A Coven of Her own

by Saskia Walker

She looked at the other women, and nodded. They freed her, tentatively letting her step across the clouds. She moved across the empty space, turning back to her friends, she imagining Cullen at her back and felt strong and invincible. She risked a glance to her side and saw the town in the bay below.

  She stared at the tiny houses, squinting in order to look north, to pick out her grandma’s cottage. She saw it beyond the meadows, the familiar color of the thatch and the shape of the orchard beyond.

  “I can see my house from here,” she said, laughing with delight.

  It was then she noticed something she’d never noticed before—the shape of the orchard against the landscape. From here, it looked like an ankh, the stone marking the circle of the orchard forming the shape of the loop.

  When she looked back at her companions, Willow was sitting cross-legged, mid air, watching her with a smile on her face. Aveline and Rowena were sitting on the edge of the cliff, their legs dangling.

  “What do you think?” Willow asked the other two.

  Rowena nodded. “She’s getting there.”

  “Yeah, she could probably survive the ducking stool now,” Aveline replied, deadpan, and then gave one of her naughty smiles.

  “You guys,” Sunny said, as she marched back toward them, as sure as if she were walking down the cobbles on Main Street in Raven’s Landing.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Sunny cursed as she darted around the house, pulling things into shape for the impending visitors. Her family were due to arrive at any moment. She wasn’t anywhere near ready. How on earth would they get through this? A mere three weeks ago, her biggest worry had been her parents’ critical words about her recent life choices. Now there was the sudden presence of a rather compelling but mysterious man in her life to explain.

  The house was currently a jumble of her grandma’s belongings and her own stuff from her flat in London, much of which was still in boxes. One day, it’d be perfect. The dining room was just about in shape to seat everyone for a meal, but several unpacked boxes were still stacked by the Welsh dresser, and she wanted them out of the way. Pulling the top box open, she cursed at her disorganized packing. Reaching inside, she pulled out a hairbrush. “I’ve been looking for you since I moved here.”

  She’d had to buy another. She rolled her eyes, rested it on the dresser and rooted about inside. It looked as if she’d just emptied a drawer into the box when she’d packed to move down here. She hauled an armful of stuff out, smiling wryly at familiar old magazines, a bottle of moisturizer, two half-read novels, a couple of sex toys and a cuddly toy. It was mostly bedroom junk. With any luck, she could get it upstairs before they arrived.

  “All this talk of family,” Cullen said behind her, “has put a thought in my mind.”

  Sunny clutched the various items to her chest as she turned to respond. “You’re not going to head for the hills, are you? I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

  “I have no such intention.” He chuckled. “It reminded me I wish to go to Hollingswell Hall. You said my family home still exists in this time, and I would like to visit.” He paused, and his eyelids lowered. “Before the, er...trouble that lies ahead.”

  “That would be lovely. We must do it.” The idea was appealing, and she’d have gone there in a shot right now, if it hadn’t been for the impending visitors.

  “We must,” Cullen agreed. “There’s something specific I would like to find, something I would like to give you.”

  Sunny was about to point out he couldn’t give her anything from Hollingswell Hall, which now belonged to someone else, when he wandered over to the calendar and stared at it, as he often did.

  She moved closer, just in time to catch him frowning at the red cross she’d put on the thirtieth day.

  He prodded the date with his finger.

  “Not long now,” she commented awkwardly, feeling it better not to ignore it right at this moment.

  “When I catch sight of that blackguard,” he muttered.

  She sighed. “When you catch sight of him, I do hope you’ll be strong and support me in negotiating, nothing more.”

  He turned to face her, glowering silently.

  “Cullen,” she warned. The last thing she needed was a row when her parents were due.

  He lifted his hands. “‘Tis in my nature to feel this way, I cannot help it.”

  “I know,” she agreed and sighed, “and it’s part of the reason I love you.”

  “It is?”

