The Selkie's Diamonds
The Realms. Book II

Morag Gray

Smashwords Edition
©Morag Jane Gray 2011.

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Chapter 1
The trouble started when my cousin Emma got married. Auntie Louise insisted that she had to have one of her cousins as bridesmaid, and my older sister Amanda drew the short straw. Not that she minded. She got an expensive frock and her hair and make-up done by experts. Also, she got to partner Robin Perry, who she has had a crush on ever since she decided she was out of love with our cousin Calum - not that he'd ever given her any encouragement. Emma married Robin's brother. One afternoon, about a fortnight before the wedding, Amanda, Olly and I had to go to the dressmaker's after school and meet Mum and Emma. I looked forward to it as much as I looked forward to detention. It would be b-o-o-o-ring. I couldn't find Amanda and Olly at the school gate even though they said they'd wait for me. I waited about ten minutes, and then thought I'd better get going or else Mum would have a blue fit. As I was walking past the railway station a girl in St John of the Cross's uniform stopped me. 
"Are you Olivia McIver?" she asked. 
"No, I'm her sister," I replied guardedly. Olly seemed to know people everywhere and she never introduced me to them.
"Do you know where I could find her?"
"She's supposed to meet me here," I said.
The girl frowned and looked around, but there was no sign of Olly anywhere. "I suppose you'll do, then. Can you give this to Emma McIver? It's for her to wear at her wedding." She handed me a small, flat parcel.
"Okay. Who's it from?" I asked.
"She'll know," said the girl. She disappeared into the muddle of school uniforms before I had time to ask any more. 
I dropped the parcel in my blazer pocket, rearranged my schoolbag and trudged on towards the dressmaker's. I loitered past the shops and up the hill. Mum's car was parked outside, and so was Auntie Louise's. That meant Emma was there already, and I could give her the parcel. I paused to look in the window, at a display of satin shoes, and underwear that looked impossible to do anything in except stand still. I pushed open the door and the bell tinkled in the back room. A harassed-looking assistant came out, and seeing it was just me brightened up. She ushered me out into the back room. Mum looked embarrassed. Olly sat in a corner, apparently oblivious to her surroundings, doing her homework. Auntie Louise had that look on her face that meant she was furious but wasn't going to say so. My pretty cousin Emma, her cheeks flushed crimson with effort, stood in the middle of the room, trying to placate Amanda. Amanda, looking absolutely stunning in her bridesmaid's dress, was putting in an Oscar-winning performance. She's brilliant at tantrums, is our Amanda. Tania, the other bridesmaid (matron of honour really, she's married), bedecked in pale blue, artfully wrapped to conceal the burgeoning bump that was Greenhough Junior, looked resigned. I like Tania - she's down-to-earth. I dumped my schoolbag on the floor and sat down on an uncomfortable fragile-looking gold wire chair next to Tania.
"What's it about this time?" I asked. This was a rerun of last time, and the time before. It all got a bit tedious. Most things did when Amanda acted up. I think the dressmaker deserved double her money. Mind you, she almost got it.
"You remember the skirt wasn't right last time." I nodded. That was last week's scene. "Well, they've had to remake the whole dress, and there wasn't enough fabric left on the bolt, so they used a new one, but apparently it's not the same blue as the old one and it doesn't suit her as well. A blind man would be pleased to see the difference. Now she wants both dresses redone in a different colour."
"And a more expensive fabric?" I asked.
"Goes without saying," replied Tania. 
Emma had soothed Amanda by now, and the dressmaker was allowed to get on with pinning final adjustments. Amanda went off to get changed and Tania got up to have her dress adjusted. Emma, still looking frazzled, came and sat down beside me.
"Hello, Reb," she said. 
"Hi. Sorry about my sister."
"Hey, it's not your fault. She takes my mind off other details, like cakes and place settings and who we've forgotten to invite. She does focus the mind. I should have chosen you and Olly, or Kate."
"Not Sophie?" I asked. Auntie Louise and Auntie Jo (Sophie's mother) have been feuding for as long as I could remember. No one knows why. Emma chuckled. She's a good sort. 
"How's the hockey going?" she asked. I told her about our latest victory, and that we were playing in the Redwood Shield next week. 
"We really want to beat St John's," I said.
"Yes, they won the shield more times than they should have when I was at school, and they always won the hockey," she said. "Is Olly doing anything?"
"Yes, she's in the junior debating and the junior Bible reading. We've got a good chance beating St John's there." I remembered the package in my pocket. I pulled it out and gave it to her. "By the way, this random St John's girl stopped me and gave me this for you. She said it's to wear at your wedding." 
 Emma looked surprised and opened it. Inside was a pair of earrings - they looked like diamonds. 
"Oh, aren't they gorgeous," she said. They were. "But I won't be able to wear them - I've got pearls." She put out her hand to take one of them out of the box, but before she did, Amanda reappeared and the dressmaker called Emma to try on her dress.  
"Look after them for me," she said as she got up. As this was our signal to leave, I dropped the earrings into my pocket. When I got home, I put them in my dressing table drawer, and forgot about them.
The next four months were the most horrible in my whole life, up until then. We lost the hockey on Saturday, and we came last in the Redwood Shield, even though Olly won the Bible Reading. I got umpteen detentions. I became a permanent fixture in the detentions room. I kept rowing with Amanda, which didn't bother me, and with Mum, which did. 
At least Emma's wedding passed almost without incident. Olly and I had new dresses, too, and I loved mine (I'm not usually a frock person - I much prefer jeans or pants). About half an hour before we were due to go to the wedding Mum asked me to make her and Dad a cup of coffee. Since things had been a bit rough for the last two weeks, I tried hard to be the dutiful daughter. I made the coffee, added milk and sugar, and was carrying it through to Mum and Dad in the living room when the (expletive deleted) cat got under my feet. Result: two spilt cups of coffee and one ruined dress. I had to mop up the carpet, even though it wasn't my fault, and I ended up wearing Olly's next best dress. 
The wedding itself was fun. Emma looked beautiful, and showed just how clever she is because she had these two blonde bridesmaids who really contrasted with her, with her pretty, dark hair. I danced a couple of times and flirted a bit with Robin Perry - he's a lot of fun even if he's old - he's about twenty -three or twenty-four. It made Amanda mad, and that was good. She tried to get Calum to dance with her, to make Robin notice, but he was in an unsociable mood - he can be a surly beast - and wouldn't play her games. Somehow, I tore Olly's dress beyond repair.
Term 3 was just foul. I broke my wrist, and lost my place in the hockey team. It didn't matter how hard I worked at school, I still couldn't improve my place in class, and I continued spending most Monday and Wednesday afternoons in the detention room. Things at home weren't much better. The only person I didn't row with was Olly and that was because she wasn't speaking to me because of the dress. Even the cat hated me. Tensions increased as the term drew to a close. Amanda had a boyfriend by now. His name was Tom, he went to St Mungo's (which is where all the McIver boys go), and he really didn't deserve her. He was far too nice. He invited her to the St Mungo's Senior Ball. Mum said she couldn't have a new dress because she was getting a new one for the St Teresa's ball. She had three choices: last year's dress (couldn't possibly, everyone had seen it), her bridesmaid's dress, which Mum would remodel so it looked less bridesmaidy, or stay home. She chose option two. 
Mum is actually quite good at that sort of thing. The process was not without its dramas, and on several occasions the remodelling process ended in a shouting match. By the time Mum finished, though, Amanda had a stunning-looking dress, complete with hand-beaded stole, covered in tiny crystal beads and rhinestones, that Mum spent hours doing. It cried out for diamond jewellery. Gran and Granddad produced a delicate necklace, an early birthday present. She still lacked earrings. She begged, wheedled and nagged. Dad said Amanda had had enough money spent on her this year, and she wasn't getting any more. She sulked for about a week over that. 
The day of the ball she left school early, and went to the hairdresser instead of going to maths. When she got home, shortly after Olly and me, she raided both our dressing tables for make-up and jewellery. I'm not sure why; she has more than both of us put together. Olly had the exact shade of pink lipstick that she wanted. In my dressing table she found Emma's diamond earrings. 
"Where did these come from, Reb?" she asked, quite nicely because she really, really wanted them. I looked at them, surprised. 
"They're Emma's. She asked me to look after them for her. I think they were a wedding present.  I'd forgotten about them, and I think she has, too." 
"Do you think she'd mind if I borrowed them?"
"Probably not." 
She got on the phone and rang Emma, who said yes, she had forgotten them and of course she didn't mind.
At half past five Tom arrived, looking very grown up, and at the same time curiously young, in black tie and dinner jacket. He was suitably impressed with Amanda who, to do her justice, did look gorgeous. She's really quite pretty. Mum took some photos, then they drove off to the pre-ball reception. This year it was at the Spanish ambassador's residence. Shortly after they left Mum and Dad went out. They were going out to dinner, to a show and then to supper. Olly and I had the house to ourselves. For the first time in a long time I felt like being remotely civil. We made ourselves dinner, and agreed on which channel to watch on TV. Olly even offered to help me with my French homework. 
We were lying on the floor watching TV when my cell phone went. Olly's rang at the same time. I answered mine. It was Amanda's friend Sophie. She sounded upset. Amanda had disappeared. A group of them went outside for a cigarette (Mum didn't know about this little vice of our dear sister's). She got talking to a girl from another school. That was okay, because smokers tend to be quite social, so Sophie said. But when they all went back inside again they realised neither Amanda nor the other girl had come back in. Several of them had done a circuit of the grounds, but there was no sign of them. The security guards hadn't seen them. And nobody knew who the other girl was at the ball with. Tom was quite worried. Olly's phone call was almost identical, only it was from Katie Lindstrom. The mystery girl - small, slim, pale with dark curly hair- sort of fitted the description of the girl who gave me the earrings. I told Olly. 
She said "Ring Emma." 
I obeyed and told Emma the story. In two minutes she rang back and said,  "Calum is coming to pick you both up. Leave a note for your parents. We need to talk face to face. And bring the box the earrings were in." I wrote a note. Then we picked our way through the major disaster that Amanda calls a bedroom and hunted for the box. It took ages, and Calum arrived before I found it. Olly let him in. 
Calum's a funny creature, a bit of a split personality. Most of the time he's the sort of person that at family parties slopes off somewhere with a book. Mum thinks he's secretive, and she doesn't like that. He's not really. He just doesn't talk unless he's got something to say. He's usually very aloof, but underneath the reserve he's quite good fun. If you get him in the right frame of mind, though, he behaves quite outrageously, especially if he's with Robin Perry. Only the week before there had been some big scandal - I don't know what they did, but Mum disapproved. Dad just laughed about it and said it was just boys letting off steam. Mum said they should both know better; they weren't boys any more, and that sort of behaviour was inexcusable. She's never liked Robin very much - none of the aunts do, except Auntie Louise, and that's weird, because usually she's the one who dislikes people for no good reason - and Calum's reputation suffers by association, I think. Calum often joins us in baiting Amanda. He's at university, doing something very brainy to do with computers and patterns and stuff. His left hand is permanently curled up. He burnt the palm of it years ago. It doesn't seem to bother him, but when he uncurls it you can see the burn mark. It is like a big red cross. 
When I finally found the box he asked to see it. He wrinkled his nose at it. 
"Good job you rang Emma," he said. "She needs to see this, and so does Finn." 
We piled into his beaten-up little car and drove across the city to Emma's house. Calum parked on the street, which was one of the hair-raising twisty narrow ones, hanging onto a hillside, that it seems it's compulsory for newly-weds to live in. He looked around at the other cars, and said, 
"It looks as if we're last." 
We began the trek up to the house. I think there are fifty-two steps from the road to the front door. There are more to the back one. The house was an ugly little wooden one, painted muddy yellow, with a violent pink door. Firewood was stacked neatly in the porch. Emma answered our knock. The inside of the house belied its unpromising outside. Although shabby and old-fashioned, it was immaculately tidy and inviting. Emma took us down a narrow passage to a warm and cheerful, large, open-plan kitchen-living room. Tania and Andrew Greenhough were there. Tania sat on the sofa, close to the fire, with her feet up on the log basket. Her bump was definitely a bulge now. Andrew and Finn sat at the dining table. I'm a little intimidated by Finn. He's nice enough, but he hardly ever smiles, and he has a long scar down one side of his face that makes him look rather sinister. I don't really know Andrew. Robin Perry sprawled on the floor in front of the fire, playing with a puppy. He grinned at us. Sometimes it's hard to believe he's so old. 
Olly and I exchanged uncomfortable glances. We didn't really know where to start, but Calum said, 
"I've seen the box. There's something wrong with it." 
Finn asked, quite kindly, "Can we see it, please?" I fished it out of my coat pocket and put it on the table in front of him. It was quite an ordinary box, a small flat rectangle of cardboard. The lid had a pattern of red and gold swirls. Finn picked it up and opened it. He recoiled, as if something had hit him. Andrew gingerly pulled it across the table and examined it. 
"Where did you say you got this?" he asked. 
"It was before Emma and Finn's wedding, one day when they were getting dresses fitted. I missed Olly and Amanda at the school gate, so I was a bit late. This girl from St John's stopped me and asked if I was Olly. I said I was her sister, and she asked me to give this to Emma. It was for her to wear at her wedding, she said. Emma opened it, but she was distracted. Amanda was having a tantrum. She said she was wearing pearls and asked me to look after it. I took it home and forgot about it. Amanda found the earrings tonight before she went to the ball. They went with her dress. So she rang Emma and asked to borrow them. Then her friends rang us to say she'd been talking to this girl from another school and had disappeared. The description sort of fitted the girl who gave me the box. So Olly said to ring Emma, and I did, and now we're here," I finished. 
"You opened it Emma?" Andrew asked.
"Yes," she replied.
"Did you notice anything, feel anything then?"
"No, but I wasn't really paying much attention. I had just calmed Amanda down, and then the dressmaker called me to get my dress fitted. I was just in too much of a flap." 
"How have things been for you since you got it?" Finn asked me. 
I looked at Olly. She grinned. 
"Bloody awful," she said. "She's permanently in detention, she can't play hockey and she fights with the rest of us all the time. Only she doesn't fight with me "'cause I haven't been speaking to her."
"That about sums it up," I agreed.
"I'm not surprised," he said. "There's a powerful curse on this box."
"And the remnants of a calling spell," said Andrew. I would have though they were nuts, except they all looked so serious, even Robin, who never looks serious about anything. I watched Calum, because he's reliable (in spite of what Mum thinks) and I respect him. He looked as serious as the others. Olly's a bit quicker on the uptake than I am.
"Someone was out to get Emma, and they got Amanda instead, is that it?"
"It looks like it," agreed Finn.
"Lucky them," she said. Calum and Emma grinned. 
"What do we do now?" asked Emma. "Do we go and get her back?"
"Count me out," said Tania. "Archie's due next week."
"Better count me out, too," Andrew said mournfully. "I want to stay married, at least for now." Tania threw a cushion at him. 
"Get her back from where?" I asked. "Do you know where she is?"
"Not exactly," said Finn, "but we have ways and means of finding out. If the spell wasn't meant for her, and we know it wasn't, then she should be okay. Do you want another look at this?" Andrew shook his head. Finn looked to Tania, who also shook her head. 
Robin said, "It's no good me looking at it. I wouldn't be able to tell you anything you don't already know."
"Mind if I burn it?" Finn asked. Nobody minded, so gingerly he took the box between thumb and forefinger and walked over to the fire. Robin rolled out of the way, pulling the puppy with him. The puppy snarled and barked furiously at Finn as he opened the fire door and tossed the box in. It exploded in a roar of purple flames. Hastily Finn closed the door. A blast of foul smelling smoke filled the room as he did so. The purple flames burned for far longer than they should have for such a little box. When they finally died down Olly's cell phone rang. It was Katie Lindstrom. Amanda had just turned up, and was okay. Emma asked to speak to her. She took the phone out into the passage so we couldn't hear what she said. 
While she was on the phone I introduced myself to Robin's puppy. It was a cute roly-poly thing, mostly Labrador but with a bit of something else by the look of it. It was a creamy colour, with floppy reddish ears, and at the playful, nippy stage. It got hold of my coat sleeve, growled and pulled. I was scared it would tear it. That would cause yet another row with Mum. Fortunately Robin is not as irresponsible as he pretends to be. He picked up the puppy and carefully prised its jaws apart so I could get the sleeve out. 
Emma came back into the room; her face was white and angry. 
"Stupid little cow," she said. 
"What did she say?" asked Tania. She shifted uncomfortably, and stretched her legs out in front of her. 
Emma snorted. "She said she'd just gone out for a smoke with a friend, and basically it was none of my business what she did. I asked her who the friend was. She said her name was Jenny. That's all." 
"What about the earrings?" This was Andrew. 
"She didn't know what I was talking about, she reckoned. She denied ever having borrowed them. I don't know if I believe her or not."
Calum drove us home, and being the well-brought up McIver boy that he is, saw us safely inside. Mum and Dad were not back.


Chapter 2
None of the ball photos showed Amanda wearing earrings. It was very strange. About a month after the ball she broke up with Tom. I began to think I had imagined the whole earrings thing. Life returned to normal. My wrist healed nice and straight. I stopped getting detentions, and things at home improved, at least as far as Mum and I went. I still rowed with Amanda, but part of that was habit and the other part was because she was Amanda. Olly and I got on better than we had done in a while, but she never mentioned the earrings or that night at Emma's. 
The end of the school year came and went. Olly and I went into town one day before Christmas, to finish our Christmas shopping. It was a stupid thing to do. It was really, really hot and sticky.
"Means it will rain on Christmas Day" Olly grumbled. Every shop was packed with people. While she went into a bookshop, to look for something for Granddad, I mooched around looking in windows. I had finished, and I just wanted to get in a bus and go home. A boy on a skateboard shot past me. I didn't take much notice. He stopped suddenly, turned and came back. 
"Rebekah?" he said.
"Yes?" 
It was Tom. He took off his backpack and dug around in it for a while until he found a battered white envelope. 
"It's a couple of ball photos. Your mum took them with my camera." He shrugged non-committally. "I've just had the film developed. I thought Amanda might want to see them."
"Thanks, I'll make sure she gets them," I said. 
"Cool. See yah," and he skated off into the distance. He really was far too good for my sister. I opened the envelope. There were two photos, and when I saw them I almost dropped my parcels. They were both taken in our sitting room, and in them Amanda clearly wore a pair of diamond earrings. Thoughtfully, I put the photos into my bag. Then I forgot about them.
Olly was right. It rained on Christmas Day. The McIver Christmas was at Uncle Dave's and Auntie Louise's this year. Since Gran and Granddad decided they were too old to host it any more it has rotated around each of the five households. All the Aunts and Uncles were there, and most of the cousins, including Emma and Finn, and Calum. Tania and Andrew Greenhough and baby turned up. Their family was all in England, so Auntie Louise invited them, too. The baby was the most gorgeous little thing, smiley but not yet mobile, with incredibly beautiful dark brown eyes, like Andrew's. He (the baby, not Andrew) kept all the Aunts gushing. Calum as usual sloped off somewhere with a book once the food was gone. He really has no party manners at all.
James, the cousin nearest to us in age, had got some CDs, and wanted to listen to them. He'd forgotten his discman, so I said I'd lend him mine. I reached into my bag to get it, and found the white envelope Tom had given me. I looked for Emma, but she was busy in the kitchen with Auntie Louise, so it was no use showing her. I put the envelope in my pocket, handed the discman over to James and began the hunt for Calum. The house is not large, but Calum has the advantage of having lived there most his life. He knows all the hidey-holes. Eventually, after a tip-off from Granddad when he realised I was not just being a pest (Granddad is very protective of Calum's privacy), I tracked him down in a tiny room off the garage. It was not much bigger than a cupboard, furnished with a single bed with an old striped cover, a desk with a computer and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Calum lay full-length on the bed, book in hand. I knocked, and he greeted me with a scowl.
"What do you want, and who's with you?" 
I stuck out my tongue at him. "No-one's with me. Calum, I want to show you something." 
"What?" he grunted.
"Do you remember the night Amanda went to the St Mungo's ball, and you took Olly and me to Emma's?" 
He looked sideways at me. "Yes. What of it?"
"And you remember Amanda told Emma on the phone that she didn't know anything about earrings?" He nodded. "Well, none of her photos showed her wearing them. I began to think  I'd imagined it all. Then the other day I bumped into Tom in town, and he gave me these. She hasn't seen them." 
I laid the photos on the bed in front of him. He whistled, a long slow intake of breath. He picked each one up in turn and looked at them, then he looked at me over the top of his glasses. 
"Has Olly seen them?" I shook my head. "Get Andrew or Finn, or both. Bring them here," he ordered. He picked up his book again. 
Andrew was easy. The baby, tired of the attention of the Aunts, was getting grizzly, so a walk around the garden with his dad and ultimately to Calum's hide distracted him nicely. He was asleep by the time he got there. Finn was a different matter. I found him engaged in a deep philosophical discussion with Uncle Dave (Johnstone) and Uncle Peter. In the end I left him there, and hurried back to Calum's room. He watched the baby while Andrew examined the photos. Andrew looked up when I came in. 
"Can I keep these?" he asked. 
"Sure," I shrugged. 
He said, "I'd like my father to see them, that's all." 
Calum raised his eyebrows. "Why?" he asked.
"Because they look like Selkie work, only it's unusual for Selkies to use diamonds. They prefer pearls. I only know of?he might have some idea of where they came from, or who made them."
"Meaning, he might be able to shed some light on who sent them to Emma."
"Exactly. Although I have my suspicions now." Calum laughed grimly. 
"Am I missing something?" I asked. 
Calum looked a bit abashed. "Sorry, Reb. I forgot you were here."
Andrew took the photos, and I didn't think any more about them. 
School started again, and I was promoted to the 2nd XI for cricket. I was rapt. The first game of the season was against Queen Alexandra's College. We lost the toss, and they batted first. They did quite well. A dark-haired girl I thought I knew from somewhere batted like a professional. She hit the ball over the park. I distinguished myself by catching her out when she was on 44. I batted at number eight - not a brilliant place but better than number eleven. We had a respectable total on the board when I went in. We were not winning, but neither were we totally beaten. The dark-haired girl was the wicket keeper. 
"That was a good catch," she said.
"Thanks."
"Finn wants to talk to us after the game," and she nodded toward the side-lines. I saw two men, one with a creamy, red-eared Labrador cross on a leash. The other one was Calum.
"Do you know him?" I asked.
"He's my cousin," was the reply. That's where I'd seen her before - at Emma and Finn's wedding. I batted tolerably well, getting twelve before I was run out. 
"Bad luck," said the keeper after she whipped the bails off the stumps. In the end we lost by seven runs.
 After the game and the usual courtesies finished the Quacs keeper and I hung around waiting. 
Someone called "Do you need a ride, Sylvia?" 
"No thanks, I'm going with my cousin," she answered. 
The two men drifted across the park towards us. One of the Quacs teachers gave them a strange look. The creamy dog came up to me and sniffed me, then jumped up like a long-lost friend.
"Robin's puppy!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, the sod's gone off to London and left Emma and me with the blasted dog," grumbled Finn. But there was a smile in his voice as he said it. I don't think he minded really. I noticed Calum avoided the dog. Finn introduced Sylvia and me. It seemed she already knew Calum, and had known him for years. The teacher was still watching us. 
Sylvia said, "I'd better go and tell Ms Smith who you are, otherwise she'll probably report you to the cops." Finn handed me the dog's leash, and went with her.
"Good game?" asked Calum.
"It was okay. What's all this about?  I'd probably have made 25 if she hadn't put me off."
Calum grinned. "Finn'll tell you. What time are you expected home?"
"So long as I'm home by dinner time. Dad's helping Gran and Granddad with their shift, and Mum's taken Olly up the Coast for tennis." 
He nodded. "Would you object if I took you out for lunch?"
"That would be cool," I said. "Thanks." I texted Mum to tell her. We wandered over to Finn and Sylvia. Calum, bless him, had his heap of a car at the bottom of the hill. Sylvia and I gratefully dumped our gear in the boot. We shared the back seat with the dog, under strict orders to keep it away from the driver. That was harder than it sounds because the dog was at the bouncy stage and kept trying to lick his neck. We drove across town and up the roller-coaster ride that passed for streets to get to Emma's and Finn's house. Finn took the dog up to the house, and came back with Emma. She squeezed into the back with Sylvia and me.
"Where to?" asked Calum. 
Finn said "What about Café on the Rocks." 
"Won't it be crowded?" Calum wanted to know. 
"Probably," said Emma, "but that's a good reason for going. And we might see someone famous." 
The café was beside the sea, with a large al fresco area that overlooked the beach. Sylvia and I pushed together a couple of tables right on the edge of the sea wall while Finn and Calum joined the queue to order lunch and Emma got us glasses of water from a nearby cooler. We sat in the sun, a light breeze keeping the day from being too hot. Still, I was glad of my cap. I sat looking north, to a beach crammed with families; almost wall-to-wall bodies. Near us a small fat child kept heading into the water, in spite of the best efforts of a frazzled mother who kept fishing it out again. Two older children yelled when the small fat one plodded through their sandcastle in its quest for the sea. By the sea wall the beach turned rocky, and it was rocky for quite some distance to the south. I turned to look at them. I like rocks. Emma left us to go and talk to some people at another table. She seemed to know half the people at the café. Sylvia and I made polite conversation. She is the same age as me and in the same form, only at Quacs. She plays soccer. She has two older sisters and a younger brother. Her father is the chaplain at St Mungo's. She was really interested in the fact I was a twin. I told her it was overrated. 
Calum and Finn found us, followed by a sulky waitress bearing glasses of Coke and a strong black coffee for Emma. Emma spotted them, and came back. She sipped her coffee thankfully. 
"I think I've made us good and visible to everyone here," she said. "No-one will bother us now." She was right. 
While we waited for our lunch Finn said, "You remember the diamond earrings, Rebekah?" I nodded. "Andrew found out where they came from. He was right, they are Selkie make. Apparently they are very old, and have been in his family for generations. His father recognised them from the photos. But we still don't know where they are, or why they were sent to Emma."
"You said they had a spell on them," I said cautiously. "Were you serious?"
"Yes," he replied. I shot a surreptitious look at Sylvia to see how she was reacting. She did not appear to be amazed or disbelieving or shocked. She listened with interest. 
"What sort of spell?" she asked.
"A calling one, and a fairly powerful curse," said Finn.
"Oh. Nasty," she responded, and sipped her Coke. Finn sat and frowned at his Coke glass. I don't think I've met anyone who smiles as seldom as he does. 
"I still don't get it," he said, slowly. "Who would have anything against Emma? Why would they send her something like that?"
"And?" I began, but Calum kicked me under the table. The kick was accompanied by a warning glare. "And Amanda actually wore them," I said lamely. 
"Did Olivia handle the box at all?" Finn asked. 
"No, just Amanda, Emma and me." 
He nodded. "Good."
The waitress arrived with three lunches. She asked abruptly who was having what. The lunches - mushrooms and bacon, Eggs Benedict and an omelette, were claimed by Calum, Sylvia and Emma. Finn and I had to wait until she crossed the road to the café and back before we got ours. We watched her standing on the other side, carrying our lunches, while about a dozen cars went past. But it was worth the wait. Calum had ordered black pudding for me. I love it, and can never have it at home because Dad is on a low-cholesterol diet, Olly thinks it sounds disgusting and Amanda is a vegetarian. I swear when I have my own place I'm going to eat it once a week (at least to begin with). Nobody talked much as we ate. I was starving, and judging by the speed with which Sylvia put away her plateful, she was too. Cricket's hard work. 
No-one wanted pudding, so we went for a walk along the rocks. Emma and Finn sat on the grass and laughed at Calum, Sylvia and I jumping around on the rocks. I had clambered out as far as I could without getting wet when a huge seal rose out of the water and stared fixedly at me. If I didn't know better, I could have sworn there was a human face underneath the seal's one. Calum cannoned into me and almost knocked me into the water. He grabbed hold of me and breathed in sharply. The seal looked at me for ages, and then it turned and swam out towards the harbour mouth. For some reason it put a damper on our playing around. Calum had gone quite white and quiet. He let me go and headed back to the grass. I took my time getting back. As I jumped onto the grass I heard him say something to Finn about selkies. It meant nothing to me, but Finn looked bothered. 
We dropped Sylvia off first. She lived in Westhaven, quite close to the café. Then we had another hair-raising ride to Emma and Finn's. Calum had lapsed into silent mode, so once they got out of the car I began the process of making him talk. He grunted answers. The car hurtled down the hill and around corners as if we were in a rally. 
Near the bottom of the hill I said, "It always amazes me how you can change gear like that. Your hand doesn't seem to bother you at all." He slammed on the brakes. Fortunately there was a stream of traffic going past. He turned and looked at me fiercely. 
"What do you mean about my hand?"
"It's curled up. It looks quite useless."
"And you can see it?" 
I nodded. "And the burn mark on your palm. I can't remember it ever looking any different." 
He gave a gulp that might have been a laugh. "My own mother doesn't know about it, and it's been like this for ten years. That would have made you about four. And you can see it." He shook his head in disbelief as he pulled out into the traffic. "I thought only the Perrys and Rev Seeley knew about it. They put the glamour on it for me. Can Olly see it, do you know? Or anyone else?"
"Dunno. Granddad might. No one would believe him, anyway. What's a glamour? And what is this Selkie business that you all keep talking about. And why did that seal upset you? And Sylvia said Finn wanted to talk to us about something and we didn't go over anything we haven't said or done before."
"That's just Finn's way of working. He's marshalling his facts, and he's found out what he needs to know from you. He's very good at working out what's in the spaces, what you didn't say but thought." I wriggled a bit uncomfortably. He gave me another long look, without the fierceness. "Do you believe in magic?" he asked. 
Just as I was going to answer my phone rang. I fished it out of my pocket, a protracted exercise because I forgot which pocket it was in, and it was in the one made least accessible by my seatbelt. It was Gran. Dad had had some kind of seizure and she was at the hospital with him. Mum and Olly were on their way back from the Coast. I shut the phone blankly. 
Calum asked, "What's wrong?" 
I told him. He stopped immediately, turned the car round regardless of the traffic and drove to the hospital. 
Eventually we found Gran. I swear hospitals are designed to keep ordinary people out. We had to follow a yellow line on the floor to get to the emergency ward and it vanished at least three times before we got there. Ever since that day I've hated hospitals and their disinfectant-and-sickness smell. Amanda sat on a squashy vinyl chair, sobbing. She stood up when we arrived, flung her arms around me briefly and then launched herself at Calum and clung to him. Gran, dear, upright, snippy Gran told her to pull herself together. Reluctantly Amanda obeyed. Gran is about the only person she is scared of. 
After he asked about Dad, Calum said, "Where's Granddad?"
"Bob from next door is sitting with him. I told him I wouldn't be long, but I really want to be here for Sue and Olivia."
"I'll go and stay with him. Then you won't need to worry." He turned to me and gave me the briefest of hugs. "You okay?"
I nodded. "Yes, thanks. And thanks for lunch."  
"My pleasure," he grinned. Amanda looked daggers at me as he left.


