Snow Summer Read online

  Snow Summer

  Kit Peel

  Groundwood Books

  House of Anansi Press

  Toronto Berkeley

  Copyright © 2016 by Kit Peel

  Published in Canada and the USA in 2016 by Groundwood Books

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Distribution of this electronic edition via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal. Please do not participate in electronic piracy of copyrighted material; purchase only authorized electronic editions. We appreciate your support of the author’s rights.

  Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press

  groundwoodbooks.com

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Peel, Kit, author

  Snow summer / Kit Peel.

  Issued also in electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-55498-357-5 (bound).—ISBN 978-1-55498-359-9

  (html).—ISBN 978-1-55498-358-2 (mobi)

  I. Title.

  PZ7.1.P44Sn 2016 j823’.92 C٢٠١٥-٩٠٨٤٤٨-٢

  C2015-908449-0

  Jacket illustration © Tim Zeltner, i2iart.com

  Design by Michael Solomon

  For Megan, Awen and Paloma

  Ah! as the heart grows older

  It will come to such sights colder

  “Spring and Fall”

  Gerard Manley Hopkins

  1

  —

  “You coming?” Kate asked her sister.

  She was holding open a gate by the side of the road. Although it was nearly the end of the summer holidays, snow gleamed on the top bar of the gate, in the branches of a tree over Kate’s head and all across the meadow behind and the dale beyond, all the way up to the hilltops where it gave way to a bright blue sky.

  Lisa, Kate’s older sister, hung back on the pavement. Wyn was already in the meadow, tying on her snowshoes. She tightened the last strap and glanced up, meeting Lisa’s glare.

  “I’ll see you two at home,” said Lisa.

  “Suit yourself,” said Wyn. With a quick movement she tugged the gate out of Kate’s grip, slamming it shut.

  Lisa headed off briskly, catching up with a group of friends whose faces were muffled in scarves and woolly hats. Their breaths left puffs of white in the cold air.

  “Well, that was friendly,” said Kate, rolling her eyes at Wyn.

  “She wasn’t coming, was she?”

  “People skills, Wyn. We’ve spoken about this. If you’re nice to someone, they might be nice back.”

  “She was in a mood.”

  “You’re going to tell me you don’t know why?”

  “Like I care?”

  “You’re going to tell me that you didn’t notice that a certain boy, who Lisa has been into for ages, spent quite a long time hanging around you in the pool just now?”

  “It was only John,” said Wyn. “And I’m not encouraging him or anything.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “But you were talking to him.”

  “So I can’t talk to John now?”

  “Since when do you ever talk to anyone at school?”

  “I talk to you.”

  “What am I going to do with you?” said Kate.

  “You don’t have to do anything.”

  Together they set off into the freezing white field, their snowshoes leaving lattice prints behind them. Drifts had formed in the middle of the field, coming up almost to Wyn’s waist. Kate plowed through them, panting with the effort. When an icy wind blew off the moors and down into the dale, Kate complained and rubbed her arms. Wyn quickly rubbed her arms, too, and pretended her teeth were chattering.

  A little way ahead, clustered along the bank of the river Nidd, was a mass of branches and brambles, rigid with ice and snow. Kate stopped, squinting at a movement in the thicket.

  “I think I just saw a swallow,” she said, now hurrying forward as fast as the deep snow would let her. “I’m sure it was. If they’re back, it means we’re going to have summer! Finally!”

  But even as Kate was floundering excitedly forward, Wyn’s eyes pierced the thicket and saw the bird that was hopping about within it. She was wondering whether to tell the other girl the truth, when the bird broke cover, heading updale along the river, where it joined with two other similar birds. Kate ground to a halt, staring sadly after them.

  “Just blackbirds,” she said, before brightening with a new hope. “Come on, there’s still the river to check.”

  Wyn followed her to a gap in the thicket beyond which there was an iron bridge. They scrambled up the riverbank, their snowshoes awkward on the slope. Halfway across the bridge, they stopped and examined the river Nidd, searching in vain for any trickle of life. It was solid ice all the way down to the mud bed. The little family of fish that Wyn and Kate stared at every day were just where they’d left them, frozen in their never-ending conversation.

  “I’m still convinced that when the Nidd melts, the deep-freeze family will all come back to life and start swimming away,” said Kate. “Do you think the Nidd will melt this year?”

  Wyn knew how much Kate, with her water-blue eyes, loved to swim in the river. Last summer, in the brief weeks of color and warmth, Kate had insisted on picnicking by the Nidd nearly every day.

  “Who knows,” Wyn murmured.

  The two girls walked on in silence until the white roofs of the village of Pateley Bridge came into sight and they were stepping onto a salted road. Wyn and Kate stopped to take off their snowshoes, then crunched up the back high street, past the Dales rescue office, with its heavily equipped orange Land Rovers parked outside, and on uphill past St. Cuthbert’s church, its freshly painted red door a rare flash of color in the monochrome surroundings.

  After the church, on the outskirts of the village, they turned onto the steep lane that led to Highdale House, Kate’s family home. For the past three years, it had also been Wyn’s home.

