Witch(31)

“A nice hot mug of tea would be just fine,” I smiled back.

“Sure?” he said, looking a little disappointed.

Michael led me down the hill. I looked back, wondering what was in that bottle. I couldn’t help but feel confused, as I had dreamt about it. If the bottle, with its folded piece of paper tucked inside, was real, then wasn’t the girl, too? Maybe Michael did know something about her? After all, she had died on his father’s farm. I wanted to ask him about her, but not in front of his father. So as we passed by the barn, I pulled Michael towards it.

With his thick, dark curls blowing about the sides of his face in the wind, and his green eyes twinkling, he smiled at me and let me lead him inside. Michael pushed the door closed with the heel of his boot. The barn was warm inside, and bales of hay lay scattered about the dusty floor. No sooner had the door been shut, when Michael folded me in his arms and kissed me. This hadn’t been the reason why I’d wanted him alone, but the feel of his lips against mine felt so good, that it was impossible not to kiss him back. As we kissed, Michael ran his hands down the back of my coat and squeezed my arse with his strong hands, pulling my hips against him. He guided me towards a pile of the hay and eased me down into it. It felt soft and warm beneath me. He pulled my coat open, his eyes never leaving mine, a smile playing on his lips. I closed my eyes and felt his hands fumble open the button which held my jeans up. Once open, he slipped his hand inside, and I felt the tips of his fingers brush over me. His touch excited me as much as ever, but I just couldn’t get the images of that well and that girl out of my mind. I tried to relax, but couldn’t. I gently took hold of Michael’s wrist and pulled his hand free of my jeans. He looked up at me, that smile spreading across his handsome face.

“You want to be in charge again?” he whispered excitedly.

“No,” I whispered back, refastening the button on my jeans.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, leaning over me as if to kiss me again. “Is this another game?”

“No, Michael,” I said. “I just want to talk.”

With a cocked eyebrow, he looked down at me as I lay on my back beneath him. “This sounds serious.”

“It’s not serious,” I said, pulling myself up onto my elbows, straw covering me and my coat. “Or at least I don’t think it is.”

Michael rolled onto his side next to me, resting his head on his hand. “What’s wrong, Sydney?” he asked, sounding concerned.

Sitting up and folding my coat about me, I took a deep breath and said, “Do you remember I told you I’d had a nightmare about falling into a well?”

“I think so,” he said thoughtfully. “Why?”

“It’s just that I had another nightmare about the same well,” I said, looking at him. “But this time there was a girl in the well. She was crying. She told me she had been pushed...”

“It was just a nightmare,” he said with a gentle laugh, as if trying to ease my mind.

“I’m not so sure...” I whispered, now looking away from him, scared I might make myself look like a fool. With my eyes fixed on the opposite barn wall and the tools and rope which hung from it, I added, “I think she died in that well...the well on this farm.”

Michael didn’t say anything. He didn’t try and laugh my idea away like he’d done just moments before. Slowly, I turned my head to face him again. Michael was now sitting up and staring back at me. I couldn’t be sure if it was the light inside the barn, but his face appeared to have drained of all colour.





Chapter Seventeen

“What’s wrong, Michael?” I breathed.

“There was a girl who died in that well,” he said, standing and brushing straw from the seat of his trousers.

Hearing this, my heart started to beat faster. “Who was she?”

“She was one of those people my father called the ‘witches,’” he said, the sparkle in his eyes now gone.

Hearing this I leapt up, the sudden realisation that both the girl and the old man were connected, felt like a blow to my stomach. “What was her name?” I asked, drawing breath.

“Molly Smith, I think it was,” he said, averting my stare. I got the sudden feeling that he was keeping something from me.

“What aren’t you telling me, Michael?” I said, going to him.

“There’s really nothing to tell,” he said.

“So how did she end up in that well?” I pushed, my police instincts coming back. I didn’t want to make him feel like he was under some kind of interrogation.

“It was an accident,” he said, now looking at me, meeting my stare. “She fell in. Look, those people were always coming onto our land, breaking things and taking anything which wasn’t nailed down. She shouldn’t have even been on our land. If she hadn’t had been trespassing that night, then she would have never fallen into the well in the first place.”