The Silver Witch (26 page)

‘Easier on my skin and my eyes.'

They sit together in silence again, and Tilda notices she has been able to almost forget about what happened earlier in the day. The respite was helpful, but could only ever be brief. She looks at Dylan again now.

‘You know, they will move that body. From the dig.'

‘Oh yes. Lucas will make sure of that.'

‘And when they do'—she searches for the words—‘they'll set her free again.'

‘Who in God's name was she?' Dylan asks.

‘I don't know.' Tilda runs her hand through her hair, tugging it out of its plait in her exasperation. ‘I don't know who she was and I don't know why she seems intent on terrifying me. All I do know is that once that stone is taken off her again, somehow she is going to be let loose. And I have to be prepared for that. I have to be ready for her.'

‘We.' Dylan puts his hand on hers. ‘You aren't facing this alone, Tilda. I promise you.'

‘Being with me nearly got you killed today.'

‘But you saved me. You can beat this … creature. I know you can. And I'm going to help you. But tonight you don't have to worry. Tonight you're safe.' He lifts his hand and strokes her hair. ‘It's like spun glass.' He touches her cheek. ‘You are the most incredibly beautiful woman I have ever seen,' he says, and leans slowly forward to kiss her.

Thistle has other ideas. She growls and snaps simultaneously, missing Dylan's face by the narrowest of gaps.

‘Thistle, no!' Tilda screams at her.

Dylan leaps to his feet, backing away. ‘It's okay. I'm fine. No harm done. It's okay.'

‘No, it is not okay! Bad dog! What is the matter with you?' Tilda opens the door and sends the dog out. Thistle slinks past and scurries up the stairs to the bedroom. ‘Dylan, I'm so sorry.'

‘Again? We've been through this.'

‘It's not funny. She really went for you. She could have seriously hurt you. Here, let me see.' She ignores his protests and studies his face and hands.

‘See?' He smiles at her. ‘Told you, I'm fine. She's just jealous. She's used to having you to herself. I shouldn't have invaded her space.'

‘
Her
space? This is
my
house.'

‘She was only trying to protect you.'

Tilda reaches up and touches his face. ‘There are plenty of other people she can bite if she wants to. You, I can handle myself.'

‘You want to bite me?' He laughs.

Tilda smiles. ‘You think you're so clever,' she says, planting the lightest of kisses on his lips.

‘I'm currently being kissed by the most desirable person in the room. I'd say that was pretty clever,' he tells her. And then he slides his arms around her waist and holds her close, and he kisses her, and she kisses him back. And Tilda finds she is hungry for him. That she can still feel passion, longing, want … and it is Dylan she wants.

Yes. Dylan.

Suddenly all the long, lonely months that have gone before this moment melt away. There is nothing but here and now. This man. This connection. She pulls him closer, holds him more tightly, kisses him with increasing fervor. And he returns her passion, so that soon they are tearing at one another's clothes, laughing as they tumble over the sofa, as they roll onto the rug in front of the fire, greedily snatching kisses, pulling at each other's seemingly endless layers of garments. Tilda wonders fleetingly if she is reacting to the trauma of the day; a need to affirm life after a brush with death. She is too lost in her need for Dylan to want to analyze how she feels. Soon they are both naked, the firelight dancing on his mocha dark skin and flashing on her ghost pale flesh. Their burning desire blocking out the cold of winter that has already coated the windowpanes with ice.

*   *   *

It is Tilda's concern for the kiln fire that eventually pulls her from their slumbering embrace. She sits up, gazing down at Dylan.

‘It will need more wood. I daren't leave it any longer,' she says.

He touches her shoulder and lets his fingers travel the length of her arm until he takes up her hand and holds it to his lips. ‘You taste as good as you look,' he tells her. When she shrugs self-consciously he adds, ‘No more hiding, remember?'

‘Not everyone sees me the way you do.'

‘Their loss.'

