The Silver Witch

‘Look, Thistle, this will do! A pickax. Just the tool for the job.’ She knows she sounds ridiculously cheerful.

And it’s fooling no one.

Back in the trench she works the point of the pickax beneath a corner of the stone, then she stands on the other end of the metal head, using her weight to try to pry up the slab. This time it gives a little. Not enough to open the hole properly, but enough to fidget and nudge the stone a fraction to one side. Even so, with this method it will take more time and more energy than Tilda has to remove the thing completely. She steps back, using her soggy sleeve to wipe rain and sweat from her face. There is nothing else for it, she will have to use the torc to help her.

She takes it out of her zipped fleece pocket. She is not wearing gloves, and the moment it touches her skin, she feels a zing of energy pulse through her. It makes her hesitate. She begins to doubt her ability to control its force, to steer its power in the direction she needs it to go. In the kitchen she had marshaled it, had mastered it, but only just. And that was at home. This time she is standing in the grave of someone who wishes her ill. Her running clothes are properly saturated now, and she starts to shiver.

‘This is rubbish,’ she declares. ‘I’m cold, I’m tired and I’m scared. Let’s get this thing done.’

So saying, she shoves the torc over her wrist. It catches on the fluffy thickness of her fleece, so that she can jam it no farther than her wrist. She hopes it will stay in place. All at once there comes the swirling sensation, as if she is on a fairground ride, and everything around her blurs and spins. She plants her feet firmly on the uneven ground, taking hold of the pickax once more. This time, colored light pulsates in front of her.

Wow. This is what I imagine a bad trip feels like. Okay, just ignore it; stay focused.

As she slides the iron spike under the stone she can hear her own heartbeat echoing in her ears, pounding erratically and at a worrying speed. She tries to ignore it, pulling all her attention to shifting the heavy weight at her feet, willing herself to use whatever it is that is inside her.

‘Come on!’ she shouts through the lashing rain. Setting her teeth, she hauls on the ax handle. ‘Move, you bloody piece of … Move!’

There is a grating noise, rough stone sliding over grit and mud and bone, and then it is done. The momentum of the slab’s own weight once it is in motion carries it over the edge of the grave so that it slews sideways into the dirt. And the tangled skeleton, twisted and broken, is exposed.

Tilda is just on the point of crouching down, reaching her hand toward the dark, stained bones, when she is knocked off her feet. She is flung backward, and lands heavily on the hardest, stoniest part of the trench. Winded, unable to draw a breath, the air driven from her lungs by the force with which she struck the ground, she clutches at her chest, struggling to make her body work again and take in oxygen. As she thrashes about in the freezing earth she turns onto her stomach, pushing herself up onto her knees, and all the time she can feel it coming, can feel the rotten soul of the long-dead witch in the grave rising up to loom over her.

Thistle barks madly, the only time in her life she has ever made such a sound. Tilda at last gulps air and leaps from the trench at the very moment the pickax swings through the air, embedding itself in the ground where only seconds ago she had been. She tries to see where her assailant is, to pinpoint its shape among the dark, choking mass that has risen from the grave. She cannot make out a proper form, but only glimpses part of a smashed jaw here, a blood-filled eye there, a gaping, broken mouth in front of her one minute and vanished the next. It takes a superhuman effort for her to hold her ground, to stand straight and tall and force herself to remain where she is. The dog is snapping and growling at nothing, driven almost insane with fear and an instinct to protect its mistress. Suddenly the ghost’s face takes shape and spews forth ancient words, some Tilda recognizes as Welsh, others that seem even more ancient, all spat with the same hot hatred and rage.

It’s too strong! I shouldn’t have let it out. I was stupid to think I could deal with it on my own!

The apparition comes closer and closer, thrusting its face at Tilda. She is too petrified to move. She tries to do whatever it was she managed to do in the garden when she used the torc’s energy to clear the snow, or in the kitchen when she used it more subtly to control the electricity, but her head is filled with the screaming and screeching of the ghost, her body weakened by terror and by the numbing cold that has taken hold of her.