Chapter 33
NOW
Later that morning, Violet had her phone out ready to call Jake, to give it another go and see if he had dug himself out of the site yet.
The intention really was there – the phone was in her hand, the call screen open.
But perhaps the mistake she made was to try to make the call from her room.
From the room that had a perfect view, right down the gentle, snow-covered slopes, to Coventina’s Well.
That image of the dagger was bugging her. She’d maybe have another look, now it was daylight. It still seemed quiet out there, and she knew she hadn’t been imagining it. It was real. She had to go back and look.
She pulled on her pink padded jacket and stuffed her phone in the pocket. She’d go to the Well, right now, and have a proper check around.
It was still that time of the morning where it was eerie – she’d chosen to drive down to Brocolitia, justifying it by telling herself it was a really good idea to go straight to Jake afterwards, and not really that it was psychologically for a quick getaway if she wanted it.
Running up from the Well to the safety of her car was not, it seemed, as bad as running all the way back up the guest house if things got too spooky down there.
Violet’s car was the only one in the car park, the only tyre tracks were hers as she pulled in by the wall.
She heard a few cars drive past on the main road, the rumble of a truck or two, but once she was in that dip by Coventina’s Well, it was all quiet and all she could hear was her own heart pounding in her chest.
Jake would be horrified if he knew she was down here again on her own, worrying that she’d slip. But she intended to be super careful, and had her trusty walking poles with her. They’d be good for balancing with as well as poking the snow with.
She crossed Meggie’s Dene Burn, the sound of it louder than she had thought it would be, hypnotic almost, the misty haze from earlier still lingering.
But she kept going, refusing to stand on the little crossing and look along the Burn.
Something came back to her about how bridges were deemed as haunted, liminal spaces in folklore, literally where humans bridged the gap between life and death, and she shuddered.
It did indeed seem that this morning, crossing that Burn, she entered a different world.
All was silent as she approached the Well, and she took a deep breath as she planted both feet firmly in the packed snow.
Walking pole at the ready, she stretched out once more to prod at the area where she thought she’d seen the dagger but, try as she might not to look, the pool of water caught her attention, and she found herself drawn to it all over again.
A strange energy wrapped around her, and she knew that she needed to look.
She was convinced the spirit of that Well – Coventina – was there in those quiet moments, and Violet found herself praying to the goddess that she wouldn’t show her any more Witch Trials.
She held her breath as she stared into the water.
Her heart skipped a beat as she saw Meggie’s face staring back at her again – or was it Meggie?
The face that looked back seemed a lot more ethereal than it had before and Violet frowned as it rippled in and out of focus, the breeze tickling the top of the water.
The woman’s eyes weren’t grey, like Violet’s and Meggie’s were; they were sky blue.
The hair was not white blonde, but golden, and Violet was captivated as she watched those irises swirl and change like so many clouds.
She had the oddest feeling she was seeing the embodiment of the snow goddess in that pool.
Then the image changed, and it was the cottage again: Meg’s cottage.
But as it had been in her vision, not as it had been in reality when she’d seen the rough annexe on it, and the mud floor.
And she saw a woman kneeling before a flagstone, moving it to the side and peering at what lay beneath, her long, white-blonde hair falling past her face, obscuring it from sight.
But the most heart-wrenching thing was that the woman was naked, and Violet could clearly see the fact that she was pregnant.
Five, six months at the most, she reckoned.
Violet had made a habit these last few weeks of researching everything she could find out about pregnancy, and had scrolled through numerous pages of women at various stages of it.
She considered herself something of an expert on baby bumps now, imagining what she might look like as the weeks progressed.
She couldn’t help putting herself in Meg’s position; in fact, as the woman turned to look over her right shoulder, Violet inhaled sharply.
It was genuinely as if she was looking in a mirror and seeing herself there.
Her hand found her lower abdomen, and she rested it there, understanding, perhaps, that this was real, and she was going to have a child soon. A flutter of excitement or anxiety, she wasn’t sure which, shivered through her body. She was having a baby! With Jake!
And he didn’t know.
She tried to batter down that thought, and turned her attention back to the Well.
But what of Meg? Had she been pregnant when they’d—
‘Oh no… please. No.’ Violet’s eyes filled with tears as she imagined the worst possible answer to that question.
Then the vision faded, leaving her with the unsettling idea that it may well have been her twin sister kneeling there, and not Meg at all.
Then she heard the voice – no, she felt the voice, deep within her soul: You have to go there and find it. Coventina must have it back.
Violet stared at the Well, all the images fading.
Okay – it seemed obvious that she had to go to Newbrough.
It was also obvious to her that she wanted Jake with her for this. She’d call him on the way and hope that his itinerary would match hers.