‘No. She does not rule. She takes no side in war; our disagreements are nothing to her, and we do not involve her in our disputes. She is a neutral place of power. She is eternal.’
‘Aren’t you all… eternal?’ Faye asked. Finn had told her he was much older than he looked, but she didn’t know if that meant he was immortal.
‘We do not die in the same way as you, but we can be replaced,’ Glitonea answered. ‘But our immortality is not of your concern. This is the next magic you will learn. You will speak with Morgana Le Fae and bring back whatever wisdom she bestows on you.’
‘What will I do when I find her?’ Faye asked. ‘How do I find her?’
Glitonea walked behind the altar table and drew aside one of the long curtains that hung on the walls as in the other castle rooms. Behind the curtain Faye saw a tall door, enamelled with what looked like gleaming white shell. Glitonea unlocked the door and beckoned to Faye, who followed in wonder at what lay beyond.
‘As you are half-fae, you can walk the crystal bridge.’ Glitonea pointed out a glistening, silvery-white crystal bridge that stretched across a deep ravine. Below, Faye could hear the sea, but not see it. She shivered; the bridge was narrow and had no sides; it was barely the width of her body. She realised that the faerie queen had not answered her first question.
The bridge was lit with the glow of a vast crystal castle that sat on its own island in the distance. Faye could see its pink-blue sheen reflected in the glassy crystal near to her. It must have been a mile away, but she could see it clearly and she wondered how big it was, if its light shone this far.
‘That’s the… that’s where Morgana Le Fae is?’ she breathed, gazing across.
‘The place of all magic,’ Glitonea answered. ‘I can teach you little else if you do not experience what awaits you there.’
Faye felt her resolve waver, but if this was her way to power, then she was going to take it. The faerie magic was so different to what she had learned from Moddie, or even from Grandmother, and it had changed her already, even in such a short space of time. It was subtle and full of strange delight. Glitonea’s magic completed her. It sustained a part of her soul, and now that it had been fed, it hungered for more.
She stepped onto the crystal bridge, concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, and didn’t look back.
When she reached the other side, she looked behind but couldn’t see whether Glitonea had left the door open or closed. She had no idea how long it had taken for her to walk over, either; time was elastic in the faerie realm. In the ordinary world, walking the bridge might have taken years.
As she set foot on the island, she heard singing. Faye closed her eyes and the strange rhythm of the song took her into a light trance; the tune was haunting, and yet it made Faye’s heart soar.
Now that she was close to it, the castle was strangely small, considering that she had seen it from so far away. It had seven tall, twisting spires that glowed and pulsed gold, white, pink and blue under a vast moon that hung in the black sky, bigger than it could ever be in the ordinary world. The walls were high and contained no windows, and they jutted out in points to her right and left. She wondered if, from above, the castle was the shape of a seven-pointed star, and guessed that it was.
The mist melted away as she stepped forward and followed the path uphill. To her left, the path fell away into a sharp grey cliff that led down to the crashing blue-black sea. Faye felt no fear of it now, but stayed on the path nonetheless. There was a smell of sea spray and, underlying that, the sour tang of seaweed. It was a steep climb, but there were steps cut into the rough grass and she took them evenly.
When she reached the top, she looked down and saw that she was standing on a carpet of pink rose petals. The smell of rose captured her in its soft, sweet kiss.
Faye felt the sea breeze on her face and held out her arms in pleasure. The energy vibration was high here; it was like standing inside a rose quartz crystal, her favourite stone to use in meditation, in healing, magic, everything. She liked to have a big piece of it nearby when she made her incenses in the shop. She thought of it, her safe place, for a moment, but not because she needed to protect herself. More, that there was so much that she wanted to do there when she returned home: she was learning so much. She could do so much more.
As Faye smiled up at the castle, a golden door appeared in front of her where she couldn’t have missed it before. A sudden breeze blew the rose petals up around her feet and cleared a path to the door; she laughed out loud. This was the way in, then.
She pushed the door and it opened easily, so she stepped inside.
