Queen of Sea and Stars

by Anna McKerrow

‘No. I don’t think so, anyway.’ Faye took a sip of wine and, then, another. ‘But then, he wouldn’t exactly say if he did.’

  ‘Has he said he loves you?’ Annie fired back. Faye felt suddenly under attack.

  ‘Yes.’ She knew she sounded defensive.

  ‘Leave her alone, An,’ Susie interrupted. ‘It’s early days for them.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it’s the same for us, sweetheart, but I don’t like this Rav havin’ his exes hangin’ around,’ Annie replied curtly.

  ‘Are you angry with me, Annie? Why?’

  ‘I’m not angry.’ Annie stared down at her plate, but it was obvious that she was lying. Susie placed her palm on Annie’s arm, like a steady hand to calm a wild horse, and smiled at Faye.

  ‘Annie’s been really worried about you, Faye. After all that’s happened, are you really all right?’ Susie’s eyes were on Annie, intent and kind, but she spoke to Faye. ‘And I think she feels responsible for you. She feels that she should have been there for you when everything went wrong at the festival. Annie likes to think it’s her job to dive in and save everyone. Even when they don’t need to be saved.’

  ‘Is that true, Annie?’ Faye was aghast. She’d never once thought that any of this might be her friend’s fault. Everything that had happened – her journey to faerie, her affair with Finn, and what happened at the festival – it was Faye’s fault, and hers alone. ‘God, no. I missed you like crazy, that’s a fact. But, Susie’s right, it’s not your job to protect me.’

  ‘Nah, well,’ Annie took a drink from her glass and looked away. ‘Ye don’ have to fling yerself into whatever this is with Rav just because ye had a bad experience with Finn.’ She met Faye’s eyes; Faye wondered if Annie thought that was what she was keeping a secret. That… what? She didn’t really like Rav, but she thought she didn’t have other options?

  ‘It’s not that,’ Faye muttered. Annie raised an eyebrow and drank her wine, saying nothing.

  I want to tell you, but I can’t, Faye thought, furious, wishing Annie was telepathic. Don’t be angry with me. I’d tell you if I could. She wasn’t angry with Annie, but at herself and at Glitonea. And she was terrified, too. More than anything, she needed Annie. Annie always found a way to help: she could always think of a way around things.

  ‘Look, Faye. Don’t be so hard on yourself. You and Rav obviously like each other, but you had a really hard start. I mean, the guy was, like, literally tortured by a faerie king because of you. It’s not a normal situation. So just relax, let it happen. Don’t put any expectations on yourself. And anyway. Annie and I were already exes. We knew each other more than you and Rav do. Plus, we’re lesbians. So, you know – two months in and we’ve bought matching burial plots.’

  ‘Right,’ Faye was grateful for Susie’s gentle intervention; Annie said nothing.

  ‘So. This Mallory,’ Susie said. ‘You need to make friends with her, I’d say.’

  ‘I’d rather not have to,’ Faye muttered.

  ‘Well, it’s going to be awkward if you don’t. If she’s in this social group, she’s going to be around, whether you like it or not. Keep your enemies close and all that.’ Susie raised her eyebrow and topped up their wine glasses. ‘That’s what I’d do.’

  ‘Aye, but you’re a Leo,’ Annie snapped. ‘Ye need everyone to love ye, even the ones ye hate.’

  ‘I do not!’ Susie looked offended; Annie’s tone had been cutting. ‘I’m just saying. It’s the adult thing to do.’

  ‘Deil hae it,’ Annie muttered. ‘I say we shut her nasty little mouth if she wants tae be a bitch to Faye. No’ on my watch.’

  ‘And how are we going to do that?’ Susie shot back; Faye could see irritation growing between them. Annie knew something was out of kilter and it was bothering her; Susie obviously thought Annie was being difficult for no reason.

  ‘Binding spell. Whatever.’ Annie shrugged.

  ‘Calm down, Annie. I met this girl for one evening and she was a bit off with me. And we know that she’s got a reason for that. I’ll do what Suze says. Be nice. Take the high ground. If she wants to join me there, great. If not, well, I’ll have done the right thing.’ Faye tried to smooth things over. This really isn’t the problem, she wanted to say. But she knew she couldn’t.

  Annie shook her head.

