Mam kept her word. Alun Lloyd arrived at four o'clock, but he brought his twin brothers with him. That was not part of the arrangement.
There were nine Lloyds all crammed into a farmhouse only one room larger than the Griffiths'. Sometimes Mrs. Lloyd, ever eager to acquire a little more space, took it upon herself to send three or four children where only one had been invited. She was, however, prepared to pay for these few precious hours of peace. Alun, Gareth, and Sion had all brought gifts. Mrs. Griffiths, guessing the outcome of her invitation, had provided tea for seven.
Kneeling on the kitchen floor, Gwyn tore the colored paper off his presents: a red kite, a pen, and a pair of black plastic spectacles with a large pink nose, black eyebrows, and a black moustache attached.
"Looks like your dad, doesn't it?" Sion giggled, and he snatched up the spectacles, put them on, and began to prance up and down the room, chest out and fingers tucked behind imaginary suspenders.
Suddenly it was like other people's birthdays — the way a birthday should be, but Gwyn's never was.
Nain arrived with a box under her arm. "For your birthday," she said. "Records. I don't want them any more."
"But Nain, you've given your presents," said Gwyn.
"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth," Nain retorted. "Who are these nice little boys?"
"You know who they are. The Lloyds, Alun and Gareth and Sion, from Ty Llyr. Don't you ever see your neighbors?" chided Gwyn.
"Not the one with the specs. I don't know that one. Looks like your father." Nain chuckled. "Put on some music, Glenys!"
"Well, I don't know. . " Mrs. Griffiths looked worried. "Ivor put the record player away. We haven't used it since…"
"Time to get it out then," said Nain.
Somewhat reluctantly, Mrs. Griffiths knelt in the corner of the kitchen and withdrew the record player from a small neglected cupboard. She placed it on the kitchen table while the boys gathered round.
"I can't remember where to plug it in," said Mrs. Griffiths.
"The light, Mam," Gwyn explained. "Look, the plug is for the light."
"But. . it's beginning to get dark." His mother sounded almost afraid.
"Candles! We can have candles!" Gwyn began to feel ridiculously elated. He fetched a box of candles from the cupboard and set them up on saucers and bottles all around the room.
Then they put on one of Nain's records. It was very gay and very loud: a fiddle, a flute, a harp, and a singer. The sort of music to make you dance wildly, and the Lloyds went wild. They drummed on the table, jumped on the chairs, stamped on the floor, waved the dish towels, juggled with the cat. The cat objected, and Sion retired, temporarily, from the merrymaking, bloody-eared but unbowed.
In her purple dress and black lace stockings, Nain began to dance, her dark curls bouncing and her colored beads flying. She wore silver bracelets, too, which jangled when she raised her arms. Her black shawl swung out and made the candles flicker.
sang the singers, and so sang Nain in her high quivering voice.
The Lloyds thought it the funniest thing they had ever seen. Clutching their sides, they rolled on the floor, gasping and giggling.
Gwyn smiled, but he did not laugh. There was something strange, almost magical, about the tall figure spinning in the candlelight.
Down in the field, Gwyn's father heard the music. For a few moments he paused and listened while his cows, eager to be milked, ambled on up to the farmyard. Mr. Griffiths regarded the mountain rising dark and bare beside the house and remembered his daughter.
When the boys had breath left neither for dancing nor laughter, Mrs. Griffiths tucked the record player away in its corner, stood up, and removed her apron. Then she patted her hair, smoothed her dress, and said rather quiet and coy, "Tea will be in here today, boys!" She walked across the hallway and opened the door into the front room.
Gwyn was perplexed. Teas, even fairly fancy teas with relatives, were always in the kitchen these days. He moved uncertainly towards the open door and looked in.
A white cloth had been laid on the long oak table, so white it almost hurt his eyes. And upon the cloth, the best blue china, red napkins, plates piled with brightly wrapped candies, with sugar mice and chocolate pigs. There were chips and popcorn, and cakes with colored icing on a silver stand. There were snappers too, decorated with gold and silver paper, and in the center of the table a magnificent sea of ice cream.
The Lloyds crowded into the doorway beside Gwyn and gazed at the splendid spread. Gwyn felt so proud. "Oh, Mam," he breathed. "Oh, Mam!"
Then Gareth and Sion rushed past him and pulled out their chairs exclaiming, "Gwyn! Gwyn, come on, let's start, we're starving!"
"It's the grandest birthday table I've ever seen," said Alun. "Our Mam has never done anything like that."
"Nor has his, until today," said Nain. "It was about time."
Gwyn took his place at the head of the table and they began. There was so much chatter, so much laughter, no one heard Mr. Griffiths come in from milking and go upstairs. And Mrs. Griffiths, happy and gratified, did not notice her husband's boots beside the back door, nor his coat upon the hook, when she went into the kitchen to get the birthday cake.
The cake was huge and white, with chocolate windows and silver banners and on each of the ten towers, a flaming candle.
"Turn out the lights!" cried Gareth. He sprang to the switch, plunging the party into cosy candlelight.
"Blow out the candles, Gwyn, and wish!" commanded Sion.
Gwyn drew a deep breath and then paused. "Let's cut the cake and leave the candles," he said. "They look so good. Let's leave them till they die."
