“So, you’ve been learning magic from this man?” Beth asked slowly, and her tone made Rhiannon feel like she’d been doing something wrong.
“He’s not a man, not really,” her daughter stammered. “I mean, well, I guess he’s nineteen or twenty...” she trailed off.
“And does Debbie know that her older brother is meeting up with her young, teenage friend for magic lessons?” Beth continued, and the emphasis she placed on the words made Rhiannon feel dirty and ashamed, and judged, despite her mother’s assurances to the contrary.
A blush stained her cheeks. “Well, he said the working would have more power if it was our secret, that it would contain the energy we raise in a purer form,” she insisted, but even as she spoke the words, she began to doubt him, to doubt herself. And as it became clear just why he had sworn her to secrecy, she felt like an even bigger idiot.
She’d believed him, that talking about the spell with others would dilute its effectiveness. But now it was dawning on her that he’d just wanted to take advantage of her, and not let her have any allies, anyone who would question him or encourage her not to go through with it, not to trust him. She’d been so distraught, so focused on her mum and the spell she wanted to weave to make her well, that she hadn’t thought of anything outside of that.
Suddenly she looked up sharply at her mother. “How did you even know where I was?” she asked, and the look of anger on her mum’s face made her quail before her.
“You mean, because you told me you were staying the night at Debbie’s?”
Rhiannon shrugged her shoulders, her gaze slipping to the mug of hot chocolate in her hand, unable to meet her mother’s eyes. Embarrassment swept over her, that she’d been caught out lying, yet she desperately wanted to know how Beth had known where she was, and that she needed saving.
“Debbie came over to borrow your history notes,” Beth revealed, and Rhiannon cursed herself for her foolishness. Clearly saying she was with Debbie when she was actually with her brother was stupid – she should have said she was staying at Sue’s, and let Sue know about it. Now she’d be in even more trouble – sneaking out with a boy and lying about it, lying about her friend, and Debbie knowing she’d lied about her too.
Trembling inside, she finally lifted her eyes to her mother’s face. She still looked angry, but Rhiannon had to know everything now. “What did you tell her?”
“I told her that you were out with your dad, so she didn’t know you’d used her,” Beth snapped, and Rhiannon felt tears well, of gratitude but also of shame. Disappointing her mum, especially now, was the last thing she wanted to do.
“Honey, I’m not angry at you, I’m angry at him. And I’m trying to understand,” Beth said, and this time her voice was gentle. “What were you doing out in the woods? And why did you have no clothes on?”
“He told me that I had to come naked to the circle within the woods, so I was pure enough that I could draw down the goddess and borrow her power for the spell,” she muttered, her earlier defiance fading away. “And that I had to do everything he asked of me, no questions asked, in order to please the gods and achieve my goal.”
As she spoke she realised how ridiculous it sounded, how naive she’d been. Tears began to fall, and Beth reached over to take her daughter’s hand and offer what comfort she could. But nothing could erase the mortification in Rhiannon’s eyes.
“How could I be so stupid?” she cried, the force of her words making the hot chocolate spill out of her cup and on to her mum’s coat. “Oh god, I’m so sorry!” Clumsily she tried to mop it up, but Beth’s hand touched hers again, stilling her.
“Darling, the coat doesn’t matter. I’m just scared for you, that you would trust some older guy and play into his hands like this. You’ve been to a couple of Rose’s rituals with me, you know that when you’re working magic with others you should only ever do something you feel totally comfortable with, and that anyone demanding that you be naked and submit to their will is not a genuine practitioner. My goddess, I want to find this man and rip his heart out, that he could prey on a young girl like this.”
“I’m not that young,” Rhiannon snapped, trying for defiance again. She pushed her shoulders back and sat up straight in an attempt to regain some of her own power, her own confidence, but she couldn’t convince herself, and at a sharp look from her mother, she slumped back into her chair.
“You’ve just turned sixteen Rhiannon,” Beth said sternly, and her daughter quailed at the use of her name. That always meant she was in trouble.
“I know that you feel grown up, that you’re testing your boundaries and wanting to experiment and experience new things, but being naked in the woods in the middle of the night, all alone with a man who is clearly using the promise of helping you with magic as a way to make you vulnerable, is not going to teach you anything useful. He wanted to have sex with you, and how could you have fought him off all on your own?”
Rhiannon blushed scarlet. She hadn’t fought him off, she’d been frozen, unable to move or do anything to get away, but she couldn’t bear for anyone to know that. “Mum, it wasn’t like that, I promise. He just wanted to help me help you,” she implored, trying hard to believe that what he had done to her was part of the spell, and still had to be protected.
But with a shiver of fear she remembered the feeling of his hands on her body. And the chapter on sex magic he’d made her memorise. And the overtly sexual comments he’d made about her and others. And his promise to “initiate” her into magic. She was embarrassed to have to admit that she’d felt flattered by his attention, and all grown up – for once not the girl with the dying mum, but the girl with the power to save her mum.
