Chapter 29
NOW
Violet took herself back to the guest house and made a mug of tea, which she fully intended to creep back into bed and drink. The visit to the Well had thrown her off-kilter.
It was still early, but she already felt exhausted and could not get excited about the rest of the day. She was stirring the tea mindlessly, looking out of the bedroom window, when her phone rang, startling her.
She grabbed it and looked at the name. Jake.
She also spotted a missed call from him and a couple of texts. She hadn’t taken her phone with her to the Well, and had been lost in her thoughts since she came back. She cursed herself for not seeing them before now.
But, Oh, thank God, was her first thought when she realised he was calling. Jake was, absolutely, the best person to speak to. He would be able to justify why she had experienced all that, and maybe even persuade her that she’d imagined it all.
Because right now, as the images churned in her head, it felt all too real. Meg had looked at her. She had called her Coventina. She had begged her to help, and Violet had lost her somewhere in the Well and somewhere in the past.
She eagerly swiped to take Jake’s call and probably scared him with the enthusiasm she answered him with. ‘Jake! Hello! I’m so pleased you called. I was going to ring you. But it’s so damn early.’
‘Great.’ Jake’s voice was strange – falsely bright, but wary and questioning at the same time. ‘I, umm, was just ringing to check on you. I tried before, but you didn’t take the call, so…’
‘Yeah. I was busy, so…’ She pulled a face.
Lame! A lame excuse. How on earth could she be busy before 7 a.m.?
‘Anyway. That’s kind.’ Violet sat on the edge of the bed, even as she wondered why Jake sounded so – odd.
‘But why?’ She could have bitten her tongue off.
Why did she have to throw it back in his face like that?
Jake seemed not to notice; he just barrelled on.
‘The weather was a bit weird here last night. Sort of like a thunderstorm, but with flashes of coloured light and snow. Bloody heavy snow. The site’s covered in it.
A good few inches. I think I’ll be stuck here for a bit until they get it cleared.
The main roads are okay apparently, but…
’ His voice petered out. ‘God. I’m talking about the weather. ’ He huffed a laugh. ‘Sorry. How dull.’
‘No. It’s actually good to hear your voice.’ Violet took a sip of tea. ‘The weather is pretty shit up here as well.’ She paused. ‘Or I might have suggested meeting up.’
‘Yeah. Maybe in time for brunch. If we’re lucky.’
‘Maybe.’
‘I really did want to check on you, though. Just to make sure you slept okay. And you didn’t go on a midnight stroll to that Well. I know what you’re like.’
‘If it was midsummer, I might have done. Not in the middle of February—’ Violet checked herself as Meg’s words came back to her. Mugwort, picked at the Summer Solstice.
No. The early walk she’d taken down there today had been more than enough. Imagine that place in the depths of the night! How creepy would that be?
A wave of nausea threatened to claim her as she remembered the words and the images she’d seen today.
And the mugwort thing – she could imagine doing that, if she was honest. She was suddenly aware of herself bending over, picking the green, spiky-leaved plant and murmuring words over it as she placed it in a basket.
She wanted to wash her hands really badly, to take the taint of it away; she wanted nothing to do with that stuff, to be nowhere near it, not even in her mind.
Ugh.
‘So no,’ Violet added now, ‘no wintery wanderings to the Well.’
‘Ah, you can tell you’re a writer.’ Jake sounded amused. ‘All the alliteration. Have you done much? While you’ve been here, I mean. I haven’t really asked you.’
‘Still gathering evidence, writing notes – that sort of thing. The Gaol exhibition was helpful. Kind of.’ Yes, she had done some work, but felt she had largely spent the time here being haunted by thoughts of seventeenth-century witches.
‘You? I didn’t ask you properly. Did you enjoy seeing the Well and all the things that were thrown into it in that museum at Chesters? ’
‘Yes. It was great.’
‘Did you get any odd vibes down at the Well?’ Violet was curious. ‘When you were there the other day?’ She had, Ollie had – was it more common than she thought or had she and Ollie just been unlucky?
‘I… I don’t think so.’ Jake sounded cagey and Violet sat up straighter, picking up on it.
‘You don’t think so,’ she repeated. ‘Ollie did.’
‘Ollie did. Fine. Bully for Ollie. But obviously, I found you down there. I mean that was pure chance.’
‘But what made you want to go past the temple? The Mithraic Temple was what you were interested in. Not a boggy puddle.’
‘To be honest, I don’t know. I didn’t like the stream, that felt weird, and even the temple was a bit creepy.
But I didn’t want to turn back. I could have done, but I also knew I had to cross the stream and go over there.
For some reason.’ He paused. ‘Maybe subconsciously, I had seen you, recognised you…’
‘Or someone got into your mind, and you had to come over there.’
‘Or someone got into my mind, and I had to come over there.’ Then Jake sighed. ‘I wasn’t going to tell you, but I had a dream about it last night. More specifically, you at the Well.’
Violet’s stomach turned over. ‘What was I doing?’ She was praying that he wouldn’t say she was gathering mugwort or directing a dagger to the heavens or being stabbed by a Witch Pricker…
‘You were sort of crouching there. In the snow. I think I dreamed it because of the fact we’d met there under those sorts of circumstances before.
’ He laughed again, but Violet could tell it was kind of forced.
‘But it seemed too real and then I saw a woman in the snow on the campsite last night and—’
‘A woman?’ Violet interrupted him. ‘What did she look like?’
