CHAPTER ONE
"So this is Dinas?"
Fee shivered as the cold wind skirled in up the long, rock-strewn valley and flicked an icy tongue around her neck and face. Newly poured out of the warm car after a lulling journey of many hours, the chill at this altitude had momentarily checked her breath. The sub-text to her words was clear, though: "Not much of a place, is it?"
Mack, locking the car door out of instinctive city-born habit, turned to sweep an arm wide across the great vista of the valley and the misting neighbouring mountains.
"Fantastic potential in a place like this. You should see it in spring, Fee. City folk pay serious money to get away from it all like this."
As he admired the view, she eyed the little cottage again, as if she would have trouble recommending it to a family of homeless sewer rats.
"Cost a bloody fortune to make it habitable again. I doubt we'd ever get our money back from lets. It's just too far from anything or anywhere. Bet it's snowed in for half the year."
Mack breathed in deeply, savouring the freshness of the chill that ran down his throat to his lungs, and turned to the rickety gate of the cottage his Aunt Em had left him in her will. He had been here many times as a child, when he had exploited the full potential of the place for boyish adventure, with the disused slate quarry at the end of the road, the near-vertical mountain stream running through the garden and the tangled old forest below with, high above, in the shadow of the dominant peak, a little glacial valley, or cwm, with a tiny silvered lake. It was a magical place, then, full of mysterious new corners to discover and storylines to live out. Full of spirit.
He hadn't been back for several years. Now Dinas looked very tiny and forlorn, shabby and neglected, crouched sheltering in a little nook in the great slate slabs of the high Welsh mountains. Nobody had lived here in the year since Aunt Em had died. And it showed. All life had gone out of the place and the wildness of the dark, stark mountain had just begun to edge back in to reclaim its own space from the mortals.
"Let's go inside, shall we?"
Mack shoved open the rickety home-made wooden gate guarded by an overgrown and somewhat lopsided bay tree and they moved up the path between the ranks of wildflowers and weeds that had begun to re-forest the little front garden. He remembered that Aunt Em had long ago cultivated a camomile lawn here and, although he couldn't tell any more through the enveloping vegetation whether it still existed at all, he fancied that he could still detect the subtle scent, even this late in the year.
The rusting key turned easily in the creaking mortice lock and the door opened on to a gloomy, low-ceilinged room whose little windows barely allowed access through the 2ft-thick walls to the weak rays of the autumnal westering sun. Dust hung in the air and there was a smell of mustiness. A little galley kitchen ran off the main living room, to the right of the front door and Mack shoved his way past a couple of old cardboard boxes and a dusty besom broom to search for a candle, knowing the electricity supply - dodgy at best, even when it was working properly - would have been cut off long ago. He emerged with a small hurricane lamp, still full and with trimmed wick, which he soon had glowing orange yellow to light the little living room where Fee was standing in stony-cold silence, hands thrust deep into her coat pockets.
"Where do we start, Mack? We've only got a week. And we can't stay here tonight."
"We haven't much choice. The hotel in the village down the valley has shut down for the winter and there's nothing else for miles at this end of the year. Besides, we've got sleeping bags and camping equipment and I can get the fire going. It doesn't take long to heat a place this size. We can even cook here. The cooker runs on gas from a storage tank outside and ... it works - I just tried it. Get some hot food inside you and a fire blazing and you'll feel heaps better. Then we take stock properly in the morning."
"You'd better be right. And you'd better check the rest of the place out for small beasties. If I see so much as one mouse tail, I'm spending the night in the car."
Mack set about pushing the sparse furniture to the walls to leave a clearing in the middle of the room in front of the old stone fireplace and soon had a fine blaze sending flames dancing up the unswept chimney. The room seemed to warm instantly with the light from the smoky, spitting logs, as Fee shuttled their essential gear and food in from the car, now languishing in the darkness of a cloudy, starless and cold mountain night. Mack coaxed the old gas cooker into life and began working on an evening meal of tuna pasta, a standby from his student days that they had both now adopted as their number one quickie meal. Fee had meanwhile found a small torch in the car and was investigating her immediate surroundings in the living room with a mixture of disdain and curiosity. Her misgivings about this place were still growing and she was beginning to wonder how she would persuade Mack to simply sell up as it stood for whatever they might be able to get for it. She knew that wasn't going to be easy. She could sense his odd attachment for the cottage, even though he hadn't been near the place for years.