They were still lit when Mr. Griffiths came downstairs again. Snappers were snapping, and no one heard his feet upon the tiled kitchen floor, tapping in unfamiliar shoes. When the door opened, the tiny flames glowed fiercely for a moment and then died.
Except for a white shirt Mr. Griffiths was dressed entirely in black. He stared at the table in cold disbelief.
The shock of the electric light jolted the party out of its homey cheerfulness. The birthday table looked spoiled and untidy. Someone had spilled orange juice on the white cloth.
"What's this? Celebrating are we?" Mr. Griffiths' mouth was tight, his face white with displeasure.
Sion was still wearing the spectacle mask, and his brothers began to giggle. He did resemble Mr. Griffiths.
"It's Gwyn's birthday, Ivor," Mrs. Griffiths explained nervously. "You're just in time for—"
"I know what day it is." Her husband spoke the words slowly through clenched teeth, as though the taste were bitter. "There are candles wasting in the kitchen, chairs on the floor, and look at this. . litter!" He flung out his hand, indicating the table.
"Sit down, Ivor Griffiths, you miserable man," said Nain, "and celebrate your son's birthday!"
"Miserable is it?" Mr. Griffiths' big red hands were clasped tight across his chest, one hand painfully rubbing and pressing the other. "Miserable is it, to be remembering my own daughter who is gone? My daughter who went on this day, four years ago?"
Suddenly Mrs. Griffiths stood up. "Enough! We've had enough, Ivor!" she protested. "We remember Bethan too. We've mourned her going every year on this day, for four years. But it's Gwyn's birthday, and we've had enough of mourning! Enough! Enough!" She was almost crying.
Gwyn turned away. He did not want to look at the bright colors on the table, nor to see his friends' faces. He knew that his birthday was over. His mother was talking, but he could not listen to the words as she ushered his friends out. He heard them shuffling into the kitchen, murmuring good-bye, but he could not move. His father was still standing by the table, sad and silent in his black suit.
"How could you do that, Ivor?" Nain reproached her son as the front door slammed.
"How could I? I have done nothing. It was that one!" He looked at Gwyn. "She is gone because of him, my Bethan is."
It was said.
Gwyn felt almost relieved. He got up slowly and pushed his chair neatly back to the table. Without looking at his father, he walked out to the kitchen.
His mother was standing by the sink, waving to the Lloyds through a narrow window. She swung round quickly when she heard her son. "I'm sorry, Gwyn," she said quietly. "So sorry." She came towards him and hugged him close. Her face was flushed and she had put her apron on again.
"It was a great party, Mam! Thanks!" said Gwyn. "The other boys liked it too. I know they did."
"But I wanted your father to—"
"It doesn't matter, Mam," Gwyn interrupted quickly. "It was grand. I'll always remember it!"
He drew away from his mother and ran up to his room, where he sat on the edge of his bed, smiling at the memory of his party and the way it had been before his father had arrived. Gwyn knew his father could not help the bitterness that burst out of him every now and again, and he had developed a way of distancing himself from the ugly words: He thought hard about the good times, until the bad ceased to exist.
A tiny sound caused him to go to the window. There was a light in the garden, a lantern swaying in the evening breeze.
Gwyn opened the window. "Who's there?" he called.
He was answered by a high, girlish laugh, and then his grandmother's voice. "Remember your gifts, Gwydion Gwyn. Remember Math, Lord of Gwynedd. Remember Gwydion and Gilfaethwy!"
"Are you being funny, Nain?"
There was a long pause and then the reply, "It's not a game I'm playing, Gwydion Gwyn. Once in every seven generations the power returns — so they say. Your father never had it, nor did mine. Let's find out who you are!"
The gate clicked shut and the lantern went swinging down the lane. The words of an old song rose and fell on the freshening wind until the light and the voice faded altogether.
Before he shut the window, Gwyn looked up at the mountain and remembered his sixth birthday. It had been a fine day. Like today. But in the middle of the night a storm had broken. The rain had come pouring down the mountainside in torrents, boulders and branches rumbling and groaning in its path. The Griffiths family had awakened, pulled the blankets closer to their heads, and fallen asleep again. Except for Gwyn. His black sheep was still up on the mountain. He had nursed it himself as a motherless lamb, wrapping it in Mam's old pullover, cosy by the fire. He had fed it with a bottle five times a day, until it had grown into a fine ewe.
"Please, get her! Please, save her!" Gwyn had shaken his sister awake.
Bethan had grumbled, but because she was older, and because she was kind, she had agreed to try to find his sheep.
The last time Gwyn saw her she had been standing by the back door in her red raincoat, testing the big outdoor flashlight. It was the night after Halloween, and the pumpkin was still on the windowsill, grimacing with its dark gaping mouth and sorrowful eyes. Bethan had become strangely excited, as though she were going to meet someone very special, not just a lonely black ewe. "Shut the door tight when I am gone," she had whispered, "or the wind will howl through the house and wake Mam and Dad!" Then, swinging the yellow scarf round her dark hair, she had walked out into the storm. Bethan had never been afraid of anything.
Through the kitchen window, Gwyn had watched the beam of light flashing on the mountainside until it disappeared. Then he had fallen asleep on the rug beside the stove.
They never saw Bethan again, though they searched every inch of the mountain. They never found a trace of her perilous climb on that wild night, nor did they find the black ewe. The girl and the animal seemed to have vanished!