‘Don’t apologise. Accidents happen.’ He smiled as she took it and wiped the keyboard. She tested the open spreadsheet, saved it and reopened it. ‘Is it all right?’ He leaned over as Faye frowned at the flickering screen.
‘I think it’s gone…’ She stopped mid-sentence as the tall stranger reached over and touched the keyboard gently. The screen went black. ‘Oh no!’ she wailed. She couldn’t afford a new laptop right now; takings were steady, but Mistress of Magic wasn’t exactly a multimillion-pound business.
‘It’ll be all right. Give it a minute,’ the man said, moving around the counter. Despite the situation, Faye was vividly aware of him next to her; she was standing now, and, being a tall woman, she found satisfaction in realising that he was taller. She found herself gauging where her head would rest perfectly on his chest if she lay next to him, or if she melted into his lean body in an embrace…
In the strange way that happens in times of crisis, she felt in that moment that somehow they had already moved on from being strangers to something more like friends. But later, when she looked back at their first meeting, she would know that it was in fact something else entirely that had made her feel that way.
He touched the laptop again, and Faye thought for a second that she saw a flash of electricity between his finger and the computer, but she rationalised it away. An electric shock, if anything. And then the laptop screen flashed blue, and the usual starting screen appeared.
‘Oh, thank god,’ she breathed as the spreadsheet reappeared, apparently unharmed. She checked through the usual functions; it all seemed fine.
‘There you are. The way they make these things now, it’s hard to break them,’ he said, that twinkle in his eyes again. She knew that was absolutely wrong, but she smiled along with him nonetheless. Her gaze shifted to the shop window.
‘Oh, the sun’s out!’ she exclaimed, and went to the door. Opening it, she stood in the sun as it blazed down unexpectedly between the grey clouds. She could see that it was still raining on the beach just a few minutes’ walk away, but here, at least, there was a brief interlude in the weather.
He stood next to her and looked up in pleasure at the early spring sun; Faye breathed in its warmth, a smile spreading on her cheeks. A similar warmth emanated from him, next to her, as they stood together in a moment of silence, as if they had always been standing there together. She wanted to lean into him; wanted to feel his body against hers.
‘See?’ his warm voice caressed her like the sun itself. ‘Things have a way of working out, even when you don’t expect them to, Mistress of Magic.’
He gave her an intense, long look, and turned to go. ‘Goodbye, Faye Morgan. I’ll see you again soon,’ he smiled, and bowed theatrically while walking backwards.
She was back inside the shop when she realised that she had never told him her name.
Chapter Six
‘Did you hear? The whole village’s talking about it!’ Aisha burst into the shop and startled Faye, who was stacking new books onto the shelves: two new spell books from an American publisher, a guide to psychic self-defence, Scottish faerie lore. Mistress of Magic was a destination in itself for witchy folk across Scotland, and even wider; last week she’d had American tourists in who had chosen Abercolme for a stop on their holiday just because of the shop. All thanks to you, Moddie, she smiled to herself.
‘Did I hear what? You’re the second one to startle me today. I’m going to need some sort of herbal remedy on a drip at this rate,’ Faye slowly slid the books onto the wooden unit and noticed it needed dusting. She was still half enchanted by her mysterious visitor – she felt strangely floaty, as if half of her was somewhere else.
‘Dal Riada! They’re coming!’ Aisha danced around the faded-blue high-backed chair by the hearth. ‘I’m so excited! I’ve got both their albums. They’re going to play at the festival!’
‘You’re saying that like I’m supposed to know who they are.’ Faye raised an eyebrow at her friend, who was scrolling her phone screen.
‘You do know. Dal Riada. You’ve got one of their albums somewhere. Here, listen.’ Aisha’s phone played a fast, folky Celtic tune.
‘Oh, that.’ Faye went to the counter and rummaged in the drawer where she kept CDs for the shop’s sound system. Aisha had given her a couple more a few weeks ago and she’d slung them in without much thought. ‘I haven’t played it yet.’
‘Oh, Faye! All you listen to is harp music and Brahms. There’s a world of new music out there, you know.’