"This her, then?"
The small circle of light from Fee's torch had found a face on the wall, a large sepia photograph in a vignette, depicting a stern middle-aged woman with a high Victorian collar. Everything about her looked sharp, from her dark, fathomless eyes to the slightly hooked nose and Fee could well imagine her tongue being the sharpest item of all.
"Naw." Mack had stuck his steam-wreathed head around the corner of the tiny kitchen to see what Fee was looking at and now retrieved it swiftly to herald a fresh outbreak of pan-clattering on the old cooker. "That's Great-Gran Parry, Aunt Em's mum's mum. Ferocious one, she was, by all accounts. Never learned to speak English and wouldn't have anything to do with the 'Saesnegs', apparently. They used to reckon she was a witch and I've heard it said that Aunt Em inherited that from her, as well as the name - she was an Emily, too. There was certainly something about Aunt Em ..."
Mack's voice trailed off and there was near silence for a moment before he emerged in a clearing of the steam from the kitchen with two plates in his hands. Under his arm was a bottle of wine.
"Voila! Dinner is served."
"Mmm. Great. I'm starving."
Settling down on the floor in the pool of swaying light thrown out by the fire, they set about their rudimentary meal with suddenly-discovered new appetites, to the accompaniment of the rising wind outside lashing through the wires that led to the old quarry. As Mack had predicted, spirits rose somewhat as the pasta went down and with it, the level of the supermarket Merlot in the green bottle that had left its label behind in a plastic carrier bag somewhere in the boot of the car. They talked a little, as they ate, about Aunt Em - who Fee had never met - about what was to be done next morning and about the worsening weather, which had now added the spatter of rain to its forlorn soundtrack. The food, the drink and the open fire provided welcome distractions from the night sweeping in around Dinas and allowed them to forget, for a while, their emerging differences on what ultimately was to be done with the little windfall cottage.
A violent crash against the door shook them out of their quiet reverie and made them leap to their feet, spines suddenly prickling and a chill breaking through away from the immediate heat of the fire. Mack lumbered hesitantly towards the door, as if torn as to whether to open it or to wait to see if anything else would happen first. He reached out and turned the big old handle. The door fell open and a large bundle rolled in.
Reeling from shock a little, at first, they sobered as they realised it was a person - a woman, well rounded, probably well into her fifties with grey hair and the ruddy, swarthy complexion of the hill folk, dressed in what might once have been a greatcoat and with a bright red scarf pulled tight over her head.
"Sut ydych chwi," she faltered, rather out of breath, then - realising from the look of these folk that they weren't from round here - "Sorry, I suppose you're the English, then. They said you'd come." Without pausing to explain, she charged on: "I been looking out for Dinas since Em went, bless her - I live just down there, see - and I saw the lights and wondered who'd got up here, on a night like this. I'm Manon, Manon Gruffydd, though they all call me Mag, them that's left."
Mag's words came in bursts in a style Mack had heard many times before. She was part of an old breed, now, those - predominantly of hill stock, these, days - whose first and everyday language was still Welsh and who had to translate each phrase from their native language before delivering it. Mack had been here often enough to develop an admiration for the ancient native culture and for this beautiful graphical language that, at last, great efforts were being made to preserve. Sadly, though, he hadn't been here often enough or long enough to learn to speak the language, just sufficient to soak up a smattering that allowed him to pick out words or phrases here and there, or the general direction of a conversation. He wasn't about to attempt to speak to Mag in her native tongue.
"Delighted to meet you, Mag, and I'm sorry if we startled you. Sorry you had to come out on a night like this, too. It's turned quite nasty, hasn't it? Come over by the fire for a minute and warm up."