‘Not so long ago I'd have been called a witch.' She gives a light laugh, but the notion feels far from funny now. ‘Maybe they would have had a point.' She gets up and pulls on her underwear and T-shirt. The clouds outside have cleared at last, so that moonlight falls through the little window and finds the bracelet on the table, causing it to shine and glint. Tilda picks it up and studies it.

Dylan props himself up on one elbow. ‘You really think that helped you somehow? Down at the dig? You think it made you … stronger?'

Tilda nods. ‘It did. I know it did. It was scary, the way it made me feel, but I know I wouldn't have been able to do what I did without it.'

*   *   *

Where did you come from? And why do I know I have seen these hares and this hound before?

The gold feels cool in her palm, the worn surface smooth save for the fine lines of the engraving. She turns it over and over and a faint but distinct ringing starts up in her head, as if a far-off glass wind chime were being moved by a sudden breeze. She takes a breath, and then slips the band over her hand and onto her wrist. It is too big, so she slides it up, wriggling it over her elbow until it sits comfortably around her upper arm. The metal presses gently against her skin, quickly losing its coolness as it takes up some of her own body heat.

And then all hell breaks loose.

The room is filled with a light so white that Tilda throws her arm across her face in an attempt to block it out. The ringing sound grows in a crescendo so fast and to a volume so loud that when she screams, she cannot hear her own terrified voice. Blinking through the pulsating light, she sees Dylan thrown back against the far wall. He reaches out to her, but cannot move forward. The harmless flames in the fireplace swell and grow, burning with an unnatural brightness as they lick at the mantelpiece and begin to climb the wall of the chimney breast. The air around Tilda seems to swirl and move in great waves. She is buffeted by it, pulled this way and that, her hair whirling wildly about her, until she, too, begins to spin. She is powerless to stop. And as she spins, a vision forms in the blur of her sight. She sees herself, standing tall and straight, her hair twisted with leather braids, her eyes painted darkly with kohl, her skin bearing bold tattoos of heavy black ink, her body clothed only in leather armor, a dagger at her hip. This shimmering, fearsome version of herself raises her hand, slowly, reaching toward Tilda, who cannot move, either to take her hand, or to shrink from it. She knows she must do something, something to make it stop. Something to gain control. The fire is beginning to catch the wooden mantelpiece and sparks are setting the rug alight. Dylan's eyes are closed as if he has lost consciousness. The sensation of spinning is causing Tilda to fear she, too, will soon pass out. And then there will be no one to stop the spread of the fire.

Dammit, this is my house! My home! I won't let this happen!

With huge effort, she forces herself to lift her left hand and clutch at the bracelet. For a moment she fears she will not be strong enough. Smoke is beginning to make her cough. She can smell burning wool. At last she grasps the bracelet and wrenches it from her arm, flinging it across the room.

And everything stops.

She falls to the floor. The vision has vanished. The terrifying noise has ceased. She can move again. She snatches up a blanket from the sofa and smothers the flames around the hearth. Dylan splutters and clambers to his knees. Once the fire is out, she goes to him.

‘Dylan? My God, Dylan…'

He looks at the devastation around the room, the upturned furniture, the broken ornaments, the burned mantle and carpet. He coughs and says shakily, ‘Remind me never to piss you off.' Then he looks at Tilda and his eyes widen. ‘Wow,' he murmurs.

She stands up, catching sight of herself in the mirror. Her skin is more than flushed, it glows with an eerie light. Her hair fans out, rippling and flowing, moving as if she were underwater. And her eyes shine like diamonds.

 