Faye listened to the tune for a minute.
‘Celtic folk isn’t new. Moddie used to play it when I was a child,’ she replied, though she liked the fevered drumming and the fluted voice of the singer. It did remind her of Moddie: of being swung around in her mother’s arms, Moddie’s red hair flowing around both of them like flames; of Moddie singing along with the fast lyrics, of her feet drumming on the stone floor after they’d shut up shop and the moon glinted through the windows.
‘You know what I mean. Thank the goddess for Abercolme finally making it into the twenty-first century!’ Aisha was beaming ear to ear. ‘And who knows, eh? Maybe that’s how we meet our new lovers!’
‘Maybe.’ Faye smiled, thinking of the tall man and blushing at how easily she thought again of kissing him.
‘Any progress on the spell, anyway?’ Aisha picked up the rose quartz crystal wand Faye had used in the ritual. ‘Has something happened? You look… I don’t know. You’re blushing.’
‘No… nothing.’ Faye knew that she sounded completely unconvincing. Had it been Annie asking, she wouldn’t have been able to lie, but she didn’t know Aisha as well. Yet Aisha gave her a perplexed smile.
‘Are you sure, Faye?’ Aisha had returned to her usual look: hair tied up, no makeup, ripped jeans and a Pink Floyd t-shirt. Yet Faye noticed her beauty more today; her long lashes, dewy skin. Either Aisha had always had this just-been-kissed look, or something had changed with her, too.
‘No. Well…’ Faye considered telling her friend about the tall blond man that had come in earlier, but he wasn’t exactly the outcome of a love spell – nothing had happened; she’d just spilt her coffee on her laptop, looked like a moron, then he’d left.
‘What?’ Aisha looked up. ‘Something’s up. I can tell. It’s been two weeks since we did the spell. Surely something’s going to happen soon?’
‘Not that quickly. Minimum one month until the next full moon. Probably longer.’ Faye wrote on a tiny price label and stuck it on the carved wooden part of a wooden wand, picking up another from a box to price.
‘Months? Really?’ Aisha sighed.
‘Take some rose quartz home. It draws love to you,’ Faye looked up from the labelling.
‘I’ve already got some.’ Aisha sighed. ‘So. What’s up? I can tell it’s something. What?’
‘Oh, nothing. It’s just… I met a man on the beach last week.’
Aisha smiled and put the rose quartz wand down. ‘What man?’
‘Just some guy. He’s bought the glass house on the beach.’
‘I know the one. So what’s he like?’
Faye considered what she remembered of Rav. Soft brown eyes, self-deprecating sense of humour.
‘Nice. Our age, I guess. He has his own business of some kind. Just moved up from London.’
‘Excellent. And when’re you going out with him?’ Aisha raised her eyebrow archly.
‘We’re not going out. We just met on the beach, that’s all. Oh. He’s organising that music festival your favourite band are playing at.’ She pointed to the same flyer in the window as Aisha was still clutching in one hand.
‘You had that there all the time?’ Aisha rolled her eyes. ‘And you didn’t tell me?’
‘As we’ve already mentioned, I’ve no idea who these people are.’
‘Dal Riada. Only the best band I’ve ever heard. And the absolute sexiest, too. Look.’ She pulled out her phone again and tapped the screen. ‘Here. You can’t tell
me they aren’t supernaturally good-looking.’ She sighed again, and passed the phone to Faye.
There were four of them: three men, one woman. Aisha was right: they were all remarkably beautiful. The men were well-muscled, fit, tattooed; the woman stood like a faerie queen among them.
And the one standing on the left and looking unsmilingly into the camera was the same tall, blond man Faye had daydreamed about kissing earlier in the day.
Chapter Seven
‘You’re gonna love them!’ Aisha shouted over her shoulder as they made their way into the crowded bar. Faye held her arms as close to her sides as she could, trying to get jostled as little as possible, but the bar was so full that they could barely make it inside at all. Taking her hand, Aisha snaked her way expertly through the bubbles of space that opened and closed between people like the tiny slivers of sunlight through clouds over the beach at Abercolme.
