She closed her eyes. Over and over again she weighed up every offer, every possible way, but every time, she came up against a faerie king or queen that sought only to manipulate her. Lyr was no different.
But she also needed something for herself, and she was frightened of the kind of help she might need. Because it had been two months without a period, and she was sick still, every day, long past the point where she should have recovered from being in the faerie realm.
For the first time, Faye placed her hand on her flat stomach and dared to imagine that she might be pregnant. Worse: that the bargains she’d struck with Levantiana might have to be fulfilled.
35
Excerpt from Grainne Morgan’s diary
4 January 1590
It is too long since I have written. I am almost gone to the fae, hardly in this world at all.
Mother berates me; it is the wrong thing for a witch to be so enmeshed in the fae realms. Yet, I cannot help myself, and the sickness when I return now is too great.
Mother has taken over the care of my daughter. I miss her terribly, but the pull on me is too great. I could not leave Gwyn now, even if I tried.
Finally, I see the darkness in the fae. He has entrapped me with love, though he swears that he does love me and it is all not just a ploy.
I am with child again, and I have not been able to take the tea, being almost entirely in Murias. My heart is heavy and yet full at the same time. I cannot see in the crystal. It remains blank for me.
She wasn’t aware of falling asleep in the chair, but she suddenly found herself standing in a golden-green forest. Sunlight dappled the yellow, red and green leaves. All the colours were slightly too bright to be real, as if rendered by a child. Silver birch stood alongside ash and oak, and a row of the prickly hawthorns with their red berries lined a pathway through the trees.
Faye walked slowly along the path, feeling the pull of faerie in her blood. She smelled the tang of lemon and the savoury tinge of wild oregano in the air. The green light welcomed her in, and the wild power of the cold, black earth seemed to soak through her boots. It was December, but in the dream – or was it a dream? – there was no distinct season. The earth was cold and damp, but the sun was warm; the leaves on the trees could have been spring shoots or autumn colours. The ache in her chest she carried for Aisha was still there, but being in faerie muted it somehow, like a drug.
To her right flowed the same merry stream she’d visited with Lyr on their way into Falias. The bridge in the shape of a woman’s body was still there, as beautifully carved as it had been before. She crossed it and stood before the tall black gate. The Queendom of Moronoe, High Queen of the Realm of Earth.
Faye remembered Lyr’s expression as he’d talked about his sister; it had been dismissive, distant. Clearly there wasn’t agreat love between them as brother and sister, or even as co-rulers of Falias. Finn and Levantiana didn’t keep themselves separate in Murias: both resided in the castle and ruled from it. Faye wondered what had happened to mean that Lyr and Moronoe were so estranged that they had split a realm between them.
Something about that black door fascinated her. She touched it lightly with her fingers and it swung open without her needing to do anything more.
Roots and vines wrapped themselves around her feet and ankles, and she could go no further.Stop, traveller. Only one pure in her desire may enter the Queendom of Moronoe, Mistress of Earthly Delights, a chorus of voices sang out.Have knowledge of where you tread. Know thyself, and admit thy deepest desires.
Beyond the gate, the forest was more densely packed, and moonlight rather than the warm sun filtered between the gaps between thick-trunked yews, dense with their dark green needles and poisonous red berries. Faye could see their exposed roots under the black soil that glowed with jewels: amber, citrine, jet and emerald. The air that drifted out of the gate smelled of copper, and it reminded her of her monthly blood.Know thyself.
Faye took a deep breath and pulled free of the roots and vines. She put one foot inside the gateway. The jewelled black earth beyond accepted her weight, and no vines sought to trap her. Carefully, she stepped between the dense yews, and though there was no black lake, the ground itself reminded her of the vision she’d had of standing opposite Gabriel, lost and seeking refuge.
Perhaps the recognition of her shadow was something to recommend her to the faerie queen here.
Come to terms with your desire, Faye, the same voice sang as she walked further and further into the jewelled yew forest.Accept that desire does not have walls, or rules, or niceties. Desire does not arrive packed safely in a box and wait to be looked at. It rips itself from the box, from the womb. It is born bloody and with teeth, and it feeds.
Faye walked deep into the faerie forest, where the trees became a labyrinth and led her down long, sinuous paths that twisted and bent under the moonlight. She walked and walked until time had lost all meaning, and as she walked, moving images like film appeared on the leafy branches of the trees that she followed. As she walked past, an unfolding record of her lovemaking with Finn and with Rav were played out for her in lurid colour and detail.
At first, Faye turned her head away, repulsed both by seeing her own body and the expressions on her face that captured moments of lust and ecstasy. She broke into a run, tripping on her own feet or on stray fallen branches or vines on the ground, desperate to escape the vision. If this is a dream, I want to wake up!she thought, but she didn’t find herself back in her bed. But when she was breathless and her heart was hammering, she was forced to stop and watch.
She watched herself bent over on all fours with Finn’s cock in her mouth as two green-skinned, scaly fae creatures penetrated her from behind, and Finn told her what a good girl she was.
She watched herself pushing Rav’s head into her pussy as he licked her gently on the beach.
She watched herself stuff her panties into Finn’s mouth and ride him, taking her pleasure and denying him his.
She saw the dull adoration in her own eyes as she gazed up at Finn Beatha, naked as he stood over her and demanded she call him lord and master; as he played with her clit, teasing her and making her say all manner of demeaning things about herself.
And, as she watched, remembering, she came to a new peace. Her body was more beautiful than she’d imagined. She saw arousal and passion in the images, but she also saw tenderness on Rav’s face, and on Finn’s. What they did was all for pleasure. Was any of it so wrong? Perhaps she was the only one that had ever thought it was. Faye had categorised faerie as the shadow because of the sexual boundaries she’d crossed when she was there. She’d thought shadow was wrong, and light was good. But in the tree labyrinth with the milky glow that filtered through the shadowy pines, Faye pondered whether light and shadow were all part of one spectrum of being.
She could have been walking for an hour or a day; she’d no idea of how long she’d been in the trees. But unlike the fear she’d experienced in the labyrinth leading to Murias, she felt only calm. And as if they had been waiting for her to reach acceptance with what she’d seen, the trees opened onto a clearing.
36
