Page 19 of The Snow Witch

12

NOW

Violet lay in bed that night thinking about what Ollie had told her. It really did seem as if he had found Meg’s cottage. She knew the cottage was supposed to be on the outskirts of Newbrough, so it would make sense that it was off the beaten track somewhere.

Unable to sleep, she sat up in bed and did some searching on the Internet. Sure enough, just as Ollie had suggested, there was a mark on Google Earth that looked just like the outline of a big house, up a track that seemed to lead to a farm. Opposite the footprint of the house, on the other side of the road, was a stone structure that looked very much like a barn or a stable.

‘Or maybe the remains of a stone cottage,’ Violet said into the night. She looked out of the window and saw the moon filtering through the clouds, a silver sea of snow-bound land as far as she could see, and turned back to her screen. She zoomed out until she could see the Mithraic Temple and Coventina’s Well, and traced a line that ran through the hills, a feature that she knew to be Meggie’s Dene Burn.

Sure enough, the line of the Burn ran through some woodland and down past the structure she’d spotted, and her heart gave a little skip of excitement. She knew where she was going to visit tomorrow. Or today, even – it was the early hours of the morning, after all.

Violet picked up the itinerary that Jake had given her.

He’d scribbled Chesters on it, along with Vindolanda, Housesteads, Corbridge and Hexham. He hadn’t, she saw, put any days next to any of the destinations. Typical Jake. But they all sounded interesting. Maybe she’d go with him one day, when she felt she’d had some time to collect her thoughts and do some work on her book.

But Jake hadn’t put Newbrough on, so she didn’t feel bad about not inviting him along on her trip to find Meggie’s cottage. She wasn’t really sure what she’d find there anyway.

* * *

When the day had dawned properly and she’d been down for coffee (noticing that Ollie wasn’t around for breakfast), Violet headed out to Newbrough. The roads were clear and well gritted, but the fields still lay white and frozen either side of her, the odd stone structure jutting out here and there: a piece of Roman wall, the edge of a milecastle, a fort, perhaps… Who knew? But Violet found it rather magical anyway.

She drove past the Mithraic Temple car park, not quite ready to face that place on her own again after almost going for an icy dip in the Sacred Well yesterday, and kept going until she found the turn off for Newbrough.

Once in the village, she headed for the same track Ollie had mentioned – thanks to Google Earth, she thought she knew exactly where it was – and she soon found the turning and headed up the track.

‘Is this it, Meggie?’ She switched the engine off, parking unevenly half on the verge and half on the road. The snow was quite deep on the verge, so she didn’t want to take the chance of getting stuck there. She prayed that nobody would want to be up there today – much as she imagined Ollie to have done – and climbed out of the car.

She walked to the edge of the verge and climbed over the gate. She did not have the same excuse that Ollie had about being on family land and suchlike. All she had to argue with was a burning sense of curiosity, certainty and nod to her research. She hoped it wouldn’t come to justifying all of that anyway.

Picking her way carefully across the grass, she had the foresight to find a fallen branch she could use to prod the snow to see if there were any ditches or ruts. She didn’t fancy sinking into snow today. She also realised that the branch was smooth, thank goodness, as the blackthorn that surrounded the place was too damned – well, thorny to use without some modifications. She imagined someone scraping off the thorns with a dagger like the one she thought she’d seen yesterday and it gave her chills to think that, perhaps, if this was a witch’s cottage, something like that had possibly occurred close to here… Could you even imagine approaching a witch’s house with a blackthorn staff in one’s hand?

While her mind had been making up things, Violet had reached the front door. Or what would have been the front door. She tried to imagine the place without the Anderson Shelter-shaped carbuncle on the side and squinted, half-closing her eyes and taking a few deep breaths.

She had the strangest sensation that half-closing her eyes was simply not enough. So, she squeezed them shut instead, then opened them again.

A strangled squeal caught in her throat as she realised she was looking at a proper front door, not just a gap in the wall. It was wooden, and there was smoke coming out of the chimney – she could smell it, she could see it. And, more to the point, the snow had disappeared. She was standing on hard ground, the autumn sun at her back, warming her through the scratchy fabric of her bodice…

‘What the hell?’

Her hands shaking, she took hold of the door handle then threw it open.

A woman was kneeling on the floor: young, with white-blonde hair and serious grey eyes and a delicate, pretty, oval-shaped face. She was pushing what appeared to be a flagstone back into place and looked up guiltily when Violet slammed the door open.

‘Meg, I need your help. You have to make things right. But I can’t pay you yet.’ Violet heard the words coming out of her mouth, felt as if she was the one standing there asking Meg – oh God, was it really Meggie? – for help.

‘You need me to help you, Ellen?’

‘I will pay as soon as I can, but this has to be done now. God won’t help me, so you have to. I know it’s wrong, but I can’t… Tam is dead, and I cannot… I cannot have another child! Charles – he… Oh God. Meg, please. Nobody knows the bairn is not Tam’s, and… please.’

‘Stop it!’ shouted Violet, forcing her way back to the surface of whatever dream she’d stumbled into. Who the hell was Ellen? And what had happened to the interior of that cottage? It had been lived in, the scent of baking bread floating through the air. There was a dresser at the back full of knick-knacks and a candle in a candlestick, wax running down the sides of it, some black thorns lying next to it.

And she, Violet, stood in the doorway, inhabiting another woman’s body, while she begged Meg for help – to apparently rid her of an unwanted pregnancy. She raved about the fact that someone had already got a child on her, and this was his doing as well… Violet couldn’t think straight, couldn’t seem to process the whole situation, couldn’t piece all the words together while this Ellen woman sobbed her heart out.

Violet herself bit back a sob – it felt too close to home. A woman was unexpectedly pregnant and had raced here, to this cottage, for help. Violet didn’t want that sort of help, not at all. But hadn’t she herself been drawn here, to Meggie and to the Burn that bore her name, and to the Sacred Well and the misty, ever-shifting memories of her world?

And more than that – she had recognised Meg. She had seen herself in that vision. The fair hair, the grey eyes and the oval-shaped face.

And yet she knew, she absolutely knew without question that the thorns on the dresser had been sheared off the stick that Violet, in the twenty-first century, had used to help her get here safely. It wasn’t naturally smooth after all; it had been a blackthorn staff and Meg had used the thorns for a potion, or a tincture – a charm, perhaps – and the evidence was right there beside the candlestick.