Daughter of Light and Shadows

by Anna McKerrow

  Her whole body was lit with intense pleasure, from the soles of her feet to her heart and her head. White-hot pleasure filled her lungs, her throat, her blood. She had had good orgasms before, but this, with the strangely rose-scented air on the beach, the salt of the sand and the moonlight on her skin, was different. She cried out in deep pleasure, a wordless, animal cry halfway between a moan and a scream.

  The shadows disappeared, and Faye and Rav lay back on the sand. Faye laid her head on his shoulder and shivered.

  ‘Thank you,’ she smiled, feeling herself come back to earth. He half-sat and reached for her coat and jeans next to them, and draped her coat over her.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ he grinned. ‘So formal. Here, don’t get cold.’

  ‘Sorry, I…’ She started to try and apologise for herself, then stopped.

  ‘You’ve got nothing to apologise for, except being unbearably sexy, Miss Morgan.’ Rav kissed her forehead, nose and lips and hugged her in closer.

  ‘But you didn’t get to…’ Faye had been so lost in her own pleasure that she hadn’t considered Rav as anything other than pleasure-giver until now. She felt guilty immediately, but he laughed.

  ‘Um, I don’t know if you noticed, but I was actually enjoying myself quite a lot just then.’

  ‘But don’t you need to…?’ She looked shyly at him.

  ‘It’s not compulsory. I will next time.’

  She smiled, realising he was telling the truth, and a weight lifted from her heart, knowing that Rav was this thoughtful. She liked him anyway, but she felt herself relax around him even more now.

  ‘There might not be a next time,’ she said playfully, pulling her bare legs up under the pink coat and wrapping them in his.

  ‘Oh. Well, then, thanks for the memory. I’ll take it to my grave.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ she grinned, and shivered again. ‘Argh, I’m really starting to get cold now.’

  ‘Right, come on. I’ll make you a hot chocolate. Or a brandy. Or both.’ He hugged her tight. ‘We can collect feathers and shells for the faeries another day.’

  She pulled on her jeans and put her coat back on, shaking the worst of the sand out of the old scarf and stuffing it back in her pocket.

  ‘Okay.’ Faye watched the strip of moonlight across the sea as Rav took her hand. She felt odd, suddenly, as if they had wandered into another time and place here, with the way that she had reacted to him; with the smell of roses in the air.

  Rav’s mention of the faeries had unsettled her, somehow; while the sense of being watched had aroused her earlier, as part of a fantasy, but now she felt vulnerable. What if, when Rav had been touching her, they really had been watching? She had seen the faerie folk in his house, and felt the cold they had cast about the place; she knew from the old stories that they were not always pleasant or kind.

  She looked around, peering into the dark, but she couldn’t sense any other presences now. Yet she felt a sudden disinclination to go back into Rav’s house and be among those showy energies again. In her ecstasy, she had invited them to feed on her pleasure. In a more sober state, she really didn’t want that at all.

  ‘Actually, thanks but I’m going to go home.’ She turned abruptly, pulling her hand away from his. ‘I’ve got some things I need to do at the shop. Just remembered.’

  ‘What?’ He turned in surprise. ‘But… we just… I mean…’ He looked dumbfounded.

  ‘I have to go. I’ll see you,’ she said, feeling stupid but not knowing how to explain. The beach was different now, but she couldn’t describe how; this had been her place of worship for so long, and she was sensitive to its energies. She had often drawn on the elemental power of the beach in working magic, but whatever she had felt just now was different. Sex had brought a different energy, maybe that was all it was. But that feeling of being watched – and of her own wicked, sexual response – had unsettled her.

  ‘I need to go home,’ she repeated.

  ‘Okay.’ He cleared his throat, as if there was a lot he wanted to say, but was choosing not to. ‘Will I see you again soon?’

  ‘Oh. Yes, of course!’ She felt awful then, but it was too late. ‘Come back with me? To the shop? I’ll make you a hot chocolate!’ She was annoyed at herself for not suggesting it before, but the energy had changed between them now and her slow thinking – she was still befuddled by the strangeness of what had happened – was to blame.

  ‘No, it’s all right. Really. I should probably get an early night.’ He smiled carefully at her, and gave her a little wave. ‘See you around.’

