by R. M. Walker
Lily took it from him with a quiet thanks. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to go back there and get her bag. She couldn’t face them so soon. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to face them again.
“Have you been swimming?” he asked, pushing his hands into his trouser pockets. His head was slightly tilted and it reminded her of Nate. Nate with his parlour tricks.
“Yes, I, um, earlier in the quarry.” She touched her still wet hair with a shaky hand. It seemed like years ago. They’d looked after her then. How could they look after her so well and then do something so cruel? Fresh tears started to roll down her face, and he grunted. She buried her face in his handkerchief.
“Lily, you have no coat on and no bag with you. Are you in trouble? Is someone trying to hurt you?”
“No. I…” Lily looked up to see him pulling out his phone.
“Do you need me to call the police, Lily?”
“No!” His words shocked her into trying to pull herself together. She was worrying him and that wasn’t fair. “No, I’m fine. Honestly, I just had an argument with someone, and now I’m lost.”
“Let me take you home,” he said gently. He held his hands towards her, palms up as if telling her he wouldn’t hurt her. She took a deep breath and looked back the way she’d come, but there was no sign of them, and it just made the pain even worse. She looked back at him and nodded once. His face broke into a gentle smile, and he turned sideways, indicating his car with his hand outstretched.
“I’m Drew, by the way.” He took her elbow in a gentle touch, and then checked both ways before drawing her across the road quickly. He took her around to the passenger side and held the door open for her.
She sank into the comfortable seat, clicking her seat belt into place. He shut the door, and it sank in what she had done. She had just done what sensible people never did. Get into a stranger’s car.
He ran around the back of the car and slid into his seat. Her hand went to the clip, but he shut his door and pulled out into the road quickly.
“I know you’re Lily,” he said calmly. He hadn’t put his own belt on, but she said nothing, just stared straight ahead, her heartbeat going a million beats a minute.
“I heard your mum call you Lily last night,” he said conversationally as he manoeuvred the car into the outside lane for the roundabout coming up. She searched for road signs and saw that they were headed for Trenance; a measure of relief filled her. “I didn’t want to call out to you in case I scared you,” he said softly.
His words sank in, and she looked at him, his handkerchief still bunched in her fingers. “Was that you last night smoking?” she asked, feeling more secure.
He winced and nodded. “Yes, I’m renting the place and there’s a no smoking policy inside. It’s a terrible habit, one I should kick really. I hope you don’t smoke, Lily.”
She shook her head, her nerves receding the closer they got to the village. She was feeling wrung out, exhausted, she just wanted to go home. To lick her wounds in peace, to kick herself for believing in a friendship that never was.
“Good for you. Don’t start,” he said.
“Are you looking to move here then?” she asked, trying to keep her voice level. She didn’t want him asking questions about what had happened. He didn’t need to know how much of an idiot she’d been.
“No. I’m a history professor on a sabbatical. I’m researching the Cornish history of smuggling for a book. Trenance is the next village on my trip around the coastline. There are caves that smugglers used extensively along the shoreline.”
“Matt was telling—” She ground to a halt when it just dragged her mind back to Matt and the others.
“Matt?” he asked quietly. “Is that who you were arguing with? Your boyfriend?”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” she replied softly, turning her head to stare out of the windows. The houses were getting further and further apart as they headed out of town.
“Then he’s a fool to not have snapped you up.” He spoke lightly, but it sent a ripple of tension down her spine.
“I don’t know him very well,” she murmured. “We only moved in recently.” Something she should be reminding herself of more frequently.
“Ah, so you’re not a native.” He chuckled, his eyes on the rear-view mirror. She turned to look behind her, but the winding country lanes made it difficult to see if anyone was behind them. But she had no reason to think they’d follow her. “Where are you from?” he asked, bringing her attention back to him.
“I was born in Glastonbury, but I’ve moved around a lot.”
“Ah, Glastonbury: home to the Isle of Avalon, Chalice Hill and the Chalice Well, Druids and New Age mysticism. Very famous,” he murmured happily, as if it was a place he knew well and loved.
“You forgot the festival.” As far as Lily knew that was what Glastonbury was most famous for.
“You’re talking to a historian,” he said with a snort. “I’m a ninety-year-old trapped in the body of a thirty something. I’m old before my time and history gets me more excited than a sweaty, heaving, pot fuelled weekend ever could. And, yes, I do realise how sad that sounds.” He chuckled. “Have you ever been to one of the festivals?”
“I have epilepsy.” She rubbed her eyes. She was completely drained, her emotions all over the place still and it made her tongue loose. “I don’t have photosensitive epilepsy, but Mum thinks it best I don’t go anywhere that might cause a seizure.”
“Really?” He looked at her sideways quickly, before concentrating on the road again. “That’s a shame,” he murmured. “Is that why you were arguing with your friend? Does he not understand?”
Lily kept quiet and just shrugged. The heating was on a low setting, and it was beginning to make her feel sleepy. She could smell sandalwood and something else; it reminded her of health food stores. She closed her eyes, feeling more peaceful.
“What’s troubling you, Lily?” His voice was low and soothing to her stressed mind.
