‘Scottish weather.’ The minister shivered as the rain drummed on the windows. It had grown suddenly dark outside.
Faye looked up at the rain on the high windows. For just a second, she thought she saw faces in the water, looking in at them; otherworldly faces with large, watery eyes and open mouths. As if they were laughing. Or something more savage: as if they were hungry.
She walked cautiously out of the hall, through its thick, old double doors.
‘Weird weather.’ Rav was standing by the doors, adjusting the collar on his blazer.
‘Oh. Yeah.’ She looked away, embarrassed. Faye was painfully aware that they had been shockingly intimate so recently; the feeling of having been exposed returned to her, and she swallowed awkwardly. What must he think of her?I don’t normally do that kind of thing, she wanted to say.I wouldn’t usually be so…abandoned.We hardly know each other.She wasn’t puritanical. It was more that it had just been strange. Thewhole time – on the beach, at his house – in retrospect, she had felt odd throughout.
‘Good to see you, Faye.’ He reached for her hand. ‘Hope you’re okay? You kind of rushed off the other night. And I realised I didn’t have your number.’
Aisha was standing a few feet away, subtly staying in the background.
‘I’m okay. Thanks,’ she replied. It wasn’t getting any less awkward: in fact, holding his hand just made it worse. Being anywhere near Rav Malik set Faye’s whole body aflame with desire…‘Buying your way into their good books, are you?’ Faye blundered on. ‘The free tickets, I mean.’Oh god, what am I saying?she berated herself.Sorry. Just say sorry for running out on him.
‘Oh…right.’ Rav shrugged and let go of her hand. ‘Worth a try. That woman with the headscarf, what’s her name?’
‘Mrs Kennedy. She does the flowers in the church.’ Faye’s heart sank. The moment had gone; if she was going to say anything, she should have said it by now. Rav was trying to talk to her, trying to connect to her, but she was doing it all wrong.
‘Mrs Kennedy. Okay. Thing I’ve learned about places like this is, go for the ringleaders and the rest fall in line. I’ll make friends with Mrs Kennedy, and we’ll see how many complaints there are about the festival after that.’ He smiled warmly at her, and she felt awkward again.
‘Oh. Well, good luck.’ She opened the doors; getting drenched was better than making a fool of herself with Rav. ‘And…I’m sorry. For…you know,’ she blurted, confused, and ran into the rain.Get back in there and talk to the man, idiot!Annie would have said. But Faye couldn’t.
‘Faye!’ Rav called after her. He sounded confused and a little annoyed. She tried to wave over her shoulder, but it came out wrong and she looked like a flailing madwoman as she ran away.
It was nice that Rav still wanted to know her but, after that performance, Faye doubted she’d be seeing him again anytime soon. Letting herself into the shop, she berated herself again.Stupid, stupid. She’d had a chance at something. A real romance with a real man. But she’d blown it.
Summoning love with a magic spell might have worked. But magic wasn’t responsible for what happened afterwards, Faye was learning.
13
A week later, Faye woke in the middle of the night.
She lay on the oak double bed that had once been Moddie’s and stared at the ceiling for a moment. She had been dreaming of the faerie road; of the goat-man who had reached out and tweaked her nipple; of the fae that had skipped and danced past.
Blessings, sidhe-leth.We are honoured.You are as beautiful as the legends say.
When she closed her eyes, she was back there instantly, walking the grass road that existed somehow inside Rav’s house. But this time, instead of Rav making love to her on the beach, Finn Beatha stood at the top of the hill, and he was beckoning her to come to him.
She opened her eyes again. She knew she was still in her bed, safe in the grey stone house of the Morgans.
She felt a sudden need to be at Black Sands Beach; her heart yearned towards it, her special place of magic.
Well, I’m not getting back to sleep anytime soon, she thought as she swung her legs out of bed.So I might as well go.Experience had taught her to obey her instincts when they were this insistent. It was times like these when she imaginedthe spirits of her ancestors pulling at her hand, compelling her to act. It would be rude to deny them.
She got dressed quickly: leggings, a heavy long woollen dress over the top, socks. Downstairs, she wrapped a thick blue and green tartan scarf around her neck and put the long pink coat on again, then pulled on her high, practical walking boots. They had a thick sole and she knew she could walk through water in them, and climb wet rock if required. She grabbed a pair of thick fleece gloves from under the counter and let herself out of the side door, grabbing a torch as she did so.
The street was deserted. She looked at her watch: 1.30 a.m. – no time for anyone to be awake in Abercolme. Even the pub shut just before eleven. Or, if people were up, they were sensibly indoors.
It wasn’t that cold. It was a quarter moon, and when she got to the beach, the clouds parted so that the soft moonlight reflected on the flat water. She looked up at Rav’s house, but it was in darkness. She felt embarrassed and hoped he wouldn’t see her out here. She didn’t know what she would say to him.
Instead of going to a rock to sit and look out to sea, she went to where she imagined the beginning of the faerie road might be – outside of the house, but aligned with it, a little way from the front door – and closed her eyes.
It was there, immediately, as if it had been waiting for her. The long grass where she knew there should only be sand, the twinkling lights that floated around her like stars in a tide of light mist. She had walked this place so many times and never known.
Or perhaps shehadknown. Black Sands was a magical place. It had always been that way; Moddie had brought her here as a child to make simple shell shapes on the dark sand. She had squatted down on her bare heels next to her daughter.Make a wish, Faye.When the tide takes your spell, it goes to the faeries.
Moddie made shapes Faye recognised: circles, spirals, stars. She often wrote things within the shapes with her finger – symbols and letters. And, occasionally, she would dispatch Faye to collect as many shells as she could from around the beach to make one large heart shape which she would always trace the same name into: Lyr.What is Lyr, Mummy?Little Faye would watch Moddie draw the looping script into the sand.Nobody, darling. Just a memory, she would reply.
