A Christmas story

A winter’s tale

Author Stephen Gregory tells a story about life, friendship and a little Christmas miracle…

Rachel was in a funk. It was Christmas Eve and she was eight years old, and she was sitting in the back of her parents’ car… in a funk.

She didn’t know what her Mum and Dad had bought her for Christmas, but she’d peeped into the spare bedroom upstairs at home and seen a few parcels wrapped in tinsel and red and silver paper … the presents they would carry down to the living-room and arrange underneath the tree when they thought she was fast asleep. Because they thought she still believed in Father Christmas, that he would park his reindeers on the roof and struggle down the chimney.

Oh dear. She didn’t know what to believe. She was eight years old, befuddled between believing and not believing.

They’d come for a drive, up into the mountains of Snowdonia. It had been snowing and the whole world was picture-perfect, like one enormous and delightful Christmas card. Mum and Dad were cosy in the front of the car, as they sat in a lay-by by the lake at Nantgwynant… along the road which climbed up towards the Pen yr Gwyryd Hotel and even higher to Pen y Pass.

Yes, it was a winter wonderland. Rachel sat in the back, in her bright red Christmas coat and with her long golden hair perfectly brushed. She nibbled a mince pie and sipped the tea they’d brought in flask. But she wasn’t in the mood. Everything was too nice. She wanted something to

happen – something to enliven her and this pretty, picture-perfect world.

There was a crunching of gravel and a car pulled into the lay-by behind them. No, not a car. As Rachel swivelled to look, she saw a filthy and battered white van lurching to a standstill, and a

man got out. Dressed in a baggy old jacket and corduroy trousers and heavy brown boots, he was as muddy and unprepossessing as his van. He moved to the back, opened the door, and a dog leapt out.

A thin, brown dog, lean and sinewy – with nothing but muscle beneath its mud-caked fur. A few moments later it was loping across the field to the edge of the lake and the man was hurrying

after it.

And there was a fox. It sprang out of the long grass, startled by the sound and scent of the dog and the man, and it dashed ahead them. It was quick and wonderful, like a living red flame on

the deep snow. It brought a sudden gasp to Rachel’s lips.

The fox was fleeing for its life. Without a moment’s hesitation, Rachel flung the car door open

and jumped out. And she ran after the man and the dog and the fox.

Her parents called after her. They tumbled their tea and mince pies onto the floor and jumped

out to follow her, shouting at her to stop, to come back.

But she was too quick for them. In her bright red coat, with her long golden hair flying, she was

as vivid and hot as the fox, against the cold white snow.

of her, the fox had rounded the edge of the lake and was dashing up the steep rocks on the further side, nimble and strong and yet slipping sometimes on the scree and slithering back. The dog was stronger still, a deadly creature of muscle and sinew and bone, intent on only one thing – to bring its stamina to bear onto the fox, to catch it and kill it without a single other thought in its head.

And so they all climbed, or clambered and slithered, up and up... the girl, the lean and terrible dog, and the fox – against the blackness of the rocks and a dazzle of snow.

Until the fox could climb no further. It reached a ledge on which it was cornered. It had nowhere to go, because the crag had become a cliff which was sheer and bare. It turned to face the dog, which still had the power to work itself closer. The fox snickered and snarled, baring its gleaming white teeth and grimacing with all the breath left in its body.

And Rachel was there too. She paused beneath the dog and the fox. The dog turned to see her, for the first time, because until

that moment all of its focus had been on nothing but the fox. Suddenly, it saw another flash of brilliant redness against the

snow, not a fox but something just as vivid and alive – and it was bewildered long enough to give the fox a glimmer of hope.

The fox jumped. With no other option except to wait for the dog to lunge closer, it leapt from its ledge. It fell through the air, past the dog and past the girl and landed in a breathtaking impact on the scree below.

And Rachel reached for the only weapons to hand. She pelted the dog with snowballs until its muzzle was powdered and its eyes were befuddled… until it stumbled down the hillside to where its master was swearing and shouting for it to come back to him.

Rachel moved towards the fox. Its whole body was heaving with exertion and fear. She knelt to it, and it rolled its eyes to see what strange creature had come so close. She reached to touch the fox, and it was too exhausted to snarl. It was thinking only of giving up breathing, after such a terrible ordeal and its leap to a different kind of death – to fall onto the rocks rather than submit to the jaws of the dog.

But as Rachel stroked the fox from the top of its head to its marvellous brush, the creature felt the warmth and life in her hands – and it knew there was yet enough life and warmth in its own body to keep on living. For a few moments, the girl and the fox were as one… like a hot red living flame on a

background of icy rocks.

The fox took a long quivering breath, a breath of newly

quickened life.

It nipped at the girl’s hand, sudden and sharp, but more of a kiss than a bite. It stood up and shook its body and its brush so that the snow flew off in a shimmer of sunlight. And it slipped

away, down the hillside, disappearing into the snow-covered grass at the edge of the lake.

Rachel saw the blood on her fingers, where the fox had caught

her with its sharp white teeth. For a moment it welled up into gleaming, red-black rubies, and she flicked it onto the snow.

Red and then pink, the jewels disappeared.

The man had driven away in his dirty van, with his dog. Rachel sat quietly in the back of the car and they all drove home. It was

Christmas Eve and the world was alive, perfectly alive, with the magic of life. She had already had a Christmas kiss, and a gift of rubies. And in a few hours’ time there would be a Christmas miracle… believe it or not.

Stephen Gregory’s first novel, The Cormorant, which he wrote in Snowdonia 35 years ago, has been published several times in both the UK and the USA, and translated into German, Polish and Italian. The new edition, which is available from Parthian Books, is its tenth publication.