‘I just… it’s hard to explain.’ She brushed his lips with hers. ‘But I’m here now.’
‘Is this happening? Is this for real, now? Because I don’t think I can cope if I have you and lose you again. I like you, Faye. Please don’t… I don’t know. I just want to know where I am with you,’ Rav appealed to her. Faye realised with alarm that he was holding back, protecting himself from her.
Is this really who you are now? Faye wondered, stepping outside of herself for a moment. How have you, Faye Morgan, become someone that inspires such uncertainty? And such desire? She didn’t recognise Rav’s vision of her, and it was troubling to have that double sense of herself.
‘I like you too,’ she murmured, touching his cheek and meeting his gaze as honestly as she could. She would give him all of herself that she could; he deserved more, but Finn was a secret she was unable to disclose, even if she wanted to.
He returned her kiss like she knew he would. But, warring with her heartfelt connection to Rav was a smoky shard of the faerie world that remained within her. And that wild part of faerie that was inside her now, knitted into her lungs and liver and heart, closed its eyes and let its soft darkness unfurl.
She was torn, because part of her could grow to love Rav. Now that she was with him again she remembered how he made her laugh, something not many people except Annie ever could; she was serious, as a rule, quiet and watchful, knowing what had happened to outspoken witches all those years ago.
And she couldn’t deny that there was also a chemistry between them. It was as if he was lit from within with some kind of candlelight or the soft glow of an orange-peach sunset; she realised that she wanted to be near him because of that light, for the way it made her feel happy and safe but also as if she had found a long-forgotten friend. Finn made her feel powerful, sexy and invincible. On the other hand, being with Rav included insecurity and awkwardness; she had felt awkward on the beach after they made love; normal life was edgier and bumpier than the strange, effortless lull of faerie.
But being Finn’s lover, and feeling herself changing so rapidly was a roller coaster ride. She didn’t know Rav at all, really, but she wanted to; and, when she was thinking straight, she knew she wanted some stability in her life. Usually, the only person in her life that gave her any support was Annie; it would be nice, she admitted to herself, if there could be someone else who was in her corner.
This wasn’t an ordinary dating situation. Faye examined her motives for being here. If it was hard for Rav to compete with a faerie king, it was also true that having been in faerie had given her the confidence to pursue Rav – to respond to him – in a way she wouldn’t before.
For long, velvety moments, Faye revelled in the softness of the kiss; she felt made of honey under Rav’s touch.
Suddenly she was pulled away – through the air at great speed by rough hands that pinched where they held her; she knew without being told that the faeries had her, though she didn’t know how or why. The sound of cruel laughter cut the air, slashing at it with knives, cutting away the air she needed to breathe; Faye saw the blue air like icy diamonds cut by steel fall from around her towards a blurring of brown and green below. Stay away from the human man, sidhe-leth; Finn’s voice sounded like he stood next to her, but as she whirled around, looking for him, there was no-one there. This is a warning.
Before she had time to take breath, she found herself standing over a chasm that fell away to nothing under her, and she reeled from sudden vertigo, slipping from her tenuous footing. She flailed, reaching for the mossed rock on both sides of her, not knowing where she had been taken to, and marshalled her instincts as quickly as she could. What was it that had grounded her before? She reached for the vision of the shop, her place of power. Closing her eyes, she remembered the security of its stone-flagged floor under her feet; of Grandmother, sitting by the fire with a blanket over her knees. I am a Morgan, you cannot take me. Return me immediately! She commanded whatever force had taken her, and concentrated on the symbol for earth: a downwards-facing triangle with a line through the middle. Earth. The ordinary world. I am human, I am of earth, I am a witch, you cannot take me like this.
Faye’s eyes snapped open as she heaved in a ragged breath, doubled over by the – what? A kind of slippage into faerie, an out-of-body experience? – that had just happened without her even trying. Yet Rav again wore the enchanted look he had had in the shop earlier.
‘Rav. Rav!’ She shook him, and he came back to her.
