by LJ Rivers
“I know, but there’s nothing we can do about either of them right now. I just want to get these next few days over with and remember Mum. The good stuff, you know.”
Jen’s expression softened. She nodded and ruffled my hair briefly.
We didn’t get much further with the mystery of the chalice, and talking about Gemma had put us all in a glum mood, so eventually we retreated to our books. Jen with her paperback, Charlie with a massive brick of a hardback, and me with a book in my ears. Seeing as we would all be disconnected from the digital world, we had decided to cover our bases. I had brought three portable chargers and a paperback myself, just in case. I had no idea if we would have time to read or not, but if the town was as quiet as it appeared on my first visit, chances were we would have more than enough time to kill.
We had dug into a pack of Oreos when the conductor strolled down the aisle and stopped next to us.
“Tickets, please.”
Charlie held out hers.
“All the way, are we? Going on holiday?” the conductor asked.
“A memorial,” Charlie said solemnly.
“My deepest condolences.”
Jen showed him her ticket next, then I showed mine.
His eyebrows rose above his oval glasses, and he peered at me over the rim. “You do realise cats are supposed to go in a carrier? You’ll need to acquire one.”
“I didn’t think,” I said. “I’m sorry, it was very short notice, and I don’t own a carrier.”
He glanced between us, his broad chin tightening.
Charlie crossed her arms. “She doesn’t have a carrier because the cat is her brother.”
I almost burst out laughing, but resorted to staring at Charlie in awe instead.
“A Shifter?” The conductor scratched his head. “Never heard of a cat Shifter before.”
“He was so full of grief that he Shifted and hasn’t changed back since. We couldn’t very well leave him behind. Do you really want to be the one to force us to put a Magical in a cage, considering the events of the past weeks in the UK? Is this the official policy of the National Rail Service?”
Kit raised his head and tilted it at the conductor, giving him a soft meow. His large eyes were far too intelligent for a normal cat, and for a moment I wondered if he really was a Shifter trapped in his animal state.
The conductor pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Now, now, no trouble.” He turned to me, taking a step away from Charlie. “Your brother is of course excused and doesn’t need a carrier. My apologies. You girls have a nice trip. And boy.” He took a last look at Kit, then scurried away and into the next cart.
“You’re insane,” I blurted once the conductor was out of earshot.
“I do try.” Charlie grinned.
Chapter Six
We rolled into Pwllheli at exactly thirteen minutes past five in the afternoon. There were only three other people on the platform as we made our way into the building. They didn’t have a place to store our bags, but Jen took it upon herself to carry the heaviest weight, which we pointed out was her own. She proceeded to somehow stuff my luggage in with Charlie’s, and after some arrangement, she had two suitcases in tow, and Charlie and I had a single backpack each. While Jen worked her packing magic, Kit had pranced around in the small entrance hall. He stopped and hopped onto a ledge near a corkboard.
I went over and scooped him into my arms, surveying the posters on the corkboard. There were a few notes offering lawn mowing or other tedious tasks people would gladly pay to have others do for them, though what caught my attention was a couple of missing person posters in between all the other standard event posters. A woman in her forties gave me a hard stare, like that of a stern schoolteacher. She wore a military uniform, adorned with three stars beneath a crown. The paper was yellowed and torn at the edges.
“That must have been there for years,” Charlie said next to me. “But that one with the man looks fairly new.” She pointed at a brightly coloured picture of a man in his twenties, not much older than us. He wore a bright smile, and his jaw was square, matching his proud shoulders.
I hugged Kit to me. “I wonder what happened to them,” I mumbled, more to myself than anyone else.
Kit made a tormented sound, and I let him back down. The cat lingered for a moment while the rest of us headed outside and entered a small parking lot.
“What now?” Jen asked.
I glanced at my phone when Kit reappeared to sit by my feet. “Still forty minutes until our ride arrives. Supposedly on a parking lot by the water. A green Land Rover, so it shouldn’t be too hard to miss.”
