Chapter 48
THEN
Emory watched Charles’ body sink into the Well. It was deep, it was icy cold and he neither knew nor cared what would happen to the corpse. It might float to the top; it might sink to the bottom. Coventina could send him to Hell if she liked, because heaven would have no place for the man.
So Emory simply waited until there was no sign of Charles any more, no blood discolouring the water, no dark shadows that floated just beneath the surface.
Nothing.
Then he collapsed on the ground beside the Well and gave himself up to his emotions.
‘What am I going to do without you, Meggie?’ he sobbed into the snow-covered grass. ‘My life is over.’ He contemplated turning the dagger on himself; indeed, he had the blade touching his chest. All it would take would be one thrust and he could join her…
But could he?
If they found him afterwards, he would be buried on a crossroads – guilty of felo de se, a crime against oneself. He would be unable to rest, doomed to wander forever. He might not be with her. He might not find her.
He rolled over onto his back and threw the dagger to the side, covering his face with his crossed forearms as the despair and loss shook him physically as well as mentally.
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.