‘Sorry, I… I don’t know what happened there. I was kind of… transported. I don’t know… I,’ he stammered, confusion muddying his expression. ‘Were we…? I thought I was kissing you, and then you… disappeared,’
‘It felt strange to me too.’ She didn’t elaborate further, but she didn’t want to repeat the strange and rather unpleasant sensation she’d had of being stolen away. Rav stepped back, away from her.
‘I don’t know what’s going on, Faye,’ he murmured, rubbing his eyes. ‘This is getting weird,’
‘I know,’ she said, smoothing down the cerise dress. Something in the faerie realm objected to her being here with Rav; either that, or the line of power that ran through the house was growing stronger as he had described.
‘Perhaps I should go.’ She frowned. The faeries didn’t want her here, that was obvious. But Rav looked so disappointed that she felt terrible.
‘Please don’t go.’ He took both of her hands in his. ‘I need you. Please, keep me company at least for tonight? I don’t want to be here on my own again. And… I know it’s weird, but at least you understand what’s going on. Please? Stay?’
‘Okay. But I’ll have to do some research. About what I can do to… rid the house of the fae,’ she offered, though she knew she couldn’t; this was faerie territory. They were here first and wouldn’t leave even if she tried to force them to.
His face brightened.
‘Thank you.’ He kissed her again, and she felt herself respond. He took her hand shyly. ‘Maybe I can persuade you to come upstairs? I think we’ve got some unfinished business,’ he murmured.
He held her hand as they walked down the long hall upstairs – the one that sat directly above the one that was so troublesome below. Vintage music posters lined the walls; Rav told her about Woodstock, Janis Joplin at the Filmore, Bowie at the Montreal Forum in 1974.
‘You wish you’d been there,’ she smiled at his eager expression as he described buying the Janis Joplin poster from a specialist dealer.
‘Yeah. Too young, though.’
‘You love your job, though, don’t you?’ she asked.
‘Yeah. Too much, in a way.’
‘What does that mean?’ She looked along the hallway; the posters hung next to each other uniformly in frames all of the same size. Even though the poster sizes were different, Rav had clearly gone to some expense to make them all fit neatly into the space.
‘Why too much?’
‘Ah, well. Workaholic. Built my own company up from the ground with my best friend – I mentioned it before, didn’t I? We’re doing really well now, that’s why we opened the Edinburgh office. Expansion is good, and all that.’
‘Sure,’ she agreed. ‘Sometimes I think I’d like to open another shop. Or more than one. A little witch shop empire. We could branch out: homewares, more clothes. Not just practical supplies. The whole lifestyle.’
He smiled and squeezed her palm. ‘Sounds great. You should do that.’
‘I don’t think I want it enough yet,’ she shrugged. ‘Maybe one day.’
‘Fair enough. You’ve got to give everything to running your own business. It takes over. Cost me my relationship. With my ex.’ He sighed. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do. But it means I’ve spent long months – years – working late, only seeing Roni, eating takeaway… and, you know, I love the guy, but I don’t want to wake up and I’m forty years old and still single with no family. Mum’s practically at boiling point that I don’t already
have kids. She wants to be a grandma, and I want her to be one. I’d love to be a dad, I just… it just hasn’t happened, mostly because I didn’t have time for a relationship.’ Rav looked embarrassed. ‘Sorry. This is supposed to be like, come up and see my etchings, all sexy-like. Not good form to start talking about wanting kids.’
‘Don’t be silly. I’m sorry to hear that, about your ex. And I’m sure you’ll be a lovely father one day.’
‘It’s fine. It wasn’t working with her anyway.’ He sighed and pointed to a poster with a yellow background which featured a Hindu goddess at the centre, holding a sleeping child.
‘Anyway. Let’s change the subject, okay? This is my favourite.’
‘Altamont. Didn’t people die at that festival?’ she asked, trying to remember – she’d seen a documentary about it once. The poster listed the bands that had appeared at the show:
Grateful Dead, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Jefferson Airplane, Flying Burrito Brothers, Santana. Please bring your own weed.
