A rabbit, gray-furred and bright-eyed, hops slowly into the glade. He is intent on his feasting, and has not noticed me. And if he did, he would not fear me. He would recognize a fellow forager, recognize a kindred spirit. He has not the strength and speed of his sister hare, and there is something in his vulnerability that causes me to be uneasy, yet I have an affection for his kind. How could I not? Of a sudden, he tenses, raising his head and ceasing his nibbling in one sharp movement. For a second more he is as still as the dead bough behind him, then his ears twitch once and, in half a heartbeat, he is gone, bounding away through the foliage, a gray blur. Here, then gone. Visible, then vanished. I hear it, too, the approaching horse. Its hooves thud into the ground slowly but heavily. It carries a rider. I straighten up but do not turn. Soon I can hear the clinking of the iron bit the horse works in its mouth, and the creaking of the fine leather of the saddle. The crows flap away from their perch. The robin falls silent. The horse stops. Its rider dismounts.
Without turning, I offer my greeting. ‘Your horse is moving too slowly, my Prince, you will never catch anything.’
I can hear the smile in his voice. ‘Ah, I am not engaged in hunting this day, my Prophet.’ He treads through the undergrowth and comes to stand beside me.
Only now do I face him. He is dressed casually, his hair hanging forward to partly cover his dark eyes. He wears no mail and carries no shield, but bears his sword on his hip. His smile broadens.
‘Have you come, then, to check for invading armies?’ I ask. ‘If so I fear you will be disappointed, for I have not seen a single Viking all morning,’ I tell him.
‘What Viking would dare confront Seren Arianaidd, even with an army?’
I glance in the direction he has come from, but cannot see any more riders.
‘You appear to have lost your own men,’ I point out. ‘Some might consider that a careless action for a prince.’
‘I rode alone.’
I do not ask why. I can see he is hoping I will do so, but I will not play his game. I busy myself with picking more plants, as if his business is of no concern to me. In truth I know he has sought me out. In my chest, my heart gallops, threatening to betray my feelings. Does he truly know me? Can he see the longing inside me? If so, why does he torment me, for we both know we can never be more than we are to each other.
He follows me. ‘Are you not curious?’ he asks. ‘Have you no interest in your prince’s reasons for being alone in the woods? I would know what brings you here.’
‘I mind my business,’ I reply, giving him a stern look over my shoulder. ‘Most people of good sense would do the same.’
He laughs off the rebuke.
‘Very well, seeing as how you wish to know … I saw a lone figure taking the path alongside the lake, and to my surprise I knew it to be my Seer. What is this? I asked myself. What manner of emergency can compel Seren Arianaidd to go about beneath the brightest sun we have seen in many a long week? Seren who favors moonlight for her excursions almost exclusively.’ When I do not respond to this he goes on. ‘I had to find out for myself what it was that brought you from your solitary home. What is it that calls you to the trees when the sun is at its highest and the light is so sharp and so hot?’ He steps in front of me and stares at my hair as a shaft of that same sunshine falls through the boughs above and illuminates me. ‘You are a very vision yourself,’ he murmurs.
Does he know that last night his wife came to me for help? I doubt it. She will not have discussed the matter with him. Her humiliation runs deep enough as it is. I could tell him, tell him that the reason I am gathering ingredients for a vision quest and a spellcasting is to make his seed quicken in the belly of his princess. I could. But I will not.
‘I was about my work,’ I say. ‘If you will stand aside, I would continue.’
But he does not stand aside. Instead he moves closer and stretches one arm out against the trunk of the silver birch to my left. ‘I would detain you but a moment more,’ he says gently. I keep my gaze fixed on the ground at our feet as he slowly, cautiously, reaches forward and touches my pale hair, letting his fingers follow its sweep down onto my shoulders. Onto my breast. His fingertips stray across to the narrow gap of bare skin my tunic reveals at my throat. His touch is warm. ‘You are like … no other,’ he says. ‘You are moonlight made flesh.’
I raise my face and force myself to look into his eyes. And he to look into mine. He does not flinch, only returns my stare with such intensity I fear for an instant that my own resolve might weaken. That I will let down my guard and reveal the depth of my own feverish wishes. But I must not. Still I do not trust myself to speak, for a woman’s heart can be a faithless mistress of her mind, and her tongue is more than able to betray them both!
