Page 42 of The Snow Witch

From beneath the twisted cloth, Meggie heard Nicholson step towards her, intending, she was sure, to inspect every inch of the flesh that was exposed.

He was so close, she could feel his hot breath on her body. His breathing was ragged and excited, and she wanted to pull away from him, but she was held fast by the men.

His voice spoke next to her ear, his face invisible to her. ‘Do not struggle, witch. If you are innocent, you have nothing to fear.’

Meggie could feel the icy, damp cold seeping through the snow-covered earth, numbing her feet and creeping up her legs. She thought she would faint with cold and humiliation. She prayed to Coventina that she would lose consciousness; she knew the outcome as well as she knew her soul. But it would make this more bearable if she was oblivious to it.

27

NOW

Jake had pulled out all the blankets he had in the van’s storage compartments and made himself a comfy nest out of it all. He lay in bed, knowing that outside the van, there was a blizzard going on. He wasn’t usually one for worrying too much, but even he had felt a vague sense of unease as he prepared for the night.

He had heat, food and power, and he was on a proper campsite with showers and a toilet block and all that, so he would be fine, but he knew that a few miles along the road, Violet was in, presumably, a larger, softer and warmer bed. He was hoping it was without this Ollie guy – but the more he thought about it, the more he decided he didn’t like or trust this man. Which was crazy, as he didn’t even know him, right?

He’d seen him for the first time in Hexham, but he still couldn’t shake the idea that he knew him from somewhere, and he hadn’t really got along with him then…

Or maybe he was just jealous and a little cross that Violet had a dinner date with him, and not Jake.

She shouldn’t be spending time with that man…

The thought swam into Jake’s head and he shook it away.

Like he said, he didn’t even know the bastard.

He turned over and pulled the blankets up to his chin. He was probably overthinking. So, he closed his eyes and tried to put it out of his mind so he could drift off to sleep.

His dreams were confusing, though. They unravelled like a piece of string. He might have guessed that he would have dreamed about Violet, considering they’d spent some time together this afternoon, and she was the very person he’d been thinking of as he dozed off. What he hadn’t considered, though, was where and how she’d appear in the dream.

Where, was at Coventina’s Well.

She was half-kneeling, half-standing in the snow, her pink padded jacket standing out against the blank white landscape, her skin looking even paler than usual. Jake was reaching out to her and calling her name but in the dream, he had the awful sense that she was watching him from somewhere else, standing apart from him, and that they weren’t the only people there. Something formed out of nothing and all of a sudden, it was standing over her, indistinct but hovering just out of sight, and whatever it was, seemed to be waiting for her soul or her spirit or something, and then she turned around and saw it, and it rushed at her and she screamed and⁠—

Jake woke himself up, hating the sights and muddled thoughts in his mind. The dream – or nightmare – simply had to be based on the other day when he’d found her there.

But it was wrong, wasn’t it? She was standing up when he’d found her, slipping towards the Well, but she was on her feet and her arms flailing as she tried to steady herself. She hadn’t been in that half-kneeling position!

He sat up, his heart thumping, and looked around the darkened van. He lifted the curtains and peered outside. Nothing but blackness greeted him.

He lay back down, telling himself to get a grip, when a huge clap of thunder echoed through the vehicle. He shot back into a sitting position and threw the curtains wide open. The sky lit up in shades of orange and purple and green, and whatever view he had of the campsite was obscured by a blizzard of snowflakes.

And it took a good while for him to settle back down again – especially because he was certain that he’d seen the shape of a woman lit up in the darkness, on the side of the hill outside the site, raising her arms heavenwards, and blotting out some of that blizzard. She turned slowly to face him, and it was almost as if she was staring directly at him.

And when the second crash of thunder had come, and the night sky lit up like fireworks again, she vanished.

* * *

Violet had had a pretty unsettled night. She had worked on her book probably later than she should have done, mainly because she knew she wasn’t sleepy in the slightest. Her intention had been to crack on with the book, and the exhibition in the Old Gaol should, in reality, have helped her to bring her research together a bit.

But all she could think about was that dagger and the dungeon incident and the Witch Trials, and she finally switched off the laptop at eleven. As she lay in bed, her mind was whirring and she spent most of the next four hours just staring into the darkness of the room, tossing and turning, and getting cross with herself for not being able to drop off. She dozed off around 3 a.m. and was awake again around four.

At four-thirty, she was wondering what was the point of trying to sleep any more.

So around five in the morning, she got up.

She didn’t want to go for breakfast quite so early, but similarly didn’t want to spend any longer in her room. So she decided to go outside. It was just before sunrise, and she liked that time of day – the world was just about waking up, and she loved being outside in nature, being part of it.

She tried to work out which way was east so she could see the sunrise over the vast, white wilderness, and she realised it was back towards Coventina’s Well. A white mist was settled in the valley, obscuring it all from view, and Violet adored it. No matter how strange that place had been over the last couple of days, she still felt a pull, directly to the Well.