by T J Green
Avery sat next to Alex who had stretched out on the sofa, while Reuben looked out of the window, and Nate disappeared through the door to the side. El went to find painkillers.
“How are you?” Avery asked softly, her voice low.
Alex squinted, his eyes creased with pain. “I’ve been better.”
“You should stop communing with spirits, then.”
“He started it,” Alex muttered.
El came over with a glass of water and some paracetamol. “Here you go. Nate’s in the back fixing you up something a little more potent.”
Alex groaned, sat up, knocked back the pills and some water, and immediately lay down again.
“Is he making a potion?” Avery asked.
El nodded, folding herself gracefully onto the floor, her legs crossed. “I believe so. He has a recipe for something that worked wonders for his mother.” She nodded towards the back of the room. “Eve’s spell room is back there, beyond her bedroom.”
At that point they heard the kettle boil, and Eve came to join them, carrying a huge tray filled with mugs, a teapot, and a coffee pot. She placed everything on a worn wooden coffee table and sat next to El on the colourful rug on the floor.
“I wasn’t sure what everyone wanted, so I made everything. And I‘ve got biscuits.”
She opened a packet of cookies and offered them around, before sorting out their drinks.
“Awesome,” Reuben said, taking a handful of biscuits. “My blood sugar was dangerously low.”
“You are a wonder woman,” Avery declared, reaching forward to take a mug of coffee. “Thank you. It’s great we didn’t have to drive straight home.”
“No problem. It’s good to finally have a chance to talk to you properly.” She grinned and looked at the others. “And to meet some more of the famous White Haven witches.”
Reuben let out a short, barking laugh and sat on the other sofa, stretching out his long legs. “That’s funny. Don’t you mean infamous?”
“Maybe that would be a better word,” Eve said, laughing for a moment before becoming serious again. “We live in strange times, though, so it’s good to finally meet you. I’m worried about what your friend said.” She nodded at Alex.
“Me, too,” he agreed, groaning. “I don’t think we’re enemy number one anymore.”
“Wait until Nate is back with his miracle cure, and then we’ll talk more,” Eve said. She made herself more comfortable and took a sip of her tea. “Instead, you can tell me about what you all get up to on the south coast.”
For the next ten minutes they chatted idly about what they did, and then Eve explained about her work. “I do watercolours mainly, and exhibit in a few places about the town and in various shops. I rent this place long-term. I love it, the light’s fantastic.”
“And what about Nate?” El asked. “Is he an artist, too?”
“Yes, but he sculpts in metal mainly. He has a place across town.”
“So, are you two…?” Reuben asked, meaningfully.
Eve laughed. “No. He has a girlfriend, and I’m between boyfriends right now.”
“Are there any other witches in St Ives?” El asked.
Eve shook her head sadly. “No. There were three of us, but Ruth left town years ago. Neither of us are originally from here. Nate’s from Newcastle, but moved down here in his early teens with his mother. She married a local after Nate’s dad died when he was only a child. His step-father died, too. Nate’s mother was a powerful Seer, but she passed away last year after a sudden illness. My family is originally from Glastonbury way, but I moved here on my own. St Ives is the next best place to Glastonbury, in my opinion.”
Eve looked a little sad as she said that, but didn’t elaborate, and Avery wondered if there was some reason she’d had to leave Glastonbury. Or some reason she wanted to.
They were interrupted then by Nate, who came out of the back room carrying a steaming cup of something fragrant. He knelt next to Alex, who was still lying down, his eyes closed.
“All right, mate. Sit up. I have something for you that’ll sort you right out.”
Alex squinted at him, and slowly sat up. “I’ll believe it when it works.”
“It’ll work all right,” he said, passing him the small, steaming cup.
Alex took a tentative sip and grimaced.
“What is that?” Avery asked, inhaling deeply. “It smells delicious, just like summer.”
“I can assure you it does not taste like that,” Alex said, wrinkling his face in distaste.
