The Silver Witch

‘Come in, come in.’ The professor drops his stick into an umbrella stand and drapes his coat over it. Tilda wriggles out of her waterproof running jacket, hands it to him, and then pulls off her muddy sneakers. ‘The sitting room is through there,’ he says, waving a hand at a door to their right. ‘You make yourself at home and I’ll make tea.’ With that he disappears into what Tilda assumes is the kitchen and soon she can hear a kettle humming and china being put on a tray.

The hallway is low-ceilinged and in soft light from the latticed windows, but it is still clear that Professor Williams is a man given to collecting things. Every shelf, every wall, every cupboard is crammed with bits of brass, or pieces of china, or paintings, or bric-a-brac of a wide and dizzying variety. In the center, at the foot of the wooden staircase, stands a very fine grandfather clock, its steady tick-tocking offering a soothingly slow rhythm by which to live one’s life. Tilda steps forward to examine it more closely. Its casement is burnished wood, dark red, walnut, she decides, and the clock face decorated with mother-of-pearl and gleaming brass hands. It is about to strike the hour, and she hears the preliminary whirring from deep within its workings as the hammers ready themselves to strike ten.

And then it stops. Completely and suddenly. No chiming. No ticking. Nothing. Tilda feels the hairs prickle at the nape of her neck and she knows, simply knows, that it has stopped because of her. She glances toward the kitchen and can still make out her host bustling about. Quickly, she goes through the low door into the living room. The space is clearly organized for the comfort of someone who enjoys reading. There are shelves lining two of the walls, and further cupboards and stacks of hardback volumes about the place. A small sofa is positioned near the fire, with reading lights above, and there is a worn armchair in the window, angled to make the best of the view into the garden and to the lake beyond. As with the hall, much space is devoted to housing all manner of objects and curios. In the moments Tilda spends waiting for the professor and trying to shake off the feeling of unease that has increased again with the stopping of the clock, she spots an ancient record player and beside it a box of vinyl disks; a fearsome wooden mask hanging on the wall; an ornate camel saddle; and on the mantelpiece a large ammonite she cannot resist touching. As she turns to watch the door for the promised tea, her eye takes in the broad desk in the corner of the room. On it, an old map is pinned down at its corners with two glass paperweights—a brass donkey, and a tin that once contained peppermint creams. She is leaning over it when Professor Williams arrives bearing a tray laden with the paraphernalia of teatime.

‘Here we are. Oh, I see you have found my map of the lake. A fine example of early nineteenth-century cartography, I think you’ll agree. Now, where shall I put this? Would you be so kind as to clear the coffee table of its debris? Thank you so much.’ He sets the tray down, the china giving an alarming rattle as he does so.

Tilda has taken off her beanie, so that now her unusual hair is more noticeable. She is pleased to see that if her host registers anything unsettling about her appearance, he does not show it at all.

‘It is a wonderful map,’ she agrees. ‘I can’t see that the place has changed much, though the lake does look as if it was bigger then than it is now.’

‘You are right about that.’ He takes his spectacles from their resting place on the arm of a chair and leans over the desk. ‘The church itself was nearer the shore, and so was the vicarage … there,’ he explains, pointing as he does so. ‘It’s a retreat house now, and there’s a good stretch of land between it and the lake. There are parish records recording the water sometimes flooding considerably farther out. And there, on the far side, you can see the crannog marked. The man-made island. They are quite common in Ireland, but this is the only one in Wales. Not that much of it was visible when this map was drawn up, but people knew it was there.’ He gives a small chuckle, a soft, merry sound. ‘Well, they should have known about it—it’d been there long enough.’

‘I read about it, when we came here to look at the cottage.’ She pauses, realizing she has given the impression there is still a ‘we.’

Have to get used to being just ‘I.’ Have to start.

‘My husband and I, we bought the cottage just before he died,’ she explains.

‘Oh, I am terribly sorry to hear that.’

‘It was sudden. A car accident. We were going to start a new life here…’ She does not want to be talking about this, not now, not here.

The professor smiles gently. ‘I think you’ll find being here helps. Eventually. The lake, this valley, it is a very healing place. At least,’ he goes on, ‘I found it so when my wife, Greta, passed away.’