  No, no! Not see you around! she berated herself, and watched him take the path up the beach to his house. She sighed. Why did she always get it wrong?

  She turned her back on the moonlit water and started off for home, pulling her coat tight against a wind that had started up suddenly. And as she stepped carefully around the rocks where the grass met the sand – where, she often thought, the real world met this in-between place of power – she heard strange voices calling her name. Faye, Faye, the wind seemed to carry an echo of someone calling her. Faye Morgan. But when she looked over at Rav’s house, he couldn’t be seen, and there was no-one else there.

  Chapter Twelve

  Annie knew instantly when Faye opened the shop door the next day; it took her all of three seconds to look Faye over and make up her mind that something had happened.

  ‘Morning.’ Faye stood aside and let her friend in; today, Annie was wearing a belted red trench coat over a baggy Breton stripe shirt with flappy pockets, a denim miniskirt and thick orange tights with biker boots. Faye felt dowdy in comparison in her jeans and sweater, though the cornflower-blue colour of her top sat nicely against her hair.

  ‘Don’ give me yer morning, Faye Morgan, like nothing’s going on. Somethin’s happened. I can tell,’ Annie threw her coat on one of the easy chairs and stalked around her friend like a cat. She peered at Faye’s neck and grabbed hold of the frayed collar of the old sweatshirt, pulling it away from Faye’s skin and scanning her skin.

  ‘What are you doing, you madwoman?’ Faye pulled away, laughing at Annie’s manic expression.

  ‘Looking for love bites, my sweet dahhhling,’ Annie trilled in her actress voice. ‘Remainders of the love act. The shadow of a kiss.’ She stood back and narrowed her eyes. ‘You’ve had sex. Haven’t you? I can tell.’

  Faye laughed out loud. ‘My god. What are you, like, some kind of sex detective? Yes, I did. Happy now?’ she folded the neck of her sweatshirt back to normal and tried to look normal, though she didn’t feel it.

  ‘Ye didn’t. Tell me yer not makin’ this up!’ Annie screeched, lapsing back into her normal accent.

  ‘I’m not making it up.’ Faye fiddled with a basket of crystals, sliding her fingers between the cool smoothness of the clear quartz.

  ‘Who? When? Where?’ Annie demanded, letting out a whoop of delight. ‘I cannae believe it! This is big.’ She sat down behind the counter and leaned forward, drumming her fingers on the glass. ‘C’mon. Tell me. I want it all.’

  The door opened and Aisha strode in, smiling. The bells tinkled, and Grandmother’s hagstone charm twisted gently with the movement. It looked a lot better now that Faye had given it the once-over.

  ‘Aisha. Yer just in time, sweetheart. Seems that the spell’s worked. Faye got laid last night.’ Annie nodded to Faye, who was feeling increasingly uncomfortable.

  ‘Annie, I don’t think…’ she began, but Annie glared at her.

  ‘I hope yer not tryin’ to weasel out of telling us, Faye Morgan. When we’re the ones that did the spell with ye. Grandmother Morgan would frown on that, ye know. She didnae have anyone to share her magic with except your maw and ye. We’re a coven now, aye. Ye share yer magic. In fact…’ Annie opened the store cupboard and drew out Grandmother’s book. ‘Here. We should be writin’ this all down. Keepin’ a record.’

  She took a pen from the counter and sat down again, leaning forward.

 
; ‘Annie! You are NOT going to write about my sex life in Grandmother’s book!’ Faye snatched the pen from her hand and closed the covers of the thick volume, full of Grandmother’s spidery handwriting.

  ‘We should put in the details of the ritual, though. An’ the results,’ Annie replied sulkily. ‘It’s only common witchcraft practice.’

  ‘Fine. But only the ritual, and the fact that it seems to have worked.’ Faye sighed.

  ‘Tell us, then.’ Aisha perched on the closest easy chair. ‘This is so exciting!’ She grinned, but there was a catch in her voice. Faye remembered their heart-to-heart outside the bar. Perhaps Aisha was sad that something had happened for Faye, as a fellow wallflower, and not her. Annie uncapped the pen and waited, expectantly.

  ‘Well, there’s not that much to tell,’ Faye lied. After all, there was a lot she could say; about the strangeness of the feeling of being watched on the beach and about the fact that Rav’s house was sitting on a faerie road, but she wouldn’t. Those things were private. And her wild pleasure was also hers; not for gossip. ‘I told you I met someone at the beach, the other week. Remember?’

