Yes, my dear, her grandmother had replied.But there are some things in this life that you can only understand when you are older. Some consider that being the lover of a fae is a great blessing.
When she was older, Faye had asked Moddie if she believed that the Good Folk bred with humans. She had expected her mother to say no, that it was one of Grandmother’s more fanciful ideas, but Moddie had looked away, a blush on her cheeks. The thought of it returned to Faye sometimes.
Grandmother had tried to teach her, as a child, the old ways to appease the Good Folk, but Faye had never witnessed any evidence of them, and she had lapsed in her observances over time.
But, sometimes, now that she was a grown woman, Faye would dream of a fae lover, like a man, but larger, taller: his chest was broad, hard and muscled, his forearms corded and strong.
He had an aquiline face and yellow-blonde hair, long, to his shoulders. His face was beautiful in an otherworldly way, with piercing blue eyes, heavy-lidded with long lashes.
In the dream, her lover stroked her skin gently with his long fingers and murmured words in her ear that she had no memoryof on waking. In the dream, he kissed her, held her in his huge, strong arms, and then, slowly, entered her, whispering that he was going to give her a baby, that he would fill her with his seed, that she was his pretty little brood mare, that they were destined to be together. The dreams always made her so wet and full of longing that she would wake up, gasping and frustrated.
Grandmother had also said that the Good Folk would swap a human baby for a faerie changeling, disguised so that the baby’s parents would be forever unaware. The human parents would take care of the changeling as their own, until one day, it would be taken back into the fae realm. Sometimes, this was done if a fae baby became ill with an affliction that could not be healed in the fae realms, or if the fae kings or queens decided that the baby needed to learn certain skills in the human world.
Though Faye had believed this as a child, she’d questioned it as she’d grown older, and this part of Grandmother’s teaching seemed a little far-fetched to her now. Still, she had showed the grimoire to Annie, and together they’d leafed through the thick pages. Grandmother had written down her dreams in it, as well as spells, healing she’d performed for various villagers, and accounts of her rituals at the new, full and dark moons.
Annie had always been fascinated by Faye’s witch heritage: the fact that she could trace her family back to Grainne Morgan, who had been murdered as part of the now infamous witch trials in Berwick in the sixteenth century. Even before then, the Morgan women had been witches, Grandmother had told her.Their blood is in yours, Faye. Never forget.
But Faye didn’t like to think about Grainne Morgan, being burned at the stake; every time she did, she could almost feel the fire licking up her own skin. The ancestral trauma from such a thing, she had read, lived on in the generations following. She could well believe it. She’d had nightmares as a child: of being shut in a dark, smelly room with no light or air. She would wakeup from those dreams crying and with a sensation around her wrists as if they had been chafed by rope.
How to explain the crackling panic that engulfed her when she thought about those women?
Annie was leafing through the grimoire, lit by the lamps they had brought with them onto the beach.
‘Every year, I find something new,’ she murmured. ‘There’s all kind of things in here. Look – spells for health, luck…Look at this. Faerie kings and queens.’ She showed the book to Faye, who frowned at the pages.
‘I don’t remember seeing that part before,’ she said, leaning over and staring at the thick vellum parchment. The double page was arranged in a kind of diagram, like a family tree, with amateurish illustrations – done by Grandmother, or a Morgan woman before her, Faye guessed. The illustrations showed royal crests and crowns on each corner of the pages.
‘In Murias, the realm of water, the king and queen are Fintanaeon, Master of the Tides, and Levantiana, Mistress of the Cup. In Falias, the realm of earth, the king and queen are Lyr, Master of Mountains, and Moronoe, Mistress of the Stone. In Gorias, the realm of air, the king and queen are Raphaeleon, Master of the Winds, and Tyronoe, Mistress of the Knife. And in Finias, realm of fire, the king and queen are Attis, Master of Flame, and Thetis, Mistress of the Staff.’
Faye read aloud, tracing her finger over the words written in a thick ink.
Each royal house’s crown symbol was different: the crown for Murias, the realm of water, was a rose gold crown with six tall spikes and an inner cap of pearls and opals. The crown for Falias, the realm of earth, was square with four domed sides made of deep yellow gold, each holding a precious jewel in a different colour. The crown for Gorias, the realm of air, looked as if it was made of glass, with no jewels at all but withhundreds of tall, thin, transparent spikes around a glass circlet. And the crown for Finias, the realm of fire, was a thick black circlet without any spikes but studded with rubies in an abstract pattern. Whoever had drawn the crowns had taken a lot of care: the whole double page was a work of art.
‘That’s awesome,’ Annie cooed. ‘Look at all the work that must have gone into this. The page was stuck together, so I don’t think it’s been opened in a while.’
‘That would explain why I haven’t seen it before. I must have flicked right past it,’ Faye said as she studied the names of the fae kings and queens. ‘Isn’t it wild that someone believed in all of this enough to write it in the family grimoire?’
‘Your grannie was all about the faerie world. Maybe there’s something in it.’ Annie shrugged.
‘Maybe,’ Faye said. ‘Look. Rules for interacting with the faerie realms.’ She ran her finger down a list of commandments, written in a neat, copperplate hand.
One. Never eat or drink in the faerie realms. Taking in their food and drink, while delicious, will alter a human body forever and make it more of the fae, less of the human. This can result in a greater susceptibility to illness and bad luck while in the human world, though it can confer great power in the worlds of faerie.
Two. Following on from One. The Rule of Balance applies between the faerie and the human worlds. Each world depends on the other to exist, and there is a natural ebb and flow between the realms. If one realm seeks to overpower the other, chaos reigns. If they work harmoniously together, peace reigns.
Three. Faerie powers must be propitiated by the humans assigned the task, who we call witches. To maintain peace with the faerie realms, witches must care for their places of power innature, leave regular offerings and remain in communication with the fae.
Four. Do not ask special boons of the fae. The Rule of Balance demands payment, and if a human asks the fae for help, know that it will be given, but the price demanded in return will be high.
Five. Observe the rites of the seasons: Beltane, Samhain, the solstices and the equinoxes.
Six. Study the faerie realms and know them before entering them. Keep your wits about you at all times when in the realm of faerie. The fae realms are not like the human world; the fae do not operate as we do. Morality does not exist in the faerie realms. Tread carefully there.
Seven. Wear charms to resist faerie enchantment, or risk being lost. The fae, though they confer power to witches, are perilous and will seek to seduce, possess and impregnate witches for their own ends.
Eight. Know that the longer a human spends in the realms of faerie, the more difficult it will be to return to the mortal world.
Nine. A faerie cannot force a witch to stay in its realm, and a witch has free will. If you enter faerie, it is because you choose to, and you can leave when you wish, as long as you have not partaken too much of the faerie food and wine, or stayed away for too long. The fae will lie to you and tell you that you are their prisoner. You are not. But the fae are persuasive and can make it seem that you cannot leave. Beware.
