Free Winterbringers by Gill Arbuthnott

trying to escape the cold.
    In Constantine’s Cave the Winter King sat against the cold stone, his arms wrapped round his chest, concentrating all his strength on forcing back the cold. Something had quelled it for a time earlier, but now he could feel it once more, struggling to break free of his control. He knew he did nothave the strength to keep it at bay for much longer.
    But he had to try.
    ***
    By Pitmillie beach, the sea slowed and thickened and glazed with ice. It clotted and bulged, groaning and cracking with its own life as two figures hauled themselves from it.
    They were vaguely like men, but like statues only half-shaped , the hands and feet unfinished, club-like, the faces nothing more than blurred suggestions.
    They stepped from the sea ice and lifted their heads and sniffed and set off ponderously up the beach towards the village.
    ***
    At three in the morning Luath lifted his head from his paws and began to growl deep in his throat. Ears flat, he backed slowly away from the front door, the growl turning into a howl.
    Within a minute George, Rose and Callie were all downstairs, Callie still half asleep.
    “What is it? What’s wrong?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.
    “Nothing Callie. It’s all right,” said George.
    There was a dragging sound outside the door and Luath edged further away from it.
    “What’s that?” Callie looked from George to Rose, alarmed now.
    George made to lift the curtain over the hall window.
    “No George – leave it be,” Rose said sharply.
    Callie turned to her. “What is it? There’s someone out there. What’s going on?”
    “There’s nothing,” said Rose desperately.
    “Of course there is,” Callie almost shouted. “You know what’s going on, don’t you? Tell me!”
    “All right: I will, I promise, but please not now.”
    The noise outside died away and Luath fell silent and moved cautiously towards the door, nose and ears twitching.
    The three of them stood frozen to the spot as the smells of weed and water drifted in to them.
    “Go back to bed Callie,” said Rose, in a tone of voice that Callie had never heard before, one that she wouldn’t have dared disobey.
    When she went upstairs, George and Rose were still staring at the door.
    In her room, she went at once to her window and moved the curtains just enough to be able to look outside. She could see no one in the dark garden below her, just the frost-rimmed shapes of shrubs and trees, but when she looked out over the potato field where she’d first seen Josh, she thought that near the far side she could see two figures, glimmering yet indistinct against the darkness.
    She curled up tight in bed and left the light on.
    ***
    Josh didn’t know exactly what woke him, nor, at first, where he was. He poked his head out from under the covers for some air and to get his bearings and remembered everything at once, just as the noise came from outside his window.
    He went rigid, trying not to breathe.
Don’t be stupid
, he told himself.
Either you just imagined it, or it’s the wind or a fox or something
.
    He had just begun to relax when it came again; a scraping sound just outside his window, as thoughsomething heavy was being moved across the gravel.
    He found that he could hardly breathe. Although he listened, there were no more sounds, but he couldn’t shake the idea that something was outside.
    Shamefaced, he crept from his bed through to his mother’s room and shook her awake.
    She couldn’t remember how long it had been since he came to her frightened in the night. Looking at his face, she put aside the jocular things she’d been going to say, wondering at the same time why she wasn’t frightened when he so clearly was.
    They stood in his room, listening to nothing.
    “It was probably a fox,” she said, “but let’s put on the outside light and look from the sitting room.
    The sitting room had french doors and a switch for the outside spotlight. Josh hung back while his mother switched on the