  She had mentioned it to Annie the day after meeting Rav, but had played it down at the time.

  ‘Ye told me ye had a chat tae some guy. Not that he was some kinda new sex puppet for ye.’

  ‘Annie! He’s not a sex puppet.’

  Annie waved her hand dismissively.

  ‘Aye, he’s a mega-brainy yogic philanthropist, I’m sure. Get on with it.’

  ‘He’s new to the village. He moved into that 60s house on the beach? You know the one?’ Annie and Aisha nodded; they both knew Black Sands Beach well. ‘His name’s Rav Malik. He’s from London originally, he’s just moved up because he’s organsing this new music festival in the village. He’s… thoughtful. We had a really good talk about our families, about… it’s hard to describe. About both having experience of families that have undergone trauma of different kinds. He’s not into anything like this –’ she gestured around her, at the shop – ‘but he said his mum was a really religious, spiritual woman. He thought his house was haunted, and when I told him it was the fae that were displeased… that house sits on a faery road, d’you know that?’ Her friends shook their heads; Annie raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Explains a lot, though,’ she said. ‘Continue.’

  ‘Yeah. Well. When I said that, his first reaction was, like, this is mad. But then he took it seriously. He tried, anyway. I mean, I don’t think we have that much in common. His whole life is music; I’m not really that into it. And I don’t know what he thinks of me being from a family of witches. But I really like him.’ Faye was aware that she had been gabbling a little; usually she didn’t say as much.

  ‘He’s probably fascinated with the witch thing,’ Aisha replied. ‘And you don’t need to have that much in common. You just need to have… I dunno. The feelings.’

  ‘D’you have tha feelins?’ Annie demanded. ‘What happened, anyway? Ye went over there tae look at his haunted hoose? An’ then what? Which, by the way, is a new one on me, aye. Goin’ to have to keep that one in the bank for when I’m tryin’ to seduce a witchy type in the future.’

  ‘We kissed. And…’ Faye felt uncomfortable saying much else. ‘One thing led to another, I guess.’

  Annie screamed and punched the air.

  ‘Yesss! Is he like what ye asked for, sweetheart? What does he look like? Faye, you have to introduce us. I take it yer going to see him again?’

  Faye shrugged. ‘Maybe. I don’t know.’

  Annie looked concerned and wrote something in the book.

  ‘Oh, sweetheart. It wasn’t any good?’

  Faye smiled, thinking of the way that Rav had concentrated on giving her pleasure; of the way that his mouth caressed her, brought her to the intense ecstasy of the night before.

  ‘No, no… it was very good.’ She felt her cheeks colour. ‘He’s… I don’t know if he’s like what I asked for. He’s tall. And he’s really sweet.’ Faye remembered her doll. The wool hair with golden flecks that she’d braided; the way she’d tattooed its skin with her words. It wasn’t Rav… but it did look awfully like someone else she’d just met. Her eyes widened at the realisation. If the spell had worked, and Finn Beatha was its result, why was it that she had made love with Rav last night? Where was Finn?

  ‘I feel like there’s a “but” moving in the general direction of this conversation,’ Aisha said.

  ‘There might be a but,’ Faye conceded.

  ‘Why? He’s nice?’

  ‘Yes,’ Faye smiled.

  ‘He made you come, aye?’ Annie looked concerned. ‘Tell me he made ye come, sweetheart,’

  ‘Annie, that’s none of your business!’ Faye glared at her friend.

  ‘Just say yes or no,’ Annie prompted. ‘I’m not going to write it down. Look.’ She put the pen down. ‘I just wanna know. Yer my pal. I want to know ye had a good time.’

  ‘Fine. Yes,’ Faye hissed, grateful they didn’t have any customers in the shop while this excruciating conversation was taking place.

  ‘Good! So what’s wrong with him? Ugly, is he?’ Annie made a sympathetic face. ‘Ye might get used to it. If he knows what he’s doing, like.’

  ‘He is very good-looking! Stop asking questions.’