Faye stayed as close to Aisha as she could. She was cautious in crowds, though she never really knew why. Perhaps it was the knowledge of what a crowd could do; the witch trials were never far from her mind, and there was a kind of ancestral echo that resonated through the ages from Grainne Morgan’s death to Faye; a line of pain braided with fear. Fear of being who she was; fear of being a woman with any kind of power.
Being the child of a family of witches as well as a single mother wasn’t easy in a small village where everyone else had a mum and dad at home and no magic in them whatsoever. Most people had been kind, but not everyone. Faye had learned to blend into the background as much as she could, though Moddie had disapproved. Witches and women have been persecuted for long enough, she told Faye as a child. Take up space, otherwise it’s taken from you.
But Faye preferred not to take up space, particularly. She learned what Moddie and grandmother taught her: the old ways, passed down through the generations. About herbs and ailments, about healing and astrology and how to appease the fae spirits that lived in the house and in the wild, leaving them small offerings, asking for their help. Abercolme was coastal, so it had the connection to the sea sprites, the kelpies, too. But this was a crowded bar in Edinburgh, and there was no room for any spirits… unless they were disguised as humans.
Aisha pushed her way to the bar and waved frantically at the barman until he craned forward; she shouted for two beers over the noise and handed one to Faye.
‘It’s so busy!’ Faye shouted, even though Aisha was standing right next to her.
‘I know! They’ve got such a following. No-one even knew anything about them a year ago. They just came out of nowhere,’ Aisha yelled back. ‘Just look at the lassies in here. Obsessed. Just like us.’ She grinned and took a long drink from her bottled lager.
‘You’re the one obsessed,’ Faye shot back, smiling at Aisha’s excited face, but she was intrigued to see the tall blond man again. Aisha had told her all about him, and the rest of the band, on the way here on the train as it rolled over the iconic red bridge over the Firth of Forth.
He was Finn Beatha, who sang and played the flute. The drummer was French, according to Aisha; his name was Paul. There was a girl in the band who played the harp and also sang, Aoife, and there was another man, a Scot, Angus, who played guitar and piano and a variety of other instruments as needed.
‘Nobody knows much about about any of them,’ Aisha shouted as she swayed to the background music that was coming from the speakers. ‘Just that they do these amazing gigs. The one I went to before was an out-of-body experience. I’m not even kidding, Faye. It was like a religious thing.’
‘Well, that’s some build-up. I hope they live up to it,’ Faye shouted back. She noticed that she was getting stared at by some of the guys in the bar; one or two smiled at her. She looked away. Everyone knew that nobody ever met the love of their life in a crowded bar. Anyway, they were probably smiling at any woman who caught their eye.
The lights in the bar switched off and the band walked onto the small stage. There was a deafening roar from the crowd as the stage lights came up and bathed all four in a shifting green, gold and white light. Faye stared up at Finn Beatha, her heart quickening as the drummer, Paul, in a kilt and wearing what looked like a wolf pelt around his shoulders, started pounding out a fast rhythm with his hands on two large drums.
Finn cried out; a kind of animal whoop, his silver flute in hand, and put it to his mouth. He started playing a kind of fast jig, following the quick drumbeat; Faye felt herself going into a kind of trance as the other instruments joined in and Aoife began singing over the top; Faye thought the words were Scots Gaelic, but she couldn’t be sure. She was tall, with long black hair in convoluted braids arranged on her head and cascading down her back. The plaits were ornamented with silver clasps in the way the Celts had worn their hair, and tattoos wove their way down her arms; it looked like they had been done in blue woad. All of them had spirals and other symbols painted on their faces in the same style.
On stage, Finn was no longer wearing the nondescript dark clothes he’d worn at the shop that day. Now, he was stripped to the waist and Faye could see the whole of the tattoo she’d glimpsed at his neck. It was a horse, appearing to ride up his body from the right side of his waist, up under his arm and with its head resting on his shoulder. She couldn’t quite make it out from where she stood, but the part she had seen was the eye of the horse, which was designed as a well of spiralling water.
