A Sprig of Holly Page 2

woodstore, the hare sat quietly watching.

  The following morning, Greta woke late. As always, the first thing she did was dash to the range and coax the red embers back into life; then she dashed back to huddle under her blanket until the fire took hold and began to throw out more heat. The pair dressed and ate breakfast before setting out; to gather enough wood for the fire would be a long task and the days were only short, this far into the deeps of winter. As they passed the snowmaiden, Greta looked around the field. Nearer to, she had used much of the snow in her building, but further down the field there were strange marks in the snow.

  “What do you think made those tracks, Pappy?”

  “Difficult to tell from this distance, my dear; probably foxes. They roll and dash about in the snow, you know.”

  “Shall we look closer?” Greta started to walk over but her grandfather did not follow.

  “On the way back, perhaps, Greta; it will take a while to get there and a while to get back, and the days are very short. The marks will still be there this evening and we can go and look at them if the moon is still bright.”

  “Yes Grandfather.” Greta followed him regretfully. She did want to go and look but he was quite right and it probably was nothing more exciting than foxes; except that the previous night she had got up and looked out of the window, and could have sworn that her snowmaiden was dancing in the moonlight with the grace of a falling snowflake. Last night it had all seemed so real; in the chill light of day, it seemed obvious that it must have been a dream; only, if the tracks in the snow were fox-tracks, she would have liked to have seen them closely enough to be sure.

  Greta caught up with her grandfather as he pulled the sleigh behind him, and took a grip on the rope with him. Once they had had deer to pull it, little sturdy beasts that were strong but fleet of foot; but they had got old and lame and there was no money to replace them. Their harnesses of coloured leather and tinkling bells still hung on the hooks but the only beasts left to pull the sleigh were Greta and her Pappy. She smiled to herself, wondering if she should be wearing the bells herself, but quickly fell into the rhythm of pulling the sleigh up the steep tracks.

  Halfway through the day they had stopped for a rest, lighting a little fire to melt snow and make tea while they ate the pasties Greta had prepared; then the work went on, as Pappy lopped the wood and hewed it into manageable logs, and Greta stacked it on the sleigh. As the day was waning, they set off home again. It was much more difficult to control the heavily-laden sleigh on the way back down the hill, and it had pulled them over several times, despite their best efforts. Eventually they had got down to the flatter part of the track, where the forest was mostly made of the softwood trees that burnt away too quickly to be of much use. It was while they were passing through here that there had been a creak and a groan, and something had hit Greta hard enough to knock her out where she stood. She had woken up to find herself sprawled in the snow, freezing cold and with a sore head, but the tree which had only clipped her as it fell had landed fully across her grandfather; and now she could not think of any way to get them safely home.

  “I’m sorry, Pappy; so sorry,” she whispered, and to her relief he stirred slightly.

  “Greta…?”

  “I’m here, and I’m alright. The tree fell on you – are you hurt or just trapped?”

  He strained a bit then, caught his breath sharply, and fell still. “I can’t tell. My leg is painful but the cold is making me numb. How long have we been here?”

  “I don’t know. I was knocked out when the tree fell.”

  Pappy twisted to look at her. “Your head is bleeding, child.”

  “It’s only a knock. I’m fine really.” Greta smiled down wanly at him.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’ll be fine.”

  He looked up at the sky, taking in the lateness of the hour, and for some moments he was quiet. Then he spoke, keeping his voice light and unconcerned with an effort. “I can’t get out from under this tree without help. If you are fine, can you walk down to the house and get the other saw from the woodstore, and maybe a rope and a blanket or two? It’s going to take a while to move it – I may need you to saw through the tree trunk, as I can’t do it from this angle.”

  She started to climb to her feet but the movement made everything spin, and she had to grab onto a branch for support. She leaned against the tree for some minutes before replying. “That wasn’t nice, Pappy. For a second there I thought we might have a chance but we don’t really, do we?”

  “Nonsense, child, of course we do but you need to go now to be sure of getting back before nightfall.” His tone was scolding but her head had cleared enough to hear the falseness in his tone.

  “To get home before nightfall, maybe, but not to get back here. I’m not leaving you here to die, Pappy, I’m just not doing it. I won’t be left on my own.”

  “Damn it, girl, you’re going to die if you stay here! I’m not going anywhere. You can get home!”

  Greta was startled at his roar. He never spoke to her in that tone, but she did not back down. “Pappy, I’m not going to get back to the house on my own either. I can barely stand upright, never mind walk all the way back. So if we’re not going home, I’d rather stay here with you.”

  “Greta, please!” he moaned.

  “I don’t think we have much of a choice in the matter, Pappy.” She returned to his side, sitting against the tree trunk now so that she could see his face without him having to twist uncomfortably.

  They sat for some time in silence as the sky faded and the star grew stronger. Greta began to shiver uncontrollably.

  And then, just as she began to fall asleep, a shape stood in front of her. She was so near unconsciousness that she did not bother overmuch, but it bent down and laid an icy arm against her cheek and the sting of that freezing contact jerked her back into wakefulness. She opened her eyes and stared for a moment while her eyes made sense of what was in front of her; and then she jerked back against the tree trunk.

