‘Won’t Lyr protect me against Glitonea? Can’t he do anything? He is my father, after all.’ Faye was desperate for any ray of hope that meant she didn’t have to leave her baby in Falias to be brought up in Moronoe’s court.
‘Lyr.’ Moronoe spat on the ground. ‘My brother is no help to anyone. We are no longer speaking, so I cannot ask his help even if I wanted to, which I do not.’ She tossed her head proudly.
‘Why not?’ Lyr had mentioned he and his sister were estranged, but he hadn’t explained why.
‘Because I am a queen, and I do not need his rulership or approval; I am head of my own Queendom. I need not submit to the Kingdom of Falias to have power.’ She snorted. ‘I also disapprove of the way he uses human women, like a harem. Faerie kings and queens have always had human lovers, for pleasure, but Lyr seems to be obsessed with fathering as many half-fae children as he can. There is no need for it.’
Faye was surprised.
‘I wouldn’t have… expected you to care so much. About the women,’ she replied carefully.
‘I have no sympathy for them, individually. They choose to become enamoured of him.’ Moronoe shook her head angrily. Faye thought it was prudent not to mention that the average woman would have no protection against the seductive power of a faerie king – she hadn’t, and she was half-faerie. ‘But the principle angers me. I am the protectress of reproduction, of the seed of life in nature. It is a sacred process; a human woman is the creatrix of her world. There is a balance to these things that he ignores. In the old days, it was one human child a year given to the fae. Not a hundred, born because Lyr of Falias can’t control himself.’
Moronoe’s tone was brisk now. ‘Also, I disapprove of this war, and my brother dislikes being disapproved of.’ The faerie queen smiled grimly; Faye shivered at the thought of being the object of Moronoe’s disapproval.
‘What is the war actually about?’ Faye asked. ‘Finn said it was for territory… a disagreement over boundaries between your lands.’
‘That is correct, but it is not about boundaries between the elemental realms. The kings, and one of the queens, Thetis, Queen of the Kingdom of Fire, are warring over the control of the Crystal Castle.’ Moronoe looked to the roof in disdain. ‘I refuse to be involved. It is a war of stupid against stupider; no-one can control the Crystal Castle except Morgana Le Fay.’
‘Lyr told me that.’
Moronoe raised her eyebrow.
‘I doubt that he told you the whole truth. All faerie realms have their own magic,’ Moronoe continued. ‘But Morgana is the great Queen of us all, and her magic is unsurpassed. She takes her power from the Moon; she is the Moon, in a manner of speaking. These fools battle over harnessing the Moon in a net and making it do their bidding. It cannot be done.’
‘Surely they know that. Why are they even trying?’ Faye frowned.
Moronoe sighed. ‘Because they believe an ancient prophecy.’
‘What prophecy? Do you believe it?’ Faye asked.
‘Fate is fate. I cannot change it. If it is to happen, it will happen. No point going to war over it.’ Moronoe picked up what looked like a sweet pastry from a plate on the table and tore half of it off with her sharp white teeth. ‘I have enough to do, governing the realm of earth, without playing at war. Morgana can take care of herself, and anyway,’ she chewed the pastry with a smile of contentment, ‘they have no doubt misinterpreted the prophecy. She knows that, as well as I do.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It will be what it will be.’ Moronoe pushed the other half of the pastry into her mouth and licked her voluptuous lips with her tongue. ‘It is not for you to worry over now. Now, you must go back to the human world. Your body grows weaker here and you need your strength for what is to come.’
Faye looked around her, at the roots pushing through the earth walls and the glass and stone lamps, flickering with strange coloured light. Would she really end up hiding her baby here from Finn and Glitonea? It seemed unthinkable. Perhaps this had been a dream. Perhaps she wasn’t pregnant. Her heart leapt with the possibility.
Moronoe unhooked a jet black necklace interspersed with citrine and amber crystals from her own neck, and held it out to Faye. Each bead was a cube about an inch square; it was a heavy piece that weighed on her neck when she held it against her own throat.
