the bones. ‘Do you understand?’

  A hundred questions trembled on the tip of my tongue. A hundred questions I swallowed back at once. From the old stories I knew two important things. First, Old Bony was usually a fearsome enemy but, in rare cases, she could prove a surprising ally. You could not predict which; it just happened. And second, she always kept her word if you kept yours. I nodded, mutely.

  She gave a tiny smile, and I saw that I’d done well not to speak. ‘Very well. Come.’ Touching the gate, which creaked open with a sound unnervingly like a thin moan, Old Bony ushered me through.

  Macabre as its setting was, with the skull-lit path and the fence of human bones, the cottage was surprisingly cosy inside, even if dimly lit and untidy. Unblinking points of light in the dimness soon resolved themselves into the eyes of three large cats – a red one, a white one, and a black one – which purred around Old Bony’s legs as she came in.