After the Snow by S. D. Crockett Read Free Book Online

especially. They gonna make a crown of flowers in the summer maybe. That’s the kind of thing they do at the Barmuth Meet anyway. Magda say some funny things sometimes.
    My dad tell me the stones been as old as old can be. Older than writing and books—and crowns. Big stones all sticking out of the ground like teeth. All in a circle. He said it been made so long ago the people who did it probably didn’t even have names back then.
    The sky grow pretty dark in the east. I got to find some place to bed down and get a fire going. Got to get a brew on or my sweat gonna be ice before I know it. Gonna be colder than those kids down in the pass.
    I always been lucky though. Cos right now when I reckon I
been proper lost and night coming down and the rest of it, I see a shape on the slope above me.
    Arcing off the ridge—a broken wincone with half a blade still on. I stop and pull the rope off my shoulder and stand up straight. The snow pelting down around and it been hard to see for sure but I reckon I turned up right in the middle of the winfarm without even knowing it. I can see the busted towers over to the north and up on the ridge that broken wincone lying on the ground.
    A wincone, especially one with a blade still on, is a pretty impressive looking thing I tell you. Big and smooth and lying on the ridge like a great broken bird just fall out of the sky.
    The last haul up to the ridge been the hardest part of the day. The hill so steep and the snow got proper deep here.
    The wincone aint got nothing left inside it—stealers probably got that right off a long time ago. But that been a good thing for me cos I’m gonna be able to get inside. That’s what I mean about lucky. The wincone big enough even for my sled, and I use the last light of the day to fix up a good entrance tunnel in the snow and get the firebox going. Nearly as good as a house in here.
    I feel good and snug. I aint got to worry about the wincone blowing down or dogs getting in or nothing. Tonight gonna be a good night for thinking about Plan B a bit more. I make myself a warm bed and get myself tucked in tight. I can just about make out the writing on the inside of the wincone above my head. I been studying it as the fire go out. It say NEW VISTA ENERGY in black letters.
    It gets me thinking of the old-time stuff my dad and the other grown-ups always talk about. They say the winfarm been made to
make power back in the old days, but the old-time people find they don’t work too good in the cold cos the blades can’t turn. Everyone been thinking the government done a good thing building the winfarms, but it aint worked, and now they all broken on the hilltops. Patrick say the government shoulda been making more nuclear plants like the one at Wylfa, which is strange cos he run away from there. Maybe you’re right, says my dad, cos then it wouldn’t be ANPEC who got all the money and power . But my dad don’t hold too much with any of it really. Say we got to look after ourselves. I really wish my dad been here so I can ask him more about all that stuff. My dad usually got an answer for everything.
    I got a nasty feeling then like I been a stone just tossed into the middle of Trawsfinnid Lake sinking slowly down into the black water and no one aint gonna know I’m there cos once that stone go under the surface it’s gone forever.
    I tell you I got a big panicky feeling lying in the dark in that wincone all alone thinking I been a stone sinking in the lake.

9
    The mad dog slip right back inside my head.
    It must be about four o’clock in the morning. That time when everything look worse the more you think on it.
    I stir up the fire. I got to talk to the dog, but the stones in his gray eyes staring at me flat and cold. I stroke his bony skull. Why aint you biting that mad dog on the tail? I ask him. Why aint you getting him quiet?
    I’m tired, boy. Let me rest.
    But I need you dog.
    I said, let me rest.
    The mad dog been proper excited finding me