  ‘No, no, no. I’m tellin’ ye both now, she’s trouble, that one. Don’t ask me how I know. I just do. Ex-girlfriends hangin’ around, unfinished business, people still havin’ feelins for other people. That way chaos lies, my poor deluded friends.’

  ‘Annie. I’m not doing a spell to control a woman I’ve met once who has posed absolutely no problem for me,’ Faye insisted. ‘Let it go.’

  ‘An, you’re being way too protective of Faye. She’s a big girl. She’s got this.’ Susie leaned over and kissed Annie on the cheek. ‘Not that I don’t love this fire and brimstone part of you. I’m glad you’re on our side, is all I can say.’

  ‘Aye, well.’ Annie, mollified by the kiss, drained her wine glass. ‘I care. That’s all.’

  ‘I know, but I think I can handle one ex-girlfriend,’ Faye replied.

  ‘Good.’ Annie uncurled herself from her chair and wedged herself in next to Faye. ‘I missed ye, Faye Morgan. That’s all.’

  ‘I missed you too.’ Faye felt the tears coming. She buried her head in Annie’s shoulder, and everything she’d been holding in came crashing out, wave upon wave of hurt and worry and grief. ‘I’m sorry!’ she sobbed, trying to stop herself, but Annie held her closer and rubbed her back.

  ‘Never be sorry for ye tears, sweetheart,’ Annie’s voice burred through her chest; she hugged Faye tighter and Faye felt her kiss the top of her head. ‘And never think I’m not here for you. Not even when we’re apart.’ Faye heard the crack in Annie’s voice and knew she was crying too. It had been tougher than either of them thought to be away from each other. She resolved that she’d find a way to tell Annie everything. But at least, for now, her best friend was close to her again, and Faye could breathe a little easier.

  Eight

  ‘The problem is that the powers-that-be –’ Ruby, the wardrobe mistress, twirled her index finger around in a circle, as if to indicate a heavenly host floating above them, or perhaps someone on the floor above theirs – ‘want drama. They want luxury, they want glamour. They don’t want people wearing jeans and leggings.’ She smiled apologetically at Faye, who was wearing black leggings under a green pinafore dress with a black vest underneath it. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I’m a witch, not that they’d ever take my advice,’ she lowered her voice. ‘It’s quite a toxic workplace, if I’m honest. So I haven’t mentioned it. You don’t want to give them any ammunition. Surprise redundancies, that kind of thing.’

  Faye liked Ruby immediately. She reminded Faye of Annie in the way she talked, though Ruby was dressed far less outrageously than Annie generally was, even though she worked in the costume department. She was short and curvy and was wearing black ballet pumps, skinny jeans and a baggy pink sweatshirt with GIRLS written on the front. Her black hair was short, shaved close to her head.

  Keely, the director she’d met before, had asked Faye to come in to give Ruby ‘some pointers about costume’.

  ‘Oh,’ Faye didn’t know what to say. ‘Sorry to hear that. So you can’t... make sensible suggestions about what the characters might wear? Or do?’

  ‘No. But you can, which is great. I’ve been dying for someone to come in and tell them this stuff. I mean, who in their right mind wears a velvet dress day in, day out? I mean, for a masked ball, fine. For a ritual, also fine. But popping to the supermarket or reading the gas meter? Velvet wouldn’t be my choice.’

  Faye laughed. ‘Well, I guess there’s a lot of fantasy about witches, isn’t there? I mean, it’s a romantic image.’

  ‘I know, but doesn’t it annoy you? Like, witches are real people. This show paints witches as, like, pre-Raphaelite tarts with magic wands. I mean, it doesn’t have to be like that. That show in
the US, Spelled? Those witches wear miniskirts, jeans, crop tops. They have normal day jobs. I wish it could be more like that.’

  ‘Agreed.’ Faye smiled.

  ‘Oh, goddess,’ Ruby smacked her palm on her forehead. ‘Management, babes. Always getting consultants in when they could have just asked their actual staff. No offence.’

  ‘None taken.’ Faye looked around her at the wardrobe room which was half filled with racks of costumes, boxes of accessories, and half with a couple of sewing machines and cutting tables. ‘So you’re a witch?’

  ‘Wiccan. Since my teens. You?’

  ‘Ummm. Always. My family were witches.’

  ‘Oh, cool! Hereditary, then?’

