The Silver Witch

‘Uncle Illtyd might support that theory,’ he says quietly, more to Tilda than to Lucas.

Although it is still early in the afternoon, the winter sky is filling with new snow clouds, and the dwindling daylight is already causing difficulties for the diggers. It is decided to fire up the generator and switch on the lights. There is a fair amount of running around and shouting. More than once Lucas instructs anyone not directly involved in lifting the remains to move away from the trench. After a couple of failed attempts, the generator powers up, its engine noise thudding through the still air, black smoke chugging from its exhaust. A switch is thrown and the overhead lights flare into action, casting their intense artificial brightness directly down onto the grave and its surrounding area. Tilda blinks, shading her eyes as she steps a little farther away. She is torn between wanting to see what is going on and not wanting to interrupt the functioning of the lights. She stamps her feet to ward off the cold that is beginning to penetrate her boots and thermal socks. She is aware of a dizziness, and knows that this time it has nothing to do with low blood-sugar levels or tiredness. It is the grave, or rather, whatever, whoever, is in the grave, that is causing her to feel light-headed, to feel somehow distant from the people around her. She is able to hear things above the thrumming of the generator. She can make out the heavy lapping of the water upon the shore, the chattering of a squirrel in a nearby tree, the beating wings of swans out on the lake. All her senses appear to be heightened. She is able to smell not only the acrid diesel fumes of the engine, but the mixture of sweat and body spray coming from the diggers as they work, the musty dampness of the branches of a large oak to her right, and the pungent odor of the ancient earth that is being, inch by inch, ever more disturbed. She can almost taste the moist, cold air on her tongue. The juddering of the generator, the stomping footsteps of those workers, the slight fizzing that runs down the metal supports of the arc lights—all these vibrations pass through her body.

And then come the visions. At first she sees just a jumping of the sharp-edged shadows cast by the lights, so that the abrupt change between the floodlit ground, tinged orange, and the cool blue of the natural snow, seems to jitter and shake. Then there are glimpses of movement away in the middle distance, as if shy creatures are breaking cover and darting across the wintry ground. And next come the swirling shapes, twisting and changing, in the sky above Tilda’s head. Looking up, she can see figures forming and reforming, as if made from clouds that have fallen from the heavens to a height barely above the tallest of the trees at the edge of the meadow. Tilda gasps as a figure swoops low, diving at her and then flying away at the last moment. The form is vague, indistinct, its limbs dissolving into vapor as it passes. Then comes another and another.

Dylan has noticed something is wrong. ‘Tilda?’ he asks. ‘What’s the matter?’

She does not answer him. She cannot answer him. For now, she can see a dark shape beginning to rise from the open grave. Lucas, Molly and two more archeologists kneel in the trench, and between them they lift the great slab of stone that had been holding down the bones of the deceased. They stagger under its weight as they lift it and tip it up on end, to one side of the body. Now, the skeleton is exposed. From where she stands, in the harsh lighting, Tilda can clearly see the broken bones of the corpse, its limbs lying at impossible angles, its skull tipped back, its jaw smashed, its brow cracked. And she sees the dark mass rising up from it, pulsating and undulating, and she knows that she alone can see it as it settles into the now-familiar form of the fearsome ghost that has been haunting her. It turns its gory face toward her, and Tilda watches as a hideous grin stretches across its shattered features.

They mustn’t let it out! I have to make them stop.

‘Don’t!’ she shouts out before she has time to think about it further. ‘Put it back!’

‘Tilda?’ Dylan puts a hand on her arm. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

‘They mustn’t let it out!’ She turns to him, shaking her head, trying to make him understand. ‘They’re setting her free. We have to stop them, Dylan. Before it’s too late! Lucas, wait!’ she calls out, running forward. As she does so, the apparition above the grave grows bigger, blacker, denser, so that she cannot believe no one else can see it. ‘Lucas, you mustn’t…!’ She stumbles, slipping in the snow that has been compacted by so many booted feet over the hours. She slides forward, all but falling into the trench. Lucas bellows at her.

‘What are you doing? I told you to stay back.’

‘You don’t understand, you have to stop what you’re doing. You mustn’t set her free!’