by Alys West
“She was shocked, obviously. She asked me to tell you that she’s thinking of you.” They were too few words to convey the concern and worry that’d emanated down the phone line but they were what Grace had asked him to say.
“Oh.” Jenna looked at him for a brief second before her gaze returned to the grimoire. “That was nice of her.”
There was a whole load more that needed saying but now wasn’t the time for it. “Which of these have you got?” he asked, pointing at the list of ingredients for the spell.
Jenna ran her finger down the list. “Water, salt, smoky quartz, incense. Got those. Sage, no. White candle, no. Small round mirror, no.”
“Okay. Where do we acquire sage, a candle and a mirror in Kirkwall at—” he checked his mobile “—6:24 on a Thursday evening.”
“Tesco.”
“Seriously? You’re suggesting I pop over to Tesco to buy spellworking supplies?”
“In case you haven’t noticed Kirkwall’s not the kind of place that has a magic shop.” For the first time since he’d barged into her office at lunchtime, there was a flash of her usual feistiness. “We’ve got to make do with what we’ve got.”
“Alright. Tesco it is then.” He picked up his mobile and stood. “Do you want anything else while I’m there? Loaf of bread? Pint of milk?”
“Milk would be good. Semi-skimmed.” She grinned at him, ignoring the sarcasm. “And don’t rush back. I’m going to have a shower. It’s been so long since I’ve practised I should have a purifying bath but that’d take too long so a shower will have to do.”
“I don’t mind waiting while you have a bath. Take all the time you need.” He allowed his gaze to travel slowly down her body, imagining it wet and naked. He expected a sharp retort, quite possibly an elbow in his ribs but when his eyes returned to her face, her cheeks were flushed.
“A shower will be fine, thank you.” She didn’t look at him as she spoke. “Let me get you some money.”
“Don’t be daft.” He strode past her into the hall. “I’ve got this.” By the front door, he hesitated, cleared his throat. “How long do you need?”
“Say twenty minutes.”
Twenty minutes of water running over her naked body. Twenty minutes when he had to find something to think about other than water running over her naked body or he’d be walking around Tesco with the most enormous hard-on.
“Fine. See you then.” He let the door slam shut behind him. On the doorstep, he sucked in a long breath and blew it out slowly. It didn’t help.
***
Jenna turned the temperature of the water as high as she could bear and stood, head tilted back, letting it sluice over her. It didn’t drown her fears but she felt a little more clear-headed when she stepped out. She needed clean clothes which meant rummaging through the ironing basket and she tugged out a pair of loose linen trousers and a striped top. Back in her bedroom, she found clean underwear and got dressed. Then she checked the time. She should have told him half an hour. She needed to meditate too and there was no way she could do that when she was anticipating his knock at every moment.
Once she’d combed her wet hair, she decided not to bother with shoes or socks. The flat’s cheap acrylic carpets weren’t the same as feeling the earth beneath her feet but it might help to anchor her as she tried to perform the spell. She needed all the help she could get. Winston and Grace had massively overestimated her ability. She’d have struggled to do this spell when she’d been doing spellwork regularly. To do it now, after seventeen years of not practising, would take a miracle.
Standing on tiptoes, she reached to the back of the top shelf of the wardrobe and pulled out a storage box decorated with purple flowers. Her stomach clenched. Too many memories were tied up in the contents. She took it through to the sitting room and put it on the floor next to the coffee table. Opening it, she took out the white cloth embroidered with pentagrams intertwined with flowers. Mum had given it her one Christmas. She’d not embroidered it herself, she wasn’t that talented with a needle. It’d been done by Eve Penbury, one of the other members of The Order. Jenna laid the cloth over the coffee table smoothing her hands over it to remove every wrinkle. Next, she took out incense and selected the smoky quartz crystals from the jumble at the bottom of the box.
Finally, she picked up the wand. This had been a birthday present when she was twelve, when both she and Mum continued to hope the spark might ignite and she’d grow into the same kind of power as Nina. It hadn’t happened. She’d gone through her early teenage years and the changes to her body hadn’t brought any change to her ability to do spellwork. Everything remained exactly as hard for her as it had been before and other things — history, music, boys— became more important and more interesting. By fifteen she’d packed all of that part of her life away as other girls packed away their dolls and concentrated on growing up. Only now she had to find a way back to the girl she’d been or there was no hope at all of this working.
The doorbell rang and she got up to answer it. It was good that he was back. He didn’t allow space for doubt. Increasingly that was one of the things she liked most about him.
She swung the door open. His eyes widened when he saw her and her hand went automatically to her wet hair. “Sorry. There wasn’t time to dry it.”
“No worries. I like it,” he said as he stepped inside. There wasn’t the grin that usually went with attempts to tease her. But he couldn’t possibly be serious. She looked terrible with wet hair.
He followed her through to the kitchen and dumped the carrier bag on the worktops. “I didn’t know if you wanted fresh or dried sage so I got both. But the dried only comes in tiny bits chopped up in a jar.”
“I think the fresh’ll be fine. Thanks for doing this.” She smiled at him as she took the items out of the bag. He leaned against the worktop, arms crossed as she stowed the milk in the fridge, washed and dried the mirror, filled a bowl with water and another with salt. She took them all over to the table and then bent to scan again the instructions in the grimoire.
