I wasn’t so sure.
Our appointment wasn’t until the afternoon. Gwen had to work a shift at the gallery shop, so Corbin took all of us – except Flynn, who didn’t want to leave Candice’s studio – on a tour of the Avebury henge. We walked around the enormous stone circle that encircled the village and hunted for any sign the fae might have been nearby last night. We found nothing, but the memory of that figure still haunted me. I touched the stones, digging inside them with my spirit power to feel the hum of magic still clinging to them.
“Starting in the late medieval period, people came to live in the village, and they destroyed many of the stones – some because they needed the space for the walls of their houses, and some because they didn’t like the pagan rituals the stones represent.” Corbin pointed to the two towering stones in the centre of a green field. One was skinny, the other a vaguely diamond shape. “Fertility rites were very important to our ancestors. These stones represent the male and female entities that must come together to create new life, both in the womb and in the earth.”
“If these sites are so important, how come there isn’t a stone circle at Briarwood, or near any of the London covens?”
“There actually was a stone circle at Briarwood,” Corbin explained. “It was quite close to the sidhe. We don’t know anything for sure because there’s no written history pre-Romans, but we believe Neolithic peoples got along quite well with the fae…well, there was a kind of uneasy truce. It’s possible witches and fae even worked magic together, for instance, to help the wild places to produce enough food for everyone, or to keep mutual enemies at bay.”
“What happened to destroy that friendship?”
“Technology, science, civilisation, the smelting of iron.” Corbin shrugged. “If it was part of human enlightenment, the fae took exception to it. They want us to live like Neolithic people, but the human mind can’t help but innovate.”
“The fae wanted to protect the wild places,” Rowan said. “Humans burned forests to make fields. We slaughtered entire species for food or sport. I think the fae thought they were trying to save us from ourselves, to remind us where we came from.”
“Liah said she could hear the ghosts of the trees howling in pain,” Blake added.
“That’s probably true. But humans saw it as the fae trying to halt progress. Over the years the human race progressed and the rift between us grew greater,” Corbin shrugged. “Even witchcraft changed. Many of the ancient sacred places – including the circle at Briarwood – were destroyed in the name of farming or war. Modern covens realised that it wasn’t stones that gave them power. Although a witch can draw power from an ancient place like Avebury, it’s nothing like the magic we hold within ourselves.”
“Then why do—hold on,” I hissed, watching as two figures jogged across the field toward us. “Kelly’s coming.”
Arthur slid in beside me – the perfect boyfriend – just as Kelly and Jane stopped in front of us.
“Maeve, can we talk a minute?” Kelly asked, her voice cold.
“Sure.” I dropped Arthur’s arm. “You guys keep going with the tour. We’ll just be over by the male/female stones.”
We walked a short distance away in silence. Jane shifted Connor from one shoulder to the other. When we were out of earshot of the guys, Kelly blurted out, “Why did we come here, Maeve?”
“It’s an interesting tourist site. I thought you’d like to see it.”
“That’s a lie and we both know it. You’d never choose to come here. There’s not an observatory or a science museum for miles around. Why are you suddenly so interested in pagan worship sites? Why are you so desperate for me to believe in all this mystical witchy stuff? We always disagreed about theology before and you never cared. What’s going on?”
“Nothing. I mean, being here in England where everything’s so ancient…it’s brought home just how stupid it is to believe Earth is only six thousand years old?—”
“I don’t care how old the stupid earth is,” Kelly hissed. “I want to spend time with my sister. I came here because you asked me, remember? Because you said you’d look after me so I didn’t feel like I was alone. But it’s the same as when you were a thousand miles away. I’m completely invisible to you.”
“Kelly, that’s not true.”
“Itistrue. You didn’t even notice that I changed my hair.”
I stared at her blonde locks, hunting for something different about them. Did she get layers? Was her hair a little shorter? I honestly couldn’t tell. “I never notice when you change your hair,” I said.
“I saw you last night,” Kelly hissed. “You were standing by that tall stone over there while all those ladies in white robes danced around you, like some Satanic ritual or something. What was that all about?”
No.
It wasn’t Liah running away from the ritual last night. It wasKelly.
Of course. I’d seen a flash of blonde hair. Kelly must’ve woken up and heard us leaving and followed us. My mind reeled, searching for an excuse I could give her, some explanation for what she’d seen that wasn’t, ‘I’m a witch.’
“That was Gwen’s idea,” I said, frantically trying to think of an excuse. “It’s a performance art piece and she wants?—”
“If you’re not going to tell Kelly the truth, then we’re done here,” Jane fumed. “Come on, Kelly. I saw an ice cream shop in the village. Leave Maeve with herboys. That’s what she wants, anyway.”
Kelly glared at me a final time, then stormed off after Jane.
I watched them flee toward the village, my stomach churning.