The prince, too, stands silent for a moment, but then words come tumbling from his hungry mouth. ‘Do you not know that my mind is filled with you? When men speak to me I do not hear their voices, but yours. I see not their faces, but your own. In sleep there is no escape, for you haunt my dreams. And what dreams they are! You and I … alone…’
‘My Lord, you must not say these things.’
‘I must speak what is in my heart, else it will burst!’
‘You are a prince and should have command of your heart at least.’
‘I have not! It is in your thrall. You have bewitched me.’
‘I would not misuse my gifts so!’
‘And yet it is the truth. Whether you bring it about with purpose or not. I am a man sick with passion…’
‘You are not a man!’ I insist. ‘You are protector of your people. Ruler of this land. Husband to your wife.’
‘Yes, I am all these, and yet I am good for none of them if my soul is in torment.’
‘Do not speak to me of souls. Your pain lies a little farther south of your heart, I believe.’
‘Does mocking me serve you well, Seren?’
‘I seek only to remind you of what is true. You are my prince,’ I repeat, though now I cannot meet his gaze. ‘I am your shaman, your prophet, your witch. Our destinies are linked in these ways alone. I will be your guide, your most faithful ally, but I can never share your home. Nor your bed.’ I push at his arm, making to stride past him, but in a swift movement he traps me against the tree, his body pressed against mine, his breath hot upon my cheek as he whispers urgently.
‘Then I will meet you in the wildness of the woods, or on the soothing shores of the sacred lake, or under the gentle cloak of darkness. Wherever, whenever you will it, just so long as you do not turn from me again!’
He notices me tilt my head and I know that he, too, has heard the galloping horse that approaches. His own steed pauses in its grazing and whinnies to its stable mate. Prince Brynach wrenches himself from me, cursing as the sturdy figure of his faithful captain, Hywel Gruffydd, rides into view. I stand straight, resisting the impulse to scurry away through the trees, willing my heart to return to a more stable rhythm.
‘My Prince!’ Hywel calls out as his wide-rumped mount slows to a jarring trot. ‘I was not aware you wished to ride out. Forgive me for not being at your service,’ he pants.
‘No matter, Hywel,’ the prince replies with a practiced casualness that belies the turmoil I know him to be suppressing. ‘I had a wish to take in some of this rare sunshine. My route crossed that of our Seer.’ He gestures toward me and his captain nods curtly, grunting a greeting that might have earned him a cuff around the ear had we been in more formal circumstances.
‘I bid you both good day,’ I say, and, without allowing either the time to respond, I march past the prince’s patient horse and walk as quickly as I can away from that scene of such tightly bottled tempers as might cause the lake itself to seethe. It takes me all my wits not to run. Back to my home. Back to my seclusion. Back to the place I belong. Alone.
6
TILDA
Tilda lies awake in her bed, listening to the moaning of the wind that has been gathering strength all night. The
temperature in the cottage is noticeably colder now, and she has already been driven to finding extra blankets. There is something snug about being in a warm bed, heavy with covers, in a cool room. Daylight hours have shortened unhelpfully, so that she has been working in the studio more and more by the uneven light of candles or storm lanterns. She has not attempted to fix the electrics in the house again, nor to call back Bob the electrician. In her heart of hearts, she knows there would be no point. She knows that she is the reason behind it. She is somehow triggering surges or splutterings in power that cause the system to overload and fail. The same way she caused the professor’s clock to stop. The same way she disabled the diver’s boat.
Except that I meant to do that one. Pity I can’t decide to fix things. Just break ’em.
From the corner of the room come sounds of Thistle digging at her bedding in an attempt to get comfortable. Tilda had done her best to dissuade the dog from coming upstairs, reasoning that she would be warmer in the kitchen by the Rayburn, but Thistle became distressed at being separated from her mistress, so that in the end she had sacrificed a spare duvet to provide her with somewhere to sleep at the foot of her bed. Outside the last of the clouds have been blown far away, so that the light of the full moon falls through the window. Tilda has long since given up closing the curtains, growing ever more accustomed to making use of what natural light there may be, and increasingly following the rhythm of the short winter days. In the silvery illumination she is shocked to see her own breath forming thin puffs.
