‘I see you’re accustomed to using magical imagination,’ Gabriel smiled, closing his eyes. ‘Not everyone sees Her. That’s why Sylvia is… translating, shall we say.’
‘Oh.’ Faye couldn’t express what she was really feeling, which was a mixture of fear and anticipation; she’d been resisting the call of the fae ever since she’d been in London. But at the same time, her soul was alight: she was half-fae, however much she tried to deny it.
‘I come with a message for one among you.’ Morgana’s voice hung in the air between them all and sounded inside their heads at the same time. ‘Faye Morgan, sidhe-leth, step forward.’
Faye’s heart beat faster, and she released Gabriel’s hand.
‘I’m… I’m here.’ She tried to get her voice under control, but her nerves showed.
‘Faye. There is something important you must know about the war between the faerie kingdoms,’ Morgana’s voice sang with the splash of oars in a still lake and the vibrant hum of the pink-white crystal of her castle. ‘I come to speak to you, and you only. I have been trying to communicate with you for some time.’
Faye thought of all the shadows, the dreams, the smoky fingers of the fae that had reached out to her since she’d come to London. She’d ignored them all.
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Please. I wanted to start a new life here. Can’t you leave me alone?’
‘No!’ Morgana’s voice echoed in her ears. ‘There is a prophecy that drives this war. The rifts between the elemental kingdoms are deepening because of it, and you lie at its centre.’
‘A prophecy? What prophecy?’ Faye demanded.
‘Your involvement with Finn Beatha has begun a series of events that can only end in—’
But there was an interference, suddenly, like an electrical storm, or the irritating black and white snow on the TV set when a storm knocked out the aerial, back at home in Abercolme where Faye’s TV was the same ancient one she’d grown up with.
The goddess’s outline flickered; Faye stretched her hand out, as if she could touch Morgana, but her fingers closed around air as the goddess faded.
‘They will not let me through,’ Morgana’s voice faded away. ‘Do not trust them!’
Faye opened her eyes, but the goddess was gone. Yet, not everything was normal. A different forest appeared around the circle, slipping against the oaks of the Heath like a blurred negative. Faye looked around her, but the rest of the coven seemed to be caught in a moment of stillness; frozen in time.
‘Can only end in what?’ Faye screamed, but there was no answer.
Instead of the familiar, thick trunks of the oaks, with Hampstead Heath beyond them, a new, golden-green forest stretched out around her. Immediately, she knew she was in the faerie realm.
To her right flowed a merry stream, with a bridge over it. The bridge was in the shape of a woman’s body, with her toes and fingertips the points where soft grass met the banks of the stream. The bridge was carved from wood and varnished in a golden brown, gleaming in the strange light.
The walkway over her back was unsupported by a rail, and the bridge was narrow. No bridge in the fae worlds, it seemed, was an easy one to cross, and all of them required fearlessness. Faye’s breath caught in her throat. Was this the way to the faerie forest, the entry to Falias, the Faerie Kingdom of Earth? Had this place, somehow, interceded on Morgana Le Fay’s power? Its presence had banished her from the circle: someone hadn’t wanted her to deliver her message to Faye. What had the faerie queen been trying to tell Faye? She felt rattled by the experience, her heart beating with panic.
Beyond the bridge, Faye saw a tall, golden gate leading into the forest; again, the gate itself was formed of the carvings of two women embracing, made of the same gold varnished wood. The hinges of the gate were at the heels, bottoms and elbows of the figures, whose bodies were entwined in an eternal kiss. As she watched, the door swung open, as if to show Faye what lay beyond.
Her panic quieting, Faye walked over the bridge and to the gate. She stood at the entrance to the deeper forest and stared in, but roots and vines wrapped themselves around her feet and ankles, and she could go no further. She could see the exposed black roots of the trees beyond, and the black soil that glowed with jewels: amber, citrine, jet and emerald sparkled in the ground like pebbles on a beach, and huge unpolished chunks sat like menhirs among the densely packed trees. The air smelt of lemons, but underneath there was the taint of copper: of blood and earth. Stop, traveller. Only one pure in her desire may enter the Queendom of Moronoe, Mistress of Earthly Delights a chorus of voices sang out. Have knowledge of where you tread. Know thyself and admit thy deepest desires.