Fee dragged an old sofa away from the wall and into the circle of the fire's main heat and threw off the dust cover so Mag could sit down, while she and Mack went back to sitting on the floor.
"Can we offer you a drink? Think we have some tea or coffee here, somewhere. There might be some wine left." Fee scowled around looking for the Merlot bottle, but failed to locate it.
Mag waved away Fee's offer with a gentle whisk of her hand, nodding her gratitude as she did so.
"No, no. Thank you, all the same. I'm vowed not to take caffeine any more. Plays hell with my sinuses anyway. And alcohol never agreed with me, either."
Mack had been taking stock of their visitor, who looked as though she had seen a few hard winters up here, all bundled in her greatcoat before a cheery log fire, but still with an intriguing twinkle to the blue eyes nestling deep in her round face with leathered laughter lines radiating from them like rays of sunlight. He wondered if she'd once been the doughty young wife of one of the slate miners who had carved a harsh and humble life from the majestic blue-grey terraces of slate slabs at the little road's end high up the mountainside, before curling up finally to die out as a breed when the international markets dried up.
"You'd have known Aunt Em well, then?"
It was more of a statement than a question but Mack could see that Mag, a little distracted by the flickering fire now, was clearly translating a reply, so he left a space for her to speak.
"So many years. So many. Good to me, she was. Always so, you know. Don't know where I'd have been without her."
Mag, eyes fixed on the fire now, seemed to debate with herself what more she could or should say, or perhaps she was struggling momentarily with a difficult bit of translation. Either way, there was a sliver of silver silence that neither Fee nor Mack wished to break before Mag took a breath and spoke again.
"Pretty thing, she was, in her day. Not many round here took to the likes of her, though. Stuffy bunch of chapel hat pegs. Em was different, independent, thought for herself. The men round here couldn't get on with that, see. Too used to having the little woman seen and not heard, barefoot and pregnant, the domestic whore. That's all they knew. Em wasn't having any of that. Went her own way. So the menfolk were suspicious, like. Too scared of her to court her and didn't like their women having anything to do with Em, either - might have given them ideas, you know."
Mag paused and shifted a little in her seat to get more comfortable and Mack almost absently dropped his thoughts into the conversation.
"I believe some thought she was a witch?"
Mag looked at him suddenly and directly, the fire reflecting anew in her eyes.
"What do you know of the Old Ways, then?" Mag's almost severe tone dissolved in an instant as she caught and corrected it. "Did Em share with you? No, I didn't think so."
Mag was staring back into the fire, now, and her lilting voice moved on more softly, as if she was the only one there. "Ah, but she had such gifts. A great healer, Em, pure natural. But she was so afraid of what the chapel folk would do, bechod. Bloody bigots and hypocrites, the lot of 'em. Course, there were a few round here who would let her help them - and had good cause to be grateful, after. Usually the desperate and the hopeless, it was. There were a good few, too, who never had any idea what she did for them - and would have been horrified if they'd known how they were really healed. She was a good woman, Em. Nobody really understood. Except me, per'aps."
Mag tilted her head again to look at Mack. She seemed thoughtful for a moment before going on, in the same gentle, musical tone.
"Not sure how much you know, or want to know, young master, either. But maybe I've said too much already. Em's gone, now, to the Summerlands, Bless her, and nothing's going to change that. We'll all see her there in our own time."
Like a cloud passing over the Moon, Mag's reverie was suddenly broken and her voice changed as she jolted back into the present from her brief excursion through bitter-sweet memories.
"Speakin' of time, it's getting on a bit and I'm keeping you two from sleep. I still got things to do tonight, too, before I'll find my bed. If you'd like it, we'll talk some more, but not just now, eh? We're all a little weary."
Mag rose to her feet and Mack and Fee leapt up, too, almost in unison, as their visitor bustled to the door, pulling the greatcoat up tight around her neck.