“You look ready,” he said.
She folded her arms. “Appearances can be deceptive.”
“You’re going to be fine.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
“Because I’ve got faith in you.”
“You shouldn’t have.” Her gaze slid away from his. “You see, I’ve not done spellwork since I was fifteen.”
“What none?”
“Not really. Nothing serious.” She wasn’t going to tell him she’d messed about with a few love spells at university. They hadn’t worked which pretty much confirmed she’d no future as a spellworker.
“Hell, Jenna! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was trying to earlier.”
“You said you weren’t very good. Not that you’d not done any for seventeen years!”
“It was because I wasn’t very good that I gave it up.” Her hands landed on her hips. “There was no point keeping going if I was only ever going to be rubbish. I didn’t know someone was going to put a spell on me when I was thirty-two and I was going to need to do magic, did I?”
Winston pushed his hand through his hair and sank into the sofa. “God, Jenna! You don’t make things easy, do you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“In case you haven’t noticed I’m trying to help. Grace is trying to help. Even though you’ve not spoken to her for years, she still wants to help. And when I was on the phone, talking to her about the spell you’re going to do, at no point did you think to mention—”
“Because you assume that because Mum was brilliant, I must be too. Only I’m not. I’m just me.” Oh hell, she was going to cry. She couldn’t cry on him again. She bit down hard on her bottom lip and sank into the chair.
Silence spread between them, a painful, spiked silence. She wasn’t going to be the one to break it. He shouldn’t have lost his temper with her. She was only trying to be honest with him, trying to expla
in how this was going to be a colossal waste of time. Except it wasn’t only her time she was wasting, it was his and Grace’s.
Shit, he was bloody well right. She should have told him before.
She sniffed, the sound too loud in the quiet. “I’m sorry, I should have said something sooner. I’m—” it was hard to say the word as if speaking it aloud would admit its power “—scared, I guess.”
Winston raised an eyebrow. “An apology, Miss Henderson?”
She probably deserved that. She’d not made it easy for him when he’d apologised. “Yes.” Her chin came up. “But don’t enjoy it too much, Dr Grant.”
“Who says I’m enjoying it?”
“Aren’t you?”
“I want you safe.” He leaned forward, hands clasped between his knees. “That’s the most important thing. Then I want to chop the legs off whoever’s trying to do this to you.”
“Hands.” She managed a half-smile. “I’ve already told you. Chop their hands off.”
“I think both. To be on the safe side.” His fingers played with the leather thong at his wrist for a long moment before his gaze returned to hers. “Do you want to try the spell or is there no point?”
“I want to try.” She pushed a strand of damp hair back from her face. “If it doesn’t work then at least I’ll know I’ve tried everything.”
“Good girl.” It should have sounded patronising but it didn’t. “What do you want me to do?”
“Shut up while I meditate.”
***
She’d spent fifteen minutes sitting cross-legged on the floor with a lit candle in front of her. Initially he could feel the frustration and worry emanating from her but as the minutes passed, her breathing slowed and some of the tension left her face. As she opened her eyes and straightened her legs, he hastily raised The Orcadian and tried to pretend he’d been reading it all the time. He scanned a headline about students at Kirkwall Grammar, another about slow broadband on the islands and then the words ‘Flood at house in Stromness’ caught his gaze.
“The fire brigade were called to a house on Scapa Crescent on Friday 15th July when water backed up through the drains and flooded the downstairs of the property. The fire brigade were unable to ascertain the cause of the flooding and no other homes in the area were affected. No one was injured in the incident.”
“Jenna, have a look at this.” He folded the paper and handed it to her, pointing at the section.
“Oh God! That must be what Mrs Sutherland meant about all that’d gone on last week.”
“She can’t control her power. If we doubted it before, this is proof.”
“What she must be going through…” Jenna handed the newspaper back to him. “It must be terrifying trying to deal with all of this on her own.”
“She’s not rung you?”
“No, I’d have told you.” Jenna turned to gesture at the bowls, mirror, crystals and wand on the coffee table. “Am I the only one feeling nostalgic for when we’d only a storm witch to worry about?”
“No.” He risked a grin; fairly sure it’d wind her up. “But I think you might be procrastinating, Miss Henderson.”
“Only because I don’t want you to witness my abject failure.”
He stood and walked across the room. “I’ll be over here. Reading The Orcadian.” He slid to the floor next to the window and made a pantomime of shaking out the paper and holding it up.
“Good,” he heard her mutter. There was a long pause and he turned the pages looking for an article he was interested in. The good thing about The Orcadian — and he was fully aware of the irony that he was now prepared to admit there was a good thing — was that they reported the archaeological digs going on in other parts of the archipelago. Finding an article on the excavation on Westray, he started to read.
A sharp rasp was followed by the fizzle of a match. Seconds later, the distinctive scent of juniper floated over. He lowered the paper until he could peer over the top of it. Picking up the incense sticks, Jenna waved them around herself, over him and carried them around the perimeter of the room spending longer at the doors and windows.
