There was a hand on her shoulder, and Faye cried out, stumbling to her feet.
Gabriel Black caught her, and she clutched in desperation at him, burying her head in his chest.
‘Hush, hush,’ he whispered as Faye sobbed. With a sudden drop in wind, the tide calmed, and they stood together, ankle-deep in the freezing water. ‘Faye. All will be well, I promise,’ he breathed. They held on to each other under the moonlight: two suffering souls that desperately needed a friend.
Forty-Eight
When she opened the door to the shop to enter the house, he reached up for the hagstone charm that hung by the door. Grandmother had made the charm before she was born, threading pebbles with natural holes in them onto a thick string and chanting a spell of protection over it. It was old lore that if you looked through the hole in a hagstone, you could see the faeries that were usually invisible to human eyes; it exposed spells and rendered them useless.
‘Morgan magic?’ Gabriel smiled wanly. When Faye turned on the shop lights, she saw how gaunt he was; he’d hardly improved since she’d last seen him a couple of weeks ago. Faye nodded, not remarking on his grey pallor or the dark circles under his eyes.
‘It’s a protection. Against the fae,’ she replied. ‘Come in and get warm. I’ll light the hearth.’ The bottom of her jeans were still wet where the sea had splashed them; she was chilled to the bone.
‘Can it protect me from nightmares?’ Gabriel shuffled in behind her and folded himself carefully into the chair by the fireplace. Faye knelt, arranging kindling, and sat back on her heels as it caught, waiting to add the dry wood stacked in a basket next to the hearth. He closed his eyes as the firelight started flickering over their faces. Faye regarded him cautiously.
‘I don’t think so.’ She wouldn’t lie to him: the nightmares would be with him a long time. Yet Faye didn’t ask whether Gabriel’s terror was the memory of his torture, or the masochistic loss of his torturer Glitonea: she knew it could be either. Still, she was glad of the charm. At the beach, she’d felt watched, and she knew Glitonea and Moronoe’s eyes would be on her every moment until she’d had the baby.
‘Why did you come?’
Gabriel sighed, his eyes still closed.
‘I needed to get away from London, Sylvia, the coven. All of it. You always spoke so lovingly of Abercolme. Clean air, cold sea, wide horizons.’ He opened his eyes and stared into the fire that crackled, now that Faye had added two logs. ‘I didn’t have anywhere else to go.’
‘What about Fortune’s?’ Faye sat in the chair opposite him.
‘Penny will look after it until I get back. I trust her.’
‘Oh.’
Neither of them said anything more for a moment. What about Sylvia, has she told you what she did? Has she told you she offered Mallory to Lyr? Or has she told you all it was me? Faye wanted to ask him, but she could see him slipping away, his eyelids fluttering as exhaustion took hold.
‘I’ll make up the spare room for you,’ she murmured, as her own eyes closed. She’d just close her eyes for minute, she thought. But they were both so exhausted that they slept in the old, sagging chairs, until the early hours when Faye woke up cold, the fire having gone out.
Forty-Nine
It was odd, having Gabriel there, but Faye realised that she was grateful for the company.
Faye reopened the shop, closing a little earlier than she used to, to make sure she didn’t get tired. She talked to her customers about all the little familiar things – candles, incense, spellbooks. She read their cards and recommended places to visit to tourists – stone circles, natural springs, holy wells. She pottered in her herb garden, and slowly the spring came and the days started to stretch again. Faye made a little altar for Aisha in the shop; it was the least she could do and, somehow, it made her feel a little better. She put a photo of Aisha in a silver frame on the mantelpiece and burned a candle in front of it, arranging crystals and fresh flowers on either side. She would never be able to make it right, but she could remember.
She wrote to Annie, telling her about her pregnancy, but swearing her to secrecy. Annie wrote and called, at first incensed she hadn’t known about the baby, but gradually accepting the reasons why. Faye wrote honestly about Gabriel: the night terrors, the sleepwalking and the sorrow he held inside him, like a blunt knife that dug into his heart, but one that he wasn’t ready to part with yet. There were good days, too, when Gabriel returned, whistling, from a day walking the coastal path with seashells in his pockets and the spring sun in his eyes.
