He wanted a normal life. He wanted to forget what had happened to him in Murias. But Faye couldn’t forget, and she would never stop being a witch. She could certainly never forget Aisha; she had to bring her back somehow.
Sadness welled up in her. She didn’t know if she could reconcile being with Rav and being true to herself. She couldn’t make herself small, or less than she was. She was a witch, a powerful woman, a Morgan. She thought Rav loved her. But shewondered if he would ever be able to fully accept that magical part of her that might need to battle fae or protect the ones she loved.
Faye reached for Rav’s hand. She wanted to make it work, but she couldn’t compromise herself. She knew that then, clear as crystal.
‘I’m sorry. It’s just been…quite a night,’ she said, squeezing his fingers. ‘I know you weren’t doing anything wrong. I was jealous of you and Mallory.’
‘You don’t need to be jealous. Ever.’ Rav squeezed her hand back, and his eyes were full of tears. ‘I’d never do anything to hurt you, Faye. I love you.’
He took her in his huge, strong arms and held her tight.
‘I love you,’ he repeated. ‘You are the only one.’
‘I love you too,’ she replied. Her heart soared. It was what she had wanted to hear, and she hugged him tight. But there was also a sadness in her that she closed away beyond a door, along with everything she’d wanted to tell Rav: about the bargain she had made with the faerie queen, and the prophecy Finn swore was true. He didn’t want to be told – and she couldn’t tell him – so she stayed quiet.
But in doing so, a part of her was lost. It was another little sacrifice, a shallow cut that she sliced from herself as an offering to the normal life that Rav wanted. It hurt.
And she wondered how long she could tolerate this pain for the reward of Rav’s love. Because now that she had stepped into her faerie power, she wanted more of it. She could feel it filling her even now she had returned to the human world and the effects of leaving faerie were upon her. Even though she felt discomfort, she still remembered the ecstasy of the faerie power pumping through her veins, and that had nothing to do with Finn or Rav. That power was hers, and hers alone.
14
Regent’s Park was striped with the golden morning sun like a tiger’s back; the trees threw frosty shadows onto the grass where the sun hadn’t yet managed to warm the ground. As Faye walked, the sun and chill alternated on her skin, and she pulled her thick tartan shawl around her shoulders.
She’d woken up needing to feel her feet on grass or sand. It was a deep, physical need: to feel the power that coursed through the earth, to draw it up into herself, to renew herself in sunlight and rain and under the quiet solace of ancient trees. In Abercolme, Faye had walked in the fields or along the coast path most days, either before opening the shop or after closing. In London, she had to find another solution.
She hated the tube, so she’d taken the bus for a few stops until Regent’s Park came into view. As she walked in, she caught her breath: it was so beautiful. Much more beautiful than she would ever have expected a London park to be. Hampstead Heath was wonderful, but it was wild and unkempt compared to the manicured lawns, carved fountains and exotic trees that drew her steps here.
It was still early, but like anywhere in London, there were people about. West End workers power-walked to their offices, carrying takeaway coffees and frowning at their phones. Faye passed a group of elderly coiffed and manicured ladies in velour tracksuits who were walking equally manicured dogs on jewelled leads. An early group of Japanese tourists photographed swans on a tranquil pond.
However, as Faye followed the paths further into the park, she left them behind. Pushing last night’s argument to the back of her mind, she took off her ballet pumps and held them in one hand, walking on the close-cut grass instead of the delicately gravelled pathway. She half closed her eyes and attuned herself to the energy of the place. It had an old majesty about it, a queenly, regal feeling, like the gold-bedecked hotel where she and Rav had enjoyed afternoon tea. And yet, as well as that, the park had a different, less genteel energy. Faye breathed in the power of the earth through her bare feet as she walked meditatively, seeing its green and black and gold power twisting up through the ground, through her soles, into her legs and coiling into her sacrum like a serpent. She had a sudden vision of the faerie forest as she’d seen it at the Mabon ceremony – thick, green-black pines that grew out of a shining black crystal ground.
