Beltane

by Alys West

  The drawing reminded him of pictures he’d seen from war zones. Captives forced to kneel before they were beaten or tortured. The same feeling of overt threat came from the hooded figure’s stance. Whatever happened next he felt sure it wouldn’t end well for the man.

  Why was he faceless? Had Zoe dreamt him like that? He thought back, remembered her sketching in the chin, then saying ‘no’ and dropping her pencil as if she’d seen something she didn’t want to draw. He frowned. It made no sense. But then none of her reactions to the dream or the drawing made any sense to him.

  He dropped the pad back on the table and switched off his torch. He wasn’t going to figure that out tonight. Maybe he’d have another go in the morning, ask her about the man. If she didn’t freak out again when he showed her the picture.

  He punched the pillow, turned onto his front, tried to find sleep. His mind was too active, his brain replaying the events of the night. Trying to find a reason why Maeve had looked for him on the Tor. With zero success. He put that away to think about later. Moved on to what he had found out. Maeve was on to Zoe. And he wanted her a lot further from Anam Cara than the hostel. He didn’t want to have to scale that bloody wall again to rescue her. Zoe should go back to London until it was over.

  The hard part would be getting her to agree to it. In the morning he’d tell her he’d seen Maeve searching her room. Only he didn’t think that’d be enough. Because, even after what he’d told her this evening, she had no idea of the danger she’d been in. And he couldn’t explain without revealing everything, his own secret included. And he knew how that would end. Cue stunned silence and questions about his sanity.

  That left him with an unsolvable dilemma. If he didn’t tell her everything, she wouldn’t leave Glastonbury. And if he did tell her, she’d think him insane, doubt every word he’d ever said and probably stay anyway.

  Tomorrow he was going to Lyme to get his staff. It’d been stupid to have put it off this long, to think that keeping a low profile would work. Maeve wasn’t going to give up that easily and he had to be able to protect himself.

  Somehow he’d convince Zoe to wait until he got back from Lyme before she returned to Anam Cara to collect her things. He couldn’t go with her but he could get Maeve out of the way to give Zoe time to pack and leave. After that, he had to say goodbye. He wouldn’t risk her safety again as he had this evening. But he was going to ask if, when this was over, he could come up to London and take her out somewhere.

  He’d just not mention that he had to live that long first. He exhaled heavily. After what had happened on the Tor he was entirely too clear about how likely that was.

  Chapter 17

  Heart pounding, her skin slick with sweat, Zoe woke. In her dream she’d been frantically searching Anam Cara desperate to find Finn. But in each room there was a hooded figure laughing triumphantly. Or a faceless man, on his knees with his hands bound behind his back, pleading for his life. Or cold, white hands reaching out to grab her. Waking was a moment of pure, sweet relief.

  But it was short lived. As she recalled the events of the middle of the night, she rolled over, buried her face in the pillow and groaned. Couldn’t she have had just one night off from the bloody dreams?

  Slowly, she turned over and opened her eyes. Light percolated through the curtains. She could hear Finn’s breathing. It seemed to saturate the room, reassuringly slow and even, as if he slept deeply.

  She grabbed her clothes and tiptoed to the bathroom. Seeing herself in the mirror she could only hope that she’d not looked this bad in the middle of the night. She scrubbed the mascara smudges from around her eyes and brushed the knots from her hair. She craved a shower but wouldn’t risk waking him.

  Pulling her leggings on she thought longingly of the clean clothes in her rucksack at Anam Cara. The prospect of going back there, of facing Maeve, was pretty damned terrifying. Would Finn go with her? Now she wasn’t staying there anymore, surely it didn’t matter if Maeve saw them together. Tying her hair into a ponytail, she figured she’d ask when he woke up. After what he’d told her last night he couldn’t honestly expect her to go back to Anam Cara on her own.

