The Silver Witch

*

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.





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