The Silver Witch(34)
Tilda regards her pet with amazement. She shakes her head and smiles. ‘You are one very strange dog, you know that? Come on, there must be something left at home we can call breakfast.’
7
TILDA
Later the same day there is a dramatic drop in the temperature. After a frustrating session in the studio, where nothing seems to want to go right, Tilda shares the last tin of chicken soup with Thistle, and the two of them retreat to the sitting room. Tilda banks up the fire, wondering how long the log supply will last if she has no central heating to back up the wood fires and stoves in the house. She pulls cushions off the small sofa and hunkers down on the rug as close to the crackling flames as is sensible, with Thistle curled up beside her. She has lit a paraffin storm lantern, which smells more than a little, and gives out a low light that is helpful, but not steady or strong enough to read by. A moment of inspiration drove her to dig through the unpacked box of camping gear to find a headlight. Tilda has put new batteries in it and adjusted the headband to make it as comfortable as she can, and now the thing provides a narrow beam that neatly illuminates a page at a time as she leafs slowly through the books Professor Williams lent her.
The images of Celtic knot-work are quickly becoming familiar to her. There are standard shapes and patterns that seem to have been employed in a variety of ways. Animals, birds and flowers are often incorporated into the designs, twisting and entwining with one another, their heads and bodies stylized and elongated, their eyes always watchful and sharp.
Yes, these. On my pots, these would work. The animals, in particular, I think.
But it is too late in the day, and too dark in the sitting room, to attempt sketching. Instead she puts the book aside and chooses the next. A moment’s turning of the pages reveals impenetrably dense text regarding the history of the lake. Tilda feels unequal to the task of reading it. She knows there must be fascinating facts hidden somewhere in the plodding prose, but she is not in the right state of mind to tackle it.
The third book is the one the professor chose for her, almost as an afterthought. Only now has she had the chance to look at it. She reads the title out loud to Thistle.
‘“Myths and Legends of Llyn Syfaddan.” Hmm, what d’you reckon, girl? Might answer a few questions?’
Tilda has learned enough to recognize the old Welsh name for Llangors Lake. The book has a hardcover that creaks slightly as she opens it. There are slightly fuzzy black-and-white plates showing maidens with flowing hair, dark-eyed men on horseback, hunting dogs by the pack and one singularly strange beast. Checking the figure reference, Tilda explains to her uncomplaining audience: ‘That’s an Afanc. Scary-looking thing. Like a cross between a dragon and the Loch Ness Monster. Well, well. It seems our lake has its very own water-horse.’ Reading on, she learns that the Afanc has several legends surrounding it, some making it out to be a benign, misunderstood creature, others portraying it in a less flattering light. In one version the water-horse, which had the ability to walk upon the shore of the lake, was coaxed from its hiding place by a brave young girl of the village. She sang to it as it laid its head in her lap, and the local men were able to capture it. It was then either removed to another, distant lake where it could no longer devour the villagers’ cattle, or slain, depending on which story you chose to believe. Tilda runs her fingers over the largest picture of the beast, which shows it to have overlapping scales, a long, sinuous neck, and enormous eyes. Although at first glance she had thought it frightening, she now decides it was, in fact, a gentle thing, without fearsome teeth or claws, and had probably just wanted to live peacefully in the clean, deep waters of the lake. She catches herself believing the creature to have actually existed, but is not surprised.
Why not? If magic is possible, visions, ghosts … why not fantastic beasts too? What else lives in those ancient waters, I wonder?
With a sigh, she realizes the book has not, in fact, provided answers, but instead it has raised even more questions. And there are only two ways Tilda knows to work through a problem.
Run or work. And I’ve done a great deal of running lately, and precious little work.
‘Okay, Thistle,’ she declares, snapping shut the dusty book. ‘Work it is.’
For the next five days Tilda works in her studio, wearing many layers of thermals and woolens, her hands clumsy in their fingerless mittens, as the countryside around her freezes. She is able, at last, to fall into that near-meditative state that artists yearn for, where each sketch, each worked slab of clay, each finished piece, seems to move closer to the ideal. Closer to the fervently imagined perfection that skitters on the peripheral vision of her mind’s eye. Over and over, she sketches the intricate and ancient Celtic patterns. She starts with dogs, and then birds and then hares silently slip their way into her designs. She builds huge, bulbous pots from coils of clay, each one unique and beautiful in its basic, rustic shape. Onto these she builds her knot-work in thin strips, adding, blending, working, until the pattern stands in relief from its base while still seeming to merge with it. To grow from it. Gradually, over days, the studio fills with these generous shapes and their detailed, symbolic decoration.