  Opening the bathroom door, she tiptoed back to the bed. Finn had been really sweet last night, holding her as she cried, not complaining that she’d woken him. When he’d sat next to her, wearing only shorts and a t-shirt, his long, muscular legs had been so close to hers that their bare skin almost touched. He’d swept her hair back and she’d felt the spark return, thought he was going to kiss her. Then, in one of those sudden changes of mood that so confused her, he’d walked away.

  She sighed. Maybe she’d imagined it. After all, who’d want to make a move on the total soggy mess she’d been last night. God knows what he thought when she flipped out about the drawing.

  Automatically, she reached for her sketchpad but it wasn’t there. Then she remembered Finn taking it from her. What had he done with it? She needed to see it, to know the worst before he woke. Scanning around the room, she crept towards the sofa bed. Spotting the pad on the coffee table, she snatched it up, saw the man’s blank face and froze.

  Immediately her mind filled in the blank. It was Finn. He was the man kneeling on the ground, his hands tied behind his back. She gasped as the enormity of it filled her mind. Her hand clamped over her mouth as her stomach plunged.

  Her eyes turned involuntarily to the sleeping figure on the sofa bed. He lay on his stomach, his arms flung out, his face turned towards her. The lines of tension he wore when awake had disappeared. He looked exhausted and rumpled and kind of adorable. She wanted to wrap her arms around him, keep him safe from the danger that lurked in this drawing.

  But the danger was there. She’d tried so hard last night to avoid it. She’d thought if she didn’t draw his face that it wouldn’t be true. But the dream hadn’t given up. It’d morphed into the nightmare that stalked her sleep.

  She walked to the bed and sat down. Picking up her pencil, she took a deep breath and sketched in the lines she’d avoided drawing last night.

  Unblinkingly she stared at the completed sketch. Finn’s eyes were closed, his face serene. Why wasn’t he fighting? It almost looked as if he accepted what was going to happen. She looked again at the hooded figure. Who was it? Screwing up her eyes, she tried to recall the dream. She had a faint memory of an echoing cry of triumph as the hooded figure raised its hand. It seemed strangely familiar but she couldn’t place it.

  If only Finn hadn’t seen her draw this. Brow furrowed, she glanced over at him. There was no point wishing for that. He’d sat next to her, watched as the drawing took shape, wanted - when she’d stopped stupidly crying - to talk about the picture.

  Sooner or later he’d ask her about last night. She couldn’t tell him that she’d been so scared she stopped herself from drawing his face. That would seem crazy. But not as crazy as explaining she was only scared because she knew the dream would become reality.

  She shook her head. She could imagine his reaction to that. He’d think she was delusional. Or insane. And she wouldn’t blame him.

  Right now, she felt like she really was losing her mind. Because this drawing was a whole different level of weird. A massive step beyond what she’d dreamt and drawn in Glastonbury. This was as bad as the dreams she’d had in October. The ones that had woken her night after night in the run-up to Halloween.

  And what if those dreams were the same as these? If they were premonitions too? Suddenly there was a lump in her throat. She swallowed hard. She couldn’t remember those dreams – they faded once she’d drawn them – but she was pretty damned sure they were even weirder than this one. So strange that only the fact that the sketches were good, even talented work – and a lot more original than anything she drew with her conscious mind – had stopped her from tearing them into a thousand tiny pieces. Instead, she’d shoved them to the back of the wardrobe.

  Stop! She was just being ridiculous now. Those were nightmares. And she was going to have
to lie to Finn and tell him that this was just a dream too. Okay, that would make the way she’d reacted last night seem a little mad but, at least, she wouldn’t have to tell him the truth.

  Her eyes slid back to the picture. A shiver brushed her spine. The hooded figure was going to hurt him. She knew it. This drawing was horribly, maybe even deadly, serious. It wasn’t like the other sketches that only revealed his presence at a particular time and place. By drawing this she’d found out something about his future that really mattered. She couldn’t keep that from him.

  Did she really have to tell him now though? She thought for a moment, her teeth gnawing on her bottom lip. Couldn’t she wait until she knew him better? Find a way to build up to it?