Faye’s awareness flickered back to the circle, but she was only vaguely conscious of the rest of them. She tried to return to the ordinary world, tried switching her awareness completely, but the faerie forest was too strong. She could hear soft laughter: the cries of delight attracted her, drew her in, lighting a flame of desire in her belly. I want… I want… she tried to say what she felt, but she was too confused. Stop this, I don’t want it. Return Morgana Le Fay to me. She had a message for me.
The laughter seemed to come from the lumps of crystal; from the deep black hollow slits in the trees. Many would like the pleasure of your company came the answer. We await you.
Faye realised she was stamping her feet as if to free them from the roots. There was a flash of golden light and a deep voice rumbled through the trees; like a persistent echo in a mountain range, like the sound of the earth shifting under their feet. A different voice than the laughing one; the husky woman’s voice that had called her into something dark, somewhere she desired to go but didn’t know why.
Daughter.
The scene changed and Faye was standing back in the circle, but the faerie one that overlapped the ordinary world. She could see the Hampstead Heath oak grove, but she stood within another circle, one with gold-green trees ringed with light.
Daughter. The call came again and a splintered shard of loss in Faye’s heart twisted uncomfortably; it had been there ever since she’d been old enough to know what a father was, and know that she lacked one. The other children in Abercolme had fathers. Cheerful ones that cracked jokes, quiet fathers that helped them with difficult homework, fathers that shouted, fat ones, thin ones, fathers that smelt of whisky. She was left out; she’d experienced none of those things. Being called daughter, suddenly, by someone she didn’t know, was more hurtful than she expected.
This voice was a man’s, loud and deep.
A figure strode through the trees, a gold light pooling around him in the night.
For a brief second Faye thought it was Finn, and she recoiled, her awareness returning to the ordinary world. He was tall and graceful in the same way as Finn was, and his outline was similar: strong shoulders, a regal bearing.
Yet when Faye saw his face, it wasn’t one she’d seen before. This man was dark where Finn was blonde and blue-eyed; his hair was black, his skin was brown like sun-baked soil, he wore a short, shaggy beard. His features were as perfect as Finn’s, but his jaw under the beard was squarer, his face broader.
He was dressed in a black tunic, pinned at the shoulder with a yellow-gold stone brooch, and black trousers underneath; he wore sandals of dull copper leather, and a belt of the same, which featured a seven-pointed star on the buckle.
Lyr of the Faerie Kingdom of Falias stepped into the circle and the glow around him, like an aura of gold, lit up the whole clearing. He bowed his head respectfully to Faye.
‘I come for my daughter, on this night of equal power between our realms of earth and magic, light and dark, day and night,’ he said, his voice as deep as the earth. He held out his hand. ‘Come. We have much to say to each other.’
Twelve
Faye stayed where she was and kept her hands at her sides.
‘I did not call you,’ she replied as coolly as she could, although her heart was racing. ‘You’re not welcome here.’
‘I a
m the High King of Falias, Faerie Kingdom of Earth. When you call on the elements for power in your circle, you call me,’ he replied. ‘I am welcome anywhere on Earth. This is my realm.’
One night, when she was eight or so, and after she’d been told to go to bed, Faye had sneaked out onto the landing and crouched at the top of the stairs leading up from the shop. Moddie had been talking to one of her friends and their voices echoed up from where they sat in front of the old hearth.
Faye wasn’t sleepy, and knew that she’d been sent to bed so that the adults could talk in private. There was laughing and murmuring: Faye couldn’t make out any of it, really. The friend had asked something – Faye could tell from the tone in her voice, which lilted up at the end. Moddie’s voice replied, a murmur without inflection. They were gossiping about the other villagers, no doubt. Faye had rested her head against the wall and closed her eyes. She didn’t like being in her room if she couldn’t sleep: large shadows crept across the ceiling, snatched at her face, whispered in her ear.
Moddie said it was probably her imagination, but she’d put a crystal under Faye’s pillow anyway. Faye knew it was meant as protection from nightmares, but the shadows weren’t nightmares, because she was awake.
