The Silver Witch(25)

‘Good morning!’ he calls to her over the noise of the rain. He is close to the shore but he treads water rather than standing and stumbling in the mud that must be beneath his feet. ‘Wet day for a run,’ he says, taking in the drenched state of Tilda’s clothes. ‘You should get yourself one of these,’ he adds, indicating his wet suit.

The sudden relief, as fear and tension melt away, leaves Tilda quite drained and not altogether in the mood for banter with a stranger.

‘I don’t imagine you can see anything down there,’ she says, pointing to the lake. ‘It must be so muddy, and dark, and churned up by the rain.’

He lifts a large underwater torch, making Tilda feel a bit stupid.

‘What are you looking for, anyway?’ she asks.

‘Ah, well, I won’t know that until I find it.’

She nods, deciding that she has done her bit by way of being civil and can now reasonably move on. But as she turns and starts off the diver swims alongside her. ‘You should try it,’ he says. ‘Diving. It’s quite something, beneath the water.’

‘I prefer dry land,’ she tells him, caught between staying and going.

‘You call that dry?’

The question makes her awkwardly conscious of how she must look, soaked to the skin, flushed from running, beanie plastered to her head.

As if sensing her discomfort, the young man says, ‘I could give you a lift, if you like.’ He gestures into the gloom and now she can make out a small boat bobbing a little ways behind him on the lake. It has an outboard motor and is evidently anchored so that he can return to it after his dive. She watches as he swims out to it, takes hold of the side and pulls himself aboard. The little boat rocks wildly but rights itself once he is in. He slips off his oxygen tanks and pulls down his rubber hood, revealing a mass of black curls. ‘Come on, I’ll take you across the lake,’ he tells her.

She shakes her head. ‘No. Thanks. I want to finish my run.’

‘I can bring the boat nearer the shore if you like. You won’t have to swim. Though, actually, I don’t think you could get any wetter.’

His teasing begins to rankle. She knows how bedraggled she looks, and now she is being made to feel more than a little silly. Soon he will detect her fear of the water, she is sure of it. And then Tilda has an idea. A startling, wild idea. An idea that makes her pulse quicken again, and fills her with a curious excitement.

Crazy, girl. Too much time on your own. It’d never work. You can’t do it. Can you?

She stills her thoughts. With no clear notion of what it is she is doing, only a clear picture in her mind of the end result she is aiming for, she focuses her attention on the boat. She forms no words in her head, utters no whisper beneath her breath. She is simply still, simply pulled into this one place, this one moment, this one visualized wish. And suddenly, as if a key has turned in a lock, or a switch has been thrown to connect a circuit, Tilda knows that it is done. Her amazement at the knowledge of this certain fact brings from her a short bark of laughter. The diver looks at her, puzzled. She waves good-bye and turns to go. He calls after her.

‘See you on the other side, then?’

But she shakes her head, calling back over her shoulder, ‘Not unless you plan on swimming.’ And as she runs on along the lakeside path her footsteps are accompanied by the sounds of the young man trying to start the outboard motor on his boat. Trying and failing. Trying and failing. Trying and failing.

As Tilda had known he would. Only when she has reached the stile to the lane, when she has put some distance between herself and the motor, does she let go the captive image of the static motor. She releases her grip on the thing, setting it free from her influence. There is a pause, then the sound of the pull-chord being worked again, and Tilda allows herself another smile as she hears the engine at last successfully fire into life.


SEREN

I wait until the sun is directly above me, and then take my basket and head toward the woodland to the south of the lake. It is a dry day, mild for the time of year. Others are no doubt welcoming the brightness of the sunshine, but it is a trial for me. I wear my hooded cloak so that my eyes, sensitive to such harsh light, are afforded at least some shade. As I walk across the water meadows, the noises of busy lives upon the crannog start to fade. With each step the laughter of the children, the hammer of the blacksmith, the coaxing calls of the cowherd, all recede as if into memory, to be replaced by the less insistent sounds of the copse. The trees here are carefully managed. None may be felled without the prince’s permission, so that there is always heavy timber for building houses, or slender ash for making arrows, or logs to keep the people of the crannog and the village warm in the chill of the night.