He was a little taller than her but not much, but there was something about him – an aura, a feeling of power. Faye was, by now, accustomed to sensing power in others; she could tell that Gabriel wasn’t faerie, like Finn Beatha, but she felt a velvety blackness about him that was warm and wicked.
They walked on, past a blue-painted bandstand in the middle of the open Heath, which looked over London. Faye saw two other women in the group, older women who she assumed were the coven leaders, walk along a path along the edge of the woodland. Dense forest lay at the edge of the long grass of the open field, where people still sat with drinks and picnics, or walked their dogs, enjoying the summer evening.
‘My shop? Well, it’s called Mistress of Magic. It’s my family home; has belonged to the Morgans for generations.’ Faye repeated what she’d told Ruby about the shop; what it sold, what Abercolme was like. Gabriel listened attentively.
‘Sounds divine,’ he said, lowering his sunglasses and looking over the top of them at her. ‘I imagine you have a lot of contact with the water elementals, being that close to the sea up there?’ His gaze was penetrating but friendly; like Rav, his eyelashes were long and dark.
‘Yes, I… that’s right,’ Faye stammered and looked away. It was still a new experience for a stranger to mention magical things in conversation with her, as if they were talking about what they’d had for lunch or exchanging polite accounts of their summer holidays.
‘I’d like to hear more about that sometime,’ he said, his voice low and charming. ‘You’ll have to come and visit my place, see how it compares. I sell books only, though. Antiquarian, modern and second-hand. We’re the oldest occult specialist book shop in London.’
‘I will,’ she smiled. ‘What’s it called?’
‘Fortune’s. My father and grandfather owned it. Before that, it belonged to one of the most notorious magicians in the country.’
They had reached the dirt path that led into the woods now, and Faye heard running footsteps behind them, which were the only sound in a stillness that seemed to emanate from the woods.
‘Gods, that hill’s steeper than it looks,’ Ruby panted.
‘Last, but by no means the least, dear Ruby,’ Gabriel purred, taking her hand, and then Faye’s. ‘Let us enter our sacred space; I’m honoured to escort two such delicious creatures…’
‘That sounded sooo creepy, Gabriel.’ Ruby rolled her eyes. ‘You’re not about to eat us.’
‘No gentleman would dream of such a thing,’ he agreed, and they made their way through the trees to the secret clearing.
Ten
The circle stretched across the clearing under the oak trees. They were ten in all; idly, Faye wondered if there was any truth in the tradition that a coven should comprise thirteen. Her experience of witchcraft was either working alone, learning from her mother Moddie and her grandmother when they had still been alive, or with Annie. Just once, she and Annie had become a group of three when they and Aisha had cast their love spell. But the result of that working had been tempestuous, to say the least.
It had been a hot summer, and the end of September was pleasantly cool. The two women who had been at the front of the group had already set up much of the circle when Faye arrived with Ruby and Gabriel. One was plump, middle-aged, with long, wavy henna-red hair and wore a greyish, once-white t-shirt that stretched over her chest, bearing the anti-nuclear sign on it in rainbow colours and a thick padded jacket over the top; on the bottom, she wore a long, full patchwork skirt. The other woman, who was setting out four hefty storm lamps at the cardinal points of the circle, was older, with short, white hair in a bob. She wore cargo trousers and a lilac fleece jacket.
Faye smiled to herself and thought that if Ruby could only bring the rest of the creative team from Coven of Love along to this, they’d be extremely disappointed that no-one was dressed in a floor-length velvet gown.
In the centre of the clearing there was a convenient tree stump on which the red-headed woman was setting out some basic equipment: a wooden wand, an earthenware cup – which the white-haired women filled with red wine from a screw-topped bottle – a pentagram made of slim sticks, tied together with string and a Moroccan-style silver metal censer.
Ruby took Faye over to the white-haired woman, who was rummaging in her bag for something and looked up warily as they approached.
‘Lighter! Wouldn’t get very far without that,’ she muttered, putting it down on the stump.
