Page 29 of The Snow Witch

After he had gone, Meggie stood and walked slowly to the back of the room. Her gait was unsteady, and she was exhausted, aching, in pain and drained from the day, still humiliated from the way they had thrown her out of the church.

She opened the drawer and picked up the wax figure she had been moulding before the horrible events of the funeral. She had begun to make it the day after Alice died. She turned it to and fro in her hands, great heaving sobs suddenly wracking her body as she clutched it to her chest.

‘Alice, Alice…’ she said, her voice cracking on the words. ‘I have to make this right. I have to⁠—’

It was the first time she had tried anything like this. The recipe book she had hidden beneath the flagstone had dangerous things in it – darker charms than she was used to, darker invocations that she had shied away from and had never, ever, wanted to dabble with.

But this was different. She had held her emotions in check when Emory had left, hopeful that he would be reassured that she felt better. But the truth of the matter was that she hated Charles Milburn with a depth of feeling she had never experienced before. She took a deep breath, resting her hand on her stomach, trying to force herself to be calm lest it hurt the babe in some way. She did not want her child to feel the way she did right now – ever.

She looked at the wax figure – a poppet. Something she had created and moulded to represent Charles Milburn. She meant to use it against him, and had already carved his initials into it. She placed it on the dresser and studied it. She was hesitant to do this in some ways. It was anathema to her, a person who had done naught but help people. Who had brought babies into the world, healed people and given comfort to those who she could no longer help, simply by sitting beside them, holding their hands and whispering prayers to the goddess to guide them safely into the afterlife.

But as she stared at the poppet and thought of Charles Milburn, she was suddenly aware of a presence forming behind her: a demon, perhaps, created from anger and hatred and all the vile energy of the day⁠—

She spun around and looked straight at it, a black mass that shifted and changed. Her heart pounded – blessed goddess, what had she done?

The creature maintained its shape for a moment, then faded back into nothing.

‘Forgive me Coventina!’ Meggie cried. ‘I know this is forbidden. I’m so sorry I should not have done it.’

Then she threw the poppet back into the drawer and lit some sage with shaking hands. She had to try to clear the negativity. She had to try.

19

NOW

‘Flavinus,’ said Jake, seeming to enjoy the sound of the word. ‘Who would have thought a Roman standard bearer would have ended up in an Abbey?’

‘Technically, he’s not in the Abbey,’ said Violet. ‘It’s just his tombstone. I believe the word you are looking for is “repurposed”.’

‘Is that two words?’ Jake looked at her sidelong and she rolled her eyes heavenwards.

‘I don’t think so. You’re the teacher.’

‘And you’re the writer.’

‘True.’

Jake had presumably enjoyed the Abbey; it had struck him right in his interests, you could say – a Pagan tombstone in a Christian building. There’d been a jolly nice tea shop as well there, so they’d enjoyed a hot chocolate, looking out at the wintery courtyard beyond the windows.

It was a good distraction for Violet as well. But even as she wandered around the Abbey and looked for the image of the little Edwardian girl hidden amongst the cherubs in the stained-glass window, her thoughts kept going back to Ollie and the look on his face when they’d seen him in the Market Place. Something had happened to him at the Well, and she wanted to find out what it was.

She looked at Jake, wondering if she should share her experiences with him, then decided it was probably best not to. Sometimes, it was better talking to a relative stranger than someone who knew you very well. Also, she didn’t want him to think she’d gone mad.

So she made appropriate responses as they walked out of the Abbey, through the pretty, snow-dusted park, and doubled back on themselves to head towards the old gaol.

The building was in a back street, more or less – another one of those solid, stone-built places with some jaunty stocks in the yard out front. But it was tall and imposing, and Violet shuddered, thinking how very unfortunate one had to be to end up in there.

But that wasn’t the only thing that made her shudder. There was a strange feeling to the place, and she hesitated before stepping over the threshold. She wasn’t sure if she was being urged to enter the building, or warned to stay away.

They went inside and she looked around at the lobby and the little gift shop – and at a huge glass elevator that was hovering above a pit in the ground.

‘Oh nice! Looks like we can go in the dungeon. I’ll get the tickets and we’ll explore.’

Violet couldn’t answer. The sense of unease and terror emanating from that dungeon was palpable. ‘Do you not think it feels – weird?’ she whispered eventually, nodding across at it.

Jake shook his head. ‘No, it looks fun.’ As they watched, a family got in the lift and dropped down, out of sight. They remained there for a couple of minutes then came back up to the ground floor, where the doors opened and they stepped out.

The kids had wide eyes but looked pleased with themselves, and as they walked past Violet into the gift shop, the oldest one, a boy, aged about eleven wearing a football strip with shorts even in the cold weather, looked up at her. ‘It’s not that scary,’ he said. ‘The doors don’t open and it comes back up.’