  The long, low shape of the house came into view above the high walls of the lane. Snow washed over the roof. Icicles hung from the drainpipes, sparkling in the sun. A thick trail of wood smoke rose from the chimney. In the woods to the left of the farm, a fight had broken out among the resident jackdaws. Wyn watched more of the birds swoop down from the moors, chattering noisily as they touched down on frosty branches.

  As they went higher up the lane, more of Nidderdale came into view. Except for the gray of houses, tree trunks and the old stone walls, everything lay white and muffled with cold. It was the same story in the next dale, the one beyond that and on and on, across continents and oceans.

  For as long as Wyn and Kate had been alive, the world’s weather had been changing. Every year, all across the world, snow had started falling earlier and earlier, and had lasted longer and longer. Now, deep into summer, it still showed no sign of melting. This year weather forecasters were predicting that the icy weather wouldn’t break at all; it would be a summer of snow. And nobody understood why.

  2

  —

  Kate’s mother, Joan Hebden, was standing at the front door with her back to them, her hair as long and almost as blonde as her daughters’. She was holding a paintbrush, which she’d just dipped in emerald-colored paint.

  “She’s, like, turning into some crazy painting lady. Every church door in the dale and now our house,” whispered Kate, before calling
out to her mother, “Hey, Ma, the school’s looking like it needs a repaint, too.”

  Joan put the brush in a pot of turpentine and with her foot scraped the green-flecked snow from the door. She frowned when she saw them.

  “Lisa’s not with you?” she said.

  “She took the long way home,” said Kate. She headed inside, kicking off her boots.

  Joan followed her. Wyn hung up her coat, took off her boots and tidied Kate’s, then stepped into the sitting room. A wood-burning stove, packed with logs, burned fiercely in the hearth. She had intended to cross the room and join the others in the kitchen, but instead, quite against her will, she found herself rooted to the spot in front of the stove’s glass door. In the last few months, the stove had begun to cast a strange power over her, by turns unsettling and exciting her. And today the pull of the dancing flames was even stronger than before. She felt them reaching out to her, all burning fingers and wild whispers, wanting her to open the door that held them captive. With the greatest of efforts, Wyn stepped away from the flames, but as she did, the logs in the stove shifted and fell against the stove door, pushing it open. A burning log tumbled from the stove and across the room towards her. It settled on the rug, just by her foot. Flames washed over the rug’s tassels, setting them alight.

  Grabbing a pair of tongs from the hearth, Wyn reached out to the log, intending to throw it back into the stove. Instead, she found herself unable to move, transfixed by the flames that rose up towards her. Their voices were clearer now and more insistent. She tried to close the tongs around the log, but couldn’t. When she tried to call for help, her breath stuck in her throat. She could only stand there, feeling the heat of the fire grow around her.

  Lisa burst in from the porch. Snatching up the tongs, she tossed the log back into the stove and stamped out the flames from the rug.

  “What the hell were you doing?” Lisa demanded.

  Joan and Kate rushed through from the kitchen. Seeing the scorched rug, Joan went to fetch a bowl of water. She returned and set about the rug.

  “What happened?” said Joan.

  “She was just watching a log burning the rug and doing nothing about it,” said Lisa.

  “I wasn’t,” retorted Wyn.

  “Don’t give me that. I know what I saw.”

  “Well, everything is fine now,” said Joan. “We’ll cut off the tassels and no one will be the wiser.”

  “Why do you always defend her?” said Lisa. She stormed into the porch, pulling on boots and heading outside. Joan asked where she was going.

  “A long way from here,” said Lisa, slamming the front door. Joan went after her.

  Kate went into the kitchen, returning with a pair of scissors that she used to snip the burned tassels. Wyn retreated from the fire and paced on the far side of the room.

  “There. Nobody would ever know.” Kate stood up and admired her handiwork.

  “It’s not my fault the door wasn’t shut properly,” said Wyn.

  “Nobody is saying it is.”

  “She’s just having her revenge because she didn’t want to walk back with us.”

  “I don’t think she is.”

  “Why are you taking her side?”

  “I’m not, I’m …” Kate stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Wyn, who tried to push her friend away. Kate would not let go, though, until Wyn had stopped shaking.

  For the past three years, Kate had been Wyn’s calm waters. On the first night Wyn had been brought to Highdale, near-hysterical at what had happened to her first foster mother, Kate had come into Wyn’s new bedroom, refusing to leave no matter how much Wyn raged at her. Kate had stayed the night with her, sitting on the floor until, at dawn, Wyn had finally fallen asleep. That had been the pattern of Wyn’s first weeks at Highdale, until cracks of light had begun to seep into Wyn’s defenses of anger and silence. Kate and Wyn began walking to school together; Wyn saying little, just listening to Kate’s animated chatter. Until then, Wyn had refused to make a single friend at school.

  Now, despite her best efforts, she had let herself grow close to this popular, outspoken girl. Whenever the nightmares woke Wyn, Kate would come to her, and Wyn had stopped pushing her away.

  The Reverend Robin Hebden came home as evening was reddening the sky and wood smoke and mist hung across the dale. He stamped his feet for longer than necessary in the porch, sighing and muttering until Kate couldn’t stand it any longer and demanded that her father tell her what was wrong.

