‘Dale, are you alright?’ Irene asked in concern. The others drew in to help, except Henry who stood and chuckled to himself.

‘There’s a m… there’s a m…’ Dale stammered, pointing at the water. ‘A mermaid! It said…‘don’t eat the fish’.’ Dale’s voice was weak, as though he couldn’t believe the words he was saying. He got to his feet, seized a pickaxe and wedged it under a boulder at the pool’s edge, where the water met the ridge.

‘I have to undam the pool. The river needs somewhere to run. The mermaid told me so!’ Dale yelled.

‘Dale, no!’ Henry cried, but Dale wrenched down on the pickaxe. The boulder rolled out with a crash and the water of the pool was freed. It cascaded down to the dry river bed the others had walked along and carried its load of fish, weeds and mud towards the icy blizzard.

‘Oh God, she is not going to like that,’ Irene whispered, aghast.

‘Dale, what have you done?’ Flora wailed.

‘There was… there was a mermaid…’ Dale uttered in a helpless voice, as though he still could not believe the words he was saying. He peeled some pond weed from himself and wiped away the muddy sediment from his face.

All they could do was watch as the water made its way to the frozen catacombs. There was a moment’s pause before they felt a tremor on the air and a noise that could have been the soughing of the wind or a distant scream of anguish. With a crackling, crunching sound, a layer of ice rushed along the water’s surface from the catacombs towards them. In a matter of moments it turned the waterfall to a veil of frosted glass and coated the surface of the pool in a crystalline pane.

There was a frantic splashing as the mermaid burst from the surface. It tried to break clear of the ice but was bound to the water. Everyone stared in amazement at the creature that writhed as it was bared to the surface and gasped in the air.

The mermaid was trapped, chest deep, in the hardening, frozen pool. Across the icy river that now led from the catacombs, the frozen cadaverous woman soared with uncanny speed, straight for the mermaid. Her dark shroud flapped and her mottled, ghoulish hands had their pointed claws outreached.

The woman snarled and wrapped her claws around the mermaid’s neck. ‘You! Trying to flush me out, fish-monster? I’ll show you who these caverns belong to and save my little ones!’

Unnatural, foul witch! Curse you! The mermaid opened and closed its mouth, helpless in the witch’s crushing grip.

‘Stop! Let the mermaid go!’ Cried Irene, in horror at what she saw.

‘Shh! What are you doing? We’ll be next!’ Percy urged Irene to be quiet in a choked whisper. Henry made a desperate fumble for the last of his lodestone powder.

‘I- I have your kitten!’ Aisling shouted to the witch, and held up the kitten. It had begun to drip as it thawed.

‘My child!’ The witch turned to Aisling, and let the mermaid go.

Henry’s stave ignited with magic fire.

‘What are you? And what power is this that you have?’ Henry challenged the witch, and pointed the stave at the kitten.

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‘No!’ The witch cried and gave a wail of panic. It sounded inhuman, more like the noise from an animal.

‘Answer me!’ Henry demanded.

‘I took this human’s form…’ the witch began, faltering on her words.

‘Are you a fae?’ shouted Henry. The kitten wriggled helplessly in Aisling’s grip. ‘You’re not like any fae I ever saw.’

‘No. I’m a cat. I was a cat,’ the witch responded in a mournful voice.

‘This human witch, the one whose body you see, forced me to bear litters of babies then took them away. It was so much pain. Conception, pregnancy, labour; endless, exhausting cycles of it. Each time, I knew they would be taken away from me, even as I washed and nursed them. So many babies. She would sacrifice them and use their souls for her magic.

‘She took the magic stone from down here. She travelled down the shaft of a well to get it; the same well she cast my babies down when she was done with them.

‘My sorrow was so great it was like a winter inside me. I craved vengeance. So great was my sorrow; so great was my rage, that the magic heard me. The time came that I no longer bore litters and was cast to the same fate as my children. My spirit lingered, and when the witch slipped and perished to the winter’s cold without aid, my spirit took her place.

‘My mind opened up to new, terrifying vistas of the witch’s knowledge, and from the energy in the caverns, her powers increased a thousandfold. This frozen hell is mine forever, but at least I can preserve my little ones in the winter born from within me. Now give him back!’ the creature wailed.

Although she stammered, Irene said; ‘You want to save your kittens? The river needs somewhere to run. It wants to protect the life it makes, so you both want the same thing. There is also another; a girl whose garden depended on the water, but you froze it over. Now she is dying and has sent these thorns. I hear your story. You know the anguish of loss, but you are going to cause the loss of the river life, and there’s a little girl out there who needs you to let the water flow again.’

‘Why should I care about others’ loss when no-one cared for mine?’ hissed the witch.

‘Your children have already gone. There’s nothing you can do to bring them back, you’ve only frozen them. You’re only making what you yourself called a frozen hell.’ Zachary said, even though his voice wavered.

The witch turned its demonic, feline eyes to them in despair.

‘I’ll make the choice easy for you,’ growled Henry. ‘Let these waters flow, and you can have this back’ He held his burning, glowing stave closer to the frozen kitten, and more drips came from the tiny form’s melting ice.

‘I vowed. I vowed to keep my little ones close, forever. Never to let my babies go. I vowed I would bring my winter to the world that took them from me,’ the witch lamented, in a hollow whisper. ‘Gone; they’re all gone. Dead. And here am I with this witch’s cursed form!’

The air, which had hung with bitter cold, lost its chill. All around, the ice began to melt with a soft crackle and dripping as it thawed.

‘Release me from this nightmare,’ the witch gave a defeated whisper.

The witch’s body became rigid in the place she stood, then began to dissolve in front of the others’ eyes. Her death-grey skin soughed away like dust and the pale bone beneath disintegrated like chalk. The shroud she wore flopped into the stream that flowed again as the ice broke, and the tattered garment washed away. Water spilled to the ground from Aisling’s hands, and the kitten dissolved to black soot.

There was a moment where the distant beam of magic that hung in the air gave an intense glow, then all light dimmed and the cave was plunged to total darkness.

The light returned, and they saw a cat at the water’s edge. It gave them a lingering, knowing look, and then ran in the direction of the garden in the thorns.

Regaining its senses, the mermaid swam upright in the pool.

You did a great thing here today. Thank you. I shall remember this, the mermaid addressed them, with its unearthly way of speaking without using its mouth. I vow to you that these waters shall always run clean and clear. You may drink freely and catch fish from it, but only the ones I bring to you, who will be docile and easily netted. Be warned, repay this gesture with greed and you shall bring my wrath. The mermaid sank below the surface and vanished.

‘Is it over?’ Flora asked in a little voice, clinging to Irene’s sleeve.

Dale swayed where he stood, then trudged wetly back to the chapel without a word.