A Fairytale Of Winter

Do you believe that thinking of someone can bring them back into your life…?

Sweet romance

Cerys stopped crunching through the snow and allowed her rasping breath to settle. Her home village had long disappeared below the lie of the land. She was alone.

A crow in a nearby tree cawed, giving the scene a timeless quality. A peasant, watched by King Wenceslas, could be gathering wood or a woodcutter from a Grimm’s fairy tale could be about to cut down a talking tree.

It made her feel insignificant – yet alive. Here she could be herself, and not have to pretend that her artistic soul was nourished by her job in a London art gallery.

“Cerys is doing so well, you know,” her mum would say, “the gallery couldn’t run without her.”

In reality she was nothing but a gopher for some very pretentious people. But now she was willing to take a risk and go it alone. She held out her arms and looked up to the sky.

“I am Cerys Jones,” she shouted, “and I am going to be me!” Crow cawed. “What kept you?” Something indefinable had changed. There was magic in the air. She would leave her job, throw caution to the winds, set up her own craft shop and paint whenever she was able to. Go for it, Cerys! Cerys became still. The voice in her head was Evan’s. She looked around the vast whiteness as if expecting him somehow to be there.

Go for it, Cerys – the incitement to mischief. They would be put in one door of the school only to run out of the other door a few minutes later.

Where was he now? She hadn’t seen her childhood friend for years.

Cerys smiled at the memory, then ploughed on. Her feet were numb and her fingers frozen. Her red duffel coat stood out like a beacon on the landscape. It was her don’t-mess-with me coat, worn to stiffen her resolve.

It was not till she was almost there that Cerys realised that she was heading for the ruined cottage, the scene of

Something INDEFINABLE had changed – now there was MAGIC in the AIR

childhood campfires, ghost tales, games.

“I’m the Queen of the Castle,” she would chant as she balanced on one of the crumbling walls and looked down on one of her friends – more often than not, Evan.

Evan was different from them. Some kids didn’t want to play with him.

Cerys picked up a stick and poked through the ruin. The wall she had stood on was now just a heap of rubble and trees had rooted within what walls were left. Cerys slithered over the stones, aware that the sun was low in the sky.

Just then a long piercing whistle cut through the stillness. A lurcher was running towards her. Then in the distance she could see a figure.

Any more figures, Cerys thought, and it could be a scene from Bruegel’s painting, Hunters In The Snow.

“Hello there,” she said, greeting the dog as it ran up to her, tail wagging.

As she petted it, she watched the figure plough through the snow. Then, as the path cleared under the shelter of trees Cerys noted the man’s gait.

It couldn’t be… could it? Only one person she knew had a limp like that. Had she conjured him up? “Jarl, come here boy!” The man stayed where he was, not intending to come further. But, as the dog ran back to him, she was quite sure. It was Evan. “Beast?” The man turning to go, stopped. What had she said? What right had she, after all these years, to voice her private

nickname for him? As if their childhood friendship had given her some claim on him. Even as a child she had assumed her right to his friendship. “Beauty?” Still he stood. It was Cerys who had to walk towards him. She pushed down the hood of her duffel coat so that he could see her properly.

He’d grown tall. Much taller than her. She stared at his face and just as all those years ago, he didn’t flinch.

“What happened to you, then?” she’d asked with the openness of a child. “I was in a fire.” “Does it hurt?” He had shaken his head. “Nah, just lost my good looks, that’s all.” But he had lost his parents as well. “You have the advantage of me,” said Evan now. “I wouldn’t have recognised you.”

The skin graft on one side of his face had pulled his cheek down, causing the face to lose its symmetry. “Just as well I recognised you, then. We could have been strangers that passed in the night.”

Evan’s smile was lopsided, as Jarl nosed his way between them. Cerys had forgotten how much she had liked his smile. She hadn’t called him Beast because she thought him ugly – he wasn’t – rather because an irate householder, catching them stealing apples, had called him a wild beast.

Beast. Cerys used to savour the word, before spitting it out. It would crack them up every time.

“I thought you were Red Riding Hood,” he said now. “You sent your wolf to suss me out?” Evan look at Jarl. “He would have licked you to death if I hadn’t intervened.”

Cerys grinned and without thinking fell into step beside him. They walked back the way she had come, Evan’s uneven gait making more progress than her own. The snow started to fall. Cerys stuck out her tongue and caught a flake.

“This is strange… unexpected,” she ventured, breaking the growing silence between them. “Especially meeting near our old haunting ground.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Evan easily. “I was thinking about you earlier. That’s why I chose this route today. Synchronicity is what I call it.” “What were you thinking about me?” “I was thinking,” said Evan, as the same crow swooped down and alighted on another branch, listening, “that you were living it up in London and making a name for yourself.” Cerys gave an unladylike snort. “You’ve been speaking to my mam. She had mentioned that she had bumped into you. But that was a couple of years ago.”