"No need to see me home," she said before Mack had a chance to offer. "I've lived in these hills all my life and know them well enough by now, especially my own back yard. And I don't want to have to fret about you finding your way back here on a night like this, do I? Nos da. Bendithion llawen. Sleep well."
She melted through the door before either of the stalled pair had even noticed she had opened it, leaving their goodbyes to fall weakly and too late against the stout timber that now kept the wildness of the night from penetrating the smoky interior of little Dinas.
Mack and Fee looked at each other in quietly amused amazement at how this well-rounded woman had moved so swiftly and gracefully to leave once her mood had changed.
"There's something about her..." Mack's voice drifted off into thought.
"Mmm. Isn't that what you said about Aunt Em?"
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CHAPTER TWO
He awoke with a violent tremor of fear and panic running through him, as he felt himself being dragged bodily through the dark, his feet stumbling through moss and ferns, with branches here and there clutching at his clothes, his hands and his face like the claws of some crazed giant insect. Whatever he was wearing was coarse in texture and itched, like a hair shirt, but the bindings on his wrists wouldn't allow him to scratch. He could feel the adrenalin setting his stomach on fire and bruising pains in his upper arms as strong hands wrestled him on through the hostile dark, but he couldn't turn his head to see who was holding him. Terror, shock or bewilderment - it was hard to know which emotion was strongest. Mingling with the smell of damp earth was the faint scent of sweet woodsmoke and somewhere up ahead he glimpsed the flickering of firelight dancing between the trunks of forest trees.
Battling for control of his dry and swollen tongue, he tried to cry out, but a swift blow from something metallic caught him on the right temple, filling the night with an explosion of brightly-coloured stars and sending a bolt of pain through his skull, making his jaw rattle.
The night faded in and out of its hazy focus, as he was whirled on between trees, now, struggling to regain vision and at the same time make any sort of sense of what could be happening to him. It had to be a dream. But the pain in his body felt real enough, as did the trace of blood now trickling down his face to the corner of his mouth. The smells of the forest in the dark, the sounds of distant voices growing closer, the terror in the pit of his stomach. All so very real, so completely terrifying.
Quite out of nowhere, an old woman's face drifted into view, then out again so quickly that he wasn't really sure if he'd seen her or not. It was a familiar round, kindly face lined with the pain of years and it seemed to be trying to convey a message. Although the woman said nothing, he somehow heard or felt the words.
"May your journey be blessed."
Then almost as suddenly as this had all begun, he was flung down on to the mat of fallen leaves and branches that made up the forest floor, narrowly missing a tree stump, but twisting his left leg awkwardly as he fell, momentarily knocking the wind out of him. He couldn't see much for a moment, as his vision flashed in and out, but he could make out a dim circle of figures in a small forest clearing with a central fire more smoke than flame and, in a fresh shock to his battered mind, another prisoner roughly flung to the floor to face him across the circle.
This time, it was a young woman. She was wrapped in a tattered dark cloak, but he recognised her straight away, although much of her long, flowing hair had been roughly cut away and her slender white arms, reflecting the firelight, showed the marks of reddening scratches and bruises. Elinor. This was the woman he loved.
"Mattie, are you hurt? What has become of you?"
Her soft words, just loud enough for him to hear, were cut short by a blow from behind which caught her across the back of the head and sent her sprawling face down into the leafmould of the forest floor. He felt his anger suddenly boil and all his muscles tense, as if to spring, then suddenly he was pinioned again into immobility by many rough hands and the fury subsided into a frustrated knot of deep emotion that surfaced as a strangled sob.
The sound of heavy feet crunching through the leaves into the circle made him force open his eyes again to see a tall, dark figure now approaching her and as the fire flickered on this face, it was obvious that this sallow, unshaven man with a large Saxon nose was consumed by a murderous hatred.
"Who is this woman?"
His deep voice seemed to shake the trees as it boomed across the clearing, cutting into the soul like hot steel.
"Witch, witch, witch," the crowd chanted in unison. It sounded like a thousand voices echoing off among the trees.
"And what's to be done with her?"
