The Belonging, page 1
For Valerie, my travelling companion.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Prayer of the Wildwood
Join the Grove
About the Author
1
Snake does as required and brings Morghan to me.
It is time for her to see, to see without misunderstanding, why the veil is coming back down.
And what is at stake.
These human ones, they know the veil is shredding and are afraid – and well they should be careful. But they don’t know that they feel fear for the wrong reasons.
It must come down. Things must return to the way they were, long ago. So long ago now, that none of them remember.
Which means that I must make her reach back to me, make them all, her, and the others – you, if you are one of them, reach back to see.
It is time.
She has been here before, flown here on the wings of her Hawk, come to this Isle of Healing where she has danced under Grandmother tree, tied boons to her limbs, and leaned against the warm and ancient stones of the circle here, but she has not seen the extent of this place. Nor its full purpose.
This time, she comes not on wings across the ocean, but Snake has swallowed her, travelling fast and deep, through the ancient tunnels that link all our worlds. Down and down the wide, obsidian steps.
I expect her to be out of breath when she transforms back from Snake, but she is good, my other self, and stands poised, looking at me, her wolf – our wolf – pressed to her side as he always was to mine. Our great protector. Our great reminder.
I turn to lead her, wordless, because she must see for herself.
And I hope she is strong enough to survive the seeing.
We go through the Hall of the Ancestors, and I feel her gaze upon the great stone statues of our gods. I am used to their shadowed gazes and lead her without stopping out into the light of day.
The trees stare down at her, uncurling their twiggy knuckles and she lifts her face to see how high they rise. Her astonishment shimmers in the air but I do not slow. These trees breach the sky and hold up the roof of the world. They are our history keepers and their spirits are tall and old and proud.
It is the view from the clifftop that I want to show my visitor in her modern clothes, a silver oak leaf and acorn on a chain around her neck, along with the egg, of course. She has long claimed that symbol, without being fully aware of its importance. I would marvel that she is me and I am here, but I am used to such things and it has been a very long time since I walked upon the Earth as she does.
Will she be strong enough to see this? To understand what I am showing her? Yes, I am all but sure of it.
Although living with it will be the trial. Because things must not merely be endured, but changed. She must change it. She and her Grove and all the other Groves, and every individual besides who thinks and cares.
It is miraculous that my Grove continues. The one I started all those millennia ago, during the time of the Great Turning.
When the way was lost.
I quit my own brooding thoughts for we are here now, Ravenna of the Grove, Lady of the Forest, Lady of Death, and Morghan Wilde, who does, and must, along with others, with each of you, claim the same titles. Lady of the Wilderness, Lady of Life.
Her gaze has already turned towards what I have brought her to see.
I spread my arms wide. Look, I gesture. Look, and understand.
She looks, the breeze pushing her thick hair back from her face, and I stand while her grey eyes take it all in. She understands in moments. I see it there in her face. The anguish.
But still. Understanding it is not breathing it, living it. Above all, it is not acting upon it. Which is what is required.
She stares across the water and I follow her gaze. Her world is over there, and I can feel the weight of its darkness from here. For it is dark over there. From our viewpoint, the sun does not rise there anymore, and the sky is a torment of thunder and lightning, despite the brilliance of the noonday light here on our Isle.
But there is still hope. It is not too late. We have not left it too late to act. Her world spills forth a glitter of golden lights from the darkness; not however, the lights of a million cities shutting out the shine of the stars, but the lights of a billion good souls. Souls who hope and dream and still, deep inside them, reach for us.
Altogether, it is a criss-crossing map of light and dark, a map of chaos, beautiful and deadly.
There is a sound below us and she drags her gaze away from the sight across the churning ocean to the gentling lap of water at the bottom of our cliff. Her hands are clenched fists. The bow of a boat grinds against the sand of the cove. I watch as she watches, silently, as the people on board are helped to shore, their legs unsteady, eyes wide like those of panicked deer.
Now she turns her gaze to myself, and I can see from the pain in her expression that she understands what I am showing her. The world over there, the lost ones being brought ashore. There is knowledge in her eyes, in the tightening of the skin around them. In the press of her lips together.
And then she surprises me, when I thought I could no longer be so startled. With a quick movement, she steps forward and into myself and I am me and I am her, and she is herself and also me.
I let her look, for what else is there to do? And perhaps looking will sustain her as it sustains the rest of us.
