‘Seren!’
Seren walks toward Tilda, her piercing eyes aglow, holding Tilda’s own bewitched gaze, demanding that she continue to look. Tilda gasps as she sees that Seren is holding a small child by the hand. The little girl walks calmly beside her mother, her own silvery hair loose and wild, a happy smile upon her lips. The pair stands for a moment until the picture begins to shake and to judder and there comes the sound of thundering hooves. Seren lets go of the child’s hand and clutches at her stomach. Appalled, Tilda watches as blood pours between her fingers, soaking her hands, flowing unstoppably, so that Seren staggers backward, growing fainter, melting into the darkening blue behind her. The child remains, continuing to stare at Tilda. All sounds cease. The vision becomes clear and still. For a blissful moment, Tilda looks into the eyes of Seren’s daughter and finds a connection of such sweetness it makes her cry.
And then it stops. Everything stops. Tilda opens her eyes, wiping her tears on her sleeve, blinking as her sight adjusts to the more ordinary light of the museum basement. The vision was so strong, so vivid, so loud, that she is amazed to find that it has not brought Mr. Reynolds running.
But he couldn’t hear it. Of course he couldn’t. Only me. I saw them. I saw them both.
* * *
On returning to the cottage, Tilda feels completely exhausted. She phones Dylan to put off his visit, claiming a light cold, and takes a long shower in an attempt to shake off the curious sense of dread that the vision has left her with. Her mind is a whirl of confusing thoughts. She should be so happy that she has seen the child, Seren’s child, but that happiness is tainted by the sight of Seren dying such a brutal and violent death. Tilda goes back into the studio and tries to work, but nothing will go right. She replays in her mind the scene she witnessed, over and over. She knows now, beyond any doubt, that Seren had a little girl. And the vision seemed to suggest that the child did not die with her mother.
But does that mean she survived the attack on the crannog or not? I still can’t be certain.
Later, she takes Thistle for a walk. She deliberately avoids the lake, mostly because it would be more than a little awkward if Dylan were to see her out and about, but also because, just for a while, she needs a bit of distance between herself and all that the lake signifies. Needs a break from the intensity of it all. She and the dog tramp up through the watery snow, following the sheep track behind the house. They climb for nearly an hour before resting on a crumbled bit of stone wall. The view of the valley is quite magnificent, even as the snow recedes and decays by the minute. The lake looks so much smaller from such a height, giving Tilda just the perspective she needs at this moment. From here the grave at the dig is hardly visible at all. As if it had never been found and disturbed. Or as if it had never been there in the first place. She wishes that were the case. She knows, deep down, that she will have to face whatever lies there. It will not leave her alone unless she does. It will have to be confronted.
But not today. Not now.
She sits and takes in the magical landscape for as long as her woolly layers keep out the cold, and then descends to the cottage to stoke the fires and make something to eat.
Come the night, despite being exhausted, Tilda’s mind is working too fast, trying to make too many connections, for her to be able to rest. An hour before dawn she gives up and gets out of bed. Thistle raises her head and wags her tail.
‘Don’t get up, girl,’ Tilda tells her. ‘It’s silly o’clock. I’m going to make tea.’ But the dog won’t be left behind and pads down the stairs after her. In the kitchen, Tilda puts the kettle on the heat and takes a poker to the Rayburn to ginger it up. The smoldering logs give out more smoke and then splutter into hungry tongues of flame. Staring at the play of orange against gray, Tilda contemplates her next step. She had left the museum disturbed, saddened, and yet encouraged. There was a child. That much is clear. What is equally obvious is that she will get no further tracing the little girl by digging around in the museum archives. She reached the end of that particular trail.
But where else do I search? I’ve tried the records and writing about the Mercian court, but the captives are never mentioned again. There’s a heap of stuff about the queen and what she does, but not a word about the people from the crannog.
A spitting log causes a spark to jump out of the open door. Tilda searches for it on the floor and is surprised not to be able to find it. It was a large, glowing lump of wood, and she is certain it landed by her feet, but it is nowhere to be seen. Following the smell of burning dog hair, she goes to Thistle’s cushion, and is surprised to discover the spark quietly setting fire to the fabric. She picks up the cushion and flicks the little ember back into the fire, musing at how far from the Rayburn it traveled. She rubs at the cloth with her thumb. There is a small hole and a scorch mark but no real damage. Suddenly, something in Tilda’s mind shifts.