“Just some people aren’t what they seem, I guess,” she murmured and stifled a yawn, her eyes watching the passing hedges without really seeing them.
“Yeah, that’s the truth.” He slowed right down as they came up behind a tractor. It was taking up most of the road, and there were no places to pass just yet.
“Have you ever seen anything that you didn’t think was possible? Been expected to accept something that seemed impossible?” The words spilled from her, and she winced, regretting it the moment she’d spoken.
“Well, yeah, sure, I guess,” he said slowly. They stopped as the tractor came to a halt, the driver jumped out to open a gate leading into a field. He hailed Drew, thanking him for his patience, and Drew lifted his hand in acknowledgement. “I travelled a lot as a child.” He kept his eyes on her as he waited. “I saw a lot of things that had no seeming plausibility to it, but they were real. I’ve seen monks walk on sand without leaving any footprints, I’ve seen people charm poisonous snakes. I’ve watched people pass through flames and remain unhurt. Watched people climb ropes suspended on nothing, defying gravity. I even tried that myself but the rope was just a rope when I touched it.”
“And they were really doing it?” she asked skeptically. She sat up straighter and turned slightly in her seat to face him.
“Yes, well, why wouldn’t they?” he asked her, his eyes holding hers. “Sometimes things seem impossible because we don’t understand it, but it doesn’t stop it from being true, or real.” The tractor honked in thanks, and he looked back at the road, pulling forward again. “Take black holes in space; they’re not understood completely, but they’re still there.”
“What about magic? Do you believe in magic?” she asked him. She expected him to laugh at her, to shake his head and say no. She didn’t expect him to shrug.
“I’m a historian. You’d be surprised how many things that seem to be myth and legend, are rooted in fact,” he said quietly. H
e slowed down again as they neared the outskirts of the village. “Some of the things I saw smacked of magic. I wouldn’t discount magic just because it doesn’t seem possible. Lots of things seem impossible until someone does them. The Wright brothers built and flew the first heavier than air aeroplane, but I doubted they would have believed the stealth bomber to be possible. And if you’d have told a Viking that one-day man would walk on the moon, he would have laughed in your face. But both of those things are now possible because we have a better understanding. Maybe magic is out there, but we just don’t understand it.”
She knew what he was saying; could even see the logic in it. But magic? Fairies? She closed her eyes, another headache brewing behind them. Were they telling her the truth? No, surely it was impossible, this was the real world, not a story book.
“Maybe we’re looking at things wrong,” he said quietly as he pulled the car to a stop outside the cottages. “If you said to Orville or Wilbur Wright that we’d put a supersonic jet into the air, they’d be thinking in terms of their own invention shape, their own limitations in engine design. Maybe we look at magic and think of spells, cauldrons, wands. Women dressed in black robes with green faces and cats balancing on the end of broomsticks. Maybe that’s nonsense, or maybe, like aeroplanes, magic evolves with time.”
“You think witches used to fly on broomsticks?” she asked him skeptically, and he laughed.
“That goes back a long way, and involves henbane and applications on areas of the body that it’s not appropriate for me to discuss with you outside of a classroom. But witches, with their abilities to do harm or good, have been around for hundreds of years. Maybe we just have a media warped way of looking at them.”
She blew her breath out on a huff and rubbed her hands over her eyes again. Jonas touched her, and she saw things in her head. She’d seen Nate with blue flames on his palms. Her headache left her as abruptly as it came after Matt touched her. She’d seen his nose bleeding, apparently from taking the pain from her. She’d seen the waterwheel when she’d fitted on Monday. Then they’d taken her to their favourite place, with a waterwheel exactly as she’d seen. It brought on a vivid, chilling hallucination. But what if it wasn’t a hallucination? What if they were telling her the truth, and she was seeing things? What if it hadn’t been a cruel joke? If they really were what they said they were? That Nate really was holding flames, that they were fairies?
Just the thought of it made her catch her breath. It was too much, too fantastical.
“Lily, I learnt a long time ago to have an open mind. I may not be able to understand why something is, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t. It’s pretty arrogant to insist something isn’t real just because we have no understanding of it, or it doesn’t fit our preconceived way of thinking.”
His words struck a chord deep inside her. Was she being arrogant? Or was she being realistic? She was so sure that they were playing a trick on her, but what if she was wrong? They’d only looked after her today. The twins gave her one of their wetsuits. They’d stopped those boys from throwing her around in the quarry. Matt helped her back to shore. They’d looked after her at college. There was no indication that they were playing a prank on her. If they’d been laughing at her, would they have gone to all that trouble? Plus, Jonas was a teacher; someone who could usually be trusted. Would he have willingly played a part in a trick that cruel? And on someone he didn’t even know? It was highly unlikely.
She remembered Nate’s suspicion. He’d been cautious of her at first, and maybe with good reason if what they’d said was right. If they really were Fae, they would have to be careful of anyone they met. Maybe that was why they hadn’t made closer friends with anyone else. It started to make sense in her head, and with it the realisation that maybe, just maybe, she’d been wrong.
Drew shifted in his seat to turn towards her, and the sudden movement cut through her thoughts. “So, to answer your question: Do I believe in magic? Yes, I do believe in magic.” He smiled softly at her. “But I have a feeling the real question here is, do you believe in magic, Lily?”