Gradually, he began putting on weight, and sometimes he helped her in the shop, charming the customers with an occasional flash of the old Gabriel. Yet Faye knew that the faerie road lay on Black Sands Beach and, one day, she suspected that the temptation would prove too much for him. She couldn’t keep him from it: he was a grown man. Faye just hoped that the strength that Abercolme was slowly returning to him would be enough to make him resist. Faerie was never far away for either of them, and both Faye and Gabriel knew how to find it if they wanted to.
The power of Murias is too dark for Gabriel, Faye wrote to Annie. His soul seeks the dark, but it’s not strong enough to bear the weight of faerie. I’m afraid for him, but there’s nothing I can do. He has to learn to live with it. So do I.
Faye would always feel responsible for taking Gabriel into Murias, though it had been an accident on her part, and intentional on his. At the same time, she understood what he felt better than anyone. The shadows of faerie were half of who she was, and she desired them; no, she needed them to survive. She regretted Gabriel following her, but she could do nothing for him now except listen, and understand. At the same time, it was a relief to have someone with her. She was seeing a midwife for all the ordinary check-ups, and the villagers popped in now and again to check she was all right. Despite his suffering, having Gabriel there made Faye feel less alone, and caring for him distracted her from the cloud that grew steadily closer: how she’d protect her baby from Glitonea when the time came.
By contrast, Faye had hardly left the shop for months. When they needed food, she ordered it online from a supermarket three villages away and had it delivered. She worked in the shop and spent the evenings with Gabriel playing old board games when he was feeling up to it, or alone, reading in bed, when he wasn’t. She wanted nothing taxing; all she wanted was to be home, and wait for the baby. She knew that the queens watched her, and she was uneasy.
One night Faye lay staring at the ceiling of her room. She was just a few weeks ahead of her due date and dread had started to seep into the corners of her daily life. She’d heard very little from Rav recently – the phone calls and texts had dissipated reasonably quickly when she didn’t reply. The fear that sat at the edge of her awareness, like a toad, waiting, wasn’t about Rav.
Moronoe had reassured her that with her protection, Finn and Glitonea could do nothing to her child, but only if Faye gave her the baby to raise in her part of Falias. There was no guarantee of safety, or that Faye would ever get her child back, but she’d failed to think of any other option. She’d considered running away, to another country, but the fae operated in a reality outside of human space and time. Where she was wouldn’t matter to them: they would always find her. She’d also, briefly, considered having the baby adopted, but her heart screamed no. No, she wouldn’t give the baby away. It was hers. And who was to say that Glitonea wouldn’t just take the baby away if it was adopted by someone else, anyway?
Finally, she’d gone to what she’d always had: magic. She might not be a faerie queen, but she was a witch, and that meant something.
First, Faye had consulted Grandmother’s grimoire for protection spells, and particularly protection against faeries. The hagstone charm was effective for keeping the fae outside one’s house, but Faye also made four protection bottles – filling old whisky bottles with offcuts of thread and ribbon and cloth from her spell-making, closing the tops with wax and placing them around the house; she even burie
d one in the garden. The closely-packed thread and ribbon would, the book said, distract the lower faerie beings, and act as a faerie catcher. She also sprinkled salt around the boundary of the shop, outside in the garden as well as around the doors, and hung a small perfume bottle on a necklace, filled with bay leaf, rue and rosemary in water, as protection for herself. Grandmother’s grimoire, whilst helpful on summoning the faerie kings and queens, was less helpful in protecting oneself against them. Perhaps that was always our family’s problem, Faye thought.
She was reading the book Gabriel had given her: Faeries in Their Elements, by Reverend R W Smith. It was a fascinating story of a Scottish reverend who had been abducted into the faerie realm and returned to tell the tale. Faye flipped through it, scanning for anything useful. If the reverend had managed to escape, then perhaps there was something here. She frowned as she came across something that might have been written in Grandmother’s grimoire: the reverend had, after his abduction, always kept a powder of burnt bay leaves, garlic skins and ground clove with him in a small bag, ready to sprinkle on the ground or to dispel malign faerie spirits, alongside a short chant:
Break the spell, truth to tell,
Faeries, heed my magic spell!
