Beltane

by Alys West

  Zoe turned to look at the wardrobe. Behind those very ordinary fake wood doors were the pictures of the crone. Pictures that so terrified her in October that she hoped she’d never have to look at them again. Only for you Finn, she thought, tugging the doors open.

  The bottom of the wardrobe was, as usual, a total mess. She dropped to her knees and rummaged through piles of shoes and old clothes until her fingers closed on the square edges of a sketchpad. Pulling it out, she sat back on her heels, took a deep breath and opened it.

  The first few pages were filled with sketches she’d done for a commission last year. Quickly, she flipped past them until she found the first of the drawings from October. A picture of a pale, thin girl crouched in the corner of a dark, windowless room sobbing. Not recognising the girl, Zoe only looked at it for a moment before she turned the page.

  She gasped. In this drawing, the crone stood over the lifeless form of the same girl. She held a knife with a thin curved blade that dripped with blood. There was a bone deep gash in the girl’s forearm. Blood flowed from it into a shallow bowl. As she looked more closely Zoe’s stomach lurched. The girl lay across a circular stone table. A table that looked exactly like Maeve’s altar.

  “Oh my God!” Zoe breathed. Finn was right. Maeve was the crone.

  Terror flooding through her, she swallowed hard. This changed everything. It had to. Finn couldn’t go to the stone circle. Not once he knew Maeve would be waiting for him.

  She reached for her phone, had Finn’s number on the screen before she remembered there were two pictures she hadn’t looked at. Reluctantly, she turned the page.

  And there he was. In the garden at Anam Cara, his back against a tree, the crone pressing that same evil looking knife to his throat.

  “No!” Zoe’s hand rose to her mouth. She looked closer, saw the terror in his eyes. Then she shook her head. This couldn’t have happened. He would have told her if Maeve had caught him, wouldn’t he?

  There was one drawing left. With shaking fingers, she turned the page.

  Finn’s body was pinned against the tree. Thin branches wound around his upper arms, roots curled around his calves. His torso sank into the trunk, fingers of bark snaking out to cover his thighs. His mouth was open in a silent scream as the tree devoured him. Maeve, dressed in a long dark robe, stood watching, her crone’s face laughing.

  Zoe shivered. Nausea swum up from her belly. She flicked back through the pictures. She desperately wanted them not to be real. For these drawings to be nothing more than nightmares. But Finn was in them. And she’d dreamt of him, these impossible, screwed up dreams, six months before she met him.

  Again she reached for her phone. She had to talk to him, to hear his voice. She pressed the screen to dial his number, silently praying that he’d answer. When it clicked through to voice mail she could have cried. “It’s me, Zoe,” she said, her voice tight. “I’ve found the drawings, the ones I did in October. And you were right. It is Maeve. She’s the crone. But I… -” her voice rose and she bit hard on her bottom lip to stop the tears, “- you see, you’re in the drawings too. And I don’t understand what they mean. Because in the picture she’s caught you and she’s threatening you. And then there’s this tree and it’s like it’s trying to eat you and the bark’s creeping over you and…”

  Her voice cracked as a memory broke through. “Oh! I…I…” She closed her eyes for a moment, stunned by what she’d remembered. “Just ring me back when you get this, will you?”

  Then scrabbling to her feet, she ran for the door and flung herself down the stairs. In the hall, she dropped to her knees and yanked open her portfolio. Frantically she scrabbled through the sheets of paper looking for two drawings.

  She laid them on the hall carpet. The Green Man and Lancelot. And they both wore Finn’s face.

  Yesterday, in a red wine soaked haze she’d been able to ignore this. Now she couldn’t. Not after she’d seen the picture of the tree.

  It wasn’t that Finn looked like the Green Man. Finn was the Green Man.

  Zoe sat back on her heels and fought back the desire to laugh hysterically. Because suddenly so many things made sense. He’d not arrived at Anam Cara during the thunderstorm. He’d been there, trapped in the tree. Somehow he’d got out during the storm. Maybe the lightning strike had freed him. Could that be why he’d been barely injured by the explosion? Because he’d been at the centre of it?