Immediately, the sound of singing intensified. The space opened up to her as she walked in; a wide, circular palazzo, open to the elements; she could see the seven corners of the castle lead off the main centre. There did not seem to be any other rooms or floors.
The main courtyard was partly covered by a tiled roof, with a large circular opening in the middle, the roof held up with gold pillars. She walked to the centre, wondering what she should do.
As she stood in the centre of the palace, at the very middle of the circle, looking up at the moon above her which seemed to fill the whole space, three wide moonbeams bathed her in a silver glow. A figure emerged from the light; she coalesced from the moonlight, pulling her form from the stability of the stones and the hill. Faye could see silver blood under her black skin. The shape merged and drifted in the moonlight; first, she was a pre-Raphaelite maiden, then she changed, a crone’s face, then a harpy that made Faye gasp a little.
She stood in front of Faye and held out both of her hands.
‘My lady,’ Faye murmured. ‘Am I in the presence of the Faerie Queen of the Moon?’
The woman was more beautiful than any human could be; made of moonlight, she was pure luminescence.
‘I am Morgana Le Fae, Mistress of Magic. Blessings on you.’ The queen nodded gracefully.
‘Blessings on you,’ Faye echoed, filled with the overwhelming sense of peace she usually felt when doing magic back in Abercolme; but if that was a temporary sense of otherworldliness, this was total immersion.
‘I can grant you a wish, and you can ask me a question,’ Morgana said, the moonlight glowing through her silver hair.
What to ask? Faye wondered, then spoke. ‘How can I step into my power as half-faerie? Glitonea is teaching me. But I…’ Faye trailed off, holding Morgana’s hands and feeling her power sing through to her. ‘I want more,’ she murmured, as the faerie queen’s power encircled her like perfume, like lust.
‘It is less about doing – not following a formula, not having the right things.’
Faye thought about the shop, full of equipment. It wasn’t just witches that came to her for candles, incense, crystals and tarot cards. Busy mums bought meditation CDs and scented candles to encourage calm. University students asked her to order in books on shamanic journeying and yoga; she sold love potions to teenagers and citrine and black tourmaline crystals to businessmen who liked to carry them in their briefcases or flight bags for wealth, luck and protection. Whoever you were, there was a variety of stuff that was needed, one way or another, to subtly change one’s consciousness, to learn a new skill, to understand a different culture.
Being in the realm of faerie and experiencing its heightened energy, Faye was starting to understand that magic in the ordinary world needed a little scaffolding, especially if one was practising it away from a natural place of power. She hadn’t needed anything on the beach, because the sea and the sand had intense natural power. She probably wouldn’t need anything other than sticks, leaves and flowers if she was to make magic in a forest. But in a block of flats, in a city, on a paved patio in a crowded town, people needed tools to help them focus on and raise energy. Here, in the Crystal Castle of the Moon, the power was so intense that Faye could feel it around her, touchable and pliant.
‘The fae is in your heart; it is part of you. Relax and let it out. Feel your faer
ie heart. Hear its song,’ Morgana whispered. For a moment Faye heard the singing again; it was louder, coming from the palace itself. ‘You have power. Coming to my realm will help you see it. Navigate the shores and the hills of this place. We are at the heart of the power of the faerie kingdoms: Murias, Falias, Gorias, Finias. I am the Mistress of Magic at the centre of all things. Explore and regain your power, Faye Morgan. For it is not a coincidence your mother named you after me.’
‘Thank you,’ Faye whispered, feeling Morgana’s power fill her; it began in her feet, travelled up her legs and exploded in her body with the power of a kiss, with the eroticism of Finn’s mouth on her.
Morgana smiled, and where Glitonea’s smile was cold, hers was fire.
‘This is all you need. I am all, and you must let me in. Find yourself, Faye, remember your heritage, your ancestors, let them hold you. Let me fill you with my magic, Faye; and it will stay with you for ever.’ She leaned forward and kissed Faye gently on the lips. Their mouths lingered together, and Faye felt the fire of Morgana’s kiss consume her. Morgana’s touch filled her soul with magic.
