Page 64 of The Snow Witch

Jake drove along the road, angry at himself and yes, still angry at Violet. But the anger towards Violet was tempered with the fact that he wanted to protect her. He didn’t want that dream to become a reality: to find her body at Coventina’s Well in the middle of a snowstorm, and to know that he could have prevented it.

Was there even any future in it? If she was obsessed with this witch and this place and this Ollie to the extent that she was willing to trudge back to that bloody Well in this sort of weather, what was he even trying for? Perhaps he had been more invested in the relationship than she had. Perhaps it was just a fling, something for them to both get their ex-partners out of their minds. But fuck it, he liked her. He really liked her, and very, very obviously was trying to save her life.

Even if neither of them had seen it quite like that earlier…

And if he was to walk away, then he would bet that Ollie Brent would swiftly move into the space Jake had left in her life. He really disliked that guy. The more he thought about him, the more the anger grew. He was so fucking entitled – just because some fucker from his family tree had lived in a big house, he thought he was better than anyone else…

‘“He’s doing some research on his family tree. Roots in Newbrough, he thinks. His family owned Milburn Hall of all places!”’ Jake scowled, repeating the words Violet had said the one and only time he’d met Ollie Brent. Some people just didn’t deserve privilege.

He blinked, and grasped the steering wheel more tightly. The reasonable, pretty laid-back part of him was appalled at where that thought had come from; he was very much live and let live normally.

But the deeper he got into this area, the more he felt that part of him slide away and all these unreasonable thoughts come into his head about Ollie. Because all he wanted to do was to be with Violet. He honestly felt that he wouldn’t be able to breathe if she wasn’t in his life. He’d never, ever felt anything like that before about anybody… and being here, being so close to her yet so far – because he knew she was in this area somewhere – almost felt like it was destroying him from the inside out.

He wanted to find her. Badly. Before anything terrible happened to her.

And although Jake liked to think the boundaries were pretty clear between this world and the next, what if, just if, he had seen the future in that dream?

Violet had been odd and distant since Christmas, but he thought that they’d started to reconnect over the last few days and even more so after that trip to Hexham. He gave himself a mental shake. It was time for Reasonable Jake to try and think rationally.

Why should a few cross words stop him from making sure she was okay? The snow was starting again, and the thought of her out there, in that pink padded jacket, had his stomach in knots…

Jake was so hung up on all of that, that he realised he’d overshot the mark completely. Brocolitia was behind him, the entrance to the car park hidden by the sudden onslaught of the latest blizzard.

Jake stopped the van so quickly that there was a clatter from one of the cupboards behind him; no doubt that was a mug or a jar that would emerge in pieces when he next opened the damn door. He peered out of the semicircle on the window that was filling up with fat, fluffy snowflakes just as fast as it was clearing, and switched the wiper blades on to a faster speed. It was bloody bleak out there.

‘Oh, to hell with it!’

He rammed the van back in gear and made a 180 on the military road.

He needed to go back.

44

THEN

‘If Meg were here, she would tell me not to do this.’ Emory’s voice was tight, too controlled.

Charles tried to raise his head up to speak to Emory, to persuade him that he was mistaken, that he, Charles, was innocent of whatever Emory was trying to accuse him of, but the pistol pressed down on him, and he could not get the words out. His heart was pounding and he had never experienced a terror like this before.

‘Emory! You are not thinking straight. She bewitched you, isn’t it obvious⁠—’

‘Silence!’ Emory’s shout was like another pistol shot. ‘Meg was not a witch. You knew that. She was innocent. I do not know what you tried to do to her, but you caused her death. Her death. And our child’s death.’

‘Don’t be a fool!’ snapped Charles. ‘If she was with child, it was the spawn of Satan.’

It was the wrong thing to say.

‘You know very well that she was with child. You saw her stripped naked, no doubt in front of the entire village. You would have seen it; it was obvious.’ Emory’s voice hitched on an angry sob. ‘Meggie was nothing more than a woman. A woman who helped people. A woman who helped you!’ There was a breath near Charles’ ear as he felt Emory lean down and whisper to him, his brother’s lank, filthy hair tickling his skin, the smell of death and bloodshed clinging to him. ‘You disgust me. You sent her to her death. You killed her.’

And then, to his surprise: ‘Stand up.’ Emory kicked him in the ribs. ‘Stand up and face me like a man, you coward. Let me look in your eyes while I beat you to death or slit your throat. Or torture you the way they tortured her. A gunshot is too good and too quick for you.’

Charles cursed and struggled to his feet, his fists clenched. He would not go down without a fight.

In fact, he would not go down at all.

45

NOW