  And that explained how the Green Man had disappeared the morning after the storm. It wasn’t a Green Man. It was Finn, held by Maeve’s magic, trapped in the tree.

  Every single one of his evasions abruptly fell into sharp focus. With tear-filled eyes she stared at the picture of his bark covered face. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me what she’d done to you?”

  A tear fell on to the page and she brushed it away. “I talked to you. That first day when I thought I’d made a hideous mistake coming to Anam Cara I asked for your help and then on Sunday night when I was drunk I -” she suddenly laughed, her voice high with an edge of hysteria “- I felt like you could really hear me.”

  Her hand rose to cover her mouth as the tears came and she gave into them, her body shaking as the confusion and fear of the past few days flowed out of her.

  When she finally dried her tears on her sleeve her anger had dissolved and she knew that she loved him. She wouldn’t feel this sickening, overwhelming, almost paralysing terror if she didn’t. Because now she understood what Maeve was capable of. Finn had been telling her the absolute truth. Maeve planned to kill him in the stone circle tomorrow night.

  Slowly she prised herself off the floor and walked upstairs. She picked up the sketchpad, tore the pictures out and laid them on her desk. Then with shaking fingers she took four photos with the camera on her phone and emailed them to Finn.

  Chapter 30

  In a wood to the west of Glastonbury, Finn lined up six empty Guinness cans on the top of a fallen log and walked across the clearing to where his friend stood. Above Winston’s outstretched hand hovered a bubble of bright light. “The globe makes the energy easier to control when you’re learning,” he said in the dry tones of a lecturer. “But the down side is that your enemy can see it coming.”

  Remembering Maeve’s light globes on the Tor on Tuesday night, Finn nodded.

  “When you’re able to control the globe and you can use it accurately then the next step is to unpeel it and use the energy without its wrapper. But that’s harder to work with. The globe’s like throwing an egg. It’s got a shape, you can predict how it’ll move. The pure energy’s more like throwing egg yolks.”

  “Messy,” Finn muttered.

  Winston didn’t crack a smile. “And, more importantly, likely to go anywhere. Including all over you. There are druids who’ve tried this without being properly prepared and ended up hospitalised with first degree burns.”

  “Great! If Maeve doesn’t kill me, my own magic could.” This was one of the reasons Finn had never wanted to learn offensive magic. Back when he’d been sixteen and delighted with his powers, he’d reached out an invisible hand and pushed a kid who’d been bullying Cat from his bike. Bragging to Padraig about it later had resulted in a lecture about magic not being a weapon. Of course, he’d rebelled against that. But when he’d won his staff and learned about the interconnectedness of the world and the energy in it, he’d understood what Padraig had meant. Since then it was only in a few hairy situations when travelling that he’d even been tempted.

  “You’re probably not going to get that far in the time we’ve got,” Winston said. “We’ll start with small globes. They’re easiest to handle but they’ve not got much power in them.” Winston raised his hand and the bubble of light flew through the air and hit the first of the Guinness cans.

  “Nice.”

  “Your turn.”

  Finn drew awen through his staff. An orb of light flickered above his palm. “Focus the energy,” Winston said. Conce
ntrating, Finn frowned. The light in the globe started to glow steadily. “Good.” Winston pointed at the row of cans. “Try for the middle one.”

  Finn pulled his hand back as if he were throwing a ball and released the globe. It spun erratically before hitting a tree trunk six feet from his target and releasing only a shower of sparks.

  “You’re not keeping the awen focused after you’ve released the globe,” Winston said. “That’s why your aim’s crap and the globe faded on impact.”

  Finn sighed, stripped off his fleece and dropped it at the bottom of a tree on the edge of the clearing. He knew Winston was trying to help but if Maeve broke his staff all of this was irrelevant. “Without my staff I’ll be lucky to light a candle. I sure as hell won’t be able to generate a light globe.”