Dark thy magic, dark thy throne,
I banish thee from hearth and home,
I banish thee from body, mind,
Heart and organs, shadow-kind,
Dark thy magic, dark thy throne,
I bid you leave my heart alone
Break the spell, truth to tell,
Faeries, heed my magic spell!
Faye repeated the chant a few times, unsure whether it would really work or not. As she lay there, her phone screen lit up: it was a text from Annie.
How are you? I’m worried about you.
I’m fine, Faye replied quickly. Don’t worry. The midwife is keeping a close eye on me, and so are the old wives in the village. She added a smiley face at the end and pressed send, guilty that she was lying to her best friend. She wasn’t okay, but she didn’t want to worry Annie. Annie knew now that she was pregnant, but not what Moronoe’s offer was.
Annie replied with a sad emoji face, and Faye put her phone back on her bedside table, guilt gnawing at her. She’d expected something, some entreaty, a visit or message from one of the queens, both of whom thought they were the child’s rightful guardian. Or, at least a dream; Faye had communed with Finn in dream many times. But Faye’s dreams had been quiet and strangely unremarkable.
Yet something waited at the edge of things; something was coming, like a cloud over the sea. Faye could feel it; it’s the baby, she told herself. That’s all. All mothers probably feel like this before the baby comes. You’re just nervous. It’s a life-changing experience.
Yet, she wondered whether the baby’s arrival should have felt so ominous. Shouldn’t she be happy; excited for him to arrive? She was happy. She was looking forward to being a mother. But if it wasn’t the baby that was making her feel this way, what was it?
Fifty
She dreamt of Finn Beatha.
In the dream, Finn stood before her on the beach. Even though she knew him well – every dip and rise of his perfectly sculpted body, what his smooth honey-brown skin smelt like, how it tasted – it was as though she was seeing him for the first time. He wore the kilt he’d worn onstage when she’d gone to see his band, Dal Riada, play at a bar in Edinburgh with Aisha. Yet, even in the dream, the memory of Aisha made her step back from the faerie king; he had as good as murdered her. Faye had to resist him. He was dangerous.
‘I have nothing to say to you!’ she shouted. ‘Leave me alone!’
‘Sidhe-leth. Please.’ Finn stepped slowly towards her, his hands open and raised up in a submissive gesture. ‘I know you are with child. My child. You cannot ignore me.’
Faye felt an uncontrolled hilarity threaten to take her over; it wasn’t amusement, but shock that pushed the laugh out of her mouth. She felt consciousness tug at her, as if it rejected what Finn had said.
‘Your child? Are you mad?’ She heard her own voice: it was high-pitched, not like herself.
Finn reached out to touch her belly.
‘You know it is,’ he said, softly.
She pushed his hand away. ‘Don’t you dare touch me. This is Rav’s baby.’
‘It is mine,’ Finn insisted.
‘How do you know?’ He was barefoot and wore a soft black t-shirt on top of the kilt; his dirty blonde hair had grown a little, and touched his shoulders. Why he’d chosen to wear human clothes to see her instead of his faerie robes, she wasn’t sure: perhaps to make her forget what he was. She had to keep it straight, in her mind, who Finn really was. Faye made herself recall his sudden temper, his selfish pout, like a child denied a toy. He is a faerie king, she reminded herself. He has no human morality; he takes what he wants, uses it and discards it. Uses people.
‘I know,’ he replied, reaching for her. ‘Faye. You know it too.’
‘It’s Rav’s baby,’ she insisted. ‘Moronoe told me.’
‘You believe a faerie queen over me. Why?’
‘Because she has no reason to lie. Because she is my aunt,’ Faye argued back, hotly. ‘Because she has never betrayed me and murdered my friends.’