  ‘So what is it then?’ Annie and Aisha were frowning at her, and Faye couldn’t explain it to them. She was still unsettled by what had happened – she had acted so out of character in going so far with Rav at the beach, and she didn’t know why. Stranger still had been the sensation of something watching them as they made love. If Rav’s house did sit on a faery road, as she believed, had it been faery creatures that had watched them, lost in their passion? Had the faeries influenced their abandon in some way? Either way, Faye felt exposed and shameful. In that moment, she had obeyed her desire, but now, she felt uncomfortable. She wondered how Rav felt about it. Was his desire real, or influenced in some way too?

  She liked Rav, and she believed that he liked her too. Yet, as she talked to Annie and Aisha, her thoughts strayed briefly back to Finn Beatha. She had asked for someone kind who wanted her, and Rav had arrived….

  But was he the one that she wanted?

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘Blue-rinse brigade out in force, I see,’ Aisha murmured to Faye as they walked in, taking her arm. Folding chairs had been set out in lines facing the front of the room where the minister stood, talking to the local butcher. The front half of the hall was already full, mostly with the older members of the community.

  ‘Hmph. Hope some of them are sympathetic to a witch memorial,’ Faye sighed. The meeting was at six, so they’d come straight from the shop after closing up.

  ‘Though they weren’t witches, were they? Just normal people that got accused by, I dunno… jealous neighbours.’ They stood at the refreshment table where Muriel from the bakery was handing out scones and pouring tea.

  ‘Hi, Muriel. Two please,’ Faye handed a china cup and saucer to Aisha and balanced her own cup on a plate with two scones. ‘No, they weren’t witches, but Grainne was. She helped most of these people’s ancestors; childbirth, herbs for ailments, that kind of thing. She kept them connected to the old ways. They owe her a debt.’

  ‘D’you think they see it that way?’ Aisha whispered as they found seats at the end of one row.

  ‘Probably not. But I’m happy to remind them,’ she muttered. Aisha smiled and sipped her tea.

  ‘I have no doubt of that,’ she grinned. ‘Don’t know if I’m helping or hindering you, being here, you know,’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Faye smiled at the people filling the rows; these were people she’d lived alongside all her life. Some of whom, she knew, had an uneasy relationship with her and her family. Some, like Muriel and Annie, were enthusiastic about witchcraft. Muriel had been a close friend of Moddie’s when she was alive, and when Moddie held a circle in the shop on a Friday night, there had been quite a few familiar faces tha
t Faye had watched honour the old gods in the flickering candlelight.

  ‘You know what I mean. Villages like this one don’t like outsiders. Especially not ones like me.’ Aisha touched her brown cheek. Faye sighed.

  ‘I wish it wasn’t like that for you. It’s not fair.’

  ‘Tell me about it. I was born in Scotland. Not good enough for some of them, though,’ Aisha smiled too brightly. ‘Most people are lovely. Just, occasionally, I get that where are you from question. Baffles them when I say Glasgow.’

  ‘They’re very suspicious of new people to the village. Or people that have been here for generations.’ Faye sighed. There were many villagers that still avoided the shop altogether. And there was whispering, had always been sideways glances when Faye had been at the shops with Moddie or Grandmother; there had been a need to keep their chin up, as Morgans, and ignore the things that might have been said by some. Faye had learned this from a young age, when she had started school. On her first day, after she had bid a tearful goodbye to Moddie, who had mussed her hair affectionately and told her that she’d have a wonderful day, she’d gone inside and hung her coat on the peg with her name on it. Bel McDougall, her mud-brown hair in two scratchy plaits, had peered curiously at the bulge in the cream lining of Faye’s coat.

  ‘Wha’s that?’ She’d touched the rounded shape of the black tourmaline Moddie had sewn into Faye’s coat for protection. Faye, accustomed to Moddie’s ways – crystals and lavender bags under her pillow for good dreams, herbal tinctures for coughs and colds, searching for faerie toadstool rings for making wishes – had shrugged.

  ‘Black crystal to keep the bad spirits away,’ she’d explained quite naturally, smiling at this new friend. But Bel’s eyes had widened, and she’d run into the classroom calling out, She’s a witch, she’s a witch, laughing but casting baleful glances back at her at the same time until Faye felt she was being made fun of, though she didn’t know why. Tears had welled up in her eyes until she felt a small hand in hers, and turned to see five-year-old Annie’s earnest face topped with a mop of unruly dark blonde hair staring into hers.