  She glanced at the clock. Eight fifty three. How much sleep had he had? She hadn’t heard him come in but he’d definitely been asleep when she put the light on. That had been just before five. What had he been up to in the hours after they left the pub? Had he been watching Anam Cara all that time?

  She visualised him as she’d drawn him on Sunday night, standing in front of the tower on the Tor, binoculars in hand, his face grim. Her eyes returned to the drawing of the stone circle. What if this happened as soon as the one of the Tor had? She’d drawn that on Sunday night and on Monday - and again on Tuesday - he’d been on the Tor watching Anam Cara. She ran back through the days since she arrived at Anam Cara counting off the dreams. The picture at the Holy Thorn was the exception but would she bet Finn’s safety on that? What if she could only see the future just before it happened?

  Her drawing showed a three quarter moon hanging over the stone circle. That could be a clue as to when the dream would happen. It meant nothing to her. But it would to Finn. He was sure to understand the phases of the moon. She had to tell him when he woke up. She had absolutely no choice.

  Her stomach plummeted as she pictured his reaction, the inevitable look of stunned disbelief. She couldn’t face that. She liked him too much to watch his face change from shock to coldness to rejection.

  There had to be an easier option, a way to tell him without having to see his face as she did it. Twisting her pencil between her fingers, her gaze dropped to her sketchpad still resting on her knee. She could probably explain everything better in a note anyway. And then he’d have time to think about it and decide if he wanted to see her again.

  Her eyes closed for a second. She wouldn’t hold her breath for that.

  Tearing a blank page from her pad, she wondered if this was a coward’s way out. Finn wasn’t like other guys. He’d had to deal with some weird things of his own. Maybe she should be brave and risk telling him face to face?

  Then she remembered how Mia, and years later, Anna had reacted when she’d told them about her dreams. How even they, the two people who knew her best, had dismissed her drawings as the product of an over-active, over-sensitive subconscious. That they’d been wrong - and her dreams had turned out to be premonitions - didn’t make talking about them any easier. Quite the opposite, in fact.

  She wrote ‘Hi Finn’ then she stopped, her mind as blank as the page in front of her. Words weren’t her strength. She could say so much more with pictures.

  Finn’s breathing stuttered. Tensing, she glanced at the sofa bed. The mattress creaked as he turned over. A few seconds later, his breath returned to its even tempo.

  She bit her lip and started writing. Two drafts were screwed up and stuffed in her bag. The third – with some crossings out – was good enough.

  She carefully folded the note around the drawing of the stone circle and wrote Finn’s name on the front. Then she flipped the duvet back into place, put her shoes on and swung her bag onto her shoulder. She picked up the key to the cottage and crept over to the sofa. Quietly she put the note on the coffee table, the key on top of it. She looked at Finn for a long moment, trying to memorise his face.

  “Please don’t hate me or think I’m crazy,” she whispered. “I’m trying to do the right thing here. If I didn’t like you so much I wouldn’t have told you.”

  At the door, she hesitated. With her hand already on the latch, she rested her forehead against the wood. Once she stepped outside she was on her own. In a world that was a lot more terrifying than the one she’d thought she lived in when she woke up yesterday.

  She glanced back at Finn. Was she making a mistake? Should she stay? Give him the note and wait while he read it? Her mind ran through his possible reactions. None of them were good.

  She pulled the handle down and stepped out into a bright sunny morning. Silently, she closed the door behind her.

  Chapter 18

  Hearing desultory chatter over the breakfast table, Maeve hesitated outside the kitchen door. Her hands rose to her face. She’d done her best with powder and foundation but the night’s exertions had taken their toll. She’d drawn energy from Helena as the girl slept - enough to get her on her feet this morning - but she’d had precious little left for putting her face on.

