Tilda could only nod. She allowed him to believe that the success of the firing had turned her attention away from all the strange and frightening things that had been going on. Even though he had witnessed what happened the first time she’d worn the bracelet, she still felt a reluctance to talk about it with him. She hadn’t even told him about the second time, when she had had the vision of the Afanc. She knew him well enough to be sure that he would not make light of it. That he would listen. That he would believe her. And yet, while she was able to be intimate with him, and even to have him share in her work, the way she felt when she wore the bracelet, when she connected with whatever it was she had found, it was just too personal to share. It was something she needed to explore on her own.

Now, at last, she is alone again, save for Thistle, who has become even more her shadow than usual. Tilda turns her back on the sunset and goes into her studio. The shelves on the right are now filled with the gleaming new pieces, fresh from the kiln. She runs her fingers lovingly over the surface of the nearest one. She could never have hoped that the glazes would work so perfectly, the colors fusing and melding, making the Celtic animals on each pot stand out, and yet at the same time blend into their backgrounds. The technique of applying salt to the glaze and packing it with reeds from the lake has produced stunning results. The salt has expanded and melted, creating warm, coppery splotches and splatters in random patches around the pots, with a swirling smokiness produced when the reeds burned away. The animals themselves Tilda had picked out and highlighted by hand painting them with a copper wash before firing, so that now they gleam and glitter. Looking at them calms her. Touching them makes a tingle spread lightly through her body.

I know you. I know you all. And the Afanc? She came to me. She sought me out in that vision. Where does she fit into all this, I wonder? If hares and hounds used to represent witches, what did she stand for?