‘Do you think they’ll come?’ Aisha whispered.
‘Hopefully.’ Annie stretched out her legs and knelt, preparing to get up. ‘Magic works.’
‘It will be what it’s supposed to be,’ Faye said as she banished the elements from the circle, imagining each one disappearing: the fire dying and going back to the ground, the water drying away, the mountains receding, the strong breeze dropping to a light breath. Closing the circle by walking around the outside of the space and smudging at the circle of light with her foot, she took care not to disturb the rose petals. ‘The altar can stay upovernight. I’ll take it down before we open in the morning,’ she said. ‘Let it have as much time as it can.’
Aisha murmured to Faye, ‘Will it really work, do you think?’ Her wide, long-lashed brown eyes searched Faye for reassurance and, for the first time, Faye saw something she hadn’t seen before in Aisha’s eyes: a raw need, a yearning. Perhaps Aisha needed this more than Faye had expected.
‘I’m sure it will.’ Faye reached out shyly and touched Aisha’s soft cheek. ‘Have faith,’ she murmured, and Aisha nodded.
Annie knelt in front of the altar and bent her head for a moment, no doubt adding an extra prayer to the Good Folk. Faye watched her friend trace her fingertips over the words of the spell in the book. If Grandmother had cast this spell, had it brought her Moddie’s father? Had Moddie cast it to summon Faye’s own father? And, if so, how good was a spell that summoned lovers who would desert you?
Suddenly, the door swung open and an icy winter blast of wind blew in. The bells next to the door jangled in alarm, and the old pebble hagstone charm that hung there, made by Grandmother as protection, shook violently.
‘What the…?’ Aisha was the closest to the door and instinctively stepped out into the street. As soon as she did, the gusting wind died away and the streetlights painted shining streaks on Aisha’s long black hair.
Faye ran to close the door, goosebumps prickling her skin. She had been so sure she’d locked it. As she did so, she felt a kind of presence pass her and go out through the door. The incense smoke which had built up in the room billowed out into the night air, but it was more than that – as if the spell had been truly released into the world.
Faye’s heart beat in a panic as she pulled Aisha inside and closed the door again hurriedly behind them both. She felt fora moment that the stone-flagged floor had dissolved under her, and now she was falling.
Aisha’s face wore an odd expression; her wide eyes dreamy and staring. Her cheeks were flushed and hot, even though it was cold outside.
‘Aisha! Aisha! What’s up?’ Faye shook her friend gently, realising that she was also hanging on to Aisha to stop the disorienting feeling of the floor slipping away under her. The roses faded from Aisha’s light brown skin. Her eyes cleared, and she met Faye’s gaze. Faye felt the room right itself and her feet firmly back on the stone.
‘Nothing…I…’ Aisha gazed through the glass door outside onto the street, which was almost as bright as daylight, and smiled quietly, as if she had a pleasurable secret. ‘I’m fine. I don’t know why you locked the door in the first place.’
But Faye felt something other than pleasure at the languid yellow moonlight outside. There was a strange atmosphere out there, like the heavy warmth before a storm.
Faye pulled the blind down on the door, blew out the remaining candles in the shop and turned on the harsh electric light.
‘Back to real life,’ she said as cheerily as she could, but her voice wavered. She could feel something, now that they had released the spell into the world. Something was coming. Something big.
3
There had been a strange magic in the air ever since the three witches had cast their love spell – a lush, brooding, fragrant miasma of roses that Faye could smell at the edge of her awareness and a sense of pressure in the air, like a storm was coming.
It was a week after they had cast the spell – early February, just past Imbolc, an ancient Celtic festival signifying the first stirrings of new life in the land – and Faye he had awoken from a dream where she had been standing naked on Black Sands Beach, with rose petals cascading over her naked skin. The petals were everywhere, being blown on a breeze like standing under a cherry blossom tree in spring.
She had to open the shop soon, but she liked to walk down to the sea in the morning with a coffee and just sit, taking in the sea air, rich in ozone. Or, she would look for feathers and stones, or walk and think. She liked to be alone on the beach, and she often was: Black Sands Beach was often deserted, apart from the odd dog walker or jogger, but Abercolme wasn’t in general a village of joggers or exercise fans. Mostly, it was older people who hadlived there their entire lives and were more likely to be found in the pub or the community centre.
Often, Faye came to the beach with a spell ready to cast into the waves; sometimes, she came just to be with the sea, loving its strong, elemental force. The air at the beach was always sogood, so healing – regardless of the weather. She loved the salt spray on her face; she loved the wildness of the water and the way it changed colour, from grey to dull green to blue-black and even turquoise, in the summer.
Today, she had followed her instinct. She needed to be at Black Sands Beach. Her heart yearned to be there: the dream was a sign.
The feeling – and the smell of roses – had become stronger the closer she had got to the beach. Here, the sky was roiling – dark clouds hovered over the sea, which was as slate-grey as the sky. Perhaps a stormwascoming, Faye thought, but it hadn’t been forecast. This felt different, somehow. There was no wind, just the clouds rolling in, and a sense of waiting, of hiatus. She closed her eyes, and the vision of decadent, blowsy pink roses crowded the space behind her eyes. Rich hued, velvety, soft and sensuous, like soft, full lips, languorous kisses, thick with sweetness, waiting to be ravished.
She shook herself, opening her eyes, the fragrance of roses still lingering. Was it strange that the feeling in the air – around her, in the shop, in the village, since the spell has been cast – felt so…delicious and dangerous at the same time? Was it strange that a kind of lassitude had overtaken her, on the beach, as if she herself was a rose, soft and full of pleasure?
As she brought herself back to the present, she saw a figure walking up the beach towards her: a man – tall, heavy-set but powerful, brown-skinned and unshaven with probably a week or more of beard, and longish black hair. He was wearing a black knitted hat and a plain white T-shirt over black jeans. He wasbroad-shouldered and muscular, with thick biceps and strong forearms. His thighs stretched the jeans a little as he walked. He reminded her of a bull: there was something in his sheer physicality that was pure primal masculinity.
As he drew closer, Faye took in the details of his face: he had thick, heavy brows, high cheekbones, and a strong jaw under the dark beard. Dark eyes regarded her curiously; he had an intense stare, not aggressive but…direct. Faye got feelings about everyone, and even as he walked towards her, she couldfeelhim: focus, groundedness and a kind of delicious warmth that thrilled something within her.
She was sure she hadn’t seen him around the village before, and she felt strangely exposed, standing there.
A flash of light to her right made her look away for a moment. One of the windows on a nearby house that faced the beach was open at just the right angle, reflecting sunlight into her eyes exactly at that moment. The house was all steel and glass, that ultra-modern look that had been popular when it was built. Most of the villagers hated it; it didn’t fit in with the rest of the village, which was full of the old-style Scottish stone houses. But Faye had always thought it belonged there, somehow. The glass reflected the sea and the sky in all its changing moods and colours, and on full moon nights when Faye had been at the beach, the house, dark and uninhabited, had caught the lunar light like a glass temple.
It had been built in the sixties by some rich architect who was drawn to Abercolme for the coastline. Moddie had told Faye that the architect had unknowingly built the house on a ley line, or some other sacred ground. Either way, once it was built, Grandmother had said that the local faeries were displeased and had cast a curse on anyone who lived there. Whatever the reason, it had been bought a few times but always sold soon after, so had been empty for as long as Faye could remember.
She stared at the house for a moment, shielding her eyes from the bright glare. She saw that a few of the windows were open, in fact, and when she looked harder, she could see the blinds that were usually closed had been opened, meaning she could see into the house.