  ‘I guess so. Annie and I grew up in the same village. I own a shop there, Mistress of Magic. It’s been in my family forever.’ Though to many people, ‘witch’ might have meant one thing, Faye knew that there was a great deal of variety regarding how witches defined their own practice. Traditional witchcraft – an adherence to the native folk customs from whatever culture one had grown up in (Scottish folk magic, in Faye’s case) shared many similarities with the modern witchcraft, or Wicca, but also many differences.

  Wicca was a modern fusion of nineteenth century ritual and occult practice with the reverence of nature and worship of pagan gods and goddesses of other cultures: Greek, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Celtic and many more. There was much of what Faye had learned from Grandmother that was recognisable in more modern practices – the seasonal festivals, knowledge of herbs, reverence of nature and the elemental faerie kingdoms – but Grandmother had rolled her eyes at the more modern witchcraft detailed in the books Moddie, and now Faye, sold in Mistress of Magic. All that arm-wavin’ an’ long names. Ower ficherie a job, hen, Faye remembered Grandmother tutting, confident in her older, simpler ways – ower ficherie meant fiddly and bothersome.

  ‘That’s amazing. I should introduce you to one of my coven. He runs one of the occult bookshops in London.’

  ‘Oh! Well, that would be… that would be lovely, thank you.’ Faye was somewhat taken aback at Ruby’s free and easy attitude. Faye was used to there being a stigma about being a witch; was used to the old guard in the village with their tuts and raised eyebrows. But London was a big city. She wasn’t the only witch in the village any more.

  ‘Sure. We’re meeting up on Hampstead Heath next week. You should come. It’s a Mabon ritual.’

  ‘Oh! … the Autumn equinox?’ Faye realised that she knew very little about whatever ‘scene’ there was for witches in England – or even in Scotland, come to that. She knew of some groups around the Edinburgh area and a few further afield, as sometimes they came into the shop for supplies and to leave leaflets for events and courses they were running. But she’d always shied away from getting involved, for the same reasons that she kept a reasonably low profile in Abercolme. The fear that had resonated down the ancestral line from Grainne Morgan about being a witch; about having power when others resented you for it.

  Fear about being a witch – and being punished for it – had been with her all her life. It had been there at every decision she’d made to stay home instead of go out, to read quietly and forage on the beach for shells and feathers, to walk on the other side of the street, away from the villagers that probably intended her no harm. It had shaped her life.

  ‘Yeah. Falls on a Saturday this year. We run an open circle for the seasonal celebrations.’

  ‘An open circle? So anyone can come?’

  ‘Technically, though most times it’s the same faces that show up. Anyone extra has to be personally recommended by a coven member.’ Ruby smiled. ‘High Priestess’s rules.’

  ‘Ah. Right.’ Faye knew little of the arrangements of organised covens.

  Ruby reached across the cutting table and peeled a clean piece of sketchpad paper from under some pages filled with rough drawings of costumes. She wrote something down and ripped it out, handing it to Faye. ‘Here you go. We meet at this pub before we walk up to the Heath. You can walk up with us.’ Faye had already walked up on Hampstead Heath with Rav; a forested, ancient, sprawling city park where dog walkers, joggers, families and lovers met.

  ‘All right. Thanks.’ Faye took the paper, on which Ruby had written the name of a pub, a tube stop and a date just over a week’s time. ‘What time?’

  ‘Oh. Probably around eight? Then we can have the moon out for the ritual. Hope it’s a clear night. So often we get, like, Hubble-telescope clarity two nights before a ritual but then, on the actual night, a no show. Not that it really matters, but, y’know.’

  ‘Witch problems,’ Faye said with a laugh.

  ‘Right? You know. Where did you practice, in your village? Did you have an outside space you could use? Hampstead Heath’s been used by London covens for a long time. We’re lucky to have it. But there’s still a fair amount of time we’re in someone’s front room.’

  ‘Oh, right. Well. Abercolme is on the Fife coast. So I used one of the beaches there a lot. And the shop, out of hours. It used to be the front room of the house, so I like to think of all the past magic of my grandmothers, stuck in the corners, up in the webs and the dust on the ceiling. There’s a reason witches’ houses were depicted as full of cobwebs. Traps energy.’ She smiled. ‘That said, I like a good spring clean. And I think there’s definitely a place for modern design.’

  ‘Cool.’ Ruby looked impressed. ‘I’d love to do more sea magic. It’s hard to do, here. I mean, some of us have done, like, day trips to the coast and hung out and done some stuff. But you have to wait for all the tourists to go home, and sometimes it’s bloody freezing on those beaches at night by that time. If you live right by it, it must be so much easier.’

