She rolls up her sleeve, where the ribbon is tied around her wrist, dirty now but still intact, as if to show Merewyn, but her lady does not wake. Tova holds her tighter so that she doesn’t slip away. There has to be something more she can do, but what?
And it’s because she doesn’t know what else to do that she carries on talking and whispering those words of encouragement, for her own comfort as much as for her lady’s.
‘We’re going to be all right,’ she says. ‘Soon we’ll be safe.’
She speaks the words again and again, trying to keep her thoughts from dwelling on the cold seeping ever deeper into her flesh, on the dampness in the air and in her clothes, the hunger that clutches at her stomach and causes it to twist and wrench. There’s a small voice inside her saying she should save her breath, but then there’s another reminding her that if she does that there will only be silence. Nothing but the wind whistling through the branches outside, and that’s what she can’t bear. Because then she’ll be forced to admit that she is truly alone.
Just her, out here on her own, at the end of the world.
‘Wake up,’ she murmurs again. Her eyes are squeezed shut. She hopes that when she opens them all this will turn out to have been a dream, some horrible, horrible dream.
‘Wake up, wake up,’ she urges, no longer sure if she’s talking to her lady or to herself.
‘Tova?’
She blinks away the moisture from her eyes. ‘Merewyn?’
Hope. She feels it flooding back, like the streams after the snow has melted, rushing together, their strength renewed after the long stillness.
‘Tova,’ her lady says again. More than a whisper but less than a murmur, the sounds drawn out and tentative, as if she’s not quite sure of their shape. Like an old person might speak. Her eyes are closed still, her brow furrowed slightly.
‘I’m here.’ Tova rests her hand gently on her lady’s forehead. Her fingers feel deadened, devoid of blood and warmth, but Merewyn’s skin is no warmer.
‘So cold,’ Merewyn says, slurring her words, and gives a small tremble, a tremble that becomes a shudder. Tova takes this for a good sign. Better to be shivering than still.
‘It’s all right,’ Tova says, nestling as close as she can. ‘We’ll keep each other warm.’
She knows she mustn’t let her drift back into sleep. She can’t risk losing her again.
But she also needs to get the fire lit, and if she’s going to keep it fed then they’ll need more wood too. What they have left should last them through the day, but probably not the night as well. They’ll need to be prepared.
Before she can start to get settled where she is, she slides out from beside Merewyn. She’ll have to be quick; she doesn’t want to leave her lady for too long. She stumbles on frozen feet across to the door, fumbling at the handle and readying herself for the chill blast that is to come. And it does. It slaps her across the face, and again, stinging her cheeks and her eyes and the exposed skin at her neck. She winces as she steps out.
Into a world so bright that to begin with she can’t look at it. She lifts her hand to her eyes to guard against the glare. Snow everywhere: across the fields and the distant hills and upon the branches of the trees in the thicket down in the hollow; wind-blown against the church wall, so deep that the water butt standing next to it is almost buried. It lies a foot deep on the thatch and on the ground. The clouds hang low and heavy with the promise of more to come. She closes the door behind her and crunches and squeaks her way across it, her shoes sinking in.
It’s hopeless, she thinks. She’ll never find anything dry under all this.
Folding her arms across her chest and with her hands tucked into her armpits, she sets off down the slope towards the thicket, as quickly as she can manage, which isn’t very quick at all. It’s hard to walk; her legs are tired and tiring further with every stride.
Keep the fire burning.
Don’t give in.
The wind is like an invisible hand that seizes her body and squeezes it tight, wringing the breath from her chest. Each gust flings up flurries of snow that billow and tumble and assault her. She ducks her head and stumbles on.
Halfway down the slope her foot strikes something hard buried beneath the white. She cries out as she falls, only to find her mouth full of snow as she meets the ground, and she is tumbling forwards, sideways, the sky and the snow a blur of white and grey, and she doesn’t know which way is up. Eventually she comes to a stop. She spits out what’s in her mouth and swears, loudly, violently, like she would never do in Merewyn’s presence.