Chapter 3
The man who came home from hospital was my father, but he was not my Dad. Oh, he looked like him and he sounded like him. But the part of him that was Dad, the young part, the fun-loving part, the person who appreciated fine living had gone. Over the ensuing months more and more of him vanished, never to be recovered. Mum cried for three days, then pulled herself together and got on with the task of shepherding her daughters through adolescence. And we did not make her job easy. 
Dad had a brain tumour, inoperable. Gran took him to hospital because he had had several fits that afternoon, not just one. The epilepsy medication they put him on made him dull and disinterested in life. He went back to work for a while, but had to shorten his hours. 
Amanda, to give her credit, took over running the house from Mum for the first couple of weeks. She cooked, cleaned and laundered. She even offered to try to transfer her studies from Otago so she could stay home, but the combined family insisted she went. At the end of February she packed up and left for Dunedin, to do a pre-Med year.
Once she left, I lost interest in school and everything related to it. Olly did the opposite. She threw herself into her studies, the Drama club and everything else she could think of. She was hardly ever home, and when she was home she stayed in her room and studied. Only my cricket kept me going. In March Dad had his first round of radiotherapy. By then I was back in the detention room on a regular basis. I would arrive home late, but I often cooked. Mum and Dad would arrive home later, drained from the therapy. Olly retreated to her room as soon as she got home, only emerging for meals. 
Dad's tumour responded to treatment, and for a little while we had most of our Dad back. He still got very tired, but he could laugh and enjoy life a little. Term Two went well. Dad seemed to be recovering. I got promoted to the 2nd XI for hockey and I fell in love. I met Philip on the bus. Because I'd been in detention (again) I caught the 4:10 bus home. Plenty of St Iggy's and St Mungo's boys got that bus - it connected with the three-thirty one from Westhaven. James Miller, who I have known forever, said "Hi" to me. With him was this absolutely gorgeous boy, the traditional tall dark and handsome. Well, not so tall, but definitely the other two. He smiled at me and sat next to James. I studied the back of his head all the way to my stop. They both smiled at me when I got off. I thought about Philip all the way home, and all through classes the next day. I went home on the 4:10 bus again, and Philip smiled his glorious white smile and spoke. This was progress. By the next week he came and sat next to me. Then it became a habit to wait for him, even if I didn't have detention. I thought about him all the time. My insides would turn over whenever I saw him. A couple of times he came and watched my hockey games, but not as often as I went and watched him play soccer. He played very well, and was worth watching. 
Olly disapproved of him. She said he was shallow. I didn't care. I was too dazzled. But I have to confess I didn't like some of his friends very much. They were all older than me - Philip was in Year 12. Most of them drank a lot and a few of them smoked dope. Their nickname for Philip was Paedophile, because of me. He was quite different when he was with them. I liked him much better when he was by himself. 
Our birthday was a non-event. Olly and I spent it, with Mum, in the emergency ward. Dad had another round of seizures. They discovered the tumour had grown again. Another round of radiotherapy saw to it that what little was left of our Dad disappeared all together. The radiotherapy did no good. Dad got worse and worse. He couldn't tolerate any kind of noise. Even the fridge humming upset him, so we weren't allowed any music that you could hear outside our bedrooms. He became fractious and demanding. Eventually Mum had to give up work to nurse him. Gran and the Aunts and Uncles rallied round, but there were limits to what they could do, especially Gran, as Granddad slowly and gently slid into senility. 
Olly and I spent as much time away from home as we decently could, sometimes together but more usually apart. Most afternoons I met Philip. On Saturdays I played hockey in the mornings and watched Philip play soccer in the afternoons. Then we hung out with his friends - never very late because I was still expected to be home for dinner. I suspect that they enjoyed themselves more once I'd gone. I saw Sylvia once at one of his games. 
The cricket season came around again. We played Quacs twice, and beat them the second time. Sylvia was still in their second team. I asked her why, since she was so good. 
"The Firsts play on Sundays, and I'm not allowed to play on Sunday mornings. I have to go to church." She pulled a face. "Sorry about your Dad, by the way." We exchanged phone numbers. School broke up. Philip was working on the other side of the city, so I didn't see him at all. Amanda came home and helped Mum. She passed all her exams, but not well enough to get into Med School. She was quite philosophical about it. She'd actually improved enormously while she'd been away. We had an almighty row one day when she told me what a self-centred little cow I was. I couldn't tell her about the cold lump in my inside every time I looked at Mum or Dad. I did tell her she had no right to tell us how to feel when we'd been the ones living through it all year. She told me I had no business judging her and how hard it was being so far away. I got a holiday job stacking shelves at the local supermarket. It was boring, but the people there were fun and it kept my mind off Dad and home. 
A week before Christmas Dad died. I texted Philip to tell him but he didn't answer. I assumed he had no money on his phone. Olly and I put our arms about each other and howled. Dad's funeral was on the 23rd of December. By then we had done with crying. All the family were there, Mum's as well as Dad's, and a huge number of people Dad worked with, people Mum worked with, friends from all over the place and way back. Poor Gran looked absolutely shattered. Granddad knew he was at church, but couldn't really figure out why. Gran had to try to explain to him that Michael had died. Then he wanted to know why only three of the boys were there. That set both Gran and Mum off. Calum, looking quite handsome in a dark suit - I'd seldom seen him dressed up like that - took him in and sat with him. Gran came in with us, as the chief mourners. The minister made sure we were as comfortable as possible, and people kept saying the service was lovely, but I don't remember much of it, just that I felt terribly, terribly sad that I would never see my Dad again, and mourning that he had really died back in February. Olly did a reading and Uncle Peter and Uncle Dave (Johnstone) did the eulogies. He had been Dad's best friend since they were at school.
I absolutely hated the afternoon tea afterwards.
The after after-match function was much more relaxed. It was at home. All of both families were there. It's quite impressive seeing all my relatives assembled at once. There seem to be hundreds of them. Calum got Granddad ensconced in an armchair. I got drinks for them both, then I perched on the arm of the chair to talk to Granddad. Calum hovered. Granddad asked me who I was, so I explained. Then he asked where Michael was, and I explained that. Twice. 
"Honestly Granddad, you seem to be away with the fairies!" I said in mild exasperation.
"Nonsense," he snorted. "Calum's the one who's been away with the fairies. Just ask him." Calum went absolutely scarlet. 
Christmas was cancelled, but we had a low-key (for the McIvers) New Year's party at Uncle Roger's. Assorted hangers-on came. Emma announced, with shining eyes, that she and Finn were having a baby in July. Everyone congratulated them. Baby Perry would be the first of the next generation of McIvers. The bubbly came out for that. Amanda brought Tom. This was a bit of a shock to me. He was also studying at Otago, and they had got back together during the year. I suppose if I had been at home a bit more and had paid more attention to Amanda I would have known. Calum brought this stunning, vivacious redhead, Vanessa. Apparently she'd been his girlfriend for a while. She hadn't been to a McIver event before. No. I lie, I'm pretty sure she was at Emma's and Finn's wedding.  
Tom reminded me that he had given me some photos for Amanda. I confessed I had forgotten about them, and promised to look for them. I even searched my bag, and lied, saying I didn't know where they were. Surreptitiously I went in search of Calum. As usual he had sloped off with a book. I took a while to find him. He was sitting on the back step, reading by the light that shone out the kitchen window. He gruffly promised to try and get the photos back from Andrew. Shortly after that he and Vanessa left. About a fortnight later he turned up with the photos. He told Amanda he'd been cleaning his car and had found them, and that they must have fallen out of my bag. She was delighted to have them, especially as Tom had a copy of one of them up in his room in Dunedin. I noted with interest there were no earrings.
I didn't see or hear from Philip all holidays. He turned up at my first cricket match for the new term. He acted as if there had been no time at all between the end of last term and the beginning of this one. I was a bit hurt because he didn't mention Dad at all. He just expected to pick things up from where we left them. I let him kiss me, but I gave him the message I was not very happy with him. I saw him only two afternoons during the next week. He invited me to a party on Saturday night. Mum let me go, which surprised me. Amanda told me to ring her if I needed picked up or anything. I didn't enjoy it much. Philip had too much to drink and spent most of the evening pawing at me and trying to persuade me to go to bed with him. Even the best looks in the world go off when the owner is inebriated and can't focus his eyes on you. Fortunately Sylvia was there - she was the only girl I knew - so I stuck fairly close to her. Her father came to pick her up at about half past eleven, so I left the party with her and rang Amanda to pick me up from Seeley's place. She did. Philip and I had a monumental row the next week, then he tried again to pressure me into having sex with him. It seems as if he sees it as the fix for all problems. I refused several times over the next few weeks.
The next McIver event was Granddad's 80th birthday party, in mid March. Mum gamely held the party at our place. There were thirty-one McIvers there - Amanda was the only one missing because she'd had to go back to university - and an assortment of Gran's and Granddad's friends and more distant relatives. Amanda went back to a place in the School of Dentistry, so her vacation ended better than it had begun. Granddad gathered he was the guest of honour, but he didn't really have a grasp of what was going on. I chatted with him for a while, and Olly had a turn, too. Calum flitted in and out. He and Granddad have always had a special relationship - I mean, we all do with Granddad, he's cool, but Calum's always just had something a little extra. Half way through the evening I got a text from Philip, dumping me because he'd found someone else. I was gutted. I managed to maintain my composure while Granddad cut his cake, we drank his health and the Uncles and Auntie Chris made speeches. Then I fled. 
I went down the garden to the tree house, determined to have a good cry in private. Dad built it for us, and for a long time it was Olly's and my favourite place. I climbed up, lay on the platform, and bawled. I felt humiliated. Eventually I merely felt wrung out and angry. I was in the middle of composing a really vicious text message when I heard a movement in the tree. I slid across the platform and stuck my head over the edge.
"Who's there?" I asked, as steadily as I could.
"Sorry, I didn't know there was anyone here," came Calum's voice. He stopped where he was. 
"Come up," I said. 
He hauled himself up and perched on the edge of the platform, swinging his legs in the air. I came over and sat beside him. I was glad it was dark, so he couldn't see how blotched my face must look, but he noticed something was wrong.
"You okay?"
I shook my head. "No. I've just been dumped. By text message."
"How rude. Did he give a reason?"
"No. Yes. He's found someone else. He wanted me to sleep with him and I wouldn't." It took a long time to say this out loud.
"Fair enough. For you, I mean." He was silent a minute. "I suppose that makes two of us."
"You and Vanessa have broken up?" He nodded, not looking at me. "When? Why?"
"Basically the same reason. It was at New Year. She wanted us to move in together and I didn't want to, not yet. So she ditched me and found someone else." He shrugged. "It hurts." I nodded but didn't say anything; he didn't expect an answer. We sat in silence for quite a while. Calum is good company when you don't want to talk.  
We just stared out at the view. It was spectacular from there, looking out over the northern part of the city. Strings of lights twinkled far into the distance.  
 Eventually I said, half to myself, "It's like fairy land."
"No it's not," he said absently. "It's nothing like that at all." Then he recollected himself and said, "I mean, I imagine it's nothing like that."
"No you don't," I rounded on him. "You know what it's really like, don't you? Granddad was right that day when he said you'd been away with the fairies." 
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, not very convincingly.
"Liar. There is some mystery about you, and Emma and Finn are in on it too. Remember the day Dad got sick, the day you took me out to lunch? You asked me if I believed in magic. I never answered you. I don't know if I believe in magic or not, but I believe there's some thing strange about you, Calum McIver, and I want to know what it is. I don't have any right to know I suppose, but strange things have been happening for ages and you keep dropping these hints and I want to know what's going on."
He had the grace to look a little ashamed. "How long have these strange things been going on, do you think?" he asked, quite quietly and seriously.
I cast my mind back. "Um, since Amanda went to the St Mungo's ball. No, before that, since that girl gave me the earrings for Emma. Yes, that would be it. That's two years ago now."
"That's about right. There is still something going on with those earrings and because you have fairy sight you've got involved. That girl should have given the parcel to Olly, not you, to pass on to Emma. It wouldn't have had any effect on her. She would have forgotten about it once it was out of her possession, just like Amanda did. But she gave it to you. It was a small mistake, and one they wouldn't have counted on. You can't be made to forget things the way Olly and Amanda can. And you're susceptible to the spells on the package, which were directed at a mortal with some magical gifts. Emma. And you, it turns out. It's just as well neither of you tried the earrings on or we'd have a real problem on our hands. It is part of the reason your life has been so horrible for the last couple of years. Not the whole reason - a lot of it is just life." 
I digested this for a while. "What's fairy sight, and how do you know I've got it?"
"You told me, that day when you said you could see my hand as it really is. I tried Olly out, but she can't see it. I'm pretty sure Granddad can, but it's only recently that he has said anything, and no-one takes him seriously now. It means you can see through spells that make things look different to what they really are. I can do it, but I haven't always been able to, only since this happened." He held up his hand. "It has an elaborate spell, a glamour, to make it look normal. It would have taken too much explaining to Mum and Dad if I'd gone home with this severely burnt hand when all I was supposed to be doing was going to the beach. I've worn this spell ever since. I nearly drove off the road when you described it as it is."
"Why didn't they just put a spell on it to fix it?"
"They couldn't. It was caused by some pretty strong magic that can't simply be magicked better. They would have if they could."
"How do you know all this stuff about me?"
"I had to tell some people about you, and they worked it out."
"Finn and Andrew?"
"Yes, among others." 
"Have you been to Fairyland?"
"Yes."
"What's it like?"
"It's amazing. It's all the places you could possibly imagine, and then more that are beyond imagination. It's beautiful, and terrifying, and just incredible."
I sighed. "I wish I could go." 
He smiled at me. "I think you'd like it."


Chapter 4
I never did send the nasty text message to Philip because I left my phone in the tree house and it got rained on. Mind you, I didn't need to. I told my friends about how he dumped me and why. Olly told hers. Probably by interval on Monday morning every girl in St Teresa's and St John's knew what a prick (Olly's words) he was. I made damn sure I didn't get any more detentions. I did not want to risk seeing him on the bus. There was still a Philip-shaped hole in my life though, and it took ages to stop looking for him or wondering how things could have gone better. I talked to Olly a lot. I'm sure she got sick of me, but she didn't say. Nor did she say, "I told you so," even though she was entitled to. If anything, the whole thing brought us closer together, closer than we had been since we started school and each found our own friends. 
One day around about Easter I was cooking dinner. The three of us took turns. Mum came home looking a trifle guilty and positively uncomfortable. She asked us if we would mind if she went out to dinner with a man. It was quite comical really, having your mother beg for permission to go out on a date. She stressed that this was merely an acquaintance, someone she met at work. We gave our consent - we knew she loved Dad, and I think a lot of him died for her last February, too. She'd been a widow in reality for several months before he actually died. It wasn't as if she was going behind his back or anything. I noticed that she dressed nicely (as usual), but not with the care or attention that she used to when she went out with Dad. This date was on a friendship only level. She drove herself to and from dinner. 
We met Mum's friend in June or July. His name was Murdo Walters and he was Scottish. I spoke to him on the phone a few times before I met him. He sounded nice. Actually Amanda met him first. She came home for the mid-year break and she called in at Mum's work one day. She came home quite excited, and described him to Olly and me. We took an almost voyeuristic pleasure in hearing the details about the mysterious Mr Walters. None of us meant any disrespect to Dad, but we were glad for Mum. He was about average height, slim, a bit younger(!) than Mum, with curly black hair and the most beautiful brown eyes Amanda had ever seen. He was quite good looking (for an old guy), Amanda thought. I did not expect what I saw when I finally did meet him. Amanda had the description almost right. From one side, in profile, he was rather handsome, but Murdo Walters' face was disfigured all down the other side by scarring, as if he had been caught in a blast of fire or acid. An image popped into my mind of Calum's hand, and of a boy in strange clothes hurtling through the air. I must have gasped audibly because he gave me an odd look as he shook hands with me. Fortunately (for me) I was introduced to him before Olly, and she simpered as if she was meeting a rock star or something. I hoped that Mr Walters thought I was taken aback by his stunning good looks, because I quickly realised I was the only one who saw his scars.
Emma's daughter was born on Olly's and my birthday. That was cool.
Neither Olly nor I were surprised the first time Murdo Walters stayed the night. He never actually moved in, although his overnight stays became more frequent and more regular. Eventually we just became used to him being there. Most of the time it was okay, but I began to dread it when he stayed Friday nights. Mum doesn't do Saturday mornings. As far as she is concerned they were designed for her to sleep through. She has always been like that. Dad used to get up and take us girls to ballet and music and sport and do all sorts of things before Mum surfaced. Even when she does get up it takes her another couple of hours to really wake up and get functioning. On Saturday mornings Murdo would emerge, ostensibly to get breakfast for Mum. He would wander around the kitchen, asking for help but he would brush up against me and paw at me at every opportunity. In a short time I came to hate him. It was hard because Mum was happy - not over the moon or besotted, but happy. I felt she deserved it. I didn't want to spoil that for her. 
One night I woke to hear my bedroom door handle turning. Fortunately the door was locked. The next morning I spoke to Olly about it. 
She said, "He's singled you out. He gropes at me a bit but he's much worse to you. I'm just an afterthought."
"Wish I was," I said. "He tried to get into my room last night, unless it was you."
"WHAT?" exclaimed Olly. "You have to tell Mum."
"I can't. It'll just cause trouble. But if he does it again I'm clearing out."
"Where'll you go?"
"Dunno. Gran's." After that conversation Olly and I kept a lookout for each other. We quite simply made sure neither of us was ever alone in a room with him. But every night he stayed I slept badly, listening for the sound of the door handle. I kept the key in the lock, turned half way so it couldn't be pushed out. It began to have an effect on my schoolwork, and that bothered me a bit because I had NCEA Level 1 coming up.  I'd had a good year at school so far, to the surprise of my teachers. 
For several weeks nothing happened other than the usual pawing. I wondered if I was just paranoid, or jealous or something. Then one weekend, just after the mock exams, I got a sense of foreboding. There was nothing in Murdo's behaviour to warrant it - if anything he was behaving more circumspectly than normal. Olly and I wouldn't rock his boat if he didn't rock ours. Friday was okay, but on Saturday this feeling of dread just grew and grew. I actually got together some stuff so I could bale out if I had to. Bedtime came and nothing had happened. Mum and Murdo were out. I told myself I was being stupid, but when I went to bed I carefully locked the door and turned the key to its usual position. 
The wind woke me. It had suddenly got up, very loud and blustery. I heard twigs from the birch tree tapping against the living room windows. I lay for a while and listened to it, and tried to go back to sleep. I couldn't. I thought about switching on the light and reading for a while. I'm not a great reader, so I must have been feeling awake. Suddenly I heard a small click. I sat up and listened. Slowly the key turned. I could see it - the night was rather light. Not taking my eyes off it, I got out of bed as quietly as I could, and pulled on some clothes. The key fell out of the lock. I picked up my bag and tiptoed over to the window, listening for the tumblers to click. I pulled my shoes on and, thanking Dad and Mum for choosing aluminium windows, opened the window and jumped out. I could just reach it to push it shut. I was off out of the garden and down the road as if all the fiends of hell were after me. I ran down to the main road, and just caught the last bus into town. Once on it I felt safe. 
I got off at the railway station. It was one o'clock on Sunday morning, and I didn't know where to go or what to do. The sensible thing was to go to Gran's, but there were no more buses and I didn't have enough money for the taxi fare. It was too far to walk, and I wouldn't; not at that time of night. I texted Olly to say I'd gone. I stood in a doorway and flipped through the address book on my phone. There didn't seem to be anyone I could call. I got right through, and then started again. Suddenly my eye caught Calum's name. Impulsively I punched in his number. A very English-sounding male voice answered.
"Doctor Calum McIver's phone. The butler speaking. How may I help you?" 
"C-can I speak to Calum please? It's his cousin."
"One moment please." 
Calum came on to the phone. "Yes?" he said. 
"It's Rebekah. I've left home." I didn't want to ask him to pick me up. I just wanted to talk to someone.
"Where are you?" he asked. He did not sound very pleased.
"At the railway station."
"I'm coming to get you. Stay put." And he rang off. In a very long fifteen minutes his heap pulled up. He got out and came looking for me. He said nothing as we walked to the car.
He didn't say anything as we drove to his flat either. He lived up past the university, in the bottom part of a once-gracious old house. Light shone from every window in the house. The gate was askew and the fence filled with rubbish blown there by the wind. He dragged the gate aside for me and followed me up the path. We stood on the porch in the direct path of the howling gale while he tried to find the door key. In the end he resorted to thumping on the door. A beautiful golden-haired man, not overly tall but well muscled and trim, opened it. 
"Hello Rebekah," he said in surprise. "I didn't realise it was you Calum went out to rescue." Robin had changed a bit since I last saw him. He led the way to the flat's living room, at the back of the house. It incorporated the untidiest kitchen I had ever seen. He put the kettle on, and Calum shifted stuff off the sofa so I could sit down. Calum doesn't keep coffee, so they gave me a mug of sweet, milky tea.
Once we all had a mug Calum said, "What's all this about?" 
So I told him, every detail. Most of the time I kept my eyes firmly fixed on the floor. I felt if I looked at either of them I would burst into tears. I sensed rather than saw them stiffen as I described Murdo Walters and the scars that only I could see.
"So that's who's behind it all," said Robin softly. "I thought he was dead."
"No, Andrew and I had our doubts last year - no, the year before. This is just confirmation. We didn't say anything to Finn because it would just make him go off the deep end. You know what he's like." Robin nodded. 
"Who is he?" I asked. I was not prepared for the answer.
"Andrew's brother, half-brother really," said Robin. "He's an old enemy of Calum's, and he's always fancied Emma."
I put my empty mug down and thought about this piece of information. "He's a prize sleaze," I said. Then reaction set in. I began to shake. And to my intense embarrassment, I did burst into tears. Calum moved along the sofa and put his arms about me. I literally wept on his shoulder.