‘Yeah. Textbook example of how not to run a festival. Rule number one: don’t let the Hells Angels do security.’
Faye returned her gaze to the poster’s garish retro-print style and smiled.‘That seems like good advice. What happened, exactly?’ Thinking about it, Faye suddenly felt uneasy.
‘It was a free concert, 1969. Four months after Woodstock; the Summer of Love.’ Rav made the peace sign with both hands. ‘Three hundred thousand people, mostly on drugs, descended on this place that wasn’t at all prepared. Bike gangs were on security. One woman was stabbed to death, someone drowned in a canal because they were so out of it, two people died in a car accident.’
‘Oh, God.’ Faye imagined the scene.
‘Yeah. It was violent. Chaotic. It was so bad that the Grateful Dead didn’t even go on. Why are you asking?’
‘I don’t know. I just wondered.’
‘It’s not going to be like that at Abercolme Rocks, you know.’ He kissed her and Faye felt him harden against her. ‘It’s a nice, gentle Midsummer music festival. It’ll be fine, I promise,’ he murmured, and kissed her again, more deeply.
Midsummer, Midsummer, Midsummer delight; go to the faeries on Midsummer night; Take thee a maiden, take thee a wife… the song played on her mind again at the mention of the June solstice. Was there a significance about Finn playing Abercolme Rocks that she hadn’t dared consider? Was it about more than satisfying his vanity, about more than feeding off the adulation of the audience?
The image of a rioting crowd, of the out-of-control chaos of the free festival at Altamont filled her mind, and she felt a shiver run through her that she didn’t fully understand. She dismissed the thought with some effort; she had always had a vivid imagination. Finn Beatha was a faerie king, and music was part of his being. She had danced with him at the faerie ball and felt the raw electricity of the music in him then, and afterwards, when he had brought her to heights of ecstasy she still couldn’t fully encapsulate into anything as imperfect as language.
‘Ah, I don’t know,’ she whispered, taking in a jagged breath as Rav kissed her neck softly, and as his lips found her collarbone. So close to the faerie road, she felt divided; she could feel its electric energy running through the house, and she could feel the call of faerie which wanted to pull her away from Rav, and away from the material realm. She took a breath and grounded herself; imagined roots growing from her feet deep into the earth, closed her eyes and saw herself as part of the planet, like hills and mountains and rocks and soil. The energy of fae subsided a little, and she was relieved that she was starting to be able to control it when it came, even if just a little.
‘I don’t expect anything from you. I don’t expect to be your boyfriend or anything, if you don’t want that. We can take it slow. I just want to be with you. Here and now,’ Rav breathed. ‘I’ve tried to be in control of my feelings before, with women. But I can’t control how I am with you.’
But there was something about the danger, the prohibition of being with Rav that made Faye’s heart sing all the more as she surrendered to his touch.
‘I can’t stop thinking about you; it’s like you’ve possessed my mind,’ Rav murmured. ‘I’ve never known anyone like you before. You’re like… I dunno… some kind of enchantress.’
He knelt in front of her.
‘Perhaps I am,’ she replied, seriously; her eyes were black in the lamplight.
‘Will you take this off for me?’ He touched her dress, and she pulled it over her head.
When she was naked, he knelt in front of her on the bed, kissing the inside of her thighs, and when she was begging him for more, pressed his head into her.
‘I want to make love to you.’ He sat back on his heels, stripped off and kissed her again; behind her knees, the inside of her thighs. She reached for him and lay back on the bed, drawing him to her. She loved his soft brown eyes, the taste of him; like liquorice and whisky. He kissed her neck, his hands on her breasts, on her waist and then gripping her bottom.
Slowly, he entered her at just the right angle.
‘Please. More,’ she whispered, her lips full and eyes heavy-lidded with pleasure. ‘Please?’ He held her, gently but firmly, and drew in and out of her slowly. She started to moan and writhe as she felt the orgasm coming.
‘I want to hear you. I love hearing you come,’ he said, gazing at her full lips and then kissing them. ‘You’re so beautiful. Like a goddess.’
