The Silver Witch(112)

21

TILDA

Now she begins to examine her prison. Her eyes adjust to the gloom so that she can make out a corrugated iron roof—which resounds to the beating of the relentless icy rain upon it—and wooden walls on three sides, one containing the barred door. The small window above where she sits is too narrow to pass through and too high to reach. The slimy floor on which she sits is actually a platform, an indoor jetty providing covered access to the space where a boat could be moored. But there is no boat, has not been for years. Decades. Just an empty rectangle of dark, evil-smelling water that laps at the rotting planks only a few short yards below Tilda’s feet. This entrance to the boathouse may once have let in light, but was long ago boarded up, from the ceiling to the water, so that only an uneven sliver of gray, a subtle lightening of the gloom, can be seen. The water at this point is overgrown with a tangle of reeds and rushes, so that it resembles more a swamp than a lake. With mounting horror Tilda realizes that the only possible way out is through that deep, weed-filled, treacherous water. She sits, benumbed by what has happened, stunned into motionless terror, her ears filled with the near-deafening sound of the incessant rain beating upon the old tin roof.

No one would hear me above the noise of this rain, no matter if I screamed my head off. And who would there be, anyway? In all the time I’ve been running this way, I’ve never met anyone so far from the footpath.

It is as if she has always known that one day it would come to this. One day she would have to face it. Her darkest fear has been there to test her from a distance all her life. Years of imagining, thinking, wondering what it would be like to be swallowed up by the waves, or swept away by a fast-flowing river, or held beneath the sunny surface of a sparkling swimming pool, all have led to this place, this moment.

Gingerly, she moves toward the edge of the jetty. Her fingers are already losing their color in the damp chill. She crouches then sits, lowering her feet into the water. The intense cold is a shock. Her breathing accelerates as she twists around and lowers herself over the edge and in. The jetty is slimy with algae and her fingers start to slip. She gasps, clawing at the wet wood, but cannot get a firm grip. With a feeble splash she slides into the water, bursting into tears of relief and terror as her feet find the silty lake bed. The water level is just above her waist. Raising her arms, elbows bent, she edges toward the entrance, inching her way along the uneven surface. The sloping uneven surface. By the time she reaches the gable end of the boathouse the water is up to her armpits. She knows she is in danger of hyperventilating. Of being sick. Of fainting.

No, no, no, no! Mustn’t trip, mustn’t stumble. Small steps. Come on feet, pretend we’re running. Running in slow motion. Fleet feet. Strong steps. One foot in front of the other.

She pushes through the reeds, causing small waves to bounce back at her from the timber walls. She raises her chin as the water sloshes against her face. With every step she fights rising panic. Panic that threatens to send her falling into the water. Panic that might be the finish of her.

She reaches the low boards that block the exit. The moment has come. Now she must dive beneath the water, push through into the unknown, fight the tangle of weeds and swim to the outside. She knows if she thinks about it longer she will not move, so in one desperate, sudden action she forces herself under the surface. The sensation of going beneath the water is more that she can stand. She loses her balance, falling through the twisted undergrowth, her feet sliding so that she disappears into the brackish blackness. She reacts as she has always feared she will, as she has always imagined so vividly in her nightmares. She inhales. The mouthful of water becomes a lungful in a soundless scream of terror. Tilda feels time stop. Her intellect tells her she must get up, must break the surface, must push up, grab something, find air. Her instinct tells her to fight and flail and clutch and claw. But the blackness is enticing, the silence seductive. And the cold, the bone-deep cold, has her in its tight embrace, numbing her will as well as her body.

As she sinks down deeper into the cold blackness of the lake, Tilda thinks about how people say you see your whole life flash before you when you die. But no images of her childhood appear, no snatches of teenage romances, or family moments, or first foreign holidays. Nothing. It is more, she decides, as if she is watching her own death from a distance. As if she is a detached witness to the event, rather than the main player. She is not aware of any fear, nor pain. Just the seductive power of the cold, and the light-headedness a lack of oxygen is currently bringing about. She knows time must be passing at the usual rate, and that all she is experiencing is happening in seconds, and yet it feels as if these particular seconds have been stretched. As if down here, in the quiet darkness, everything moves to a different rhythm. Even her own heartbeat, which echoes softly against her eardrums, seems to have slowed effortlessly.