Chapter 5
I woke the next morning to the sound of someone whistling very tunefully. It took me a while to work out where I was. I lay on a battered sofa, with a couple of blue checked blankets, very like some of Gran's, over me. The whistling person was Robin, and he was making sandwiches. The kettle boiled and he made a pot of tea. He packed the sandwiches into a sports bag and then put a couple of swords in on top of them. I sat up.
"Hello Rebekah. Sleep well?" I nodded. He grinned. "I don't know how. That thing must be in the running for an award as most uncomfortable sofa in the universe."
"What time is it?"
"Eleven o'clock. I'm supposed to be at a rehearsal now, but it won't start for at least half an hour. Then I'm going fencing this afternoon. I might see you later. Calum's out the back." He jerked his head towards the back door. He picked up his bag. "Bye" he said and disappeared down the hall. 
I folded the blankets and crossed the kitchen. I couldn't see a clean mug anywhere. Turning around I saw my one from last night, just where  I'd left it. I rinsed out another one and poured two mugs of tea. I took them out the back door. Calum was sitting on the steps in the sun with several lengths of cable and the weirdest looking pair of pliers I'd ever seen. He looked up when he heard the door. He moved along a little and made room for me beside him. 
"Thanks," he said as I handed him the tea. "You okay?"
"Yep, and thanks. I didn't ring for you to come and get me."
"I know. You didn't ask. What are you going to do now?"
"I don't know. I'm not going back home while he's there." I sipped my tea and watched Calum. "What are you doing?"
"Making Ethernet, sorry, network cables." He flicked a couple of centimetres of grey coating from the cable, revealing a bunch of twisted coloured wires. Deftly he separated them and sorted them into a different order, stroking the wires straight. Then he grasped them so they were all lined up neatly like soldiers, clipped off the ends and slid on a clear plastic cap. Then he used the pliers to squeeze the cap on tight. 
"It's a boring job, gives you thinking time. And I needed some thinking time. They're for tomorrow. I'm setting up a new network." 
He drank his tea and made cables. I refilled both our mugs. When they were empty for the second time Calum put aside his cables and looked at me.
"What are we going to do with you?" he said, in mock exasperation (at least, I hope it was mock). "My flatmates will be back tonight, and Robin will need the sofa back."
"I thought Robin was in London."
"He was. He arrived back on Wednesday. His parents are out of town and weren't expecting him back. He doesn't have a key to their place, not since we trashed it at an illicit party. Tania hasn't got room for him, and Emma's not well, so he's bunking down here till they get back."
"I thought I might go to Gran's, but it's not really a very good option, with Granddad like he is. Grandma will just lecture me and send me home. And I don't want to go to any of the aunts or uncles. What's wrong with Emma?"
"She's been vaguely unwell - tired, and depressed, and weak - ever since the baby was born. Lately she's been getting worse. No one knows just what the problem is."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
"So are we. It's pretty rough on them both." 
We fell into silence again.  Life can be so unfair. Emma had so looked forward to the baby, and now it seemed as if she wasn't well enough to enjoy her at all. 
Calum disappeared inside. I stayed where I was, soaking in the warm spring sunshine. The day was wonderfully calm after the previous night's gale. Suddenly I heard a commotion above my head. I got up and walked out onto the tiny lawn. A young woman in a silky wrap shot out on the balcony above me holding something in her hand. A man ran after her. 
"Give it here," he said, laughing. She held whatever it was out over the edge of the balcony, and he leaned across her, reaching for it. He kissed her quite hard on the mouth as he reached. She squirmed and turned her head, catching sight of me. 
"Oh, hello," she called. The man looked up to see who she was talking to, and while he was distracted she ducked under his arm and ran back into the upstairs flat. Calum returned and leaned against the doorpost.
"I see you've met my neighbours," he said, smiling. "That's Rosie and Jono. They're up early today. How would you mind going to stay with the Seeley's for a bit?"
"That'd be fantastic. Thanks." 
"I'll take you out to lunch before I inflict them upon you." 
We had lunch at Café on the Rocks. I had black pudding again. 
I don't quite know what I expected the Seeley household to be like. Hushed and reverent, I suppose, where everyone was super nice to each other. It took about half a minute for Sylvia and her brother Sam to disabuse me of that. They pelted past Calum and me, shrieking at the tops of their voices. 
Sylvia threw herself into a diving tackle and brought Sam down into a heap. She pinned him down, thumped him hard and yelled, "Don't you ever touch my stuff again. I'll kill you if you do!" I got the impression she meant it. 
Sam wriggled out, rubbing his arm and scowling. "Hello Calum," he growled. "What do you want?"
"Is your Dad in? Or your Mum?"
"Course they are. Do you think they'd leave me alone with that bitch?" Sam was about twelve, small and sweet-looking, with black hair and vivid blue eyes. He led the way down the drive towards the house. Sylvia picked herself up and walked down the drive with us. She was still angry with Sam and her blue eyes, vivid like Sam's, almost emitted sparks. The Seeleys lived in a big, old, rambling house, set well back from the street, and hidden by a tall hedge. The large front lawn was sunny, a marvellous place to play cricket or football. We went around the back. Rev. Seeley, in old baggy trousers and gumboots, was planting potatoes. He was a round man, with big round spectacles and untidy grey hair. He straightened up when he saw us, set aside his spade and greeted Calum like an old friend. 
"Glad of an excuse to stop," he smiled. "Sam, go and tell your mother that Calum and Rebekah are here. And put the kettle on." Sam wandered off, in no particular hurry. "Sylvia, you stay," as Sylvia made to go. 
Mrs Seeley came out of the house. She was breathtakingly beautiful, dark-haired, blue-eyed and tall and slim like a model. She moved like a dancer, gliding rather than walking.  The Seeleys knew a surprising amount about me. They arranged that I would stay with them for the week, and then there would be a review of the situation. The two older Seeley girls were away at University so I had one of their rooms. Sam brought out a tray with tea and coffee, and we sat under a huge oak tree. Rev Seeley probed Calum about just what was going on. At one stage he turned to me and said, apologetically, 
"I'm sorry about all this, but it's part of my job. I'll have to talk to your school counsellor. Which school are you at?"
"St Teresa's" I answered.
"Thank goodness for that. I was scared it was St John's. The counsellor there's a ninny."
"Dad, I told you she goes to St Teresa's. We play cricket against each other," said Sylvia. "Don't worry," she said to me. "The Seeleys are quite famous for picking up waifs and strays from schools all around the city. No one will think it at all strange."
"But what about Mum?" I asked.
"That's part of my job, too," said Rev. Seeley, slightly less enthusiastically. Over tea and coffee it became apparent to me that the Seeleys also knew a lot about Calum and the diamond earrings. Mrs Seeley asked about Emma's health. Calum said it was not good.
"Are they connected?" she asked. 
Calum paled. "Oh God, I hope not," he said. He looked at me. "But it's possible."
Rev Seeley sucked his teeth for a while, took his glasses off and swung them around. "I suppose that's the other part of my job. I'll do some investigating for you, and see what I can come up with. And what we can do to remedy it."
"Andrew says the earrings are Selkie jewels. It's likely his brother has something to do with it all. He's had connections with the Sluagh. Is that any help?" Calum said.
"It's a starting point. Thanks." Rev. Seeley did not look particularly grateful for the information. "Oh well, I suppose  I'd better start looking." He made to go inside.
"Oh no you don't," said Mrs Seeley, suddenly imperious. "You finish those potatoes first."
"Slave-driver," he muttered.
On Monday morning I got on the bus with Sylvia. It felt strange going the wrong way to school. Olly and I spent most of Monday morning with the school counsellor, both separately and together. She was very kind and understanding and she made me angry. I wondered what the counsellor at St John's was like if this was the reasonable one. She had the same effect on Olly. Somehow she had the idea that I was upset and being difficult because Mum had a boyfriend. She realised we had a traumatic year last year, and that it was never easy to accept a replacement parent. But we had to be mature and learn to deal with it, to accept that our mother was an individual with needs. And so on and so forth. Olly rolled her eyes and pulled a face behind the counsellor's back. It was very immature and badly behaved of us, but I could have done without that morning. All I really wanted was a chance to talk to my sister alone. 
We finally got it at lunchtime. Olly told me Mum had hit the roof. She chucked Murdo out instantly. I rang Mum at work and spoke to her. I told her I wasn't coming home until the end of the week. She sounded pretty upset, but she was quite philosophical about it. 
On Tuesday Olly told me there was an absolutely enormous bunch of red roses waiting on the front doorstep. She left them there for Mum to find. When Mum got home from work she just put them straight into the rubbish bin. 
The Perrys arrived back in town that day, and they and Robin came to dinner. Mr Perry was a polite, gracious man, but I sensed he was really very reserved - a polished version of Finn. He looked like him, too, except he had Robin's smile. He spoke when he was spoken to, and only really became animated when the conversation sparked his interest. Mrs Perry, in contrast, was chatty and warm and friendly. After dinner, when everyone was relaxing with coffee, Mrs Perry asked Robin how the rehearsal had gone. 
Robin snorted. "It was a complete and utter waste of time. Stuart Park was running it. If  I'd known he was involved I wouldn't have bothered coming. "An invitation to our past graduates to present an aria from their repertoire." His name wasn't on the letter. Still, I should have investigated it better before I came. It was really just an excuse to come home."
"Is he still there?" said Mrs Perry in disgust.
"Yes," said Mrs Seeley. "That's why Sionead and Serena have gone to Auckland. They didn't want to study under him, after what Tania and Robin went through."
"What are they doing?" asked his father.
"A series of operatic lollipops. Bums on seats stuff. Concert performances in costume, basically." Mr Perry smiled.. 
Mrs Perry said, "What are you doing?"
"Nothing. I turned it down. Stupid Park didn't want me there at all. It was obvious. I think the letter must have slipped through by mistake. I was prepared to do La Donna è Mobile, but Stupid Park said I look too innocent to be the Duke of Mantua. I told him that was the point, and that I'd played it very convincingly last summer. He dismissed it as a student production. I don't know what he thinks he's putting on. Anyway, I told him what he could do with his production."
"I'm glad," said his father. 
"Who is the Duke of Mantua?" asked Sam. I was most grateful to him. It saved me asking.
"He's in the opera Rigoletto. Sung by a tenor, like me. The Duke's a nasty piece of work, although he has some good songs. He's basically a serial rapist. We poor tenors don't usually get to play baddies - usually baritones (like Dad) or basses get the good meaty parts." 
"But you tenors always get the girl." 
Robin grinned again. "That's a plus?"
"Oh," said Sam. "So this Park person thinks baddies should look bad."
"That's right," said Robin. "Whereas the Duke of Mantua shouldn't, I don't think. I mean, Gilda's an innocent and you always end up wanting to shake the silly cow, or at least wishing she'd hurry up and die instead of just singing about it so you can take your bow and go home. But I think it's much more effective if the Duke appears as some kind of glamorous, romantic type. Like a film star or a rock star. Then it's easier to understand why he's able to dupe her."
"Meaning you with your innocent looks can get the plum role," put in Sylvia, a trifle acidly.
"Exactly," grinned Robin with satisfaction. 
"I think you're right," I put in. "If someone looks or feels villainous you're on your guard. It's when they are handsome and charming, and they use it, that you're at a disadvantage."
Robin's mother looked at me strangely. "Bhaltair," Robin said. Mr Perry raised his eyebrows in surprise. Robin nodded. 
"So," said his father at last. "Where is he?"
"Somewhere in the city. Last seen at 32 Cosgrove Ave, although I understand he's been given the heave-ho since then." 
"Diana wondered if there was some connection between him, those diamond earrings and Emma's illness," said Rev. Seeley. "I've been looking into whether or not it's possible." 
"And is it?" said Mrs Perry.
"Yes."
Robin swore. Mr Perry reached over and took his wife's hand.
"What can we do, J?" Mr Perry asked. "Anything?"
"Can you contact Murchadh mac Bhaltair? He identified the earrings. Perhaps he can help with whatever sort of curse it is, assuming it's a Selkie one."
"It's out of character for them, curses aren't much in their line. But I'll see what I can do. Andrew should be able to help."
Rev. Seeley looked over the top of his glasses at me. "And we need to get this young lady extracted from it, too."
On Wednesday I got a book of opera synopses out of the school library. The librarian looked mildly surprised, and examined the last date stamped in the back. 
"1989! I wonder how that slipped through. You've probably saved this from being thrown out," she commented. 
Rev and Mrs Seeley called a family conference for Thursday night. I was on edge all day for some reason and found it hard to concentrate. I was a complete klutz at cricket practise after school, dropping easy catches and bowling as if I'd never done it before. I couldn't bat, either. Ms Robinson asked if I was having an off day. I agreed. She said, 
"I hope you don't have too many more, because I want you to try out for the Firsts next week." That was the best thing that had happened to me all week. I floated ecstatically to the bus station. 
As I stood at the bus stop, waiting for the Number 11, a bus on the other side of the terminus pulled away. I saw Murdo Walters standing talking to Philip. I prayed fervently that they would not look in my direction, put my head down and wormed my way to the back of the crowd. Fortunately there were a few other St Teresa's uniforms in the mix. I recalled Murdo groping at me, cold, calculating and totally without any emotion. And Philip, hot and eager and self-absorbed. All he wanted was his own gratification. I shuddered. 
Suddenly Sylvia appeared at my elbow. "Are you all right? You look as if you've seen a ghost."
"No, I'm not. Look. It's Philip O'Donnell and Murdo Walters." 
She looked across the terminus. "Shit," she said. 
I felt a momentary tingling, like vague pins and needles. Then the bus came. We got aboard, apparently without me being spotted. Nothing happened on the journey home, except when we got off one of Sylvia's friend's called me Lucy. I thought that was a bit odd.
Mrs Seeley said, when we walked in, "Hello Sylvia, hello Lucy. Have you seen Rebekah? She should have been on your bus." 
Sylvia laughed. "It worked! I put a glamour on you, and it worked." 
Mrs Seeley peered closely at me. "You've improved Sylvia. This is really very good. Now go and do your homework, both of you. You won't have time later."  
I had a good look in the mirror, but I couldn't see anything except me as I usually look.
The family arrived after dinner - Mr and Mrs Perry, Robin, Andrew and Tania, Finn and Calum. Calum looked as if he had hardly slept that week. He had big black smudges under his eyes that his glasses didn't hide. 
Robin whispered, "See what you've done to him? He's sick with worry." I turned my back on him, and he laughed. 
Finn really was sick with worry. He was thinner than ever, gaunt and pale. He looked seriously short on sleep, with blue shadows around his eyes and mouth. He sort of smiled at me, but I think it took an enormous amount of energy.
"How is Emma?" asked Mrs Seeley.
"Not good," he said. "Mum was with her all today. I had a job to get finished. Louise is there now. Jane's fine though, and thinks it's great having non-stop grandmother attention." 
Mrs Perry smiled sadly and said, "She's definitely worse than she was before Robert and I went away. I think it's urgent now. The only good thing is that Jane seems to be untouched by whatever it is. I think she might have quite strong powers." 
I shook my head. Powers? This was my cousin's baby. Robin saw my disbelief and grinned. 
"We'd better let Rebekah in on the family secret, or she's just going to get confused," he said. His mother and aunt nodded. 
Robin continued, "We're fairies, every one of us, except you and Calum. And Andrew- he's half a fairy. Calum and Emma came to the fairy world with us a few years ago because we needed help from mortals. We're pretty sure Emma's illness is coming from there, and we know you've got tangled up in it." By now so many strange things had happened to me that I accepted his explanation without question.
Rev. Seeley said, "To break the spell we need you to go to the Realms - Fairyland, if you will, Rebekah. I'm sorry, but we can't think of any other way to do this. Emma's too ill, and it has to be one of you, since you are the two affected by the spell." 
I was surprised, and rather pleased. I would get to go.
"Okay" I said. I hadn't the faintest idea what I was letting myself in for. It's probably just as well. "What will I have to do?"
"Two things," said Rev Seeley. "Locate the earrings, and return them to the Selkies. They will provide you with the means for us to dismantle the curse. And travel to the Land of Annwn and bring back an apple. Just one. You won't go alone, and you will go with all the help and protection we can give you."
"When?" I asked.
"Tomorrow night," said Mrs Perry. "Emma can't hang on much longer." To my surprise Calum looked relieved. 
"Murchadh mac Bhaltair has promised help and protection for you. This is a great honour. He does not promise lightly, for he has little time for humans and their concerns, except on his own terms," said Mr Perry, with a glance at Andrew. Andrew grimaced back. 
"I suspect he is more concerned about any dishonour being attached to the name of Selkies than he is with human affairs. You can thank my brother for that," he said.
"We saw him today, Reb and I," put in Sylvia. "That's why I put the glamour on her."
"Where?" asked Rev. Seeley.
"At the bus terminus. He was talking with her ex. I don't think they saw us."
"Sickie for you tomorrow, Rebekah," said Mrs Seeley. "We can't risk you going out and anything happening to you." 
"What about me? Can I stay home too?" asked Sam.
"No. You're not going anywhere except school."  
The discussion turned to more technical matters, involving rituals and places and so on. It was all far above my head. Rev. Seeley kept Sam busy fetching and returning books to his father's study. Calum and I found ourselves on the outer edges. 
"Cup of tea?" he suggested. We went out to the kitchen, and perched on stools while the kettle boiled. 
"How's your week been?" he asked.
"Okay, except for the session with the school counsellor. Apparently I'm immature and rebellious and need to see my poor widowed mother as a person with needs." 
Calum grinned. "Have you contacted Auntie Sue?"
"Yes. I speak to her every day on my phone. I ring her at lunchtime. She's pretty good, now. Olly said she was really mad at first, but has got resigned to the situation. Tomorrow will be a problem now, because I'm keeping my phone in my locker at school. Olly keeps me informed, and Mum, too."
"Good, and that explains why I couldn't get hold of you, either." Calum got up to make the tea. As he filled the pot he said "I'm going away at the end of next month, to do post-doctoral studies in Boston." I felt a cold little lump of disappointment inside me. He looked for mugs, then got the milk out of the fridge. When he sat down again, I said, "Will you be away long?"
"Two years."
"Oh," I said flatly. There was an awkward silence. He put milk in the mugs and poured the tea. I stirred a spoonful of sugar into mine. 
"That's why I'm pleased they've decided to send you tomorrow night. I want it sorted before I go. I want to see Emma well." He paused, looking steadfastly at the bench top. "And I want to see you back, safe and free. You've suffered enough. More than enough. I care about you Reb, and about what happens to you." A surge of warmth engulfed the disappointment lump, then died away again, leaving a bigger lump than before. I was silent for a while, not wanting to voice that suddenly I felt very disappointed, and alone. When I finally restarted the conversation, I changed the subject. 
"Have you just been once?"
"No, several times. The first time was a quest, like you're doing, only it was a rescue. I've been back several times just to visit, mostly with Robin or Finn. They go quite a bit, more than you would expect. It's not going to be a picnic. The Realms are dangerous places, and there will be people and things there that are determined to stop you. Believe me, I know. You are going to into serious danger. There is a possibility you will not make it back. That's not an option I want to think about. But when you do get back, you can't talk about it, unless you find someone else who's been. I was lucky. I had Emma, and Robin and I were in the same year at school, although we were in different classes. It will be harder for you, although if you're successful there will be Emma and me, as well as all the Perrys and Seeleys."
"But you won't be here," I said, in a small voice. I felt miserable all through.
He looked at me, and looked away. "No. I won't." We finished our tea in silence. Calum rinsed the mugs and put them in the dishwasher.
Robin came looking for us. 
"Come back, you two. There are some final details to sort out that concern you." 
To my delight, it had been decided that Sylvia would be going with me. Her sisters were arriving tomorrow afternoon to help in the ritual. It would take place at the Perry's house, and they would open a portal for us there. It actually sounded quite exciting, in spite of what Calum said about it being dangerous. 
Then came the question that just about knocked me for a six. Mrs Perry looked me in the eyes and said, in deadly earnest, "Are you a virgin, Rebekah?"
 This, in a room full of men. I'm sure even my feet blushed.
"Yes," I muttered. 
"Good. That makes it easier for us to set the wards, and will make it easier for you to accomplish some of the task ahead of you," she said.
"Would it have spoiled things if I wasn't?" I asked.
Tania said, "No, but it would have made the spells harder and it would be more difficult to remove the curse from you. It's much better this way."
"And it makes it more important to keep you here tomorrow," said Mrs Seeley.


Chapter 6
Sylvia wasn't allowed the day off school, either. She and Sam left grumbling about how unfair life was. I enjoyed Friday, insofar as I ignored the disappointment lump and pushed down the surges of fear that spurted up around it. I studied until three o'clock, when Robin turned up. He looked incredibly suave in a very trendy suit. He had just given a lunchtime recital at the Basilica.
"Much of a turnout?" asked his aunt.
"About fifteen. Not bad. Old Nick and Mrs Nicholls were there, supporting our up-and-coming Old Boy. Stupid Park came, and left before the end." Mrs Seeley snorted. "But not before  I'd given him La Donna è Mobile," Robin added impishly. "It rather spoiled the programme. When are the girls getting here?"
"About four."
Mrs Seeley made coffee, and I took mine out the back, to under the oak tree. I took the book of opera synopses, too. To my surprise Robin came out to join me.
"I want to talk to you," he said. "Or rather, talk at you. This isn't going to be a conversation. I'm going to tell you about Calum and what he did the first time he came with us. He won't have told you?"
"No. He just said it was a quest."
"Humph, typical. We were in Year Ten. I got him dragged in by accident. He rescued Dad from a faction that wanted to use his powers to gain status and political power. It's about the only time in my life I've ever felt really guilty about anything. As part of the rescue spell Dad changed into all sorts of creatures, and Calum had to hang on to him. Then when he turned into a snake-thing he had to stab him through the heart. Some of those creatures scared me witless, and I only had to look at them. Calum had to keep hold of them. And all I could do was stand on the spot and sing and try and keep the right words and the right notes. And he did it. It was touch and go, but he did it. I still see him, crouching there, blood spurting all over him. I felt so mean and miserable for dragging him into it. Then we were so desperate to get out and I was so glad to have Dad back that we basically forgot about Calum. Then he was abducted by the bad guys, and he's never talked about what happened there. So really it's my fault that you are in the position you're in, and I'm sorry. I said last night that Calum was worried sick about you. He really is. He loves you, Rebekah."
I was dumbfounded. "How do?did he say?"
Robin laughed. "This is Calum we're talking about. No, he didn't say. I know you've always been a bit of a favourite of his, but it hit him like a sledgehammer last Sunday - after he'd brought you here. He's agonized about it all week because you're his cousin, and because he's ten years older than you. And because he's going away. He's terrified of taking advantage of you, partly because of your age and partly because of how your life's been for the last couple of years." He stopped and contemplated the lawn for a moment. "He once told me I was good at finding out stuff I'm not supposed to know. He's right. You don't live with my father and Finn for quarter of a century without developing some interpretive skills. I don't know how you feel about him, but I think you're fond of him. We really want you to succeed, Rebekah, because there will be thirteen people here, not counting you, who love Calum, who want to see him happy. I know he won't be happy again until this curse is lifted and Emma is well, and you are freed from it. I'm an arrogant, self-centred sod, and if you succeed it will make me feel better because I won't have to feel bad about Calum any more." His eyes twinkled as he said that last sentence. I'm not sure how seriously he expected me to take him. He got up and sauntered back to the house, humming as he went. I watched his elegant back retreating. 
"You're right, you are an arrogant, self-centred sod," I thought. I picked up my cup of coffee. It was cold, and the milk had gone all scummy on top. I swirled it around. 
Damn you Robin, I thought. Now I had to look at Calum in a new way, not merely as my older cousin who I liked and respected tremendously, but as someone who had been through experiences that made my own run of misfortune look fairly trivial in comparison. Heaps of people went through what I had been through, and worse. Calum's experiences, that he could not tell anyone about, were of much greater magnitude. Did he have nightmares about them, I wondered? Or did he just cope, not letting anyone know he suffered, because he didn't make a lot of noise? I swirled the coffee again, watching the scum break up. There was a ring of it stuck around the inside of the cup. I didn't want to think about the love stuff. But I did. I noted Robin said "loves" not "is in love with". I think I understood the difference. I damned him again. I tipped out the coffee onto the grass, picked up my unread book and walked back to the house. 
Sam got home from school. Sionead and Serena arrived. I couldn't tell which one was which. They looked exactly like each other and exactly like Sylvia. They greeted Robin joyously. He introduced me to them. I'm afraid I wasn't very gracious. I felt like thumping him. But I hope they put it down to apprehension. Then three-quarters of an hour later Sylvia walked in. She shut herself in her room.
We had to wait until Rev Seeley got home before we left for the Perry's, much later than he intended. He was furious when he eventually did arrive. 
"A couple of tom-fool boys held down another one, and proceeded to give him a thrashing. It was well-deserved, I've no doubt, but he was quite badly hurt. His parents wanted to press charges. So we've had them to deal with, and the other boys" parents, and it was a close-run thing that we didn't have to call in the police. It's all too much on a Friday afternoon. I came this close to telling those people that there was a considerable queue waiting to thump their precious brat, and that I was in it." He ran his fingers through his untidy hair, making it stick out in new and unexplored directions. "It's taken a good hour out of my preparation time. Sionead and Serena, come to my study and I'll fill you in." 
They disappeared. Sylvia was still shut in her room. I mooched around, having tried and failed to read my book. Sam and Robin were playing a computer game. I didn't want to talk to Robin, anyway. It seemed an absolute age before Mr Seeley and the girls reappeared. He looked irritable as he organised us all to go. Mrs Seeley unwisely asked him if he had Sunday sorted. 
He snapped "Bugger Sunday. If the worst comes to the worst I'll recycle an old one. No-one listens anyway; they won't notice. Sylvia and Rebekah are the priority for now." He bundled us into cars and we drove the short distance to the Perry's house. 
Calum, Tania and Andrew were already there. I could hardly bring myself to speak to Calum. He looked a little hurt and puzzled. I was instantly sorry - he didn't know what Robin had said, nor that it upset me. But I felt so mixed up. I was almost sick with anticipation. I felt sick, too, that he was going to America. And I still wasn't sure how I felt about him. Actually I was pretty sure, and pretty flattered by what Robin said, too, but I wanted to be sure I wasn't just in the grip of another infatuated schoolgirl crush. His job tonight was child-minding - looking after the two junior Greenhoughs and Jane and Sam. And keeping an eye on Emma. I thought he really had drawn the short straw. He still seemed tired. We sat in the upstairs living room, while the downstairs was set up for the ritual. The older Greenhough soon escaped from his playpen. He poked the baby. Calum responded by lifting the baby, carry seat and all, and putting it inside the pen. The Climber then tried using the bookcases as a ladder. He was amazingly successful. 
"He's too familiar with this place," said Calum. I didn't answer. He looked at me. "You okay?" he asked.
"No," I said.
"What's the problem?"
"Bloody Robin. He gave me a lecture this afternoon. He told me about the first time you went to where I'm going."
"Oh," said Calum. He fished the Climber down and put him on the floor, as far away from the bookcases as possible. He came and sat on the sofa.
"Then he told me you love me." 
There was a long silence. Then at last he said, "Like you said, bloody Robin. I didn't want you to know, at least not until all this is over. And not until you were ready." He bit his lip, and looked away from me. "Even if it meant you never knew," he added. 
I sat and stared at my hands for a while. I felt utterly wretched, even though I knew this was irrational. Finally I reached across and put my hand on his. He still did not look my way, but he took my hand and squeezed it.
The Climber gave up on the bookshelves, and pulled out a video, which he handed to Calum. Calum put it on. The Climber then scrambled up on the sofa. He lay with his head in Calum's lap and his thumb in his mouth. Calum put his arm around me, and we sat and watched Fantasia. It was appropriately surreal. 
At last Finn and Emma arrived. We heard them clattering up the stairs. Calum sighed, and got up to open the door for them. Actually, it was just Finn and Jane at first. Finn handed her over to Calum and then went back down the stairs to get Emma. Calum put Jane in the playpen alongside Tania's baby.  I'd thought Finn looked terrible but I was not prepared for thin, hollow-cheeked Emma. Her skin and hair were dull and her eyes looked huge and haunted. Where had pretty, outgoing Emma gone? Finn had to help her up the stairs as if she was an old woman, and she moved as if every bone in her body ached. Calum moved the now-sleeping Climber to a rug on the floor and Emma sank onto the sofa. Finn saw to it that she was comfortable, and then he went downstairs to join in the preparations. 
Emma smiled feebly and said "Hello," then, exhausted with the effort, she closed her eyes. 
Calum and I stood, arms about each other. Sam came upstairs. 
"They're ready for you now, Rebekah." He looked at the dancing hippopotami on the TV screen, said, "Oh, yuck," stopped the tape and searched for a new one. Calum squeezed me a moment, then he kissed me on the forehead. 
"Come back safely, and soon," he said.


Chapter 7
I went downstairs into a massive room. Two crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling. A grand piano was pushed against one wall; an ordinary piano pushed against the adjoining one. Someone had chalked two pentagons on the carpet, one inside the other, each one with a candle at each corner. Everyone except Sylvia was standing at a corner, the men on the outside one, the women on the inside. Robin occupied the corner closest to me. He winked and said, 
"Am I forgiven?"
"No," I said, but I couldn't help smiling as I said it. He laughed. Sylvia and I walked to the middle of the inner pentagon. 
Mrs Perry looked around and made sure everyone was standing where they should be.
"We're doing a complicated working of two kinds of spells here, Rebekah," she explained. "This is a double Five, which is a very powerful magic unit, but because the curse is essentially women's magic, as J discovered, we five," she indicated Tania, Sionead, Serena and Mrs Seeley, "have to work a spell to open a portal for you, and to provide you with as much protection as we can." She grimaced ruefully. "The men are providing a guard, deflecting anything that will try to get at you from this side. Unfortunately it means we can't provide as much protection as we could if we were all working on the same spell, because we can only have six singers instead of the usual eight. This is as much help as we can give you. Once you are through you will have to depend upon your own resources. Good luck, and blessings on you both." 
She looked at Mr Perry. He nodded. She raised her arms like a conductor. Robin began to sing. It was the most incredible sound I have ever heard - high, clear, yet masculine and amazingly sexy. Then his father joined in, deeper, richer, like milk chocolate. He sounded reassuring. Then a third male voice, deepest yet, rumbling and dark. 
"Dad," mouthed Sylvia. Once the male voices had a pattern established - and I could hear the pattern, voices weaving in and out like a plait of sound - the women began to sing. They began with the lowest voices - Mrs Seeley, then one of the Seeley girls (I still couldn't tell them apart). Finally Tania cut across the pattern of richer tones, with a brilliant high part. Sylvia grabbed me by the hand, and I felt a jolt. Calum said it was a feeling like touching an electric fence - he was right. I blinked a few times because I simply couldn't believe what I saw. 
We landed in a room, miles larger that the one we'd left, in the centre of a pentagon. Yet the resemblances between that one and the Perry's room were uncanny. They were both painted the same pale green, picked out with white, and crystal chandeliers hung above us. The chandeliers here - three of them - were huge, instead of just normal-sized like the Perrys' ones. The pentagon was etched into the floor, a permanent feature. Five women in long green or blue dresses sang. I missed the depth of the men's voices. Eventually the voices silenced one by one, until only the highest voice was left. The singer carried on for a few more words until she too faded away into silence. I made to step forward, but Sylvia restrained me. The woman who seemed to be in charge - she was standing in the same position as Mrs Perry had been - spoke. It sounded like a chant of blessing. Then she smiled and said, in a strong Scottish accent,
"Welcome granddaughter, and welcome to your companion from the surface." 
She held out her arms to Sylvia and embraced her. One of the other women also stepped forward to hug her. I could tell immediately that she was related to Sylvia because all the Seeley women I knew looked just like her. There was yet another Seeley woman next to her. Sylvia introduced me to her two grandmothers, Nevin (she was the one in charge) and Seeley. And two aunts, one from each side of the family. The fifth woman, tall and stately and vaguely tweedy, in spite of her beautiful long green dress, sounded English. She smiled at me and said, 
"So you are Calum's and Emma's cousin. I'm delighted to meet you, although I wish it was in different circumstances." The Nevin grandmother introduced her to me as Anne Perry, so I knew where she fitted in, sort of.
The three older women took us in hand. Sylvia's two grandmothers were both fairy queens, if that's the right description. We were more or less under the south of Scotland, at her Grandmother Nevin's hall. It was massive, more like a palace, and every bit as grand as one. I felt small and grubby and horribly uncouth. Sylvia wriggled into it like a second skin. She took on a kind of glow that she didn't have at home. It made her look very beautiful and a long way from a schoolgirl cricketer. They gave us a delicious supper, and I must say I appreciated it. Magic makes you hungry. I hadn't had anything since lunchtime. I had been too churned up to eat with everyone else at Seeley's place. 
Then they sat us down and the serious talking began. I found out a lot more about Calum and his understated rescue, far more than Robin had told me. Robin actually didn't know all that much about what happened to Calum, and Calum had almost been lost to what they called the Sluagh, who I figured were some kind of particularly bad fairies. I learned about Emma's magical abilities, and that my family had fairy blood somewhere many generations back. I thought of Granddad, and wondered if it ran quite strongly in his veins. Next, they examined me thoroughly. It was a bit like being at the doctor's. At least they didn't make me take my clothes off, but it was unnerving having these three women, power oozing out of them, pacing around me and commenting as if I was deaf. At last the Nevin queen said, 
"J's done a reasonable job of diagnosing this. It's particularly nasty, though." She turned to me. "What state was Emma in when you left?" I told her.
"And the baby?" asked Anne Perry. 
"Aunt Viv and Uncle Robert thought she was unaffected. She certainly looks fat and happy," said Sylvia. "They think she's got quite strong powers."
"Hmm," came the unconvinced reply. "I'm just a bit worried that if the illness is lifted from Emma it will be transferred to the baby." That idea worried everyone, judging by the looks on their faces and the exchanged glances. They made me stand in the middle of the floor again, for a new round of examining. Finally, they appeared satisfied.  
"The first thing you have to do is get those earrings back. So you need to find out where they are. I think we should take you to a party," said the Seeley queen.


Chapter 8
A footman hustled me upstairs, and handed me over to the attentions of a couple of maids, who treated me like some sort of doll. They tried to stop me doing anything for myself. I did assert myself sufficiently to bath and dry myself by myself, but as soon as I emerged from the bathroom they pounced on me and powdered and perfumed me. They pinned up my hair elaborately and painted my face, then chose clothes for me. They discussed what I should wear for a very long time, and not in English. They would pull something out of this humungous wardrobe, look at it and then at me, critically, before putting it aside and choosing something else. I had no input whatsoever. 
Eventually they selected a pale, shiny dress. I'm not exactly sure what colour it was; kind of pinkish, a bit like the inside of an oyster shell. I wasn't even allowed to put it on by myself. They helped me into everything, and they just seemed to expect to do it. They even did up my shoes for me. The finishing touches were pearl drop earrings - luckily I have my ears pierced. I suspect they would have pierced them if I hadn't - and a delicate cross, set with pearls, around my neck. The whole procedure took ages, but they seemed satisfied when they surveyed the results. I didn't recognise myself in the mirror. I looked like some kind of - I don't know -a film star or something, not Rebekah McIver, tomboy(ish). I did several turns, to check the view from as many angles as I could. I wished Calum could see me.
Sylvia, dressed in bright blue that matched her eyes, was waiting for me in the hall. She looked stunning, and I was not quite so pleased with my own appearance any more. She told me Manx Folk often wore blue, while Hill Folk preferred green or red. They all seemed to talk of themselves as "Folk". The Manx were part of the People of the Islands. Mainland Folk, such as the Perrys and the Nevins were People of the Hill. And there were others, including the People of the Seals, or Selkies. At last I knew what Selkies were. They lived in vast complexes under the sea. 
"Andrew is a Selkie," she explained, "Or at least his father is. That's why he has those amazing eyes. They all have them." Murdo Walters had those eyes, too. 
I didn't quite believe the ballroom. It was like something out of a fairy tale. Vast, golden and white, huge crystal chandeliers - even bigger than the ones in the first room - hung from the ceiling and reflected in the mirrors on the walls. The whole room was light and sparkling and just a shade removed from being tacky. It was full of people, beautiful, ugly and in between, all dressed extremely well and bejewelled, even the men. My pearls were very modest. A band played at one end of the room and dozens of couples danced. 
Sylvia soon disappeared among the dancers with a beautiful red-haired youth who had three gold rings in each ear. She danced expertly. Anne Perry spotted me and whisked me off around the room to meet people. I met several people who knew Calum and Emma. I loved it - everyone was related, it seemed, and it was just like the McIver family parties, only on a grander scale. There were lots of people to talk to. It was so interesting. I danced with a guy who looked a lot like Robin and one who looked a bit like Calum, and several who looked like neither. The heaps of marvellous food mostly looked vaguely familiar, but it had subtle differences of flavour to what I was used to. It was spicy, but not like Asian food. It tasted strange, but a nice strange. I tasted a very nice, rather strong yellow wine and an even nicer red. A rotating supply of musicians ensured constant music. Every so often someone sang. The number of dancers ebbed and flowed, but I never saw the dance floor empty. I noticed Sylvia spent a fair bit of time dancing with the red-head, although she did dance with other men as well. 
I managed to find my way to the ladies' loos with only minor directions from an attendant. In the cubicle I had a lot of trouble trying to deal with my dress - I wished I had a maid then. There was a petticoat, then a layer of lining then another two layers over the top of that. Unless they were smoothed absolutely perfectly the dress was uncomfortable and looked funny. Those cubicles are never quite big enough to let you move properly and I felt as if I'd been in there for hours. Various rustlings and footsteps outside indicated people coming and going, every so often stopping to check clothes or make-up. I had managed the petticoat and the lining when I heard voices. 
One said, "Who is the girl in the pearly pink?"
A second voice answered, "She's from the surface. She's a friend of Sylvia's."
"Is she the one that's come to find the Selkie's diamonds?"
"I believe she is," came the second voice. I stood motionless, layers in hand, dress forgotten. "Do you know where they are?" 
The first voice laughed, not a particularly nice laugh. "Yes. They're as far from the sea as you can get in Scotland. Bhaltair wanted to make sure they are safe." 
The second voice laughed, too. "And the stock? Is that ready?"
"Yes. It's wearing the earrings. If she pulls them off it, it will drag the victim here immediately. She will have to destroy the stock, which can be done, but risks killing the victim. And Bhaltair doesn't want that to happen."
"That's good. That's really good." They continued talking about other subjects. I leaned against the cubicle wall, hoping they couldn't hear my heart beating. They took ages, chattering away about nothing, while I felt sick about Emma. Finally, I heard heels clattering across the floor and their voices receded into the distance. I finished straightening my dress, and waited until I was quite sure they had gone before I emerged. Hurriedly I washed my hands, and made sure I didn't look as frightened as I felt. Then, with as much composure as I could muster I walked back to the ballroom. As soon as I got back Anne Perry scooped me up and took me off to meet some new arrivals. 
It was well after midnight when I finally got to tell anyone what I had overheard. I refused a third dance with the guy who looked like Robin. He smiled and shrugged, and went off to dance with someone else, while I found a seat. I was exhausted by this stage. I sat down next to the Nevin aunt. We watched the dancers for a while. 
 I asked, "What's a stock?" 
She kept watching the dancers as she answered, quite without emotion, "It's a replica of a person. Some of the folk make them if they intend to kidnap a mortal. They leave the stock in the person's place so that the abduction goes unnoticed, at least for a while. The relatives assume the person has got sick or died. Why do you ask?"  My heart flipped over, and I felt the cold lump of dread reassert itself in my stomach.  "While I was in the loos I overheard two people talking about me. They said the Selkie's diamonds were on a stock. I just wondered what it was." 
She turned, suddenly interested. "Did you see who they were?" I shook my head.
"Follow me, but not too quickly," she said. She got up and casually crossed the ballroom, stopping to talk to people as she went. I followed, not too obviously, I hoped. Sylvia caught up with me. I think she must have been tipped off somehow. 
We went into a small sitting room, more like a comfortable office. The Seeley aunt and the grandmothers, and finally Anne Perry joined us. 
The Nevin aunt said, "Now, tell us every word you overheard." The cold lump got bigger and heavier as I watched their faces get graver. 
"Shit," said Sylvia when I finished.
 Both her grandmothers scowled at her, and the Seeley aunt said, "Really, Sylvia. There's no need to be vulgar." Sylvia mumbled an insincere apology. The aunts went off to the library to consult books, and the grandmothers and Anne Perry sat, looking serious. They forgot about us. Sylvia yawned, and the Nevin grandmother looked up, surprised.  
"Oh, girls. You should go to bed and get some sleep." So we were dismissed. 
I was glad of the maids" help to get out of my clothes. I would have just gone to sleep as I was, but they made sure all my make-up was removed, that my hair was unpinned and brushed, and that all the clothes were hung up or put away properly. Their fussing irritated me and I felt quite rotten about Emma. I lay in bed and thought of her, and how ill she looked, and of Finn, so tired and strained, looking after her and the baby and still having to work. I wanted to help, to do what I could for her. I felt so small and inadequate. But part of me wanted to be sitting on the sofa, with Calum's arms about me. Did he miss me as much as I missed him? I did not sleep well.
When I woke the maids came back. They brought me breakfast in bed. While I ate what I could - the cold lump took up a lot of space - they ran a bath for me, and since I wouldn't let them into the bathroom with me, spent their time making the bed and selecting my clothes for the day. This time they chose trousers and a shirt and jersey, not unlike what I would have worn at home. That pleased me. A footman escorted me to the study. Sylvia was already there. 
"Can you ride?" she asked me. 
"A little, but I've only done it on my friend's farm. Not for shows, or anything like that," I replied. 
"Could you jump a fence or a ditch?"
"Yes, if I had to." 
"That's all right then," she nodded.
The aunts and grandmothers had had a busy night. They had found time to change into day clothes, looking most unfairy-like in trousers, jerseys and tweed jackets, and there were the remains of breakfast on a tray on a side table. They all cradled cups of tea or coffee in their hands as they dealt with a diminishing pile of books. The Nevin aunt said casually, 
"Help yourself, if you'd like some." I poured myself a cup of coffee. Sylvia refilled hers, and we sat to one side as the discussions continued. The Nevin aunt rang a bell, and a footman came and collected the breakfast tray, then returned with another pot of coffee. Those women got through an amazing amount of the stuff. I watched them, and wondered and worried about Emma.
Finally they cleared the books away, and called us over to the table. Grandmother Nevin spoke. 
"We have hunted and hunted for clues to the whereabouts of "as far from the sea as you can get in Scotland." We have several options, unfortunately. The first is the furthest point from the coast. That could be one of several places, depending on how you define the coast. The second is the highest point above sea level. That's the top of Ben Nevis. Unlikely, because the folk seldom inhabit mountain tops, and Seal people like Bhaltair mac Murchadh are even less likely to go there. The third possibility is underground."
"I'm inclined to favour the underground option," said Grandmother Seeley. "Selkies won't go far inland if they can possible help it, but underground is different, because the sea runs there too. They live under the sea; they're quite comfortable underground. That kind of oblique hint is supposed to make us think of forests and mountains and inland, and to send you up to the middle of the Highlands on a wild goose chase."
Sylvia screwed up her face. "Bother," she said. "For a moment I hoped we could stay on this level and use cars and things."
"Tough luck," Aunt Seeley said, smiling. "You can't drive, anyway. At least, not legally."
"No, but I hoped one of you might come with us." 
The aunt shook her head. "This is a job for you two only. Really, only for Rebekah. You are merely going along as guide, and to provide assistance as necessary, but it is Rebekah's task."
"It's not all grim," said Anne Perry. "I'll take you to your starting point. That leg of the journey you can do by car."


