Page 68 of The Snow Witch

He was aware of a smooth sliding noise, and turned his face to the side, seeing the dagger slip inexorably down to the Well. He should just let it disappear, sink in there, be lost forever…

But then he rolled towards it and grabbed it, still sobbing, as he tossed it away across the other side of the field. He would deal with it later. He would take it back to Meg’s cottage, put it back where he found it.

He could not let something like that contaminate Coventina’s Well. That blade was stained with the blood of three people now – no, more than that; it had taken the lives of four people: Meg, her unborn child, Nicholson, and now Charles.

Realistically, the dagger had taken the lives of five people, because Emory knew his life was over, even if he survived another fifty years.

Because what life would it be without her and without their child?

He closed his eyes and gave himself up to his loss again.

Eventually, when his mind was numb and empty, Emory scrambled onto all fours and crawled towards the sacred pool. He stared into it. No sign of Charles, thank the goddess. But as he watched, he saw a face begin to take shape. At first, he thought it was Meggie, reaching out to him, but then he realised she had golden hair and eyes the colour of thunder clouds. She lifted her hand and beckoned, and Emory sat back on his heels, his heart pounding.

No. No, he was going mad; he was seeing things. The energy was swirling and building around him, a mist forming on the top of the Well, and he clambered to his feet, shaking. He took one last look at that Well, and turned his back on it. He ran over to the dagger where it lay half-buried in the snow, then grabbed it.

Then he ran as fast as he could to Meg’s house. He would sleep there again, hide the dagger and return to Milburn Hall as if nothing was amiss. It was all he could do.

Emory didn’t see the white hand stretching out from the mist that was forming, the helpless gesture where it reached out to take something from him, but he did hear the crack as the broken wall surrounding the well fell and crashed into the pool, and all he could do was duck and keep running as the sky lit up in colours of green, purple and orange, and the clouds barrelled in from behind him and the thunder rumbled across the landscape as the clouds dumped snow on the landscape.

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NOW

Violet almost felt she was losing herself in contemplation at Coventina’s Well. She was entranced by the vision of Emory, the dagger lying forgotten beside her, and as she stared into the water, she began to imagine parts of Meg’s life – how she must have felt when she realised she was having a baby to the man who adored her and how he must have felt when he discovered what they’d done to her.

A wave of nausea washed over her. Even though Meg had been dead almost four hundred years, the idea of what she, along with so many more innocent victims, had suffered at the hands of the Witch Finders – and the people in the village who had turned against the accused for whatever reason – resonated. The images and feelings that Meg must have experienced pressed down on her, and she felt as if she was a bystander in some insane nightmare she couldn’t wake up from: the shouts, the accusations, the hopeless prayers she had been whispering as she was accused of hexing the village and cursing everyone.

‘You are finished, witch… She cursed the ground, she summoned Satan and he held me down as she tried to kill me…’

‘No…’ Violet breathed, ‘That’s not what happened at all…’

She had that horrible, prickling feeling again that someone was approaching her and she looked up, scanning the area. Coventina’s Well felt different now, it was eerie and no longer magical. She almost felt like prey being hunted, her senses on high alert for a predator. Above her, the sky was the colour of old bruises, clouds gathering and chasing one another across the vast expanse. She imagined the Well with no car park up on the hill, and just white fields surrounding the area. The road she had grown so accustomed to over the last few days hadn’t even been built until the 1750s, because General Wade had ordered the road to be constructed to carve its way through the ancient remains of Hadrian’s Wall.

There was a crash above her, and the discoloured sky lit up in flashes of green, purple and orange, and snow cascaded down.

Thundersnow, she thought wildly, starting to get to her feet as she came to her senses. Why would she even choose to stay out here with that going on around her?

But that was the least of her worries, because as she began to get to her feet, half-kneeling, half-standing, she saw a figure striding towards her.

‘Ollie?’ His stance and his movements were familiar in a way that she recognised, not just from the last few days where she’d shared a guest house with him and some crazy tales, but at some sort of deeper level in her heart and in her soul, from centuries ago…

And the part of her that was Meg and had found her here knew that he was as dangerous to her now as he had been on the day he had accused her of being a witch and brought Nicholson to her sanctuary.

Because Violet could see, clear as day, that black shape that was swirling behind him. She could feel the energy from the dagger thrumming, combined with Coventina’s energy, but she knew that even with those close by, the human man Charles had inhabited – his descendant – was still physically stronger than her.

‘Oh my God – he’s brought fucking Charles Milburn here!’ she said.

If he, Charles, decided to harm her through Ollie, she didn’t know what she could do to protect herself.

Or would Emory come, if she cast the net of her thoughts wide enough? She had to try…

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NOW

Jake made his way past the temple, the stones and walls topped with white, as the snow kept on falling, and he crossed the Burn beside it. The water was relentless, sloshing over the banks of the stream and racing down towards Newbrough. He shuddered, remembering the reason why Violet had come here originally – to find out more about the witch they’d burned before someone had tossed her ashes in the stream.

But now the witch and the legend and the temple were the least of his concerns. He ran as best he could through the thick, white blanket towards Violet and whatever that thing was next to her.