  “I might have a wee bit of an idea about that,” Winston said, his hand rising to his throat. “There was a druid I met in India. Irish guy, bit of a loner. He’d been to some places I’d never even heard of and he showed me how he got his staff over the border without any difficult questions.”

  “How is that going to help?” Finn said impatiently.

  Winston shrugged. “It’s a long shot. I need a bit more time to see if I can make it work.”

  “Alright but even if I’ve got my staff I need bigger guns than light globes.”

  “How the hell are you going to control the big guns if you can’t throw one of these?” Winston formed a light globe as he spoke.

  “Maeve uses three of them at a time. I’ve seen her do it. I need something else or I’m dead.”

  “When you stop being crap at this, we’ll move on to something bigger.”

  Finn scowled. “If this is how you speak to your students I’m surprised none of them have shoved you in a trench.”

  Winston grinned. “A cute Aussie tried last season. I didn’t put up much of a fight.”

  Finn created another globe. “I don’t want to hear about you exploiting your students for sexual favours.”

  “None of them have ever complained. And you’re in no position to talk. I’ve had to put up with you and Zoe. That display this morning was sickening.”

  “Leave her out of this!” Finn bounced the globe above his palm, sending it higher and higher into the air. “I’m armed and dangerous.” He released the ball of light as he spoke. He aimed for the middle of the five remaining cans. The globe struck the centre of the log and burst into flames.

  “Definitely dangerous,” Winston muttered. He pointed his staff at the flames. They flickered and died. “Again. And try not to incinerate anything this time.”

  The lesson continued. A little over an hour later, Finn could hit the cans on five out of six attempts and Winston decided to increase the size and power of the globe. As he replaced the six seriously dented cans on the log he explained the damage a bigger globe could do. Finn nodded, already shaping a larger orb in his hands.

  Across the clearing, in the pocket of his fleece, his mobile rang. And then, a little later, it beeped as an email arrived.

  * * *

  When the doorbell rang Zoe was tempted to ignore it. When it buzzed again insistently she put down her pencil and headed downstairs expecting that her housemate, Jake had forgotten his keys again. But when she opened it Anna stood on the doorstep holding a bottle of wine.

  “Are you okay?” her friend said. “Why didn’t you answer your phone? I’ve been worried.”

  “I’m fine,” Zoe said quickly. “Honestly. You didn’t need to come round.”

  Anna gave her a quick hug. “But I thought you needed cheering up. You sounded so upset on the phone last night.”

  “That’s sweet of you. But really I’m fine.” Zoe led the way through to the lounge.

  “Then why have you come home?”

  “I…” Zoe shrugged helplessly. “It’s kind of a long story. I’ll get some glasses.” She reached for the bottle.

  Anna held it away from her. “No, I’ll do it. You look shattered.”

  “I am.” Zoe sank into the sofa. “I was up ridiculously early.”

  “Because of this guy?” Anna called from the kitchen.

  “You could say that.” Zoe heard the familiar clink of bottle against glass and frowned. Wine really wouldn’t help her keep her story straight. She would have to tell Anna that she’d sorted things out with Finn. But then how could she explain coming home early? Anna knew her too well to be satisfied with half-truths and evasions.

  What was keeping her? Zoe tilted her head back to look through the door. “Everything alright?”

  “Fine.” A moment later, Anna walked through the door holding two large glasses of red wine.

  “How come you’re not at work?” Zoe said.

  “I left early. They owed me some flexi-time.”

  “You didn’t have to do that.” Zoe frowned. She’d been upset on the phone last night but not suicidal. Wasn’t it a bit of an over-reaction for Anna to leave work early and trek across London to see her?

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m here now.” Anna ran her fingers through her dark curly hair, not meeting Zoe’s gaze. “Cheers!”

  Zoe lifted her wine glass and took a sip. The red wine had a slightly unpleasant tang. “This taste alright to you?”

  “Sure.” Anna swirled it round her glass appreciatively. “It was nearly ten quid a bottle so it should be okay.”

  Zoe took another sip and again the sour taste hovered on her tongue.