Chapter 9
Later that morning, equipped with outdoor gear and food, we climbed into Anne Perry's car. She drove us for what seemed to be endless kilometres through rolling hills. We came to gentler country, down a back road to a farm house where she turned in the drive. She pulled up in a stable yard. A dark, stunningly handsome man in riding clothes walked across the yard to greet us. He kissed Anne Perry on both cheeks. She introduced us to him. He was James Anthony Perry, a nephew of hers - this was really like the McIvers; everything was incredibly incestuous. He took us to the stables and showed us a couple of horses. Apparently Anne Perry and the Nevin grandmother had arranged that he would lend them to us. The starting point for our journey was on his farm. 
James Anthony took us inside for some lunch. He appeared to live alone, and he said he was glad of the company. As he moved around the kitchen he hummed. I listened to it, and recognised the tune. 
"Robin hums that," I said.
"It's the famous La Donna è Mobile," said Sylvia. "Or infamous."
"Yes, he sang in Rigoletto last summer. I've got it on DVD if you're interested. It's pretty awful because the quality's not very good. He's not bad, but he's a bit cocky." He and his aunt exchanged glances here - there was obviously another layer of meaning behind his words. 
Sylvia and I both said, "Yes, please." 
James Anthony found the DVD and gave Sylvia the remote. The opera was set in the 1980s and Robin's character was a wealthy playboy. He looked very good in the designer suits and the big hair. It made me feel quite uncomfortable when the heroine first appeared in a school uniform that looked remarkably like the St Teresa's one and this schoolgirl proceeded to get involved with an older, sophisticated man. And she was meant to be older than me. Sylvia fast-forwarded through the boring bits, where there was lots of just the soprano because she said the screeching got on her nerves. James Anthony sort of half-smiled at that. Between them she and James Anthony filled me in on the plot. Anne Perry watched it silently. Sylvia paused it just before Robin sang La Donna è Mobile. 
"Did you ever sing this?" she asked.
"Still do," came the reply. "But not quite the same way he does."
"What does it mean?" I asked. "It sounds such a bright and cheerful song."
"It means "A Woman is Fickle," and it's a bit rich coming from the Duke," said Sylvia. 
"Here, I'll write out the words for you," said James Anthony. He hunted around and found pen and paper, then wrote them out, with the English translation alongside the Italian. I read through them. They were appallingly sexist. Sylvia pushed "Play." Robin, beautiful and innocent looking, sang as heartlessly as anyone could possibly imagine. I followed the words and the brilliant sound and could not believe the menace he emitted, leaning against a bar in his designer suit, with his perfectly styled golden hair, elegantly manicuring his nails after he'd raped this girl, who still loved him, and was watching through the window. As the song went on, he tried to get another one into bed with him. I didn't really take in the end of it - I was so shaken by that performance. And by the words. It was horrible.
"Jeez, he's a bastard," said Sylvia. "Robin does it well." 
"Yes," James Anthony agreed.
"Have you got one of you singing it?"
"Not here. Lunch is ready."
Lunch was vegetable soup, bread and cheese, cake and tea. It went quite a long way to restoring my composure. Sylvia and I did the dishes while Anne Perry and James Anthony talked. When we finished we got our stuff from the car, collected the horses from the stable and set off across the farm. We walked, Sylvia and I leading the horses. We came to a small cave at the foot of a low hill. Here Anne Perry and James Anthony stopped. Anne Perry blessed us both, and said, 
"You have to go on alone from here. Good luck." She hugged us both. Then she fished in her pocket. "I almost forgot," she said. "Rebekah, put this on, and don't take it off until we are talking face-to-face again." She fastened around my neck the pearl cross I'd worn at the ball. I tucked it beneath my shirt. James Anthony smiled a dazzling smile - it really lit up his face. 
"Blessings on you both. And good luck. I would hate any harm to come to Emma, for Calum's sake if not for Finn's. It was not just Robert that Calum rescued," he said. I wondered what he meant.
We led the horses into the cave. We had no idea when we could start riding. The cave went back a long way. For ages we could see light from its mouth, and two figures standing watching us. Then the cave, only it was becoming a tunnel now, turned and we lost sight of the light. Yet it was not pitch black. It was too dark to ride, but the sort of dark your eyes become accustomed to. We could walk side by side, and that helped. Gradually the floor began to slope downwards. The ground crunched beneath our feet, and the horses" feet clopped monotonously. We walked in silence for quite some time. 
Eventually I said to Sylvia, "Who is James Anthony?"
"He's a Perry cousin, I think he's Robin's father's cousin. He's quite famous as an opera singer."
"He seems nice. He isn't married, or has a girlfriend, or anything?"
"No. He used to be married. I think his wife died. It was a long time ago. I'm surprised he hasn't remarried - he's quite handsome, and he's a good catch, too, being a Perry."
"What do you mean?"
""Cause the Perrys are royalty too, only English. Cornish, actually. Men like him are quite sought-after, especially good musicians. The Perrys are usually good musicians, or they're good strategists. They have a reputation for being quite faithful husbands, too, which is not always a given amongst the Folk. They're a powerful family, and Perry men are very desirable."
"You make them sound like stud stallions or prize rams, or something."
Sylvia laughed. "I suppose it is a bit like that. Our inheritance is through the female line, so the males are a bit like European princesses in the past- useful for political alliances and shoring up failing bloodlines. In our case they're useful when gifts have become scarce. Music is always scarce. It's all a bit cold-blooded really." 
"Who is the red-haired boy?"
"Jimmy Nevin. He's about my 96th cousin, or something. I'm quite fond of him. I might marry him one day. I'll see."
We walked in silence.
"Do you know where we're going?" I asked, after a while.
"If you mean the direction, yes. If you mean the place, no, I've never been there before." 
At last we came to the end of the path - we could see a cave mouth ahead of and above us. We trudged up the last part, and ducked out through the opening. It was quite small, and we both had to stoop to get out. I looked around. We were standing in green, rolling countryside. The light seemed bright after the cave, but it was really the same, soft, twilight sort of light that we had come from. 
"This looks just like where we left," I exclaimed.
"Yes. Portals usually take you to the same sort of landscape. I don't know why. It's a bit unsettling, until you get used to it, because you don't always realise you've got anywhere," Sylvia answered. She surveyed the landscape thoughtfully. "This way," she said at last. We mounted the horses and rode over the green turf.
The sky darkened and stars appeared. We still rode through green, rolling hills. Sylvia slowed our pace. 
"We need to find shelter for the night," she said. She looked from side to side, searching. Finally she turned aside and made for a green hillock, which I thought looked exactly like all the other hillocks around. She halted and listened for a while, then dismounted. 
"Just wait a minute," she said. She took her horse by the reins and walked into the side of the hill. She just vanished. Before I recovered from my astonishment she was back, or at least half of her was. 
"It's all right. The horse likes it, so it's safe. Come in."
"How?"
"Just walk forward. Keep good hold of the horse, though." 
I did as she told me, although I shut my eyes before I hit the hillside. I felt a slight resistance, a sort of bounce and then I was through, into a large chamber, lined with stone. It was not a cave; it was built. The stones were carefully laid one upon the other, a little bit like an igloo. At the far end was a raised platform. In the centre of the floor was a charred circle, obviously the site of many fires. There was a pile of firewood stacked along one wall. 
"This is a traveller's bothy," explained Sylvia. "There are lots of them in these parts. We won't be disturbed tonight. I've staked our claim."  I let go the horse's reins, and helped Sylvia light the fire. The smoke drifted up through a small hole in the roof. She looked at it glumly. 
"We'll smell like barbequed steaks in the morning. Never mind, we'll need it because it will be a cold night." She was right on both counts. It was a freezing cold night, and we needed all the warmth of the fire and the horses as well as each other to keep warm. We slept right beside the fire, instead of on the platform. I did not sleep well, because I lay semi-awake, shivering, for most of the night. At one stage I had a dream, or a vision, of Calum, pacing up and down in a room with a glass ceiling. I could see a tree above his head, silhouetted in the moonlight. He held a crying baby against his shoulder, and he was trying to comfort it. Suddenly I was wide awake, and I desperately wanted to be back with him. 
We woke early, and breakfasted on bread and cheese and coffee. The horses munched the frosty grass outside. Sylvia carefully put out the fire, and we prepared to ride for another day. I didn't let on to her how stiff I was. We set out as soon as we could. The early morning cold was bracing, to say the least. The wind cut into our faces, and I huddled into my thick coat. Sylvia did not seem to be concerned, but then I was doing my darnedest to appear unconcerned, too. By the middle of the day, or thereabouts - it was difficult for me to tell with no sun to guide us, we came to the eaves of a wood. It was all in autumn colours and was very pretty. We stopped by a stream, tethered the horses and had lunch. We drank our fill of the water, and attempted to wash, but it was freezing cold. The best we managed, with much hilarity, was to make sure neither of us had black smuts from last night's fire on our faces. 
We were turning to go when an old woman came down the path towards us. She carried a large bundle of what looked like clothes, and she was the ugliest woman I had ever seen, with hunched shoulders, Minnie Mouse feet on the ends of her skinny legs and a huge, protruding lower lip. But she walked in a sprightly fashion, and her eyes were friendly and bright. 
"Good day, Mother," said Sylvia, and I added, "Hello." 
She looked at us curiously. "Good day daughters," she said, "and where might visitors from above be going this fine autumn day?"
"My friend has an errand, as far from the sea as you can get in Scotland," Sylvia explained. The old woman undid her bundle. It was lengths of cloth. She began washing them in the stream.
"And what is the nature of this errand that a daughter of the Islands comes with her?" she asked.
"I have to find a stock and destroy it, but do it in a way that will not kill my cousin," I said. "I don't know where to start." 
"My friend is from the surface, and I am merely acting as her guide. As I have little talent for music or guarding the wards I was the only one who could be spared to accompany her," Sylvia explained. The old woman continued with her washing, beating the cloths on the rocks. She was very strong, because the cloths were quite long, three or four metres or so, and they were heavy. I know, because we helped her wring them out. Sylvia and I held one end of the dripping cloth, and the old woman twisted and twisted until all the water ran out. She twisted hard. More than once one of us let go of our end, but she did not get cross with us for our clumsiness. We helped her spread the cloths out on the grass to dry, clearing the dead leaves away from underneath them and weighting down the corners with stones. When they were all spread out the old woman sat down on a rock, and asked me about the surface. She was most interested, she said. She and her sisters had heard about it but had never been there. She had only been above once in her lifetime and the surface was just a place she had heard about. Until she met me she wasn't even sure if it existed. I explained to her about buses, mobile phones and computers, about supermarkets and schools. She was amazed and appalled that our mothers did not spin or weave cloth. We explained it was done in places called factories, by people who worked big fast machines, and that people in other factories made the cloth into clothes, and then people like my mother bought it in shops. She shook her head in disbelief. 
Sylvia suddenly said, "I'm starving. Mother, have you eaten?" 
The old woman said she had not. So we made coffee and had a second lunch, which the old woman shared with us. Then we helped her fold the now-dry cloths. As we folded, the talk returned to my errand. The old woman counted the folded cloths, then she put one aside. She wrapped the rest up. She picked up the left-over cloth and gave it to me.
"You and your friend helped me, unbidden. In return, I'll help you. Wrap the stock in this. It will do what you need, and your cousin will be safe." Before I could stammer out my thanks she picked up her bundle and was off up the path at a speed I did not think anyone half her age was capable of. Bemused, I stared after her. Sylvia brought me to my senses. 
"Well, that was a stroke of luck. Now we just have to find where we are going." 
I stowed the cloth in my pack, we untied our horses and climbed on, less stiff than I had been in the morning. 


Chapter 10
We followed a clear path through the wood all night. Sylvia did not want to stop there in the dark. We did not ride fast, but we kept moving. The moon doesn't shine in the Realms, but the stars provided enough light to see where we were going. There was another, harder frost, and I froze. The wood was alive by night, with far more noise and movement under the trees than I had seen at all during the day. Instinctively I kept close to Sylvia. It was just as well. As we rode I heard music and felt an overwhelming urge to ride towards it. It was weird, because it wasn't the kind of music I usually like. It was light and rippling and very, very compelling. I slowed down to listen. Sylvia reached out and grabbed hold of my horse's bridle and urged her own horse onward so that we were moving too fast for me to jump off. She didn't slow down until we were out of earshot. As soon as she let go my bridle I made to turn back again. Like lightning her hand shot out and grabbed my arm. Furiously, I tried to shake her off, but she held on like a pit bull terrier. She picked up the pace again. 
I shouted at her, "How dare you! Let me go!" She turned and gave me the most withering look of scorn. 
"I would, if it wasn't for Emma, and Finn and Jane.  I'd let you go, and dance yourself to death. What use do you think you would be to Emma then?" 
We rode on in surly silence, she keeping my poor horse running. When she finally let me go I did not try to go back to the music, although I still heard it in my head, and it still bewitched me. 
Finally I said, "I'm sorry."
"That's okay," she answered. "It's partly my fault. It's dangerous here.  I'd forgotten just how dangerous, and I should have warned you. We've been lucky so far, and I was lulled a bit by that. I suspect we're going to run into more menacing things than Pan's pipes." She smiled grimly. 
We rode out of the wood as the sky lightened. The memory of the pipes was receding, but I suddenly felt overwhelmingly tired. Sylvia looked it, too. She yawned, and said, 
"We must find some place to rest. Look out for buildings." It was rockier countryside than the other side of the wood. But the term building baffled me. All I could see was rock. Eventually she reined in her horse and dismounted by a wall of stones.
"This is what I meant," she said, and led the way round the end. 
It wasn't what I would call a building. There were two walls at right angles to each other, no roof and the grass formed the floor. We rubbed down the horses as best we could, tethered them and built a fire. Sylvia rolled herself in her blanket and went to sleep. I couldn't. I felt uneasy. I felt guilty about the music, too, and I was cold and stiff. I got up and walked about. Then I sat with my back to one of the walls and watched the fire. Every so often I put more fuel on the fire. I thought about making coffee, and then thought better of it.  I'd wait until Sylvia woke up. I got up again, and went to look for more firewood. There were a few trees about. I gathered an armful of fallen sticks and carried it back. Sylvia stirred and woke up. 
"Have you slept at all?" she asked.
"No," I answered truthfully. "I don't like this place, and I thought one of us should be on watch."
"Fair enough," she shrugged. We had coffee and breakfast, and then I lay down and slept for a bit. It must have been a couple of hours, though it felt like much less than that. I had a horrible dream that I do not choose to remember. Murdo Walters was in it, and a boy that looked like a young Calum. 
When I woke Sylvia said, "You're right about this place. It is creepy, and the horses are getting unsettled. It's time we pushed on." 
With an effort, I mounted my horse again. I was getting rather saddle-sore as well as stiff. Sylvia also seemed less enthusiastic about riding than she had been yesterday.
"Hopefully we'll get to where we're going today," she said. 
"As far from the sea as you can get in Scotland," I said. "It's a strange direction." 
Sylvia laughed. "Everything's strange here, get used to it." We set off again, at little more than a walk. 
As night gathered we came to a pile of rock, completely on its own, stuck out in the middle of nowhere. Sylvia dismounted and handed me her reins. She walked around the pile. It was larger than it looked, and took her some time. 
"This is it," she said.
"How do you know?" I asked, not really questioning her judgment, just curious. 
"I feel it. I'm an Islander, I'm connected to the sea. I can sense it - not as well as Selkies can, but well enough. There is exactly the same sensation of sea, or lack of it, all the way around. We need to go in here." 
With a curious reluctance I got off my horse. We tethered them, and I farewelled mine more fondly than I would have imagined I could a few hours earlier. We emptied the stuff out of my pack and put it all in Sylvia's, except the cloth the old woman gave us. Sylvia hid hers at the base of the pile of rock. I put mine on. The old woman's cloth was heavy. We found an entrance in the pile, narrow, so I had to remove the pack, hand it through the gap to Sylvia, and put it back on once I got through. It was pitch black inside. After a moment or two the darkness lifted a little, and we could make out a metre or so in front of us. We found the beginning of a path. Sylvia went in front, and hand in hand we inched our way along it. It went steeply downhill, and we seemed to be turning all the time, always in the same direction. It got hotter as we went down, and I began to wish I'd left my coat at the top. Once, Sylvia lost her footing, and we slid several metres. She twisted her ankle quite badly, and I had to take the lead the rest of the way down. I suspect it was not as far as it felt. We finally came out in a small cavern. 
Unlike in movies or stories, the cavern was not lit by an eerie light, or by torches in the wall, or anything. It was just dark, like the tunnel had been. We crept into it, as quietly as we could. In the middle a figure lay on a rough trestle table. When we were right up close we saw that it was a replica of Emma. It looked as if she was sleeping. In its ears were the Selkie diamond earrings. It seemed like the natural thing to do to pull them off, and I thanked the voices that I had overheard. I took the old woman's cloth from out of my pack. We opened it out and spread it beside the effigy. Then together we lifted the figure on to the cloth. It took both of us, because it weighed a lot, probably as much as Emma did. Neither of us expected that. 
"How wrapped is wrapped?" asked Sylvia in a whisper.
"I'm not sure. We'd better not take any chances," I whispered back. The place didn't encourage speaking out loud. We folded the cloth close around the stock. Then we retreated to the entrance, as what looked like steam rose up through the cloth. Gradually the figure began to glow. It became brighter and brighter, increasing to a dazzling intensity. Then it collapsed, totally. The cloth caught alight, and burned away to nothing. Cautiously I walked over to the table. There was nothing left on it, except the earrings. I picked them up and put them in my pocket. 
A surge of exhilaration swept through me. It had all gone so smoothly. I turned, ready to go back up the tunnel, and found myself face to face with Murdo Walters. He looked as unpleasantly surprised as I was. He looked past me to the table. His face registered disbelief, and then rage. 
"You interfering little bitch," he shouted, the scars on his face standing out white. Before I could move he grabbed hold of me and slammed me up against the wall. My head banged against it. He pulled me away again, ready to slam me against the wall again, then he thought better of it. He pushed me back, not gently, but not as violently as before. He changed his grip on me, so that he had me by the throat. 
"No," he said, slowly and coldly. "There are better ways of dealing with the likes of you." I instantly knew exactly what he had in mind. I went chill all over. He pressed against my throat as he started unbuttoning my coat. He planned to make this as slow, as painful and as humiliating as he possibly could. He knew I was petrified. I shrank against the wall as he slid his hand beneath my jersey. Suddenly he twitched, as if stung. He looked around, his concentration on me broken. I stamped on his foot, then, when he loosened his grip on me, I kneed him in the groin as hard as I possibly could. He doubled up and sank to the floor. I ran. 
I was well up the tunnel when a voice called "Rebekah! Wait!" I had forgotten Sylvia. I retraced my steps. She was hobbling, obviously in real pain. 
"We'll never get back up there before he comes round," she said. "I'm going to try translocating us both. Hold my hand." She muttered something, then said, "Damn, it's not working."
"What do you have to do?" I asked, desperate to get out of this place. I was terrified Murdo would be after us - after me.
"Think about where you want to go to - outside, and by the horses." I grasped her hand tight, and envisaged the horses. In an instant we were there, outside in the open, beside the horses. I looked at Sylvia, she looked at me and we hugged each other, laughing hysterically. 
"We did it! We did it!" she chortled. I found her pack; we mounted our bemused horses and were off.
"Where do we go now?" I asked.
"It doesn't matter, any direction will get us to the sea, and that's the important bit." We rode for the next several kilometres on pure adrenalin.  


Chapter 11 
When we finally stopped Sylvia made sure she found a secluded, secure place, like the place we stayed in the first night. I made her show me her ankle. It was a bit of a mess, but between us we managed to bind it up. 
"It's just sprained," she claimed. "But it'll put me out of cricket for a few weeks, and just as the season's starting. I'm really pissed off, now that they've moved the First games to Saturdays, and I won't be able to play."
"It'll give the rest of us a chance," I replied. "Ms Robinson's asked me to try out for our Firsts."
"Hey, that's cool. We'll still get to play against each other," she said. She chatted while I saw to the horses, fetched water, lit the fire and sorted out stuff for dinner. I wanted to be busy - it stopped me thinking or remembering. The fresh stuff was finished now, and our diet was pretty monotonous - basically, bread, cheese and coffee. I put extra sugar in my coffee. 
"Have you got the earrings safe?" Sylvia asked as I sat down. I felt in my pockets. Yes, they were both there. I nodded. 
"Can I have a look at them? I won't touch them," she added. I pulled them out. They sparkled in my somewhat grubby hand, the firelight shooting blue and orange sparks off them. The part that clipped to your ear was a curious twisting shape, and from the bottom hung a long, delicate fringe of diamonds. They rippled as I ran them over my fingers. Sylvia drew in her breath.
"They're simply gorgeous. How could Emma have resisted them?" 
"I don't think she really noticed them," I answered slowly. "She looked at them and said they were pretty, but Amanda was having a colossal tantrum, so she asked me to look after them. And then we both forgot about them." I looked at them, glinting in my hand. Then I closed my hand, and put them back in my pocket. "It was the one time Amanda's tantrum was worthwhile."
"They're lovely work. The Selkies are fantastic jewellers."
We were silent for a while. I hadn't minded talking of everyday things, but the earrings brought back to me the events of earlier that night. I replayed it in my mind, reliving my terror, feeling Murdo Walter's breath on my face and his hand sliding around my waist, fumbling for the fastenings on my clothes. I shivered. Sylvia got up and hobbled to the fire, she refilled my coffee cup, and added extra sugar. 
"Here, you need this." 
I drank it gratefully. 
"It's not as good for shock as tea," she added. I looked up at her, remembering the last time I had sweet milky tea for shock, and burst into tears. 
Sylvia sat down next to me. She said nothing, she didn't try to hug me or anything; she didn't try to get me to stop. She just sat, and was there. It was the best thing she could have done. I did not want anyone else touching me. When I stopped crying, and wiped my eyes, she produced a fresh handkerchief from one of her pockets, which she handed to me. 
She said, "I think you're very brave.  I'd just have gone to pieces."
"I thought I did. What made him jump?"
Sylvia grinned. "I couldn't rush in and do anything, so I threw a pebble at him. I've got a good aim." 
"Thanks." I meant it. 
I slept soundly. I think I was too exhausted and too emotionally drained not to. 
By the time I woke Sylvia had turned the horses out to graze, and made coffee. My head hurt badly, and I felt quite groggy. Sylvia looked at me sympathetically. 
"How are you?" she asked.
"Not good," I answered. "My head feels like there's a pile driver working inside it."   "I forgot he banged your head. Can I have a look?" I nodded painfully. She gently parted my hair and probed the back of my head. "It feels OK," she said. "There's an almighty lump, though." She didn't tell me then, and I didn't find out until later, that there was a series of bruises like finger marks on my neck.
"How's your ankle?" I asked.
"'S okay. It's better than I thought it would be. I might return earlier than expected to terrorise your cricket team." She did not seem to be limping as much as she did last night. She handed me a cup of coffee and some painkillers.
"I've been thinking," she began.
"Mmm?" 
"Last night we managed to translocate. You managed it - I couldn't do both of us together. Do you think we could do it again? With the horses? It would save us a heap of time travelling if we could." 
"I don't see why not, although last night I was desperate. Why couldn't we do it before?"
"Well, usually humans can't do it at all, and it takes a lot of strength and energy for us to translocate one of you as well as ourselves. So when we travel with humans, we have to rely on conventional means of transport, depending where in the Realms we are. On this level its horses and carts. On the level above they use cars and buses and things. It's much more civilised up there. Also, translocation isn't very reliable for more than one person, because people have different strengths. What one person can do in one stage it may take someone else two or even three goes to cover. What we did last night was risky. If you hadn't arrived next to me at the same time last night I would have freaked out, I really would have. But you did, and I think you must have the gift for it."
"Yes, but I was hanging on to you," I said.
"Yes, but I couldn't do it on my own. I had to tell you to help, and then we did it. Don't you see, you can do it. You must have some other gift as well, because translocation is a fairly advanced skill. What else can you do?" Honestly, she could have got a job with the Spanish Inquisition.
"Calum tells me I have a gift because I don't see glamours. That day you put one on me, I couldn't see it. I could never see the one Murdo Walters wears on his face, and?" I decided not to say anything about Calum. I suddenly wanted to be with him, overwhelmingly. If I spoke of him I would cry again. Sylvia was too excited to notice. 
"That's brilliant. Fairy sight is a fairly major gift. Lots of the half-breeds don't have it. You must be quite strong. So you probably can translocate quite easily. Shall we try it?" 
"But," I objected, "yesterday I knew where we were going and I could picture it, and I hung on to you. How can I do it if I don't know the place where we are going? If I can't picture it?" But trivialities like that did not put Sylvia off. She insisted that we try it. She said,
"Think of the sea, think of a rocky coast." 
We got ready to go, I hung onto her bridle and she held mine, and I thought of a rocky coast by the sea. We fetched up together on a cliff-top. The sea crashed below us. Sylvia let out a whoop of joy. 
"We're bloody brilliant," she shouted. She punched the air. More soberly, she said, "I wish we'd known we could do this right from the start. It would have saved us a lot of time, and the horses."
"Yes, but we wouldn't have met the old woman with the cloth," I pointed out.
"True," she acknowledged. "Never mind. Let's find some Selkies." 
She led the way towards a precipitous path. It was so steep that we had to dismount and lead the horses. I went ahead of her because of her ankle. The journey down must have been agonising for her. At the bottom of the cliff was a narrow strip of turf that the high tide sprayed regularly. We got quite wet, just standing there. It didn't bother the horses, who ate as if they hadn't spent most of the morning eating. We persuaded them to keep walking, and eventually we came to a wide rocky expanse that was not under water. Seals lay about on the rocks. Most of them ignored us, but a few watched our approach with interest. I thought I could see human shapes within some of them, particularly the ones who were watching us. It was a little off-putting, feeling we were being scrutinised so closely. 
"What do we do now?" I asked Sylvia.
"Wait," she answered. "Their king is supposed to meet us. They will get a message to him somehow." We sat down on the grass to wait. The seals kept watching us. Every so often one would dive into the sea, and another one would take its place on the rocks. It was easy to imagine them as part of some vast spy network. I hunched into my coat which did nothing to keep out the cold wind that blew in from the sea. I wanted to be moving. I itched to go and climb, to explore those rocks, but there was something forbidding about those seals. We were only sitting on their strip of grass under sufferance - climbing on the rocks would have been Trespassing with a capital T. I did not want to know what an angry seal did to you.
A man appeared, apparently out of nowhere, and approached us. He was tall and slim, with dark curly hair and big, long-lashed brown eyes, like Andrew's. 
He bowed to us and said, "Do I have the honour of addressing Ben-phrinse Moirrey Silbhe, of the People of the Islands?" 
Sylvia scrambled to her feet with as much dignity as her ankle allowed, and bowed in return. "I am Ben-phrinse Moirrey Silbhe. To whom do I have the honour of speaking?"  
The man bowed again, lower this a time. "My name is Murchadh mac Bhaltair, of the People of the Seal. I welcome you to my kingdom." 
Sylvia said, "May I present my companion, Your Majesty? This is Rebekah McIver, friend of the Lord Robert Perry and Burd Vivian Nevin."
I bowed, somewhat clumsily. Twenty-first century teenagers from the surface don't get a lot of practise at that sort of thing. The king acknowledged me with another bow. 
"Bring your horses and follow me," he ordered. 
We did as he said. He and Sylvia talked politely as they walked, mostly about people. Apart from Andrew and Tania I didn't recognise any names. I tuned out, and watched the waves crash over the rocks. We came to a cliff. He led us into a chink in it, and suddenly we were in a huge, spacious courtyard. Grooms came forward and took charge of the horses. People came and bowed, received orders and went away again. 
Three women in long floaty dresses came over to us. The king spoke to them in their own language, then he said to Sylvia, 
"The women will bring you to the Council chamber in an hour." 
The women led us away. We were taken to a large room, full of women, a little bit like harems that you see on bad pseudo-historical movies. In fact the whole place struck me as kind of B-movie-ish, - the clothes, the décor - except that here everything was real. The walls they were pearly like the inside of shells but they felt like marble. Door handles and things like that were made of gold. There was the fairy thing of liking lots of splendour, but here it was soft, watery, not sparkly like the Hill people preferred. The women who were looking after us took us into a cubicle and indicated that we should undress. I didn't want to leave my stuff, because I was worried about the earrings. One of the women cottoned on or had been given instructions, though, and produced a small silky bag that I could hang around my neck. I put them in it and put it on. Then we were given thin robes to wear, and we were taken to a communal bath. There were several other women already in the water. I glanced uneasily at Sylvia. She grimaced back, then shrugged off her robe and climbed down into the bath. Reluctantly I followed her. 
The bathwater felt marvellous. It smelled of something exotic. The routine was soak in this bath, then climb out and get soaped up all over. Attendants poured buckets of warmish water over you to remove the soap, then you got into a second bath to soak in for as long as you liked. I was just as reluctant to get out as I had been to get in. We were wrapped in large towels, and our attendants laid out clothes for us and allowed us to get on with the business of getting dried and dressed. Selkie clothes are fantastically comfortable. They are light and allow you to move. I had a yellow dress, and soft yellow shoes. I took the earrings from round my neck and looped the bag around my wrist. When I stood in front of a mirror to comb my hair I noticed a dark smudge on my neck. I rubbed at it; it hurt and did not come off. I looked closer, and saw there were several more. They took the shine off my pleasure in feeling clean and comfortable. 
The women took us to the Council Chamber, and left us at the door, in the care of the most piratical looking person I have ever seen. He was big, and dark, with several gold earrings and some pearl ones as well. He wore a floppy white shirt - the Selkie men seemed to like them - with an unbuttoned waistcoat over the top, and baggy dark pants tucked into black boots. He had a red sash wrapped about his middle. He even had pistols and a cutlass tucked into it. He escorted us inside. The king sat on a throne at one end of the room, and several men stood in front of him. Two women sat at his feet, one obviously a Selkie, proud and beautiful with long dark ringlets and the deep brown eyes of her people. The other was a human, small and plump, with long greying hair. The king sat with his fingers twined in her hair. 
He motioned us to come forward. The rank of men parted to let us through. He asked to see the earrings. I tipped them out onto the stand that a servant brought out of nowhere. There was a gasp from some of the men, the ones closest to them. The king cocked an eyebrow at them. They conferred together, and then one of the younger ones said, in a heavily accented voice, 
"Your Majesty, the enchantment on these is strong and deep. It is women's magic, and needs women to lift it." He conferred with the others again. "It is still working although it has grown less strong in the last day or so. Something has happened to lessen its influence." 
The king tapped his lips with his forefinger. There was a long silence. Finally he turned to me. 
"How did you get these jewels? From the beginning, please. I know some of the story, but my advisors do not." I told them everything that had happened from the time the girl gave me the parcel. He stopped me several times, and asked me to go over details, such as Emma opening the parcel, the photos, the fact that Amanda couldn't remember anything about it. The fact that they disappeared at the St Mungo's Ball, two years ago, and it wasn't until yesterday that I found them again. The conversation  I'd overheard at the Nevin's party. His face darkened when I described Murdo Walters. I didn't say anything about his harassment of me, but I did say  I'd met him after the stock was destroyed and  I'd picked up the earrings. 
He gave me a long and penetrating look. "Bhaltair meets a pretty girl like you, you have interfered with his plans, and he lets you go? Just like that?" 
I flushed and my hand went to my throat. I found the cross, and held on to it. 
"No, he did not," said Sylvia angrily. "He tried to rape her. He would have done, if I hadn't distracted him so she could get away. And it wasn't the first time."
"That sounds more like Bhaltair," said the king grimly. "When was the first time?"
"About a month ago was the first time. He became my mother's lover. He tried to get into my room one night. He was always trying to touch me. And last Saturday he tried it again."
"What did you do?" asked the king.
"I climbed out the window and ran away from home," I said. 
"You are courageous. I apologise to you on behalf of all the People of the Seals for the actions of my son. Such actions cannot be condoned." He smiled, quite gently. "The next thing to find out is how he got hold of those earrings." He looked meaningly at the Selkie woman. "They were a wedding gift, an heirloom, given by me to my bride on our wedding day. I want to know why she no longer has them. And why another woman's son had them." 
He beckoned to the big man who had brought us in and spoke to him briefly. The big man left. In no time at all he came back, bringing a train of Selkie women with him. The last one had an air about her like the Nevin and Seeley queens. She wore a coronet of pearls in her black hair. She curtseyed to the king, and shot a look of contempt at the Selkie woman at his feet. She completely ignored the human woman. The king spoke to her in the Selkie language, which was like a series of barks. He indicated the earrings to her. Her eyes lit up and she put out her hand to take them, but then she recoiled as if they had bitten her. The king said to her, quite slowly, 
"Tell me how you lost them." She answered haltingly - she obviously was not used to speaking our language. 
"The last time I wore them was two, no three years ago, at your birthday, My Lord." The king nodded in agreement. "I put them away as usual when I took them off, because they are precious to me. They were your gift to me on our wedding day. The next time I went to wear them they had gone. I questioned my maids, but no one knew anything about them, so they said." 
"They were stolen from you?"
"Yes, My Lord."
"You did not give them to Bhaltair mac Murchadh?"
A look of distaste crossed her face. "I would not give that creature a helping hand if he needed it. Why would I give him the jewels my husband gave me?" 
The king turned to the other Selkie woman. 
"Can you explain why your son had the queen's jewels?" 
"No, My Lord."
"Or how he got access to something kept in the women's quarters?"
Again, a sullen, "No, My Lord."
"Perhaps he seduced some silly maid, and persuaded her to steal them for him?"
"Perhaps, My Lord."
"Or perhaps his mother, who knew where keys to these things are, took them for him?"
"I don't know what you mean, My Lord."
"I think you do. Those jewels were guarded with enchantments so that no silly maid could get her hands on them. Either he persuaded one of his sisters to steal them for him, an offence that carries the most serious penalties, or I suggest you took them, you who could never refuse Bhaltair anything. Am I right?" The woman did not answer, but hid her face behind her hair. The king ordered her to be taken away. Then he spoke in the Selkie language to the queen, who nodded graciously to us before she curtsied to him and swept out of the room. 
He sat for a while, tapping his fingers on the arm of his throne. He beckoned to one of the men and spoke to him, again in the Selkie language. Then he said to us, 
"My magicians are going to examine the enchantment on these earrings, and find a way to lift it. When they have found it, we will give it to you. We cannot lift it for you: it is women's magic, and our magicians are all men. You can take it to whom you will. In the mean time I have asked Chelen to look after you. She speaks your language well." He pronounced the name with a guttural sort of vocalisation at the beginning. The plump woman got up and smiled at us. She turned and whispered something in the king's ear and kissed him on the cheek. He smiled wickedly at her. She ushered us out of the Council Chamber.  
Once we were out in the corridor she spoke. 
"The name's Helen. Forgive Murchadh's barbaric pronunciation. He has given us apartments separate from the rest of the women. Believe me, it's quite a relief. It takes some doing living as a Selkie woman. I won't insist on communal baths. Tell me about yourselves." She was the sort who talked, not the deepest of conversations, but just talked. And she chatted freely about herself. She was the king's mistress, she was quite open about that. She had been for over thirty years. The queen tolerated her more than she tolerated the king's other wives, but mostly because she did not usually live there. She had a house above, and divided her time between there and the surface, where her three sons lived. Two of her sons were brought up by their fathers, the third was the king's son, and he too divided his time between above and the surface. The king had several wives, and all their children were his legitimate offspring. She didn't know how many other mistresses and bastard children he had, and didn't really care. Bhaltair was the third legitimate son, the son of the king's fourth wife. He had been banished and disinherited about ten years ago, because of his involvement with the Sluagh (whatever that was). 
The torrent of talk confused and bemused me; Sylvia rolled her eyes at me as we followed the small figure down the endless pearly corridors. I managed, with difficulty, not to giggle. It was unfair of us, because she was trying to be friendly, and it can't have been easy suddenly having two unknown guests dumped on her. Eventually we came to a door. Helen unlocked it, and showed us in. She locked the door behind her. 
"You can't be too careful around here. Bhaltair isn't the only Selkie man who is attracted by pretty girls from the surface." I shuddered. She offered us a cup of tea, and we gratefully accepted. She made it herself because she said you couldn't trust a Selkie to do it properly. While she made it I wandered around, looking at the framed photos that sat around on every available scrap of surface. It reminded me a little of Gran's or Grandma's. There were wedding photos, photos of young men and boys, a couple of old photos that were obviously Helen in her younger days and several of small children. I stopped at one of the wedding photos. 
"Come and look at this," I said to Sylvia. She came over and looked at it, and grinned. 
"Well, what did you expect?" she asked.
"Not that," I confessed. The photo was of Andrew and Tania. Closer inspection of the small children revealed the Climber and his younger sibling among them. 
"Did you know?"
"I suspected. I knew Andrew's mother was mortal." 
I became acutely aware of the cold lump, which had never gone away, washed over by waves of homesickness. The photos looked so normal, so much like home. I looked at the Climber, and tears pricked at my eyes. I saw him, sitting on Calum's lap and sprawled back against him, thumb in mouth, while Calum read him a story. I envied the Climber.
Helen came clattering in with the tea. It was proper black tea, complete with milk and sugar. 
She said, "This is my favourite treat. There is nothing in the Realms quite like good Ceylon tea." She poured it into fine cups with gilded handles. "This was my grandmother's china. I've always liked it." Her chat, so homely, so intrusive, brought me back to the present. 