  “David Ramsgill’s got the go-ahead from the council,” said Robin. “He’s going to quarry Skrikes Wood.”

  Over dinner, Robin told them how he’d heard the news that afternoon and had gone to see John’s father, David Ramsgill, who owned the big quarry on the other side of the dale. Robin had begged him to leave Skrikes Wood alone.

  “And he wouldn’t listen to you?” said Joan.

  “He says the wood is sitting on a rich vein of limestone, which the council is desperate for. I tried my best to make him see sense. Then John burst in on us, taking my side against his father. Not something that David Ramsgill appreciated. I do hope John’s not in too much trouble on my account.”

  “Good for John,” said Kate, flashing a look at Wyn.

  “But Skrikes Wood has been a nature reserve forever. Surely it’s protected,” said Joan.

  “Was protected,” said Robin.

  “I don’t understand what everyone is getting so worked up about. The wood’s dead, so what does it matter if it’s dug up?” asked Lisa.

  “Skrikes Wood is not dead,” said Robin.

  “Then it’s on its last legs, like everything else in the dale. I don’t know why we’re still here. We could be in London, or some other city. Somewhere there’s some life, some place we don’t have to go round painting doors bright colors to cheer us all up. We don’t have to be stuck here, in the back of beyond, living in black and white.”

  Suddenly Robin slammed his hand on the table. The plates and cutlery jumped. Joan had to grab her glass before it tipped over.

  For a moment everyone sat in stunned silence. Even Robin seemed taken aback by what he’d just done.

  “I’m sorry, there was no call for that,” he said.

  “When does the digging start?” asked Joan.

  “In a few days, I think.”

  “How deep will they go?”

  “Deep enough.”

  “Have you told…?”

  “Not yet,” said Robin, giving Joan a warning look.

  Heavy snow was falling past the windowpanes when the Hebden family and Wyn moved to the sitting room to watch the evening news.

  To save oil, the central heating was off now and wouldn’t come on until the morning. The sitting room, with its wood-burning stove, was now the only really warm room in the house. Robin, Joan and Lisa sat lined up in a row on the sofa close to the hearth, Lisa tapping on her cell phone. Wyn was curled up in an armchair at the back of the room, as far away as possible from the fire. Kate sat on a cushion on the floor, between Wyn and her family.

  When the news came on, the family watched in frowning silence. Yet another war was breaking out, this time in east Africa. It was the same story all over again; crops failing in the cold and water reserves frozen. People were on the move, but there was nowhere to move to. The second story was from Russia, where the army had set up checkpoints stopping people from pouring from the harsh countryside into a big city. A third story came on about bears and wolves coming over the frozen seas into Scotland. Wyn watched the man on the TV pausing by a fir tree and pointing out the scratch marks on the trunk.

  The news ended with reports that vast snowstorms were developing at both the North and the South Poles. Satellite images appeared on the screen, showing how quickly the storms were spreading. One weather forecaster speculated that these storms might spread worldwide, a
nd somehow Wyn knew that the forecaster was right. These giant snowstorms were growing in power second by second. And the thought of them covering the world made Wyn angry. She ground her fingers into the chair as anger washed over her; anger at the storm, anger that nobody was doing anything to stop it. Her head throbbed and a voice whispered something to her, over and over. She couldn’t make out what the voice was saying, only that it wanted something from her.

  Suddenly Kate’s face appeared in front of her, asking something.

  “What?” cried Wyn.

  The word had come out so loudly that Robin, Joan and Lisa all turned around.

  Lisa was about to say something when the TV made a popping noise. At the same time, the house lights went off.

  With the efficiency acquired from living through so many blackouts, everyone set to work. Candles were lit. Glass lanterns were placed over bright flames. Carrying a lantern, Wyn went into the kitchen and began washing up, her mind filled with the images of the great snowstorms. Her anger had passed and the voice in her mind was gone, and yet Wyn still felt strange, as if she had done something terrible and had to undo it, but couldn’t remember what it was.

  Robin came up behind her, asking if she was all right. When Wyn nodded, he picked up a tea towel and started drying the dishes that she’d washed. He began talking in his quick, lilting way, over the sound of running taps and the clink of plates. Robin was just telling her how brave John had been to stand up to his father, when a blackbird landed on the windowsill and tapped on the glass, cocking its head. It came and was gone in a flash, but Wyn was certain that Robin had nodded when the bird had tapped.

  When they had put the plates away and had gone through into the sitting room, where Joan was bedding down the fire for the night, Robin announced that he was going outside to bring in more logs. Wyn offered to help, but her foster father was already hurrying into boots and coat. With a wave, he was gone. The log basket remained behind.

  A bit later, in the bathroom, Wyn was brushing her teeth while staring out of the window when, to her surprise, she saw Robin making his way uphill. He wasn’t carrying a flashlight and was negotiating the slope and the darkness by the faint wisps of moonlight that appeared and disappeared through the snowfall. The scene became more curious when what she was sure was the same blackbird swooped low over his shoulder, landing in a grove of pines further ahead.