Third Solstice Read online

  “No, gin. It’s cheaper. I think she knows we need to talk.”

  Lee switched on the monitor, and they went back down the hallway hand-in-hand. Gideon was painfully glad that all their discussions—even the intense ones—began with this gesture of solidarity, the silent promise to find common ground. “I’m sorry,” he said, drawing Lee to sit down beside him on the sofa. “I didn’t take that seriously enough, did I?”

  “I’m not surprised. It does look like a party trick.”

  “It’s not, though. It’s something important, and you’re worried.”

  “Look, we both know that, as apples go, she hasn’t fallen far from the tree. She can talk to both of us without opening her mouth, and we can talk to her.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Gideon had never fully accepted that his easy rapport with Tamsyn was anything more than good luck. “You can.”

  “C’mon, lover. It’s both of us, and that’s... great. It’s good. I don’t want it to be any more, though. I don’t want her to be like me.”

  “Apart from the good looks and intelligence.”

  “Apart from those things, of course.”

  “Okay. I get that.” Gideon put an arm around him, planted a rough kiss to the side of his brow. “You don’t send things flying about the room without touching them, though. Not last time I looked.”

  “I know. After a long time—and a lot of help from you—I’m starting to get some kind of handle on what I see and what I don’t. What I can do and what I can’t. Takes me all my time, though, and I’m thirty two. She’s twelve months old. I just want her to be... normal, Gid, as far as she can.”

  He sounded dead-beat weary. “She will,” Gideon said uneasily. There was more to this even than the considerable amount that met the eye. “We’re not exactly shining examples of normality ourselves.”

  “Yes, but there’s a place in the world for our kind of weird these days, even...” They both involuntarily glanced at the TV, still flickering away on mute, where the latest American presidential hopeful was denouncing same-sex marriage before a conference audience of thousands. “Even if it’s an insecure one. If she carries on doing things like that, she’ll be treated as a freak.”

  Gideon found the remote under a cushion and switched the TV off. He tried to look into Lee’s face, but only the tired profile was presented to him. Gently he pushed at certain inner doors—connection points he’d only recently acknowledged existed between them at all—and found them shut. “A freak?” he echoed. “Slow down a bit, love. She’s not gonna turn into Carrie.”

  The doorbell rang, breaking a strange silence. Gideon had installed the bell as soon as they’d moved in, declaring to Lee that any visitors who couldn’t use one—who preferred to announce themselves by bangs, thuds or bestial scratchings—could just bloody well stay outside. “You expecting anyone?” Lee asked, sitting up.

  “No.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Not carol singers, surely.”

  “Not in Dark. Although Darren Prowse’s Christmas Rapper gang did all right last year.”

  “Until someone chased ’em off with a shotgun. Shall we ignore it?”

  “Ah, better not.” Gideon got up, stretching. “‘Tis the season of goodwill and all that. Who knows what the storm’s blown to our door?”

  In fact it was Granny Ragwen. She was such an apparition that for a moment Gideon just stood staring at her. As usual she was top-to-toe in the smartest fashions the Truro outlet shops could provide, but the moorland wind had caught her hair, turning her neat bun into a pewter-grey stream. He scanned the street behind her for any stalkers or night-creatures that might have driven her to seek refuge on his doorstep. Only the wind was haunting Dark tonight, though, piling the last of the sycamore leaves in a dun-coloured tumble against the garden walls. He remembered his manners. “Evening, Granny—er, Mrs Ragwen. Come in out of the cold.”

  She stepped inside regally. “I smelled something, Constable,” she declared, and Gideon shot Lee a look which said more plainly than words that he wished he’d remembered the old girl was mad as a balloon before inviting her in. Lee wiped his expression clear with admirable rapidity and came to meet their guest. “Mrs Ragwen? Don’t tell me you’ve walked all the way down here just to see us.”

  “No, of course not. I was on my way back from visiting young Dev Bowe, and I smelled something coming from your house.” She tipped back her head, inhaling deeply. “Ah, how strong it is! Fair makes your eyes water.”

  Automatically Gideon looked at Isolde, who’d waddled over to sit at the old lady’s feet. “I hope it’s not the dog. She’s getting to be a bit elderly, and...”

  “Nonsense! She’s a fine beast, blood of King Arthur’s own hounds, as your lad here told you long ago. No, it was magic I smelled, pure and bright. Is it your girl?”

  “No,” Gideon said, on a kneejerk instinct of protection, then pulled himself together. “Magic? What do you mean?”

  “Oh, don’t stand there like a pillar of the community, as if you’d never heard the word, or seen the poor few things an ancient creature like myself can do! How is Sergeant Pendower? Can I see the child?”

  “Rufus is fine. We had dinner with him and his new lady friend a few weeks ago. Er... Tamsyn’s in bed. We just got her to sleep, so...”

  “I shan’t wake her. I just want to breathe in that smell.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Gideon.” Lee held out a hand, his tired half-smile like a touch to the shoulder, to the heart. “It’s all right.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes. Really. Come on, Mrs Ragwen—she’s just down here.”