I look with her, for what she sees with new clarity is what I am used to, and although it never dulls, I admit it gives me a quickening of delight to see it through her unfamiliar eyes for this moment.
She turns us from the sight over the sea and looks instead over our land. I know she is seeking for a moment the far reaches of it, and she is right and also wrong. A flash of understanding. Yes, it is an island upon which we stand. The Isle of the Dead. The Isle of Healing, but it has no real borders. The seas surround us, and yet, the trees and meadows are endless. The Summerlands stretch onwards from it.
And all is alive. I feel her gasp at the sudden clarity with which she sees the truth behind everything. The way the very air hums with the web of energy that crosses it in an endless stream of knowledge, of understanding, of information. Life. The web is the lifeblood of all the worlds. It cannot be broken, but it can be forgotten. Not here, but over the sea, in her world.
She shifts my gaze from it and looks at the trees instead, at the stones, the blades of grass, each alive, aware, part of the world.
I hear her sigh at the beauty of it, at the vividness of the colour, of the way the energy permeates everything.
And then she is standing again in front of me, and one hand touches the egg on the chain around her neck with its leaf and acorn. Down below us, on the shore of the cove, the refugees are being given each an egg.
An egg to represent the soul.
I take a breath and look back out over at the far world. I would whisper to you all there, if I could.
I would tell you that there is a web binding us. That you must take the egg of your own soul and crack it wide open.
And reach for us.
2
Minnie shivered, crouched between the low branches of the elder tree, and tried to tuck her cloak tighter around her knees. It was only made of fleece, the cloak, and she wished she’d been able to buy the wool one, like Morghan’s and some of the other’s.
At least her own was black though, like a proper witch’s. And she’d get a wool one soon. Hopefully.
She had a view of the cave from here, and shook her head, wondering what the woman was doing in there. Morghan Wilde. Minnie had made sure to learn the names of everyone she thought was part of the coven or grove or whatever it was.
Morghan Wilde was the priestess, Minnie knew, but what she didn’t know was why she’d gone into the cave, and what was taking her so long in there. Minnie had already seen inside it, on one of her many explorations, but she didn’t know what it was used for. She’d tried to come up with ideas about it, but it was only big enough in there under the heavy old stones to sit and do what? Meditate, she guessed. Or pray. Did witches pray? She wasn’t sure, didn’t think so.
It wasn’t big enough to do magic in, that was for sure. That she knew. And besides, you needed tools for doing magic. An altar – she was setting one up at home, in her bedroom. In the wardrobe, to be exact, so that Tiny wouldn’t mess with it, because of course, Tiny messed with everything. But s
She had a candle in a terrific candlestick she’d found at the junk shop. It was silver, she reckoned. Or maybe just silver plated, but that didn’t matter when you were starting out, did it? Of course, what with being in the wardrobe, she had to bring it out to light it, but she was seriously considering bringing the whole altar out into the bedroom, and just threatening Tiny if she dared touch anything on it.
Her mother would be easy to deal with if she wanted to complain about it. Minnie would just tell her to go mind her own business and she’d scuttle outside to suck on a cigarette the way she always did, pushing her lank hair back from her face and squinting down at the ground.
The candlestick had ivy and grapes twined around it. The guy in the shop had said it was Victorian, which made it really old. It was part of the reason why she’d only been able to afford a fleece cloak, not a woollen one, but Minnie guessed she didn’t really mind, because the candlestick was really cool, and just right.
What else did she have? She comforted herself thinking about her altar while waiting for Morghan to come back out of the cave. It was better than thinking about how her right foot was going numb from the cold and from not moving for like an hour or more. What was Morghan Wilde doing in there?
Minnie shook her head. She’d been watching Morghan on and off for a couple weeks now. Since she’d learnt who she was. In a little while, not this time probably, but maybe next time, she was going to step out from behind the trees and talk to her.
Minnie’s throat went dry.
She was going to ask to join the coven or grove, or whatever it was. She belonged with them, she was going to say. She might just be a beginner witch, but she was a witch all right. She knew it in her bones. Was there such a thing as a bone witch, she wondered? She’d been trying to figure out what sort of witch she wanted to be, but there were too many to choose from. She didn’t fancy being a kitchen witch or whatever. She hated cooking.
She’d tried telling her Gran about being a witch, when her Gran had asked why she was dying her hair black, but her Gran had threatened to totally flip out, and so Minnie had lost her nerve. She guessed she was still in the witch’s closet.