Jen shrugged. “Let’s take a walk then. After hours on the go, it feels good to stretch my legs.”
“Are you sure?” Charlie pointed at the suitcases in Jen’s possession.
“These tiny things,” Jen scoffed dramatically. “I won’t even break a sweat, mon chéri.”
She was probably right, and neither of us argued. Instead, we went to the nearest crossing and stopped by the light.
“You stay close to me,” I said to Kit.
He stared up at me and sat by my side, waiting for the light to turn as if he were an obedient dog.
“Llyfrgell Library,” Charlie mumbled, reading the sign in the middle of the street aloud. “Just up there.” She pointed to the right.
Jen and I shared a look. I’d read that Pwllheli had a popular market every Wednesday, but the town didn’t exactly appear to be either a tourist trap or a shopping mecca, so we let Charlie take the lead to what was named Penlan Street.
After grabbing two coffees and one tea from the Costa on the corner, we turned up the narrow street.
A man stumbled past us. “Esgusodwch fi,” the man said, gently touching Charlie’s arm.
“Sorry,” she said and pointed to herself. “English.”
“Sori.” The man’s eyelids drooped, his body twitching a little.
Charlie’s eyes glazed over as she took the man’s calloused hands gently in hers. “That’s all right.” She stroked the thick brown fringe from his face.
“Canolfan Felich Fach?” the man said in a raspy voice.
Charlie shook her head. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“He means this place.” Jen stood a few yards ahead of us and pointed to a door, our suitcases planted by her side.
“Yno,” I said to the man, gesturing up the street, hoping I had remembered the right word.
The man looked at me with bloodshot eyes for a moment, then gazed to where Jen stood. The number of lines on his face easily placed him well above fifty years old, but I didn’t think he was more than possibly in his early forties based on his clothes. Though they needed a wash, the dark blue jeans and Nirvana T-shirt belonged to a younger man. He smelled like he hadn’t showered in weeks. Apparently, Kit thought so, too, because he’d approached the man, rubbed against his leg for a moment, stiffened and then hurried back to me with a low hiss.
Charlie and I took the man’s hands, one each, and followed him to the red door Jen had indicated. A sign on the wall said ‘Canolfan Felich Fach Centre’.
“This it?” Charlie asked with a sniffle and her brightest smile, which didn’t light her eyes.
The man nodded fervently. “Diolch,” he said and trudged through the door, shutting it behind him.
“What is this place?” I asked.
Jen grabbed the handles on the suitcases again. “From what I could hear from inside, it sounds like some sort of mental health facility. They do drop-ins.”
“Makes sense.” Charlie regarded the door. “That man has a close relationship with bottles.”
It dawned on me why Charlie seemed so dejected. Her dad had been an alcoholic for a very long time, and she was sure to recognise the signs. I placed an arm around her, and we started up the street again.
“Hey, look, they have a cinema,” I said and gave Charlie a playful bump on the shoulder.
Jen raised her chin, angling her head.
She sniffed the air, and her body went rigid. Next to her, Kit mimicked her every move.
“What’s up?”
“Shh, hold on.” Jen lifted the suitcases from their wheels and carried them off at a brisk pace around the corner of the cinema. Kit ran by her side.
Charlie and I followed her into the side street.
Two young men stood by an old, grey Ford Transit. The hood was up and one of the men smacked the other over the head.
“Need help?” Jen asked when we approached.
They turned and stared at us with identical faces. Both had elongated features, a slightly crooked nose, and thin lips. Their eyes were the same shade of pinecone-brown, round and protruding too far from their sockets. The only things to set them apart were the different shades of sweatpants they wore, one grey pair and one black, and their hairstyles. Dark, matte curls fell to the shoulders of the man on the left, while the other had a mop for hair, complete with fringe.
“English?” Mophead asked in an accented voice.
“French,” Jen said. “Well, just me, not that it matters. Your van looks busted.”
“You know ’bout vans?”
“Not really, but I’ll try to help if you want.”
