After Bell Hill by Robin Tompkins

Author:Robin Tompkins [Tompkins, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-10-30T18:30:00+00:00

Ameliam sat in darkness, except for the dying embers of the fire sputtering and crackling in the hearth. She nursed a cup of warming ginger tea and sipped at it absently.

It will be soon, she thought, perhaps even tonight.

Ameliam was not one for scrying, she had some skill with lost objects but little or none with things that might be. None the less, whenever she had occasion to look into her grandmother’s old brass bowl, a shadow of sorts always crept across it and she felt, rather than saw what it meant.

She knew there would be no help from her neighbours. They would fall in line. Those who knew and liked her the best, would stand and stare awkwardly at their feet, or hide in their houses until it was all over. Those who liked her rather less, would come out and shake their fists and call her ‘pernicious witch,’ to curry favour. She was half certain that old Gronik from the bakery had already denounced her, sensing the way the wind was blowing.

She put down the cup but not being able to summon the energy to go to her bed, drifted off to sleep in the chair.

The first grey gleamings of morning roused her. She sat, stiff and chill, with a crick in her neck and listened to the birds practising for daybreak.

Then she heard the marching feet.

Her shoulders ached, as if with rheumatism, all her life that particular ache, in that particular place, had always meant that danger was near.

Oh, she thought, so, it’s to be now…

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