He swivelled to take in the faces around the circle, arriving back to glower down accusingly at the woman who was now dizzyingly trying to shake herself out of her stunned enforced silence at his feet.
"Burn the witch, burn the witch, burn the witch ... "
Mattie suddenly realised that he knew this tall black creature, too. He was a religious fanatic who lived alone on the edge of the village and was known as Preacher, although nobody knew if he really had the credentials to call himself a man of God or was simply self-appointed to the role. Theatrical and bigoted, he was also physically formidable and could cut his critics dead with a stare.
Chillingly, the desperation of the situation now filtered through him, like icy fingers crawling over his flesh.
"And I'm to die for trying to help her escape," he thought.
"No!"
His cry split the night and brought another blow from behind, which sent Mattie whirling into another bout of semi-oblivion.
When he started to come to again, Preacher had his huge, scaly hands around Elinor's slim white throat and Mattie could see her dark, liquid eyes beginning to distend, the blue tinge creeping into her lips and the violent tension in her limbs flickering, as she tried to cling to a life ebbing away.
"You'll all burn in Hell for this night's work, you murderers!"
Mattie wrenched free of the grip that held him only momentarily and managed to lash out one fist which found a painful mark, before he was overpowered and dragged to the floor again by sheer weight of numbers, landing heavily with bodies on top of him. His wrists were grabbed and his hands forced down on to the nearby tree stump, while wooden staves crashed down, splintering the bones of his fingers like dry twigs.
As the blood splashed and the pain screamed through his body, he felt a soul-deep blackness wash in and consciousness begin to release its grip.
Before the permanent night stole in, he caught just one more glimpse of Elinor, now lying in a tangled wreck among the firelit leaves.
She was dead. But nearby, at the edge of the circle of shuffling dark feet, he could just make out the figure of a hare. The animal had paused in its flight and was looking straight at him, its dark eyes seemingly full of great sadness and love.
"Elinor," he gasped.
And the sweetness of the woodsmoke seemed to turn sickly, as he spun down through streaming lights of pain into the eternal release of the dark.
* * *
Mack awoke with a violent spasm that shot him out of his sleeping bag across the floor in a crashing heap and almost cried out, as his mind fought to clear to his surroundings. It was dark, the storm had abated on the wings of the wind that now played out its last lingering melodies on the wires outside in the muddy darkness of early morning in the hills.
He knew where he was, he felt sure this time. And he was intact. In the gloom, he looked down at his hands and felt fleeting ghost pains run through them, but knew he was physically unhurt, despite the vividness of that wild and horrifying nightmare and the thumping of his heart. But the overwhelming feeling of terror refused to leave him, even as some of the finer details of Aunt Em's little cottage began to become a little clearer with his improving night vision. He felt deeply sick and severely frightened, the sights and smells of his dream still fresh and lurid in his memory.
Just then, he heard Fee groan loudly and saw her sleeping bag thrash around wildly, as she fought to wake and leap up at the same time, completely forgetting she was zipped in, coccooned and imprisoned in the heat of her own body.
"Mattie!" she screamed.
And as she shot bolt upright, still wrapped in the warm quilting of the sleeping bag, Mack's eyes found hers through the gloom and they both instantly knew they had shared the same terrible dream.
Mack scrambled across the floor, tripping lightly over some item of discarded clothing, and grabbed her, pulling her close to him as if enfolding her in an extra protective layer, his voice trembling softly as he spoke.
"It's ok, now. It's over."
They clung together in the night of the dark mountain cottage for minutes that seemed everlasting, neither wanting to let go of the warm reality of each other that they had newly discovered in the wake of the nightmare. She sobbed gently into his chest.
"It was just ... horrible."
"I know, honey, I know. But it's gone, now. It's over. Just let it out."
Still holding her, Mack grabbed his own sleeping bag and wrapped it around them both and they stayed huddled together on the cottage's living room floor, the only sounds an occasional sob and a dying wind that blew away the dark and breathed in a wintry weak first light and a pale blue-grey mountain dawn.
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