The Silver Witch

‘I don’t. Oh, look, let’s just get into bed, shall we? It’s bloody freezing up here.’


Laughing, they dive beneath the duvet, holding each other close. Thistle comes to the side of the bed, sniffs, and turns away grumpily.

‘Oh dear,’ says Dylan, ‘she’s really going to hate me now.’

‘She’s gone back to the kitchen. It’s warmer in there. She’ll be fine.’

‘And what about you?’ he asks. ‘Are you fine?’

She hesitates. At this moment, his arms enfolding her, safe and snug, still comforted by the kindness of the professor, Dylan’s continuing help with all the frightening things that have been happening, her body well fed, the fading effects of the wine still taking the edge off her worry, she does indeed feel fine. Her answer is a slow, sensuous kiss.

‘I’ll take that as a “yes”,’ he murmurs. He pulls back to look at her in the low light. ‘I know it’s rude to stare,’ he teases, ‘but I can’t stop looking at you. You are … fascinating. So beautiful. You look delicate, fragile, but you’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met.’

‘It’s a common misconception,’ she tells him, trying not to sound like some sort of information broadcast. ‘People with albinism are often seen as frail. It’s one of the things other people find scary about us. About me. They are afraid I’ll break.’

‘But you won’t. You can run farther and faster than just about anyone I know. And I’ve seen you wield a pick axe and a lump hammer.’

‘I do have to stay out of the sun. A summer’s day can make me blister, though there are some pretty good sunblocks out there now. It must have been difficult in years gone by. Imagine what it would have been like all those centuries ago.’

‘You think the woman in the boat had the same condition as you?’

‘Whoever I saw when I put on the bracelet—the torc—she showed every indication of having albinism.’

‘It must have been hard. I mean, nobody would have understood. She would have been singled out for being so different, surely.’

‘It’s odd, but that would have been less problematic than it is now. It’s a modern reaction, stigmatizing people who don’t fit the general idea of what we should all look like. There’s evidence that through the ages people who stood out were often thought of as being of special importance. Something more rather than something less.’ She pauses to consider this for a moment and then goes on. ‘If Seren Arianaidd was like me, and if your uncle’s right and she was the local shaman, she would have been revered and respected. No, for her the hardest part of having this condition would have been protecting herself from the sun. She may have had problems with her eyesight too, but not all of us do.’

‘You don’t need your lenses anymore. Your eyes have got better, since you moved here.’

‘Yes. They have.’ She snuggles closer to him. ‘You have no idea how wonderful it feels not to be hiding behind them anymore.’

A thought occurs to Dylan. ‘Uncle Illtyd says the torc was made for a child. If it has all those witchy symbols on it, and it has such an amazing effect on you when you wear it, it makes sense to think it belonged to the woman you saw, if she was a shaman and possibly a witch. So…’

‘So she must have had a child. So, did either of them survive the attack on the crannog?’

He kisses Tilda’s brow, her face, her throat. ‘Because if they did,’ he whispers, ‘then maybe, just maybe, Seren also had grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.’ He kisses her collarbone, slipping off her shoulder straps, moving lower, ‘and so on, down, down, down through the ages, generation after generation, until we get to…’ He looks up at her, smiling.

Tilda smiles back. ‘Me. Until we get to me.’





SEREN


Tanwen plays happily with the flowers outside our little home. There is such joy to be found in watching an inquisitive young mind snatching at everything life offers. Her fascination with the petals of a buttercup, her wonder at the wings of a butterfly, her fury at the sting of a nettle—with each new experience she grows. Already I can see the light of magic in her eyes. She was blessed by the Afanc and she is my daughter, but more than this, she has the gift in her own soul. I will nurture it as I cherish her, and one day she will be my worthy successor.

She hears, no, senses someone approach. I follow the turn of her head and soon spy Nesta tramping into view. I am quick to attribute my child’s sharpness to her singular blood, but in truth, a cloth-eared drunkard at the bottom of a barrel could hear the princess’s maid stumbling along the path. She is carrying a wicker basket holding something heavy within. The day is falling into dusk, but still I can make out an uncharacteristic smile upon her plump face.