“I didn’t,” she admitted, staring at the knot in his tie. “But maybe I was wrong.”
“Ah! Being wrong,” he whispered. “Happens to the best of us. So, is that what you were arguing about?” he asked her quietly. “Or was this just academic?”
With a start she realised just how odd her questions must have seemed to him. “Academic,” she said hastily. She caught his eyes, and he smiled at her. His eyes weren’t soulless, how strange that she had thought they were. They were dark, almost black, but they sparkled with humour, intelligence, and something else; something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
“Well, in that case, you came to the right person,” he said, switching off the engine. “I’m researching smuggling at the moment, but I love all British history. I have papers and books on the witch trials in Britain, especially the Pendle witches. You are more than welcome to read them.”
“You’ve researched witches then?” she asked. He smiled at her, his head dropped slightly and for a fleeting second he looked evil. A ripple of unease made her breathing quicken, her hand released her belt, and she reached for the door handle.
“It seems ironic, considering your question was out of the blue,” he said quietly, making her hesitate. “But, yes, I have. It’s fascinating reading. You are more than welcome to read anything I have. A lot of my books are back home in Wick, but you are more than welcome to come in and see the ones I brought with me.”
He was smiling at her again, his face perfectly calm, open and friendly. She was beginning to think she really had lost her mind. There was nothing evil about him. He was just her neighbour, a history professor, a teacher for goodness sake, he was perfectly safe. He’d sparked an interest in her now. She debated going in with him to have a look. It wouldn’t hurt. A few minutes would be fine.
A car horn startled her, and realisation slammed into her that she shouldn’t really go into his house without someone knowing where she was. She took her belt off and scrambled out of the car. She turned and looked back in at him. He was smiling at her as if she amused him. “Thank you for the lift back, but I really should get home.” She was a little breathless, and it made him chuckle.
“A rain check?” he asked, and she found herself smiling back at him.
“Yes, a rain check,” she said and shut the door. She ran around the back of his car and in through her gate. She didn’t look back; she didn’t acknowledge him again, wondering why on earth she’d agreed to a rain check with him. She heard his car drive around the corner of the last cottage where the car parking area was. She heard another car drive past, and she realised they’d been blocking the road. She reached her door and groaned aloud, she didn’t have her bag and her mother still wasn’t home.
She let her forehead rest against the door in exhausted defeat. She had a lot to think about, but the frightening part was the thought that maybe they were telling her the truth.
“Here.”
She jumped, letting out a squeal and spinning on the spot to see Nate standing behind her. He held her bag in one hand and the wetsuit in the other. She bit her lip, unable to look into his eyes. It sank in that they must have left Jonas's place just after she had. They’d brought her things, knowing she had no way of getting in. They were looking after her again, even though she’d yelled and run out on them. She was completely turned about, overwhelmed and scared.
“I can’t…” she faded out, taking them from him without looking up. She dug her key out of the side pocket, still unable to look at him.
“I know,” he said quietly. “We’ll still be here when you’re ready, Lily May. We’ll always be here for you.” He turned and walked away.
“Nate!” His name left her lips before she thought about it. He turned to look at her, but she didn’t know what else to say. She saw Matt and the twins coming up the road towards the gate, worry and concern filled their faces
. She cracked, sagging slightly. She couldn’t leave it like this. She needed to know one way or the other.
“Do you… do you want a coffee?” It was lame, and she knew it was, but she saw the raw relief on their faces and it settled her slightly. She unlocked the door and looked back over her shoulder at them, but her eyes fell on Drew. He was by his own door, his face cast in shadow from the porch. He raised his hand in a wave and went in, shutting the door behind him. She still had his handkerchief. She’d have to wash it and return it to him, she thought vaguely as she went inside. She heard the living room door shut, and she drew in a deep breath, turning to face them. There really was only one thing she could do now.
“Show me again,” she whispered, bracing herself for an action that was going to change the rest of her life.
Nate lifted his palm, a small blue ball of flames flickered about two inches above his skin.
“Touch the flame, Lily May,” he murmured. “I promise, it will not hurt you. We will never hurt you. Not intentionally.”
She lifted shaky fingers and took a leap of faith, or doubt, she wasn’t sure which. Her fingertips could feel the warmth from the fire, but it stayed a mild warmth as her fingers dipped through the blue flames. She wiggled her fingers, awe filling her. She blew onto the flames, but they didn’t even waver. He lowered his palm, but the blue flames stayed in place. He lifted his other hand and snapped his fingers, the blue ball disappeared immediately,
“Oh, god,” she muttered, her legs giving out on her as the blood drained from her head. Josh caught her in his arms and lowered her to sit on the floor with him. The others crouched around her, but they made no move to touch her.
“We have a lot to talk about, Lily Flower,” Matt murmured.
“My life will never be the same, will it?” she whispered, aware of Josh’s arms around her. She had to believe, even though she still didn’t understand any of it. She had to believe that magic was real, that they were fairies.
“No,” Nate said gently. “Things are going to change for you, Lily May, but you’re not alone.”
