A Sprig of Holly



  A Sprig of Holly

  By

  J.A. Clement

  Published by Weasel Green Press

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A SPRIG OF HOLLY

  Copyright © 2011 J.A. Clement

  Text Design by Tricia Kristufek

  ISBN-13: 978-1-908212-15-3

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Requests for permission should be addressed to the author.

  A Sprig of Holly

  “Help! Help! Oh Gods, what shall I do? Matthias isn’t here - there isn’t anyone this side of the peak. What shall I do? Pappy, can you hear me?” Greta clutched her aching head, dizzy, and staggered over to where the tree lay across the still form of her Grandfather. “Pappy? Please, Pappy, talk to me…”

  Desperately she heaved at the tree, trying to shift it far enough to release him, but it did not lift in the slightest and the effort only made her head swim, so she dropped to her knees in the snow next to him. “Oh Pappy… if only Matthias had got back. Why did I ever agree to come out this far?”

  There was a rustling in the stillness, and Greta fell silent, listening. There might not be anyone human this side of the mountain, but that did not mean that there were no animals around. It was a few years since they’d been troubled with wolves, but if they had come back, Pappy’s predicament might not be a problem for either of them for much longer. Desperately she scanned the clearing in the dusk, searching for a glimpse of grey muzzle… and instead, out hopped the hare. The relief was such that her laugh was nearly a sob.

  “You look so much like my hare, the one from the house. We’re in such trouble, hare, such trouble, and I don’t know what to do.” Greta wiped her eyes; blood was trickling down her temple and now she was not moving along, the cold was biting. “Pappy is trapped and I can’t help him, and Matthias isn’t back from town. It’s so cold, and night is coming on and if I go back to the house for a blanket or the sleigh or anything that I could use to help him, it’ll be dark before I get there and I’ll never find him again.” She did not voice the fact that her grandfather would have died of cold long before she had finished that trek. “There is no-one to help and no-one to advise me. What do you suggest, hare?”

  The hare looked at her with that candid gaze for a long minute. It had such an intelligent, considering expression that she almost expected it to reply; but then it simply turned tail and sped off.

  “And now I’m talking to animals, and even they aren’t stopping out in this sort of weather.” Greta rearranged her clothes under her to protect her from the snow a little more. They’d be sodden soon, and then she too would not last long enough to get back to the house, but she could not abandon her grandfather to die along and trapped in the chill darkness. How had it come to this?

  Looking up, she saw the first twinkling star of the evening showing faintly through the fading light of dusk. Night fell quickly here. It would not be long now. Taking her grandfather’s hand in her own, she composed him as comfortably as she could. A few short hours ago – last night, even, how snug and warm they had been in the drowsy warmth of the kitchen; and how different this coming darkness would be.

  Greta shuddered, wishing with all her heart that somewhere in the last day or so she had found another way of keeping them warm; but events had unfolded with inevitable logic - yes, ever since she had realised how near they were to running out of wood…

  …Greta sat in the cosy, half-lit kitchen looking out of the window. It was no longer snowing; the clouds had cleared and the moon shone clear and bright, magnified by the deep covering of white over the fields. The walls stood black against the snow, and further away where the thick pines of the forest came down to the fields, the trees seemed to be little more than intricately-cut silhouettes. It was beautiful, untouched save for a small flurry in the garden where a hare leapt and bounded through the snow. Greta could not be sure but it looked as if the hare was playing, gambolling in the moonlight. She wished that Matthias was there, so she could have showed him.

  It was cold, though. She got up from the bench, drew the curtains to block the draught where the wooden frame had shrunk from the glass, and went to check the stove in the corner. Opening the creaky iron door with care, she looked in; the wood was burning low again, so she selected another log and added it to the fire.

  “Already?” Her grandfather had roused from dozing in the old chair by the fire. “We don’t have much more wood left. We must be sparing with it.”

  “I know, Pappy, but the fire was dying.” Greta straightened and laid the fire tongs back in the log basket, as the lamplight glinted across the polished pans which hung along the shelves

  “It’s no good.” He sat forward, frowning in thought. “We’re going to run out of logs. I need to go and cut some more.”

  “But Pappy, it’s so cold. We could wait bit longer until Matthias gets back. He would help us, I’m sure.”

  “We must not let the fire out, Greta. In this weather, without a fire we’ll freeze. After all this snow the mountain pass will be closed for another week and we can’t keep the fire going on what’s in the basket. Besides, we should not be dependent on the goodwill of a neighbour, be he ever so handsome and dashing.”

  “No, Pappy.” Greta blushed and became very preoccupied in brushing dust from her thick blue skirt.

