Thistle barks madly, the only time in her life she has ever made such a sound. Tilda at last gulps air and leaps from the trench at the very moment the pickax swings through the air, embedding itself in the ground where only seconds ago she had been. She tries to see where her assailant is, to pinpoint its shape among the dark, choking mass that has risen from the grave. She cannot make out a proper form, but only glimpses part of a smashed jaw here, a blood-filled eye there, a gaping, broken mouth in front of her one minute and vanished the next. It takes a superhuman effort for her to hold her ground, to stand straight and tall and force herself to remain where she is. The dog is snapping and growling at nothing, driven almost insane with fear and an instinct to protect its mistress. Suddenly the ghost’s face takes shape and spews forth ancient words, some Tilda recognizes as Welsh, others that seem even more ancient, all spat with the same hot hatred and rage.
It’s too strong! I shouldn’t have let it out. I was stupid to think I could deal with it on my own!
The apparition comes closer and closer, thrusting its face at Tilda. She is too petrified to move. She tries to do whatever it was she managed to do in the garden when she used the torc’s energy to clear the snow, or in the kitchen when she used it more subtly to control the electricity, but her head is filled with the screaming and screeching of the ghost, her body weakened by terror and by the numbing cold that has taken hold of her.
‘What do you want from me?!’ she yells into the chaotic, shifting being in front of her. ‘Whatever happened to you has nothing to do with me, you hear? Leave me alone! Leave me alone!’ As she screams at it, she clutches at the torc, raising her arm, hoping against hope that it will protect her.
The ghoulish being screams back at her, repeating the words she had spat in her face the time she appeared in the studio.
‘I don’t understand! Stop it! Seren, where are you? Why don’t you help me?’
At the sound of the shaman’s name, the ghost from the grave roars with fury, sending one of the trench planks flying through the air to strike Tilda fiercely across the knees. She falls to the ground, groaning in pain.
And the torc falls from her wrist.
The ghost storms forward, raising up the pickax once more, this time gripping it in its phantom hands. Tilda can’t get up. She gropes in the mud, searching desperately for the gold band, but can’t find it, expecting at any second to feel the steel of the ax chopping into her back.
With a fierce growl, Thistle attacks the fiendish thing that is trying to kill her beloved mistress. The dog hurls itself at the ghoul, snarling and biting and tearing at the insubstantial substance of which the terrible creature is made. The brave hound cannot hope to inflict any real injury on such a spectral form, but her actions cause it to pause, to turn. Tilda scrambles to her feet, abandoning her hunt for the torc, and sets off running as fast as the slippery ground will let her. As she looks back she sees with horror that the ghost has changed the swing of the pickax so that it descends in a swift, deadly arc, that finds its end point in the soft, yielding fur of the dog. Thistle lets out a heartbreaking yelp and falls to the ground.
‘No!!! You cruel bitch!’ she screams, maddened by sorrow for her dog and frustration at her own powerlessness. Without thinking, not stopping to consider what she is doing, she turns again and runs at the witch.
The ghost turns its mangled, pulpy face to Tilda and grins a terrible, joyless grin. It slowly spreads its arms wide and then brings them forward and up in one sudden movement. Tilda skids to a stop and watches in horror as the metal tent pegs that had been securing the polythene rise up from the ground. They hover in the air and then turn, their points facing her as if directed by some unseen magnet. The quiver, all two, maybe three dozen of them, and in that half second she understands what is about to happen and throws herself onto the ground. She feels the whooshing of the steel spikes as they fly over her head. Peering up, she can see Thistle lying lifeless in the sullied snow. The evil witch lowers her head and begins her charge. Tilda hauls herself to her feet and she runs. She runs faster than she has ever run before, arms and legs powering her over the stony, icy path, lungs working hard and furious, head down, not once pausing to look back, for she knows to do so would cost her precious seconds.
She takes the lower path, the easiest route back around the lake. The creature is gaining on her with every step. More and more objects are flung at her, stones, lumps of wood, whistling past her head, some striking her back, her elbow, her leg. She can see the disused boathouse to her left.
Can I get to it? Would I be able to keep her out if I got in there? Would it make any difference?