He was well-muscled; Faye took in the lines of definition on his stomach and chest. A kilt sat on his hips, and he was barefoot under that. His eyes were closed as he played; the music swirled into the audience like a spell itself, weaving the people together. The trancelike feeling intensified; Faye closed her eyes and let the tune come into her space. She had no fear of swaying and falling over, because she was so tightly packed in there was nowhere else to go.
As soon as she closed her eyes, the whole place changed. She was immediately somewhere else, with the same feeling as when she was doing magic: it had the same vividness, the same sense of almost-reality.
She was on Black Sands Beach, sitting on her rock, and Finn Beatha was playing the flute on the beach. There was no-one else there. It was night and a full moon sat pregnant and heavy in the clear black sky above; it was reflected in the black water.
Finn took the flute away from his lips and looked straight up at her. She felt her whole body come alive, like a pleasurable fire engulfed it. He started singing, and she knew he was singing to her. To summon her to him.
She didn’t speak much Gaelic so she couldn’t exactly tell what the song was about, but she didn’t need to know: the call in her blood was unmistakable.
In the dream-vision, she rose from the rock and walked along a stony trail to the black sand. He continued to sing, never looking away from her, and she came to him, as if she were attached to Finn Beatha by a silver rope and he was pulling it in, closer and closer.
Finally she stood in front of him, dressed in a flowing white dress and wearing an elaborate rose-gold necklace of some kind. She was aware that she was naked under the gauzy material, but not cold; a light, warm breeze blew the dress against her skin.
Finn stopped singing, pulled her to him and kissed her.
His lips were as soft as she had imagined. There was a strange sense of falling when their lips met; a sweetness and an underlying sense of longing, as if he was in some way a faraway home she had never imagined she would find. One of his hands was on her cheek, the other, softly, on her neck, and his touch made her feel dizzy. She was no longer aware of her feet on the black sand; only of him; his smell, like smoke and seawater, and the feel of her hands in his hair.
Someone nudged Faye hard and she opened her eyes, returning to her body in a sudden shock of weight and heaviness. She gasped and reached out for Aisha, who was still next to her. For a minute she didn’t know where she was or how she had got to this noisy place from Black Sands, and she felt faint.
‘Hey. Faye! You all right?’ Aisha held her by the shoulder an
d looked into Faye’s eyes. ‘Ach. It’s too hot in here. Let’s get some water and go somewhere to cool off,’ she said, and guided Faye out of the bar.
Outside, Faye sat on one of the outside tables for smokers and Aisha bought two bottles of water from the shop next door. She uncapped them and handed one to Faye.
‘You okay? You went peely-wally there for a second.’
Faye took a long drink of the cold water and felt herself come back a little more to normal.
‘Yeah. Thanks. I don’t know what happened. I went into a kind of trance.’
‘It’s that kind of fast drumming. Like a rave. I was somewhere else myself.’ Aisha drained the rest of her bottle of water.
‘Maybe.’ Faye looked back inside the bar which was full of jumping shadows; she saw other people with the same glassy stares as she knew she’d had. It was as though the band were enchanting everyone there. ‘It was strange. I went… somewhere. That man, the one singing…?’ She closed her eyes and saw him again in her mind’s eye.
‘Finn?’
‘Yeah. I saw him on Black Sands Beach. Singing to me.’
‘Lucky you.’ Aisha smiled tightly, but then looked away; she probably didn’t want to admit that she too had been enchanted by the band. Perhaps she had had some kind of erotic daydream as well. If Faye had been with Annie, she would have said more. But Annie was away on an acting job, though she had been uncharacteristically vague about what it was. ‘I wish I could find myself on a beach with Finn Beatha. He’s… he’s like a dream, isn’t he?’ Aisha looked wistfully through the open door back at the band.
‘You’ll find someone real,’ Faye reassured her. ‘He’s coming. I’m sure of it,’
Aisha sighed and fiddled with the label on her water bottle.
‘I guess. It’s just that…’ She trailed off, looking embarrassed.
Daughter of Light and Shadows Page 5