Page 8 of A Dance with the Fae (Mistress of Magic #1)

‘Did you hear ? The whole village’s talking about it!’ Aisha burst into the shop and startled Faye, who was stacking new books onto the shelves: two new spell books from an American publisher, a guide to psychic self-defence, and a book about Scottish faerie lore.

Mistress of Magic was a destination in itself for witchy folk across Scotland, and even wider; last week she’d had American tourists in who had chosen Abercolme for a stop on their holiday just because of the shop.

All thanks to you, Moddie . And, Faye had to admit that her own magic had also been partly responsible for the shop’s success.

Since she had taken over running the shop, every month on the new moon Faye cast a spell.

Sometimes, it was to attract money, if she had a big bill to pay; sometimes, it was for more customers; sometimes, it was for inspiration, or healing for a customer.

But the intended result always tended to manifest, one way or another.

‘Did I hear what ? You’re the second one to startle me today.

I’m going to need some sort of herbal remedy on a drip at this rate.

’ Faye slowly slid the books onto the wooden unit and noticed it needed dusting.

She was still half enchanted by her mysterious visitor – she felt at once strangely floaty, as if half of her was somewhere else, and still aroused.

What had actually happened? It all seemed like a dream: somehow, the tall man had managed to hypnotise her into some kind of lust-ridden fugue.

At the time, it had made sense, and she had felt perfectly safe in a kind of bubble of closeness with him, a complete stranger.

And then he had left, as mysteriously as he had appeared, and Faye felt confused.

‘Dal Riada! They’re coming!’ Aisha danced around the faded blue high-backed chair by the hearth. ‘I’m so excited! I’ve got both their albums. They’re going to play at the festival!’

‘You’re saying that like I’m supposed to know who they are.’ Faye raised an eyebrow at her friend, who was scrolling her phone screen.

‘You do know. Dal Riada. You’ve got one of their albums somewhere. Here, listen.’ Aisha’s phone played a fast, folky Celtic tune.

‘Oh, that.’ Faye went to the counter and rummaged in the drawer where she kept CDs for the shop’s sound system. Aisha had given her a couple more a few weeks ago and she’d slung them in without much thought. ‘I haven’t played it yet.’

‘Oh, Faye! There’s a world of new music out there, you know.’

Faye listened to the tune for a minute.

‘Celtic folk isn’t new. We play it in here all the time,’ she replied, though she liked the fevered drumming and the fluted voice of the singer.

It reminded her of Moddie: of being swung around in her mother’s arms, Moddie’s red hair flowing around both of them like flames; of Moddie singing along with the fast lyrics, of her feet drumming on the stone floor after they’d shut up shop and the moon glinted through the windows.

‘You know what I mean. Thank the goddess for Abercolme finally making it into the twenty-first century!’ Aisha was beaming ear to ear. ‘And who knows, eh? Maybe that’s how we meet our new lovers!’

‘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 to kill her 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 worked twice as 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 her good 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.

‘Ooh! And when’re you going out with him?’ Aisha raised her eyebrow archly.

‘We’re not going out . We just met on the beach, that’s all.’

‘D’you think it’s the spell?’ Aisha clutched Faye’s hand. ‘I mean…it can’t be a coincidence, right? You ask for a man, and then this big guy appears…what, like, out of the blue?’

‘Pretty much. We were both walking along the beach.’

‘It just feels like magic, doesn’t it?’ Aisha asked, her eyes wide.

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’ Faye chewed her lip.

She didn’t want to say Rav Malik doesn’t look like the doll I made.

Another man does. But I don’t know who he is or if I’ll ever see him again.

‘Oh. He’s organising that music festival your favourite band are playing at,’ she added, pointing to the same flyer in the window as Aisha was still clutching in one hand.

‘Dal Riada. Only the best band I’ve ever heard. And the absolute sexiest, too. Look.’ Aisha pulled out her phone again and tapped the screen. ‘Here. You can’t tell me they aren’t supernaturally good-looking.’ She sighed again, and passed the phone to Faye.

There were four members of the band: three men, one woman. Aisha was right – they were all remarkably beautiful. The men were well-muscled, fit, tattooed; the woman stood like a faerie queen among them.

And the man standing on the left and looking unsmilingly into the camera was the same tall, blonde man who had made Faye melt only hours ago.