That made her stifle a laugh and think about her altar again.
She needed an athame. That though, she’d have to order online, she reckoned. Even if they could go to Banwell – and they couldn’t because her mum was totally freaked out about the virus – she didn’t think she’d find one there. Not even in the cool junk shop where she’d got the candlestick.
She needed a job so she could save enough money to buy an athame and the other stuff she needed. Like, a scrying mirror. They were cool. She wondered what she’d be able to see in one of those. Someone on Etsy was selling black obsidian ones, and Minnie was almost in a fever of need for one every time she thought of it.
And a chalice. She needed one of those.
Not to mention candles, and essential oils, and like, all the rest of it. You couldn’t be a witch, not really, if you didn’t have the right tools. Everyone needed tools, right? No matter what they were doing.
But she didn’t have a job. Her mum didn’t even have a job anymore; that was why they’d moved to Wellsford eight weeks ago to live with Gran. Minnie would have thought it was really shit, and she had to begin with, especially as her mum and Gran never stopped fighting, but there was one thing about this place that made it okay.
And that was Wilde Grove.
And Morghan Wilde.
Minnie remembered the Halloween bonfires. Samhain bonfires, she corrected herself carefully. It was Samhain, the most powerful date on the witch’s calendar. Morghan – Minnie let herself use the woman’s first name, because soon they’d know each other well, she thought – had been pretty fab up there on the stage. Minnie had taken in every detail of what Morghan had been wearing, the way she looked. She’d had a long red dress on, pretty simple, really, and Minnie had wondered if she ought to take up sewing. Her Gran had an old sewing machine no one was using. It might be cheaper to buy material than something already made. Minnie filed the idea away for later and tried shifting again where she crouched, careful not to make any noise.
She couldn’t help the low groan anyway. Her foot really had gone to sleep and now it was all pins and needles and awful. She gritted her teeth and considered leaving her hiding place and going back home. She could go to Haven for Books instead and lurk there for a while, see if they had anything new.
Maybe if she was real brave, she could ask for a job there. She was trying to get up the courage to do it. The woman who ran the place was American and had a great accent. She was pretty nice too and didn’t seem to mind when Minnie came in just to have another look around without buying anything.
Minnie was pretty sure Krista – that was her name – was part of the coven as well. Part of the Wilde Grove coven.
She’d wanted to follow them the night of the bonfires too, when she’d seen them all start to leave, but her Mum had stopped her, insisting they all stay together, and that Minnie watch Tiny and Robin.
She’d burned all night wanting to know what they were up to in the woods.
She rubbed surreptitiously at her ankle. Her sneakers were almost worn out. She’d try to find a pair of black boots when it was time to replace them. That would totally be better than just another pair of cheap, no-brand tennis shoes.
Anyway, she’d ended up doing her own ritual that night. Once Tiny was asleep, she’d lit her candle – not in the wardrobe, obviously – and done what she could. One of the books on witchcraft at Haven had a page on Samhain in it, and she’d secretly taken a photo of the page with her phone, and she’d done some of the things it suggested, doing it at midnight in the room she shared with her sister. It had been a bit spooky, if she was honest, but thinking about it still gave her a thrill, and she knew what had happened there in the corner of her room had been a sign.
A sign that she was a real witch.
That reminded her, she needed some tarot cards too. It was all very well doing the candle thing, and she had to admit that worked better than she could ever have imagined, but she wanted some cards too.
Being a witch was getting expensive. She wondered if she dared steal a pack from Haven.
If she didn’t get a job there, that was.
Maybe she should ask her father about that. See what he had to say. He’d probably say it was okay. He was being surprisingly cool about stuff like that.
There was movement across the clearing and Minnie narrowed her eyes, peering out from her hiding place. About time, she thought, desperate to know what Morghan Wilde had been doing in there.
* * *
Morghan blinked against the dimness and tightened her fingers into a fist in the dirt. She closed her eyes again, but the vision was still there, and she panted in the darkness of the cave, trying to gather the shreds of her wits about her. The air tasted of soil and chilled against the hot skin of her cheeks. She groped for the covering over her eyes and tore it from her head, squinting against the shadows.
She was on her hands and knees. Somewhere during the travelling, she had moved from her calm sitting position and now a stick dug into her knee. She shifted slightly, raising her head, breathing deep and slow, getting her bearings.
The cave was small, made who knew how many thousands of years ago, a sheltering of stones big enough to sit in.