Seated again by the table, she moved the candle and incense until they were precisely aligned with the bowls of water and salt. She pointed her wand at the white candle and murmured a few words. Nothing happened. She tried again. Still nothing. She fiddled with the bowls again, shifting them tiny amounts before moving them back. Closing her eyes, she repeated the words, pointing the wand at the candle. A tiny flame flickered on the wick, spluttered, died.
If she was struggling to light a candle then she was right, there was no way she’d be able to perform the protection spell. Could he help? If he did, he’d be breaking druid law. Again! His fingers fastened around his staff. It’d been hellish living without awen for six months. Rather like losing a limb must be. He’d wake up believing it was there, as if he could simply concentrate and connect to the inherent life force in all living things. Then the reality would hit and it’d be like losing it all over again. He’d not even weighed the risks when he’d told Amber about magic. He’d been young and idiotically in love. A blindingly stupid combination.
But he was neither of those things now and if he was going to do this, he’d think first. Sharing awen with spellworkers was forbidden. Was he going to risk that and say to hell with the consequences? Whatever they were. Cam and his other teachers had never been very specific about that. But they’d said very clearly that druids and spellworkers should never share energy.
Well, screw them! They’d have bent the bloody rules if they’d seen Zoe’s drawing and known someone they cared about a lot — now wasn’t the time to deny it —was in real danger. And who was going to haul him over the coals this time? The Order was gone. If a new one formed, they’d have bigger problems to deal with than what he did this evening.
Drawing awen into him, when Jenna spoke again the words to light the candle, he sent a thread of energy towards her. The candle flame glowed a bright, steady yellow. Jenna blew out a long breath. Behind the paper, Winston allowed himself a tiny smile.
Picking up the mirror, she passed it through the incense smoke and over the candle flame. “I purify and consecrate this tool of magic art.” She sprinkled it with water. “May it aid me and bless my work in a sacred manner.” After rubbing it with salt, she held it to her heart. Standing, she turned towards the corner of the room they’d earlier identified as east. Pointing the wand at the floor, she turned slowly deosil. “I conjure this circle as a sacred space, a place between the worlds where the worlds meet. Thrice do I conjure this circle as a safe space, a sacred place. So be it.” Frowning, she stopped, moved back to the start and repeated the words.
It was painful watching her struggle. If he wanted this ritual to work, he was going to have to do more than help her light a candle.
He tugged his staff from the leather thong and tapped it on the floor. When it regained its full size, he dropped the newspaper and stood. Two storeys up, through layers of brick and concrete, awen flowed slowly but it came, filling his veins, seeping into his bones.
Stepping forward he grabbed Jenna’s hand as she turned again to trace the circle a third time. Her eyes were huge as she met his gaze. “Take it. Take awen from me.”
She pulled away. “What? We can’t—”
So spellworkers were taught the rules too. He’d not thought of that. Not expected her to say no. “No one will ever know.”
“But—”
He pressed his hand on her breastbone. Let awen flow from him into her. “Feel it. Just feel it.”
“That’s incredible but—”
Her heartbeat was slowing, the tension melting away. “Can you use it?”
“I think so.”
“Then do it.”
“If I get banned from spellwork it’s all your fault, Winston Grant.” But her hand covered his where it was pressed to her chest. He turned it, let their fingers intertwine. He pushed awen through the connection. His sk
in tingled where they touched. Her eyes widened. Such beautiful eyes; the blue of Scottish summer skies.
She nodded and he knew she was ready to try again to cast the circle. Holding his hand, Jenna stepped to the east and recited the words to call the element of air. At each compass point she did the same, calling on fire, earth and water. He felt the elements respond to her; the waft of air, the heat of fire, the solidity of earth, the fluidity of water. Each present and ready to do her bidding.
Jenna kneeled and he moved with her. She closed her eyes and grasped his hand tighter. Her breathing slowed and as it did, his own became deeper. His eyes flickered closed, yet the awareness of her proximity strengthened. A wave of energy emanated from her, pulsing outwards. It faltered and she sighed. Drawing deeper, he sent more awen to her. Felt the tingle where they touched increase until it was an uncomfortable prickle across his skin. The energy pushed out again, surrounding both of them. Would it hold? The air changed, became charged with magic as she completed the circle. Goosebumps rose on his skin.
Picking up the mirror she held it to her heart and said, “With this tool of light and truth I send back the spell that is directed at me. Let all evil intent return to its sender and may they see the truth of their actions and thoughts. I work this spell three times three. So be it.”
She repeated the words twice more, her voice strengthening each time. She passed the mirror three times over the candle and then laid it on the table.
Had the spell worked? He couldn’t tell. This was magic, he couldn’t follow; magic that went beyond energy and had a power he couldn’t fathom.
Silence enfolded them. The noises of the road below were banished, the tick of the clock muffled. They were wrapped in a space that contained only them. A peacefulness spread with it. Only her hand in his, the softness of her skin, the fragility of her bones and the anchor of his staff held him. Awen slowed to a trickle, a tiny pulse connecting them. Long, long moments later, Jenna stood and moved widdershins around the circle, closing the energy as Nina had taught her.
