The Silver Witch

The next morning when Tilda goes outside the coldness of the air and the beauty of the countryside take her breath away. There has been no further fall of snow, but the mountain has snagged a passing cloud, which has paused long enough to coat every gatepost, branch, twig and leaf in its vapor. And that mist has since frozen. Tilda has never seen anything so enchanting. Wherever she looks there are ice crystals, pure and sharp and delicate, frozen to every surface, even the wool of the Welsh mountain sheep as they chomp their hay from the equally frosted feeder in the field next to the cottage. Now a ceiling of high cloud diffuses the sunlight, softening it and removing the color from the sky. The lake itself is covered in a layer of ice that appears from Tilda’s viewpoint to be black. She knows this is an impossibility, and for a few moments is unable to do anything other than stand and stare at the wondrous scenery.

Thistle has no regard for such things, and busies herself following mouse tracks through the snow in the garden. The kiln has cooled completely now, and Tilda suffers a flash of worry that the winter weather will have caused the temperature to drop more suddenly than is good for the ceramics inside the little oven. She places her hand on the frost-topped brickwork. More than just a few pots depend upon the results of the firing. Her future livelihood is at stake, it’s true, but there is something more. Her hopes for these special pieces are linked to all the strangeness of this magical place. To all the curious things, the changes that have been happening to her. Will the designs have the quality, the impact, the strength, that she is praying for? Will she be able to make something of the strange connection she feels to the lake, its past and its people? She has slipped the bracelet into her pocket, feeling a need to keep it close. Taking it out, she holds it up so that the soft morning light picks out the hares and the hound, locked in their eternal chase. She considers putting it on again, but knows that the moment is not right to explore the secrets it holds.

Not now. Not yet.

She is still giddy from the events of the previous night. Still stunned by her experiences. Still in awe of the wonderful things she was shown. She has not yet had a moment to try to make sense of it, and a part of her does not want to. Does not wish to taint the beauty and power of what she saw, of what she felt, with the application of reason and plain old-fashioned good sense. She holds on tight to the belief that by pressing on with her work, by bringing her art to life, she is strengthening the magical connection that the designs on the bracelet and her pots share. The thought of that connection thrills her. And scares her too, though at this moment she chooses not to dwell on that. She shades her eyes with her hand and squints up at the sky in search of the sun. It is still obscured, but the brightest of the gloom is not yet directly overhead.

Too early to open the kiln yet. And too slippery for a run.

She is about to go back indoors when she notices a figure trudging up the snow-covered path toward the cottage. At first she thinks it is Dylan, but as the walker draws closer she recognizes Lucas.

Lucas? Why would he struggle all the way up here to seek me out?

He looks up, sees her, and waves. She waves back. Thistle pads over to the garden gate to inspect their visitor.

‘Good morning, Lucas.’

He stops, bending forward to catch his breath before speaking. ‘Don’t tell me you actually run up this hill,’ he gasps.

‘Not lately.’

He turns and takes in the view. ‘Okay, I get it. That is spectacular.’

‘The lake is completely frozen over today,’ Tilda points out. ‘Doesn’t happen very often.’

‘When I set out I thought it was cold enough, but now … phew!’ He unbuttons his coat.

‘No work on the dig today, then?’

He shakes his head. ‘Everything is glued together with ice. And we’ve had to sort out the lights.’

‘Ah.’ Tilda cannot meet his eye. There is no reason he should think any of the chaos at the dig site was anything to do with her. No reason beyond her own behavior, which must have looked nothing short of hysterical to Lucas.

‘Actually,’ he says, reaching down to casually pat a compliant Thistle, ‘that’s why I came up here. To tell you that we’ve rescheduled the lifting of the remains for two days after Christmas. I … thought you’d like to know.’ He pauses, then adds, ‘And I wanted to apologize. For getting so … cross. With you.’

Tilda smiles at the quaintly inappropriate word.

‘Forget it,’ she says. ‘Everything was a mess … all your hard work. It was understandable.’

‘All the same, I shouldn’t have barked at you like I did. I’m sorry.’

She looks at him carefully. The fact that he has considered her, considered how she feels about the dig, that he has trekked all the way up the hill to talk to her about it, shows a side of him she had not given him credit for before. And now she sees he is looking directly at her, levelly and openly, and she is no longer wearing her tinted lenses.

‘Coffee?’ she offers.

He nods wordlessly and follows her up the path to the kitchen door.

‘I’ve only just got the stove going,’ she tells him. ‘It’ll warm up in a bit.’ She pushes the kettle onto the hottest part of the Rayburn and fetches mugs and coffee. Lucas takes off his coat and scarf and sits at the table.

‘Don’t you feel a little isolated?’ he asks. ‘I mean, all the way up here on your own…’

‘I like solitude.’