Morgana pulled away and traced Faye’s lips with her fingertip.
‘Get to know this place. This is the place of patterning.’ she said. ‘And, remember. I am here, for ever. You may visit me to refill your cup at any time.’
This is the place of patterning. Faye realised she was standing in what Moddie had called the astral plane; Faye had spent her whole life learning magic that began and ended here. This was where her carefully crafted poppet doll had taken its inspiration from, and this is where her instructions – her desires – had entered the ether as she sewed them into the doll. Inspiration flowed to the ordinary world from here; intention flowed upwards, to make patterns which were then transmuted into reality.
Faye nodded, and kissed Morgana’s unnaturally long-fingered hands. She had no fingernails, Faye noticed, and her skin was formed of neatly overlapping black scales. When she met the queen of the moon’s eyes, she was startled that they were not eyes at all, but the moonlight streamed through the place where eyes should have been as if through a slit in a black mask.
Morgana withdrew her hands and stepped back into the three shafts of moonlight, dissolving into them. Faye felt the loss of her keenly and as suddenly as her desire had appeared; she was dazed, aroused and yet fulfilled at once. Morgana had lit something in her soul, and she felt different, though she couldn’t say how.
There was nothing to explore inside the crystal castle. Faye walked around the edges of the palazzo and in and out of the corners, but all there was were the walls made of their glowing crystalline material. A piece of it came away in her hand, and Faye held it up in wonder: it glowed like a lamp. Carefully, she put it in her pocket, feeling that if Morgana didn’t want her to have it, it would not have come away so easily.
There were no other doors in or out except the one she had come in. Only the floor of the castle held any pattern at all, and that was the seven-pointed star of faerie, tiled in what looked like black glass or crystal against a pink-white stone.
Back outside the castle, she walked around it and approached the edge, and the wet grey cliffs fell away under her again.
She felt her breath catch. The drop was high and deep and she felt suddenly afraid, even though she hadn’t before. But she took a breath and steadied herself, and let her gaze wander over the surface of the blue-black sea.
As she watched, something broke the surface of the water. She narrowed her eyes; perhaps it was a rock sitting under the water. Though she loved the sea, and her beach at Abercolme, she had always been terrified of deep water – both its power, of the storms that occasionally lashed Abercolme – and what was in it; of mysterious, leviathan-like beings that roamed in the deep oceans, in the dark. Beaches were in-between places, liminal, where water met earth. The deep water was something else.
The waves crashed over the shape again and Faye narrowed her eyes, watching it. Now that she was looking carefully at the water, she could see that it was full of life, though not in the normal way. Shapes drifted and formed, broke up again and re-formed in different patterns. Faye remembered the fairy stories she had listened to as a child, when Grandmother tucked her into bed or when Moddie sang old songs to her in the shop to keep her entertained. Seals that became women and married human men, creatures that were half-faerie, half-horse and dragged children to their death under the waves. Hags that lived in ponds and waterways, waiting to do similar. There were a lot of cautionary tales made up for children that had roamed a lot freer to rivers and lakes in their times, that was for sure. And yet a continuing thread held all the tales together; a life under the skin of the water that was its own realm and had its own rules.
But the rock was not a rock and, as Faye watched, a black head emerged from the waves, followed by a large black-scaled body. Her eyes widened.
The kelpie rose out of the sea; Faye stood on the edge of the cliff and watched it, her heart beating wildly. Here was her fear made flesh; a creature of darkness, emerging from the impenetrable black water. Scotland was full of myths of them: a black or white horse creature that drowned anyone that climbed on its back. They were said to reside around lochs and rivers, especially at night or at dusk. Like all Scottish children she had been told to beware of them, but had taken it for a cautionary tale to stop children drowning in dangerous water.
The kelpie pulled itself of the water and stood on the short beach, beneath. She had always imagined kelpies to be very like horses, but its eyes regarded her like marbles of the same blue-black water it had emerged from. It was a water elemental; a creature made from the dark sea that crashed and sang under her. A creature that knew the weight of the deep oceans; that had been birthed from the unrelenting crash of every tidal wave, and the soft gurgle of every trickling stream. It had the head and first half body of a vast horse, but its hindquarters were like a long black sea serpent.
