Chapter 47
NOW
Once he’d turned the van around, Jake’s vehicle climbed the hill as the snow fell thickly and swiftly. The van skidded a couple of times but Jake, his heart in his mouth and his hands clutching the steering wheel as if his life depended on it, kept heading upwards at a slow but steady pace.
Finally, thank God, he got to the car park and turned in. Her car was there, covered with snow – and so was someone else’s. There were the two sets of tyre tracks, one set of footprints, one fresh and one almost covered by the snow.
‘Fucking Ollie,’ he growled.
He grabbed the flask of hot tea he had prepared earlier and pulled his overcoat and scarf on, then threw open the door of the van, infuriated over the whole situation. His job was to protect Violet, to make sure she was safe. He loved her more than his own life, for God’s sake.
But this Ollie, he’d just swaggered in from nowhere. Meeting her on a day like this, in the arse-end of nowhere, when there was nobody else around…
Forcing himself on her.
God only knew what that would lead to—
Jake slammed the door of the van, the noise reverberating around the car park, and he hurried over to the gate at the foot of Carrawburgh Fort.
The gate was wedged in place with the snow and Jake forced it open, creating solid drifts on the other side.
He debated whether to climb the fort or just head straight to the Well.
If he climbed up, he’d see where she was; she might have decided not to go to the Well after all and walked back up to the accommodation, and just abandoned her car there…
Jake scrambled up the slippery banks and got to the top of the fort, huffing and puffing with the exertion. His breath was coming out in white puffs as he looked around the landscape.
And then he saw it. The pink padded jacket Violet had been wearing stood out, bright against the snow; and just as he’d seen in his dream, she was half-kneeling, half-standing.
Utterly vulnerable.
A figure was approaching her; it was the figure of a man – Jake could see the fair hair and even from his vantage point, it was obvious the man was walking purposefully towards her.
But more terrifying than that was the fact that shadowing the man was a black, swirling mass, just as there had been in Jake’s dream.
‘Fuck!’ Jake ran and skidded down the side of the fort, jumping the last couple of feet and landing in the inches-deep snow.
He ploughed his way through it, not caring that his feet were soaking wet and freezing cold, or his jeans were soggy up to his ankles.
He just needed to get to her and get to her quickly.
He stumbled, and slipped and swore, and as he did that, he had an absolute sense of déjà vu: that he had done this very same thing before – come hurtling down to the Well to find her in the middle of winter, praying that he was not too late, but knowing in his heart he was—
As he righted himself and took a moment to look across the landscape, to check where she was, he swore again. The pink coat had vanished and there was a haze around the area that looked like smoke. Nothing could be seen for miles apart from snow-covered fields and hills.
And there was a stone wall around the Well, with one slab broken in two and leaning precariously towards the water.
Jake looked down and saw a pair of knee-length leather boots that certainly did not belong to him, but he seemed to be wearing them.
There were riding breeches tucked into them, and he was aware of the weight of a heavy coat or cloak hanging from his shoulders.
‘What the hell?’ Jake looked at his hands and didn’t recognise them. He blinked, looking around the landscape, his heart hammering. The vision of the world he was in cracked and dissolved, then shifted until he recognised it again.
He had had enough of this place – there was being freaked out by thundersnow and flashes in the sky and women raising their arms to the heavens, and then there was finding yourself in someone else’s body, wearing their clothes, living their life…
Suddenly, there was a massive crack of thunder above his head and he ducked automatically, swearing. The sky dissolved in flashes of green, purple and orange and snow cascaded down.
This was not what he’d signed up for.
He took a deep breath and clutched the flask, grounding himself back in reality. Violet. He needed to reach Violet…
Meg – he needed to reach Meg.
‘No!’ He shook his head vehemently. He did not need to reach Meg. Meg was dead; she’d died years ago.
But Violet was still alive.
He pushed on through the snow, sinking into it the further into the valley he went. He would get there before it was too late.
Because this then, was the premonition.
But he didn’t know how it would end in reality.