Charlie held a hand up. “Actually, I do know something about vans. Not sure I can figure out what’s wrong with it, but I can take a look.” She angled toward me. “I could plug into it if it weren’t so ancient.”
The men shared glances and said something to each other in Welsh. Nothing I managed to pick up. Curly shifted from foot to foot while he looked us over, clearly not impressed by the three-women rescue squad.
“Iawn,” Mophead said.
“He says OK,” I translated, giving myself a mental pat on the back. At least I knew that one.
Charlie stepped up to the hood while I sat on the pavement with Kit in my lap, leaning against the red-bricked wall, cushioned by our backpacks. I checked my phone. No signal, but at least it was fully charged, and we had another twenty-five minutes until our pickup arrived.
While I pondered my sapphire ring, Jen disappeared behind the van.
“What you doing?” Curly called. “Oi, lady!”
Jen reappeared and placed a hand on the van. “What have you got in there?”
“None of your business.”
Mophead shrugged. “Apples.”
Jen shook her head, leaned closer to the van, then came to sit beside me. “Something is making a noise back there,” she whispered.
“How so?”
“I’m not sure, but it sounds like something is alive in there. Hard to tell what, but it sounds like heavy breathing.”
“There,” Charlie exclaimed, raising her head from the engine. “Try it now.”
Mophead got in the driver seat and tested the gas pedal. The van coughed a few times before settling into a purr, which Kit decided to echo.
Jen bounced to her feet, and I followed her to the back of the van with Kit in tow. All except the front windows were tinted black, including this one. Jen grabbed the door and flung it open.
“Emrys!” Mophead shouted, revving the engine.
The exhaust sputtered and spat in my face. Inside the van, however, sat a hunched figure. A man? He leaned heavily against the back wall, his head slumped, so I couldn’t see his face. Something wasn’t right.
What in the name of Magic?
The van started forward, and the door slammed shut. Kit yowled as Charlie jumped out of the way and rolled over her shoulder to the pavement in an expert move. That was new. A feral growl ensued as Jen leapt after the van on all fours as if she was chasing it away. When she was in her wolf form, she looked magnificent thundering forward like that. As a human, it made her look like a nutcase. She paused by the corner, staring after the van while it disappeared into the street beyond.
“What the fudge?” Charlie said as she went to stand next to me and brushed herself off.
“You could say that again. Nice move, though. They teach you some new tricks at Mag-Ops?”
“Some. What happened?”
“I think they had a man in the back,” I said. “Not sure why they sped off like that, but it had nothing to do with apples.”
Jen returned, shaking her head. “Those guys gave me the heebie-jeebies.”
“Yeah. And they were Mags, though I couldn’t tell you what kind. I mean, they were Shifters for sure, but I don’t know the animal.” I shuddered.
“They smelled feline.”
“Well, they’re long gone by now, and we’ll be late for our ride.”
We gathered our things and hurried back to the station. Something nagged me, something I couldn’t quite place. The man in the back of the van appeared in my mind, and the cogwheels turned, never quite connecting. I was probably overreacting—he had likely been sleeping off his buzz. Still, my gut told me something was terribly wrong.
Chapter Seven
“I don’t believe it,” I said as we approached the green Land Rover. The driver opened his door and stepped out, and I ran towards him, arms outstretched. “Rhys!”
“Wh—what?” was all he managed before I threw my arms around him. “Ruby?” He returned the hug, then pulled away and held me by the shoulders. “By the Abyss of Enchantment, it is you! What are you doing here?”
He looked around, as if looking for someone else.
“You’re here to pick me up, Rhys.”
I had to bite my lip not to laugh as I watched it dawn in his eyes.
“You’re Ruby … Morgana?”
“The one and only.” Charlie bumped me playfully.
“But—but—you said you was Ruby Kaine.”
“Uhm, technically I didn’t. My father presented himself as Gabriel Kaine, and me as his daughter, Ruby. Sorry, but we just couldn’t risk anyone knowing who we—who I really was. I’ll explain it later, maybe.”
