Holy shite. What was this place?
“Oh, wow. Okay, just wow. I see now why this is your favorite spot.” I brought a hand to my heart as I took in the view before me. We were at the bottom of a gully of sorts, cocooned on both sides by hills covered in wildflowers, with a rocky outcropping that formed a ledge covered in soft green moss. About five meters below the ledge, the waters of Loch Mirren lapped against sharply-edged rocks jutting out of the surface.
It was like being cradled in a blanket of wildflowers while floating on the water.
It was dizzying, almost as dizzying as Luch’s kisses, to be surrounded by so much beauty, the earth, loch and sky, all meeting together in one perfect spot.
“It’s a cracking wee spot, isn’t it?” Luch sounded pleased that I was so taken by his choice.
“It’s glorious. Is this where you’ve been collecting my flowers from?”
“It is. I imagined you here. Wait …” Luch bent and, plucking a white wildflower from the ground, he reached up and tucked it in my hair. My breath caught. It was a casual gesture, but so like the one my mum used to do. I hadn’t let anyone else close enough to do something like that again. “Much better. Faelan of the flowers. A beauty among the beauties.”
“Why do you call me that?” I asked, my cheeks heating, as Luch slid the backpack from his shoulders and dropped it to the ground. He unclipped a rolled blanket attached to the top and shook it out before laying it on the ground. Oban promptly walked over and sat on it, and I grinned.
“I don’t know. It just rolls off the tongue, I suppose?”
“My mum used to call me that.” I said it before I realized I had, caught up in the moment, where the emotions were swamping me. I didn’t usually mention my mother to people, as I was never comfortable receiving awkward condolences, so I kept her memory to myself. As though it was my own precious pearl to pull out and admire when I was alone.
“Did she? It suits you. Do you want to tell me abouther?” Luch asked, and I glanced at him, surprised. There were no condolences now, just genuine interest.
And despite my usual reticence to talk about myself—the necessity to hide my past, my life from people—sometimes I’d wished for opportunities for people to know about Eriska.She was such an amazing woman.And for the first time in such a long time, I did want to tell someone about her. I wanted to…share a part of myself with the man in front of me.To show him where I come from, if only briefly.
“We’re rooted, you and I, Faelan. Like the flowers that bloom in the spring and the ancient trees that sing in the wind. Beneath the sky, face to the sun, is where you’ll always find me.”My mum’s words whispered to me across the pages of my memories.
“She’d love this moment, for one.” I laughed as I thought about her. Luch took my hand and guided me to a seat on the blanket before uncapping a thermos and pouring me a cup of tea. “She was endlessly romantic, sometimes to the point of foolishness if I’m to be honest. But she always wanted to believe the best in people. It made her an easy mark at times, for the wrong boyfriends, but her one saving grace was she also had a backbone of steel. The minute someone mistreated her, she booted them.”
“Good for her.” Luch busied himself taking a few containers and packages of tinfoil from his bag, spreading everything on the blanket before us. “What about your dad?”
Robert Thomas. Reckless fool. Sperm donor. No one to me.
“He was one of the bad ones.” I cupped the mug of tea in both hands and took a sip, my gaze going across the lochto the island. “Lived fast. Died young. He’d been drinking and had eight-month-old me in the car with him. She took me and moved on the next day. He was dead within the year. To my mother’s credit, I never missed having a father. She was … everything. All-consuming. Beautiful, funny, whip-smart. And constantly, endlessly, joyous.”
“That’s an incredible talent, to hold joy in the face of adversity,” Luch observed, popping open the lids on the containers.
“I think that’s part of being a mother, isn’t it? Creating these pockets of joy and happiness, even if sadness burned in her heart? She never let me see it, even though, intuitively, I often knew she felt it. She worried over me. That I was too serious. She didn’t want me to take the sadness of the world on my shoulders.”
“Why did she think you were too serious?”
“It was a defense mechanism, I suppose. I didn’t, well, don’t, trust easily. It takes me time to let people in. And she was always an open book, from day one of meeting her. She’d invite friends and foe alike to dinner, never batting an eye, always happy to have people surrounding her. I think, maybe, because our family was so small. So she constantly opened the doors to the world, even when that same world didn’t open the doors back.”
“Why not?”
I blinked at Luch, surprised I’d said so much. I fell back on a lie, unwilling to tell him that most people didn’t accept witches into their lives. I wasn’t ready to share that information with him. Yet. Or ever, maybe.
“The world isn’t often very kind to single mothers.”
“That’s such shite.” Luch’s eyebrows drew together in aglower. “Why do the men get off on being shite fathers, but the women bear the brunt of it? Ridiculous.”
“Aye, it is at that.” Oban shifted, licking my palm, and I raised my hand to scratch his ears.I need to change the subject.Luch’s phone pinged, and I paused, waiting while he pulled it from his pocket and glanced at it.
“Sorry, I have it on for work.”
“No problem. Feel free to take it.” I could understand better than most about the needs of work.
“No, it’s fine. Just my father.”
“Oh, go ahead.” I waved a hand as his phone pinged again, but he just silenced it and put it back in his pocket. I studied his face as he pressed his lips together, frustration flashing behind his eyes. “Everything okay?”
