Come on feet, one in front of the other. Footsure. Step, breathe, step, breathe. I can do this. Run, girl, run!

She is soon racing along the rough path, the rain still falling heavily, streaming down her face, making the colors of the day weaken and merge. Suddenly, through this murkiness, she sees something on the track ahead of her. Sitting small and still in the center of the path is a large brown hare, its fur surprisingly dry, its eyes bright and watchful. It does not run away. Instead it appears to block her route, carefully moving from side to side so that she has to go off the track to try to get round it.

‘Let me by, bunny,’ she says breathlessly.

But the hare won’t get out of her way. Tilda stops and stares at it. Before she has time to question what she is watching the animal starts to grow, and to pulsate, and to writhe and wriggle. Tilda steps back, wondering if near-drowning has starved her brain of oxygen and has sent her mad.

First the Afanc, now this! Am I dreaming?

In seconds the hare has gone, transformed into a strong, striking woman who stands as solid and real as anything else in the landscape.

‘Seren!’ Tilda’s heart races. She is transfixed, but she is not afraid. Rather, she feels emotion threaten to overwhelm her. Now that she knows she is looking at her ancestor, and after all she has just been through, the connection she feels with the person who stands before her is so powerful it is beyond anything she has experienced before. ‘You came’ she sobs at last.

When Seren speaks, her voice is not some ethereal whisper, it is clear and firm, a tone not to be argued with.

‘You must return to the grave,’ she says.

‘What?’ Despite the doom-laden nature of the statement, Tilda understands this is not a threat. She knows Seren is speaking of the grave at the dig site. ‘No.’ She shakes her head. ‘I have to get to the cottage. Dylan is in terrible danger. You must know that.’

‘You cannot defeat Nesta without what is in the grave. Take what protection Hywel holds. Go now!’

And she vanishes. As if she never was. And Tilda is alone again. She gasps, trying to make sense of Seren’s words.

Does she mean the torc? It’s true, I was useless against the witch … she called her Nesta … without the torc maybe I won’t be able to help Dylan. Oh, I’m going to be too late!

She sets off running again, faster this time, pushing harder, gulping air as she forges on, turning toward the dig site, all the time fearing that it will all take too long. That Dylan will die.