Connecting with the spirit of the place in this way, she knew intuitively that this was ancient forest land and always had been, even though it was now a playground for the rich. Faye had a sense of the land before a city had ever been here; of deep forest stretching up to the river; of a people that lived under the trees and worshipped the muddy Thames as a life-giving goddess. So many years, so many layers of city that had been built over that faraway London. But the bones of those ancient people lay somewhere under her feet, as did the echoes and shadows of the tree roots that once grew wild around her. It gave Faye a senseof belonging, even though Abercolme was her land; there was a connection to the past here, and it was good to make it. It gave her something to hang onto in a city that felt alien. At last, below the surface, there was a London that spoke to her.
She walked further, breathing in the quiet, feeling it echo and fill her body with a peace she longed for. Magpies flitted from tree to tree, calling to each other, breaking the quiet with their throaty cackles. Faye smiled and thought of the old rhyme.One for sorrow, two for joy; three for a girl, four for a boy.There was more than one, so there would be no sorrow for her today, and she was grateful for it.
She walked on past a coffee stall, then putting her shoes back on, thought better of it and went back.
‘Lovely morning.’ The girl inside the powder-blue painted refreshment shack looked up from her magazine. Faye nodded and asked for a mocha.
‘What’s the best bit of the park? I don’t want to miss anything I should definitely see.’ Faye looked around her. The sun was getting stronger now and reaching into the corners it hadn’t earlier.
‘Rose garden?’ The girl wrapped a napkin around the paper cup and handed it to Faye. ‘Past its best this time of year, but there are still some in flower. I love it in there, anyway. Follow the path when it forks to the right. You can’t miss it.’
‘Thanks.’ Faye sipped her drink and walked on, delighting in the peace in the park and the sweetness of the chocolate mixed with the strong coffee in her veins. She breathed out a sigh of happiness; finally, she felt like herself, probably for the first time since being in London. She needed some time to return to herself, to evaluate and sit with what had happened recently. Seeing a long-lost father for the first time, unexpectedly, was difficult. Her long-lost faerie king father appearing to her during a ritual and then disappearing back into his faerie realm took itto the next level. To say nothing of her liaison with Finn. The energy of faerie still thrummed in her veins.
There was no one else in the circular rose garden when Faye stepped into the first of its concentric circles and took a sharp gasp of surprise. For a moment, she saw a vision of it in full bloom: thick, velvet-petalled yellow roses, blowsy with their rich summer scent; small, beautiful blood-red rosebuds atop stiff, thorny stalks; perfect pink roses with their outer petals a little browned by the heat. Yet, as she blinked again, it returned to the way it was – there were few roses left apart from some late-blooming white ones that shone against the glossy dark green leaves of the bushes.
Faye walked the outer circle and followed it inwards, reminiscent of the spiral walk she sometimes did as part of ritual: a spiral inwards to raise and focus the power, a spiral outwards to let it go. She could still smell roses on the air, but when she sniffed the white flower, it had little perfume.It’s my imagination, she told herself.Nothing more. The roses were gone for the autumn, and their blooms would wait until next summer to return.
No, it’s a faerie place, she suddenly realised with a degree of shock. Not that all nature wasn’t part of the realms of faerie – Grandmother had taught her that the four elemental faerie kingdoms were the high thrones of power for the four elements of the ordinary world – air, fire, earth and water. But the rose garden itself had the same sense of enchantment that she’d felt before. The rose perfume returned, intensified, and Faye closed her eyes, pulled under by its scent. With her eyes closed, she could see a rich golden light rising upwards from the rose bushes, like rain in reverse, and heard faerie voices singing sweetly. Faye stood at the centre of the circles and spread out her arms, turning her face up to the sun with pleasure. The suffuse,sweet scent of roses bathed her senses in its luxury, and she breathed it in.
It was unlike the water energy: this was earth, pure and simple. But it was the fae earth energy. Faye could feel it unfurling around her, wanting to wrap her inside it.
She felt the power pulse through her from deep in the ground, through the soles of her feet and upward, through the centre of her. She felt it rise through her body, opening her heart with the sweetness of a wild rose, then her throat, her third eye, and out of the top of her head.
She took a deep breath, letting herself be filled full of this new, wild energy. Closing her eyes, Faye saw herself at the centre of the rose garden: as the central stamen in a vast, pink rose, radiating out and out from where she stood, into the infinity of London.
Faye Morgan, welcome home, the fae voices sang.Faye Morgan, blessed of the fae.Seo àite do chumhachd; gabh ri cumhachd na talmhainn.This is your place of power; embrace the power of the earth.
