‘Thank you! Thank you so much!’ She gaped at the laptop and then at him. ‘What did you do? That was like magic!’
‘You’d know.’ He gave her a mysterious smile. ‘Ah, it was nothing. Probably just a loose circuit, or something needed a moment to dry out.’
‘Well, I don’t know about that…’ she said doubtfully. ‘You touched it, and it came back to life.’
‘Just luck. I have a way with things sometimes.’ He glanced out of the window. ‘Oh, look. The sun’s out.’ The man beckoned her towards him, and she found herself following obediently. ‘See? Everything is fine,’ he said in a low tone, the rich, musical timbre of his voice making all of her body thrill. ‘Come and see.’
As if she was hypnotised, Faye followed the man to where he stood in the shop doorway, in the sun: it blazed down unexpectedly from between the grey clouds.
‘Good girl,’ he said, in that same low, unhurried tone, holding his hand out for hers. Faye’s eyes widened at the phrase.Good girl.No one had ever said that to her before, and it had a strange effect. She ought to be offended – she was a grown woman, not a little girl – but it felt strangely…comforting, but also…erotic. Deeply erotic.
Why?She had no idea why those words had seemingly enchanted her.
She desperately wanted to slide her hand into his; wanted to feel the strength of his touch, the comfort of his body next to hers, but she resisted. It was ridiculous to want these things with someone she didn’t know.
As if he knew what she was feeling, he took her hand and brushed it with his fingers.
‘Shh, now. Everything’s all right,’ he repeated, and the combination of his deep, resonant, reassuring voice and the feelof his soft touch on her skin made Faye draw in a sudden breath. Heat flowed through her body; she felt herself grow wet. Just listening to his voice, just touching him, caused pleasure to erupt and spiral through her body.
She couldn’t help it.
As Faye stood next to him, she could see that it was still raining on the beach just a few minutes’ walk away, but here, at least, there was a brief interlude in the weather. Not really an interlude, but there seemed to be some kind of sphere of sunlight over her shop and the shops either side of it.
The man stood next to her and looked up in pleasure at the sunlight; Faye breathed in its warmth, a smile spreading on her cheeks. A similar warmth emanated from him. Irrationally, she still wanted to lean into him, wanted to feel his body against hers.
‘See?’ His warm voice caressed her like the sun itself. ‘Things have a way of working out, even when you don’t expect them to, Mistress of Magic.’
‘Yes…I…’ she stammered, completely thrown off balance.
He gave her an intense, long look, and turned to go. ‘Goodbye, Faye Morgan. I’ll see you again soon.’ He smiled, and bowed theatrically before he left the shop, pulling the door closed behind him.
She was back inside the shop when she realised that she had never told him her name.
5
‘Did youhear? The whole village’s talking about it!’ Aisha burst into the shop and startled Faye, who was stacking new books onto the shelves: two new spell books from an American publisher, a guide to psychic self-defence, and a book about Scottish faerie lore.
Mistress of Magic was a destination in itself for witchy folk across Scotland, and even wider; last week she’d had American tourists in who had chosen Abercolme for a stop on their holiday just because of the shop.All thanks to you, Moddie. And, Faye had to admit that her own magic had also been partly responsible for the shop’s success. Since she had taken over running the shop, every month on the new moon Faye cast a spell. Sometimes, it was to attract money, if she had a big bill to pay; sometimes, it was for more customers; sometimes, it was for inspiration, or healing for a customer. But the intended result always tended to manifest, one way or another.
‘Did I hearwhat? You’re the second one to startle me today. I’m going to need some sort of herbal remedy on a drip at this rate.’ Faye slowly slid the books onto the wooden unit and noticed it needed dusting. She was still half enchanted by hermysterious visitor – she felt at once strangely floaty, as if half of her was somewhere else, and still aroused.
Whathadactually happened? It all seemed like a dream: somehow, the tall man had managed to hypnotise her into some kind of lust-ridden fugue. At the time, it had made sense, and she had felt perfectly safe in a kind of bubble of closeness with him, a complete stranger. And then he had left, as mysteriously as he had appeared, and Faye felt confused.
‘Dal Riada! They’re coming!’ Aisha danced around the faded blue high-backed chair by the hearth. ‘I’m so excited! I’ve got both their albums. They’re going to play at the festival!’
‘You’re saying that like I’m supposed to know who they are.’ Faye raised an eyebrow at her friend, who was scrolling her phone screen.
‘Youdoknow. Dal Riada. You’ve got one of their albums somewhere. Here, listen.’ Aisha’s phone played a fast, folky Celtic tune.
‘Oh, that.’ Faye went to the counter and rummaged in the drawer where she kept CDs for the shop’s sound system. Aisha had given her a couple more a few weeks ago and she’d slung them in without much thought. ‘I haven’t played it yet.’
‘Oh, Faye! There’s a world of new music out there, you know.’
Faye listened to the tune for a minute.
‘Celtic folk isn’t new. We play it in here all the time,’ she replied, though she liked the fevered drumming and the fluted voice of the singer. It reminded her of Moddie: of being swung around in her mother’s arms, Moddie’s red hair flowing around both of them like flames; of Moddie singing along with the fast lyrics, of her feet drumming on the stone floor after they’d shut up shop and the moon glinted through the windows.
‘You know what I mean. Thank the goddess for Abercolme finally making it into the twenty-first century!’ Aisha wasbeaming ear to ear. ‘And who knows, eh? Maybe that’s how we meet our new lovers!’
