‘Gods, that hill’s steeper than it looks,’ Ruby panted from behind them. She had caught up and waved her scarf. ‘Found it. Left it on the table.’
‘Last, but by no means the least, dear Ruby,’ Gabriel purred, taking her hand, and then Faye’s. ‘Let us enter our sacred space. I’m honoured to escort two such delicious creatures…’
‘That sounded sooo creepy, Gabriel.’ Ruby rolled her eyes. ‘You’re not about to eat us.’
‘No gentleman would dream of such a thing,’ he agreed, and they made their way through the trees to the secret clearing.
Faye followed them, feeling the last of the fading sun on her back, and shivering suddenly with a sense of unexpected foreboding as the shadows devoured them.
6
The circle stretched across the clearing under the oak trees. There were ten witches in all; idly, Faye wondered if there was any truth in the tradition that a coven should comprise thirteen. Her experience of witchcraft was either working alone, learning from her mother and her grandmother when they had still been alive, or with Annie. Just once, she and Annie had become a group of three when they and Aisha had cast their love spell. But the result of that working had been tempestuous, to say the least.
The two women who had been at the front of the group had already set up much of the circle when Faye arrived with Ruby and Gabriel. One was plump, middle-aged, with long, wavy henna-red hair and wore a greyish, once-white T-shirt that stretched over her chest, bearing the anti-nuclear sign on it in rainbow colours with a thick padded jacket over the top; on the bottom, she wore a long, full patchwork skirt. The other woman, who was setting out four hefty storm lamps at the cardinal points of the circle, was older, with short white hair in a bob. She wore cargo trousers and a lilac fleece jacket.
Faye smiled to herself and thought that if Ruby could only bring the rest of the creative team fromCoven of Lovealong tothis, they’d be extremely disappointed that no one was dressed in a floor-length velvet gown.
In the centre of the clearing there was a convenient tree stump on which the red-headed woman was setting out some basic equipment: a wooden wand, an earthenware cup – which the white-haired woman filled with red wine from a screw-topped bottle – a pentagram made of slim sticks, tied together with string, and a Moroccan-style silver metal censer.
Ruby took Faye over to the white-haired woman, who was rummaging in her bag for something and looked up warily as they approached.
‘Lighter! Wouldn’t get very far without that,’ she muttered, putting it down on the stump.
‘Sylvia – this is Faye Morgan, the one I told you about.’ Ruby was strangely formal all of a sudden, almost bowing to the older woman. ‘Faye, this is Sylvia. She’s our High Priestess. Thank you, Priestess, for allowing me to bring Faye to the group.’
‘Welcome, Faye.’ Sylvia looked at first glance like someone running a cake stall at a village fete, but when she spoke, she was abrupt, in the manner of a powerful woman who hadn’t had to be polite for a long time. She maintained a slightly aggressive eye contact with Faye, almost like a stare, unblinking.
‘Thanks for letting me come to your ritual,’ Faye replied politely.
‘I open the seasonal festivals to a small number of approved visitors, but don’t be under the misapprehension that attending the festivals is a way into the coven. There are stringent initiation requirements.’ Faye felt as though she was being told off in the headmistress’s office all of a sudden.
‘I’m not looking for a coven to join. I just thought it would be nice to mark the season with a like-minded group. I don’t like to miss marking the seasonal celebrations, and I’m away from home currently.’ Faye held Sylvia’s gaze; if the older woman wastrying to intimidate her, it wasn’t going to work. Sylvia looked away first.
‘It’s not to say that the coven is closed to you, of course, but you’d need to show a sustained commitment to the group over a long period of time before you were considered. I’m sure you understand how careful I have to be as the guardian of the group. Their safety lies in my hands. We tread, after all, a path of shadows when we dance with the old ones.’ Sylvia added, ‘It’s good to know that you keep the festivals regularly, though.’
When you’ve danced on corpses in the faerie reel, come and talk to me about treading the shadow path, Faye thought. Perhaps Sylvia picked up on the thought, or felt Faye’s lack of fear of her, because she nodded briskly.
‘As long as everyone knows where they stand. I understand that you come from a hereditary background, Faye?’ She busied herself with laying out the altar, and Faye exchanged glances with Ruby, who gave her the thumbs up.
‘That’s right. My ancestors have been witches a long way back, in Fife,’ Faye replied.
‘And they taught you the old ways?’
‘Yes. I suppose it’s what you’d call a mix of folk magic and traditional witchcraft,’ Faye replied. ‘But my mum taught me some Wicca too, so a mix.’ She wasn’t going to talk about the other magic she knew: the power of the element of water that Levantiana had taught her in the realm of Murias.
‘And what deity did you work with? The Cailleach? The Morrigan?’ Standing up, Sylvia named two Celtic goddesses; it was a challenge, in some way. Sylvia was testing her.
‘No. I know of them; I know people who honour Callie Beara.’ Faye gave the familiar name of The Cailleach, a Scottish winter goddess of mountains, snow and rain. ‘We…’ Faye shivered unexpectedly, thinking of Finn. She didn’t want to think about him; not here. It was too complicated. ‘We worked with theold ones, Old Hornie and the Queen of Elphame. My ancestors worked a lot with the Good Folk.’
On top of the stone mantlepiece above the shop’s hearth, Faye’s grandmother had kept two carved figures. One of the figures was a horned goat man, with a shaggy chest and cloven hooves on an otherwise human man’s body, covered in leaves. The other was a naked feminine figure, with long hair that swirled around her body, holding a goblet in one hand and a flower in the other.
‘I see.’ Sylvia’s expression was impenetrable. ‘One of this group’s matron goddesses is Morgan Le Fay, Mistress of Magic. We’ll be calling to her tonight.’
‘Morgana Le Fae?’ Faye used the faerie name – Morgana rather than Morgan, not that it mattered. Morgana was the queen of the Crystal Castle at the centre of the four elemental fae kingdoms. Faye knew very well that one had to journey to one of the faerie realms and then walk a perilous crystal bridge to reach her. She had done it.
But, Faye didn’t think that Morgana – a High Queen of Magick and much more powerful than even Finn Beatha or his faerie queen sister Levantiana – could be summoned so easily by this group. There was a certain comfort in that. She didn’t want to be confronted with anything belonging to the faerie realm. A quiet, respectful Mabon ceremony in nature would be just fine.
‘Your namesake?’ Sylvia raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you familiar with Morgan Le Fay? I assume you must be if your worship has been with the elemental realms.’ The others were watching her keenly, assessing, perhaps, whether she was all she claimed to be.