Chapter 12
For most of the three days that we spent with Helen I sat on the balcony of her apartment and watched the Selkie women and their children on the beach. Selkie babies, like babies everywhere, are pudgy and ungainly. They puddled in and out of the waves, quite inhibited by panicking mothers. In fact, the mothers were laid back to the point of indifference. The first time I saw a baby knocked off her feet by a wave I expected her to come up spluttering and crying, and mother to come and pick her up. Not so. Her mother did not move. The baby rolled over in the waves, allowed them to carry her out a bit, and calmly dog-paddled herself back to the beach. Then she picked herself up as if nothing had happened and continued playing. Sylvia and I ventured down to the beach once, but we very soon got the impression we were not welcome. After that, we restricted ourselves to watching from the balcony. 
Those three days were awkward all round. I don't think Helen likes being confined, and although she was kind to us I sensed that she didn't particularly like having visitors. The Selkie women pretended she wasn't there, particularly the king's wives. We didn't see the queen again. The king stayed away - whether it was because we were there, or because of his wives I don't know. I think that annoyed her, too. My respect for Helen increased, if she had put up with this sort of treatment for so long. It was nice to sleep in a proper bed, and to be able to bath in private. She understood that. But, oh my goodness, she could talk! I'm a bit of a chatterbox myself, at least Olly says I am, but I had not realised just how wearing a constant stream of chatter can be. Especially when you have other things on your mind. I began to worry about the length of time we had been away. I calculated we'd been in the Realms for a week. Emma was still sick. Mum must be worrying, and exams loomed. And my thoughts kept turning to Calum. The cold lump was a permanent fixture now. I just wanted to go home, and I knew we still had a lot more to do. I tried not to dwell on it, but I did often wonder what was ahead of us. On about Day Two, Sylvia and I began to get on each other's nerves. She retreated into her room and into books. Helen had quite a collection, mostly Andrew's, she said. I tried reading one, but it was science fiction, and I gave up after about twenty pages. It was too weird for my tastes, and I had enough weird in my life at the moment without somebody else's imposed on top of it. I went back to watching the Selkie babies. 
It was almost a relief when the king summoned us again. Helen and the big man escorted us to the Council Chamber, past rows of guards, courtiers and councillors. To my absolute horror, ranks parted and revealed Murdo Walters, or Bhaltair, standing among four enormous guards beside the king's throne. I froze. Sylvia put her arm around my shoulder, and Helen whispered, 
"It's all right. You are safe here." Between them they managed to propel me forward. The king motioned to guards to bring Bhaltair forward. He stood not a metre away from me. Last time  I'd seen him he was well-dressed and healthy; now he looked wan and I'm sure he'd been beaten up. Still, if Sylvia and Helen hadn't been holding me I would have bolted. The king came down from his throne and picked up Bhaltair"s left hand. Then he fitted the fingers to the bruises on my neck. It was all I could do to stay there; Bhaltair"s touch revolted me, and I felt as if I was going to faint. He nodded as if satisfied, and motioned the guards to take him away. 
"He will not bother you or your cousin again," he said. "Now to the lifting of the enchantment." 
One of the younger councillors came forward. He had a scroll in his hand. 
He bowed, and gave it to me. 
"Give this to your wise women. They will know what to do. Unfortunately the enchantment is complex, and it will be a long job for them to remove it. We have done what we can to remove the Selkie elements. But provided they follow the instructions to the letter they will be successful." 
"Thank you," I said, feeling it was totally insufficient.
The king spoke again. "The Selkies do not deal in curses and wicked enchantments. Nor do we condone men forcing themselves on women. The use of such an enchantment for such purposes is therefore doubly abhorrent. This former son of mine has disgraced our people. To restore our honour we offer you our aid, and our assurance that my former son will be punished. Continue your journey in peace, and with our blessing." With that, he dismissed us. 
Helen took us back to her apartment, where we changed into our own things again. Then she took us to the courtyard where our horses were. I suddenly felt a surge of affection for this woman, who had been so kind to us. Impulsively I hugged her. She responded warmly. 
"Thank you so much," I said. 
"It was nothing," she replied. "Blessings on you both. Give Emma my best wishes. I hope she recovers completely. She's a lovely girl. And give Calum a kiss from me." I blushed, and she laughed. "You're very lucky," she whispered. 
The king himself saw us out of his kingdom. He took us to a portal that brought us out on the level they called "Above." The technological level. 
"Making sure he saw the back of us," Sylvia commented sourly, once we were out of his hearing. "First stop James Anthony's, then back to Grandmother's. Almost the last stage."  


Chapter 13
Sylvia shook her hair in the breeze, and took several deep breaths. 
"I am so glad to be out in the open," she said, her tone heartfelt. "That place gave me cabin fever. Let's not translocate, let's ride!"
"Will we have time?" I asked, somewhat dubiously, thinking of Emma.
"Yes, heaps. It'll just be a day - and time at home isn't the same as here. Mum and Dad and the others will be doing their best to slow it at their end. Don't panic." 
She scanned the landscape, longing in her eyes. To be honest I was glad to be out again, too. I hadn't enjoyed our imprisonment any more than she did, even though it was just three days. It was glorious to be free. Sylvia looked across at me, and grinned, and spurred her horse. I chased after her. 
She reigned up, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks reddened, and smiled happily. We were at the top of a ridge. A creamy white ribbon of road stretched out ahead of us. 
"We head for the road," she said. "Be careful; its steeper going down than it looks." It was. In a very short time we dismounted and led the horses. Sylvia's ankle had improved with the enforced rest, although she still limped a bit. We reached the bottom of the slope and remounted. Sylvia sniffed the air. She looked around, frowning slightly. 
"It feels like snow. I'm not happy about that. It's too early. Let's get as far along here as we can." It took us about half an hour to reach the road, longer than we expected. We misjudged the distance, and the snow beat us. I had never been in a real snowfall, and at first it was exciting. The flakes melted as soon as they landed. Fascinated, I watched them settle on my sleeve or on my horse's neck and then miraculously vanish. But it got cold. I'm not specially good at cold. The flakes stopped melting and built up a sprinkling of white on everything. The sprinkling became a layer. Soon the flakes were no fun at all, but projectiles flinging themselves stingingly at our faces and into our eyes. The horses took little notice; mine merely flicked its ears and kept moving. Sylvia kept our pace deliberately slow, so we did not lose our way. It was not a blizzard, or anything exciting like that, it was just an unseasonal fall of snow. We huddled under a tree that occasionally dumped drips of freezing water on us, and ate our cold lunch. How I longed for something hot - cocoa, or soup. Once the snow stopped, I kept wanting to look around and stare at the landscape. I had only ever seen snow on ski fields before. The whitened roads and hillsides were so different. Magical is completely the wrong word, but it had that sense of the mysterious, heightened by the hush around us. I loved it. Sylvia was trying to pick up the pace a little, now that we could see. 
We pressed on along the road. The horses seemed to get the scent of home. In a remarkably short time we were riding along the back road to James Anthony's farm, then we were through the gate and into the stable yard. A skinny, weather-beaten woman, dressed in riding breeches and boots, and a thick jacket, emerged from the stables. Sylvia looked as nonplussed as I have ever seen her, and said, haughtily, 
"Is Lord James home?"
"Yes, who's asking?" the woman answered, almost rudely. Her eyes travelled from Sylvia's face to the horses.
"My name is none of your concern," Sylvia retorted. She handed me the reins of her horse. "Wait here," she commanded. She dismounted and walked towards the house.
The woman laughed. "She's a haughty one. Who does she think she is? A princess or something?"
"Well, yes. I think she is," I said. The woman laughed again. It was more humorous this time.
"Come and help me see to these poor beasts. We can't leave them standing around in the cold." I dismounted, and led my horse into the stable. She took off her jacket and gloves. 
"And just as I was about to go home, too," she grumbled. 
There is something calming about rubbing down a horse.  As we worked she talked, telling me about herself. I didn't get a chance to get a word in. She helped out in the stables several times a week, and exercised the horses, especially when James Anthony was away. I gathered he goes away a lot, and that this place was a kind of holiday home. She and her husband lived on the estate further along the road. We were just finishing when James Anthony and Sylvia came into the stables. He looked very pleased to have his horses back again, and after greeting them both he took us back into the house. We removed our coats and gloves, and revelled in the warmth of the kitchen. 
"I've told Aunt Anne you're back," he said. "I'm glad to see you back safely." His eyes rested for a moment on the bruises on my throat, but he didn't ask about them. "You got what you went for?"
"Yes, and we've just spent three ghastly days with the Selkies. It was like being in prison. They keep you cooped up all the time, and you can't go anywhere, and we were with Andrew's mother and she is the most irritating creature alive. She talked all the time," Sylvia exploded. 
"Irritating isn't perhaps the word I would have used to describe her," James Anthony said, as he poured three cups of tea.
"Have you met her?" asked Sylvia.
"Yes, once," he said.
"Getting answers out of you is like getting blood out of a stone," Sylvia snorted. 
"It's a Perry thing," I said. "They don't tell you anything, none of them do, but they're pretty good at reading between the words." 
James Anthony gave one of his dazzling smiles. The Perrys don't smile often, either (except Robin). "She's an extraordinary woman. When I met Andrew's mother, I was propping up her son who was practically dead on his feet, her lover (Andrew's father) was in the room with her and she propositioned me." His dark face reddened at the recollection. "You don't meet people like her every day." 
Sylvia laughed. "I wondered what Murchadh mac Bhaltair saw in her," she said. "Seems it's cheek. No one else would dare to treat him like that. But he annoyed me, with his attitude 'We don't approve of men forcing themselves on women' when the Selkies have a terrible reputation for womanising. He's just as bad as the rest, and Helen locked us in because she said it wasn't safe, and she's right. Some of those younger guys don't understand 'no.'"
"That's true," said James Anthony, "but I think they flatter themselves that the women are always willing. And often they are." 
"Yes, but often isn't always," grumbled Sylvia. 
We sat by the fire and watched DVDs while James Anthony cooked dinner. Sylvia looked through his collection of DVDs to see if he had any that he was in. There weren't any there. 
"I told you they weren't here," he said, without looking up. "They're in London." 
Aunt Anne and Sylvia's Nevin grandmother arrived in time for dinner. He was a superb cook. 
Sylvia was quiet on the journey back to her grandmother's. I think I went to sleep, because the journey passed very quickly, and I don't remember much between leaving James Anthony's and arriving back at the Nevin palace (well, it is a palace). The maids took over almost as soon as I stepped inside the front door. 
In the morning, great patches of green grass showed through the snow. 
Sylvia laughed at my dismay. 
"It's really too early for snow. The ground needs to get cold for it to stay, or else we need several days of it. Yesterday was a special treat, just for you, I think." I hadn't even made a snowball. 
We spent a gruelling morning being cross-examined by the grandmothers and aunts. They wanted to know the exact details of everything that happened, and everyone we met. And I mean exact. They examined me again, like the night I arrived. They asked both of us the same questions over and over again, and then turned them inside out, looking for the slightest hint of anything and everything. Finally they took possession of the papers the Selkies had given me and turned us out of the study. 
We set ourselves up in a small sitting room. It was quite cosy, with a fire burning brightly, magazines to read, and a plentiful supply of coffee. I could get used to servants. Sylvia went through all the cupboards until she found one with DVDs in it. She pulled most of them out onto the floor and ratted through them.
 "Ha! I knew  I'd seen it somewhere," she said. She bundled the rest back into the cupboard. 
"What is it?" I asked.
"James Anthony," she answered. She put it on. It was Rigoletto. I didn't watch it. I hadn't enjoyed it last time, so I read magazines. They were expensive ones - Vogue, Tatler, that kind of thing. Some were titles I'd never seen before. Those were the ones that belonged here, Sylvia told me. She tended to flick through the bits where James Anthony wasn't on stage. I did stop to watch him sing La Donna è Mobile, though. It was so different to Robin's version. James Anthony's duke was a man who was revenging himself on women, because he'd been badly hurt by one. He was much less sinister than Robin. He was rotten, but you could understand why. Robin's duke was just rotten. 
"God, what did she do to him?" murmured Sylvia. She played through it again. Anne Perry came in part way through. She stood and watched it. She seemed to shake herself back to the present. 
"Sylvia, your grandmothers want to see you," she said. Sylvia grumbled, switched off the DVD and wandered off.


Chapter 14
That night there was a huge party for Halloween. People came from miles around, all kinds of people, not just the rich ones like the last party: shopkeepers and schoolteachers, farm hands and estate workers. Children ran about everywhere. A different party went on in every room, it seemed. There was dancing, or music, and some rooms where people just sat and talked. Every room in the place was lit up. There was endless food; like a wine and food festival, only not so muddy because it was all indoors. The only blight was that all the doors and windows were locked, and no-one was allowed outside, though I found it hard to imagine why anyone would want to go outside, when so much interesting was going on inside. The maids put me in rusty-coloured silk this time. I felt a bit silly, like a storybook princess, but everyone else was dressed up, too. The Folk love ostentation and show. James Anthony turned up, looking to die for in black velvet, with a row of diamond studs in one ear and a diamond pendant in the other. Sylvia and I went to listen to him sing. I enjoyed it. I had to admit, this adventure was expanding my horizons. After he finished a crowd of adoring fans, not all female, surrounded him. He said to us, 
"I'll catch up with you later," before he disappeared among the throng. 
He kept his promise. When he escaped he found us in the ballroom. He danced with Sylvia, then with me, then with Sylvia again. A voice beside me said, 
"Who's he?" I turned to see Jimmy Nevin standing beside me, glowering at Sylvia. 
"Why?" I asked. I had never spoken to this guy before; why should I offer him information on a plate?
"Because I don't appreciate someone else muscling in on my girl."
"Is she your girl?" I asked, sweetly. "She didn't mention it to me." 
He blushed. "Well, no," he confessed. He stopped scowling and gave me an embarrassed grin. "You know things don't work like that here, don't you." 
I nodded and grinned back. There was something likeable about him. The dance ended and Sylvia and James Anthony came over to us. She introduced James Anthony and Jimmy to each other. The Folk can be incredibly polite when they have to be. Sylvia went off to dance with Jimmy. I noticed James Anthony's eyes followed her around the dance floor, although he chatted politely enough to me. The next couple of hours Sylvia danced alternately with the two men. I danced sometimes with one, sometimes with the other, and sometimes with other people. James Anthony then suggested that the three of us went and had some supper because he was going to sing again.
After a supper of ice cream Sylvia went with James Anthony to hear him sing. I decided  I'd go back to the ballroom. I enjoy dancing. As I walked along the hall back to the ballroom I almost bumped into a girl coming out of another room. She said, 
"Sorry," and carried on down the hall. 
I recognised her at once, although she did not appear to recognise me. She had given me the package for Emma. Shaken, I made my way back to the ballroom. I managed to find plenty of dance partners, and soon forgot about her. I was quite glad when Sylvia reappeared, on her own. She suggested we find a withdrawing room. I readily agreed. 
We commandeered an empty room. Sylvia rang for coffee. We kicked our shoes off, and relaxed.
"How was the singing?" I asked.
"Good. I'm going to marry him," she replied. 
"What about Jimmy?"
"What about him? He was only a possibility. And he knew it. James Anthony is different. He's more of my station, being from a younger branch of an important family. I'm not the best match he could make; one of my sisters would be more advantageous. But I don't think he's interested in rank. And I like him, more than a lot. I'll speak to my grandmother and his aunt about it tomorrow." 
"Does he have any say in the matter?" I was curious.
"He can turn me down. It's been done before, and it'll happen again - not to me, though."
"But? he must be nearly forty," I gasped, astonished at her sang-froid. 
"Oh, he's a lot older than that," she said, helping herself to a sweet. 
 It was pleasant, sitting drinking coffee and eating sweets. The Folk have a liking for sweet things and are quite ingenious at finding ways to eat them. James Anthony came and joined us. If he had any inkling we had been discussing his future he did not betray it. I could quite see why Sylvia liked him. He was very unassuming and natural. I just hoped he had enough spirit to stand up to her. 
Suddenly an almighty wind came up out of nowhere and all the windows rattled. I nearly jumped out of my chair with fright. The other two took no notice of it whatever. 
"What is that?" I asked.
"It's the Wild Ride. It'll go on for hours. It is Halloween after all, and the spirits of the unsanctified dead join with the Sluagh and have free rein until daybreak. That's why we can't go out. It's death to anyone who does - they'd kill you before you had time to realise where you were," said Sylvia.
"It's also the reason for these parties. They're going on all over the land. The lights burn all night to mark this out as a bastion of good," explained James Anthony. "It can be pretty terrifying to be on your own with that going on outside. I know; I've done it. So people gather together and have a party to forget what's happening out there."
The noise outside grew louder and wilder. Distinct voices in it rose and fell amid the general wailing and shrieking. And there were several hours of it to go. 
We all had had enough of sitting listening to it. We went back to the ballroom. The crowds in there, the music and talk and laughter drowned out most of the noise from outside. After several dances I took myself off to the loos. I was on my way back when I made a wrong turning, or was caused to make one. I opened a door that I thought was the one to the ballroom. Instead, I entered a sitting room where a group of young people was sitting talking. They all looked up when I came in. 
"Sorry," I said, and tried to back out. A blonde girl in a red dress blocked my retreat. To the best of my knowledge I had never seen her before in my life. She looked at me disinterestedly. 
"Is this the one, Jenny?" she asked.
"Yes," said Jenny. I knew Jenny. She gave me the earrings. She flicked her eyes up and down me. "So you got away from Bhaltair," she drawled. I nodded. "Did you destroy the stock?" Again I nodded. She laughed. I recognised that unpleasant laugh from the last ball. "So he doesn't get his precious Emma. No matter, he was always useless." 
The others laughed, nastily. The girl in red leaned against the door behind me. The whole group was between the other door and me. The curtains in this room were drawn back, and through the windows I caught glimpses of shapes whipping past the window. Every so often a face of greater or lesser hideousness pressed itself against the glass. They did not frighten me nearly as much as the faces on the inside. Jenny stood up and came over to me. She came up to my ear, and she scared me. 
"I'm here to make sure you do not make the next part of the journey," she hissed into my face. "I don't care that you got the earrings back, or that you destroyed the stock. Bhaltair mac Murchadh is of no more use to me. He was a means to an end. If I could dispose of Emma McIver without killing her, well and good. He wanted her. That suited me. But he has failed. You will not go to Annwn. You will not be able to save her, and in a week or so she will die."  She meant it. 
The cold lump, which I had got used to although it had never really gone away, suddenly grew heavy. It weighed me down to the floor. Tears prickled in my eyes. I blinked them fiercely.
"Why do you want Emma to die? What has she ever done to you?" I asked, my voice shaking. 
Jenny smiled, but it was not a nice smile. "She's never done anything to me. I've never met her. But she married Finn Perry. She's in the way." The lump expanded again. A great wash of fear nourished it. A vision of Emma popped into my head - vibrant, outgoing Emma, radiating happiness at New Year. 
"You will stay here with us until daybreak, when we will leave and take you with us. If you try to escape we put you outside," said Jenny calmly. "Sit down." I obeyed. I couldn't see a way out. I saw Emma again, frail and ill, as Finn helped her up the stairs. I saw Finn's face, too, far too strained. One of the young men in the party inched towards me and made to put his arm around me. I leaned away.
"Leave her alone, Jack," snapped Jenny. He settled back to where he'd been. Then I saw a funeral, and I knew it was Emma's. Robin and Calum, Mr Perry and my uncles were pallbearers. All the McIvers and all the Perrys were there. No one from either family spoke to me. When I tried to talk, tried to explain myself, they turned their backs on me. Finn's face was white and set and shuttered. I almost called out aloud to him. But the hardest thing to bear was the expression of contempt in Calum's eyes as he looked at me and then turned away. Around me a conversation flowed. It was light and brittle, the usual sort of stuff when people are just sitting waiting for something to happen. A wave of helplessness surged over my misery lump. 
Gradually I became aware of a presence inside my head. A small voice, very faint, cut in as a silver thread of light through the blackness of Emma's funeral. I tuned into it. Soon words formed. 
"Where are you?" I saw rather than heard.
"I don't know," I replied. 
"Can you get out?"
"No. They're guarding the doors."
"Can you translocate?"
"I don't know the words."
"Shit." I almost laughed. Sylvia. "Hang on a bit," she said, and was gone. In a few minutes, long minutes, she was back. "Grandmother says focus on her study. I'll do the words." 
I thought of the study. For long enough nothing happened. Then the words came into my head, one by one. I repeated them over and over. Suddenly I felt the electric fence jolt, and I was in the study. Sylvia, white-faced, relaxed as soon as she saw me. Her Nevin grandmother sparked anger. She demanded to know who, how many and where they were. As I fumbled through the answers, and they were pretty vague answers, she silently communicated orders outside the study. Soon the Nevin aunt came in. 
She flashed a smile in my direction, and began a low conversation with her mother. 
Sylvia murmured to me, "You're turning up a regular surprise all over the place. You've quite discombobulated them, you know." She grinned. "And Grandmother doesn't like being discombobulated. She thinks doing it is her prerogative." The Nevin aunt departed. 
"We have found the room, and sealed it," Grandmother Nevin said. "If they try to break out of it we will know."
"Won't they have had time to leave by now?" I asked. 
"No," she said. "This has been the work of seconds. We simply held every door in the palace shut until we found the right room. They will of course try to contact others outside, and that is what we don't know - who and where. In the mean time we have to send you on the next part of your journey. As soon as we can. But we know now that Jenny whoever wants you stopped. That explains the women's magic - it puzzled me." She stood and tapped her teeth for a while. "Unfortunately, Rebekah, we are going to have to keep you under surveillance until you leave. You cannot be alone." 
She rang a bell, and when the footman appeared gave orders for my(!) maids to bring travelling clothes and for breakfast. The maids arrived with frightening speed, and fussed over me as they redid my hair, and changed my clothes. Sylvia remained in the study the whole time. Then breakfast arrived. The aunts and grandmothers joined us, and Anne Perry and James Anthony. Sylvia managed to get to sit beside him. It was a fantastically good breakfast - eggs and bacon and kidneys, the sort of stuff you see on TV series set in grand houses in the 1930s. Lots of coffee, too. I was surprised at just how hungry I was - I even ate porridge. After breakfast Sylvia shot upstairs, and soon returned, dressed in trousers, boots and a coat, like me. 
I became aware that noise of the Wild Ride had stopped. The footman drew back the curtains and revealed daylight. People trooped all over the garden, climbing into cars and buses, and mounting horses, and walking away and calling goodbye to each other. In a surprisingly short time it was empty. The grass outside was blackened and trampled as if hundreds and hundreds of feet had passed over it. 
Grandmother Nevin said, "Well, I suppose it's time you two set out." 
There was no portal to go through this time. We walked into the early morning mist, into the west. We carried nothing but their blessings. 


