Page 51 of A Kiss from the Fae (Mistress of Magic #2)

Faye woke up early, confused by the wetness she lay in until she realised that her waters had broken.

Carefully, she hauled herself out of bed and went to the bathroom, trying to clean herself up.

The stretchy jersey nightdress she’d started wearing at night was soaked through.

She peeled it off and ran the shower, climbing carefully into the bath and out again to wash herself as best she could.

Gabriel wasn’t there. It wasn’t unusual – often he’d be gone in the early morning, walking the shore – but today she needed him.

Faye resisted feeling abandoned and instead, she called the midwife, who asked if her contractions had started – they hadn’t, as far as Faye could tell – and said that she’d be out to check on Faye in an hour or so.

In the meantime, just take it easy and let me know if anything changes , the midwife said cheerily at the end of the phone. Have a cup of tea and put your feet up.

It was July, and the height of a heatwave.

Soon it would be Lughnasadh, the old Celtic festival of the first harvest. When she was a child, Grandmother had taught her how to make corn dollies with wheat fresh from the fields around Abercolme.

It was a symbolic gesture, saving the ripe corn to use in winter.

Faye stood naked at her bedroom window, looking out on the garden below.

Life was in bloom everywhere. She was part of nature, and in her late pregnancy, she’d come to understand much more instinctively the symbolism of the ripe corn goddesses of the old ways that Moddie had told her about.

She was as ripe with life as the apple tree below.

It was so heavy with fruit that they dropped off onto the lawn and wooden decking below with loud thumps; sometimes, it woke her in the night.

With one hand on her belly, she thought of all the things she looked forward to sharing with her child: telling him the stories that Grandmother had told her; making corn dollies; foraging for plants at the seashore.

Already, the sun was relentlessly hot. The roses were parched and the fresh herbs were browning at the edges of their delicate leaves, even though she’d been watering them faithfully.

Nature wasn’t kind, or moral. It was an eternal cycle of life and death.

It drew no distinctions between hunger and glut.

Apprehension made her step away from the window, though she couldn’t explain why. She got dressed and made her way carefully down the stairs. She’d need to let the midwife in the shop door.

Downstairs, she made a cup of peppermint tea in the kitchenette. There were still no contractions, and she wondered when they would start. Rather than sitting, she opened the shop door and stood in the early morning sun to drink her tea.

Gabriel, I need you – she spoke his name into the air. The baby is coming. Please, I need you here. He had promised to be with her, and he wasn’t here. She picked up her phone and called his number – and heard his ringtone from the soft chair in front of the fireplace. He’d left it behind.

Her own phone rang again almost instantly.

It was the midwife saying that her car wouldn’t start – she’d be with Faye as soon as she could.

Were there any contractions yet? Faye told her there weren’t, and asked whether that was usual.

Yes, that’s quite usual, don’t worry , the midwife said.

Let me know if they start. I’ll be there as soon as I can.

Faye finished her tea and made some toast, but she was fidgety.

She decided to walk down to the beach. Walking was supposed to induce labour, wasn’t it?

She missed it; she’d hardly been there in the past few months.

She ignored the fact that she was already technically in labour; that the contractions could come at any time, and the midwife had told her to put her feet up.

And if she walked down to the beach, she’d probably find Gabriel.

She knew it was dangerous to go there, but she felt a sudden impatience with the caution that had kept her away from it out of fear. I need to walk , she thought. I need the air.

She felt like a duck, waddling down to the beach. She took the quieter road that went around the village rather than through it – she didn’t really want to see anyone and have them ask about the baby.

As she walked away from the shop, something shifted. It was like a cloud moved over the blazing sun overhead and shielded her eyes from a glare she’d been squinting in all this time – only, it was inside her head rather than outside. Faye stopped dead, the beach visible in front of her.

A sudden clenching sensation made her hold her back. She took a deep breath, and it passed. She waited for another, but nothing came, and so she resumed walking slowly to the beach. She supposed it was a contraction; it wasn’t too far to get home from where she was if she needed to turn around.

The sand at the edge of the deserted beach was dry; the grasses that grew at the sandy boundary had turned to straw in the heatwave. Scotland without rain for this long was almost unheard of.

She hadn’t visited the beach because she was afraid of being near the faerie road; at least now, she’d come armed with protection.

The bay, rue and rosemary charm hung around her neck, and she’d put pouches of the reverend’s suggested powder of burnt bay leaves, garlic skins and ground clove in all her coat pockets.

Lastly, she still had the black obsidian crystal Lyr had given her as protection tucked into her bra.

She slipped off her sandals, letting the tide cool her hot feet.

Faye took a few more steps into the sea. She didn’t care that it wet the hem of her dress. She shaded her eyes from the sun as it glinted on the water, glittering like jewels.

Another contraction came, and she instinctively crouched down as the dull squeezing ache came and went. As it faded, the tide swept away back to the sea, leaving her feet exposed in the wet sand. Next to her foot sat a hag stone: a medium-sized pebble with a hole all the way through the middle.

She picked it up, and it sat comfortably in her hand. A good omen.

She looked for Gabriel, but he was nowhere to be seen.

‘Gabriel?’ Faye cried out, looking around for her friend, but there was still no sign of him, and her voice was consumed by a wind that blew it back to her.

She felt another contraction coming and realised their frequency was increasing.

She’d left her phone back at the house. She cursed herself for her stupidity.

‘Gabriel!’ she shouted before the pain could hit her. She breathed into it, the way the midwife had taught her. Gradually, the feeling abated again, but it left her legs weak. I need to sit down , she thought.

Clouds appeared on the horizon. Faye was sure they hadn’t been there a moment ago.

Suddenly, lightning flashed, and the wind that had pushed at her the moment before grew in power, raising the waves around her knees.

She turned and staggered out of the water.

The villagers had been saying a storm was coming for days, and the atmosphere had that hot closeness, the stillness before thunder rolled in.

Sure enough, in the same second that she thought it, there was a rumble of atmospheric pressure in the distance off the shore. Home. I need to go home , she thought. Her body was insistent, and she needed to listen to it. I was stupid to come here. Why did I come at all?

The pressure in the air made her ears pop.

The clouds had rolled in towards land faster than she thought they could, and lightning forked down into the sea from the charcoal-grey clouds that formed above her head.

Faye took a deep breath as an intense contraction came, making her fall to her knees and groan in pain as the storm gathered above her.

But when she looked up, it wasn’t Gabriel she saw in front of her, but Levantiana, the High Queen of Murias, who faced Moronoe, the High Queen of Falias, on Faye’s opposite side.

Both regarded her with the glittering, cold stares of queens that always got what they wanted.