“She may have mentioned what a wonderful, talented daughter she had and that you hoped to have your own exhibition one day.”

“The thing is, Evan, mams aren’t exactly impartial.”

“No, I suppose not,” he said, frowning. “But I can imagine you calling the shots and giving everyone hell.”

“Being a bossy-boots! Is that how you see me?”

Evan took a sudden interest in the sky and Cerys hunched her shoulders as she put her hands in her pockets.

“Weren’t you?”

She thought about it as she huffed her way through the snow. It was she who had decided what games they played and videos they watched. It was after looking at Disney’s Beauty And The Beast that Evan starting calling her Beauty – even though she was no Belle.

But then he had said, “I’d rather be that Beast than me.”

Cerys remembered her feeling of shock. He must have been ten at the time and up until then, his face had never seemed to bother him.

“Don’t be silly, Evan. People would look at you more if you had the head of an animal. And at least you don’t have Freddie Cartwright’s spots.”

It had nipped his self-pity in the bud and earned her a smile.

“I probably was bossy,” she said

eventually, “but you were so easy going.”

“There was no probably about it, Cerys. You were a force of nature. Forever getting me into trouble, you were.”

“Me!” exclaimed Cerys, stopping dead. “It was your idea to put a whoopee cushion on the teacher’s chair.”

“Yeah, but what about that time when you swapped everyone’s shoes round after PE?” “Who, me?” They argued back and forth until Cerys took a sudden nosedive in the snow. The crow cackled and the dog leaped round her, thinking it was a new game. Evan crouched down beside her and unearthed a twig.

“Tricky thing, these twigs. They can disguise themselves as tree trunks and ambush the unwary.”

He held out his hand and hauled her up. Dusk had sneaked up on them and as he held her hand a moment longer than necessary, his expression became unreadable. Cerys looked at the trees, which rustled, and the crow, which seemed to be staring at her.

“Do you believe trees and animals can talk?” she asked. “I believe animals can talk.” “Of course we can,” cawed Crow. “You would say that being a vet. Last I heard you were in Edinburgh.”

“I was – but I have a job in the next town now.”

Something in the universe clicked and Cerys smiled. The magic was strong tonight – almost tangible. It was in the snowflakes, Evan’s smile, Jarl’s coat and in the crow sitting on the branch with its head cocked. “Tell me about it,” said Cerys. And Evan did. He talked about the animals he had treated, the cow who could escape from any field, the cat who died at twenty-two after catching her last mouse, the dog who walked home on tattered paws after getting lost on holiday. And about his dream of a partnership. He talked until they reached the end of the village.

Then they just stood there in silence, neither wanting to move, while Jarl slumped at their feet, tongue lolling.

“Well Cerys,” said Evan clearing his throat. “It was lovely to see you again. I go that way. Have a good year.”

And with those words Cerys felt the magic of the day disappear and the cold seep into her very marrow.

She stood there in shock. Had she misread the situation? Evan turned. “Jarl, come!” But the dog stayed put and the crow cawed and flapped its wings. “Jarl, come!” But his dog lowered his head on his paws and whined. Cerys scratched his ears as she looked at Evan. Then she remembered. She had on her red coat. She could do and say anything in her red coat. “Do you fancy a drink?” “Beauty…” he said, turning towards the lights of the village. She could see his face quite clearly and it was ravaged by more than fire. “Beast?” “The thing is,” he said, “you’re you and… after the holidays you will just go back to London again.”

It was then Cerys understood. All his life Evan had been abandoned by those he loved. First his parents, his favourite teacher who left unexpectedly and then Greg and Anne, his foster parents. He’d been with them three years when they decided to emigrate to Canada. They couldn’t take Evan with them. He’d been twelve at the time. It had been the first time she’d seen him cry. “I thought that was me,” he’d said trying to wipe tears from his burned cheek, “I’d stay there till grown… you know…” She had cried with him them. Shortly after, he moved to a new school and another set of foster parents. And that had been the last she’d seen of him – until now.

It won’t be like that, Evan. I’m coming back. I’m quitting my London job…” And as she spoke, Cerys tried to weave her spell around him. Ensnare him with her witchery. He couldn’t go off and leave her like that. He couldn’t.

“…I already have my eye on some premises. It has a studio and a space that could do for a craft shop,” she said, turning to the bird. “Haven’t I, Crow?”

The crow cawed his agreement and Evan started to walk back to her, just as music started up from the village hall. It was Prokofiev’s Troika. The magic was back.

“Well,” said Evan, “what about that drink then?” “A drink? What a good idea!” “It is only fair, isn’t it? That I get to hear all about your plans. I can just see you being your own boss. It’s just… so you.”

Cerys dug him in the ribs and then started to run. “Last one at the pub pays!” Crow cawed. “Go for it, Cerys!”

Then she REMEMBERED. She could SAY AND DO anything in her RED COAT