Chapter 15
The cold, grey mist coiled about our feet and dampened our hair. Droplets clung to Sylvia's black hair, like tiny diamonds. In spite of the thick coat, the trousers and heavy boots, she really did look like a fairy princess - not a delicate little-girl-in-tutu type, but beautiful, impressive and powerful. I thought back on last night, and on the trick-or-treaters that infested our street each year at Halloween. The tulle-and-tinsel fairies wouldn't have a chance here. Neither would the fake witches and bogles. Most of them would have died of fright if they'd seen just one of the faces  I'd seen last night. We walked and walked, in silence for the most part. The mist did not lift. It muffled sounds - there were sounds around, of birds and small animals, but they sounded cut off. For the first part of the journey we walked over farmland and moor land, then we came to a sparse, open wood. Most of the trees had lost their leaves but there was still a thick carpet of dead leaves underfoot that crunched satisfactorily as we walked. 
We must have been walking for several hours when we came to a cross-roads. A youngish man sat on the ground under a tree. Sylvia walked past him without a second glance. He got up and ran and caught up with us, positioning himself a little ahead of us in the road so we had to stop. He bowed extravagantly low - even the Selkie king's courtiers did not bow so low as that. 
"Where are you going pretty maids?"
"Our destination is our business, and none of yours," Sylvia answered curtly. She seemed really out of sorts today. 
"May I walk with you a while, for it seems your path lies in the same direction as mine," he said, smiling winningly.
"If you must. But none of your nonsense, Ganconer ," she replied.
He pretended he was offended. "I don't know what you mean, my nonsense," he said, sounding injured. His long-lashed blue eyes took on a wounded look. He brushed back his dark wavy hair - it grazed his shoulders, and was bedewed with mist. His clothes were quite exotic and romantic -white frills at throat and cuffs, a long velvet coat trimmed with silver braid, knee breeches and stockings that showed off his very nicely shaped legs, and shiny buckled shoes. Far too effeminate looking for home, but he really was very pretty. And he knew it. He fell into step beside us, and talked and talked. Sylvia was right - it was nonsense, flattering rubbish designed to pick up girls. But he was charming and he sounded so sincere. An alarm rang in my head - Robin, singing La Donna è Mobile: "A woman is fickle, like a feather in the breeze?"  I listened to him for a while, and he reminded me a little of Philip. In the end I said to him, 
"You're shallow, like my ex-boyfriend." 
He looked at me soulfully and said, "You are cruel, for such a beautiful maiden." 
And before my eyes he faded away. 
"Good riddance," grunted Sylvia. "That was good work, getting rid of him. Pest." 
"What's wrong with you?" I asked. "You've been upset all day."
"I had a long talk with Anne Perry last night. I told her I wanted to marry James Anthony. She filled me in on a bit of his background. Apparently his first wife was a prize bitch, a real power-hungry, scheming type. She used his gifts to gain power, and she forced him into the position of turning his back on his family. That's the worst thing anyone can do to one of the Folk. Now I don't know what to do - whether to go on with it, or whether to drop it now, before I've asked him. I haven't had a chance to talk to my grandmothers yet, because I have to get their permission."
"What do you want to do?" 
She kicked at some leaves. "I want to marry him. But not if he's reluctant. Oh, God, this sounds so stupid. He's old enough to be my father, and yet I'm talking about him as if he's a fragile child. And I'm only sixteen. My grandmothers will probably tell me to wait, and reassess it when I'm older."
"It's a bit of a bummer, being sixteen. Everyone says, "Oh, you're legal!" but if you want to act on it, and get married they all scream "You're too young, wait until you know what you're doing," I said. "But they don't mind you sleeping around, at least not as much."
Sylvia laughed. "Is that experience talking?" she said. "Who do you want to marry? Some boy at St Iggy's? Or is it Robin?"
"Neither. It's anticipation talking." 
She grinned. "Do you think we could get the school rules rewritten to allow wedding rings?"
We came out of the woods at the edge of a lake. The water lapped the shore in gentle waves. The lake was covered in mist, right down to water level. Sylvia dug the toe of her boot into the coarse sand. "I have to wait here. You go on alone from here." There was no answer to make. We stood at the water's edge, waiting for I knew not what. Eventually a boat appeared out of the mist. Four cloaked and hooded figures rowed, and a fifth sat in the stern. It rowed directly towards us. Sylvia stepped forward as the boat grounded. She addressed the figure in the stern, who beckoned to me. Then she came back, and hugged me fiercely. 
"Good luck, and blessings on you," she said. 
"Will you be okay here?" I asked.
"Yes, I've got plenty to do. Go well, and think of Emma." 
I climbed into the boat, and sat in the bows. None of the five people in the boat spoke to me at all. I quite like boats, but this was unnerving. The lake was smooth - there was not even the slightest breeze to ruffle it. But the mist hung right down over the water. I could not see more than a metre or two and then it was just thick white stuff. I almost felt you could cut it with a knife, like the penguin in the cartoon. Worse than the mist and the smooth water, though, was the absolute silence. Even the sound of the oars, in perfect unison, was muffled. I lost all sense of time and direction. It was a very short time and yet it was an eternity until I felt the ground under the bow of the boat. The figure in the stern climbed out, and motioned to me to follow. We walked up the shingly beach and climbed a long steep flight of steps cut into grey rock. At the top of the steps a wide grey path stretched out into the misty distance. The path was fenced with chains, which were supported at regular intervals by posts of the same grey rock as the steps. My guide led me along the path. Like the lake crossing, it was very difficult to work out how far we went and for how long. Still the guide did not speak. 
At last we came to a grey wall that ran across the path and into the mist. A huge wooden door barred the path. The guide knocked. A wicket opened, words that I could not understand were exchanged, and the door opened. I saw a river at my feet. A voice from inside said, 
"Step over the stream."  I looked down at the river. It was swift, and a milky blue. It was also wide. I gulped. Then I looked again, more closely. There was a glamour on it. If I looked carefully I could see the real bank, really only a stride away, beneath the milky blue swirls. I stepped across, on to firm ground. The mist was even closer and thicker than before. The voice commanded, 
"Follow the path. Do not leave it, do not turn aside, do not touch anyone you see." There was no path to see at first. I took a couple of steps forward. The path took shape in front of my feet. The path unfolded the way paths do in cartoons. Edged with the grey pillars and the chains, it stretched into the mist. But now the chains were barrier, and behind them crowded a multitude of people - grey, and misty. Nothing was solid in this world. The people - young, old, men, women, children, beautiful and ugly, reached out to me and called out voicelessly. They leaned over the chains as far as they could. Their hands scrabbled at me. But I didn't recognise their faces. I couldn't hear them cry out to me. I walked steadfastly down the centre of the path, steeling myself against the shadows. They emanated waves of cold air, damp and grey. The path went on forever. The further I went along it the closer the shadows pressed and the more insistent their cries and clawing became. Hundreds of them leaned over the chains, reaching out into the path. It took all my concentration to keep exactly in the middle, out of reach of a double row of hands. At last another gate loomed into sight through the mist. I quickened my pace towards it. And then I saw Dad.
He did not reach out. He did not call out. He just stood, with the most unfathomable expression. He looked straight at me, and his eyes brightened, and then grew sad. Sadness and loneliness washed over me, and I wanted Dad, I wanted him to be himself again, to laugh and joke with Mum, to tease Olly and me, to be home where he belonged. 
"Dad," I said, and started to turn towards him. He melted back into the crowd. I was going to follow him, when I saw ahead of me a funeral procession. The pallbearers walked straight for me, their heads down so I could not see their faces, six tall men all in black. The man walking in front of them had gold lights in his short brown hair. He raised his head, and I looked into Finn's grief-stricken, shuttered face. I glanced past him to where I had seen Dad, but he wasn't there. The pallbearers trudged onwards, and I kept walking towards them. Just as it was about to touch me the procession vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. Shaken, I looked around for Dad again. He too had vanished, into the mass of shadows. 
I had no option. I kept walking through the mist and down the path. I came to the door. It opened for me.
 A voice said, "Enter, child." I obeyed, for no other reason than it seemed like the only thing to do. Through the door I found a garden, brightly lit as if by strong sunlight. The light in the Realms is soft, like twilight or as if it comes through a filter. The contrast here, especially after all the mist, was almost unbearable. It hurt my eyes. I put my hands up to rub them, and realised I had been crying. My face was quite wet. A woman all in white glided across the lawn to meet me. She was old-looking, but not wrinkled, if that makes sense. She had hair of a dark sort of grey, and her face, although unlined, was not a young, beautiful face. She looked wise and compassionate. She held out her hand to me, and like a little child, I took it and allowed her to lead me through the garden. The bright garden had a green, green lawn. Coloured flowers, like jewels against the green, grew amongst the grass. Red, yellow, blue, orange, white they glowed. A stream chattered at one side, and fell over a low bank, creating a tiny waterfall. I say it was a garden, but there were no beds of flowers, nor banks of shrubs. There was lawn, and trees with silver-white bark and green leaves, and a path. The woman led me along the path to yet another door. This time the door was set in a hillside. It was low, and we had to stoop to go through it. 
Once through we were in a huge hall. A double row of pillars flanked the sides. Lights glimmered in each of the alcoves the pillars made. As well, giant chandeliers, lit with hundreds of candles, hung from the high ceiling. I don't know what colour the hall was, but it seemed to me to be a soft yellow; the sort of yellow a really good day is. At the end of the hall a woman, also clad in white, sat on a throne. Her dark plaits hung down over her shoulders and coiled in her lap. She wore a silver crown set with shiny black stones. She spoke, in deep cold tones. 
"What brings you here, to the Land of Annwn?" I looked at my guide, and she nodded encouragingly. 
"My cousin is sick, she is under a spell. I was sent to get an apple, just one, to help to cure her." The woman - queen - whatever, eyed me for an uncomfortably long time. 
"Who sent you?" she asked.
"My cousin's husband's mother, and sister and aunt and some others," I said. "They are Hill folk. They said she couldn't come because she was too sick, but I was affected by the same spell, so I had to come."
"You may pluck one apple from the orchard. There is only one tree that will cure you and your cousin. You must find it. The fruit of any other tree will be death. For this is the Land of the Dead. You must find the Tree of Life." My cold lump took on another growth spurt, this time through dread. How would I possibly find the right tree? The queen smiled coldly but not unkindly. 
"Have faith," she said. "You may go."
My guide led me out of the hall. She never, ever spoke to me. It was the strangest part of a very strange journey. I followed her down another path, around and behind the hill. The trees and flowers of the garden continued. We walked for ages, until we came to a wall with a locked gate. The guide picked up the bunch of keys that hung from her belt, and fitted one to the lock. She swung the gate opened and ushered me into the orchard. I was gazing around, taking it all in, when I heard the gate shut, and the lock turn. 
"Oh help," I thought. "How will I ever get out?" 
The orchard was not large. That was something to be thankful for. But the trees! There were apples - they were the only fruit there - of all sizes and shapes and colours- big, small and in between, red, green, yellow, russet, bi-coloured and striped. I began a slow circuit of the orchard. After inspecting a couple of trees I realised that some of the fruit was rotten beneath its healthy-looking exterior. That speeded up my progress, because I discounted those trees immediately. That still left about half a dozen likely candidates. There were two trees with apples with shiny red skins that glowed and looked so obvious that I decided they were no good. I couldn't risk picking them, so I sniffed them. They both made me feel nauseous. I wondered if this was a good test. I tried it on the next tree, a little, stunted-looking thing, with tiny red and yellow striped apples. They smelt absolutely glorious. I noted them, and went on with the rest of my selection. A russet apple gave me a headache. A green one had no smell at all, just made a void in my thoughts. And another stripy one also made me feel sick. I went back to the little striped one. I dithered a bit between it and the green one. I smelt the striped one again. It cleared my head, and made me think of sunshine on the sea - my favourite thing to look at. I thought of Emma, and the smell changed slightly. I reached out and picked one.


Chapter 16
 I was standing on the shore of the lake, a small red and yellow striped apple in my hand. I put it in my pocket. There was no sign of Sylvia. I sat on the log where I had last seen her, and waited, studying the shore where the boat had pulled up and the scuffmarks Sylvia had made in the sand. I added a few of my own. After quite a long time - half an hour or so, I thought, I began to get worried. I got up and prowled around the lake shore. There was nothing to see. I wandered into the woods a little, but never out of sight of the shore. Still, no sign. I called her name several times over. Really worried by now, I returned to the log. I did not know what to do. I thought, over and over again, 
"Sylvia, where are you?"  
I did not expect an answer. For a long time I was not disappointed. There was no trace of her, except the scuffmarks in the sand - no dropped jewellery or ribbon, no button pulled from her coat. But there came a tiny silver thread of voice in my head, calling my name. 
"Sylvia?" I sent back. 
The voice came, stronger. "Get to Grandmother's. Get help." 
"Where are you?" I asked again.
"Keep away from the log. I'm back sometime on the surface. I've been captured by some idiot who calls himself a magician. Get help!" 
I swore out loud, long and fluently. I wondered how I was going to get back to Sylvia's grandmother's when I didn't know the way. Then I remembered I could translocate. So I did. 
I ended up back in the study, the room I had the clearest recollection of. It was empty when I arrived. I went looking for someone. No one was in the library, nor in any of the rooms that I knew they used regularly. I hunted and hunted for someone. I couldn't even find any of the servants. It was as if the whole place was abandoned. Even the grounds were deserted. I was so relieved when I heard a car approaching. I ran to the yard, just as James Anthony drove in. His face lit up as he got out. 
"Rebekah! You're back!" he exclaimed. But his smile died when he saw my face. "What's wrong? Did you get the apple?"
I nodded, and choked out, "I've lost Sylvia. And I can't find anyone here."
"What happened?" he asked. I told him. His expression grew less and less happy.  
We went back to the library. "What gifts do you have, and how strong are they?" he asked.
"Fairy sight, and I can translocate. That's all I know I can do. Sylvia thinks I must be quite strong, but I wouldn't know," I replied.
"Hmmm," he said, and brooded. Suddenly he asked me, "How did you know what happened to Sylvia?"
"She told me," I said. "In my thoughts." 
He looked relieved. "That just might be our trump card," he said. "Can you contact her again? Find out some more details?"
I tried. When I got through to her she told me she was in the seventeenth century, somewhere near, she thought. The man who caught her had imprisoned her within a crystal ball. His name was Alan Balfour. James Anthony swore when I told him. Then he asked her to tell us details of the room- what the man looked like, were there any servants, details of their dress, and so on. He thought a bit more, and then he pulled an assortment of ancient-looking books off the shelves and sifted through them. I tried to help, but there were very few I could read. I went to the kitchen and made tea, more to feel useful than because either of us really wanted it. By the time I took it back to the library James Anthony had found what he was looking for. He gave me a brief Perry smile and took a cup of tea while he read. 
 I wondered where everyone was, because he did not seem perturbed that they were missing.  I asked him, when he was between books.
"Oh, it's All Saints Day. They're all at church. Will be for ages. I was meant to join them, but one of the dogs was sick just before I was due to leave. I was going to catch them up. It was only luck that I met you. I just drove past to see if you were back yet. How do you feel about a little play-acting?" The abrupt change of subject surprised me. "I think I've sorted out who and where this character is - he's pretty well documented in these books. He has a daughter about your age. I'm going to be the avenging fairy king, all wrath and power. Will you be the daughter? I might have to threaten you a bit. But with luck we'll make his day for him and he'll let Sylvia go."
I nodded in agreement. James Anthony worked a glamour over me - I felt the pins-and needles feeling, but once again I didn't see any change. I still wore trousers and boots as far as I was concerned. Then he worked one on himself. I could sort of see it. He emanated light and his face took on a terrifying aspect. I certainly didn't want to be on the wrong side of him. 
He smiled, a little nervously, and said, "Ready?" 
I nodded again. He held out his hand. I took it, and together we stepped inside the pentagon that was etched on the study floor. He put his arm about my waist and began to sing. I felt the electric fence feeling, and we were in a narrow lane, between several tall brown buildings. The lane was incredibly dirty, with bits of rubbish - mostly decaying vegetables and bones, lying all over it. A tiny stream, muddy brown and stinking, trickled down a channel in the middle of it. I shuddered to think what was in it. James Anthony wrinkled his nose, and grimaced at me. 
"Not the most salubrious of settings," he said. We crept to the end of the lane, which opened into a wide, busy market square. "I think that's Balfour's house over there." He indicated a tall building across the square.
 As we watched, a drab-looking girl, about my age, came out of the door. She carried a large basket. A prickling sensation told me that James Anthony was adjusting my appearance. 
"Is that what I look like?" I asked, as I watched her walk towards the market stalls. She was thin, compared to other women around, and small and pinched-looking. Her dull brown clothes did nothing for her. 
"Yes. Sorry," he replied. Soon the crowd of buyers and sellers swallowed her up. 
James Anthony said, "We've probably got about half an hour. Let's visit Mr Alan Balfour, Wizard." He seized me about the waist, and sang softly.
After a melodramatic flash we stood in a wretched room, in front of a little ferret-faced man. He was the dirtiest person I've ever laid eyes on. People who look like him at home sleep on the streets. He wore a filthy robe that reached to the ground. It was hard to tell just what shade of dingy it was - possibly grey, possibly some sort of beige. I thought he probably wasn't all that old, but he had that sort of grey, aged look that comes from not enough of the right kinds of food. His hair was shoulder length, stringy and fairish-grey. And he had fanatical eyes. I looked into them briefly and he frightened me. I hoped James Anthony's ploy would work, but I wondered. I said the room was wretched. Obviously a laboratory or workshop of some kind, it was the kind of organised chaos of someone who knows exactly where everything is. Bottles and jars were shoved everywhere, and strange implements and a globe and books and scrolls. I almost expected a stuffed crocodile hanging from the ceiling. There wasn't, but the other stuff lying around was just as weird. There were all kinds of shapes and patterns drawn on the floor, and a table covered in books and paper, half-eaten meals. In the middle of the table sat a large crystal globe, about twenty cenitmetres across, with Sylvia inside it. 
The ferret man - Alan Balfour - rubbed his hands with glee when he saw James Anthony, and his fanatic eyes lit up. He didn't seem to see me. He fawned. He called James Anthony "Your Majesty," and was truly overwhelmed (he said) that he had so great a fairy personage in his room. James Anthony looked down his nose at him, and demanded, 
"Release my wife." Alan Balfour glanced sideways at Sylvia and lied.
He said, "Truly, Your Majesty, I don't know what you mean. I do not have your wife here. How, then, can I release her?" 
James Anthony indicated the crystal globe. "Release my wife," he repeated. 
The man refused, saying, "I cannot do that, Your Majesty.  I need her for my studies. I need her to attract others, like she attracted you." 
James Anthony became truly terrifying. He expanded physically. His anger shot out of him like electricity. And suddenly he grabbed me and pushed me in front of him. James Balfour"s grey face went greyer. 
"Nessie," he whispered.
"Release my wife, or I take your daughter," and he pulled back my head by my hair. It hurt a bit, but he was not as rough as it looked. Balfour began to dither. Then the knife came out - long, white and shiny. And it looked very, very sharp. I did not need to act this bit - that knife petrified me. James Anthony pressed its tip to my throat. Balfour picked up the globe. I saw Sylvia banging helplessly against the glass, tossed around by Balfour. The knife pressed harder, and I felt a trickle down my neck. I didn't know if it was blood or sweat. But it was enough for Balfour. He threw the globe at James Anthony's feet. The glass shattered, and Sylvia fell out, full-sized and full-length on the floor. She picked herself up painfully, and James Anthony took the knife away from my throat. He put his arms around us both and whispered, 
"Back home." I shut my eyes and visualised it. 
There was an almighty bang and a flash, and we were back in the study. For a long moment the three of us stood, arms entwined about each other. Then I broke away, and went over to the mirror. A slight trickle of blood ran from a nick in my neck. I took out a tissue and wiped it away. 
Sylvia had some quite bad cuts from the crystal ball, and she was bruised all over. James Balfour obviously did not think fairies were sentient beings. She took herself off to bed, and James Anthony and I were left in the study to wait for her grandmothers to get back. He sat and flicked through a book for a while, then handed it to me.
"See, we did make old Balfour's day for him. Read this." 
I read the following account:

On the day of All Hallows, in the Yeare of Oure Lord 1635, I did worke the Magick to conjure a Faerie, and I did worke it successfully. I had acquyred a fine large globe of Venetian Glasse. It cost me £15. I dyd steep it in the blood of an white Henne three days. Then I dyd wash it and fumigate it with Holye Aqua. I peeld three Rods of Hazel until they were white and fayre, then did I write the Faieres" name, Sylvie, a Seelye , for I did not wish to have dealings with an Unseelye Fayre, on them thrice each. I did wait until three of the clock, when the planets were most favourable, then did I call her name three times. She being unbound, was compelled to come and was bound to my Glasse. She was a wilde Mayd, with black locks. She wore outlandish Garb - a short coat of green and hose like a man"s. She was most fierce, and did abuse me most vilely. I could not understand much of her Speeche. I hopd she would attract other Feyries to my study. She was with me two dayes when my hope was rewarded, but at great Cost. 
Agnes went to Market. She was gone but a Quarter of an Houre when suddenly theyre was a blinding Flash of Lyght. The King of the Faeries did appeare in my Room. He was a great and Terrible Syght, Darke and Sterne of Visage. He was dressed in a green Doublet and Cloake. He wore a crown of silver and Diamondes in his black Locks. I was much astonished and amazed. Never before had my Magicke worked so well. The King of the Faeries did demand that I released the Mayd, his Wyfe. I sayd I could not. I neede her for my Worke. He did wax Wrathful, and made my Beloved Agnes appeare. She, puir girl, was much affrighted. When he threatened to harm her I released the Feyrie mayd to him. He did Vanish in an instant, taking with him the Mayd and my puir Agnes. I was sore distressed, until Agnes returned to the Hous, at about One of the Clock. She remembered naught of her encounter with the Fayrie King, although I questioned her most closely about it. I have never again succeeded in conjuring a Fayrie. The King broke my Glasse, and I have not yet the means to replace it. 

I looked up and said, "That was unfair. You didn't break his glass; he did it himself. And no wonder poor Agnes didn't remember any of it." 
James Anthony gave me a sort of half smile. "I bet he died happy, though. He got a lot further than most of his fellows. It was just incredible, though, that he stumbled on the name of a real fairy and she happened to be in reach." 


Chapter 17
I wanted to go home. I had retrieved the earrings and they were back with their rightful owners. I had the apple in my pocket. I wanted life to get back to normal. But I had to wait for Sylvia to recover - her injuries were worse than James Anthony or I realised. Her grandmothers sang spells over her, so she slept for two days. James Anthony went home again. I kicked my heels in absolute frustration for a day. I was left pretty much on my own. I looked at a few of the books in the study, but they were difficult to read, in strange typefaces and odd language. I flicked through a few magazines, but wasn't really in the mood for them. I watched a couple of DVDs. There weren't any television channels. The maids fussed over me night and morning, and irritated me beyond belief. It was worse than our stay with the Selkies.
On day two, however, things got a lot more lively. The maids lit the fire in my bedroom, brought me breakfast in bed and ran my bath, all as usual. They knew better now than to try and bath me. I obediently let them help me into my clothes. Today's ones were quite formal - a long-sleeved dark dress and shiny black court shoes. I went down to the study. The Seeley aunt was there, waiting for me. I don't think  I'd actually spoken to her before. 
She said, "We need you today, Rebekah. My mother and Queen Isabel will begin to undo the spell that is upon you and Emma. As part of it you will have to face Jenny Fane. Do you think you are up to it?"
"I'm up to anything at the moment that will get me home quicker," I said. 
She smiled. "I hope it will not be too much of an ordeal for you. You will have supporters - one of the Nevins and one of the Perrys, since they are the families laying charges against her." To be honest, the thought of facing Jenny filled me with dread. Her coldness, her absolute lack of any kind of feeling, upset me. I felt my cold lump again, misery and dread, washed over by an almost paralysing fear. I was far more afraid of Jenny than I was of Murdo Walters or the Land of the Dead, or anything else I had come across.  
After half an hour or so the Nevin aunt came and summoned us. I felt strangely comforted, and safe, walking between the two aunts, even though none of us spoke. They took me into a large room - a hall, for want of a better word. It reminded me of the Selkie king's throne room. The Nevin grandmother, Queen Isabel, sat on a raised platform at one end. Alongside her sat Sylvia's Seeley grandmother, on her left, and Anne Perry on her right. All three were dressed very grandly, in long dresses and velvet robes. The two queens wore crowns, and Anne Perry wore a coronet or tiara or something. I was a little surprised that she was not a queen as well. Various important-looking people, both male and female, sat at a lower level, across the end of the hall. On the left-hand side of the hall were three empty seats, and there were two more on the right. James Anthony occupied a third. He got to his feet as we came in. The aunts led me over to sit beside him. The Nevin aunt took the third seat, and the Seeley aunt went and sat up the front. James Anthony and the aunt bowed to the queens, and I did, too. I don't think I could have faced up to that intimidating crowd without them sitting next to me.
Queen Isabel spoke to a man who was standing behind her throne. He nodded, and communicated an instruction to a guard, who disappeared through a side door. Soon he returned, leading three people to the empty chairs. First, the blonde girl who barricaded the door behind me. Then came Jenny, and finally a red-haired girl who was also in the room that night. They were still dressed in their party finery, although it looked a little bedraggled by now. I wondered how much time had passed for them since I had last seen them. Seeing Jenny made my scalp crawl, and I put my hand in my pocket and closed my fingers over the apple. It felt reassuringly solid. She looked across at me and coldly turned away. 
Queen Isabel opened the trial, because that's what it was. 
She began by saying, "I have called this convocation because serious allegations of interference in the life of surface dwellers have been made against Burd Jenny Fane of Rade Fane, Ayr. One of the injured parties, Rebekah McIver, is present, representing both herself and the other injured party Emma Perry. Rebekah McIver, will you tell the Court of your relationship with the other injured party?"
The aunt indicated I should stand. I did so, my knees shaking. 
"Emma Perry is my first cousin, the daughter of my father's brother," I replied. 
Queen Isabel then said, "I have an interest in this case, because Emma Perry is married to my grandson. I hereby vacate the chair, and ask Queen Moirrey of the Isle of Man to take my place. Is there any objection?" No one objected, and the two queens changed places.   
Queen Moirrey spoke. "Who lays charges, and what are they?"
Anne Perry stepped forward. "I, Lady Anne Perry of Rade Perry, represent my aunt, Lady Jane Perry, queen of Rade Perry, Cornwall. I allege that Burd Jenny Fane has acted to cause offence to Rade Perry by placing an enchantment upon Emma Perry, the wife of my great-great-nephew. I allege, too, that she did interfere in the life of surface dwellers. The aforesaid Emma Perry is human and a surface-dweller. The enchantment placed upon her has also affected her cousin, Rebekah McIver, either wittingly or unwittingly. Our law forbids enchantments that ensnare others besides the intended victim. It also forbids enchantments upon those who are protected by the Folk, and Emma Perry is under the protection of Rade Perry on account of services rendered to us. These are my charges." She sat down again.
Queen Isabel then rose to her feet. "I allege that Burd Jenny Fane has caused offence to Rade Nevin because she did place an enchantment upon Emma Perry, the wife of my grandson, a prince of Rade Nevin. I allege that she did interfere in the life of surface dwellers because the aforesaid Emma Perry is human and a surface dweller. Emma Perry is under the protection of Rade Nevin because of the bond of marriage. Furthermore the enchantment has affected another surface dweller, which is contrary to our law. I also allege that Burd Jenny Fane did, wittingly or unwittingly cause Rebekah McIver to be affected by the enchantment placed upon Emma Perry. She did also actively try to prevent Rebekah McIver from lawfully seeking a means to lift the enchantment by attempting to detain her against her will. This also is contrary to our law. I allege further offence to Rade Nevin because the alleged detention took place under my own roof, when Rebekah McIver was a guest and therefore under the protection of Rade Nevin."
Queen Moirrey turned to the people ranged along the front of the hall. "You have all heard the charges?"  The various people nodded assent. She continued, "Have you any questions to ask of those who lay the charges?"
A tall blond man got lazily to his feet. He bowed to each of the queens and Anne Perry in turn. He said, "Lady Anne, you say Emma Perry is under your protection because of services rendered. I assumed it was because of the bond of marriage. Can you explain to us the importance this has on the case?"
Lady Anne, as I now realised she was, stood up again. "Twelve years ago my great-nephew Lord Robert Perry, who is Heir Second to our queen, Lady Jane Perry, was in grave peril from some of the Folk who had dealings with the Sluagh and wished to use his gifts for their own ends. Emma's brother rescued him, and Emma, along with Robert's children, assisted him in effecting that rescue. It was not without danger to her. She has been under the protection of Rade Perry since then, as a mark of our gratitude to her." 
The man bowed again. "Thank you, Lady Anne," he said, and sat down again. 
No one else had any more questions.
Queen Moirrey said, "I call upon Rebekah McIver to relate to the Court the details of the enchantment laid upon herself and Emma Perry." 
I stood and told my story. After I finished the row of people up the front questioned me over and over again about details.
"Exactly how long ago was it that Jenny Fane approached you with the earrings?" asked a short dark man in an incredibly fancy waistcoat. 
"It was two or three weeks before Emma's and Finn's wedding, and they've been married for two years now."
"So it was definitely less than twelve years ago?" he asked.
"Yes."
A woman with red hair asked, "Did you have any idea that Emma was under the protection of the Folk?"
"No. I did not know anything about them."
Another short dark man, more plainly dressed than the first, asked, "How did you come to find out about us?" 
"My cousin Calum, that's Emma's brother, found out I had some fairy sight. He told the Perrys. They told me, when it was obvious that I had to come here." 
"How did this cousin of yours find out about your gift?" the man continued.
"He has a glamour on his hand, and I cannot see it." A ripple of interest ran across the front of the room.
"Did your cousins ever speak to you about the Folk?" asked the tall, fair-haired man.
"No. Emma never did. Calum didn't until Finn told him he could. By then he knew about the curse, and knew I was affected by it. All he ever told me was that he visited here, and that was only because I asked him outright."
"So he did not tell you anything of our ways?" asked a brown man.
"No. It was the Perrys and Rev Seeley who did that. And then only when they knew I had to come to undo the spell. Calum doesn't talk much to anyone. He also warned me that you can't speak of the Folk except to people who know them." 
The brown man turned to Queen Moirrey. "Rev Seeley?" he queried. 
Queen Isabel got up. "He is my son," she answered. "He is married to Queen Moirrey's eldest daughter, but his association with this case is as a Nevin, as the uncle of my grandson Finn Perry." 
The brown man shook his head a little dubiously, but he did not ask any more questions. 
I felt absolutely drained by the time they finished with me and let me sit down. The Nevin aunt smiled encouragingly and James Anthony whispered "Well done."
Jenny Fane was made to stand. They started on her. 
Queen Moirrey said, "Burd Jenny Fane, how do you answer the charges brought against you? Do you deny them?"
"No," she said
"When you set out to put an enchantment upon Emma Perry did you know she was under the protection of the Perry Rade?"
"No, I did not."
"Could you have found out?"
"Yes."
"And you did not bother to check?"
"No."
"Did you intend anyone else to be caught in this enchantment?"
"No."
"Can you explain why Rebekah McIver was caught up in it?"
"I used a charm that worked only on a mortal who had some magical ability. I knew Emma Perry did. I gave the earrings that contained the charm to Rebekah. I intended to give them to her sister, but I did not know that Rebekah had a gift, and she was on the spot at the time."
"Why did you put an enchantment on Emma Perry?"
"It was supposed to stop her marrying Finn Perry. When she put the earrings on they would have brought her straight to this part of the Realm, to Bhaltair mac Murchadh. I had no use for her; I just wanted her out of the way."
"Why did you want to stop her marrying Finn Perry?"
"Finn Perry is the most brilliant strategist of his generation. Rade Fane is short on strategists, particularly among our aristocracy. I intended to marry him myself."
"Did he know this?"
"No. I've never met him."
"Could you not have found another strategist?"
Jenny shrugged. "Why? He's the best."
Queen Moirrey carried on. "The enchantment seemed to have two parts. Once the first part failed, and Emma married Finn, what happened then?" 
"If ever she had a child it would kill her, slowly."
"And then you would marry Finn?"
"Yes."
"And if she never had a child?"
"I would have found some other way of getting her out of the way. Probably with Bhaltair mac Murchadh's help. He seems very interested in her."
I shuddered at her cold-bloodedness. Queen Moirrey then asked her why and how she detained me. 
"She was getting too successful. I met her in the hall, and put a calling spell on her, so she would come to me. She was already affected by one of my spells, so she wouldn't notice another one."
"You realise all people have a right to try to undo enchantments that affect them without interference?"
"Yes."
"Yet you tried to stop her?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"So Emma would die. Once she died the rest of the enchantment would gradually wear off."
"How long would that take?"
Jenny shrugged again. "I don't know. Forty or fifty years, maybe."
"You realise mortal life spans are much shorter than ours?"
"Yes."
"Does it not bother you that this young woman, innocently caught up in your enchantment, should suffer from it for most of her life?"
"No."
Queen Moirrey asked the Court if anyone had any questions for Jenny. There were a few. When the questions finished, guards led Jenny and her supporters away. 
James Anthony and the Nevin aunt took me into a little room off the side of the hall. Someone had put food and drink there. We had lunch, and then sat and waited.  The Nevin aunt said to James Anthony, "History repeats itself."
"So it seems," he replied. "And the poor McIvers get dragged into it each time."
"I don't understand her," I said. "She just talks about Emma as if she is a thing. Doesn't she care about other people and about how they feel?"
"No. She doesn't," James Anthony said slowly. "Unfortunately, Rebekah, she's more normal among the Folk than the ones you know. Most Folk have nothing to do with humans. They don't understand them and they don't think or feel like them. And contact between our peoples has grown less frequent over the years. How many mortals do you know who believe in fairies?"
"That's easy," I laughed. "Three - Calum, Emma and Granddad. Oh, and Andrew's mother."
"Exactly," said the Nevin aunt. "And it's not much different here. That's not quite right - we know that humans exist. I'm not putting this very well." She paused, and laughed at herself. "A surprising number of Folk live on the surface, but they are hard for humans to find. But most Folk never visit it and they never have anything to do with humans. We need to live among humans to learn humanity, to learn compassion and feeling. Jenny Fane has never lived on the surface."
"That's why so many of our important families live there, dividing their time between here and the surface," James Anthony added. "It's an expensive way to live, and only the truly wealthy can afford to do it. Even those who have lived there lose their ability to feel if they spend too much time here. You haven't met my Aunt Jane. She's the Queen of the Perry Rade, and she's absolutely terrifying and almost totally unfeeling. She has to concentrate quite hard to do it, simply because she hasn't had contact with the surface for generations. She leaves that to Aunt Anne and my mother."
"Oh," I said. "I hadn't actually noticed it, because Robin is always - no, usually - so outgoing and friendly and he's the one I know best. Sylvia's like that too, though she can be quite callous when she wants." I thought of the way she discussed marrying James Anthony. I wondered if he knew what she had in mind yet. I continued, "Finn just seems really reserved to me, and then Calum, who's human, is quite like him anyway."
"But it upset you when you watched Robin in Rigoletto, didn't it?" James Anthony asked. I nodded. 
"Robin did that as pure fairy, completely detached from his emotional side. It was effective, especially because he's so young and good-looking, but it is not pleasant, at least not to human sensibilities."
I thought about this. Maybe the Selkie king's treatment of us was actually very welcoming, by Realms standards. Sylvia didn't seem to think it was anything unusual. My experience of the Realms was really very sheltered. Kind, compassionate people looked after me all along the way. What James Anthony and the Nevin aunt told me stood all my experience on its head. I felt utterly bewildered.
We spent a long time in that little room, talking about nothing in particular, or not talking at all. Finally, someone summoned us back into the hall. We took our seats.  Jenny Fane and her supporters were led back in. The people up the front filed back in.
Queen Moirrey, sitting in throne, addressed them. 
"Lords and Ladies of the People of Peace, Hill Folk and Island Folk, have you considered the charges laid against Burd Jenny Fane of Rade Fane?" The tall, languid, fair man stood up. He seemed to be the spokesman. 
"We have, Your Majesty."
"And are these charges justified?"
"They are, Your Majesty. We determine that Burd Jenny Fane of Ayr is guilty as charged of disregarding our laws of protection, and of recklessness in the use of magic against mortals." I shot a glance across at Jenny. She looked absolutely impassive.
The queen continued, "What sentence have you determined?"
The man said, "We have decided that she should be stripped of her powers until such time as she learns to use them within the bounds of our law. Also that she should be put under the guardianship of one who will ensure that the terms of our sentence are met. She will go and live with Dame Holly of the Inner Realms until such time as we deem her sentence to be fulfilled." Jenny still looked impassive, but her supporters both gasped in horror. 
Queen Moirrey asked, "Dame Holly, do you agree to this?"
A tall, large woman with snowy white hair and twinkly eyes stood and said, in a deep, twinkly kind of voice, "Yes I agree."
Queen Moirrey then asked Queen Isabel and Anne Perry, "Your Majesty, Lady Anne, do you concur with the punishment decided by this Court?"
They both bowed to the people sitting below them, and said, "We concur."
Queen Moirrey said, "I declare this convocation closed." Jenny and her supporters were led away. The queens and Lady Anne Perry filed out, followed by the rest of the personages at the front. The Seeley aunt came and joined us. 
"Well! Dame Holly!" said the Nevin aunt, "That was stiffer than I expected."
"We've had our eye on her for a while," said the Seeley aunt. "She's a troublemaker, and has caused quite a bit of strife between some of the Island folk near Rade Fanes" demesne. We couldn't bring that in, of course, but I think plenty of people knew about it."
James Anthony turned to me. "The next bit is women only," he said. "I have to say good bye now. Blessings on you, Rebekah, and I trust everything works out well for you and for Emma. I am honoured to have met you." 
"Thank you, for everything. And I'm glad I met you, too," I replied. 
He hugged me, gave me one of his brilliant smiles, farewelled the aunts, and was gone.