Beth placed her mug back on the table with shaking hands. “Oh honey, it’s not your fault. He took advantage of you, he knew how to flatter you to gain your trust. And magic is a powerful force, an intimate force, and it’s easy to confuse the sense of connection you share with those you work magic with for a relationship of sorts. Did it really feel like one of Rose’s circles when you worked with him?”
Shaking her head, Rhiannon stared morosely into her empty cup. How could she have confused the two? And how had her mother known that she needed saving, let alone where she was?
“It’s a mother’s intuition I suppose,” Beth said quietly, startling her daughter, that she could read her thoughts.
“Seeing Debbie on the doorstep had me worried, since you were supposed to be at her place, so I meditated a little and took a chance that the vision I saw was a true one. But it was just luck that you’d left a trail between the trees that I could sense, and that Debbie came when she did, because goddess knows what would have happened if I’d been any later.”
Rhiannon shuddered. She’d been late enough.
“It sounds like he’s a smooth talker, and knew exactly how to make you feel comfortable with him, enough to reveal what you wanted so that he could pretend he could give it to you,” Beth continued, and Rhiannon felt a deep unease that her mother seemed to be able to see into her mind.
“But darling, no one can do that. There is no spell to heal me – don’t you think Rose would have already cast it if that was possible? That I would have?”
Rhiannon nodded, kicking herself that she hadn’t realised even that simple truth. How could she have possibly thought that a teenage girl just learning magic would be able to do what even long-time priestess Rose Tyler could not?
“It’s just my time honey, or it will be soon, and we all need to accept it,” Beth said, heart breaking as she saw the fear and the grief etched so starkly in her daughter’s face.
“I can’t accept it,” Rhiannon whispered, her voice cracked with pain, her eyes deep pools of hurt.
“Well, we need to face it, even if we can’t accept it,” her mother said sternly. “And I need to know that you’re going to be okay without me, that you will make wiser choices than you did tonight, because I won’t be around to save you next time.”
The cafe owner came over then with fresh mugs of hot chocolate for them, and Beth took hers from Kylie gratefully, her thin hands curling around the cup as she tried to warm herself. She wondered if her now-constant chill was a presentiment, a sign that death was fast approaching and the grave was calling for her. Railing at destiny and fate, she tried to pull herself back together, to be strong for her daughter. But her wander through the trees on such a cold night had really taken it out of her, and for a moment she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to stand up from this comfortable chair by the fire and walk out into the sudden, unseasonable storm to get home.
It made her want to scream and shake her fists at the gods, to broker any deal with any devil to be granted just a little more time – time to see her beautiful daughter grow up. Right now their teenage girl was poised on the cusp of womanhood, and Beth was scared for her, and scared for her husband Mike too. He was a wonderful father, a wonderful man, but perhaps too soft and compassionate, too endlessly patient, to set any boundaries for their perfect yet precocious daughter. She didn’t have the same fears for their son Brodie, knowing he was young enough to accept and adapt to the approaching splintering of their family. But her daughter…
As Beth’s thoughts swirled, Rhiannon stopped obsessing over her own failings and really looked at her mother. She’d been trying to avoid that for the last few weeks, had thought she seemed fine. But as she peered at her across the table, she wondered how on earth she’d managed not to see the gaunt cheeks and sunken eyes, the grey tinge to her skin, the extreme fragility of her bones, and the skin pulled so tightly over them.
Was it the shock of her own situation and her narrow escape from it tonight that was making her so horrifyingly aware that her mum was wasting away before their very eyes? Making her even more afraid that she would soon leave them? How would she, her brother and their dad survive without her? Beth was the warm centre of their family, the glue that stuck them together, and Rhiannon doubted her own ability to step up, let alone her little brother and their father Mike’s, to keep the family together.
It had shaken them all when Beth had gone to the doctor four months ago to get a migraine prescription, and mentioned in passing that she’d been feeling more tired than usual. All she’d expected was a lecture on her sleep patterns, instructions to meditate, and perhaps some iron and B12 supplements. Instead a routine blood test had seen her rushed off to hospital to undergo a gruelling round of chemotherapy, which had ravaged her body and broken her spirit.
But after six weeks of chemo sickness, she had rallied. Her doctor declared the treatment a success, and Beth looked and felt much better. They’d all headed to Scotland at the beginning of the summer holidays, and the sunshine, break from work, relaxation and family time seemed to have been just the tonic Beth needed. They’d all breathed a sigh of relief, and thought her illness was something they could put behind them.
Until four weeks ago, when the new school year had gotten underway, and Beth collapsed on her first day back at work. This time the treatment didn’t work, although it had still ravaged her increasingly frail body, and she’d been sent home with medication to make her more comfortable, but little hope of being alive by Christmas.
The fierce warrior in Beth refused to accept it though, and she’d tried everything over the past month – from the herbal potions Rose brewed for her to acupuncture, reiki, a raw food diet and dozens of other supposed miracle cures people recommended – because she was desperate to survive for her children’s sake. And she’d done a spectacular job of reassuring her kids and her husband that she was on the mend. Her skin was rosier, her body filled out, her attitude far more positive, and she’d promised she was getting better. But as Rhiannon gazed at her mother now, she suddenly wasn’t so sure.