“Interesting you think that,” Nate said, addressing Avery and ignoring Alex. “It’s called Summer Lightning. It’s been fine-tuned for centuries.”
“You should share that with Briar. She’s our healer—she’d love it.”
“Sure. I don’t jealously guard my spells like some,” Nate said evenly.
“Are you a Seer, like your mother?” El asked him.
He shook his head. “No. That has skipped my generation. Probably a blessing.” He looked at Alex. “It’s not easy to bear. Especially when your Sight wakes fully.”
Alex looked at him. “What do you mean, wakes fully?”
“Yours is just starting, mate. I can tell. The Sight can lie dormant for years, or just turns on and off in fits and starts. But then, for some, something triggers it, and when that happens, it’s a battle to stop it.”
Avery felt a thread of worry start to run through her, and Alex stopped drinking his potion and looked at her, and then back to Nate. “You mean these things will start to happen more often?”
“Have they been more often lately?”
“I guess so,” Alex said thoughtfully.
“I thought so. I can tell. Maybe it’s the tail end of my mother’s sense. Things might get rough for a while. You’ll need to learn to close it off.”
“I will?”
“Unless you want to go nuts,” Nate said. “Which, I presume, you don’t.”
“Great. Just great,” Alex said, and forced himself to take another sip. “Any tips?”
“I may have a few,” he said. “When you feel better, we can talk some more.”
Avery liked Nate and Eve. They were friendly and down to earth, and didn’t seem to harbour any resentment towards any of them, despite the fact that they had released a cloud of powerful magic and caused some degree of havoc across Cornwall. She felt she knew Eve a little from their brief meetings at the Council, but despite knowing a little bit about Nate from Eve, he still seemed a mystery. He’d shed his leather jacket, revealing an old New Model Army t-shirt full of holes, and up close she could see a slight singeing to his jeans. Sparks from fire for his sculpting, she presumed. He wasn’t aloof at all, but she couldn’t read him as well as Eve.
“And what about you, Nate? What’s your strength?” Avery asked, looking at him curiously.
He fixed his light brown eyes on her. “Fire, which makes sculpting easier, and telekinesis, of all things. And of course, potions.”
There was a brief second of silence in which even Reuben stopped crunching. “Telekinesis?”
Nate nodded. “I barely have to think it, and…” He held his hand out towards the collection of brushes on a nearby table, and in seconds they had lifted into the air, whizzed across the room, and landed in his outstretched hand.
Reuben swallowed loudly. “Wow. It takes a lot of effort for me to do that.”
“I have to summon air to do that,” Avery said, agreeing with Reuben.
Nate shrugged and looked mildly embarrassed. “What can I say? It’s a gift.”
“Impressive.” El turned to Eve. “And what about you?”
Eve’s expression was bright and slightly mischievous. “I’m a weather witch. Of course, I have elemental powers, but they combine to manipulate weather particularly well. However, I don’t do that often. It plays havoc everywhere.” She gestured to the artwork spread around the room, and Avery suddenly realised why all of her artwork was of stormy landscapes.
/> Avery had never met a weather witch. It took great control to manipulate huge systems of water, wind, and fire, and weather was a combination of all those things, particularly storms. The chance that they could get out of control was magnified on a huge scale.
“Wanna do swapsies?” Alex asked, still grimacing from a combination of the potion and his lingering headache.
“No, thanks. The Sight does not appeal to me.”
Mention of the Sight reminded Avery of something the Nephilim had said. “Alex, the spirit said the Children of Llyr have arrived. They must know Mermaids are here, on land.”
He nodded. “I don’t know how they know, though.”
“It must be like Briar said—the earth trembles because they’re here. Maybe they sense that.”
“Maybe,” Nate said, “the earth trembles because the Nephilim are here.”
“True,” Avery admitted. “Eve, if needed, is your magic strong enough to drive the Mermaids back to sea? Especially combined with Reuben’s ability to manipulate water?”
