The Silver Witch (2 page)

By the time she has dressed, dried her hair so that it hangs straight and loose, a crystal curtain down her back, the day is properly awake. She takes her mug of tea and steps out onto the small patio of mossy flagstones beyond the front door. As always, the view is like a deep breath of pure oxygen.

This is why we bought this place. This.

The flat piece of garden extends only a few paces to the low stone wall that separates it from the dizzying drop to the valley below. The landscape falls away abruptly, so that Tilda is gazing down upon a thick copse of trees—still more green than gold—and beyond to the sweep of small fields that lay around the lake. The water is glassy and still this morning, undisturbed by any breeze or activity, save for the movements of the families of waterfowl that have made the place their home. Beyond the lake, the Brecon Beacons rise up, an ancient shield of mountains against the wild weather and people of the west. When she and Mat had discovered the cottage, had stood on this very spot for the first time, he had taken her hand in his and they had ginned at each other in silence. They had both known, in that instant, that this was the place they would start their married life together, would live, would work.

Except that fate had other plans for them.

Three rooks are startled by some unseen danger and fly from their perch, flapping and squawking. The sound is sharp and discordant and provokes in Tilda a fierce reaction. She is taken back to the moment of Mat's death with such brutal speed and vivid colors that she is forced to relive those heartbreaking seconds again. She is no longer in the garden beneath the September sunshine, but back in the car, Mat's car, on their way home from their honeymoon, rain lashing the windshield, watery lights of the motorway traffic flashing past. It was she who had been driving, she who had felt the pull on the steering wheel as the tire rapidly deflated, she who had slowed and halted on the hard shoulder. Mat had got out, walked around to examine the tire. She can see him now, in the cruel memory of her mind's eye, stooping to look in through the window of the driver's-side door. The rain, pouring onto Mat and the glass, has washed his features into a blur. He opens his mouth. He is speaking, trying to tell her something, but there is too much noise. She cannot hear him. He points, forward, and toward the edge of the road. She wipes the inside of the window with her hand, frowning to make him out, to make out what he is saying. And then, in a heartbeat, he is gone. Vanished. She has never been able to recall so much as the color of the truck that swept him away. She was told, later, that it had been empty, returning to the continent after a long haul, its driver not negligent, but not as vigilant as the speed and conditions required.

Tilda shakes her head, rubs her eyes, gasps against the pain of the vision, the renewed shock of the realization, the dragging weight of grief, all assailing her for the hundredth time.

Again. Again. And for how long? More than a year now and still every time as clear and as violent as the first. Will it never ease? Will it always be so unbearable?

She keeps her eyes closed for a moment longer. When she opens them the brightness of the sun makes her flinch. She tips the last of her tea into a pot of geraniums, turns on her heel, and heads back into the cottage. Once inside again she is reminded by the boxes in the narrow hallway, and in the sitting room, and indeed all over the house, that there is still unpacking to be done. She cannot imagine what she can own that fills so many boxes. She has not yet missed any of it, though soon she will be forced to search out a winter coat and some warmer bedding. The cottage is plenty big enough for her needs, but its rooms are small and cannot be used comfortably while the packing cases remain. Tilda knows it is a job she will not enjoy, but she will feel better for having done it.

Like a visit to the dentist, or filing your tax returns.

She can hear her father gently nagging her on both counts. Soon her parents will insist on visiting. To see she is all right. To make sure she has settled in. She must make sure every last book is unpacked by then, if her mother is not to shake her head and purse her lips.

Soon, but not quite yet. Today I begin work. Proper work.