  The old man smiled. “Don’t worry, he will be back soon, and when he is we will still need his help one way or another. And I notice that he does seem to offer it remarkably often... it may be simply that he has a taste for your excellent apple cake; but perhaps it is not just the cake that he has a weakness for…”

  “Pappy!” Greta protested, and her grandfather laughed heartily at her discomposure, before becoming serious once more.

  “Snow or no snow, tomorrow when it is light, we will go and cut wood, and this time we will not go to the softwood trees that burn so fast, but to the ironwood. That burns hot and long, and a basket of ironwood will last us far beyond this pine, which disappears as fast as if it were kindling.”

  Greta sighed. “Very well; but in the meantime I will check the wood store to see that there is nothing left in there that we could use, even little pieces.”

  “Do you think you have missed that much, my dear?” he teased.

  “No, but still.” She went and put on boots and a thick coat and hat, and he settled back in the chair. In truth, it was as much an excuse as anything; she had been cooped up in the warm, dark confines of the little house for weeks now, and recently as the wood dwindled they had moved their beds down into the kitchen to be near the warmth of the range. It happened most years, but for some reason the snow had stayed for longer than usual and Greta was beginning to feel cramped and cooped up in the tiny room. Watching the hare playing in the snow, she suddenly had felt that she must get out there in the white vastness, or burst. She did not have to explain it; her Pappy was quite familiar with her moods.

  Drawing aside the thick felt curtain that insulated the door, she stepped out of the cosy lamp-lit kitchen and into the blue cathedral spaces of the mountains. She took a deep breath of the icy air though it seared her throat, and as she exhaled the breath seemed to carry with it all her frustrations, evaporating in a cloud before her eyes.

  She took another, and felt herself relaxing… It was as if her soul had been cramped into a cage till now, and had suddenly
found itself free to spread delicate lacy wings into the blueglass night, so that the moon and starlight twinkled among the feathers. Greta found herself smiling in quiet delight at the sheer vastness of the frosted silence that surrounded her.

  As she walked out into the garden, the snow squeaked quietly under her boots, and a sudden movement caught her eye. She froze; and so did the hare, which had lolloped out of the bushes again. Evidently she did not appear threatening as it considered her for a moment and then returned to its dancing, rearing and twisting in the deep snow.

  Greta let it dance and simply stood drinking in the crisp air that tasted of water; and then she ventured a little further into the snowfield. The hare’s joy was contagious, and she danced a step or two herself, but it was a forlorn thing with no partner; so she wandered a little further, enjoying the silence and the stillness and the great white expanse of snow glinting blue under the moon.

  A sneeze. Greta turned to see the hare quite covered in snow now, sitting upright with such an indignant expression that she had to laugh, and sneezing again from the snow all over its face. It gave her an idea, though.

  “I shall make a snowmaiden!”

  Her feet were beginning to go numb from the cold, but it would not take so very long, she thought; she made a snowball, set it in the snow and began to push it along. When it became hard to push she made another, leaving green snowless paths across the field; and while she could still lift it, she placed it on the first and packed it round securely.

  It would not be a round, blobby thing like the ones the children made, she decided, placing a third ball on the column. With this bit and another it would be nearly her own height; she would sculpt it into a girl with long hair. Greta’s feet were frozen and her hands stung with cold, but this was obscurely compulsive. She had not meant to stay out here long but having started to make the snowmaiden, she had to finish it. Her hands were painfully cold now, but she could not pat down the snow properly with her mittens on and put them in her pocket while she worked.

  In the corner of the wood store she found a shard of wood which worked very well as a sculpting tool, and with it she carved the snowmaiden’s long hair, the shape of her skirt, her slender waist and the shape of her arms and face. The snowmaiden stood with her head held high, her hands hidden in the muff Greta had carved, and a calm, serene expression on her face. Eventually Greta stood back. It was nearly right; but lacked something. What was it?

  “Very good, my dear.” The kitchen door closed behind Pappy as he came out to look at her handiwork. “But she needs a splash of colour so we will be able to see her against the rest of the snow. Try this.”

  “Oh Pappy, that will look lovely!” Greta took the wispy woollen shawl from him, the rich crimson dark as arterial blood in the moonlight. It was a beautiful thing that had belonged to her mother, too lacy to hold any warmth, and so was pretty rather than useful to them. It had been hanging on a hook by the door for a long time, but neither of them could bring themselves to part with it. “How can I make it stay on?”

  Pappy trudged across to the old holly tree and selected a sprig, cutting it carefully with his penknife. Greta took it and threaded it through the holes of the pattern, where the glossy green leaves shone darkly against the wool.

  “Very nice.” Pappy admired it for a moment before taking her arm. “Are you done out here, Greta? Shall we go back in?”

  “Yes, Pappy.”

  As they returned, Greta cast a look over her shoulder. The Snowmaiden stood proud in the moonlight, looking at the moon, and by the