Simon snapped his fingers and the wind died down. The surf, which only moments before crashed onto the desolate beach in violent waves, calmed, licking the shore in soft gentle whirls of current. Simon didn’t bother securing the boat, he simply muttered under his breath. He leapt out of the boat. I climbed into his waiting arms and he carried me to shore.
The sun beat down on the sand, driving the autumnal chill from the air. Hot in Declan’s old woolen jumper, I pulled it over my head and deposited it on the sand, grateful for the breeze that blew through my thin t-shirt. Simon had already removed his jacket and the long lean muscles of his arms were beaded with the ocean’s spray. He took my hand. “Come. I want you to meet your element.”
We walked up the incline of the beach to a small path that led into green scrub. A rustling noise came from the thick brush, making me jump.
Simon squeezed my hand. “It’s only deer. They’ve overrun the island. It is nothing to be afraid of.”
We continued on into the brush and soon were surrounded by pine trees, twisted and gnarled from the briny sea air. The air smelt like salt and wet sand and decay. And moss, it smelt like moss. Somehow, it smelt familiar.
Small streams of sunlight fought through the dense needles of the ancient pine, illuminating the silver strands in Simon’s hair. He stopped, turned to me and held his hands outward.
“Do you feel it?” he asked in a low whisper. “Do you feel your element’s power?”
I shook my head. I felt nothing.
“Raise your arms. Reach out to it. Don’t be timid like Claire. Grab hold and command it. The power is yours.”
I held out my hands and peered into the brush. I tried to concentrate, tried to draw strength from the strange trees, but felt nothing. Sensed nothing. There was no power there for me to take. “It’s pointless. I feel nothing.”
“Close your eyes, Orla, clear your mind. Let it come to you.”
I did as he instructed. I took a deep breath and allowed the sour briny air to fill my lungs, to become a part of me. Minutes later, I felt a ball of energy to my right, a formless ball of energy hidden beneath the muck of the Sunken Forest’s floor. Without opening my eyes, I allowed the energy to draw me to it. When I’d reached it, I opened my eyes and crouched beside the bubble of energy that fought its way through the mud. It floated up to greet me and I felt its energy call to me. The buzzing in my head increased and behind me I felt two more entities rise up from the forest floor.
The energies, neither male nor female, threatening nor welcoming, surrounded me. If anything, I felt curiosity emanate from them. They felt old, as old as the earth.
“Stretch out your hand to them, Orla. Touch them.”
Without hesitation, I reached out to the energy before me and thrust my hand into its center. The ball glowed and a current of yellow light encircled my hand.
“Simon!”
“I see it. How does it feel?”
The gold power coursed up my arm. My old scar burned. The power continued up my arm, settling in the center of my chest. It was if I had swallowed a thousand suns.
Like an alcoholic needing his first drink of the day, my throat burned. “More,” I croaked. “I want more.”
I reached out my other hand to the other entity and drew its power into me, drained it of all its essence and when I was done, reached over to the third energy, pulled it to my face and drank from it. The golden honeysuckle of its power kissed my lips, slid down my throat.
Simon approached me. My every nerve sang from the strange energy, the element, that coursed through my veins.
“You’re glowing. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
I pulled him to me, placing my burning lips on his. His lips, cool and wet, answered my kiss, met my passion. He ripped the thin t-shirt from me.
“You’re burning, Orla. You’re burning up.”
His lips glowed from my kiss, as if my energy transferred to him. I touched his lips with my finger. “So are you.”
I drew him to me and kissed him, long and hard. I forced the energy, and my need, into him. His skin soon hummed with power. I pulled on his shirt and the thin material came away in my hand, exposing the smooth hairless skin of his chest, the perfection of his sinewy muscles. His arms seemed to grow in strength and power. He pushed me onto the forest floor and tore the thin denim of my jeans.
“Tell me you want this,” he said. “Tell me you want me.”
My eyes rolled back in my head as I lay sprawled amongst the muck of the Sunken Forest, the energy from the soil seeping in through my pores, meeting the power that roared through me.
