Beltane Page 10

  Chapter 9. All hallows eve

  The horrific encounter with Jem in the stables and the confusing conversation I’d had with Circe unnerved me for the next couple of days.

  Now that she’d put the idea in my head that Shanty hadn't been straight with me I couldn't shake it off. Why did she really ask me to work in the shop with her when there was obviously so little to do? Could it be related to my birthmark in some way, and could she even be involved with the Sisterhood? The other thing I couldn't shake off was the image of Jem striking that poor horse across the face, and then raising the whip to hit me. It kept flashing into my mind and distracting me from my college work. How could he be like that? I’d thought, when we’d talked together that night in the garden of Rose cottage, that I’d seen the real Jem Masterson. Obviously I was sorely mistaken.

  The first thing I'd done when I'd gotten back to class was to offer a groveling apology to Millie, and spill almost everything I'd been through. I left out the part about potentially being a Tu'athain – I figured that was way too silly to bother her with - I just said that Circe was concerned Shanty hadn't mentioned that there was a dark side to Wiccan beliefs.

  I told her all about the incident with Jem and said I had half a mind to call the police, there must be laws against hurting an animal that way. Although Millie agreed, she warned me that they might not be particularly keen to follow it up. Circe was the biggest donor to the local police benevolent fund; she'd practically paid for the new police social and sports club in Ringburg single-handedly. Besides they could easily have moved the horse somewhere else by now. It would be my word against theirs.

  She was right of course, but the thought of the way that poor creature had been treated still upset me to the core. We both agreed that Jem must have serious issues, probably some sort of split personality for him to change so drastically from one minute to the next. He probably needed headzappers even more than I did.

  I decided to see if I could pump Rebekah for a spot of professional insight - provided I could manage to do it without giving her all the gory details of my non-relationship with Jem.

  I also found myself unable to resist trawling through the internet for any references to 'Wicca', 'Cybele,' 'Tu'athain' and the 'Witches Fork'.

  From what I could see Wiccans worshipped a divine couple, two parts of a complete whole who, together in balance, make up the Cosmos; so far so Shanty. It was only when I started looking for links to the Goddess Cybele that I found more disturbing descriptions of a 'Great Mother, riding a lion-drawn chariot who would drive her followers into a wild ecstatic frenzy'.

  On one site I found a passage which described how Cybele’s male priests would emasculate themselves in her honour. Just in case you're not familiar with the word - I had to look it up myself to make sure - I can promise you it's not a pleasant thought. Just don't do an image search whatever you do!

  A particularly gory site seemed to revel in the idea that her worshippers didn't stop at sacrificing bulls; the taurobolium Circe had mentioned. It insisted that in one of their other fertility ceremonies a man was given the role of Cybele's male consort Attis, and at the culmination of the rite his throat was slit on the altar.

  Beginning to wish that Rebekah had a child lock on the internet I typed in Tu'athain. I'd read plenty of myths and legends concerning encounters between the mortal and supernatural realms, I'd just never realized how many resulted in babies that were half-elf, half-nymph, half-dryad, or half-faery.

  I suppose if Ariel had finally managed to marry her Prince, like she does in the movie, then her kids would have been Tu'athain – half-merperson and half human. The NG absolutely had to be a half-gnome!

  According to the site the powers of a Tu'athain would only begin to show themselves once they'd passed their sixteenth birthday, and that they would need help from a shaman or a supernatural guide to learn how to control them. Each of the Tu'athain had slightly different powers, which were dependent upon what their parents could do. What they all shared was an affinity with and ability to heal animals, and one other thing; they all had 'second sight'.

  I did another quick search and learned that 'second sight' is the name given to the ability to see elements of the faery kingdom. I read a long passage which caught my attention from its opening sentence. ‘Mortals with the sight have been persecuted throughout history. Often treated as mad, those who can see, and sometimes hear the voices of the fae, rarely realize what their gift is, or seek training in its correct use. Instead, they have found themselves rejected by society, controlled with drugs, and confined to hospital wards.’

  It explained that the Tu'athain didn't fully belong in the mortal world and that when they reached the right age to cross the border between the two worlds the land of the fae began calling to them. In olden times the links between the two realms, the 'visible' and 'invisible' worlds had been much closer, and mankind while not being able to see it, had been able to sense the nearness of the spirit world.

  There were places where the kingdom of the Fae, and the land of the mortals physically touched one another. At one time it was relatively easy to cross from one to the other, but as the centuries had passed the skills had been lost, and now it was almost impossible to penetrate the barrier which had grown between them.

  Whilst finding the whole faery thing fascinating, and just a little bit spooky considering my 'condition'. I wasn't naïve enough to start imagining it might be a good idea to throw myself out of the window to see if I could fly.