‘Take this. Wear it all the time, as protection. And when you need me, call out and I will hear you, wherever you are.’ Moronoe helped Faye with the clasp; her touch was gentle. ‘Now. Go home, and think about what we have said.’
There’s another way. There must be, Faye thought as she closed her eyes and felt the strangeness of transitioning between the fae and the human realm overtake her senses. But I will go home. She felt it, sure and right and clear in her gut. Abercolme was where she needed to be and that was where she’d go. Perhaps when she was there, it would become clear as to what she’d do next. She hoped so.
Forty-Six
Annie stood behind her on the steps that led up to Rav’s front door as she looked for the key in her bag. Passers-by and shoppers walked past, going about their business.
‘Are ye sure he isnae in?’ Annie whispered, though it was the middle of the day, a week after Faye had returned from Moronoe’s queendom. As usual, she had taken a few days to recuperate, assuring Annie and Susie that it was normal, that the sickness was a part of her withdrawal from faerie and that it would pass soon. She hated lying to her best friend, but she had to. She knew Annie, and she wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to berate Rav for splitting up with Faye when she was pregnant. Annie’s protective instinct for Faye was as old as their friendship.
‘As sure as I can be. This is usually an office day,’ Faye replied, turning the key in the lock. ‘Anyway, I’m not going to be long.’
She didn’t have much to get, which was, in a way, symptomatic of her and Rav’s communal uncertainty about the relationship. Annie followed her into the shared hallway, carrying two large holdalls; Faye pulled an empty suitcase behind her, up the stairs to Rav’s flat.
She opened the door to the flat, and her heart lurched.
Rav was sitting on the sofa with his back to her, working on his laptop.
‘That was quick, I thought you were—’ the words died on his lips as he turned around and saw Faye. ‘Oh. It’s you.’ A shadow crossed his features.
‘I came to get my stuff.’ Faye concentrated on keeping the tremor out of her voice. ‘I won’t be long.’
Without waiting for a reply she went into the bedroom with Annie following, and started pulling clothes out of the wardrobe and the drawers.
‘Ye all right, sweetheart?’ Annie whispered. ‘I’ll do this for ye. Go an’ sit in the car, I’ll be ten minutes.’
‘No, it’s okay.’ Faye opened the drawer she’d kept her t-shirts and tops in ‘It won’t take…’ she trailed off. None of her clothes were in the drawer. Instead, expensively-distressed black and grey vests and t-shirts, the kind that she’d seen Mallory wear, were folded neatly under each other. Annie looked over her shoulder.
‘They’re not yours,’ she confirmed, and stormed into the living room, where Faye heard her shout Where the fuck’s all her stuff? at Rav.
Faye sat on the bed, fighting the tears that were too insistent to be kept away. What had happened to her? Her whole life felt completely out of control. She had loved Rav. And now she was pregnant with his child and couldn’t tell him.
How long had Mallory’s clothes been here? And was she here, or was she still in Falias somewhere with Lyr?
Annie thundered back into the bedroom, carrying two full black bin bags.
‘I found yer stuff, sweetheart. Bagged up like trash. Fuckin’ mean-spirited bastid. Come on, sweetheart. We’re outta here. Ye dinnae need to be around him one minute longer, aye.’
Faye shook her head, feeling the tears leaking down her cheeks; the knot that was in her chest felt like it would choke her.
‘Annie, I can�
��t,’ she sobbed, plunging her head into her hands as she cried. ‘I…I…’ but she couldn’t tell Annie, not even her best friend, that Rav’s child was inside her. She knew that if she did, Annie would storm back into the living room and tell him, and she couldn’t. He couldn’t know.
‘Aw, come on, darlin’. He’s no’ worth one of your tears.’ Annie held her tightly and stroked her hair. ‘Let’s go home, eh.’
Faye nodded, trying to pull herself together. She’d already booked her train ticket to Edinburgh, though she hadn’t told her friend yet. In a couple of days she’d be back in Abercolme, where she’d reopen the shop for a few months. She’d find a way to keep the baby: if she could just go back home, be in her rightful place, then the magic of the Morgans would help her. She knew it, in her bones.
