The Silver Witch(55)

So beautiful. As if the world has been born again. I have to go out in that.

She quickly dresses in her thermals and running gear, jamming her beanie on. The cottage has become so familiar to her now that she can move around inside with ease even when there is so little light. Despite the weirdness of what is happening to her, Ty Gwyn feels increasingly friendly. More and more like home. Thistle stretches, wags and follows her down the stairs. Tilda pauses to peep through the open door into the sitting room. Dylan is still sleeping on the sofa, all but hidden by the duvet and blankets she found him the night before. The fire in the hearth has gone out, but the little room is still warm. Tilda carefully closes the door, not wanting to disturb him, and heads out through the kitchen.

The snow is the stuff of childhood dreams. Even in the low light it sparkles like sugar and sits fatly on every surface, every tree, every gate and fence post. Tilda can just make out the lake below as she finishes her warm-up exercises and sets off. It is teal blue, silky, dark against the lightening countryside around it. It is not cold enough for ice, and the snow affords a reasonable amount of grip. Even so, Tilda has to descend the hill cautiously, taking care to stick to the road and then to the footpath. Once on level ground she can increase her speed to a decent pace, enjoying once again the rhythm of running, feeling her muscles working, experiencing the glow and the lift that rewards such sustained exertion.

Come on fleet feet. Running on a cushion of snow. Step, push, step, push. Tilda loves to run. Tilda needs to run. I have seriously missed this!

Her footsteps thud and crunch through the virgin snow, each lift of a heel giving a short squeak. Thistle, like so many animals, is made frisky by the fluffy substance she finds herself bounding through. She abandons her customary loping to frolic and leap, breaking away from the path every now and then to run crazy loops across the water meadows. Tilda laughs at the dog’s skittish behavior. Such playfulness is catching, and she stoops to scoop up a handful of snow. Quickly forming it into a ball, she waits until the hound comes close again.

‘Here, girl! Catch!’ she calls out as she throws the snowball high into the air. Thistle leaps after it, snatching at the ball as it passes, shaking her head and pouncing at nothing as it crumbles to flakes in her mouth.

Soon the gaps in Tilda’s running program begin to tell, and she is forced to slow to a walk. A sharp stitch has developed in her left side, so that she stops and bends over, panting, waiting for the spasm to pass. She wonders if Dylan will wake up while she is out. What will he think if he finds her gone?

He knows I run. He’ll figure it out. Hopefully, he’ll relight the stoves.

Tilda is aware of how much she has enjoyed Dylan’s company since he turned up to deliver her books. After her meltdown on the way home from Brecon she had felt so shaken, so defeated, somehow. Working together to build the kiln had been the perfect remedy. She had felt so alone for so long, she had almost forgotten her own need for companionship. For the simple pleasure of a shared objective worked toward with someone it was possible to connect with. When he had suggested staying the night her initial response had been panic, quickly followed by embarrassment at her own assumption.

There was no expectation behind his offer. Nothing manipulative. Just a friend, being a friend.

As promised, he had cooked a meal that consisted mostly of tinned tomatoes and potatoes, which they had eaten by the light of candle stubs and the log fire in the sitting room. It might have been uncomfortably, inappropriately romantic as a setting, but it was really just the most comfortable place to eat. The Rayburn stove in the kitchen was working better, now that she had learned how to get the best out of it, and it cooked food well enough, but the sitting room was cozier in the evenings. The studio became numbingly cold at night since the temperature outside had dropped so far. The sitting room was definitely the warmest part of the cottage. Dylan had once, tentatively, brought up the subject of the lack of electricity. She had found it surprisingly easy to tell him she preferred life in the cottage without a power supply. She realized, as she formed the words, that this was the truth. After her success at restoring the supply in the pub, she was fairly certain that she could do the same at home. But she didn’t want to. She had grown accustomed to living by the rhythm of the winter days—rising with the dawn, working in natural light, sleeping when candlelight became tiring to read by. Since she’d mastered the Rayburn, there was plenty of hot water for showers. And she was genuinely excited at the thought of what her work would look like fired in the wood-burning kiln. It all just seemed to fit, seemed so right, somehow.