‘Maybe.’ Faye smiled, thinking of the tall man and blushing at how easily she thought again of kissing him.
But men were dangerous. That was something she had learned from Moddie.
Faye had never known her father. He had disappeared just before she was born, and Moddie never spoke of him. But sometimes, if Faye asked, a haunted look would cross her face. All Moddie would say was that he’d had to leave Abercolme.
Just once, though, Faye had come downstairs, woken by a bad dream. Moddie had been sitting at the kitchen table with a friend of hers, a woman from the little coven she ran at the shop – Faye couldn’t remember her name. There was a bottle of wine on the table between them, and Moddie’s cheeks were flushed.
Faye’s bad dream had been of her father; only, in the dream, all she could see of him was a looming shadow. She had described the dream, held in Moddie’s warm embrace, sniffling into her mother’s comforting soft flannel shirt.
Ah, well, that’s all he’ll ever be, sweetheart, Moddie had replied, stroking her hair.A shadow. He didn’t want us, child, so don’t waste another tear on him. And, to her friend, she had said,That’s one mistake I’m never making again. Almost killed me.
Almost killed me. When Faye had gone back to bed, she had stared at the ceiling for what felt like hours with the phrase turning around and around in her head. What did Moddie mean? Had her father tried tokillher mother? Was she the daughter of a murderer? A picture began to form in her eight-year-old mind: a tall man, made of shadow; a scowling man, a man who wanted to hurt Moddie.
The next day Faye asked Moddie what she had meant, but her mother shook her head impatiently.Nothing, little goose.Turn of phrase. There was no more explanation than that, except being told not to worry. He wasn’t ever coming back.
‘Any progress on the spell, anyway?’ Aisha picked up the rose quartz crystal wand Faye had used in the ritual. ‘Has something happened? You look…I don’t know. You’re blushing.’
‘No…nothing.’ Faye knew that she sounded completely unconvincing. Had it been Annie asking, she wouldn’t have been able to lie, but she didn’t know Aisha as well. Yet, Aisha gave her a perplexed smile.
‘Are you sure, Faye?’ Aisha had returned to her usual look: hair tied up, no make-up, ripped jeans and a Pink Floyd T-shirt. Yet, Faye noticed her beauty more today, her long lashes, dewy skin. Either Aisha had always had this just-been-kissed look, or something had changed with her, too.
‘No. Well…’ Faye considered telling her friend about the tall blonde man who had come in earlier, and Rav Malik at the beach. Two men? Were they the outcome of her love spell? But she didn’t know what to say about the man who had reduced her to a mass of quivering flesh by calling her his good girl and brushing her hand.
‘What?’ Aisha looked up. ‘Something’s up. I can tell. Surely something’s going to happen soon?’
‘It’s the full moon today…’ Faye wrote on a tiny price label and stuck it on a carved wooden wand, then picked up another to price. She knew that spells could work more quickly, but there was a part of her that was afraid of her spell actually working. The fact that it might have workedtwiceas well as it was supposed to and brought her two men seemed…unbelievable. Yet, now that she thought about it, she realised that the tall blonde man who had hypnotised her earlier looked quite a lot like the poppet doll she had made. ‘So, I guess it could manifest something around now. Anytime from now.’
‘Nothing has happened to me. Not yet.’ Aisha sighed.
‘Hmm. Take some rose quartz home. It draws love to you.’
‘I’ve already got some.’ Aisha sighed again. ‘So. What’s up? I can tell it’s something. What?’
‘Oh, nothing.’ Faye cleared her throat.
‘Faye. Spill it.’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘FAYE!’
‘Oh, fine. I…I met a man on the beach,’ Faye muttered. There had been some oddness about her interaction with Rav Malik – the green light that had followed him around, seeming to blow his leaflets out of his hand, the smell of roses on the beach that Faye couldn’t explain – but, somehow, that experience seemed easier and more sensible to talk about than the man who had appeared mysteriously in the shop out of nowhere, who had a very strange aura about him – it was unlike anything Faye had seen before, in fact, gold and glittering – and called hergood girl. In whose presence she seemed to melt and lose control of her normal self almost completely.
Aisha smiled and put the rose quartz wand down. ‘Oh, REALLY! What man? Why is this the first we’re hearing of it? The spell’s working!’ Aisha squealed. ‘Have you told Annie?’
‘No. It was only this morning. I haven’t seen her yet.’
‘She’ll want to know. I’m texting her,’ Aisha declared, getting out her phone.
‘Aish. I’ll tell her. Chill.’ Faye laughed. ‘It might not be the spell. He’s just some guy. He’s bought the big house there. You know, the one that looks onto the beach.’
‘I know the one. So, what’s he like?’
Faye considered what to say. ‘Nice. Our age, I guess. He has his own business of some kind. Just moved up from London.’
‘When you say nice, you mean…?’ Aisha prompted her. ‘Hot? What did he look like?’
‘Oh, for…Okay, yes, he’s good-looking. Tall. Dark. Handsome. Looks…strong, like he works out. Big,’ Faye added, with a little sparkle in her eye. It wasn’t a lie. Rav was a big, bullish man and she had liked him. There was nothing wrong in saying that.