  “Yes, truly. You are my hero, Cullen, but when it comes to the crunch, I’m the one who’s got to face Fox.” She couldn’t tell him he wasn’t strong enough because he wasn’t gifted, it would upset him.

  She was about to say more when the sound of a car pulling up outside distracted her.

  “There’s a carriage at the gate,” Cullen confirmed as he glanced out the window.

  “Oh, bloody hell.” Wrenching a drawer open, she shoved the stuff inside and pushed the boxes toward the window, where she covered them with the curtains.

  Darting through the house, she watched with her nerves shot to hell as her parents and her younger brother extracted themselves from their vehicle and prepared to invade the house. Taking a deep breath, she put her arm around Cullen and fixed a smile on her face.

  “Are you ready for this?” she whispered.

  He looked downright gorgeous in his twenty-first century clothes. His shaggy hair was just brushing the top of his collar, making him look like a rugged rock star relaxing at home—relaxed, self-assured and sexy as hell.

  “Ready and willing, as I always am for you, my love.”

  He squeezed her affectionately against his side as he joined her in waving a greeting toward the three figures unfolding themselves after their long journey.

  She savored his words. He knew her so well already. He knew she needed the boost, but hell, a girl could get used to hearing that kind of comment from her time-traveling lover. “You’re too good to me.”

  “I’m sure you’ll make my attentions worth my while.” The smoldering look in his eyes would melt ice.

  “Be good, for now,” she warned. “And where the hell is Celeste?” She’d invited Celeste over to help field any potentially awkward moments. With any luck, she would wave her magic wand—or whatever the hell it was she did—and make everybody happy and accepting.

  “She’ll be here,” he comforted.

  “Ah, this must be the mysterious new man in your life,” her mother said as she approached. The mention of a romantic interest had resulted in the trip being brought forward a whole two weeks, and Sunny had cringed at her mother’s instant curiosity.

  “Mrs. Chambers.” Cullen grasped her outstretched hand. He bent over it, making an instant impression.

  “Kahina, please,” she murmured, and gave her daughter an approving smile.

  Amazing what a bit of old-world charm could do, Sunny mused wryly, as she hugged her dad and gave her brother Ben a wave.

  “You’re doing a great job restoring the cottage,” her dad said as he looked at the familiar building. “Your grandma would be proud of you.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” she said, hugging against his side. “That means the world to me.”

  Her younger brother Ben hung back, casually observing. He was the biggest worry, a rebellious fourteen year old, he wouldn’t be polite or hesitant if Cullen made an error. She could only put her trust in fate the day would go as smoothly as possible, and she’d been nagging fate a whole lot more recently.

  They’re just here for one afternoon, she reminded herself. That evening her folks would be continuing on their way for a week’s holiday touring the coast, and the danger of discovery would be over for the time being.

  Mercifully, Celeste turned up just as they’d all been given the grand tour of the house, ushered into the sitting room, and presented with a welcome drink. Her family had only been in the house for twenty minutes and already she could see Cullen was greatly amused by them.

 
; Sunny introduced Celeste, who looked tickled to bits with the situation. She had her fading blonde hair in a bun, but she was wearing a smart, fitted dress Sunny hadn’t seen before. She had an amused look in her eyes. Sunny couldn’t blame her and, besides, she knew Celeste would be a big help. Celeste at least understood urbanites might find Cullen alien in his ways. Sunny could only hope it would all hang together.

  “How’s it going?” Celeste whispered, as she hugged Sunny and gave her a comforting squeeze.

  “Great,” she replied through a fixed smile.

  “Don’t worry, he’ll be fine. Believe me, I bet he’ll charm them.”

  Somehow that remark didn’t help.

  Just then Cullen approached Ben and put out his hand, then withdrew it and offered a high-five instead, as he’d been taught by Eben. Her brother returned it, and Cullen said “down low.”

  Again Ben returned the greeting, and Sunny breathed a bit easier. Cullen looked over Ben’s graffiti-print hoodie and baggy pants with a humor-filled expression, but didn’t comment.