  “Pappy!” Greta’s voice sounded thin and high to herself. “Pappy, can you see what I can see?” But he was flitting in and out of unconsciousness and did not answer. “Pappy?”

  The hare was back again too, and it sat down trustfully between Greta and the snowmaiden. For some reason this made Greta feel much less afraid, and when the snowmaiden bent forward, and reached towards Greta again, the girl reached up slowly and laid one mittened hand on the arc of the snowmaiden’s arms, joined as they were in the muff she had carved. Though carved from snow, the maid was solid as stone, certainly strong enough to help Greta stand. Of course, the snowmaiden’s surface would have thawed a little in the sun and frozen into ice overnight, Greta thought. Once upright, the snowmaid reached her arms out towards her again, still making that odd gesture with joined arms.

  “What do you want of me?” Greta did not know for sure whether to be afraid or relieved, but certainly the maiden did not seem threatening. The maiden straightened; Greta got the feeling she was thinking. Then she went over to the tree and pushed at it with her joined hands. The whole tree rocked and Pappy cried out but Greta was thinking hard as the maiden turned back to her, stretching out her arms again.

  “You’re stronger than I am. Can you help?” Greta asked. The maiden inclined her head, and stretched out her arms. “You need hands, don’t you?”

  Greta had carved the snowmaiden with hands hidden in a muff, simply because such fine carvings would not have survived very long, but now she was going to take a risk. She took her grandfather’s penknife out of his pocket and turning back to the maiden, took a deep breath.

  “I hope this doesn’t hurt you.” She laid the knife to the ice joining the snowmaiden’s arms and began to carve. The snowmaiden gave no indication of anything but patience until Greta had finished two basic mitten-shaped hands. “I’ll do them properly when we get home if you like, but my hands are too cold now and it’s difficult to hold the knife.”

/>   This appeared to be acceptable. The snowmaiden held her hands up and flexed them, nodded in evident satisfaction, then heaved the tree trunk to one side with no apparent effort.

  “The sleigh… we need to put him on it…”

  The sleigh was piled high with wood, but the snowmaiden emptied it by the simple expedient of tipping it over and then righting it again. She lifted Pappy onto it with a certain amount of care, and then gestured to Greta to climb on as well. The hare moved over to where the thick fur rug from the sleigh had fallen to the ground and sat there patiently until the snowmaiden saw it and retrieved the rug, holding it out to Greta who sat next to Pappy in the sleigh and pulled it over them, trying to share her body heat with the old man. As she lay back, she felt the comforting weight of the hare’s body curl up on top of them, adding its own slight warmth as the sleigh slid silently through the quick dusk and into the slow dark of nightfall.

  Again, Greta was wakened by that burning cold touch to the cheek. They were back at the house, the sleigh outside the door. The snowmaiden helped Greta to stand and she tottered in the door to collapse on the bed. The snowmaiden picked up Pappy and went to follow, but though the room was cooling fast with the door open, the fire had not gone out totally, and the maiden recoiled from the warmth that flowed out of the door. Again she approached, evidently afraid but fighting her fear, and this time after hesitating at the door, the snowmaiden dashed in with Greta’s grandfather, laid him gently next to the girl, and dashed out again with droplets of meltwater forming on her face like tears.

  Greta was roused from her stupor by the bang of the door, and staggered over to the window to see the snowmaiden moving swiftly away into the darkness. She chafed her poor frozen hands under her armpits to warm them enough to light the lamp; and when that was done, she opened the fire door and threw on it the last logs from the basket, all at once. After a moment the flames flared up and she pushed the fire door to, and went to see to her Grandfather, still too numbed with cold and weariness to care about anything but finding a way to survive the night.

  Out on the mountains, another traveller was consumed with similar thoughts. Matthias was struggling to light a fire in order to set up camp for the night, cursing the luck that had sent his wagon off the track and into the ditch earlier in the day. He should have been home by now, and with the skies as dark and ominous as they were, it was entirely possibly that it was about to snow again and maroon him here. Oh, he’d be right enough in his warm little caravan, but he did not think the horses would survive the night despite anything he could do.

  And then the horses began to rear and whinny nervously, so he opened the door of the caravan and looked out, on the alert for wolves. It wasn’t wolves, though. He took down the lantern from the inside of his caravan and went back out to investigate, and suddenly, bold as brass, a great hare appeared and simply sat there in front of him. Normally he would’ve had his little crossbow to hand and the hare would have gone straight into the pot, but there was something so intelligent about the way this hare looked at him that even the thought of making any attempt on it faded.

  Behind the hare, another movement; and this time Matthias had to rub his eyes, and rub them again, for it was to all intents and purposes a woman made of snow, beautifully carved apart from the hands, and wearing a crimson shawl which he knew he had seen before.

  “That’s Greta’s mother’s shawl!” he gasped, and was doubly amazed when the creature bobbed its head in acknowledgement. “What have you done with Greta?”

  The snowmaiden shook its head and gestured him to