Faye followed Annie back out to the living room, where Rav was still sitting on the sofa. He hasn’t even moved. Not got up to see me, talk to me. Nothing she thought, anger replacing her tears. That’s how much he ever cared about me.
‘Don’t worry, I’m out of your hair now,’ Faye said, Annie’s arm around her shoulders. ‘You can get on with things with Mallory.’
‘For fuck’s sake, Faye. I’m not with Mallory,’ Rav muttered. ‘You’re obsessed with her. You need help.’
‘Don’t lie!’ Annie yelled.
He stood up, putting his computer to one side.
‘It was you that cheated on me, Faye. With your faerie king, or one of your witch friends. Oh, don’t worry. Mallory told me all about him. The one with the shop? I guess it’s nice for you to find someone who speaks the same weird language as you,’ he spat, angrily.
‘What? Gabriel? We never…’ Faye argued, but Rav spoke over her.
‘You don’t see it, do you? You’re so lost in your… magic, your shop, all that stuff your mum and your grandmother taught you, you can’t see what’s real. I was real, Faye. I loved you. We could have had a future together, but I could never get to you. It’s like you’re behind this wall of water. I can’t see you clearly, everything’s… it’s all an illusion. And no matter how hard I shout, you can’t hear me.’
Despair overwhelmed Faye. She wanted to tell him so badly: that she was carrying his child. The words sat in her throat like a frog, but she couldn’t say them. They would cost her too much.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry for what happened to you. You have no idea how sorry.’ She wiped a tear from the side of her eye, and felt the strength of Annie’s arm; felt the love of their long friendship filling her. She was sad, but she was also worth more than this. And she was sorry for many things, but she was never going to apologise for who she was.
‘I was born a witch, Rav; I was raised a witch; my family, the Morgans, are a family of witches. We’ve always had this power, and I’ve spent my whole life being afraid of whatever it is that makes us different. My great-grandmothers, my ancestors: some of them were killed for who they were. Some of them were tortured. So, if you can’t see me properly, maybe it’s because I was afraid to be seen.’
He didn’t reply; Faye knew in that moment that she’d never change his mind. I know you’re not the one for me, she thought. I always knew.
‘Come on, darlin’. Let’s go.’ Annie opened the front door and held out her hand for Faye’s. Rav nodded at her, but stayed silent.
In the moment before she walked out of the flat, Faye’s eyes alighted on a picture frame. In it, there was a photo of her and Rav; he’d taken it whilst they laid in her bed, back in Abercolme. Before they had come to London, in that bubble of sweetness, when they had holed up in her flat above the shop and done nothing but slept and ate and made love. They had known very little of each other then; though it was months ago, it felt like an age had passed.
In front of the framed photo, a new one had been wedged into the gap where the frame met the glass. The small black and white picture was blurry, but the outline of the foetus was obvious.
Faye’s eyes met Rav’s, and the tears at what she couldn’t say came roaring out of her; the sorrow that she couldn’t contain. Annie pulled her through the door and down the stairs; she heard Rav shouting after her, it’s not mine, it’s not mine, I’m just looking after her, she had nowhere else to go, but she couldn’t focus, couldn’t respond. If that was Mallory’s baby, then she must already have been pregnant before going to Falias with Lyr. Or, Lyr had kept Mallory there for as long as he needed her, and sent her back pregnant – time did move differently in the faerie realms. Could it be that she was back, pregnant by Lyr, already?
It was possible. But it was also possible that Mallory’s baby wasn’t a half-faerie baby at all and someone else’s. Someone much closer to home.
As Annie gunned the engine, Faye closed her eyes and reached for the necklace that Moronoe had given her. The cube-shaped jet and citrine beads were cold in her hand.
Forty-Seven
The shop was exactly as Faye left it, apart from the thick dust that had accumulated on the shelves while she was away. Faye sank into one of the easy chairs by the old hearth with a deep sigh: five hours on the train from London, followed by a taxi to Abercolme, was a long time travelling. She reached down and rubbed her ankles, which were swollen. She had had morning sickness, though she hadn’t realised what it was, and now other things were starting to bother her; she supposed that it would all get worse before it got better.