I spread my legs with no sense of shame as I let him see every inch of me. I couldn’t form words, couldn’t form thought. I needed to release this power, transfer it to him.
As waves of electric current coursed through me from the earth below, I moaned and raised my hips in invitation.
He bit his lip as if he were arguing with himself, trying to convince himself to resist me. I slipped my hand between my legs and moaned. His eyes burned with desire for me and for the power that possessed me. Resisting me no longer, he slammed into me and the roar of water filled my ears. I spread my legs wider, urging him to reach deeper within me.
He pulled my hair back and forced my eyes to meet his. “Look at me, Orla. Stay with me”
But he was a blur, a blur of energy and motion. He withdrew from me but with a power I didn’t think I possessed I pulled him back to me, forcing him to fill me as I rocked beneath him. Words, the ancient words of the Mountain burst forth from my mouth as I held him in the vise-like grip of my thighs. I reached up and bit his neck and his torn flesh filled my mouth. His blood dripped onto my breast and then fell onto the waiting earth.
“I can’t hold on,” he wheezed.
“More, I need more,” I growled. The ball of energy that had settled in my chest, almost suffocating me with its weight, moved down my body. I felt myself crest. Simon’s black eyes now burned green. His lips twisted, contorting his handsome face. The smell of musk, the smell of the Mountain, filled my mouth, and my old scar burned. But I rode him, pulling him deeper within me until the green left his eyes and he shuddered and collapsed onto me.
My head cleared and the chill of the wet earth seeped into my very bones.
Dear God. What had I done?
* * * *
Our clothes in tatters, we walked to the boat, not touching, not speaking. I lifted Declan’s jumper from the sand and pulled it over my head. Its coarse material scratched me in reproach. I covered my bare bottom with an old wool blanket once we climbed on board, and Simon threw on a pair of old sweats. He snapped his fingers and the sails unfurled themselves.
I looked back onto the desolate shore. “What happened to them?”
“Them?” Simon’s eyes like black marbles betrayed no emotion.
“The beings. The balls of energy.”
“The elemental spirits, you mean. They are gone.”
“Gone?”
He took my hand, and the buzz of electricity between us was now faint, muted. “Well, not gone exactly. You drained them, consumed them. They are part of you. And the part you passed to me is part of me.”
“Gone? How old were they?”
“Ancient. As old as the earth.”
“And I killed them. Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you warn me?”
“I didn’t know you would do that. I thought you would control them, play with them. It never occurred to me you would...that you could...”
“Destroy them. I destroyed something as old as the earth as easily as I would drink a glass of lemonade. Dear God, I am a monster.”
He touched my hair, still caked in mud. “No, Orla. They were inert. They were there for the taking.”
Tears sprang from my eyes. “They were harmless. Innocent.”
“No, my dear. Nothing of the earth is innocent.”
“It was wrong. What I did was wrong.”
“You are becomin
g yourself, the self you’re meant to be. Powerful. Beautiful. Strong.”
But I knew, I knew I was never meant to be like this. The Devlin women may have been mad, they may have been Slanaitheoir’s sexual playthings, but they were never cruel. They saved, they didn’t destroy. Visions of my raven-haired ancestors assaulted me then. Images of the women in their crimson cloaks excluding me from their circle, leaving me bereft and alone in the dark Mountain forest. My mouth filled with the sour brine of the sea and my stomach lurched in rebellion. “Stop talking, Simon. Take me home.”
He snapped his fingers again and a cold wind ripped from the shore, from the forest, and filled the sails. I shivered beneath the musty blanket and stared as that accursed strand slipped from view.
We docked, and as Simon offered me his hand, he said, “You can shower and change in my house.”
“I don’t want to. I want to go home.”
“And what will your neighbors think if you arrive home dirty and naked?”
My head began to pound and I felt weak. “Fine,” I managed to croak out.
He led me into the house and said nothing as my muddy footprints marred his marble floors. The perfect host, Simon showed me to his guest suite and the adjoining bathroom. Without a word, he then closed the door of the bathroom and left me alone.