‘Sylvia – this is Faye Morgan, the one I told you about.’ Ruby was strangely formal, all of a sudden, almost bowing to the older woman. ‘Faye, this is Sylvia. She’s our High Priestess. Thank you, Priestess, for allowing me to bring Faye to the group.’
‘Welcome, Faye.’ Sylvia looked at first glance like someone running a cake stall at a village fete, but when she spoke she was abrupt, in the manner of a powerful woman who hadn’t had to be polite for a long time. She maintained a slightly aggressive eye contact with Faye, almost like a stare, unblinking.
‘Thanks for letting me come to your ritual,’ Faye replied, politely.
‘I open the seasonal festivals to small numbers of approved visitors, but don’t be under the misapprehension that attending the festivals is a way into the coven. There are stringent initiation requirements.’ Faye felt as though she was being told off in the Headmistress’s office all of a sudden.
‘I’m not looking for a coven to join. I just thought it would be nice to mark the season with a like-minded group.’ Faye held Sylvia’s gaze; if the older woman was trying to intimidate her, it wasn’t going to work. Sylvia looked away first.
‘It’s not to say that the coven is closed to you, of course, but you’d need to show a sustained commitment to the group over a long period of time before you were considered. I’m sure you understand how careful I have to be, as the guardian of the group. Their safety lies in my hands. We tread, after all, a path of shadows, when we dance with the old ones.’
Faye raised an eyebrow.
‘I understand that more than you might think.’ She wasn’t going to be lectured about the perils of witchcraft by someone she’d just met, regardless of what title she had given herself. When you’ve danced on corpses in the faerie reel, come and talk to me about treading the shadow path, Faye thought. Perhaps Sylvia picked up on the thought, or felt Faye’s lack of fear of her, because she nodded briskly.
‘As long as everyone knows where they stand. I understand that you come from a hereditary background, Faye?’ She busied herself with laying out the altar, and Faye exchanged glances with Ruby, who gave her the thumbs up.
‘That’s right. My ancestors have been witches a long way back, in Abercolme,’ Faye replied.
‘And they taught you the old ways?’
‘Yes. I suppose it’s what you’d call a mix of folk magic and traditional witchcraft,’ Faye replied. ‘But my mum taught me some Wicca too, so a mix, I suppose.’ She wasn’t ready to talk about the darker magic she knew; the power of the element of water that Glitonea had taught her in the realm of Murias.
‘And what deity did you work with? The Cailleach? The Morrigan?’ Sylvia named two Celtic goddesses, standing up; it was a challenge, in some way. Sylvia was testing her.
‘No. I know of them; I know people who honour Callie Beara.’ Faye gave the familiar name of The Cailleach, a Scottish winter goddess of mountains, snow and rain. ‘We…’ Faye shivered unexpectedly, thinking of Finn. She didn’t want to think about him; not here. It was too complicated. ‘We honoured the fae.’
‘I see.’ Sylvia’s expression was impenetrable. ‘One of this group’s matron goddesses is Morgan Le Fay, Mistress of Magic. We’ll be calling to her tonight.’
‘Morgana Le Fay?’ Faye used the faerie name – Morgana rather than Morgan, not that it mattered. Morgana was the Queen of the Crystal Castle at the centre of the four elemental fae kingdoms. As far as Faye knew, one had to journey to one of the faerie realms and then walk a perilous crystal bridge to rea
ch her.
Faye didn’t think that Morgana – a High Queen of Magick and much more powerful than even Finn Beatha or his faerie queen sister Glitonea – could easily be summoned from her realm. There was a certain comfort in that. She didn’t want to be confronted with anything belonging to the faerie realm. A quiet, respectful Mabon ceremony in nature would be just fine.
‘Your namesake?’ Sylvia raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you familiar with Morgan Le Fay? I assume you must be, if your worship has been with the elemental realms.’ The others were watching her keenly; assessing, perhaps, whether she was all she claimed to be.
‘Oh… yes, I’m familiar with Her.’ Faye was noncommittal.