Faye stared around at the shop, at the pictures on the wall that were so familiar she didn’t usually see them: the Support Your Local Witches sign that Moddie had hand-drawn and hung behind the counter; the photo of Grandmother in an old gilt frame. The comfort of being home emanated from the thick walls of the old house like heat, wrapping her back up again in its protection. She was home. But the shop also reminded her painfully of Aisha, who had worked there.
She looked at her phone; there were several missed calls from Rav, and a text message. I’m sorry for the way it all happened. She deleted the message immediately.
Though she’d refused Moronoe’s moon tea, on the train up to Edinburgh Faye had given motherhood a lot of thought, watching a young family in the seats opposite. A mother, about her age, was keeping two little ones occupied – a toddler boy, who wanted to walk up and down the train carriage continually, and an older girl of about five, who sat quietly, colouring in a book with fierce concentration. Faye watched the mother’s face move from bright to tired, through patience to irritation over and over again as she walked with the toddler, talked quietly to the girl about her pictures; as they played a game over lunch, and as the toddler snuggled into her for a sleep.
Could I do that? Faye wondered, as the mother caught her eye and smiled. Do I have that in me, that patience? She didn’t know. It was another kind of power, another kind of strength, to do everything for others, all the time. She guessed that the mother might have a day job too. Did she have a partner to help with it all? Faye wondered. If Faye had the baby, she’d be alone. And, if Moronoe was right, the baby would be in danger if she tried to raise it in Abercolme. She’d have to risk that, or hand it over to a faerie queen. Or, some other option that she hadn’t yet thought of.
Faye wandered to the kitchenette and found a box of peppermint tea bags in the cupboard. She filled and boiled the kettle; the water and electric was still on; she’d paid all the bills when she was away. Some part of her had known that London was temporary, even if she hadn’t wanted to admit it to herself.
She leaned against the kitchen worktop and looked back out into the shop, thinking suddenly about Finn Beatha. It felt like such a long time since he’d first walked into the shop and changed her life completely. She felt a sudden urge to go to Black Sands Beach and feel the wet sand between her toes; it had always been her special place.
She drank her tea and pocketed an energy bar from a box in the cupboard, pulling her coat around her. Abercolme in January was cold and the wind and rain had no mercy, but she went nonetheless. It was hers; she was at home in its icy wi
nds and under its dark skies.
The village was quiet; Faye nodded to a few people she knew, though not well; now that she’d been seen, the rumours would start. Faye Morgan’s back, aye, not with that boyfriend though, wonder what happened there. And before long the gossip would take into account that she was pregnant. An’ with a bairn too, with no dad. They’d shake their heads. All ye expect from a Morgan, aye.
Perhaps Faye was being unfair. The village opinion of her had certainly changed after Midsummer, when she’d helped the survivors at the concert. But people had short memories.
The beach was dark, but Faye knew her way. The tide was halfway in, and the waves were choppy, blown by the winter wind. Despite the cold, she took off her shoes and socks and rolled up her jeans. She could still just about get into them – before long she’d have to start wearing those pregnancy jeans she’d seen in shops.
The ice-cold water slashed at her ankles as she waded in further, keeping in front of the point where the pebbly sand dropped off in a sudden ledge a few feet out. Her jeans weren’t rolled up far enough, and the water soaked them on the second wave, but she didn’t care. It was so good to be back in her home element; to feel the freshness of the air and taste the salt on her lips. She closed her eyes and breathed the sea in as she’d done countless times.
For the first time in months, Faye relaxed. Sorrow rose up in her throat, and she let it: she let the tears come and the wail tear itself from her. Spectral, it echoed over the beach, thrust back to the land by the force of the wind on the tide. She wept for Aisha, who she hadn’t been able to save. For Rav, who she’d met almost on this spot. I need help, she screamed into the night. I can’t raise this baby alone. I don’t know what to do. Please, help me.
The wind screamed back at her; it pulled at her hair, whipping her long plait across her face like a slap. The water pushed at her feet, trying her balance. Faye dropped to her knees, despair filling her. I can’t do this. I can’t do this.
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