  Sliding her sunglasses on, she stepped into the room. Light streamed through the windows and even behind her glasses she winced. “Good morning,” she said, taking the chair at the head of the table. She saw Penny stare before hastily looking away. Tony took one glance and dropped his knife. The clatter as it hit his plate stabbed into her brain. Only Helena appeared not to notice. She didn’t look good either. Her face was pasty with dark circles beneath her eyes and her movements were even more clumsy than normal. Abandoning her own breakfast, she moved to hover by Maeve’s elbow. “I’ll have earl grey, grapefruit and wholemeal toast,” Maeve told her.

  As the girl returned to the kitchen, Maeve turned to her guests. “How are you this morning?” she said, trying to appear as normal as possible. Penny answered and, thereafter, Maeve interjected the occasional question, faking an interest in their paltry activities and the conversation flowed. Helena placed half a grapefruit in front of her. After a single mouthful, Maeve pushed it away. The sharpness that she usually enjoyed tasted like sulphuric acid on her tongue. Sipping her tea, she addressed herself to achieving her purpose.

  It took far longer than she’d anticipated. Penny was willing but dithered when Tony expressed his concern for her health with surprising adamance. Maeve repeated again and again that his wife would benefit from the healing, staring at him as she tried to imprint the message in his brain but, disturbingly, it had little effect.

  She felt a sharp moment of panic, a flowering of doubt. Was her strength so diminished that even someone as weak as Tony could resist her?

  Then she saw the irritation on Penny’s face and realised she could divide to conquer. With a few hints that Tony was being overbearing and possessive, she soon had the two of them bickering. Then it took only a few minutes before Penny asserted her independence and agreed to meet Maeve in the treatment room in half an hour.

  Her task accomplished, Maeve stood and, with a quick word to Helena about her chores, left the room. Walking through the porch she heard Penny and Tony’s raised voices and smiled.

  She’d been a wife once. Many, many years ago when a wife was expected to obey her husband. She’d rarely obeyed hers. He was a stupid man. A wealthy acquaintance of her father’s with just enough wit to flatter her naive seventeen year old self into believing she was in love. She could barely remember him now. Any affection she’d had for him had been eclipsed by Sebastian’s birth, followed a year later by Tristan’s. Her wonderful, golden boys who’d taught her what love really meant. Even after all these decades she carried the agony of their loss. Two gaping wounds that could never heal.

  Opening the door into the garden wing she entered the treatment room. Thrusting thoughts of the past aside she went through the preparations for a healing. When she was ready, she stepped out into the small entrance hall. Opposite was the door to Helena’s room with the main door on her left. On the wall to her right, hung a large picture showing the positions of the chakras. Pressing both hands against the picture, Maeve murmured, “Open”. When
she stepped back, the frame swung outwards revealing a low, narrow entrance. The smell of damp floated out to meet her as she ducked her head to enter.

  The room was as black as a mine shaft, the only illumination coming from the daylight that slid through the half opened door. Maeve formed a light globe and released it. The space was barely four feet across, the ceiling sloping sharply down towards the back wall. The globe flickered like a guttering candle, yet another sign that her strength was low.

  Helena had done as she’d asked. The room had been swept clean of its previous occupant’s overhasty departure. A thin mattress lay next to the back wall with a folded blanket on top.

  She’d been pre-emptive yesterday in considering confining Zoe in here. The girl’s pictures had confirmed what she suspected. The girl had come to free her Beltane sacrifice. That gave her a lever. Whatever the relationship between the two of them, she knew he wouldn’t stand by and let the woman who rescued him become the sacrifice in his place. His sense of responsibility made him weak. As he’d come for his sister, he’d come for Zoe. This time she’d be waiting for him.

  She smiled. The globe glowed more brightly as if suffused by her excitement. She would make him suffer for all she’d endured since the tree exploded on Sunday night. She’d start by making him watch as she stole the girl’s blood and drank it. Even the few silver sparks it contained would revive her and give her the strength she needed to complete the ritual.

  The temptation to act immediately had to be quelled. In her extensive research she’d discovered that certain learned spellworkers believed The Seventh Book to be inaccurate on one key point. The ritual should be performed at first light on Beltane morn. That was less than forty eight hours away. A tracing spell would keep the girl in sight until she needed her.