The Silver Witch(69)

‘My love!’ he murmurs, shaking my hair free of its bonds and running his hand through it. ‘My living ghost, my silver goddess, my shining heart…’ He kisses my eyes, my face, my throat, hungrily, eagerly, the waiting and wanting of years at last overcoming him.

My hands trace the muscles of his back as he presses me against the trunk of the great tree. So much strength turned to gentleness. So much power brought to sweetness for want of me.

‘Let me love you,’ he whispers in my ear. ‘Be mine now. Forever. I cannot live otherwise. I swear it.’

I gasp, unnerved by the force of my own desire for him.

He undoes the brooch that holds my cape, and slips the tunic from my shoulders, exposing my bare flesh to the moonlight. He touches the drawings on my pale skin, following the dark curves of the ink patterns.

‘I would know all of you, in all your wonder,’ he says, dropping to his knees to press his mouth to my quivering belly.

And I know I can deny him no longer. I know I can never again turn from him. Let the future judge us as it will, the present is ours, and it is glorious!





13

TILDA

They are both so shaken by the events at the dig that neither speaks on the journey back to the cottage. Lucas was in a state of understandable rage over the condition of the dig, the broken lights and the failed attempt to raise the remains. He didn’t blame Tilda outright, after all, how could he? And yet a large part of his anger was directed at her. If he could not say exactly how she had been connected to the calamitous occurrences that had so completely wrecked the dig, he clearly knew she was, in some crucial way, involved. There had been so much confusion, so much panic when the lights had started exploding, with people scattering in all directions, that nobody save Dylan and Tilda had seen the last falling light halt halfway to the ground. Or if they had, they had not believed what they saw, and quickly allowed themselves to banish the image from their minds and address the more tangible, pressing issues to hand, such as clearing broken glass and checking mangled equipment in the half-light. When Lucas’s language and demeanor became almost aggressive, Dylan was quick to defend Tilda, the two men nearly coming to blows until she simply turned and marched over to the Landrover.

She is hugely relieved to be home again. As they approach the cottage she can hear Thistle howling, and the second she opens the door the dog bounds out, greeting her with such exuberance she is nearly knocked off her feet.

‘Okay, girl,’ she says, kneeling to hug her tightly. ‘It’s okay,’ she repeats.

Dylan shuts the kitchen door behind him and leans on the Rayburn. He pushes his mop of hair back from his face. ‘Right,’ he says, the tension showing in his voice. ‘I really need to know what just happened.’ When Tilda says nothing, he tries again. ‘Look, maybe I’m just shaky because I narrowly missed having my head broken open, but I’m having trouble making sense of things. What I do know is, I’m in one piece, nothing smashed or crushed, no bones snapped, standing here in your kitchen pretty hale and hearty, and the fact that I am is down to you, Tilda. It’s because of something you did.’

She gets up, leaving the dog, and busies herself with finding small logs from the basket.

‘Tilda?’

‘I don’t know! You think I can explain it? Any of it?’

‘Any of what? This has something to do with what you saw in the Landrover, doesn’t it? Did you see the same thing again, down there at the dig? What made you jump into the trench like that?’

‘This is going to sound completely crazy.’ She shakes her head, pulling open the fire door and jamming wood inside. Smoke billows into the room.

‘I’m prepared for crazy,’ Dylan assures her. ‘I just felt crazy whistle past my ear. I just saw crazy stop a heavy object in midair.’

‘What makes you think I have the answers?’

‘Okay, stop. Just stop.’ Gently, he shuts the stove door, takes Tilda’s hands in his and makes her stand and face him. ‘Small steps. First, what did you see?’

‘Lots of things. Moving about. Swirling. There was so much happening, so much that was so powerful and strange. Maddest thing is, it wasn’t scary, not that, but then … I saw … someone. Someone … bad.’

‘The same someone you saw before? In the back of Linny?’

Tilda nods.

‘You think they came out of the grave?’

‘I think she was trying to. I think she would have if they hadn’t dropped the stone back in place.’ She meets his gaze now. ‘I think she will. When Lucas opens that grave again she’ll come out. And I won’t be able to stop her. And she’s dangerous, Dylan. Those lights didn’t fall on their own. We both know that. There was no wind, no one knocked them over. It was … whoever, whatever came out of that hole in the ground.’