Thistle barks madly, the only time in her life she has ever made such a sound. Tilda at last gulps air and leaps from the trench at the very moment the pickax swings through the air, embedding itself in the ground where only seconds ago she had been. She tries to see where her assailant is, to pinpoint its shape among the dark, choking mass that has risen from the grave. She cannot make out a proper form, but only glimpses part of a smashed jaw here, a blood-filled eye there, a gaping, broken mouth in front of her one minute and vanished the next. It takes a superhuman effort for her to hold her ground, to stand straight and tall and force herself to remain where she is. The dog is snapping and growling at nothing, driven almost insane with fear and an instinct to protect its mistress. Suddenly the ghost’s face takes shape and spews forth ancient words, some Tilda recognizes as Welsh, others that seem even more ancient, all spat with the same hot hatred and rage.

It’s too strong! I shouldn’t have let it out. I was stupid to think I could deal with it on my own!

The apparition comes closer and closer, thrusting its face at Tilda. She is too petrified to move. She tries to do whatever it was she managed to do in the garden when she used the torc’s energy to clear the snow, or in the kitchen when she used it more subtly to control the electricity, but her head is filled with the screaming and screeching of the ghost, her body weakened by terror and by the numbing cold that has taken hold of her.

‘What do you want from me?!’ she yells into the chaotic, shifting being in front of her. ‘Whatever happened to you has nothing to do with me, you hear? Leave me alone! Leave me alone!’ As she screams at it, she clutches at the torc, raising her arm, hoping against hope that it will protect her.

The ghoulish being screams back at her, repeating the words she had spat in her face the time she appeared in the studio.

‘I don’t understand! Stop it! Seren, where are you? Why don’t you help me?’

At the sound of the shaman’s name, the ghost from the grave roars with fury, sending one of the trench planks flying through the air to strike Tilda fiercely across the knees. She falls to the ground, groaning in pain.

And the torc falls from her wrist.

The ghost storms forward, raising up the pickax once more, this time gripping it in its phantom hands. Tilda can’t get up. She gropes in the mud, searching desperately for the gold band, but can’t find it, expecting at any second to feel the steel of the ax chopping into her back.