  Gideon watched them go, the dog following after. He’d have to ask Lee why levitation was a bridge too far and night-time visits by a mad old woman who apparently wanted to sniff their daughter was not, but it could wait. Lee’s word was good enough. He began to pick up some of the debris he, Isolde and Tamsyn had scattered about the room—jumped like a rookie on his first duty shift at the ping of the microwave.

  He needed to get a grip. The sound of Dev Bowe’s name had unnerved him, that was all, though he was glad that the old lady had taken it upon herself to continue making visits. There was no-one else, not now. He’d gone along himself a couple of times, but the boy spent his days staring at the wall of a maximum-security cell in Bodmin hospital, everything he’d been—whatever thing had possessed him—wiped clean away.

  The baby monitor clicked and rustled. Through it came Tamsyn’s waking mewl, then the ear-bursting shriek she reserved for particular friends. That was odd. She’d only met Granny Ragwen a couple of times before. Well, there was no accounting for taste. He was turning away when Granny’s voice tugged his attention back.

  There she is! I knew it. Can I have a hold?

  And Lee, resigned, smiling—All right. Here, I’ll lift her out for you.

  No harm in that, though if the baby woke up properly, Lee could have the hour-long delight of persuading her back to sleep. Shaking his head, Gideon went back to work.

  Look at you! What have you been up to, then, my lovely? Making the flowers grow? Turning the postman into a toad? It’s about time, then—we’ll soon need a new witch at Dark.

  She’s not a witch, Mrs Ragwen. She’s an ordinary little girl.

  Well, shame on you, Locryn Tyack! As if I didn’t know your family line from back when they were flying stones around for the Kernowek priests! You of all people can’t deny her.

  I’m not denying her anything. But it’s Locryn Tyack-Frayne now, and we’re just an ordinary family.

  Oh, I see. It’s the policeman you’re worried about. Well, you’re going to have to tell him, boy. The solstice gate swings wide for the Frayne brood—he should know that by now. I can help out, but it’s a trade-in. You’ll have to make him understand.

  Mrs Ragwen—you’re a nice lady, and if you’re the witch of Dark, you’ve been a good one. But I don’t have a clue what you’re talking a
bout now.

  Nor did Gideon. Furthermore, he didn’t have the right to listen. He couldn’t believe he’d been standing here eavesdropping for so long. He strode down the corridor and leaned his shoulder in the nursery doorway. He took in the strange scene: the warm little room painted amber by Tamsyn’s night-light, the old woman cradling the baby, who was chuckling and binding the streaming white hair into a cat’s-cradle knot. Lee standing apart, arms folded. Granny Ragwen looked up. “He says he doesn’t know what I’m talking about,” she said hoarsely to Gideon, “because he’s been and tried to put up his walls. I don’t blame him. I would too, if I’d had to see Dev Bowe with his skin off. But he knows it’s not going to work, because—”

  “Thanks,” Lee interrupted, calmly as if she’d been offering him a recipe. “I tell you what—it’s getting a bit late. Can I give you a lift?”

  “Throwing me out, are you? All right. The constable can take me, though. Your little car will play havoc with my hips.”

  Gideon allowed himself a low whistle of admiration. “Lee’s right. You are a nice lady—sorry, Lee, the baby monitor was on—but you about take the biscuit for cheek. Tamsie, let go of Mrs Ragwen’s hair so I can escort her home.”

  “No, Gid. Let me do it.” Lee moved to block his path to the door. He laid a hand to Gideon’s chest, an odd anxiety darkening his eyes. “Don’t ask just yet. I’ll be five minutes—I’ll tell you everything when I get back.”

  Chapter Three

  An engine roared in the street outside. The note of it was familiar. Gideon pushed back the living-room curtain in time to see Lee take the corner like a Brands Hatch pro and bring the Escort to a screeching halt by the kerb. Catching his urgency, Gideon ran for the front door, but before he could get there, Lee had darted inside and slammed it behind him. “Oh, Gid. I did something stupid.”

  They stood facing one another in the hallway. “Did you invite her back for Christmas sherries?”

  “No. In London. I saw Siobhan Reeves.”

  The name was familiar. Gideon cast back to a long-ago conversation in Lee’s harbourside flat, when Lee had first begun to tell him the price of his gift. “The hypnotist lady? The one who used to help you—”

  “Build walls in my head, yes. I didn’t plan to see her. When I’d been in the city for a few days, I realised how... eroded I was, how open. I couldn’t shut anything out. I couldn’t stop thinking about Dev, and Elowen, and coming into our street that day and seeing our house blown to shreds, and...”

  “Did she help?”

  “I thought so at the time, but...” He shivered, as if the walls of his home were inadequate too, the door behind him open to the wind. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you.”

  “Only because I’d have gone with you. You know that.”

  “Yeah, I do, and that’s the whole point.” Their landlord had installed two rather grand lanterns on either side of tiny hallway. Lee looked like some heraldic night-creature caught between them, their light incandescing in the silver of his hair and eyes. “If you’d been there, I’d have remembered why I can’t have the walls anymore.”

  “Because of... Because of me?”