  One thing Circe was completely right about though was my birthmark. It did look uncannily like the pictures I found on a bunch of fairly dodgy sites referring to the 'Witches Fork'. It seemed likely that anybody who did believe all this stuff might actually want to add me to their cooking pot or do something even worse.

  By the time Saturday came round again I was itching to have things out with Shanty. However when I arrived at the shop, right on time as always, I was surprised to find the door locked and Shanty nowhere in sight. I waited around for twenty minutes and then popped into the Papermill. The NG told me he had no idea where she might be, though he did try to call her cellphone.

  “Baint no reply, tis straight t'answerphone.”

  I told him not to worry, I'd cycle on over to her caravan and see if she'd overslept. When I got there the area in front of the van had been cleared. The old horsehair couch and the deckchairs were nowhere to be seen. The door to the caravan was closed and locked, and pressing my face against the grimy window from the outside I could see that nobody was at home. I looked around warily, just in case Grimalkin was in the bushes planning an attack, then seeing and hearing no signs of life I finally gave up, and headed for home.

  Shanty didn't appear the following week, or the week after or the week after that. It seemed she'd gone away without saying a word. The NG wasn't over surprised. He said she'd done it before.

  “There i'nt no use fussin' over it. She do allus come on back in er' own sweet toim.”

  That was as maybe. It was irritating that she hadn’t even bothered to call to let me know she wouldn't need me anymore. Not that I really minded. I'd decided to quit anyway, mainly so that I could keep myself out of the Black Witch firing line. It was just the principle of the thing.

  Jem didn't show up at college for a while either, which was a relief, and when he finally did I just made a point of ignoring him. He was the invisible man as far as I was concerned. Jayne was more than welcome to him. At least that’s what I tried to tell myself.

  I hung out with Lucy, Millie and Sim and got stuck into my course work, life carried on and I made up my mind not to have anything more to do with second sight, faeries, the occult, or witchcraft. Of course I'd forgotten one tiny detail. It was the end of October; Halloween!

  It seemed that the one time in the year that Baring embraced its historical connection with the infamous Black Witch, Sibyl Osgood, was at Halloween. The village was transformed by cobwebs, Jack O'la
nterns, broomsticks, and more black and orange bunting than I'd ever seen, even in the Big Apple. The inhabitants threw themselves into dressing up with a will.

  The NG got himself a pair of huge pointed rubber ears, and wore a pixie hat for a week before the event - I guess he recognized the gnome thing in himself too - and even the miserable man in the Post Office joined in the fun by dressing up as a Zombie. At least I think he was dressed up.

  The NG had a party with a book quiz one evening in the shop to promote a series of scary books for children which he invited me to. I took Rebekah along as my 'and guest'. I felt a bit guilty for the way I'd been hiding things from her, and not really being honest about what was happening in my life.

  Though to be fair she hadn't really asked that many questions recently; she’d been too busy with work.

  Rebekah had a couple of glasses of white wine and got quite giggly during the quiz. As we walked back to Rose Cottage under the stars she began weaving from one side of the road to the other, and asked in an almost comically drunken slur if I minded her being away for a couple of days over Halloween itself. There was a psychiatric conference in Manchester that she wanted to go to. Someone famous would be speaking, and it was too far to get there and back in one day. I said it was fine.

  “Are you sure you can cope on your own?” she asked, wobbling unsteadily. There was a squelching sound. “Oh!”

  Rebekah looked down. She was standing with one foot buried up to the ankle in a large cow pat.

  A couple of days later I helped her stuff a suitcase into the boot of the little Renault she'd bought from a local car dealer while she fussed like a mother hen about whether I’d have enough to eat, and if I knew how to work the heating system. When she'd finally driven off up the road and I'd waved her out of sight I settled down to do some baking.

  I'd recently gotten into a TV show I’d watched with Lucy one evening called the Great British Bake-Off. Amateur cooks competed against each other and were judged by a team of professionals on the quality of their baking. You know the sort of thing. Anyway I wanted to test myself against the classic chocolate brownie.

  I had the ingredients lined up on the kitchen table and spent the next hour or so beating butter, caster sugar, and eggs, melting enough chocolate to coat the entire ceiling, and crushing a handful of walnuts before doing my best to get them all to gel together with some flour and a pinch of baking powder.

  Thirty minutes in the oven and they were done. OMG! I was in choccy heaven. All I needed now was my Onesie, some fluffy slippers, and my laptop I was ready for an evening of slobbing out on the settee accompanied by some trashy romantic movie.