  “Wow,” Ben declared right at that moment, grabbing Cullen’s sword off the mantelpiece. “Cool.”

  Sunny winced.

  Celeste chuckled.

  Cullen strode over to where the teenage lad was experimentally waving the sword about like a light saber. “Cool? Well, I suppose ‘tis cool to the touch, but it’ll warm in your hands soon enough.”

  Ben squawked. “He’s funny.”

  “Funny, and very macho,” her mother whispered approvingly, lifting her wine glass in Cullen’s direction and winking at the other two women.

  Macho? Sunny blushed furiously. What was worse, the fact her mother had never approved of her boyfriends, or the fact she described the one from 1820 as if he were some 1970s beefcake? The travesty. Well it could be worse, she supposed—at least her mother seemed to approve, that was a first. And he did look gorgeous in snug blue jeans and a classic white shirt.

  “I say,” her father declared when he saw the sword. He abandoned his scrutiny of the plasterwork on the ceiling and joined the scrutiny of the weapon. “Are you into re-enactment?”

  Cullen glanced in her direction, eyebrows lifted.

  And she’d thought she had prepared him for every possible conversation topic. “It’s an heirloom,” she blurted.

  “Oh, how lovely, a man with heirlooms,” her mother murmured.

  “Oh, he’s got heirlooms like you wouldn’t believe,” Sunny responded, wondering why she’d even bothered trying to prepare him. He seemed to be coping fine– unlike her—and was demonstrating sword moves to Ben and her father, both of whom were enthralled, as was her mother, who was watching with starry eyes.

  Celeste patted Sunny on the arm. “I think he’s dealing with things very well,” she whispered, and then winked.

  “You haven’t told us how you met Cullen,” her mother said, joining them.

  Celeste looked at Sunny.

  Sunny looked at Celeste.

  Sunny drew in a deep breath. “Well, he was traveling through...the area, and we um, met when he called at the cottage...because he needed directions.” She was so bad at fibbing. Had she got away with it by mangling the truth?

  “Some girls have all the luck,” Celeste chipped in, smiling cheerfully at Sunny’s mother.

  “They certainly do,” her mother replied. “I’m pleased for you, my dear. At least something good has come of you burying yourself down here in the sticks.”

  Glancing at the clock, Sunny realized she could get on with serving up lunch. The distraction would help.

  “Cullen, could you carve for me?” They’d prepared for this one. “The carving knife is just over there in the Welsh dresser.” He loved technical gadgets and had taken to the electric carving knife as one might expect a swordsman might.

  He nodded over at her and stepped sideways to the dresser, reaching for the drawer and grappling about, the sword still in his other hand while he talked his eager audience through a complicated fencing move.

  “Oh dear,” Celeste said, her hand covering her face as Cullen looked at the object in his hand and then took in the changing expressions on the faces of his audience.

  Sunny stared in disbelief, her jaw dropping.

  Cullen glanced again at the silver dream-machine vibrator he was holding in his hand. “Hellfire,” he said, “that’s not the thing you taught me to use the other day, is it?”

  There was a moment’s silence, then Ben sniggered, and Celeste chuckled. Sunny swallowed hard. How could this have happened? Then she remembered the stuff she shoved in the drawer. Bedroom stuff. Cullen’s confused expression remained. Her heart went out to him, even though he had no clue what he was holding. Her mum and dad both turned their astonished faces toward her to see what she would say.

  “He’s got such a sense of humor,” she announced, fixing a smile on her face and marching over to extract the object from his hand. “Wrong gadget, lover,” she whispered.

  “Oh, so what does that one do?” He looked at the shiny surface and the on-off switch with interest as it was snatched from his hand and shoved back into the drawer.

  “If I live through this embarrassment, I might get to explain,” she whispered in response, wishing the ground would open and swallow the both of them.

  Later, when she and her mum were walking around the gardens, her mother took the opportunity to quiz her some more.

  “He’s quite something,” her mum commented. “And you say he’s local to Raven’s Landing?”

