The Silver Witch(70)

‘But you…’ he squeezes her hands. ‘You did something … amazing. How…?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Have you ever done anything like that before?’

‘Of course not!’ she says, more sharply than she meant to.

‘Oh? So are we not, even now, going to talk about a boat motor that wouldn’t and then would start, or a clock that keeps stopping, or power supplies that blow?’

‘That was … is … different.’ She pauses, then explains. ‘I can control that sort of thing now. Most of the time. If I put my mind to it. Or rather, if I let my mind … I dunno. It’s not something I can put into words.’

‘Have you always been able to do that stuff?’

‘Only since I came here.’

‘You think there’s something about this place, something weird?’

‘Not this place, but me in this place. I don’t mean the cottage, but, well, around here. And that terrible ghost, whatever it is, the way it seems to seek me out … But mostly, it’s something about being near the lake that has … changed me. No, wait, it’s not that.’ A moment of clarity makes her smile, despite her rattled state. ‘I’m not different now I’m here, I’m more me. More my real self. More how I should be.’ She searches his face for understanding but sees only bewilderment.

And who can blame him?

She rubs her temples. ‘Look, I’m sorry, you don’t have to stay . . ’

‘Do you want me to go?’

‘No. It’s just, well, I want to load the kiln. I want to fire the pots tonight.’

‘Now?’

‘I know this’ll sound ridiculous; I don’t fully get it myself yet. I don’t have it all worked out, I only know that the bracelet helped me today. Down by the lake, I couldn’t have done whatever it was I did without the bracelet. And the drawings on it match the drawings on my pots. It’s the connection that makes everything work … makes me able to do … things.’ She sighs heavily. ‘Trust me, I’m finding this as difficult to grasp as you are,’ she tells him. ‘If I try to figure it out any more I shall lose what sanity I have left. Right now I need to do something. Something I believe might help protect us from that … thing. And this is what I know how to do, okay?’

‘Then let me stay. Let me help.’

‘You sure you want to be near me? Seems stuff … happens around me.’

‘Or perhaps the only place that’s safe is with you, have you looked at it that way? I mean, you saved me tonight, no question.’

‘But I’m the one who saw the … ghost, apparition, thing that came out of that grave. I’m the one it keeps leaping at, keeps trying to scare the life out of.’

‘Safety in numbers then, better stick together. Yeah?’

She hesitates, then picks up the basket of kindling and thrusts it into his arms. ‘Have it your way. You can set the fire in the kiln while I get the pots loaded.’

The moment she steps back into the studio Tilda finds her mood shifts, as she knew it would. To engage in her creative endeavor is to lose herself in that act of creation, even when attending to the seemingly mundane process of preparing for a firing. As she carefully takes the wrapping off her pots and reveals them in their raw, unfinished state, she feels once again that powerful connection. A connection to the result of her own artistic effort, but also, this time, a connection to the ancient patterns and symbols she has worked into her pieces. She takes a minute to gaze at the bounding hares and the chasing hound. To let her eyes travel along the lithe, supple limbs, feeling their easy movement, imagining the strength of the muscles propelling the animals forward across frozen ground, immersing herself in the idea of their running free and wild, so that soon she is convinced she can hear the dual rhythms of their heartbeats, the hares’ fluttering and fast, the hound’s slower, but every bit as urgent and vital.

It is past midnight by the time Tilda and Dylan are able to step back and look at the smoldering kiln, watching as reassuring amounts of smoke pour steadily forth from its short chimney. The construction looks home built, but nonetheless robust, and the mortar appears to be set firm in the gaps between the bricks. The snow around it has melted, so that it sits, stout and russet, standing out against the stark whiteness its glow illuminates close up, fading into the darkness a few strides on. It took them two hours to carefully load the shelves with Tilda’s pieces, and another to get the fire properly going so that they could then seal up the door.

‘You know, I think it might actually work,’ says Dylan.