The little barn attached to the cottage had been used as a garage for years before she and Mat became its owners. It had been a fairly simple matter to change the door—fitting in glass sliding ones to allow plenty of natural light—sweep it out and move in shelving, bins for clay and glazes, a Belfast sink, extra lighting, a small wood-burning stove and, of course, the kiln. Tilda regards the iron oven warily, wondering how long it will be before she is ready for a firing. In their old studio, before they had ever thought of moving out to Wales, so many times she and Mat had waited on tenterhooks for the thing to cool sufficiently to be safely opened, and to reveal the success—or otherwise—of the firing. At two thousand degrees Fahrenheit, the heat inside a potter's kiln would reduce a human hand to charred bones in a matter of seconds. Such terrifying temperatures are necessary to create the required chemical reactions within the glazes so that they are transformed from dull dust to colors of shimmering brilliance and mesmerizing intensity. Tilda is ceaselessly amazed by what transformations can occur amid that heat. The process of firing clay within such a domesticated dragon is a timeless and mysterious alchemy. Raw earth is slabbed from the ground, then worked and pounded, then teased and caressed, before being persuaded into forms to suit the craftsman's wishes. The piece is subjected to a biscuit firing, rendering it, as the name suggests, dry, brittle and ready to receive its glaze. These magical powders mixed with water in a thousand variations—a pipkin more antimony oxide, a pinch less chrome, or a spoonful of cobalt to a measure of manganese—cling somberly to their given bodies, awaiting the crucial application of fire to bring about their chrysalis-to-butterfly moment. Every opening of the kiln door is an instant pregnant with expectation and hope, an occasion that will reveal the results of weeks of work and thought and art. It is a moment of exquisite agony every bit as intense as the heat inside the crucible itself.

Well, Mat, at least you are spared any more disastrous firings. I'll just have to face those on my own, won't I?

A part of Tilda believes it might, in fact, be easier. Easier not having to suffer Mat's disappointment as well as her own. She can recall all too well the occasions where they had both despaired of the wasted months of work when a glaze had failed to behave as it should, or a volatile piece exploded and wrecked the entire firing.

And now she needs to begin again. To find the pace and rhythm of her work, as sure-footedly as the pace and rhythm of her running. She rolls up her sleeves and takes a lump of earthenware clay from the green plastic bin beneath the sink. She drops the smooth, heavy clod onto the scrubbed wood of the bench and begins to knead it, letting the repetitive action of wedging the muddy substance steady her mind. Lifting and slamming the clay down with increasing force, she can feel the texture begin to change beneath her palms, the material begin to yield. Lift and slam. Lift and slam. Pummel, turn, scoop, lift and slam. Dull thuds of weight and effort growing louder with every focused, determined movement.

 

2

TILDA

The dawn light is soft on Tilda's eyes as she follows the path around the top of the lake. Still she wears her protective tinted lenses, as she always does. This morning a mist rises slowly from the surface of the water, deadening sounds and blurring the edges of the trees as she runs past them. In the gloom she can just make out the fuzzy silhouette of the ramshackle disused boathouse at the top of the lake. Everything appears smudged and indistinct. Tiny droplets of water settle upon her black beanie and her long, pale plait that swings as she runs. She glances at her watch, wanting to check her pace on the specialized timer. To her annoyance she finds it has stopped working. She halts, her heavy breath chasing away the mist as she exhales. The watch had been a present from Mat. A serious runner's watch for a serious runner. Tilda taps it, frowning, but the hands stay stubbornly still, the tiny dials refuse to move.

I told him it was too complicated. Too many parts waiting to go wrong.

Except that it has never gone wrong before, not in the two years she has been using it. It has always kept perfect time, and the stopwatch diligently recorded her progress. Until now. Now it is dead. Tilda closes her eyes tightly, bracing herself against another flashback, another vivid glimpse of Mat's death.

No. Not again, not today, not out here. Please.

She opens her eyes. The mist moves in eddies about her, but no heartrending vision comes this time. She leans forward and sets off once again at a smart pace. As the day breaks properly more of the lake is exposed, its shroud of vapor rising to reveal the silky surface shimmering beneath the autumn sun. Once again she experiences the frisson running close to the water gives her. It is as if by looking at it so frequently, by treading so near, she is controlling her fear of its depths, managing her phobia. For phobia it is, she has never been under any illusions about that. Her father had done his utmost to help her. Notes had been coming home from school—Tilda refuses to set foot in the swimming pool. Tilda must learn to swim but cannot be made to leave the changing room. Her mother had scolded and tutted and refused to have any patience with such silliness. Her father had taken it upon himself to Do Something Constructive. This involved Saturday mornings spent at the local baths, the two of them sitting on the wooden benches beside the baby pool, she in an inappropriately cheerful costume and tightly inflated water wings, he in beige checked shorts and baring an expanse of fuzzy chest and pasty belly. He had squeezed her hand firmly.