  ‘It is, yes.’ Faye felt a tug of homesickness for Black Sands Beach and for Abercolme, and swallowed it back like a bitter medicine. ‘I miss it,’ she added quietly.

  ‘I bet. More reason for you to come out with us. Be with your own kind,’ Ruby said kindly.

  ‘Thanks. That will be really nice.’ Faye smiled. She needed friends of her own here, and she missed her connection to the moon and the sea. A forest would be a good change of pace.

  There was a knock on the door, and Keely poked her head around.

  ‘Hey. Thought you’d like lunch, Faye, if you’re done here?’ She smiled and Ruby shook Faye’s hand, a professional veneer sliding over her features.

  ‘We’ve had a good discussion. Thanks for meeting with me, Faye,’ she said, and Faye made sure she folded up the piece of paper and slipped it in her pocket. ‘I’m sure I’ll see you again. Around the set.’

  ‘Always good to meet a kindred spirit,’ Faye replied, smiling.

  Nine

  They met at a pub at the edge of Hampstead Heath and walked up to the secluded grove on the Heath together in an unruly, chatty line. Faye was still getting to know her way around and by the time she’d found her way along the high street and into the residential streets to the Heath, she was late. By the time she’d found the pub (Ruby had texted look for the one with all the hanging baskets) the group was ready to go, and there was no time for a getting-to-know-you chat.

  From what she could tell, the group varied widely in age, occupation and outlook. There were six women, including her and Ruby, and four men; one was white haired and bearded, and wore an aged leather jacket with his biker gang acronym on the sleeve, but the others were younger. One was shaven-headed with silver earrings to the top of his left ear, wearing black jeans and a hoodie. Another looked like he’d come to the pub straight from the office; he was middle aged, clean-cut, wearing a navy suit. He seemed quiet but well-liked in the group, who teased him about stocks and shares.

  Faye smiled as they walked up the grassy hill under the slowly setting sun, listening. The girls were probably in their early twenties and both wearing jeans and flip flops; one had a dyed blonde short afro; silver bangles jangled on her wrists. The other girl had blonde hair in a long ponytail, a pink vest and a whole
arm sleeve tattoo of pink and red roses that twined against her fair skin.

  The last man in the group fell in step with Faye and Ruby.

  ‘Aren’t you going to introduce us, Ruby?’ He smiled a little wolfishly, but his voice was low, courteous and well-spoken. ‘I demand that I be made known to this delightful woman of power you’ve brought to our most august gathering.’ He had a twinkle in his eye that indicated his formality was more for fun than his usual way of speaking.

  Faye found herself smiling back. ‘Faye Morgan. And you are?’

  He took her hand and bowed a little.

  ‘Gabriel Black. A pleasure to meet you.’

  ‘Faye’s the one who has the shop in the Scottish village. You two have a lot in common.’ Ruby took a drink of water from the bottle she was holding and looked confusedly at her other hand for a minute. ‘Oh, damn. I’ve left my scarf in the pub.’ She ran back down the hill, waving. ‘I’ll be back in a minute! I’ll find you.’

  Faye watched Ruby run off, feeling a shadow of anxiety settle in her stomach. She didn’t know any of the rest of them.

  ‘Blessings of Mabon.’ Gabriel nodded politely.

  ‘Blessings to you,’ Faye replied.

  Tonight, Annie was working and both of them were away from Abercolme. It felt strange to be distanced from their tradition: when they could, they celebrated the solstices and the equinoxes on Black Sands Beach, so when Ruby had followed up with more details about her group’s Mabon ritual, Faye was glad to have somewhere to go. She’d considered staying at home and doing some kind of ritual in Rav’s flat, but when she mentioned it to him cautiously, the look of confusion on his face made her change her mind. Clearly, a seasonal ritual didn’t fall within his definition of their new life together in London.

  ‘So, tell me about your shop.’ Gabriel adjusted a backpack on his shoulder and slid on a pair of expensive-looking black sunglasses, even though the night was already well on its way. He was probably in his late thirties, Faye thought, with jet black hair and deep brown eyes; the black shadow of a beard covered his jaw, but his skin was pale. He wore a white, fitted dress shirt with a subtle pleat on the middle section of the chest, with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows and dark-dye black jeans that fit his slim frame.