The fisherman flashed his big smile, slashing his lion’s mane of a beard in half. “Well, drop me in the middle of Ffos Penfras if this ain’t a shocker.”
Jen came over, too, with all the luggage. “Room on the back, I see.” She nodded at the wooden cargo platform on the back of the car.
“Are you all coming? Llewellyn only said I was to pick up Ruby.”
“These are my best friends, Jen and Charlie, and I’m sure my grandparents are fine with them tagging along.” At least I hoped they would be.
“We’ll see,” Rhys mumbled, and helped Jen with the suitcases. “Might be tight for all of you in the front.”
“I’ll be fine here.” Jen sat with her back to the driver’s cabin. “I love the freshness of the air. So many delicious smells.” She demonstrated by sniffing the air with deep inhalations, as if she were tasting the scents.
Charlie and I went to the passenger side and Rhys entered the driver’s seat. It was tight, but the ride was only half an hour, so it wouldn’t be a problem.
“Kit? Where are you?”
An orange clump of fur rolled out behind the car, bounced to his feet and jumped in, settling on my lap.
“So, I heard about your mam, Ruby,” Rhys said. “Broke my heart. And Mari’s too.”
“Thank you. I hope to see her while I’m in Perllanafal. Both of you, of course.”
“Of course. She’ll have my head if I don’t invite you all to dinner. The Donnal, too.”
I was about to say something about the old term for humans, but the car hit a hole in the road and threw me into Charlie so hard that she hit her head on the window.
“Ow!” she complained, then broke out laughing. “This is just amazeballs, Ru. I mean, only hours ago I was standing in the middle of the asphalt jungle. Look at the scenery here!”
“I know. And just wait until we get over the last hill and turn down to Perllanafal. You’d be wise to take a few deep breaths first, because that view will suck all the oxygen from your lungs.”
A bird swooped by, and Rhys tapped the steering wheel with the flat of his hand. “That was kind words, Ruby. I fe
els the same every time I drive this way myself.”
Kit seemed less impressed and had already fallen asleep, curled into a ball on my lap. I turned to look out the small rear window, worried that Jen might have felt the bump more than us. What I saw made me realise how silly my worries were. The Shifter was on her feet, standing steadier than a snowboarder in the middle of the cargo platform. She absorbed every movement, every turn and bump, with her knees and hips, all the while staring at the surroundings. Now and then, her nostrils flared, and I thought about how a new smell was recorded in her register. She caught me looking and flashed the most beautiful supermodel-smile at me. What a joy to see her like that. A gorgeous woman and at the same time a magnificent animal.
Rhys drove slowly—which I attributed to both the car, and its owner’s personality. Nothing seemed to faze him, as I had noticed when he picked up Auberon and me with his fishing boat on Bardsey Island. When other cars caught up with us from behind, which happened more than once on the ride, he waved them past with his right arm and kept humming whatever song it was he had in his head.
“I’ll be right back,” a voice suddenly shouted to my left.
Kit jumped from my lap and scurried under the seat.
“Pixies and Fae, you scared me.” I stared into Jen’s grinning, upside-down face.
She was lying on top of the car, peeking into the passenger’s window. “Gotta test my new Shifter-friendly outfit.” She motioned at Rhys with her head. “Not many people out and about here, and the bear already knows what I am. Laters, babes!”
Jen, still in human form, rolled down from the roof and back to the platform. Seconds later, the white wolf bounded into the trees next to the road. The car wobbled heavily, but Rhys kept it on the road without the slightest jerk of an eyebrow.
“Guess she saw the rabbit,” he said. “Wouldn’t mind a piece of it myself, if I’m being honest.”
“I—I guess she did,” I said. “Gross,” I mouthed to Charlie, only now realising what Rhys was. How had I not seen it before, when my father and I had met Rhys last? Then again, I had only just begun to see the aura-like shimmers surrounding Mags at that point. In the weeks that had passed, I had learned to interpret what I saw much better. As I glanced over at Rhys, it struck me how ridiculously obvious it was. He might as well have worn a hat with “Bear Shifter” on it.