Eve gazed into her cup and swirled her tea around, releasing steam and scents of cardamom and ginger, before she finally looked up. “I doubt it. While the weather can influence tides and obviously waves during storms, I’m not sure how effective it would be against Mermaids. The water is their strength, their habitat, not ours. It would probably be best to fight them on land. An earth witch would have greater power there.”
“Maybe. We just know so little about them. It’s infuriating!” Avery exclaimed, feeling hopeless all over again.
Nate frowned. “Are you sure they’re on land? How do you know?”
“Well, Oswald said Ulysses could tell in Mevagissey. And then this morning, we found out that three fishermen disappeared overnight, and their empty boat was found drifting this morning. Reuben traced Mermaids to the Devil’s Canyon, a small cove outside White Haven. We’re pretty sure they’re now in the town. We need to find a way to identify them, before any more men disappear.”
“You should speak to Ulysses about that,” Eve said.
“Really? Why’s that? Is he a Mermaid detector?” Reuben asked.
Nate looked at Eve as if weighing whether to tell them something, and then said, “Rumours are that Ulysses has Mermaid blood inside him.”
Avery almost dropped her mug in shock. “What? How does that happen?”
“Oswald doesn’t talk about it, and neither does Ulysses. But those are the rumours. And if you’d ever met him, you’d know why.”
“Has he got scales or something?” Reuben asked, only half joking.
Nate shook his head. “I’m saying nothing. It will be a surprise.”
“Okay,” Avery said, wearily. “One more thing to add to my list. I presume you aren’t worried about Mermaids in St Ives?”
Nate shook his head. “No. But we’re not the ones with a big cloud of magic over us. Maybe it’s just the south coast of Cornwall that will be affected.” He looked at Alex. “Apart from the warning, what else did the Nephilim say? What was the general tone?”
Alex thought for a second. “I can only guess that the blood on the capstone must have triggered it. As soon as I touched it, I felt an intense flood of emotions. I immediately connected to the spirit I linked with last time. I recognised him straightaway, and he knew me.” He hesitated and then said, “I think that he had no control over our linking, either. It seemed to me there was a few seconds when he didn’t register that I was there at all and his feelings were unguarded. I could see through his eyes, too. He was somewhere dark and damp, and there was a smell around him that I couldn’t quite place. I sensed his joy at being released, but also anger and fear. I guess the fear is from us, and the fact that they know we are looking for them, but also there was anger about the Mermaids. Anyway, the connection was short but intense. As soon as it recognised me, I could feel him mentally trying to shake me, and he warned me to stay away. The more I think about it, actually,” he mused, “the more I realise how much he was thinking about Mermaids. His thoughts were full of them.”
El frowned. “That’s pretty scary, Alex, that you could connect so strongly.”
“I know. Anyway, the shock was huge for both of us, but after a few seconds he was able to cut it. After warning me to back off.”
“I think that you should be able to connect again,” Nate said. “If you want to.”
“I’m not sure I do,” Alex said, finally draining his cup. “What do the Nephilim have against the Children of Llyr?”
Avery’s grin broadened as a realisation hit her. “The Flood, of course, when the seas rose across the land, wiping the Nephilim from existence. God wanted to eradicate them and used Llyr to do it. I guess that’s a pretty big score to settle.”
18
When they arrived back in White Haven, Avery left Alex at his flat where he was heading for an early night. Nate’s potion seemed to be working, but the psychic link with the Nephilim had left him drained.
As soon as she entered her own flat, she smelled smoke and violets. Helena. She looked around, wondering if she’d manifest, but other than her smell, there was no evidence of her. Avery wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. She’d warded her bedroom against her presence, but otherwise, Helena was free to drift in and out as she pleased. She knew it was odd, especially as Helena had tried to kill her, but she couldn’t bring herself to banish her completely. She was connected to her. She was family, after all.
