There is no time to even think of an alternative. She breathes deeper, faster, pushing herself into a sprint. All the time she is aware of the creature behind her getting closer and closer. Soon it is so close she can smell its foul breath and feel the heat of its unnatural form. Tilda reaches the door of the boathouse and yanks the rotten handle, scrabbling to pull the door open on its rusted hinges. It drags against the mud, so that she is only able to open it a few inches. She has no choice but to force herself through the gap, scraping her face, her hands, her leg as she flings herself inside.

She turns to try to pull the door shut, but to her amazement the ghost does not attempt to follow her in. Instead, it slams the door behind her. Slams it with such force that the entire building shakes. There follows the sound of stones and mud and wood being thrown against the door. Piled up against it. The door buckles and creaks, some of its planks splintering, but it holds.

And suddenly there is silence. Only the sound of the rain pounding on the old tin roof, and Tilda’s own ragged, near hysterical breathing. She waits, listening. But she knows, just knows that the thing from the grave has gone. Cautiously, she tries the door. It is stuck solid, completely jammed by the weight of all that has been stacked up in front of it.

It doesn’t want me dead. Not yet, at any rate. It wants me trapped. But why? Why?

SEREN

We meet at dawn. And what a violent daybreak greets us, the sky streaked crimson and scarlet, as if the day itself is full of pain and rage. It is close to midsummer, so that the night is confined to the smaller number of hours, and we are up from our beds early this morning to lay Hywel Gruffydd in his final resting place. Every man, woman and child has turned out to pay their respects. The procession makes its sorrowful progress from the crannog and along the shore of the lake, coming to a halt but a few strides from my own house. There was much said and many voices raised in the choosing of the site for Hywel’s grave. He lived his life a Christian, and the priest argued he should be given a place next to the church, so that he might be in God’s keeping, he said, and comforted by the sound of the monks’ prayers.