Faye smiled, thinking of the way that Rav had brought her to the intense ecstasy of the night before.
‘No, no…it was very good.’ She felt her cheeks colour. ‘He’s…I don’t know if he’s like what I asked for. He’s tall…’ Faye remembered her doll. The wool hair with golden flecks that she’d braided; the way she’d tattooed its skin with her words. It wasn’t Rav…but itdidlook awfully like Finn Beatha. So, why was it that she had made love with Rav last night? Where was Finn?
‘I feel like there’s a “but” moving in the general direction of this conversation,’ Aisha said.
‘There might be a but,’ Faye conceded.
‘Why? He’s nice?’
‘Yes.’ Faye smiled.
‘He made you come, aye?’ Annie looked concerned. ‘Tell me he made ye come, sweetheart.’
‘Annie, that’s none of your business!’ Faye glared at her friend.
‘Just say yes or no,’ Annie prompted. ‘I’m not going to write it down. Look.’ She put the pen down. ‘I just wanna know. Yer my pal. I want to know ye had a good time.’
‘Fine.Yes,’ Faye hissed, grateful they didn’t have any customers in the shop while this excruciating conversation was taking place.
‘Good! So, what’s wrong with him? Ugly, is he?’ Annie made a sympathetic face. ‘Ye might get used to it. If he knows what he’s doing, like.’
‘He is very good-looking! Stop asking questions.’
‘So, what is it, then?’ Annie and Aisha were frowning at her, and Faye couldn’t explain it to them. She was still unsettled that she had acted out of character in going so far with Rav at the beach. And she couldn’t shake off the suspicion that they’d been watched by the fae – had they influenced their passionate abandon somehow?
As she talked to Annie and Aisha, her thoughts strayed briefly back to Finn Beatha. She had asked for someone kind who wanted her, and Rav had arrived….
But was he the one she wanted?
12
‘Blue-rinse brigade out in force, I see,’ Aisha murmured to Faye as they walked into Abercolme’s community centre a week later. Folding chairs had been set out in lines facing the front of the room where the local minister stood, talking to the butcher. The front half of the hall was already full, mostly with the older members of the community.
Everyone had been summoned to a community meeting about Rav’s music festival, Abercolme Rocks, and Faye had assented; she was nervous about seeing Rav again, but she knew she had to see him at some point. And Aisha was curious to see him. Annie had wanted to come, too, but she was away on an acting job.
Faye smiled at the people filling the rows; these were people she’d lived alongside all her life. Some had an uneasy relationship with her and her family. Some, like Annie, were enthusiastic about witchcraft. Faye recognised some of them from the circles Moddie would hold in the shop on a Friday night, where they would honour the old gods in the flickering candlelight.
‘Don’t know if I’m helping or hindering you, being here, you know,’ Aisha said as they sat down.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean. Villages like this one don’t like outsiders. Especially not ones like me.’ Aisha touched her brown cheek. Faye sighed.
‘I wish it wasn’t like that for you. It’s not fair. But, yes. I know.’
‘Tell me about it. I was born in Scotland. Not good enough for some of them, though.’ Aisha smiled too brightly. ‘Most people are lovely. Just, occasionally, I get thatwhere are you fromquestion. Baffles them when I say Glasgow.’
‘They’re very suspicious of new people to the village. Or people who have been here for generations.’ Faye sighed. Many villagers still avoided the shop altogether. And there had always been whispering and sideways glances when Faye had been out and about with Moddie or Grandmother, though they had held their heads high and ignored the whispers.
Faye had learned this from a young age. On her first day at school, after she had bid a tearful goodbye to Moddie, who had mussed her hair affectionately and told her that she’d have a wonderful day, she’d gone inside and hung her coat on the peg with her name on it. Bel McDougall, her mud-brown hair in two scratchy plaits, had peered curiously at the bulge in the cream lining of Faye’s coat.
‘What’s that?’ She’d touched the rounded shape of the black tourmaline Moddie had sewn into Faye’s coat for protection.
Faye, accustomed to Moddie’s ways – crystals and lavender bags under her pillow for good dreams, herbal tinctures for coughs and colds, searching for faerie toadstool rings for making wishes – had shrugged. ‘Black crystal to keep the bad spirits away,’ she’d explained quite naturally, smiling at this new friend. But Bel’s eyes had widened, and she’d run into the classroomcalling out,She’s a witch, she’s a witch, laughing but casting baleful glances back at her at the same time until Faye felt she was being made fun of, though she didn’t know why. Tears had welled up in her eyes until she felt a small hand in hers, and turned to see five-year-old Annie’s earnest face topped with a mop of unruly dark blonde hair staring into hers.
‘Ye can sit with me.’ Annie had led her to a green hexagonal table where two boys were sat, and they’d begun a discussion about what their favourite colours were. After that day, Faye learned that there were plenty more Bel McDougalls, but there was also Annie, who, rather than run away, always seemed to be propelled towards Faye with a combination of fierce curiosity and even fiercer love.
But Annie wasn’t here to fight for Faye today; she was away at another audition.I hope she gets something soon, Faye thought as the minister banged the table for attention. Still, it was heartening to have Aisha with her: not for the first time, Faye thanked whatever fair wind had blown Aisha to Mistress of Magic’s door.