I dropped the muddy blanket and heavy jumper on the floor and stepped into the massive steam shower. I ran the water as hot as I could stand and sank onto the shower’s bench, the tumbled marble rough against my sore skin. Mud pooled on the shower floor, some of it slipping down the drain. For some reason I felt overwhelming loss, as if a part of myself, too, was slipping away.
I stood and soaped myself, shampooed my hair. A cloud of lavender from the shampoo filled the shower and once again reminded me of my mother’s garden. My mother. What would she think of me? She may have been mad, but she had been the faithful one in her marriage. She never wavered in her loyalty to my father, despite his admitted infidelity. Apparently it wasn’t only my blond hair and blue eyes I shared with my father.
I inhaled the lavender and was about to turn off the water when Simon, naked and clean, stepped into the shower.
“No, Simon.”
“Shush, my love. Let me show you my element.”
He snapped his fingers and the water became alive. It was as if a thousand tongues licked every inch of me. The water slipped down my back, coursed down my ass, between my legs. Sensation overwhelmed me. I groaned and collapsed onto the bench.
Simon knelt before me and spread my legs. His tongue burned as he explored me. The water continued to lick my face, my neck, my nipples.
Simon lifted me up like a rag doll, pressed me against the wall and entered me. The roar of water filled my ears as he took me. No longer passive as he had been in the forest, he was in his element and possessed me, every inch of me. And I let him. I more than let him. I pulled him to me and the roaring in my ears continued, and only from some dark recess of my own mind did I realize the roaring came from me.
I don’t know how long we lay on the tumbled marble, spent. Unable to move. I dozed and became somewhat aware of being wrapped in a towel. Simon carried me to the bed in the next room. I slept for a while. When I awoke, I found dark purple yoga clothes on the bed. I tried to stem a surge of jealousy when I realized the clothes belonged to Claire.
We said nothing as he drove me home. For some reason he stopped a block from my house. He touched my hand before I left the car, but I kept my eyes down, unable to face him. I walked the short block to my house. I looked at my watch. It was only two. How was it possible that so much had happened in four short hours? Still an hour and a half before the boys were due home. I stopped before my house and my stomach dropped in panic.
Declan’s green SUV was parked in the driveway.
I forced two deep breaths into my constricted lungs. Calm down, I commanded myself. Calm down. I pushed open the unlocked front door. Declan was in the kitchen drinking a mug of tea.
“This is a nice surprise,” I said, my voice high and to my ears, sounding false. “What are you doing home?”
“Where were you?” he asked, his mouth tight.
“At yoga of course, why?”
“You weren’t at the studio. My secretary called over there.”
“I know. A group of us did yoga at the beach,” I said, the lie falling lightly from my lips.
“For four hours?”
“Yes,” I rubbed his shoulder, tight from unfamiliar temper. “I told you, sweetheart, it’s helping me.”
His shoulders relaxed and he took my hand. “I know it is, Orla. I know. But your phone was off. You had me worried.”
I kissed his cheek. “I’m sorry, love. I must have let the battery die down again. Why are you home?”
“The school nurse called. Brendan threw up. I brought him home. He’s sleeping.”
My eyes teared. I wasn’t home where I should’ve been. I wasn’t here for my sick boy because I was off, off betraying my husband, my family.
Declan turned to me. “There, there, don’t cry. Sure, I was annoyed of course. I had to reschedule a client presentation, but there’s no reason to cry.”
“It’ll never happen again, Dec. I swear.”
“Well there’s no need to be so serious. It’s not like you killed someone. Just don’t let your battery run out again. Here, give it to me and I’ll charge you up.”
I looked into his pale blue eyes, as innocent as a child’s, and a part of me–the goodness that Dec had fallen in love with so many years ago–withered, shrunk, and the part of me that could murder an innocent being without thought, without guilt, that could betray her husband of fifteen years got a bit bigger.