If it gets any colder, we shall both be sleeping downstairs.
She peers over at the dog. Even in the half-light she can see the poor hound is shivering.
‘Come on, girl. Get your skinny self up here,’ she says at last, patting the bed beside her.
With surprising ease, and needing no further encouragement, Thistle springs up onto the bed, tail wagging.
‘Well, you certainly seem pretty well healed, don’t you? Want to come for a run with me in the morning, hmm?’ She ruffles the dog’s fur and it settles down next to her, a warm presence and welcome draft excluder. Thistle wriggles deeper into the bedding, and gazes up adoringly at her mistress with a look of such trust that Tilda is moved by it. Never having shared her home with a dog before, she finds she is frequently surprised at the rewards this symbiotic relationship brings. The unexpected velvety softness of the animal’s fuzzy, cocked ears, or her silent but attentive presence as Tilda works in the studio—such things are small but real pleasures.
The two manage a fitful sleep. Tilda is disturbed by the raucous wind, and unaccustomed to sharing her bed. Each time she moves, however minutely, Thistle adjusts her position so that the gap between them is closed. Tilda remembers how soundly Mat would sleep, scarcely stirring all night. She notices that the memory no longer causes her physical pain. The customary jolt that has, until this moment, accompanied each and every recollection of him is absent. The realization brings mixed feelings. There is relief, certainly, but also a strange sense of guilt, as if by not hurting she is allowing him to become less important to her.
And why now? With all this weird stuff going on … Don’t I need him now more than ever?
She is too sleepy to try to make sense of it all. When she did what she did to the boat motor; when she dared to harness and use the bewildering ability that has come to her seemingly from nowhere, Tilda was briefly frightened, but then, to her own astonishment, she felt exhilarated. Empowered.
Happy? For heaven’s sake, yes. Happy. Here. Like this.
She finds she is not fazed by living without electricity, though she knows that when her parents arrive for their promised visit they will be appalled, and that she will have to do something about a nonelectric kiln. The bizarre nature of what is happening to her unsettles her less than she might have expected it to. What does disturb her, however, the thing that does still cause her to jump at sudden noises, or make her heartbeat race when something on the periphery of her vision snags her attention, are the inexplicable things that she sees. As she lies beneath her warm bedding, Thistle snuggled close, the wind wailing around the chimney pots of the cottage, she forces herself to list those things. To name them. To face them.
The waking nightmares of Mat’s death.
She forms the thought calmly and acknowledges that the flashbacks to this terrible moment, though more vivid when she first moved to her new home, have now lessened. In fact, she cannot recall the last time she experienced one.
The people in the boat.
They had seemed so real at the time. Even now, though her recollection of the two men rowing with their backs to her is faint, she can clearly see the striking woman who looked straight at her. Who must have seen her.
But who was she? She looked young, and yet ancient at the same time. Was she a ghost then? Is the lake haunted?
The word brings with it the memory of the horrendous face that so shockingly filled her vision more recently. A face so different from the serene and beautiful features of the first. So close, so terrible, so raging. If ever Tilda harbored an idea of what a terrifying ghost might look like, that was it. She turns her head in the dark, instinctively trying to turn away from the image she has brought to mind, knowing that closing her eyes will make no difference. Instead she looks down at the sleeping dog by her side, letting her hand rest on its grizzled fur.
Do you see them, too, girl? Do you see the ghosts? Or is it just me?
She makes herself apply logic to the puzzle as best she can. The lake has been inhabited for centuries. What better place to be sprinkled with wandering souls? She has always been a little sensitive to eerie atmospheres in certain houses or places, and as a teenager was given to being easily spooked, but she never thought of herself as someone who actually saw ghosts. Since she moved to this house that sensitivity has significantly heightened, so that now she encounters the inexplicable. Here things are crucially different. True, the year spent at her parent’s house recovering from losing Mat had been filled with the singular visions of that fateful day, and she had felt herself at times unhinged by sadness. But she had not adversely affected the electricity supply whilst staying in Somerset. No machinery had failed to work in her presence. And she had not once seen apparitions. Had never encountered such apparently real people in her waking moments, all the time knowing that they were not real. No, the plain fact was, everything changed when she moved to Ty Gwyn. Everything inexplicable began when she came to live by the lake. So the ghosts, if ghosts they are, must somehow have their origins here too.