“You said after you saw the doctor this week that all your test results were better, and you were starting to improve, but that was a lie, wasn’t it?” she demanded, while praying her mum would deny it.
Beth gazed at her serenely, managing with a great act of will to maintain a cheerful expression, before she slowly let out a breath and allowed her shoulders to slump, instantly looking older, sicker and even more gaunt than she had moments before. Rhiannon gasped, and Beth managed a tired smile.
“A simple glamour,” she whispered. “Just a small trick, so that I didn’t scare you and Brodie with my illness-ravaged body, and I didn’t upset Mike even more than I already have.”
For a moment she looked as though she would dissolve into tears, but Beth was clearly more practised in the art of magic than her daughter had known. A blush of colour returned to her cheeks, then they filled out again, and her air of reasonable health returned.
“I’m scared honey, scared that your dad will fall apart without me,” she confessed. “How can I leave you all?”
Rhiannon leaned across the table and gently took her hand. “Oh Mum, please don’t waste your energy on this! You need to be letting your body heal, not pushing it past its limits just to make it easier for us. Besides, you have been looking better, and that naturopath said her tonics would start to kick in now, and their effect will increase week by week, so I know you’re going to be all right. You will get better, if you let yourself. If you stop wasting precious energy on glamours, whatever they are.”
Beth smiled, and squeezed her daughter’s hand. “You’re right, of course,” she said meekly. “And thank you my darling, you’ve been so strong, which is a huge help to me. Brodie is lucky to have you, and so am I.”
Kylie walked over to them to ask if they needed anything else, but Beth shook her head as she thanked her. “We should be getting home, because it is a school night after all,” she replied, with a pointed look at Rhiannon. “But thank you so much, you know how much I love your hot chocolate.”
The cafe owner leaned over and helped Beth stand up, disguising it as a friendly hug, and Rhiannon smoothed her mother’s coat over her hips and thanked Kylie for the drinks, before putting an arm around her mother’s shoulder and walking with her out into the chilly night. Desperate to distract herself from the present, from reality, Rhiannon turned to her mum.
“Tell me again about when you and Dad fell in love…”
Chapter 3
Making Friends and Falling Hard
Beth... Twenty years ago...
The tall blonde woman stood alone, gazing out the window, lost in her own little world. There was an air of melancholy clinging to her, and a shred of anger radiating from her, that kept the other guests from approaching her. She’d known the people milling around her family’s formal lounge room all her life, and she was not in the mood for any of the usual cheek pinching and “my you’ve grown up since last time I saw you” cliches she knew she would be subjected to.
It burned her with a cool rage that she even had to be here. Two years ago she’d left this small English town, and her narrow-minded, money-loving parents, determined to escape their influence and find out who she was when she was out of the shadow of her perfect sister Jennifer, and no longer under the control of her cold, cruel and brittle mother Patricia.
A year spent working and studying in London straight out of school had allowed her to spread her wings, but her heart had really opened up, and she’d discovered new aspects of herself, when she’d moved to France. She’d travelled around the country for months, from glamorous beaches to ancient forests and sacred standing stones, from the tiniest villages to the bright lights of Paris, the City of Love, learning the language, making exciting new friends, and soaking up the culture and the history of this fascinating country. Her time there had given her new confidence, revealed her independent streak, and helped her glimpse the potential she had within her.
So the swell of boring conversation around her, delivered in boring accents by boring people over boring food, had her gritting her teeth in frustration and longing for escape. She’d loved the job she’d found six months ago, as nanny and English tutor for a chic Parisian couple and their two ch
erubic young daughters. Why had she put that on hold to come home?
Cursing herself again for her stupidity in caving in to her mother’s demands, she paused mid mental mind lashing, then froze as she sensed said nemesis approaching. Jaw clenched, she turned to face her, steeling herself for another lecture about what a disappointment she was, how much worse her attitude had become, and why she must definitely not embarrass her father at this most important social gathering.
“Elizabeth, darling,” Patricia said, the fake smile on her face doing nothing to distract from the fierce chill in her eyes. “I thought you were going to wear the beige dress,” she hissed, and Beth felt a sliver of satisfaction at her tiny effort at rebellion.
“Sorry Mother, I thought the pearls you insisted I wear went better with the black dress,” she replied, voice as insincere as the smile she pasted across her own face. Her amusement died quickly though, in the wake of the older woman’s scornful expression, and she wondered why she bothered.
Her moments of defiance never gained her anything, and she felt the oppressive weight of family expectations closing in on her again. In Paris she had been herself, had been free, but all that was gone now. Across the room her older sister laughed, and Beth shrank back into herself, her carefully constructed independence and sense of self falling from her as the guests swooned over perfect Jennifer.
Why her parents persisted in trying to mould her into their image of the ultimate daughter she had no idea – her sister was everything they’d ever wanted in a child. Couldn’t she be enough for them? Jenny had just graduated from university with honours, and topped her year, but even more importantly, to their mother at least, she was about to marry the perfect son-in-law, and would no doubt soon produce the perfect grandchildren, at the perfect time no less.
Into the Storm: Into the Storm Trilogy Book One Page 2