‘Really?’ Sylvia looked Faye up and down, critically. ‘Welcome, then. We’ll be starting in a moment; it might not be exactly what you’re used to, but the main elements will be similar, I’m sure.’ Her tone was brisk again; if Faye had thought that all powerful women had Grandmother’s warmth, then she was evidently wrong.
Faye felt a tremor of nerves in her stomach, partly pleasurable: she could already feel the weft of the natural magic of nature under her feet.
‘This is Penny,’ Sylvia beckoned to the red-haired woman who was talking to Gabriel. ‘She’s my second-in-command; High Priestess in training, if you will. Penny, this is Faye.’
Penny shook Faye’s hand.
‘Merry meet,’ she murmured, and Faye repeated the greeting.
‘Do you need any help, setting up?’ she asked, but Penny demurred.
‘Minimal setup, otherwise we’d be lugging tons of stuff up the hill. We’ll get going in a minute.’ She nodded and turned away to finish her preparations.
Ruby squeezed Faye’s hand as they walked back to join the circle.
‘Good going. I think she liked you,’ Ruby whispered.
‘Liked me? What would she have been like if she hated me?’ Faye hissed back.
‘She’s kind of a badass, but she’s just being… you know. Protective,’ Ruby replied, under her breath. ‘She’s got our backs. I like that.’
Faye didn’t reply; she respected Sylvia, but she didn’t like power games, and that was what it had felt like was going on. Sylvia might be the leader of the group, but she wasn’t responsible for protecting Ruby, Gabriel and the rest from their own experiences. To see herself as a mother of grown adults seemed like a strange kind of ego trip.
The rest of the circle had begun singing softly. Faye put her misgivings about Sylvia to one side; she was here to celebrate Mabon, that was all. She joined her voice to the group’s and felt the energy around her; from the circle, from the trees around her, interspersed with the special energy of the autumn equinox. It had a feeling all of its own; the perfect balance between light and dark, when the days and nights were of equal length and in perfect equilibrium – dark and light, masculine and feminine. But, Faye remembered, the equinox was the cusp of a transition: from now on, the year began to wane. From this moment, darkness began to defeat the light.
Faye shivered in anticipation of the coming darkness, even though she knew there was nothing to be afraid of. Dark was natural; dark was night and death and sleep. But she still couldn’t make peace with the darkness in herself.
Fighting her instincts, Faye caught the simple melody of the song, and raised her voice as the bright moonlight filtered through the canopy of branches above.
Eleven
They stood in a circle an arm’s length from each other, able to touch hands when they needed to. Faye stood between Gabriel and Ruby and watched as Penny called in the elements, just as Faye had so many times, in her herb garden at the back of the shop or on Black Sands Beach. Just as many times, she’d stood on the worn hearthstones inside Mistress of Magic, in front of the fireplace where generations of Morgan women had opened their arms to the moon and asked for its blessing.
They had sung the simple song, about the growing and the cutting of the grain, over and over until Sylvia had beckoned them to stand in the circle, drawing it outside them with wand, lit censer, cup and by sprinkling earth around them to create a protected space.
‘I call to the watchtowers of the spirits of the North; of earth, be with us in our rite!’ Sylvia’s voice rang out clear and confident in the night; her face was lit by candlelight as she moved from one quarter of the circle to the next, calling in the elements as power to the circle. As she did so, Faye felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle, and a chill went up her spine. She felt the raw elemental energy coming; earth from the north, air from the east, fire from the south and water from the west, their power rushing in to the circle and melding, merging into something new. The circle held their energies; the men and women around the edge were part of the circle. Everything of them was part of the circle, and the circle was part of them. Even though that elemental energy was the energy of faerie, there was no getting away from it, and Faye would never want to. The energies of nature were one thing: dangerous faerie kings and queens were quite another.
Faye half-closed her eyes, watching the energies shift and dance in the circle. She could see the air sprites, the sylphs, dancing like dust motes in the shafts of moonlight that sliced into the clearing. She watched the fire elementals, writhing like snakes, salamanders, changeable as their native element, and the earth energy, slower and fuller and richer, like stones building into cairns, combining to spiral up in the space between them all.