Chapter 18

The aunts were silent a moment. Then the Nevin aunt said, almost apologetically, 
"We really have to get on to the next stage now." The Seeley aunt grimaced in sympathy. They took me back to the room Sylvia and I had arrived in. A second pentagon had been marked on the floor alongside the permanent one. Jenny and five of the women who had been sitting in the Convocation, as well as the two queens and Anne Perry, the aunts and me made the room rather crowded. They made me stand in the middle of one of the pentagons; Jenny was put in the other one. This time I made a point of watching what went on. It was fascinating.
Tall creamy candles on tall stands lighted the corners of each pentagon. The candles smelt of honey. Beneath each stand stood a woman - five to a pentagon. The ritual began. One woman in each pentagon remained silent but the other eight sang a complicated song. I don't know what the words were. It was enough just to hear it. They danced. Their movements somehow matched the singing. It was a kind of intricate skipping, through, across and around each figure. As they danced they moved their hands as if they were winding thread. Only the two silent women were still, markers around which the others wove their pattern. Every so often I felt as if something was pulled from me. Sometimes it was just a twinge, other times I suffered real pain. I glanced across at Jenny. It looked as if she was having a more distressing time than I was. She often grimaced as if she was being hurt. The dancing and singing went on and on. The dancers became a blur of blue and green and eventually merged into a soft turquoise ribbon that wound around us in an endless knot. The candles burned lower and lower. I drifted into some kind of semi-consciousness. Periodically a tug on some part of my mind or body jerked me back to the present. The singing became merely the noise that was always there. It went on and the candles burned lower and I became less and less aware of everything. 
Suddenly the candles went out. Instantly the music and the movement ceased. In the dark two shapes glowed. Queen Isabel held in her hands a golden ball of what looked like thread. And Anne Perry held a black one. It truly did glow. It lit her face like Dracula in an old horror movie. All the shadows were wrong and exaggerated. She looked terrible, in the sense of inspiring terror. She lowered it, and cupped her hands over it, blocking off as much of its light as she could. The glow from the golden ball grew stronger. In its light I saw Jenny huddled in a ball in the middle of her pentagon. The women around her had all stepped inside from their corners, protectively. I saw, without thinking anything of it, that each woman around her had somehow managed to get back to her starting point. So had mine. I don't know how they did it. Queen Isabel stepped away from her corner, holding the golden ball carefully. Dame Holly reached out for it. Queen Isabel passed it over carefully. The two of them held it and sang a soft crooning song over it, then Queen Isabel took her hands away. It glowed brighter for a moment and gradually vanished into Dame Holly's hands. She seemed to absorb it. It was really strange. She bowed to Queen Isabel and to each woman in my pentagon. Going back to her place, she reached out her hands for the women on either side of her. They all five joined hands around Jenny and began another song. I could pick up these words; they were the translocation spell, or something very similar. Soon they all disappeared, taking Jenny with them.  
The room seemed curiously empty. Tiredness suddenly washed over me. I wanted my bed, to fall into it and sleep for days. But my hostesses were not finished with me yet. The aunts whisked me upstairs and ordered me to take a bath. To my indignation they insisted on accompanying me in the bathroom, and made sure every inch of me was under the water at some point. When I was immersed to their satisfaction and dried they dressed me in a plain white dress that reached down to the ground. I was still wearing the pearl cross Anne Perry told me to wear, and they made me leave it on. They fetched the apple from Annwn out of my jacket pocket and insisted I took it. Fortunately the white dress had a pocket. Then downstairs again and back to the centre of the pentagon. 
The three older women all looked grave, and I thought Anne Perry had aged incredibly. I couldn't see the black ball of thread anywhere. 
Queen Moirrey said, "Rebekah, there is a crisis. We have to send you back, to fetch Emma. If we delay any longer we will lose her altogether. I'm sorry, but you have to do this now. We cannot destroy the black thread until you have fetched her." 
I nodded mutely. Queen Isabel began the singing. I was interested to note it was Queen Moirrey and the Nevin aunt who did not sing, the sort of useless detail you notice when you don't want to face up to what you know you really should be thinking.
I found myself inside a double pentagon, in the centre of a familiar braid of sound, five women on the inside, five men on the outside. I was home. But I was not home yet. Finn looked almost spent, a look of intense concentration on his face. He leant on Robin, Robin's arm around his shoulders. Robin's eyes followed me as I walked through and out of the pentagons, but he did not smile or stop singing. I walked up the stairs and into the living room. Sam sprawled in front of the TV, killing aliens or something. The babies and the Climber slept peacefully. Calum sat on the floor, leaning against the sofa, reading. 
He looked up as I walked in and said, "Reb?" but his smile faded and he looked puzzled, as if he couldn't see me. I realised I had missed Emma, but not by much. If I was quick I could still catch her.


Chapter 19
Emma is a very pretty blue, cross between bluebells and forget-me-nots. She was easy to follow. I simply followed the blue trail. It led out through the wall and directly across Highbury and Westhaven to the sea. The full moon made a silver road across the harbour. I had missed the moon and the sun in the Realms. Emma went along that road and I followed her. Always she was just a little bit out of reach. The moon road ran up over the hills on the other side of the harbour. Once she reached the top of the hills Emma just carried on at that altitude. By fixing my eyes on her I could follow, too. She led, I followed for most the night. The rising sun sent a lighter blue wash over the sky. Emma headed downwards, down, down to the sea. Beside the sea she eluded me again, but the blue trail led into a chink in a cliff-face. I thought of the Selkies and their rocky entrances to their cities. I squeezed through the chink, into an ordinary cave. I was alone. The blue that was Emma went deep into the cave. Swallowing hard, I went after her. The darkness got darker and deeper, but always I followed that pretty blue just in front me. 
The blue went around a corner and suddenly I came into an immense cavern. It was not particularly light, but compared to the gloom I had emerged from, seemed quite dazzling. Instead of almost black, it was grey and full of shapes of grey, shadowy people. I felt as if I should recognise these shapes from somewhere else. Their overwhelming feature was their greyness. Emma's blue trail was easy to spot amongst them, for they crowded over it, as if warming themselves at a fire. I kept my eyes firmly fixed on the blue. Then I saw Dad again. I realised where I had seen these shapes before. This time he did not look in my direction. Instead, he pushed and shoved just as much as all the others to get closer to the spot of colour. I felt a little pang of disappointment. I reminded myself Dad had died; Emma hadn't, yet. She was my priority. Resolutely I followed the blue. As I followed her I noticed that some of the faces were repeating. Actually, it was because I saw Dad more than once. The third time I saw him I saw that the faces all round him were exactly the same as the last lot. It was like a giant grey reflection, or like a cheap cartoon where they reuse the same segment of background. Only Emma's blue and I moved in this landscape. The copies of Dad flicked past. I no longer paid them any attention. 
Then they weren't there. There was just me, and the blue wake. Now we sped through a tunnel of grey rock that occasionally gleamed with fine silvery threads. It got narrower and narrower. Just when it reached the point where I thought I couldn't go on, it turned upwards. It was the action of a moment to turn, too, without thought of how I was supposed to do this. Then I was out in the open air, a bright blue sky above me. The ground beneath my bare feet crunched with snow. I shivered in my thin white dress. There was only one direction to take, so I took it, upwards, up a mountain, it seemed. I climbed, and I cried because I could not see Emma any more and I hurt and I felt cold and miserable. My tears froze in trickles down my face and on my eyelashes. The path wound on, on upwards. 
Still weeping, I reached the top. Green grass, spattered with tiny bright flowers, stretched for as far as the eye could see, in all directions. The air was warm. I couldn't see any trace of Emma. Irresolute, I looked around me in all directions. Two men came into view. I felt I should know who they were. As they got closer, I recognised the taller one. Dad. He was his proper colour, and he smiled and looked happy and well. He looked the way I remembered him - the way I wanted to remember him. The other man puzzled me. Dad looked solid. This man was maddeningly familiar, but I couldn't quite pick who he was, and he looked fuzzy around the edges. Dad spoke. The sound of his voice made me cry again, and I ran to hug him. He stepped back. 
"Don't touch me, Reb darling," he said. "I'm here to set you on the right way. But I cannot come with you, and you can't stay with me, you still have too much life left for here."
The other man spoke. "I can go with you a little way."
"Granddad!" I exclaimed. This must have been what he looked like when he was young. "Are you dead too?" 
Granddad smiled. "Not yet. It's not my time. But I've been allowed to help you a little, for the love of you and Emma. And for Calum. He would be distraught if he lost you now." 
"He's always been your favourite," I said through my tears, only half joking. 
Granddad just grinned.
"Goodbye Michael. Next time we meet it will be permanently," he said to Dad.
Dad smiled, a little sadly. "Until then, Dad. Love you, Reb."
Granddad held out his hand to me. I took it. Looking down at our hands I realised I was just as vague and fuzzy as he was. Together we walked in the direction Dad pointed us in. 
The walk across the meadow was a long one. However, I enjoyed it, in spite of my nagging worry about being too late for Emma.  Granddad didn't seem too concerned, and I hoped - I was sure - he was a reliable guide. I don't remember ever having Granddad to myself like that before. Usually there were dozens of cousins competing for his attention. I suspect he and Calum used to sneak off for mutual solitude. We talked as we walked and I learned a lot about my family - things I was too young, too blind or too selfish to see otherwise. 
At the far side of the meadow we came to a river in a deep gorge. We walked along the top of the gorge in silence. My eyes kept wandering over to the deep, swift river, however hard I tried to look at other things. Its dark blue waters swirled and surged minaciously. A bridge came into view. Bridge is the word for it, but it was very narrow. It didn't have a parapet. Fortunately it was level, and looked as if it was in good repair. I had a horrible suspicion I would have to cross it alone. 
Sure enough, once we got to the approach to the bridge Granddad said, 
"I have to leave you here. Your way is across the river. I have to go back before I worry your grandmother too much. Over the bridge, and you'll find guidance. Use your sense - you've got plenty of it, my dear. And when you get back home I'll help you in the battle there." He kissed me on the cheek. I stepped on to the bridge. It was a little wider than it looked. I could walk quite normally, not like a tight-rope walker placing one foot directly in front of the other, but I can't say I enjoyed that crossing. The water rumbled and growled at me, telling me it did not appreciate the intrusion. I gritted my teeth and concentrated on getting across. Finally I made it. With a sigh of relief I stepped off the bridge on to the far bank. I turned and waved to Granddad. He waved back, then he walked off and disappeared into the distance.


Chapter 20 

A forest grew on this side of the river, pine trees or something like them, very close and dark. It had that turpentine smell that pine forests have. An apology for a path, very overgrown with seedlings and full of fallen cones and bits of branch, wound among the trees. They hurt my feet. Twigs scratched my face and arms and caught at my dress. A long, floaty white dress is a stupid thing to go traipsing through forests in. I comforted myself with the thought that it was not my choice. I would have chosen something a bit more practical. As I got deeper into the forest the path actually became clearer and wider. It almost turned into a road. It was as if the difficult beginning was some sort of deterrent. By that time the forest was almost completely dark. Hardly any light came in through the densely-packed branches. 
The mouth of the tunnel just loomed up out of nowhere. As the road did not fork either to the left or the right, I went through the tunnel. It began as rough-hewn rock, grey with fine silver threads glinting in it - like the tunnel I'd been through earlier. The further through I went the more refined it became. The walls became smoother, then polished, and then the grey rock gave way to a pale, marble-like substance. I put out my fingers and it was quite warm to touch. Finally the tunnel opened into a vast open hall, completely empty. The tunnel came in about a quarter of the way down one side. The hall had a double row of pillars marching down each side of it. At one end were huge heavy-looking gates, at the other an archway through which pale yellow light leaked into the hall. I decided to risk making for the light. 
Even though there was no-one in sight I crept from pillar to pillar. It was a bit stupid, really. The silence in the place was eerie. The archway, once I got to it, was bigger than it looked, several metres high, and probably six or eight large men could have walked through it at once. I wondered if it was built for giants. I slid through it, into an even vaster room. It was crowded. I sincerely hoped no-one would notice me. I felt horribly and vulnerably alone. Up until this point in there had always been someone there waiting for me, or to take me places. Sylvia, or Anne Perry, James Anthony or Calum. And Granddad. Now there was just me. I sidled along the wall, away, but not too far from the arch, just to find out where I was and what was going on. It looked like some sort of party. The people - they were mostly pretty tall, but not giants by any stretch of the imagination - stood around in groups, chatting and drinking. Waiters walked among them with trays of canapés and things. The atmosphere was strange, repressed.  The only sound was hushed conversation. There was no music. Everywhere in the Realms where people got together for parties there was music. It reminded me of something.  I'd been to an event like this, but I couldn't put my finger on it. For ages I watched the guests circulating. There seemed to be three main groups - two groups who spoke only to members of their own group and a third that flitted between the two as well as amongst itself. The people themselves were fascinating. Some of them were incredibly beautiful, others equally ugly. But their appearance had no bearing upon who it was in the crowd that they spoke to. They were all dressed richly and in the darkest of colours, highlighted with white or grey. But their skin tones and hair colours were wrong. They had no colour in them. They had tone - dark, light and in-between. The room was pale, with dark accents. I felt as if I'd strayed into a black and white movie. 
Then it hit me where I'd been like this before. The atmosphere was like the function after Dad's funeral - not the one at home, but the official one where all the people from Dad's work stood in one corner, and the people from Mum's work stood in another, and the relatives made up a third group. Mum and Gran, the Uncles and Auntie Chris, Olly, Amanda and I had to go and talk to people from all of them, whether we wanted to or not. And they were uncomfortable when we did, but felt embarrassed about being uncomfortable. There was that same sense of suppressed emotions. I remembered wondering then how people would have reacted if one of us had burst into loud crying.
Almost in parallel with my thoughts a huge cry went up. A group of women, dressed all in green, came through the archway. A vivid slash of sound and colour in the monochromatic scene, they came in pairs, and they wept and wailed loudly, tearing at their hair. I have heard that expression, but never seen it done. It is quite horrifying to watch. They all had long, long hair, and they actually pulled it out by the handful. The handfuls, red, brown, black, blonde and grey, fell to the floor, forming a grotesque carpet. It must have hurt like blazes. The crowd parted for them. The wailers walked the length on the hall, shedding hair as they went. They arranged themselves at the foot of a flight of white stone steps, on top of which were two black thrones. 
A man and a woman entered the hall, and haughtily walked over the trail of hair, up the stairs and seated themselves on the thrones. They were both tall, even by the standards of the people in the room. They had black hair and pale, pale faces. Each wore a silver crown set with black gems. I looked at the woman's face and her long braids and knew  I'd seen her before, on the Isle of Annwn. This time she was dressed in green, like the green of new leaves. The man also wore green, but deeper, a hillside in shadow. The woman was about to speak when the man put his hand on her arm and looked questioningly around the room. 
"I sense the presence of the living," he said. He had a deep, echoey voice, that reverberated around the hall. People looked at each other enquiringly, and drew together, as if avoiding contamination. I shrank back against the wall, willing them not to notice me. But it was useless. A space grew around where I stood, as the tide of beings retreated to safety. 
"Come forward, living creature," the man commanded. There was no question of not doing it. 
As I walked forward the crowd parted in front of me. I sensed that it parted from instinct, though, because I had the impression I was invisible. It was an eerie feeling, being a ghost. I walked over the carpet of hair. It didn't feel of anything, and I expected it to. When Mum cut our hair in the kitchen the clippings felt dry, harsh and slippery under foot. I reached the base of the steps and stepped onto the lowest one. It should have felt smooth and cold in comparison to the hair, but it, too, felt of nothing. 
The man could see me, even if no one else in the room could. His eyes were black and they burned as they looked at me. 
"Why do you seek the kingdom of the Dead?" he asked.
"I came after my cousin," I replied.
"When did your cousin come here?" he demanded.
"Just before I did. I followed her from our home." 
The woman leaned across and whispered something to him. He looked quizzically at me, and turned back to her, while she spoke again.
"Why did you come for your cousin?" the she asked.
"I came to take her home for her husband and daughter. And for her brother," I said. "Who I love," I added under my breath. 
The man clapped his hands. I gasped in awe. Emma walked in. Then another Emma, and another and another. In the end twelve identical Emmas stood in a row on the floor beneath where I stood.
"You may take your cousin home, if you can determine which one is she," the man said. 
"You have only one chance," said the woman.
My heart sank. The cold lump of misery, which had been lurking in the background, suddenly pushed itself forward and filled all the available space inside me. Twelve identical Emmas. There literally was not a hair's difference between them. I slowly walked along the row. Then I walked back again. I didn't have the foggiest notion which one was which. Desperately I began a third inspection of the row. As I paced I fidgeted. My hand went to the cross around my neck, and I clutched it for comfort. All at once I had twelve different Emmas in front of me. There was a red one, and a yellow one, a grey one and a beige one. The blue ones were tricky; there were three of them. I shut my eyes and remembered the pretty blue I followed to get here. My cousin was the ninth Emma. I pulled my other hand out of my pocket, and realised I was holding the little apple from the Land of Annwn. I held it out to her, and she reached out her hand and took it. But she did not acknowledge me in any other way. The man and woman inclined their heads unsmilingly. 
"Well chosen," the woman said.


Chapter 21
Emma and I stood in the snow. My first surge of exhilaration died, as I realised that Emma was not the Emma I expected. I thought she would be as eager to get back as I was, that she would want to be back with Finn and with baby Jane. This Emma was listless. She did not answer when I spoke to her, merely nodding or shaking her head. But she was compliant, docile like a simple child. She held the apple tightly in her hand, and allowed me to take her other one and she would follow wherever I led. But she was so slow. She frustrated me so much. I just wanted to get this over and done with, but Emma dragged me down. I led her down the path to the tunnel. My feet grew numb with the cold, and beyond numb, so that they burned. I shivered in my thin white dress. The cold did not seem to bother Emma at all. I wondered if she felt anything. I wondered if I had made the right choice, after all. 
By the time we reached the tunnel I was weeping with the cold and the pain in my feet. And with frustration. Emma's face was blank, impassive. I wanted to shake her, to shout at her and tell her to feel something. But I didn't. I suspected it would be useless. We entered the tunnel. The grey shapes crowded around us again, stretching out their shadowy hands to the warmth of life. Emma's blue had faded alarmingly since the first time we went through, and sometimes she flickered at bit. I put her ahead of me and guided her from behind. It seemed as if the shadows clustered behind me more thickly than they did around her. This worried me a lot. Just how much life did she have left? Driven by a sudden wave or urgency I made her go faster. I should have done it ages ago. I pushed her through the tunnel and down, down through the floor of the hillside. I expected to come out beside the sea, where we crossed the harbour from Westhaven. But we didn't.
We came out in a wood, beside a lake. I had a horrible sense of déjà vu. I lost Sylvia here; I didn't want to lose Emma, too. She gazed around her, wide-eyed like a tiny child. I took her down the path Sylvia and I had followed, at least I hoped it was that path. I could still see the blue that she was, but it flickered a bit. Pushing her ahead of me, I made her walk as quickly as I could. But our progress was still distressingly slow. Emma tripped, and it was all I could do to stop her from falling headlong. As I grabbed her, I realised she weighed almost nothing. I'm sure Jane weighed more than she did. I wondered if I could translocate with her. I stopped her. Obediently, she stood, and let me try to pick her up. 
I shut my eyes, went over the words in my mind, and willed myself back in Queen Isabel's study. It was a relief to hear women's voices singing around me. I put Emma down carefully. She stood beside me, eyes down, the blue flickering more often now. I shut my eyes. I was exhausted. The singing subsided, voice by voice. The last voice had scarcely died away when I felt an arm around me, solid, warm and reassuring. The Seeley aunt stood beside me, holding me up. 
"Just keep awake for a little while longer," she said. I prised my eyes open. The Nevin aunt held Emma's hand. She had a look of intense concentration on her face, and while I watched the blue flicker became a little steadier. Anne Perry produced the glowing black ball of thread. Queen Moirrey looked at us doubtfully. 
"Do you think they are strong enough?" she asked.
"They have to be," replied Queen Isabel. "If we do not do this now we may never have another chance, and it will be too late for at least one of them." The Nevin aunt began to hum again. I thought she sounded weary. But she crooned a soft, lilting song, very relaxing and comforting. The sound washed over me, taking away some of my tiredness. The effect on Emma was gradual, but she became a little more solid, a little more like her former self. Soon her eyes registered awareness of her surroundings. They widened in amazement, but she seemed to recognise Anne Perry, and Queen Isabel and me. 
We stood on corners, with our respective aunts supporting us. Anne Perry placed the black thread carefully in the middle of the pentagon. She stepped back hastily to her corner. The ball of thread ignited. I waited for them to sing again, but they did not. Instead, they stood, arms outstretched and fingers touching. Emma and I were enclosed within the pentagon, but no longer central. The thread burned. Black smoke twined up from it, a small wisp at first, which gradually became a thick cloud. Black flames coiled and flickered around the ball of thread. They were weird to watch - a lighter sort of shiny, flickering black, a bit like patent leather shoes, or black sequins. But it was still black - there was no way it could be described as grey. The cloud of smoke got thicker and thicker, and became really dense. Oddly, it stayed within the pentagon. It swirled up around us, around Emma and me, until we could no longer see each other, or see our supporters or anything. I suspect it went up over the top of our heads. It was a bit like being fumigated. 
Thick, gluggy smoke choked me, and breathing was like breathing in candy floss. It stuck to the roof of my mouth and to the inside of my nostrils and all down my throat. I felt as if my lungs were on fire. I couldn't get breath and I hurt every time I tried to gasp for air. In the end everything went completely starry, and bright lights exploded in my head.
The voices called me. They called my name and told me things, things that seemed clear and straightforward at the time, but that I could not recollect later. The faces floated in the air in the corner opposite where I lay. Lurid red and yellow, and two dimensional, they moved and changed shape when I shifted my eyes. After an age - weeks or years, I don't know which, the faces went, taking those voices with them. I was glad, because they disturbed me. I heard different voices now, familiar and kindly. They did not talk in words I understood though. I now saw shapes of blue and green and turquoise. They floated gently in front of my eyes. I decided it was time to open my eyes again. The voices became agitated, and one of them went away. Then it came back, bringing a new voice. This one called my name again. The shapes in front of my eyes were blurry but there were new colours - pinkish and brown and black in amongst the blue and green. I tried very hard and made out Anne Perry and the Seeley aunt. I tried to sit up. 
My head hurt, hurt as if it had been banged hard. 
I thought, "We've just got out of the cairn." I put up my hand to rub the bump, but there wasn't one. I managed to get sitting properly. I remembered the smoke. 
 "Emma!" I cried.
"Emma is safe, back where she belongs, and recovering," said Anne Perry. I relaxed. "And as soon as you are up and about again we'll be sending you back home. It shouldn't be long," she continued. 
I was disappointed. I would have liked to stay in the Realms and have a good look around, now that my mission/adventure/task was completed. I sighed. I knew it could not happen, at least not this time. I had exams, if I hadn't already missed them. Mum would be beside herself if I was away any longer than strictly necessary, and how was I going to explain this to her anyway? And there was Calum.
And with this thought I drifted off to sleep. This was real, restful sleep. I awoke, feeling as if I was completely recovered. Until I sat up. My head still hurt, but I managed to get out of bed. I was incredibly weak. I couldn't understand why, when I had slept so well. The maids fussed over me, and helped me dress. For once I needed them.  
I found Sylvia downstairs in the study, quite recovered from her cuts. She leaped up and hugged me fiercely. After coffee and a catch-up session we went back into the main room where magic happened. It was time to go home again. The aunts and grandmothers and Anne Perry hugged us and took up their places on the corners of the pentagon again. The singing began, and then the now-familiar electric fence feeling.


