Page 17 of The Christmas Retreat
There was so much to do after that, packing up the cottage and making arrangements, that I was luckily too exhausted for flashbacks or nightmares, but, each night, fell straight into a deep and dreamless sleep.
I had my post redirected to Evie’s flat – Liv would only be away for a couple of days over Christmas itself and could send it on – and I gave Eli the keys to the cottage. He also took my most precious tubs and pots of plants, which he promised to look after until I had a new place and could send for them. He was so kind.
I gave him all the contents of my freezer, including the mince pies, but I took the Christmas cake with me, along with my little glass Christmas tree. Everything else was stowed away in boxes and taken off for storage.
My baby Fiat was packed practically to the roof, what with all my sketchbooks – boxes and boxes of them – my painting materials, laptop and clothes. Since I’d rarely worn anything other than jeans or dungarees for years, my choice for the retreat was a bit limited and I suspected I was going to be the shabbiest person there.
Once I’d crammed in all the photograph albums filled with pics of Mrs Snowboots, I would have needed a shoehorn to squeeze anything else in.
The most poignant moment of all, after the removal van had finally vanished up the lane, was saying goodbye to Mrs Snowboots. Since the new owners of the Hall wanted my cottage for staff accommodation, I thought she’d be safe enough there, under the rose by the studio window.
*
I spent the night in the anonymity of a roadside motel chain, then set out north early the next morning.
I’d never visited Wales and I didn’t have satnav, but I’d worked out a route that would take me off the motorway as soon as possible – I hated motorways – and on to quieter roads cross country to Seren Bach, which was on the north-west coast.
I wrote the road numbers and junctions on Post-it notes and stuck them along the dashboard, then ripped them off and dropped them on the floor as I reached them.
The weather seemed to turn colder as I headed north and my heater wasn’t that brilliant, so I stopped for coffee to thaw out a couple of times until finally, in a light, sleety drizzle, I began to work my way across country to my destination.
It had looked pretty straightforward on the map, but I hadn’t taken account of the fact that I’d be driving through mountains, or remembered that I wasn’t a crow who could fly straight from A to B.
As the roads narrowed and grew evermore twisting, I had to coax the car up steep inclines, while hoping my brakes were up to the descent on the other side. It was a bit of a challenge for a heavily laden baby Fiat.
The early afternoon was already starting to turn gloomy when I reached a place called Blaenau Ffestiniog, set in an almost lunar landscape of bleak slate. I wasn’t sure if it was beautiful or the opposite. I’d need to see it on a bright sunny day to make my mind up on that one.
I was almost two hours later than I’d expected and the light fading fast by the time I drove through the large village of St Melangell, which I was too tired to really take in, and chugged slowly up what I sincerely hoped was the last hill of the journey.
It was single track, bordered by grassy banks and grey stone walls, and I felt a deep relief when I reached the top without meeting any other vehicle and began to coast down the other side.
It was dark now, and below me, on the other side of a small valley, a large white house glimmered against a wooded hill: Triskelion, I was sure. Its windows showed warm, welcoming lights.
I was so weary that I desperately wanted to get there – and yet at the same time dreaded the arrival itself and the meeting withstrangers. Evie, of course, would not be a stranger, although they don’t come much stranger than her.
My headlights illuminated a sign that read, rather bafflingly:
WELCOME TO
SEREN BACH
Twinned with
Starstone Edge
Just after it I saw that the road ahead vanished round a bend, but before I reached it something huge and pale as a ghost suddenly swept across the front of my windscreen.
I yelled and my hands must have jerked on the wheel, because I felt the car lurch off the road and up the bank, before the engine cut out and there was silence.
For a moment I was lost in a familiar, nightmare flashback, but then it was gone and I was sitting, cold and shivery, in a car that was tilted at an angle and with its nose buried in a gorse bush.
I felt frozen, my heart hammering. I still felt as if I was reliving my worst nightmare, but this timeIwas the one in the driving seat.
Dimly, I was aware of a car passing me, going the other way, and then drawing up behind me, followed by the approach of heavy footsteps.
Then the door next to me was wrenched open and a deep and somehow familiar voice was demanding: ‘Are you all right?’
I took a few deep breaths before finding my voice. ‘I … yes, I’m fine. It was only a barn owl, but it flew right across my windscreen and I was so startled I came off the road.’