  As I sat curled up on the couch, debating whether or not eating a third brownie was repulsively greedy, something moved outside the kitchen window. I looked up. It was already dark even though it was only five O'clock. I couldn't see anything clearly as the light inside the room meant that the window was merely a black rectangle. Even so, I was sure I'd seen something slip past.

  Turning off the lamp by the settee I tiptoed over towards the window and pressing my face to the glass peered out into the twilight. A horrific ghoulish face appeared directly in front of me, its mouth a gaping twisted grimace.

  Claw like hands grasped for me, pressing against the glass. I let out an involuntary scream, my heart knocking so hard in my chest it felt as if it would break free of my rib cage.

  At the same moment there was a heavy pounding at the door as if a host of undead creatures were beating on it with their fists. I threw myself back from the window and grabbing at the poker, which was lying next to the Aga, held it ready to defend myself if the lock on the front door proved to be too weak to keep them out.

  The ghoul face pushed itself against the window, distorting its features still further, and was quickly joined by two others. One had huge pointed fangs which seemed to be dripping blood whilst the other wore a torn white veil over pale blue skin like a corpse bride. I rubbed my eyes and tried to calm myself. Surely this must be a hallucination, this couldn't possibly be real, could it?....

  Wait a minute, a ghoul, a vampire and a corpse bride?

  I loosened my grip on the poker and took a second look. The ghoul was male and about twice the size of the two females. It had a large nose, and...yes ears like the handle on a mug. “Sim!” I yelled at the window, “I am so going to kill you for this.”

  Lucy the vampire and Millie the corpse bride had three brownies each while Sim the ghoul managed six. What they'd done to deserve them I couldn't for the life of me imagine.

  “Why did you make so many if you weren't expecting us to show?” asked Lucy, replacing her false vampire teeth and pretending to bite Sim.

  “She totally was expecting us, can't you tell by the costume? What are you supposed to be, an undead baby?”

  Sim was really pushing it. I was already annoyed about the way he'd scared me through the window. I wrapped my arms around myself tighter and scrunched up on the settee even more. It seemed that the minute I put my Onesie on everybody in the world wanted to pay me a visit.

  “Leave her alone Sim,” Millie chipped in, “she can look as rough as she likes when she's home alone.”

  Thanks for the support I thought, wishing she'd kept her mouth shut.

  “So are you coming now or what?”

  This was Lucy, swinging a killer pair of legs up onto the couch in order to show off the fishnets she was wearing under her Vampirella mini-dress. I'd completely forgotten that I'd promised to join them for some Halloween do; I'd probably wiped it from my memory on purpose. It was the last thing I wanted to do, run around with a bunch of people dressed in stuff which could give you nightmares, I had enough of them as it was.

  “I don't know,” I hedged, “I've got nothing to wear.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Sim joked, earning himself a punch in the arm from Lucy.

  “Don't be lame Thea, we'll help you”

  Millie nudged Lucy who nodded enthusiastically. “Come on!” she urged, “it’s a Baring tradition, a rite of passage thing. You did promise.”

  They were all looking at me expectantly. I finally caved. Millie and Lucy threw themselves on top me in a massive bear hug while Sim punched the air with his fist repeating, “Thea! Thea! Thea!” as if he'd become the largest-ever member of the cheerleading squad.

  When the girls began competing about which of them should do my make-up I decided to call time.

  “Hold on guys!” I pushed my way out of the group love thing. “I'm only coming if I don't have to wear fancy dress.”

  Lucy groaned. Millie looked at me knowingly, and then pointed at my Onesie.

  “If you don't want to dress up we can always take you there in that!”

  Forty minutes later I was wearing what I can only describe as a slightly wicked Sabrina the Teenage Witch ensemble. I had on a red mid-length dress I'd had in the back of my wardrobe forever. I'd never worn it before because it showed too much of the cleavage I didn't have, though I guess things were changing since now I seemed to be able to fill it quite nicely thank you.

  I borrowed a pair of heels from Rebekah's bedroom and let Lucy and Millie smear more makeup on my face than I'd ever normally use. Millie gave me dark smoky eyes and Lucy added a deep crimson to my lips. She also insisted on back- combing my hair so much I looked like a refugee from a1980s soap. They seemed pretty pleased with the results, and Sim even gave me a brief round of applause when I came downstairs; though it could have been ironic because we'd taken so long getting ready.

  It was only once we were out on the street and walking away from the cottage that I actually asked where we were headed. Sim turned his ghoulish face towards me and grinned widely.

  “Everybody stays in the glade overnight, and then we all walk up onto Godhill to watch the sunrise.”

  “We're going into the forest?” I asked, looking down at my feet in horror. Why on earth did I let them put me in high heels?
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