Chapter 22
The faces changed, and the sound of men's voices rounded out the swirl of music around us. One by one the voices dropped out, reversing the order in which they had begun. As soon as Mr Perry stopped singing he moved across and helped Robin hold up Finn. Robin's voice was the last one, and I have never heard a voice sound so exhausted. He still managed a grin, though. Mrs Perry recited a prayer or blessing or something, and we were allowed out of the pentagon. Mrs Seeley hugged Sylvia, and her father and sisters took their turns. The Perrys were preoccupied with Finn, who was well past the point of collapse. I felt a little left out. Andrew smiled at me.
"Welcome back, and well done," he said. That was all.  
After Finn was safely disposed of somewhere - I presume he was put to bed - Robin, lines of strain marking his eyes and mouth, came over to me and hugged me, hard. 
"I'm so glad you're back," he said. Then he grinned roguishly. "Now I don't have to feel guilty any more."
"Yes, you do," I answered, rather surprised at my cheek. "It's good for you."
He looked startled, and then he laughed and hugged me again. "You've learned too much. Go upstairs, if you like."
"Is that alright, I mean, am I still needed down here?"
He shook his head. "There's just a bit of cleaning up to do, now that my brother is seen to. You go on."
"Thanks." He smiled, and turned back to the rest of them.
I felt ridiculously nervous as I went upstairs. I hesitated at the door of the sitting room. The television and Playstation were switched off. The only light in the room came from a large table lamp. Sam was curled up in an armchair, asleep. The babies and the Climber still slept. I looked around for Emma. She was still on the sofa, where I had last seen her. She looked peaceful, younger than before; more like the Emma I knew. Calum sat beneath the lamp, reading. A second book lay on the floor beside him, and an empty mug. He didn't seem to have noticed that the singing had stopped. Or maybe he couldn't hear it up here. I looked at him, a strange mixture of longing and reluctance fighting within me. Part of me wanted to rush over and fling myself at him and hug him. The other part wanted to slip away, in case I had it wrong, in case Robin had it wrong, and he really didn't love me at all. He raised his head and looked towards the door. From the way he did it, I guessed he had been doing this quite regularly. He didn't really expect to see anything, but he hoped, anyway. He saw me, his eyes lit up and he put down his book. Before I had a chance to move or to speak he was up on his feet and half way across the room. He stopped just in front of me, hesitating. Neither of us moved - I didn't know what to do, and I don't think he did, either.
One of the babies began to cry. Calum looked desperately at me, then at the baby. The baby obviously wasn't going to stop, so he went and picked it up. I stepped back out of the doorway and let him through. Somehow the baby made things easier. 
Calum said, "I'm so glad you're back." 
I followed him into the kitchen. I looked around me, amazed. I remembered this room, although I had never been in it before. It was the room where I had seen Calum, the room with the glass ceiling and the tree silhouetted in the moonlight. I perched on a barstool at the breakfast bar, and Calum handed me the baby while he got a bottle out of the fridge. He took the top off it, and heated it in the microwave. I held this thing awkwardly. I was not used to babies, and it made a lot of noise for such a small person. The microwave beeped. Calum took the bottle out, put the top back on and shook it. Then he tested the temperature on his wrist. Satisfied, he came and sat on the other barstool. He pushed the bottle over towards me. 
"Do you want to feed him?" he asked.
"No," I said hastily, and thrust the baby in Calum's direction. He laughed, and took the squalling bundle from me. He held the bottle in front of the baby, who dived for it and latched on to it with astonishing ferocity. We sat in silence, watching young Robert Greenhough feeding. By the time he finished the bottle he could hardly keep his eyes open. Calum changed his nappy, and put him back in his bed. 
Then it was Jane's turn, and we went through the whole performance again. After he had put her back to bed Calum rubbed his eyes. The black smudges under his eyes were darker and deeper than they had been. 
"How many times have you done this?" I asked.
"Three tonight."
"What time is it? And what day?"
Calum looked at his watch. "Half past five. It's Saturday morning. You left eleven and a half hours ago." I didn't believe him. I looked around the kitchen for a clock. There was the one on the microwave, and one on the oven but neither of them said 5:30 and they both showed different times, anyway. 
"Which Saturday?"
"19th of October. That should remind me of something, but I can't think what."
I mulled this over. The date rang a vague bell with me, too. Calum filled the kettle and switched it on. None too soon. 
Footsteps thudded up the stairs, and shortly the kitchen filled with people. Fortunately it was a big room. Now I was hugged and kissed, and congratulated. Robin pushed his way through the melee and threw his arms around Calum. He hugged him as hard as he had hugged me. He looked over in my direction. 
"Have you proposed yet?" Calum blushed and thumped him on the arm. "Well hurry up, or I'll do it myself. On my own behalf." Then he started going through the cupboards. "Mum, is there anything to eat? I'm starving." 
That set off a flurry of activity, and in about ten minutes there was breakfast on the table - breakfast for fourteen, because a just-woken Sam appeared, holding the Climber by the hand. The Climber was bright-eyed and ready for a day's action. He let go of Sam and waddled over to Andrew, holding up his arms. Andrew bent down, and picked him up, tossing him into the air and catching him. The Climber squealed with joy. I think it was the first sound  I'd heard him make. 
After breakfast the Seeleys and Andrew and Tania went home to sleep. The Perrys and Calum all disappeared, also to sleep. I went back into the living room with Emma and Jane. I was the only person in the house who was awake. I felt odd, flat and anti-climactic. I switched on the television, curled up in the chair Sam had vacated and watched the Saturday morning cartoons. I thought about ringing Mum, but it was far too early. Emma and Jane slept on. I think I dozed off myself, because I don't remember what I watched. 
At about half past eight Jane woke up. Emma showed no sign of waking. Jane lay and burbled for a while, so I left her, but when she began making insistent noises I picked her up and took her into the kitchen. I tried to remember what Calum had done earlier. I had just retrieved a bottle from the fridge when Finn, sleepy-looking, appeared in the kitchen. He took the bottle and microwaved it, and then took Jane. 
While she drank it, he said, 
"Thank you Rebekah. I can't say how much I mean it, but I am very, very grateful to you." He looked down at his little daughter.
"I'm just glad I could help." I shrugged. 
He gave me one of his uncommon smiles. "Did you find out who was behind it? Was it Bhaltair?"
I looked at him sharply. "You weren't supposed to know he was involved. Robin and Calum tried not to tell you."
"I know, and it was the same with Dad and Andrew and Uncle J. But I'm just tired and I was worried, not stupid. I guessed he had something to do with it. He and Emma and I go back a long way. The first time we took Calum and Emma to the Realms, the time Calum rescued Dad, Bhaltair decided he fancied Emma. I stepped in and told him to back off because she was my lover, which she wasn't. Anyway we played a game for her - which sounds a lot worse than it actually was. It's a way of settling disputes that the Folk use a lot, and have done for generations. Unlike duels, both parties can walk away from it at the end. I won. That should have been the end of it. But it wasn't for Bhaltair. He arranged for me to be beaten up a couple of times, although the second time his real target was Andrew. That's when I got my scar." He shook his head. "I honestly did think he'd been killed in the blast that sent Calum back here. Obviously he wasn't."
"He was involved, but just as an accomplice. And Emma wasn't the main target. You were." I said. "He was supposed to get Emma. The earrings were meant to draw her to him as soon as she put them on. Then she would be out of the way. Then they had a stock that they were going to put in her place. I had to destroy it. The third stage was to stop me getting back, so Emma would die. They almost succeeded."
Finn's face hardened. "I would rather she'd died than go to Bhaltair. Didn't they think I'd try to get her back?"
"I don't think they understood emotions like love at all. What you thought or felt about the matter didn't count. To give her a little credit, she just wanted Emma out of the way. Bhaltair was just convenient. I'm sure if another way had presented itself she would have used it. Then she was going to marry you. That's that. You had no say in the matter." 
He gave a sort of half laugh. "That's how it went. It's true, you know. We males usually just have the choice of yes or no. It depends how humanised you are. I'm guessing that this female has not had much to do with the surface."
"No," I said. Jane spat out her bottle. Finn sat her up, looking at her fondly. He rubbed her back.
"Who is she?" he asked.
"Someone called Jenny Fane." He frowned. "She said she'd never met you," I continued. "But you are the best strategist of your generation and she needs a strategist in her rade, whatever that is."
"It's a sort of a cross between a clan and a kingdom," Finn answered. "What happened to her?" 
"There was a big trial. She was found guilty of using magic recklessly - a bit like dangerous driving I suppose - and they took her powers away until she learned to use them properly, and sent her to live with this big woman, who was frighteningly friendly, called Dame Holly."
"It's a bit more serious than dangerous driving. Dame Holly is a fairly stiff sentence."
"That's what James Anthony and Sylvia's aunt said. They also said history was repeating itself and James Anthony made some comment about the McIvers getting caught up in it again."
"Well," said Finn slowly, "Your family does seem to be rather intertwined with mine. Some ancestor of yours was engaged to a great aunt of some sort of ours. You and Emma both have magical gifts, and so does Calum. We're pretty sure there's fairy blood in the McIvers somewhere. There does seem to be some way that we link up - when Robin made friends with Calum and inadvertently got him involved with us he picked on the one boy out of a hundred and fifty or so in his Form who could help us, who had some sort of sympathy or empathy with us, who it was safe to tell things that we don't want becoming public knowledge. And history does repeat itself. This isn't the first time some ambitious queen of a minor rade has tried to get a Perry male to augment her gifts and improve her position. It has happened to my father. This time it was my turn. It probably won't be the last." Jane let go of a mouthful of milky sick. Finn grimaced and wiped it away. "But it deepens my gratitude to you," he said.
He took Jane away to bath her. I went back to the cartoons. 


Chapter 23
It was all over; I was back with the job done. Calum was here and I was going home again. I expected to feel some sort of exhilaration, some sort of thrill. Now things would be good and I would be happy, if I pretended that Calum wasn't going away. But I felt awful - flat and despondent. I still had the cold lump in my stomach; things were not how I imagined they would be. I heard Jane splashing in the bathroom and Emma breathing peacefully as she slept on the sofa next to me, and I felt completely alone. Calum disappointed me and I was angry with him. I wondered if what he'd said to me - was it only last night? - meant anything at all. A tear ran down my cheek. I let it. Another followed, and then several more. I heard the bathwater going down the drain, and hastily wiped them away, but I suspect Finn noticed them anyway. He left Jane in my care while he went and tidied up the bathroom. Somewhere a door opened and closed again, and I heard Finn talking to someone in the bathroom while Jane chewed my finger. Finn came back, scooped her up and dried and dressed her. It seemed to be such a game, and they both were obviously having fun. Suddenly I missed Dad immensely. A wave of homesickness lapped over my cold lump of revoltingness. While Finn was out packing up Jane's incredible amount of stuff, Emma woke. She smiled but didn't say anything. Finn came back in, bent down and kissed her lightly, and picked up Jane. He met Calum in the doorway. 
"I've remembered what today is," Calum said. He was dressed and looked a little damp about the edges. It must have been him  I'd heard in the bathroom.
"What?" asked Finn.
"Gran's birthday. I still have to get her a present. Will you be at the party?"
Finn looked at Emma and she nodded. "Probably. Is it at Uncle Peter's?"
"Yes. See you there, then?"
"Hope so," Finn grinned happily. He took Jane down to his car.
Calum said, "Coming Reb? You can help me choose something, and then I'll take you home."
I said goodbye to Emma and trudged down the steps after Calum. He was offensively cheerful. I suppose he had reason to be. He's always been close to Emma and it's no fun watching people you love die. But still, it grated. He opened the car door for me. That wasn't chivalry - it was because his car was so old it didn't have central locking. I grunted an acknowledgment and flung myself into the passenger seat. We drove off towards town. I sulked. By the time we got as far as the airport (which isn't very far) I managed to provoke him into talking.
"You okay?" he asked.
"No," I snapped.
"What's wrong?"
"You," I snarled. One of Calum's silences followed. I risked a sideways glance. He stared straight ahead, at the traffic.
"Last night I thought?maybe I got it wrong. I thought you said?you said you loved me. And now it seems I'm just the kid cousin tagging along. You've hardly said a word to me. You hugged Robin, and Sylvia, and you haven't even so much as shaken my hand. I don't know what to think or where I stand." 
I looked out the window so he couldn't see I was nearly in tears again. I hoped my voice sounded angry unsteady, not soppy-girl-about-to-cry unsteady, but I suspect it was the latter. Another silence. 
Then, "Oh, bugger." An even more surreptitious glance told me he was still staring at the traffic. "I'm so sorry, Reb. I haven't done this very well. I didn't - don't mean to upset you. Last night was the longest and foulest of my life. I so wanted to be with you and I couldn't. I knew some of what  You'd be facing and where you were going, and I couldn't help you or do anything for you. All I could think of was how much I love you and how much I missed you and? I do love you Reb, and I care about you and I want you so much?but I wasn't - I'm not entirely sure how you feel about me." 
I felt his tension - I didn't need to see his clenched jaw and knuckles white on the steering wheel. "Sometimes it was just the hope of getting back to be with you that kept me going." I said. I kept looking out the window.
"Last night I was so scared, Reb, scared something awful would happen to you and you wouldn't make it back, or if you did, you'd be so changed and wouldn't want me or anything to do with me. And I'm still scared. I'm frightened of how I feel about you. I don't think I could trust myself if I touched you. I want you that badly. When you turned up this morning it was all I could do not to give in. I spent ten - eleven hours with nothing to do except think about you and miss you and want you?and behind it all the nagging thought that maybe you wouldn't come back. Then you did come back and you looked so tired and as if  you'd been through so much and all I wanted to do was to hold you close and comfort you and?oh, Rebekah, I never want to be without you again. Ever."
I didn't know what to say. I really didn't. This didn't sound like my private cousin Calum, who seldom spoke in more than single sentences.
"I love you," I said quietly. "I just wasn't sure whether you loved me, or if I imagined it. A lot's happened since last night."
"It has." He glanced across at me. I met his gaze for the first time since we'd got into the car. His grip on the steering wheel loosened and he relaxed, a little. "Will you marry me, Reb?"
"When?"
"As soon as possible. Tomorrow if we can manage it."
"Yes." 
He smiled at me and I grinned back. For a moment I felt completely, overwhelmingly happy, and I think he did too.
But then he said, "Now we just have to tell the family. Starting with your mother."
I had not thought about Mum's reaction. I didn't want to, either. The lump, which had gone for a moment, thudded back into place. Calum pulled a sympathetic face. 
"And then mine," he added. Oh dear. I suspected Auntie Louise might well be worse than Mum. I'm not her favourite niece, and she's one of those women who wouldn't think anybody was good enough for her precious boy. And she feuds with people. This would probably cause a rift between Mum and her, and it's the last thing Mum would need. Uncle Dave might be a bit easier, but I knew we couldn't count on it.
We bought Gran's present and loitered outside a jeweller's window. It was a horribly expensive shop - one of the kind where they don't display prices because if you need to know you shouldn't be shopping there, and where all the stones look like they came from the shopping channel - they're so big they couldn't possibly be real. Except now I had seen real ones in plenty, and knew these were, too. I thought of the balls I'd been to in the Realms and involuntarily put my hand up to my throat. To my surprise I discovered I was still wearing the pearl cross.  
"I'd like to get you a ring," Calum said, "but I can't afford it at the moment."
"It's not important."  It wasn't. He was what mattered. 
"Financially I'm not a very good deal," he went on.
I shrugged again. "So?"
He laughed.
As we approached the car park he handed me his phone - mine was still at school - and insisted I rang Mum. I did. She wanted to know where I was, all about the traffic noises in the background, who I was with, how long would I be and so on. Eventually I was able to hang up. I handed the phone back to Calum. As he put it in his pocket he grinned with an odd combination of resignation and wickedness. 
"Straight home, then?" he said.
"'Fraid so," I agreed.
I don't remember the drive from town to home ever being so short. Calum's tenseness returned, and waves of dread washed through me. Calum parked on the street, by the front path. We got my stuff out of the boot and began the all-too-short trek to the front door. We paused on the doorstep.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Yes," I lied. "Are you?" He swallowed and nodded. "Liar," I said, and he grinned. I found my keys and let us in.
Mum was not only up and dressed (this was only twelve o'clock) but she looked as if she had been for hours. I took that as a bad sign. I was right. At first everything was fine. She hugged me, and I was truly glad to see her and to be home. That lasted about quarter of an hour. Olly made a cup of tea while Mum and I went through all the usual stuff - how was I, would I do it again, why did I do it - all the stuff we'd been over and over last week. Calum lurked and listened in. I'm pleased he did. I needed a witness. He answered the occasional question that Mum flung in his direction. I rather hoped he'd wait and I could go to Uncle Peter's with him, and I think that's what he wanted, too. However.
I went off to have a shower and get into something a bit more partyish than my jeans. I was standing in front of my wardrobe with a comb stuck in my as yet uncombed hair while I decided which top to wear. I have a choice of about three decent ones. Olly opened the door.
"You'd better get out there, quick," she said. "Mum's giving Calum hell."
I pulled on the nearest top and raced out to the living room, my hair still in tangles. Olly was exactly right. Mum was in full flight. She does a nice line in invective, does my mother, and she was calling Calum names I didn't think she knew. Calum's face was pale and unhappy, and the smudges under his eyes stood out blackly. Mum caught sight of me when I arrived in the doorway and she turned on me.
"This was all a sick joke, wasn't it? You've been at his flat all week, haven't you?"
I was gobsmacked. 
"Mum! How could you think that?" I gasped. 
"Well, what other explanation is there?" she spat. "Though why you had to go through that elaborate charade is beyond me. You could have left Murdo out of it."
"That I'm telling the truth is the other explanation," I shouted. I was furious. And hurt - incredibly hurt. I didn't expect her to be over the moon - after all I am only sixteen - but this was not the reaction  I'd anticipated. Neither, obviously, had Calum. I stormed back to my room and emptied my bags onto the floor. I ratted through everything, and finally found what I wanted in my blazer pocket. I unscrewed my bus tickets and stamped back into the living room. Olly, the coward, made herself scarce.
"Look!" I shouted, and I shoved the tickets right under Mum's nose. "Four tickets, return, for a five-section trip on the No. 11 bus route. Look at the dates. Why would I have those if I'd been at Calum's? He doesn't live anywhere near the No. 11 route. I wasn't at school on Friday. Olly will tell you that. The school will tell you that. Olly saw me at the bus stop most days."  She pulled them out of my hand and pushed my arm away. She scrutinised the dates on each one. 
"In themselves they don't mean anything. But I'll take your word for it."
I could have hit her. "Why won't you believe me? Believe us?" I asked. "I thought you had a better opinion of Calum, and of me. I baled out because Murdo tried to get into my room - I told you that. It wasn't the first time. Mum, he scared me." By this time I was close to tears, and my mother stood there like some sort of glacier goddess, cold and stony. I knew crying wouldn't make any difference and anyway I despise girls who play on other people's emotions to get their own way. All I wanted was my mother to believe me. That was more important than anything else now. "He'd been groping at me for weeks, Mum. I ran away because I was scared he'd do something worse."
"And ran straight to Calum. Am I supposed to believe that? Where did he pick you up? At the corner?"
"No. At the railway station. I rang him on impulse. We didn't plan anything behind your back."
"And who can back this up?"
"Robin Perry was staying at the flat," I said. 
Mum snorted. So much for Robin. 
"There's Rev. Seeley. I stayed there, for goodness' sake, and you spoke to him on the phone." 
"That could have been anyone. I've never met the man. How do I know it was him, if he exists?" 
"You could have asked James and Kieran. He's at their school," I screamed.  
"Are you pregnant?" she changed tack.
"No."
"Are you worried you might be? Is this why you suddenly want to get married? To cover it up? Because it's a lousy motive."
"No, Mum. I'm a virgin. V-I-R-G-I-N. Do I have to get a doctor's certificate to prove it? Or do you want to check yourself just to make sure the doctor isn't lying to you?" 
She flushed. 
"And it's none of your business whether I am or not; whether I've slept with Calum or not. I haven't, but you won't believe me whatever I say." By now I was furious again and I didn't care what I said. Poor Calum. Still, this wasn't the first time he'd watched Mum and I going at each other. "And you haven't set me much of an example lately." 
That was mean. It hit home, too. She flinched, almost as if I had hit her. I went over and stood with Calum, and put my arm around him, defying her to do anything about it. He responded by putting an arm around my waist and giving me a slight squeeze. Mum's face would have stopped an avalanche in its tracks. When she spoke she was quite reasonable and calm. 
"So why this sudden urge to get married?"
Calum squeezed me again and looked at me. "I realised this week that I love Rebekah very much. As I told you, I'm going to America next month for a couple of years, and I want her to come with me. And I want her to come with your blessing."
"Rebekah has exams next month," said Mum, addressing herself to Calum and speaking as if I wasn't there.
"They'll be over before I leave. She could continue her schooling in America," Calum replied.
"No." Calum's unhappy look deepened. Mum looked from him to me and back at him again. "I don't want Rebekah distracted. These exams are very important. Who else have you told that you want to get married?"
"No-one. I wanted to get your permission first."
Mum looked slightly mollified. "Go to America, let Rebekah finish her schooling and, if you both feel the same way when you come back, you have my permission to get married then."
Calum rubbed his eyes, sighed and said, "All right. But I'm going to tell people we're engaged."
"If you must," said Mum.
"I must. And I want to see her on my birthday, and one other time before I go, aside from the family farewell do. Is that too much of a distraction?" 
"Very well," Mum conceded, and she turned and swept out of the room, film-starry grand exit style.
I saw Calum to the door. I didn't think I'd better push my luck by going with him, although I wanted to. At least that way I would be with him.
"One down, Mum and Dad and then the rest of the whanau to go," he said glumly.
"I thought the horrible stuff was supposed to be over. Isn't life meant to get better now?" 
"That's what I thought, too." He sighed.
I pulled the pearl cross from my pocket. "I've still got this. Can you give it back for me?"
He took it, and gazed at it for a moment. "Yes. Of course. We might get some understanding there," he said with a feeble attempt at a smile. He put it in his pocket, then he reached out and ran his fingers through my still knotty hair. Suddenly he pulled me towards him and he kissed me, hard. I had been kissed before, but never anything like this. All the descriptions I can think of are clichés - there is no way of adequately describing a real lover's kiss. I didn't want it to end. Then just as suddenly he broke away.
"Oh Reb, I love you so much," he said. He turned to go. "See you at Uncle Peter's?" I nodded. He ran down the path and in a moment was gone.
I slammed the door of my room, sat down on the floor and cried. Olly came in, picked up my stuff and put it away.
"Thanks," I sniffled. 
She handed me a tissue. "Mum's pretty upset, too. She's had a ghastly week."
"And I haven't? I wish I had gone with Calum and hadn't come home at all."
"No, you don't," said Olly. She picked up my comb and began working out the tangles in my hair. "That would just give Mum justification for all those horrible things she said to Calum and to you. What you have to do now, and for the next two years, is to be a model daughter. Work hard at school, keep your head down and generally don't get up her nose. She'll get used to the idea eventually. But now she's feeling pretty raw, and that crack about the good example really hurt her."
"Good. It was meant to," I snarled. "Don't you think I was hurt by what she said to me?"
"Of course. I'd be gutted if I was you. But you have to prove her wrong."
"Oh, go away. I hate you. You're so bloody sensible."
She grinned. "Love you too, Reb. Seriously, I'm really glad that it's Calum. He's the sort of guy you deserve. Won't Amanda be ticked off that you're engaged before she is?  Change out of that top. Your eyes and nose are all red and it makes you look worse. Put on the blue one." With that she put away the comb and walked out. I put on the blue top.
The drive out to Uncle Peter's and Auntie Helen's was strained, to put it politely. Olly tactfully sat in the front. Mum barely spoke to me. In fact, she barely spoke at all. I was sure she was still furious, and I didn't feel like being conciliatory or communicative. Calum hadn't arrived when we got there. Auntie Louise and Uncle Dave honed in on Mum. I guessed, judging by the looks, that they weren't too thrilled, either. I wished Gran a happy birthday, went in and said "Hello" to Granddad. He was in the conservatory, watching my cousins playing cricket on the grass. It's too rough to be a lawn, and we're not allowed to play cricket on the real lawn. As he didn't seem to know who I was, I decided to go and play, too. 
"Come and bowl for us, Reb. Alex is useless," called James. James hardly knows one end of a bat from the other. Alex gave him the fingers. 
"You are, you mean," corrected Kieran. "Alex is world-class compared to you." 
Kieran's Amanda's age and last year he was captain of the St Mungo's First XI. I joined them, but I didn't feel much like it. I bowled at bit, and had a turn with the bat and fielded a bit. Then everyone got sick of cricket, some of them, including Olly, went back to the house and some of them went off to the beach. I started down the track to the beach. Half way down there is a convenient outcrop of rocks that you can climb out on and sit on. Uncle Peter keeps the vegetation around it cut back so it gives you a fantastic view of the rocky strip that makes up most of his private beach. There are a couple of little sandy bays, too. I stopped on the rocks and watched Alex and James shoving each other as they scrambled around to one of the bays. The sky was bright blue and cloudless; the sun sparkled on the water. It was an almost perfect day. The beach reminded me of the Selkies and of sitting in Helen's apartment watching the children playing. Tears pricked my eyes. I wished I was back in the Realms and that today hadn't happened. 
Calum caught me wiping my eyes. I hadn't heard him come down the path. He sat down beside me. 
"You okay?" he asked.
"I will be. What about you?"
He looked at me and smiled, sort of. "Mum and Dad went ballistic. Parents have disgusting minds - they said all the same sorts of things as Auntie Sue did, only not quite so loudly. Then they gave me a lecture about all the things that can go wrong as a result of in-breeding. Really cheerful stuff." He pulled a stray blade of grass and twirled it in his fingers. "Then I went and cried on Robin's shoulder, so to speak. At least he's on our side." 
"I don't know if it would have made any difference, but I can't exactly go to Mum and say I've been through this overwhelming, life-changing adventure, and explain to her all about the Murdo Walters thing, and that you are the only person - the only human - who shared it. Life has changed. Forever."
Calum dropped the grass over the edge. "Yes, it has. I don't know if being able to talk about it with people who haven't been would help at all. I suspect they wouldn't understand, even if they did believe you. That's why I want you to come with me - I still do. You'll be so alone. I had Emma, and she'll be there for you, but it won't? she can't put the same time into you as I could, as I want to, because she's busy. She's got her job, and Finn and Jane." He pulled another stalk of grass and began twisting it, although he was not watching what he was doing. "I wish things were different, and that Auntie Sue would think about Correspondence School or something."
"She won't now," I said. "We've got all that we're going to get from her. And on the face of it she is being reasonable. I'll be eighteen in two years. It's not very old really. But two years! It's so long." I felt tearful again; I hoped he didn't notice. 
"Mum and Dad said that you were very young and two years wasn't that long to wait. But they have no idea what it will do to us - to you, here on your own and to me, half a world away. Oh God, I wish I wasn't going."
"I wish you weren't, either. Or that I could come with you. It's so unfair. I wish I was twenty. Olly says I have to be good and work hard and show Mum she was wrong from now on."
"She's right. We'll both have to prove ourselves to her." He sighed, and gave me a rueful look. "Perhaps from that perspective it'll be easier, being away from each other. Then once the two years is up?" He grinned suggestively. I felt myself blush. He laughed, pulled me towards him and kissed me.
"Oi!" sounded from the beach. James, Alex and Matthew stood on the rocks near the path, staring up at us, shouting and pointing. Calum waved cheerfully and repeated the performance. The dinner bell from the house rang. He got up, and held out his hand to me while I scrambled to my feet. 
"I almost forgot," he said and he pulled the pearl cross from his pocket. "This is yours, to keep forever. I was told to get it back to you as soon as I could." He fastened the chain around my neck. 
"Are you two in love or something?" panted Alex. James and Matthew, behind him grinned. They must have run up the path; they got up to us so quickly. 
"Or something," Calum agreed. We followed them up to the house.
The atmosphere in the dining room was peculiar. Mum was still talking with Auntie Louise and Uncle Dave. She scowled at us when we came in hand-in-hand. They were a little pocket of dark, brooding purple in the prevailing apricot lightness of Gran enjoying her party and having all her family around her. Uncle Roger helped Granddad totter through to a chair at the head of the table. Olly made sure Calum and I could sit together and he held my hand under the table. Finn and Emma were down the other end, Emma looking much better but still rather fragile. Auntie Louise caught my eye as she sat down and gave me a look that should have skewered me to my chair. Calum resumed silent mode.
After dinner we always have speeches. A couple of the uncles spoke and then Granddad struggled to his feet. 
"Please, everyone, charge your glasses. I wish to propose a toast." 
 Everyone made sure there was something - wine, water, juice - in a glass in front of him or her. 
"We are gathered here tonight as a family to celebrate my darling Margaret's birthday. She is seventy-eight today. To Margaret."
"To Mum," "To Gran," reiterated around the table and everyone drank Gran's health. But Granddad did not sit down as everyone expected. 
"Oh dear," muttered James, on my left. "I hope he says something sensible."
I knew what he meant. Dearly as we loved Granddad, we all knew he was a little unreliable these days and apt to say the weirdest things. I glanced at Calum. He looked nervous.
Granddad continued. "What you may not know is that sixty years ago today I asked Margaret to be my wife and she did me the honour of saying "Yes.""
A collective sigh of relief from around the table. This was safe. We all knew this.
"I am thrilled and proud to announce that today two of our beloved grandchildren have become engaged."
Calum looked at me in horror. "Did you say anything to him?" he whispered.
"No. Did you?" He shook his head. Mum gave me - us - a filthy look.
"I wish you both every blessing and may you be as happy as your grandmother and I have been. To Calum and Rebekah."
There was a momentary silence.
"To Calum and Rebekah," came the echo, but it was uncertain - polite but disconcerted. 
"Cool," grinned James. "Congratulations." So that was it. Official. We were engaged.
Calum's family farewell party was the night before he left. I wasn't expecting to enjoy it - I would have to share him and I was jealous of what little time we had together. 
Quite late in the evening, once most of the guests who weren't diehard McIver party-goers had gone, he found me and said, "Come with me for a minute." 
He took me to the little room off the garage. He pulled a couple of books off a shelf and reached behind them to fish out a tiny red box. "Here," he said and he put it in my hand.
I opened it. Inside was a beautiful ruby and diamond ring with an intricate gold setting. Rubies are my birthstone. I was dumbfounded, and stared, alternately at him and at the ring. He smiled, took it out of the box and slid it on to my finger. Then he kissed my hand.
"Thank you, it's stunning," I finally said.
"Since we have to wait I wanted to get you a ring. It's become important to me. Robin helped me find it. It's from the Realms." I turned my hand so the stones caught the light. "It's a true lover's knot," he said. "So now you're tied to me."
"As if I wasn't before," I said. "I still want to go with you."
"And I want you to come," he said sadly. "That's why I had to get you the ring. I need to know you have something from me, something tangible."
I wear his ring openly, although at school it usually goes on the chain with the pearl cross. I did pretty well in NCEA Level 1, better than Mum or my teachers expected. I'm now waiting for Level 2 results. I'm in the First XIs for both cricket and hockey. I work hard. Mum and I get on reasonably well. She pretends not to see the ring and I don't talk too much about Calum or about what will happen when he gets back. Every night I mentally thank whoever it was who invented text messaging. I see Emma a bit and Sylvia reasonably often. She proposed to James Anthony, and he accepted, so she's engaged too, and also has to wait until she leaves school. But her parents support her. If Robin is in town he usually makes contact and fills me in on Calum from his viewpoint. Otherwise I don't socialise much at all. But Calum was right. Emma is the only one who really understands what sort of experience it all was. For Sylvia and Robin it was normal. There is less than a year to go now. It's pathetic, but I'm counting the days. 

*****
About the Author

Morag Gray was born in Timaru, New Zealand in 1960. Since then she has divided her time between both major islands, with occasional forays into other parts of the world. She has worked in libraries since she was fifteen, been a qualified librarian since she was 21, and as a child played "Libraries" when normal children played "Doctors and Nurses." She believed, mistakenly, that if she was a librarian she could read all day. Libraries, having dragged her into their clutches, have so far refused to let her go.
She enjoys reading. She loves folk tales and fairy stories, history books and novels that have a fantastic twist. Current favourite authors include, but are not limited to, Patricia McKillip, Diana Wynne Jones, Robin McKinley, Joan Aiken, Juliet Marillier, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, P. G. Wodehouse, G. K. Chesterton and many more.
She is married, has three lovely, grown children, a fine son-in-law and gorgeous grandsons. At present she lives in Invercargill, New Zealand with her husband, Richard, and two very spoilt whippets.

Other Titles by Morag Gray 

The Realms
Novels
The Rule of Nine
More Than a Game
The Patterner
Novelettes
Coils From an Endless Knot
The Proposal

Novels
Beyond the Glass Mountain

Connect with Morag Gray online
Blog: http://thoughtsofafairygodmother.blogspot.com
Twitter: @ZerlinaJane