They walked across the playground together, still without speaking, his arms resting on her shoulders, her arm round his waist. Although his legs ached, he tried not to stumble or lean too heavily on the girl. When they reached the school door, Eirlys withdrew her arm and then took his hand from her shoulder. Her fingers were ice-cold. Gwyn gasped when she touched his hand.
"What is it?" she asked.
"You're so cold," he replied.
Eirlys smiled. Her eyes were greeny blue, like arctic water. It was as though they had once been another color, but that other color had been washed away.
When they got to the classroom Gwyn told Mr. James that he had slipped in the snow. Eirlys said nothing. Mr. James nodded. "Get on with your work now," he said.
Eirlys and Gwyn went to their desks. Everyone stared. Dewi Davis was still holding his nose, and Gwyn remembered what he had done. All through the next lesson, through the pain in his head, he kept thinking of what he had done to Dewi Davis. He had hit him with magic. Something had come out of his hand and flown into Dewi's face, something that had come to him from Gwydion, the magician, and from Gwy-dion's son, who had once ruled Gwynedd. And it was the same thing that had turned the seaweed into a ship, the brooch into a spider, and the whistle into a silver pipe. These last three, he realized, had merely been waiting for him to release them. They had been there all the time, just waiting for his call. But when he had hit Dewi Davis, he had done it by himself. He had wanted to hurt Dewi, to smash his silly, cruel face, and he had done it, not with a stone nor with his fist, but with his will and the power that had come from Gwydion. If he could do that, what could he not do?
While Gwyn dreamed over his desk, he was unaware of Eirlys watching him. But Alun Lloyd noticed, and he wondered why the girl gazed at Gwyn with her aquamarine eyes. Alun was uneasy.
During the day Gwyn's aches and pains receded, and he was able to hobble to the school bus unaided. When he got off the bus, however, he could not run up the lane, and he felt trapped. Alun was lingering behind the rest of his family, watching him.
"You O.K.?" Alun asked Gwyn.
"Yes, I'm O.K."
"D'you want me to walk up with you?"
"No," Gwyn replied. "I said I was all right, didn't I?"
"Are you sure?" Alun persisted. He turned to face Gwyn and began to walk up the hill backwards.
"They didn't hurt me that bad," Gwyn said angrily. "I just can't walk that fast."
"I suppose she's going to help you?" Alun said. He was still walking backwards and looking at someone behind Gwyn.
"Who?"
"Her!" Alun nodded in the direction of the main road. Then he turned and ran up the lane.
Gwyn glanced over his shoulder to see what Alun had meant. Eirlys was walking up towards him.
"What are you doing?" Gwyn shouted. "You don't get off here!"
The girl just smiled and kept coming.
"You'll be in trouble! How're you going to get home?"
"I'll walk," said Eirlys.
"Oh heck!" cried Gwyn.
"Don't worry!" The girl continued her approach and Gwyn waited, unable to turn his back on her.
"It'll be all right," she said when she was beside him. "I'll just come home with you. You might need someone, with all those bruises." She tapped his arm and went ahead up the hill.
When they turned a bend and Nain's cottage suddenly came into view, Eirlys stopped and stared at the building.
"My grandmother lives there," Gwyn said.
"Does she." Eirlys spoke the words not as a question, but as a response that was expected of her.
She passed the cottage slowly, trailing her fingers along the top of the stone wall. Sprays of snow flew onto her sleeve, and she never took her eyes off the light in Nain's downstairs window.
Gwyn was tempted to take the girl in to meet his grandmother. But it was getting dark, and they still had to pass the furrows of snow that had drifted into the narrow path further on. He wondered how on earth Eirlys was going to get home. "What will Mrs. . What's-'er-name say, when you're not on the bus?" he asked.
"Mrs. Herbert? She's kind. She'll understand," Eirlys replied.
They held hands when they reached the snowdrifts, Gwyn leading the girl to higher ground at the edge of the path. Once again he gasped at the icy touch of her fingers, and when Eirlys laughed, the sound was familiar to him.
She was reluctant to come into the farmhouse, and when Gwyn insisted, she approached it cautiously, with a puzzled frown on her face. Every now and then she would look away from the house, up to where the mountain should have been, but where, now, only a moving white mist could be seen.
"Come on," said Gwyn. "Mam'll give you a cup of tea."
He opened the front door and called into the kitchen, "I'm back, Mam. Sorry I'm late. I had a bit of trouble with the snow."
"I thought you would," came the reply.
His mother was stirring something on the stove when he went into the kitchen. She turned to speak to him but instead cried out, "Your face! What's happened?"
"I had a bit of a fight. It's not anything, really!" Gwyn said.
His father got up from the chair by the kitchen table, where he had been mending some electrical equipment. He was about to be angry, but then he saw Eirlys standing in the doorway. "Who's this?" he asked.
"Eirlys!" said Gwyn. "She helped me. She walked up from the bus with me to see I was all right."
"That was kind of you, Eirlys," said Mrs. Griffiths. "Take your coat off and warm up a bit. I'll make a pot of tea."
She began to help Gwyn with his coat, exclaiming all the time at the state of his muddy clothes and the bruises on his face.
Eirlys came into the room and took off her hat and coat. She drew a chair up to the table and sat down opposite Mr. Griffiths. He just stood there, staring at her, while his big hands groped for the tiny brass screws that had escaped him and now spun out across the table.
The girl caught one of the screws and stretched across to put it safe into his hand. Gwyn heard the sharp intake of breath as his father felt her icy fingers. He laughed. "She's cold-blooded, isn't she, Dad?" he said.
Mr. Griffiths did not reply. He sat down and began his work again. Mrs. Griffiths poured the tea and brought a fruit cake to the table. They discussed the snow and the school and the fight. Mrs. Griffiths asked how and why the fight had begun. Although Gwyn could not give a satisfactory explanation, Mr. Griffiths did not say a word. He did not even seem to be listening to them, but every now and then he would look up and stare at Eirlys.
When it was dark Mrs. Griffiths said, "You'd better ring your mam, she'll be worrying."
"She hasn't got a mam," Gwyn answered for the girl. "She's living with the Herberts."
"Oh, you poor love." Mrs. Griffiths shook her head sympathetically.
"They're lovely," said Eirlys brightly, "so kind. They won't mind. They'll fetch me. They said they always would if I wanted, and it's not far."
"No need for that." Mr. Griffiths suddenly stood up. "I'll take you in the Land Rover."
Gwyn was amazed. His father never offered lifts. "You're honored," he whispered to Eirlys as Mr. Griffiths strode out of the back door.
By the time Eirlys had gathered up her hat and coat and her schoolbag, the deep throbbing of the Land Rover's engine could be heard out in the lane.
"Good-bye," said Eirlys. She walked up to Mrs. Griffiths and kissed her. Mrs. Griffiths was startled. She looked as though she had seen a ghost.