‘Well a bit like you, I guess,’ said Jake, almost embarrassed to be admitting it.
‘She had really blonde hair. She was quite small. And when she moved and turned around – it seemed she bloody looked at me. Like, deliberately.’ Then: ‘Oh God! I’ve seen her before, Violet.
The first night on the campsite. I dreamed about her then as well. ’
Violet stared at the phone. ‘Meggie,’ she said. ‘I think you saw Meggie.’
* * *
Jake flinched as he heard Violet say that with such surety. ‘Meggie? I don’t think so—’
‘Why would you not think so?’ There was a challenge in Violet’s voice which made Jake flinch a little more. He knew he shouldn’t have said anything…
‘Look, just forget it,’ he said. ‘There was nothing there. There was no Meggie, no witch – and I dreamed of you because of seeing you at the Well anyway.’ But why had he seen her that first night?
Why had he had the impression that they’d just made love?
His very own words in that dream floated back into his mind…
Just be with me. Be with me. Or let me be with you.
‘But I was standing upright,’ insisted Violet now. ‘I wasn’t crouching or anything. And you said it felt real.’
‘Well it was clearly not real, was it? Dreams can feel real, and that one did, so—’
‘Oh God, look Jake, I’m sorry. I lied to you. I was at the Well when you called before,’ Violet interrupted. ‘And I got too close to the pool again—’
‘Violet! Are you okay? You didn’t slip, did you?’ He was on his feet but realistically, what could he do about all that right now? And he was talking to her so she was clearly okay—
‘No. I didn’t slip – but I… I saw stuff in the Well. Like pictures. Like a witch trial. Meggie’s witch trial. I kind of tried to reach out to her and my fingers touched the water and—’
Jake heard himself make a strangled noise. So she had been bloody close to it then!
But Violet was continuing. ‘I swear she was asking me for help, and I couldn’t give it to her. I felt like I was there. Which is one of the reasons I wanted to ring you this morning. So you could convince me I was stupid and over-imaginative…’
Her voice trailed off and Jake closed his eyes briefly and sat heavily on the sofa in his van. ‘And I haven’t convinced you at all, have I?’
‘No.’ Violet’s voice was small now. ‘Are you really stuck on the site?’
‘For a bit.’
‘Okay.’ There was a sigh, then the strength came back into her voice.
‘All right. We’ll speak later. Take care, Jake.
I’m going to take the opportunity to do some work while the weather is rubbish.
I think I’m safer indoors right now. I don’t know what else I’ll imagine down there – because this literally cannot be real, can it?
Any of it? No.’ He could imagine her nodding her head decisively.
‘I’m sticking to facts and figures and documented research. ’
There was nothing he could say in response to that really, except a very bland, ‘Don’t blame you. Catch you later.’
‘Yep. Catch you later.’
Then the phone went dead as she hung up.
And Jake didn’t really feel much better at all – she had gone for a wintry wander to the Well after all – so had that dream meant more than it should have done, or was it all just a big coincidence?
And yes. One day, he might learn to read the room and say things that people really wanted to hear.
That day was, apparently, not today.
* * *
Ollie was in the breakfast room, making his second coffee last. His thoughts were that where there were people, and where conversations and normality were taking place, there was less headspace for him to focus on his own mind and what he had felt at that cottage and what he had seen in the Well.
A shadow fell over him as he raised the mug to his lips. ‘Hello Ollie. How’s things?’
He looked up and saw Violet standing over him, her face pale and huge dark circles under her eyes.
‘Let me guess, you didn’t sleep very well,’ he said, and then shook his head. ‘Sorry. Inappropriate. I shouldn’t…’ His voice petered off. He was making it worse.
‘I look like shit. I know I look like shit. You are correct in your assumptions. No need to apologise. May I?’ She indicated the seat opposite him and he nodded.
‘Yeah. Of course.’
‘Thanks.’
They stared at one another for a moment or two, and then Violet coloured.
‘Okay. This is going to sound mad, but I think you’re a safe person to tell.’
‘Go on…’
‘You know how you saw that reflection in Coventina’s Well?’
Ollie nodded. How could he forget?
‘I saw one too.’
Ollie sat up straighter. ‘Seriously?’
‘Yes. I saw what I think was a witch trial. The woman they were accusing,’ she went even redder, ‘looked like me.’
‘Wow.’
‘Yes.’ Violet nodded. ‘And there was a man there as well.’
‘A man?’
‘Yes. And you know what was worse?’
Ollie shook his head. ‘Tell me.’
‘He looked like you.’
Ollie didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.
‘And what I’m thinking,’ said Violet slowly, ‘is that if you are indeed descended from a Milburn of Milburn Hall, maybe he is the person you are descended from?’
‘Charles Milburn,’ said Ollie. ‘That’s the name of the guy I’m supposed to be related to. Do you think that’s who I saw when I… when I… saw that reflection of myself?’
Violet shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But it seems logical, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘And, good grief, I’m really sorry to say this,’ said Violet, ‘but he looked pleased with himself when it was happening – when he was watching it all from his horse. He was arrogant as hell and even I could see that. Like he was enjoying it. Like he was smug.’
‘Like he was the one who accused her.’ Ollie’s voice was flat. ‘And he was the one who caused it.’
Violet was silent for a moment, then she took a deep breath. ‘Perhaps. I didn’t really want to say, but I thought the same.’
Ollie nodded silently. Miserably. She could well be right.
And he didn’t like it one bit.