Moddie’s voice became louder and Faye had realised her mother was walking towards the door that led up the stairs; eight-year-old Faye had scuttled out of sight. Moddie might have been on the hippy side, but she had a sharp tongue when she wanted to. Moddie’s friend sounded as though she asked a question.
‘No. Haven’t seen him since Faye was born. Ran off,’ Moddie replied. Faye knew instantly she was talking about her father, because it was what she always said when anyone asked her. There was another murmur that came from the friend which Faye couldn’t make out.
‘No. Almost killed me, I…’ Moddie had closed the door before Faye had a chance to hear the rest.
Almost killed me. It had stayed with Faye; she’d never asked Moddie what she meant by the phrase, because it seemed obvious enough. Faye’s absent father had tried to kill Moddie before he ran off; that was what she’d always thought, until the Faerie Queen Glitonea had told her that she was half-faerie, and that Lyr was her father.
Faye was angry. He wasn’t the hopeless hippy she’d once imagined he was, but he was still the one that had hurt her mother and abandoned her.
‘I have nothing to say to you, Lyr of Falias. And you weren’t called – we called on Morgana Le Fay, who had a message for me,’ Faye snapped. She was aware that the circle had returned to life and were staring at her; she glanced briefly at Gabriel, who, like the rest of them, looked as though he’d been awakened from sleep.
‘I am family, Faye. And I have much I would tell you.’ His hand remained outstretched. She stared at it in shock. Finally, after all these years, he was here. She wanted to slap his hand away and scream why now?
Instead, she left her hands by her sides and stared defiantly into his eyes.
‘No. Where were you when I needed a father? My entire childhood, I heard nothing from you. I’m a woman now. I’m grown. I don’t want you, or need you,’ Faye held her arms out in front of her and then crossed them over her chest, which Moddie had taught her was the stance of banishing. ‘I banish you, Lyr of Falias, back to your realm.’
‘You cannot banish me,’ he said, simply.
The rest of the circle was dead quiet, watching in disbelief. Could they see Lyr or, to them, did it look as though she was a madwoman, shouting into thin air? Gabriel’s face was composed, but Ruby and Victoria’s expressions were somewhere between terror and disbelief. Lyr took a step forward, towards Faye, and Gabriel took an instinctive step backwards. So, they could see him: Lyr could choose to be seen if he wanted to.
It was as though the realm of faerie wouldn’t let her go, and she hated it. And she was embarrassed, too; this was a group of new friends, potentially; people she could have shared magic with. And now that was probably ruined.
‘You’re not welcome here,’ she repeated. ‘And how dare you interrupt this ritual? These people didn’t ask you here. I didn’t ask you here. Be gone!’ Faye shouted as loudly as she could and removed the banishing sigil from her pocket: she had it on her at all times except when she was asleep, and that was only because she slept naked; if she’d suddenly started wearing pyjamas or something with a pocket, Rav would have thought it was odd. She held it up in front of Lyr’s face, but he smiled, took it from her fingers and placed it gently back in her pocket.
‘You do not need protection from me. I have told you, I am your father,’ he repeated. ‘Don’t you want to know why I am here, daughter?’ He stepped forward to take her hand. ‘Aren’t you at all curious about me, after all this time?’
‘No. Leave me alone.’
It wasn’t just the shock of being confronted with her long-lost father that had floored her so deeply. She’d just begun a new life; a new start, with Rav, in a different city, far away from Abercolme. Away from Finn Beatha and the horrors of Murias.
Lyr regarded her dispassionately.
‘I’m not your child, and I’m not part of the faerie realm any more,’ she cried. ‘Please, just leave me in peace!’
‘As you wish, daughter.’ Lyr stepped away from her. ‘But know that Falias is your home as much as this world is, and that it awaits you. As I do.’
He nodded to the circle, and walked away into the trees, his golden light dimming until blackness replaced it, and Faye felt she was blind.
Thirteen
Mallory had her feet up on the brown leather footstool and was flicking through the TV channels with the remote control from the sofa when Faye got back to the flat. She looked up, laughing; Faye could hear Rav crashing around in the adjoining kitchen.