‘The fact she is your aunt is nothing to do with anything. She is the High Queen of Falias, and I am at war with her realm. She will have offered to take the baby, yes? Told you that she must have it, otherwise great evil will befall you and the child? Am I right?’ He searched her expression; Faye turned her face away. ‘Yes. I am.’ He nodded.
‘She didn’t lie,’ Faye insisted, doggedly, but she realised Finn was right in questioning whether she should trust Moronoe over anyone else. ‘She said she has nothing to do with the war. She is not speaking to Lyr because of it. Her… her palace is not even connected to his,’ Faye stammered, searching for something that would explain why she believed Moronoe.
Finn sighed. ‘She played on your weaknesses. She knows you have a desire to belong to something, now that your mother and grandmother are gone. She made you believe you had some kind of family bond with her. And she also knew that your relationship with the human – who I tried to protect you from, but you insisted on learning the hard way what manner of man he was – was one fraught with tension. If she could make you believe your baby was his, you would be more likely to give it up, given his treatment of you.’
‘You’re saying that Lyr and Moronoe have plotted all along to take this baby. Because it’s yours.’
‘Yes.’ Finn reached for her hand. ‘She is a powerful queen. Murias has had some victories in the war, and Falias has been looking for a way to destabilise my advantage over the Crystal Castle. Moronoe may have used her magic to help your pregnancy in the first place. That, I do not know. But I do know that if she has my child in her kingdom, she can use it against me.’
‘You talk about your children as if they are weapons. All of you. This scheming, it’s so….’ Faye exhaled, exhausted. ‘I don’t know what to believe. If the baby’s yours, why didn’t you tell me before?’
‘Moronoe and Glitonea constructed a web of magic around you, Faye... I didn’t know until you called out in this moment. I am sorry.’
Though it was a dream, Faye still felt Finn’s familiar magic coursing through their linked hands.
‘How can I believe you?’ she whispered ‘How can I believe anything?’
‘You don’t have to believe me, Faye.’ Finn drew her to him softly, and kissed her cheek. ‘But you are the mother of my child now.’
She woke with a start, still feeling Finn’s hand in hers. Regardless of what she thought of Finn, she couldn’t deny that the link was still strong between them.
If the baby was Finn’s, then it thrust her even deeper into the faerie world: Faye had no idea how she’d be able to navigate the road ahead of her.
But at the same time, if it was Finn’s baby, then it gave her more power over him than she had ever had.<
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Faye watched the dawn filter in through her light coloured curtains, and felt the baby kick for the first time. She rested her hand thoughtfully on her belly, not knowing what to feel.
Fifty-One
Faye woke up early, confused by the wetness she lay in until she realised that her water had broken. Carefully, she hauled herself out of bed and went to the bathroom, trying to clean herself up; the stretchy jersey nightdress she’d started wearing at night was soaked through. She peeled it off and ran the shower, climbing carefully into the bath and out again to wash herself as best she could.
Gabriel wasn’t there. It wasn’t unusual – often he’d be gone in the early morning, walking the shore, but today she needed him. Faye resisted feeling abandoned and instead, she called the midwife, who asked if her contractions had started – they hadn’t, as far as Faye could tell – and said that she’d be out to check on Faye in an hour or so. In the meantime, just take it easy and let me know if anything changes, the midwife said cheerily at the end of the phone. Have a cup of tea and put your feet up.
It was July, and the height of a heatwave. Soon it would be Lughnasadh, the old Celtic festival of the first harvest; when she was a child, Grandmother had taught her how to make corn dollies with wheat fresh from the fields around Abercolme. It was a symbolic gesture; saving the ripe corn to use in winter.
Faye stood at her bedroom window, naked, looking out on the garden below. Life was in bloom everywhere. She was part of nature, and, in her late pregnancy, she’d come to understand much more instinctively the symbolism of the ripe corn goddesses of the old ways that Moddie had told her about. She was as ripe with life as the apple tree below: it was so heavy with fruit that they dropped off onto the lawn and wooden decking below with loud thumps; sometimes it woke her in the night.
Queen of Sea and Stars Page 27