  “Yes, very much local.”

  “How did you really meet? Your father might have fallen for it, but I didn’t believe that story about looking for directions, not for a minute.”

  How the hell was she going to get around this one? “Actually Celeste thought we might get on well together.”

  “Your friend matchmade for you, how cute. And if she knew your grandmother, you knew you could trust her when she made you a match.”

  Sunny nodded, but couldn’t help wondering what she’d think if she knew the full story.

  “He’s a real gentleman. That’s why I fell in love with your dad. You can’t beat a bit of old-world charm.”

  “What about your father, was he charming?” Sunny asked, taking the opportunity. “You don’t talk about him.”

  “Oh, he was charming, very much so, but in a different way. He had a skill for making people come around to his way of thinking.”

  “And what was that? You’ve never really said.”

  “He had an esoteric view of the world, as well as being grounded.” Her mother studied her for a moment. “A lot like yourself, Sunny—both feet on the ground, head in the sky, able to look around and see potential everywhere.”

  Sunny studied her mum’s profile, made even more elegant by her tight, corn-plaited hair. “Tell me more.”

  “There isn’t a lot more to tell. He disappeared when I was about eleven years old. He hadn’t always lived in an urban community, and that was difficult for him.”

  Sunny nodded. She knew this wasn’t easy for her mum. He’d vanished on one of his nomadic tracks. She knew her mother felt deserted as a child, but Sunny couldn’t help wondering if he’d been lost in time, or followed his own magic out of necessity.

  “He’d just take off to commune with the natural world whenever he took the fancy. He said he wanted to live in an urban community, in order that his kids could go to a school and get an education. That was the plus side for him, but it was still really important for him to head off into the barren lands and commune. I guess it was some sort of throwback to his upbringing.”

  “Do you know what he did out there?”

  “Not really. He talked about connecting with our beginnings, said it was important to him to get back to the earth. Apparently he took me with him on one of his wanderings when I was small, but I wasn’t built for it the way he was and I was dehydrated when he got me home, so your grandmother forbade it. I was the oldest. I think he hoped...�
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  Her voice trailed off, and they walked in silence for a while.

  “He always called me his little Sahrawiya, an Arabic saying. It means desert dweller. I must have been a big disappointment to him. I loved city life, things like school and the souk, and I wanted to train as a nurse from a very young age.”

  “Do you remember it at all, the desert trip with him?”

  She shook her head. “Too young. I do recall he used to come back really energized, like when your dad and I get back from the Glastonbury Festival.”

  There was a distant look in her eye, and Sunny figured she’d stimulated some long-buried questions.

  They weaved in between the apple trees in the orchard as they chatted. It was a warm summer’s day, and yet Sunny kept feeling a chill.

  “Your grandmother insisted he had another woman out there,” her mum added.

  “You don’t believe that, do you?”

  “No, but my mum never got to grips with his nomadic tendency. She’d been born and bred in Marrakech though. She’d never lived the kind of nomadic life he and his people had.” She paused, looking at Sunny with curiosity. “You’ve never shown this kind of interest before.”

  “That was an error on my part, I think. I should’ve wondered before now.”

  “It’s natural. You never knew my dad. You connected with Grandma Hanna because you spent time with her as a child.”

  Sunny nodded. Thank goodness she’d had the opportunity to be around Grandma Hanna. At least she was able to accept her secret inheritance because of the way Grandmother Hanna was. “I suppose so. If I hadn’t known any of my grandparents it would have been harder still.”

  Her mother thought she was just talking about them as grandparents, but Sunny meant it particularly in relation to their magical gift.

  They turned to wend their way back.

  “The cottage looks great. You’ve really worked wonders with it.”

  “I’m glad you think so. It needs a name. I was thinking of calling it The Nomad’s Rest.”

  “I like it,” her mum replied, nodding.

  Sunny was pleased. It worked more than ever now, since Cullen was a kind of nomad too. She just hoped it would remain his resting point for a long while to come.