‘Oh, it’s you, Faye. I was hoping the pizza delivery boy had let himself in,’ she drawled. ‘Have you just finished your witching now? It’s late.’
‘Yes, it is,’ Faye said pointedly, but in truth she was taken aback. Why was Mallory here, at eleven o’clock on a Saturday night? In Rav’s flat, the two of them apparently enjoying a few drinks? Rav definitely hadn’t mentioned Mallory being invited over; if she’d known, Faye wondered whether she would have wanted to go out and leave them together. Although, a night in Mallory’s company wasn’t exactly something to savour…
Mallory eyed Faye coldly, picked up a beer bottle and drank from it, not bothering to get up. Rav came in, also holding a beer, and stopped when he saw Faye. For a brief moment, she saw surprise and panic in his eyes; clearly, he wasn’t expecting her home yet, or had lost track of time.
‘Oh! You’re back.’ Rav enveloped her in a huge hug. ‘How was it? Fun?’
She could smell the beer on his breath. Over his shoulder, Faye could see six or seven empty bottles littered the coffee table; one had rolled on its side and a small pool of sticky beer was soaking into a pile of music magazines. He was drinking more and more often at home and it had begun to worry her.
‘Interesting more than fun.’ She disentangled herself from his hug and walked into the kitchen to get a cloth for the spill, but also to have an excuse to gather herself a little. She was upset as it was; Lyr appearing at the ritual had thrown her completely and, on the train home, changing from one confusing underground line to another, she’d been holding on to the thought that she’d get home to Rav, who would listen and understand. She was also worried about what the rest of Ruby’s coven thought of her. After Lyr had disappeared, Faye could tell that Penny and Sylvia weren’t happy; they’d closed the circle swiftly, making sure that all the quarters – the four elemental powers that had been drawn into the circle – were banished. They had wanted her to stay and talk about what had happened, but she’d made a shaky excuse and run away. She hadn’t known – didn’t know – how to deal with it.
She needed Rav. But Rav was drunk and his ex-girlfriend was draped over the couch like she owned it. Faye took a deep, wavering breath, fought the tears back and walked out into the lounge.
Mallory watched her wipe up the beer without any acknowledgement.
‘Hey, Faye. You okay?’ it didn’t take a genius to work out that Faye wasn’t exactly thrilled, and Rav was picking up her mood, despite the beer.
‘Fine. I’m going to bed.’ She didn’t bother saying anything to Mallory. Rav followed her to the bedroom.
‘You’re not all right. What is it? Mallory? We’re just friends.’ He looked guilty though, and it irritated Faye even more.
‘She’s your ex-girlfriend and she’s here drinking beer with you while I’m out,’ Faye snapped. ‘You didn’t even tell me she was coming over. And you’re acting guilty about it.’
‘She called around. I was working, fancied a break. That’s all.’
‘How convenient,’ she muttered, getting undressed.
‘Come on, Faye – you really aren’t one to talk. It’s not like I’m two-timing you with some faerie queen. It’s just a beer.’ The words were out of his mouth like they had been sitting there on his tongue, waiting to be said for months.
‘Excuse me?’ Faye stopped unbuttoning her jeans and stared at Rav; he looked away, uncomfortably.
‘I didn’t mean that,’ he muttered, but the words were lodged in the air between them, each letter like a brick, making a wall, and it was too late to take them back.
‘I didn’t two-time you. You know I didn’t,’ Faye said in a low voice, conscious that Mallory was in the lounge – it wasn’t a huge flat and she could probably hear everything they were saying. Faye jabbed her finger in the direction of the lounge. ‘She still has feelings for you. Sumi told me. You shouldn’t be encouraging her.’
‘I’m not. She came to see me! It’s not fair,’ Rav protested.
‘Who cares about being fair to Mallory! What about me? It’s not fair to me. It’s not okay that you guys are here getting drunk together without even telling me, Rav.’ Faye sat on the bed in her bra and jeans half-undone and felt the tears coming again. ‘Especially not after what happened tonight.’
Queen of Sea and Stars Page 8