14

TILDA

Although the skies remain clear, what snow lies on the ground has frozen, gaining a crisp crust through which it is impossible to walk quietly. Tilda and Dylan have wrapped themselves against the cold and set about the task of extinguishing the fire in the kiln. Thistle frolics in the snowy garden as they rake out the ashes. Overhead, the noonday sky is Alpine blue and so bright it hurts Tilda's eyes now that she is without the protection of her tinted lenses. She had a moment upon waking when she feared facing the world undisguised might prove too difficult, but it soon passed. She already feels confident she can handle it. The way Dylan looks at her certainly helps, but more than that, she is aware of a subtle but crucial change within herself. As if she is more complete, somehow. As if she is stronger in an intangible way she would not be able to explain to herself, much less anyone else. It had taken her a while to realize that it was not fear she felt when she put on the bracelet and felt its power. True, she was afraid for Dylan, and the fire had been very real and very dangerous. But what she had experienced, what had coursed through her veins in the moment when the ancient band was on her arm, that was not terror, it was power. An awesome, magical power. Dylan had been quick to identify the bracelet as its source, but Tilda knew different. The precious metal against her skin, with its mysterious symbolic carvings, had most definitely triggered something astonishing, but she knew it was something that was already in her. The power came not from the bracelet, but from her. To be so out of control of such a force, to fear it might hurt someone she cared about, that it could be destructive, had scared her. The power itself, however, the overwhelming feeling of something magnificent inside her being ignited, that was the most profound, the most exhilarating, the most thrilling experience she had ever had. Dylan had been genuinely spooked by what had happened and had warned her against ever risking wearing the thing again.

But she knows she wants to.

She knows one day she will.

If I could learn to control it … if I could find a way.

‘Are you okay?' Dylan put an arm around her shoulders. His expression is a mixture of concern and delight. ‘I'd be feeling pretty shaken right now, if I were you.'

But you're not me. You didn't feel what I felt.

She smiles. ‘I'm fine. Just a little tired. We didn't get much sleep, one way and another.'

‘One way and another.' He grins.

‘You know what was the weirdest thing about everything that happened? Seeing myself … like that.' She had spent some time explaining to Dylan in detail what she had seen while wearing the bracelet. However crazy it sounded, he had listened. He had believed her. And that meant a lot. ‘I looked like me, but, well I was so
different
too. Those weird clothes, the knife…'

‘Don't forget the tattoos. Perhaps it was your fantasy self, you know, the way you'd secretly like to present yourself to the world.'

‘I have never in my life wanted a tattoo. But, wait a minute! Why didn't I think of that sooner? I've seen her … me … like that before. The woman in the boat!'

Dylan does his best to keep up. ‘Sorry, what boat?'

‘I haven't told you? No, why would I have.' She takes a breath, trying not to trip over her words in her eagerness to clarify the point, to herself as much as to him. ‘The day I met your uncle, just before I bumped into him on the footpath, I'd had a … a vision. I saw this woman, in a boat, with two men. She was someone ancient, from a different time.'

‘And scary, like the ghost from the dig?'

‘No.' She shakes her head. ‘She wasn't … isn't frightening. She's not threatening. With her it's different, somehow. But I know she is who I saw here, this time. Thing is, she looked so like me, perhaps it wasn't a ghost. Maybe I was seeing, I don't know, another version of myself, in another time?'

‘Are we talking reincarnation here?' Dylan looks uncertain.

‘No. At least, I don't think so. To be honest, the more I think about it, the less sense any of it makes.'

From the open studio door comes the sound of the telephone ringing. Tilda knows before she lifts the handset, which is gritty with clay dust undisturbed by use, that it will be her father. Her postcard might have held her parents off for a few days, but they were worried about her.

‘Is your mountain very snowy, Little Rabbit?' her father asks.

‘It is. The whole valley is thick with it too. It's very beautiful.'

‘Are the roads clear? Less than a week until Christmas. Your mother and I thought we might bring it to you this year. Turkey, mince pies, mulled wine, crackers, appalling jumper, carols on tape, DVD of
The Sound of Music
, the whole festive circus delivered to your door.'

‘Oh, Dad…'

‘It'd be no trouble. Truth is, your mother feels the need for a bit of clucking around her only daughter.' He pauses, then adds, ‘We got rather used to having you here.'

Tilda can hear the loneliness in his voice and feels bad. While she might happily convince herself that her mother can manage perfectly well without regular contact, she knows her father misses her. But the thought of them coming to stay, with all that is happening to her, fills her with panic.

I can't do it. I can't cope with them, not here, not now, not like this.

‘I'm not sure about the roads…'

‘We can check the forecast.'