For even ghosts must surely have their beginnings in something real.
Outside, a doughty blackbird announces the start of a new day. Tilda sits up, fired with a determination to look for reason. For sense. For explanations. She believes the answers to the questions she has not yet properly formed lie with the lake, its history and its people. And luck, or something like it, has thrown in her path the perfect person to help her discover its past.
‘Come on,’ she nudges Thistle. ‘That feeble glimmer in the sky out there is what passes for sunrise in these parts. Best time of day for a run, so if you’re coming with me, shake a leg.’
Outside the wind has vanished with the night, and been quickly replaced by a light frost. Tilda pulls on her warmer running fleece and a thermal scarf to keep the icy air off her throat. She clips the pink collar and lead onto Thistle and they set off at a gentle pace. The dog looks sound and eager, and the pair are soon covering the hoary ground with ease. The wintry landscape begins to sparkle as the sun rises, so that the lake and its surrounding fields are rendered postcard pretty. Tilda takes the shortest route, and watches her new running companion closely for any signs of lameness or fatigue. She is impressed at the way the dog is able to lope along beside her, not once getting in her way or pulling on the lead. As they near the little wooden bird blind, she sees a figure emerging from it and recognizes Professor Williams at once. She waves to him, slowing to a halt, and waits on th
e path. Despite his years, the professor moves with strong strides, waving back, his binoculars around his neck, walking stick digging firmly into the ground with each confident step.
‘Good morning,’ Tilda calls to him. ‘You’re up early.’
‘Ah, dawn in winter is an excellent time for bird-watching,’ he tells her. ‘The migratory water fowl have either departed or arrived, and all have settled into their new habitats. Even so, the shy newcomers like to be up early to feed so as to avoid their more boisterous competitors.’ He indicates the dog. ‘I see you have a new friend.’
‘This is Thistle. She’s … been unwell. This is her first time out for a while.’
Professor Williams touches the brim of his tweed hat. ‘I’m delighted to make your acquaintance,’ he says to the dog, who wags her tail politely by way of reply.
‘I’m glad I found you,’ Tilda says, seizing the moment. ‘I … I want to ask you more about the lake. About its history. I was wondering … if you could spare the time…’
‘My dear girl, nothing would make me happier. May I suggest tea? I have a fire laid in the hearth at home. Your courser will look very fine in front of it.’
‘My what?’ Tilda asks, falling into step beside him.
‘Your lurcher. She is a hunting dog, is she not? A hare courser?’
‘Oh, well, she was supposed to be. She wasn’t any good at it, apparently.’
‘Probably just as well. There are few enough hares left as it is. In any case, she has the look.’
‘She does seem to like lounging about in front of fires like something out of an old oil painting. You know the type, expensive rugs, stag’s head on the wall, hounds sprawled in the warmest place.’
‘On such a chilly day, and after brisk exercise? I cannot fault her thinking.’
The reassuringly sensible company the professor offers has such a restorative effect on Tilda that she all but forgets about the grandfather clock until she is standing next to it in the hallway of the Old School House. She sees that it is working again, and hurries on into the sitting room in the hope that she can escape causing the thing to break down. Professor Williams strikes a long match and sets it to the neatly twisted paper in the grate, and soon the sticks and coals have caught. He leaves Tilda examining the old map that appears to have a permanent home on his desk, and goes to make tea. Thistle stretches out on the hearth rug with a contented sigh. Tilda studies the details offered by the faded, beautifully drawn representation of the lake and its surroundings. The cartographer’s date stamp says 1908, which explains the absence of many of the buildings she is familiar with, particularly on the northern, busy side of the lake, but for the most part things are unchanged. She finds St. Cynog’s church again straightaway, with the Old School House next to it, and the Vicarage a little ways off, all set safely back from the shoreline. The crannog is marked, but only as an uninhabited island. Farther back, on the farside, various constructions in the village of Llangors itself stand out—another church, two inns, a lowland farm and a scattering of houses. Tilda studies the map closely without knowing what it is she is hoping to find or expecting to see.
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