It crawled up the cliff towards her; instinctively, she drew back, not knowing how it could make its way up rock, having no back legs. Dread panic overcame her and she began to run back towards the castle, but it followed.
When she reached the castle walls, Faye closed her eyes and tried to catch her breath. There was nowhere to go, and her lungs heaved with the effort of running. She tried to quiet herself, to tell herself that there was nothing to fear here, but she was lying to herself. The realms of faerie were perilous and full of danger; she had seen that already.
She sensed the kelpie approaching, and squeezed her eyes tight like a child would, hoping that the monster might disappear, her back pressed into the wall of the castle, her arms over her face. Even after all of her experiences in Murias, even knowing that she was half-faerie herself, her longstanding fear of the deep ocean and what lay within it almost overcame her. She cried out no, no, no, please, but the kelpie approached her: closer, closer.
No, I won’t be afraid. Faye reached down into herself, remembering the ancestors that had appeared to her in the golden cup of Murias. Remembering their gifts, their wounds, their magics, she appealed to them for help, and something came.
It was like a memory, only it wasn’t hers: a gesture of banishing, a knowing of the power of a witch’s gaze, of the casting of a curse.
She opened her eyes, heart beating manically, her right hand formed into an instinctive pointing gesture, her eyes aflame with will. Leave me! the words were on her tongue, but the kelpie licked her hand, like a dog would.
Faye jumped, pulling her hand away.
The kelpie sat next to her, head bowed slightly; it made no move to get any closer to Faye.
She watched it, fearfully, expecting it to pounce, to move suddenly, to attack her. Yet, it sat next to her peacefully, panting slightly. The noise was somewhere between a dog and a horse after a run.
Cautiously, feeling her panic subside slightly, Faye laid her palm on the kelpie’s nose, ready to pull her hand away at the smallest hint of danger. Yet, as so
on as she made contact with it, she was overwhelmed by a sense of power that she couldn’t pull her hand way from if she tried. The kelpie’s energy was pure water, and Faye felt the joyful rush of a waterfall mixed with the furthest, darkest depths of the ocean; it was at once the brightness of a stream in a sun-dappled woodland and the insurmountable grey wall of a tsunami.
Pictures flashed in front of her eyes, and she opened them again in surprise when she saw what the images were, but it was too late; they came, like dreams, with her eyes open or closed. Faye saw her ancestor Grainne Morgan at the stake, and her heart clenched with sorrow. The intense fear of all the women who hung next to Grainne, lashed to stakes, awaiting their deaths, made her feel sick. She saw the little pouches of gunpowder tied around the necks of some of the other women and knew, instinctively, that their wealthier families had paid for the executioner to tie them there to provide a quicker death for the women. She wanted to take her hand away from the kelpie, to stop the stream of vision, but she took in a deep breath and knew that she drew power from the kelpie, too. She had asked for her ancestors’ wisdom, and she was being given it.
And then, she saw further back, and the grief lessened. She saw Grainne’s mother drying herbs in a room with a warm hearth fire that threw leaping shadows on its rough stone walls; she saw other women she could not name, but knew they were other Morgans, woman upon wise woman that came before her; she remembered their faces from when they had come to her in Glitonea’s cup. She saw women in more and more historic dress, in petticoats and stays, in aprons and rough leather boots, trudging through the rain under slate-grey skies, looking for plants and remedies. And she saw some of them dancing, naked, under the moon, and her heart filled with joy at their freedom; in their lack of fear at practising their own magic.
Faye looked into the kelpie’s unblinking stare and felt her fear melt away as it returned her gaze with its ageless seawater-and-glass eyes. Without thinking, she climbed up onto its black scaly back, and, as if it knew she would, it stretched up into the sky, and then dived back under the black water.
Daughter of Light and Shadows Page 20
