Page 20 of A Dance with the Fae (Mistress of Magic #1)

A week later, Faye woke in the middle of the night.

She lay on the oak double bed that had once been Moddie’s and stared at the ceiling for a moment. She had been dreaming of the faerie road; of the goat-man who had reached out and tweaked her nipple; of the fae that had skipped and danced past.

Blessings, sidhe-leth . We are honoured. You are as beautiful as the legends say.

When she closed her eyes, she was back there instantly, walking the grass road that existed somehow inside Rav’s house. But this time, instead of Rav making love to her on the beach, Finn Beatha stood at the top of the hill, and he was beckoning her to come to him.

She opened her eyes again. She knew she was still in her bed, safe in the grey stone house of the Morgans.

She felt a sudden need to be at Black Sands Beach; her heart yearned towards it, her special place of magic.

Well, I’m not getting back to sleep anytime soon , she thought as she swung her legs out of bed.

So I might as well go. Experience had taught her to obey her instincts when they were this insistent.

It was times like these when she imagined the spirits of her ancestors pulling at her hand, compelling her to act. It would be rude to deny them.

She got dressed quickly: leggings, a heavy long woollen dress over the top, socks.

Downstairs, she wrapped a thick blue and green tartan scarf around her neck and put the long pink coat on again, then pulled on her high, practical walking boots.

They had a thick sole and she knew she could walk through water in them, and climb wet rock if required.

She grabbed a pair of thick fleece gloves from under the counter and let herself out of the side door, grabbing a torch as she did so.

The street was deserted. She looked at her watch: 1.30 a.m. – no time for anyone to be awake in Abercolme. Even the pub shut just before eleven. Or, if people were up, they were sensibly indoors.

It wasn’t that cold. It was a quarter moon, and when she got to the beach, the clouds parted so that the soft moonlight reflected on the flat water.

She looked up at Rav’s house, but it was in darkness.

She felt embarrassed and hoped he wouldn’t see her out here.

She didn’t know what she would say to him.

Instead of going to a rock to sit and look out to sea, she went to where she imagined the beginning of the faerie road might be – outside of the house, but aligned with it, a little way from the front door – and closed her eyes.

It was there, immediately, as if it had been waiting for her. The long grass where she knew there should only be sand, the twinkling lights that floated around her like stars in a tide of light mist. She had walked this place so many times and never known.

Or perhaps she had known. Black Sands was a magical place.

It had always been that way; Moddie had brought her here as a child to make simple shell shapes on the dark sand.

She had squatted down on her bare heels next to her daughter.

Make a wish, Faye. When the tide takes your spell, it goes to the faeries.

Moddie made shapes Faye recognised: circles, spirals, stars.

She often wrote things within the shapes with her finger – symbols and letters.

And, occasionally, she would dispatch Faye to collect as many shells as she could from around the beach to make one large heart shape which she would always trace the same name into: Lyr.

What is Lyr, Mummy? Little Faye would watch Moddie draw the looping script into the sand.

Nobody, darling. Just a memory , she would reply.

Faye and Annie had spent hours here as teens, asking all manner of boons from the sea and the wind and the air: to pass their exams, to get people to like them, to get the new boots they’d had their eye on in the one village shoe shop.

She closed her eyes and followed the sparkling path. She was no longer cold, and she took off her gloves and coat, letting them fall to the ground.

The fae were around her again, in varying sizes and colours and types.

The butterfly fae fluttered past, moonlight glimmering on their wings.

The quarter moon was still there and the sea rippled calmly to her left.

There was a distant sound of hoofbeats on grass, and a pleasurable thrumming rhythm that vibrated up from the faerie earth into her body.

This time, she followed the path to the top of the hill where the golden light shone as it had before. And when she reached the top, she took a breath of wonder.

Before her, far out at sea, was a huge golden castle, ringed by a vast green maze. In reality, if you stood on Black Sands Beach and looked out, it was onto the Firth of Forth that ran into the North Sea; there was a small island off the coast that monks had once lived on, and before that, druids.

But now there was no island: instead, tall towers plunged upward through the dark Fife sea, looking as if they were formed of golden seawater.

The maze that led to it was impossible. There was no way that such a strangely manicured puzzle could just be there , dotted with flower gardens, fountains and strange golden statues.

And yet it was there, made of a kind of hedge which ran at head height.

Faye could see many small faeries scurrying about in it, the hedge towering above them.

It seemed that the maze was the only way to the castle, and it seemed to reach on forever.

The air was scented. Faye could pick out rose, jasmine and lavender. She remembered the smell of roses when she had made love with Rav on the beach. It was the same smell, the same perfumed air.

Faye approached the entrance to the maze.

In front of her, floating into the maze opening, was a beautiful fae woman about Faye’s height.

She was wearing a green skirt but was naked from the waist up, and her golden hair floated down her shoulders like a cloak.

Yet, when her skirt swished to one side, Faye saw she had black goat legs underneath.

‘Through the maze, this and there, the faerie castle is here. Beware!

Beware, humans, ere time is lost! Beware the years that the faerie realm cost!

Through the maze, this and there, the faerie castle is here. Beware!’

Two little men with beards – rather like the gnomes Faye had in the garden behind the shop – sang the song as she trod past. One looked up and nodded at her.

‘Blessings, miss. Ready to try your luck in the faerie maze?’ He chuckled rather unpleasantly.

‘Most humans don’t come back if they go in.

But there’s fine food and dancing to be had.

Don’t be shy, little miss, in you go!’ And he reached out a little hand and tickled the back of her calf so that she leaped forward.

‘Hey!’ she cried, not sure what to do. She didn’t want to get lost, wherever she was.

Moddie had read enough faerie stories to the young Faye for her to know that getting lost in the realm of the fae was no laughing matter.

The realm of the fae was dangerous – faeries were capricious, changeable; they might grant your wishes or help you around the house, or they might try and drown you, steal from you or hurt you in a thousand little ways.

And of course there were the tales of unlucky villagers who, on moonlit evenings, had come across a faerie ring of toadstools or a faerie mound – the ones that the farmers preserved in the middle of their fields so as not to upset the Good Folk.

They were transported into the land of the fae where they might have been treated well or badly, but when they returned, it was many years later and their family had all died of old age and no one knew them.

She stepped back, but the other little gnome-man followed her and looked up into her face.

‘No, no! She’s not one of them. She’s sidhe-leth . Let her pass,’ he said, and bowed deeply from the waist. ‘Many apologies, madam. We have not seen your like for many years.’

Faye was confused.

‘But I don’t want to be lost here. It was a mistake.

I’m going.’ She turned away and followed her footsteps back to the beach, though she really didn’t want to at all.

Everything in her being sang out for the faerie castle; she wanted so much to go, to be in it.

It was more than wanting, in fact – it was a need, a sense that it was part of her.

‘You will not be lost, madam. You can pass.’ The gnome bowed again. ‘You will know the way.’

Faye turned again and looked at the castle before her; it seemed to loom even more golden and bright against the strange sky. Though it had the same quarter moon as above the beach, it was neither day nor night but a strange pink-orange in between, like sunset or sunrise.

She wanted to, but she was afraid.

Then, as she looked into the maze, at the end of the first turn, she saw Moddie.