Mad Dog Moonlight (24 page)

But it wasn't cups the sailors were trying to leave
behind this time. Again they pressed their gift on Mad Dog, insisting that he should have it. And this time he took it – but refused to open it.

‘I'll leave it until later,' he said.

‘If you do that, you may regret it,' the sailors said.

Finally Mad Dog was persuaded to open the beautifully packaged little gift, tearing off the wrapping paper to find a silver necklace inside.
A silver chain necklace stuffed full of charms!

Mad Dog dropped it, as if it was on fire. ‘You must be joking!' he cried out. ‘I don't want it. Take it back. You promised me. It was over.
Over
– that's what you said!'

Abren picked up the necklace. She said that it was over, but that didn't mean there weren't still things that needed laying to rest. Mad Dog asked her where they'd found it, and she said on the ground, the night of the map, but that they hadn't mentioned it before because the time hadn't been right.

‘And now's right?' Mad Dog said. ‘You're all ready to leave, and I'm left behind, and you call this
the right time
?'

Abren held out the necklace, but Mad Dog backed away from it and not even her insisting that it was a trophy, won in battle, fair and square, made any difference.

‘You're the victor here,' Abren said. ‘You're the boy who set Plynlimon free. So, by rights, this trophy's yours.'

Again she held it out, but Mad Dog didn't want a trophy any more than he wanted the necklace. Besides, it didn't look like a trophy as far as he was concerned. It looked horribly like what Aunty had once called a
poisoned chalice
, and how could he forget all the trouble the last poisoned chalice had brought into the family?

‘If you're right and this
is
a trophy,' he said, ‘then it can't just be for one of us at the others' expense. We're
all
inheritors here, not just me. The three of us are victors, which means you can't go off and leave me. There's a job here that needs doing, and we've got to do it together. This necklace has to be taken back up Plynlimon, where it belongs, and buried deep in the darkness where
it will never see the light of day again
.'

The sailors' departure was put on hold for one more night. Aunty allowed herself to be persuaded to lend them her Range Rover and a torch and a spade. Uncle wasn't very happy about it – especially as it was a school day in the morning – but Mad Dog showed him the necklace, saying that not for a single night did he want it in the same vardo, hotel or even village as him. And there was something about it that set even Uncle shivering.

It was getting dark by the time Mad Dog and the sailors were ready to leave. Phaze II drove. Abren sat by the window looking out into the night, her expression tight and faraway, as if it cost her dearly to return to Plynlimon. And Mad Dog sat between them, trying to feel safe but knowing he never would, not as long as the silver necklace weighed down his pocket.

They drove as far as they could by road, Mad Dog directing them until he no longer recognised where they were, and then Abren directing until eventually even she admitted she was lost. A gate appeared ahead of them, with a cattle grid beyond it. She jumped out to open it and a vast wilderness stretched out before
them. Phaze II cranked the Range Rover into gear and they set off across it, heading directly into the heart of Plynlimon.

‘When are we going to stop?' Mad Dog asked.

‘When it feels right,' Abren said.

‘What does that mean?' Mad Dog said.

‘It means that we want to make sure it stays buried,' Abren said.

Mad Dog shivered. He remembered late-night horror films that he'd seen on the telly when Aunty and Uncle were still working, and the curious ways of vampires and ghouls, who always sprang back to life in the final frame. Phaze II asked what he was thinking and, when he told him, burst out laughing. He used to watch those sorts of films too, he said.

‘But they're just stories. Their purpose is to scare you. This is different because it's real. And, in this story, we're in charge. What we bind here will stay bound. What we end here will be over, now and always.'

By now, the way had become so rocky that Phaze II could drive no further. He abandoned the Range Rover and they took to foot, wading across streams, climbing up sheep's paths and struggling through patches of bog. Eventually they came upon a stretch of open grassland that Abren seemed certain lay directly between the
ffynnons
of Plynlimon's three great rivers.