‘There is nothing to be frightened of, Little Rabbit. I'm here. I won't let anything happen to you. It's very shallow, you know. You could walk from one side to the other. Why don't we just try that? A bit of walking, hmmm?'

‘But the water…' Tilda, at eight years old, had been unable to make anyone understand what she felt. It wasn't really that she believed she would drown, it was the water itself. The look of it. The way it moved. The feel of it as it pulled against her legs, disturbing her balance, threatening to topple her. And then, what? She had never been able to put her head beneath the surface, even in the bath. What would she do if she went under here? She caught her breath at the very thought of it. It would be like death, she was certain of it, like death swallowing you up, in a silent, airless place. People weren't meant to go there. It was meant for fishes.

‘Daddy,' she said at last, ‘I'm not a fish.' It was the best she could do.

He looked at her, eyebrows raised, laughing not unkindly, patting her hand.

‘No, little one,' he agreed. ‘You're not a fish.'

She never had learned to swim, and even her father, the most tactful man she knew, had been unable to hide his astonishment that she should choose to live so close to a lake.

Ah, the things we do for love.

Today she enjoys the stimulation of the proximity of danger. Of fear managed. She runs on, and has gone only a little farther when she becomes aware of voices. Though muffled by the mist, they are clearly raised, angry voices. Slowing her pace she peers into the gloom. She has never encountered anyone on her early morning circuits of the lake. The voices are coming from the field to her left. She can discern two men, both cursing, but not, she thinks, at each other. A sudden yelp reveals the target of their rage. Tilda reaches the patchy hedge and clambers more through than over it in time to see the taller of the youths land a second hefty kick on the skinny gray dog with scruffy hair that cowers on the ground in front of him.

‘Oy!' she shouts before she has time to think of the wisdom of confronting two angry strangers when she is alone. ‘Stop that! Leave the poor thing alone.'

The men look up and see Tilda as she emerges from the mist. Her appearance startles them, and for a brief moment they stare, but are quickly over their surprise.

‘What's it got to do with you?' the shorter one growls.

As she gets closer to the dog, Tilda can see a trickle of blood coming from its mouth. It is shaking with fear but unable to run away, as one of the men has hold of a chain that is fastened around the dog's neck.

‘Why are you hurting her? What has she done that is so terrible?'

‘She's useless,' the dog's tormenter tells Tilda. ‘She won't do her job.'

‘Her job?'

The men exchange glances and Tilda realizes whatever activity they are engaged in is probably without the landowner's permission.

‘Were you after foxes?' she asks, though she knows this can't be right.

‘Huh!' the shorter man sneers, ‘this thing couldn't catch a cold, never mind a fox.'

‘She's a lurcher,' the other youth points out, as if this explains anything. When Tilda remains blank he goes on. ‘She's supposed to catch hares.'

‘Hares. But … why?'

At this both men lose their patience. ‘Look,' says the nearest one, ‘it's none of your business, okay? You don't know about dogs.'

‘I know you don't teach them anything by kicking their teeth out,' she says, putting her hands on her hips.

The taller man yanks on the dog's chain, forcing it to stagger to its unsteady feet. ‘Come on,' he says to his companion, ‘let's go. Stupid bitch!' he spits, and Tilda can't be sure if he is addressing the dog or her. The poor animal glances back as it is dragged away. It is still bleeding from the kick to its mouth, and also has a pronounced limp. The sight of its suffering is too much for Tilda.

‘Wait!' she calls after them. ‘If you don't want the dog, I'll have it.'

The men pause and turn. ‘What do you want with it? Why should we give it to you?'