  “So what happened with Finn? Did you talk to him again before you left?” Anna said.

  Zoe gulped down a mouthful of wine to give herself time to decide what to say. “Actually yes. And we kind of worked it out.”

  “You did!” Anna leaned forward. “What happened?”

  “Well, I met him this morning and we talked and I remembered what you’d said and -” Zoe tapped her finger on her glass trying to decide what to say next, “- and we decided to give it a go.”

  “So where is he now?”

  “In Glastonbury.”

  “Then why did you come home?”

  Zoe glanced away. “A friend of his had come to stay so we couldn’t spend much time together and I’d done everything I wanted to in Glastonbury and I thought I’d make more progress at home.” Her eyes slid back to meet her friends. “He’s coming here on Saturday though and he’s taking me out.”

  “He is?” Anna looked confused. “So you’re together now?”

  “Yeah.” Zoe couldn’t repress a huge grin. When Anna didn’t respond, her smile faded. Last night her friend had been encouraging her to give it a go with Finn. Why was she being so cool now?

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Sorry.” Zoe felt suddenly guilty. Anna had been genuinely concerned about her and, lost in worry about Finn, she’d pushed her away. “I should have rung you back. It was just that….” Again words failed her because there was so much she couldn’t explain.

  Luckily, Anna didn’t seem to notice. “Last night you were really upset about him being a druid,” she said. “What made you change your mind?”

  Zoe stared into her wine glass. She couldn’t answer that question honestly. So she grinned and said, “I just remembered how fit he is!”

  * * *

  When only one Guinness can remained intact, the others having been reduced to shards of aluminium, Finn decided he’d earned a break. Winston handed him a bottle of water and he gulped down half of it. Then, rolling his shoulders to shift the tension, he headed across the clearing, propped his staff against a tree trunk and took out his phone. There was a missed call from Zoe. He dialled his voice mail and, as soon as he heard her speak, he knew she was upset. His frown deepened as he listened. When the message ended he said, “Shit!”

  “What is it?” Winston said.

  “Zoe. She’s got the pictures from October and she says one of them is of a tree eating me.” Finn touched the icon to access his emails.

  Winston’s eyebrows shot up. “Have you told her?”
/>
  “No.”

  Winston blew out a long breath. “Good luck with that then, mate.”

  Finn clicked on the first attachment to the email. There were long slow seconds as the file downloaded and then the screen filled with a picture of a pale, thin girl curled up in the corner of a dark room.

  Instantly the memory returned. The moment when he’d opened the hidden door and found his sister, terror in every line of her face, cowering in the farthest corner of the room. Finn swallowed hard. “Winston, you need to see this.” He held the phone out.

  “This is Anam Cara?”

  “Where I found her.”

  “Fuck! Poor Cat.” Winston handed the phone back. “What else?”

  Finn gestured as if to say ‘who knows’ and opened the next photo. It was Cat again. When he saw the crone holding the bloody knife, the wound on his sister’s arm, an explosive anger surged through him. He swung round, wanting to hit out, to hurt something. “The fucking bitch! I’m going to fucking kill her!” Reaching out his hand, his staff flew into it. He slammed it against the earth, felt the connection to awen pulse through him.

  “Hey!” Winston’s hand gripped Finn’s arm.

  Finn narrowed his eyes, yanked away. Then he took a deep breath, walked a few paces, came back. “Look.” He held his mobile out to Winston.

  The Scot was silent for a long moment. Then he said, “Actually we’re going to fucking kill her!”

  Fleetingly, Finn smiled. He slapped Winston on the shoulder and a look passed between them. “Go on. Look at the next one,” Finn said.

  Winston studied the screen for a long moment before he said, “Well, we can be sure about one thing. Maeve is the crone. In this she’s in the garden at Anam Cara threatening you with that knife.”

  Finn nodded. He didn’t need to see the picture. He remembered all too clearly. “That’s when I knew I was in real trouble. She wrapped a force field around me and flung me half way across the garden. I landed against the tree. She didn’t need the bloody knife. I couldn’t move a muscle.”