She didn’t answer, but pressed his head to her breast and gasped as she felt his tongue on her again. She breathed in deeply as she felt the sweetness build inside her, deep, rising up her body.
‘Oh. Oh, Rav, yes, yes, please, yes, yes…’ She buried her face in his neck as she came, long and loud, with nonsense words, a guttural cry. She heard his cries follow hers; felt him tense as his own climax shook him.
‘Rule number two: don’t allow yourself to become intoxicated,’ he murmured as he laid beside her. Gently, he tilted her head up to meet his lips, and kissed her, slowly and passionately.
‘Rules can be broken every now and again,’ she whispered back, as sleep came for her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Faye woke in the night and rolled over, unsure of where she was. It was dark, but the moonlight was enough for her to see the unfamiliar sheets she lay half under. She sat up and jumped as the movement was reflected back at her from the mirrored wardobe on the opposite wall. It was Rav’s bedroom, she remembered now. But the space next to her was empty.
Despite having woken up in the night, she felt more clear-headed than she had for a while. She sipped some water from a glass by the bed and took in a few deep breaths, feeling them ground her. Whatever happened last night before she had come upstairs with Rav – the faeries, clutching at her, Finn’s voice forbidding her to be with Rav – seemed like a dream or a strange vision.
There was music coming from downstairs. Faye picked up Rav’s bathrobe from the end of the bed and belted it around herself. At some point she had taken off the rose gold and opal thumb ring that Finn had given her, and laid it on the bedside table; she reached for it, but instead of putting it on her thumb, she slipped it in the pocket of the robe. The ring was a gift from Finn, and she needed to keep him and Rav separate in her mind.
Rav sat on the yellow sofa with his laptop, frowning at the screen. Faye recognised the David Bowie album that was playing; the vinyl sleeve for Diamond Dogs was propped up on the floor against a cabinet. Rav had put his jeans back on again and wore a sweatshirt and a blanket around his shoulders.
‘Hi,’ she said, shyly.
He looked up and smiled. ‘Sorry. Did I wake you up?’
‘Don’t think so. Maybe it was the moon.’ She ran her fingers through her hair to make it less wild.
‘Ah, the moon, of course.’ He grinned, put the laptop to one side and came to her, wrapping her in his arms. ‘Aren’t you cold?’
‘No. You couldn’t sleep?’ She wriggled a little out of his emb
race and kissed him softly.
‘Mmm. That’s nice. No. I’m kind of prone to insomnia anyway – always have been, and stress just makes it worse. I’m always on edge in this house. If it’s not the weird noises it’s the cold, and this general feeling of unease. Like I’m not welcome here.’ He kissed her forehead and held her to him again.
‘How long have you had the insomnia? I might be able to help with that – a herbal mixture or something,’ Faye listed the herbs on her fingers. ‘Valerian, hops, lavender. There are lots of things that can help.’
‘I’ve tried some things, yeah. But sure, anything you can suggest. When I was a teenager the doctor said it was anxiety and I’d grow out of it, but I didn’t. I suffered panic attacks pretty regularly when I was at university. Being away from home, I didn’t have the ability a lot of my friends did to just get on with their lives. I really missed home.’ He sighed, avoiding her gaze. ‘What a catch I am, eh?’
‘Don’t be silly. Lots of people have depression, anxiety, all kinds of things. I know what it’s like,’ she reached for his hand. ‘It’s really common. I suppose I’m just sad that you haven’t found any help yet. What kind of thing causes it? Are there, like, triggers? Things that make you anxious?’ Faye asked. In a way it was good to know something about him, even if it was something he saw as a weakness. Actually, it made Faye like him more for opening up to her.
He sat back down on the sofa, looking dejected.
‘No, well. Doctor offered me pills, but I didn’t want them. Did some counselling and stuff, but nothing really helped that much,’
‘Ah. Not unusual. I could suggest some other solutions,’ Faye sat next to him but he refused to meet her eye, tracing a pattern on his knee with his index finger.
Daughter of Light and Shadows Page 15