Her heart beat faster for a moment as she felt the energy of water rush into the circle, recognising its familiar lull. Did those in Murias – Finn and Glitonea – know she was here if the water spirit was here? She assumed not; these beings – a swirl of a tail here, a disembodied gill there, the overall sense of flowing, crashing, changing – they weren’t the faeries of Finn’s grand court who had been shaped by human imagination over the years into separate characters; who walked in the human world as they wished, enchanting and cursing if they wanted to. The sprites that entered the circle were pure element, pure force: the dense material of natural world.
Sylvia stood with her arms outstretched and called out loudly.
‘Blessed Morgan Le Fay, goddess of magic, witch, independent woman, be with us at this time when light and dark are in perfect balance; bless us with your wisdom this Equinox! Enchantress, we implore thee, lend us your power to see clearly in the coming dark! Keeper of wisdom, teacher of the crescent moon, healer of the sick! Goddess of magic, we beckon you, protect us in the darkness, and open its mysteries to us. We implore you, grant us your sight this Mabon night.’
The circle joined hands as Sylvia continued to call out raptly to Morgan and started to pace. Faye was aware of the many gods and goddesses that other witches worked with; she’d called to some of them herself before now, but it was the Fair Ones that her family was connected to, for good or ill. She was still surprised that Ruby’s London coven honoured Morgana Le Fay, a faerie queen.
In Abercolme, it was the fae kingdoms they were closest to: in the sea, in the wind, in the ground under them. Perhaps the faerie kingdoms were closer in those rural places; in cities, she’d supposed that people found it harder to connect to the nature elementals. But, she reminded herself, Morgan’s influence in books and films was considerable. She remained the iconic witch: misunderstood and misrepresented, perhaps, but a symbol of power nonetheless.
Faye heard Ruby and Gabriel chanting Morgan Le Fay, Lady of Magic! Morgan Le Fay, Enchantress of the Moon! and followed suit; the circle’s pacing turned into something faster and more unruly; still, their hands stayed clasped together. Morgan Le Fay, Lady of Magic! Morgan Le Fay, Enchantress of the Moon! Faye heard her voice rasping, starting to lose her breath, as the volume of the chanting increased. She still didn’t believe Morgana would appear; the High Queen of Magick didn’t need to leave the Crystal Castle; she was the emanation of all magic in the human and faerie worlds. It would take more than chanting to bring her through.
Faye was sweating from the wild skipping and chanting. She clos
ed her eyes and saw the circle as if from above, the flickering candlelight, the moonlight on their faces. In her mind’s eye, Faye saw two dirt paths run from one side of the clearing to the other, crossing each other at the centre of the circle. And at the point where they crossed, a gate made of the same pink-white crystal she remembered from the seven-pointed castle opened in the ground, and Morgana Le Fay appeared.
Faye opened her eyes, startled; as if they had seen the same thing, the circle stopped dancing. She narrowed her eyes; there was a shimmer of non-colour at the centre of the circle, and the candles inside the lamps guttered, making exaggerated shadows in the trees, but otherwise nothing.
It can’t be. Faye stared at the ground, aghast. She wouldn’t be summoned so easily.
Faye closed her eyes again; the Queen stood there again. Tall, silver-white haired and black skinned, she wore long silver robes and a silver circlet on her head, with a crescent moon that pointed to the sky. Her face wasn’t human, but a shifting mass of light. She bowed her head to Faye; Faye bowed, eyes closed, in response. Her heart was pounding with the shock of Morgana’s presence; how had this happened? She’d been so sure that she was safe. She’d clearly underestimated the power of the coven.
‘I bless your circle; I am Morgana, the one you seek; I am Morgana Le Fay, goddess of witches and Mistress of Magic. Speak thy wishes,’ the faerie queen intoned.
‘She is here!’ Sylvia cried, exultant, her head thrown back.
Faye opened her eyes; she caught Gabriel staring at her.
‘You see the goddess?’ he whispered.
‘Not clearly in the circle. With my eyes closed, yes,’ Faye stammered.
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