I forced a smile, dried my tears and retrieved the phone from my bag.
Chapter 7
I forced all thoughts of guilt and betrayal from my mind and immersed myself in all things domestic. I baked soda bread, made roasts, took the boys to buy new winter coats.
But I also returned to the yoga studio.
Claire ran the classes, and while I felt as if Shari looked at me strangely, as if she knew something, I decided I was being paranoid. Surely Simon would not have shared the details of our afternoon together with someone like Shari. Hopefully he hadn’t shared it with anyone.
Besides, who would believe it? Not even a coven of witches. Maybe, especially a coven of witches. I was there and I barely believed it. I ignored Shari’s looks and pushed on.
I didn’t ask Claire where Simon was and she didn’t mention him. We continued our ordinary morning yoga session with the local mammies and then our afternoon session with the coven. We worked on levitation and focusing. Despite the moral issue of destroying an ancient spirit, my consumption of the elemental energies resulted in a progression of my powers. They were stronger, more controlled. The buzzing in my head became more manageable, more integrated into my normal physical state, and the erratic burst of energy ceased–no more broken crockery or shattered lightbulbs. If Claire noticed my progression or suspected its source, she said nothing.
So things were normal, or as normal as they could be after imbibing from an ancient spirit and experiencing transcendental sex with a male witch. But in some ways, I am my mother’s daughter, and our shared ability to compartmentalize our lives–to wall off our gifts from our “real” lives–served me well these past few days.
My current self-imposed penance was sewing the three lads elaborate Halloween costumes. I sat in the window seat in the living room overlooking the street, surrounded by bolts of material and needles and thread, feeling maternal, domestic. Connected to my young family again. I was almost content, the burn of Simon’s kiss, the feel of his smooth skin, nearly a distant, painless memory. Safe in the cocoon of my home, I was not happy to see Claire and Shari climb my front steps.
A snap of my fingers, and the front door swung open.
Shari squealed, “Oh, you didn’t tell us you can do that now!”
&
nbsp; “There’s a lot our dear Orla does not tell us, isn’t that right?” Claire’s mouth formed its usual smile, but her eyes were bleak.
“Is there something you want to ask me, Claire?”
“I thought we were friends. That you trusted me.”
I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. “I’ll not repeat myself. Either say what it is that’s bothering you or let it be.”
Shari lifted Brendan’s pirate costume. “This is gorgeous. Maybe you can make me one?”
I looked at her.
“Oh, come on, you guys. Lighten up. Don’t mind her, Orla. Claire’s always a little touchy whenever Simon fucks another witch. Waste of time being jealous of Simon, if you ask me.”
My mug of tea fell from the table. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Shari laughed. “No point denying it, honey. Simon has fucked all of us, other than Marion, but then again, I can’t imagine anyone fucking Marion. Not voluntarily anyway. He’s fucked us singly, in pairs, three at a time. He’s fucked most of the coven in Huntington, and all of Southampton. He hasn’t fucked anyone in the Sag Harbor coven, but only because his mother would kill him if he messed with her witches.”
I sank into the couch.
Shari sat beside me and stroked my hair. “It’s no big deal. It makes the magic better, that’s all. Your magic has improved, right? So it was worth it.”
“What did he tell you?”
Claire sat on the other side of me. “He didn’t tell us anything. He didn’t have to. We felt the disturbance, the collision of your elements. We’re connected. All of us. You must know that by now.”
I stared at Shari. With her freckled nose and auburn hair in a simple ponytail, she looked as young and innocent as a milkmaid. “Don’t fight it. Just enjoy. And maybe next time you’ll let me and Claire join you.”
“There won’t be a next time. I’m a married woman. It was a mistake. A one-time mistake.”
Shari ran her fingers through my hair. “Why would you deny yourself? You’re married, so what? I’m engaged and Claire’s girlfriend doesn’t mind. Sex with Simon isn’t like sex with another man. It’s part of your evolution as a witch.” Shari nibbled my neck and whispered into my ear, “It is so much more than sex.”
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