Avery flung open the door and windows, letting the cool evening breeze drift through the rooms in an attempt to get rid of Helena’s scent. Circe and Medea were pleased to see her, and rubbed against her ankles affectionately. She rubbed their silky heads and headed to the kitchen to feed them, before curling up on the sofa in the attic with a collection of books on history and myths and legends. She intended to gather every bit of information she could on the Nephilim and the Children of Llyr.
She’d only been reading for an hour or so when her lamps flickered, the music she’d been listening to stopped, and the scent of violets returned, and Helena manifested abruptly in front of her. She was wrapped in her dark cloak, a peek of her long dress beneath, and her dark hair flowed down her back and over her shoulders. She was not as solid as she had appeared beneath All Souls, and Avery could see through her to the room behind. Nevertheless, Helena’s intense stare was unnerving; the narrowed glare of furious dark eyes that had seen who knows what in the spirit world.
Avery met her gaze, refusing to flinch. “Helena. Nice of you to stop by. Can I help you?”
It was ridiculous to speak to her; Avery knew she couldn’t answer, but what else should she do? She couldn’t just ignore her.
Helena’s gaze was imperious and slightly resentful. It seemed she hadn’t forgiven Avery for regaining control of her body, and Avery had no intention of letting her in again. Her eyes fell to Avery’s neck and the amulet that El had made her recently, to protect against spirits. She drew her lips back in a snarl.
“Calm down, Helena. This isn’t meant for you. What do you want?”
Helena pointed to the table where the grimoires lay. Immediately her grimoire, the original, flipped open and the pages turned rapidly, fluttering like wings before they finally stopped. Helena turned to Avery, hands on her hips.
Intriguing.
“All right. I’ll bite,” Avery said, unfolding from beneath the papers and heading to the grimoire. Helena hovered behind her left shoulder as Avery conjured a witch light.
The spell in front of her was old, located towards the beginning of the book. This meant it was probably written in the 14th century. The writing was cramped, the language difficult and archaic, and the illustrations obscure. And there, revealed by the witch light, was an image of a Mermaid perched on a rock. She had a beautiful face surrounded by long, flowing hair, and her long fishtail was coiled around her, detailed with tiny scales, but her smile was filled with razor-sharp teeth.
Avery gasped. A spell about Mermaids. She
turned around to see Helena’s predatory smile spread across her face. “Thank you, Helena.” But Helena was already vanishing, leaving just a trace of violets behind.
Avery tried to decipher the spell’s writing. The title said Geyppan Merewif. She turned to the shelf behind her, fingers grazing the reference books until she found the one she wanted, an Old English Dictionary. A few minutes of searching found the meaning. It meant essentially, “To Expose the Water Witch.”
Avery grinned. A spell to reveal a Mermaid. If they couldn’t banish them, at least they could see them, and that was a start. She pulled the grimoire towards her, grabbed a pen and started to translate the spell.
***
The next morning, despite only a couple of hours’ sleep, Avery bounced into Happenstance Books. It had taken hours, but she had finally deciphered the arcane spell, and now she had a way to reveal the Mermaids. She needed to speak to Briar for help with some of the herbs.
She brewed a strong coffee and then walked around her shop, renewing protection spells, and the spell to help visitors find that special book, lit incense, and generally stoked the magic, so that by the time Dan arrived, the place hummed with energy.
Dan loped in through the front door, wearing his university t-shirt and jeans, and a messenger bag slung over his shoulder. He looked around the shop and then at her with narrowed eyes. “You must have had a good Sunday.”
“I had an excellent Sunday, thank you. Did you?”
“Pretty good—pub lunch, a walk along the beach, played some football. But enough about me,” he said, setting his bag down on the counter by the till. “What have you been up to?”
“I’ve been researching Mermaids, and have had a little success. I might actually have a way to identify them now.” She looked at him speculatively. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen any new women around town, have you?”