‘Here's what we've been looking for,' she said, grabbing the shovel and digging out a first turf. ‘Here, can't you feel it? This is the right place. Let's dig, shall we?'

It was a beautiful night – far too beautiful for digging but they gathered round, with bare hands and
the shovel, and got stuck in. The ground was soft and peaty, but the task was far more difficult than they'd expected. Even shovelling out huge clumps of earth made no difference. No matter how deeply they dug, or how quickly, their holes kept filling with black, peaty water.

It was like trying to dig in a sea bed – only a thousand times dirtier. Soon Mad Dog, Abren and Phaze II were covered from head to toe in mud. They sat back on their heels, looked at each other and burst out laughing.

‘Are you sure you got the right place?' Phaze II said.

‘Are you questioning my judgement?' Abren said.

‘I'm questioning your geography,' Phaze II said.

Abren flicked peat at him, and he flicked her back. Above them, the stars were out and the moon was a great peach-coloured disc rising regally over hills and mountaintops. Mad Dog looked up. It was the first time he'd witnessed a clear night on Plynlimon and the sky was huge and wonderful. On one side of it he could make out the orange glow of Aberystwyth. On the other, he could see the richest, deepest, most luscious black. And in between – arching right over Plynlimon Fawr – he could see another sort of light altogether, which wasn't starlight or moonlight or made by any city.

‘What's that?' Mad Dog said.

The sailors stopped larking about and looked where he was pointing. Above Plynlimon Fawr, a sheet of what Mad Dog could only describe as lightness seemed to hang across the air, shimmering and shifting like the reflection of a landscape in a lake.

Abren wiped her eyes. ‘It's the Aurora Borealis,' she
said. ‘It has to be. Northern Lights, to you. A beautiful sight, isn't it?'

With a sigh, she turned away and started digging again. Phaze II said it couldn't be the Northern Lights, not this far south. Abren said of course it was, and they started larking about again.

Mad Dog left them to it and sneaked away, wondering what moonlit madness had got to them.

‘Hey, where do you think you're going? Come back here!' Abren called.

Mad Dog replied that he wouldn't be long. He climbed a bank that rose immediately behind them, and started walking along the top, his head tilted back. It was years since he'd seen so many stars, going right back to when he'd been a little boy living on the road, when his dad had taught him the constellations, shape by shape, and told him all their names.

Mad Dog wheeled round for three hundred and sixty degrees, recognising shapes again, their names coming back to him. There was Orion, and there were the stars that formed its belt.There was its buckle and there, brighter than the rest, was Sirius the Dog Star. There was the Plough, sometimes also known as the Great Bear. And there, high above everything else, following a clear line drawn across the sky, was the great North Star around which everything radiated like the hub of a great wheel, or a Plynlimon in the sky.

Mad Dog could have stood there for minutes, hours, days or weeks, feeling the sky circling over him and the mountain beneath. What did time count for, caught up in a thing like this? Finally he started walking again, ending up at that string of ponds he'd
discovered on his school trip. The first was still full of cotton-grass and the second of lily pads. But the third pond – the crystal-clear one, where he'd stopped to drink – was now so full of water that it was bursting its banks and flowing off across the moss in a series of silver streams.

‘What's happening here?' Mad Dog said.

He picked his way down to the pond, which was as silvery as the moon. Across the moss, he could see its streams finally joining together in one single strand of water that shone as if it had been polished, even lighting up the sky. That he'd found the source of the reflected light over Plynlimon Fawr, Mad Dog had no doubt. But what was the cause of all this water, spilling everywhere like molten silver? Where did it come from? And where did it go?

Mad Dog looked out across the moss to the place where the land and sky were so bright that they became blurred and it was hard to tell one from the other. A shiver ran through him, as if he knew what he was about to discover. Knew too that, out there somewhere on the edge of this extraordinary mountain, all the answers to his questions awaited him.

Mad Dog left the pond behind and started heading for the shining strand of water, following the path of the criss-cross silver streams. Brightness pressed in on every side and he found himself almost blinded by an excess of light. He walked until finally he could go no further, standing on a grassy hilltop with a drop beneath his feet and nothing but sky ahead. And there, before his dazzled, unbelieving eyes, the single strand of shining water launched itself – out across space.

As if Plynlimon was its
fynnon
, it simply flowed away!

Mad Dog cried out. Before him, the single strand of shining water journeyed regally across the sky. It looped around the moon. It cut a path between the planets. It flowed amongst the stars, finally fading out of sight. And it was his mother's silver river. The one he'd missed the night that he was born.
Mad Dog was seeing it with his own eyes.

How long Mad Dog stood there, he didn't know. All he knew was that he'd found the river that had given him his name. Found the treasure too, that the Ingram sisters had told him about. No wonder the Manager had wanted to keep it to himself and make Plynlimon his! With a secret like this, who wouldn't feel possessive?

Suddenly, as if something had finally slotted into place, Mad Dog found himself digging into his pocket and pulling out the necklace. What was it the Ingram sisters had said about people going up Plynlimon and never coming back? He held the necklace up in the light and its charms clamoured, as if struggling to break free. Every one of them was shaped like a tiny person, and there were hundreds of them hanging from the same heavy chain. Every one was different and had a different face, and Mad Dog found himself rifling back through them all, his heart pounding as if he knew what he'd find.

Sure enough, there they were at last – a little silver man, frozen in time with a bottle in his hand and a little silver lady with hair flying round her like a cloak of darkness. They could have been anybody because they were so small and their faces so indistinct. But
Mad Dog would have known his parents anywhere, made of any substance and at any size. They were holding out their hands to him – and Mad Dog understood at last why the sailors had said the necklace was his.

They'd known
, hadn't they? They hadn't simply dumped this necklace on him, but had discerned its true nature and known what he'd find. Perhaps they'd recognised something from Mad Dog's description of his parents, or perhaps they'd understood anyway. But, either way, in agreeing to help him lay this necklace to rest, they had taken upon themselves the role of undertakers.

Mad Dog cupped the tiny figures in his hands. It wasn't for funeral services that he'd come back up Plynlimon. It wasn't for burials. If he'd thought it was, he'd got it wrong. He might have failed to rescue his parents once – and lived in shame because of it –
but he could rescue them now
.

Holding the necklace carefully, Mad Dog inched as close as he could get to the place where mountain and sky went their separate ways. Before him, he could see the silver river making its long journey between the stars. There were colours in that river that he'd never seen before and for which he had no names. Standing on the edge of the world, he watched them twisting, winking and flowing away. Once his mother had seen this river too, and raised her arms to it and wished that she could make its journey hers.

And now it lay in her son's power to make that wish come true.

Mad Dog threw the necklace as far as he could. It arched over the river and its chains burst open. A
thousand silver charms started raining down. One by one, they struck the river's surface and were carried away. And a thousand silver sighs – including those of Mad Dog's parents – whispered ‘
thank you
' and ‘
goodbye
'.

Afterwards Mad Dog sat on the edge of Plynlimon, as close as he could get to the immense expanse of space, knowing that the mountain's treasure was his for the night. The river flowed away from him, looping over Plynlimon Fawr, almost touching it before cruising on over other mountaintops like the fiery tail of an enormous comet, and finally flowing away, leaving the earth behind and heading for the moon and stars.

But, for all that it was magical and utterly mysterious, it was a real river too – as real as any Rheidol that Mad Dog had ever called his friend. As it disappeared across the sky, Mad Dog watched fish leaping in its silver waters and kingfishers darting down them along with swans and herons, dabs and ducks, dipping cormorants and tall-necked geese, all heading off towards the stars as if theirs was an ordinary journey on just an ordinary night.

The entire river, it seemed, teemed with life. There were even boats on it, to Mad Dog's astonishment. When the first went past, he couldn't quite believe his eyes. There were even people in those boats. Ordinary people just like him. It was incredible. How had they got there, out on that water? And where were they going?