  “You didn’t feel me come home, did you?”

  “No. And once you were there, it was like I couldn’t see you properly.” Gideon’s voice had wavered. He swallowed hard, then ruined it by adding, pathetically, “I still can’t.”

  “I know. They’re easier to put up than take down—the walls, I mean. Please help.”

  Gideon held out his arms. Lee shot into them, his last stride a pure leap for safety. His momentum carried both of them through the bedroom door, and Gideon seized the advantage and half-lifted him over to the bed, going down like a controlled ton of bricks on top. “You want me to take these walls down?”

  “Yes. I can’t bear it.”

  “But if you need them—”

  “You’re my wall. You’re my higher ground.” Lee seized him powerfully, sending the bedside light flying. The bulb broke and the room plunged into darkness. They froze, waiting tensely, but no frightened cry arose from the next room. “Is she asleep?”

  “Sound. I left the monitor in the other room. Do you want me to—”

  “Afterwards.”

  “I’m sorry I listened to you and the old lady. I didn’t mean to.”

  “God knows what you heard. Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Afterwards.”

  ***

  The phone woke Gideon at eight in the morning. He’d have ignored it, in the first fragile dawn of his shared holiday with his husband, but Lee had set the Hawaii Five-0 theme as the ringtone for calls from the station. Silently cursing him, Gideon rolled over and grabbed the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Morning, Sergeant. I’m sorry—I know you’re on leave, but...”

  He fell back against the pillows, listening with as much grace as he could muster. Lee appeared in the doorway, jouncing Tamsyn in his arms. Gideon put a hand over his eyes. “Yes, ma’am,” he said eventually. “No, it’s all right. I understand. Yes, a very merry Christmas to you too.”

  He hung up. Lee brought the baby over and deposited her in the wreckage of the bedsheets, where she began to crawl around, crowing happily. “Oh, Gid,” he said, resignation already shadowing his tone. “All of it?”

  “No. No, I got off pretty lightly—just tonight, in Penzance.”

  “What, for the Montol?”

  “Yep. DI Lawrence says half their squad’s gone down with some kind of flu, and they’re expecting trouble, kids coming in from outside to mess things up.” He retrieved his daughter from the edge of the bed. “I’ll have to go. I’m sorry, sweetheart. She promised to leave us alone for anything short of a nuclear war after that.”

  “Is it a uniform job?”

  “No. Plainclothes and casual, so I won’t be getting too many bricks lobbed at me. She just wants a presence on the streets in case.”

  “Why don’t we come with you, then?” Lee sat down cross-legged on the bed. “It’s time she saw her first Montol. We can be part of your cover—the boyfriend and the cute baby.”

  “Adorable. But did you not hear the part about the lobbed bricks?”

  “We’ll be fine.”

  Gideon gave it thought. He could see his lovely man in glorious detail and colour today, and we’ll be fine wasn’t a vague reassurance, not coming from Lee like that. It meant that he probably knew. Gideon loved the revived midwinter festival that roared through the Penzance streets at solstice, but a revival was all it was, not like the bone-ancient Kelyndar Golowan. “I dunno,” he said, stifling a yawn. “Things tend to get a little freaky for us around December twenty-first, in case you haven’t noticed. I was thinking more TV and pizza than frolics on the promenade.”

  “I’m not sure me and madam can eat a whole stuffed-crust on our own. But I take your point about the date.” Shadows chased across Lee’s morning brightness, and he reached across and retrieved the baby in his turn, settling her in his lap. “Part of what you heard Granny Ragwen say last night, right? Part of what we need to talk about.”

  Afterwards. After a long night of loving so sweet that Gideon scarcely cared about what had gone before. On mornings like this, he wanted to take all their lives’ mysteries, roll them up and punt them into the fire he could see glimmering through the open living-room door. Lee must have got up early. The baby was dressed and clean, and to judge by the fragments stuck to Lee’s jumper, had enjoyed a hearty breakfast. Lee’s walls were down, the only trace of them a glimmer of dust-motes in the air. “I guess so,” he said reluctantly. “What did she mean about the solstice gates, do you reckon?”

  “The ones that swing wide for your brood?”

  “Those ones, yeah.”

  “Well, leaving aside the possibility that she is the all-knowing witch of Dark—she’s a nosy old girl, and she probably heard that your dad died a year ago today. And the Island case was in all the papers the year before.”

  �
�She couldn’t have known about Fisher, though—the time of his death.” Gideon pulled a face and hitched up the duvet. “Maybe we should all just take cover for the day. I could catch flu just as well as a Penzance copper.”

  Lee smiled. “Not you, Sergeant.”

  “Why not?”

  “In all the time I’ve known you, you’ve never left a colleague in the lurch. You’ll be at Montol tonight. Anyway, you ought to be safe, technically speaking—solstice doesn’t fall until tomorrow, 4:48 AM.”

  Gideon surveyed him in amusement. “Checked, did you?”

  “Seemed worthwhile.”

  “Come here, both of you. If I’ve got to spend the first proper night of my leave out there plodding, I want some serious family time now.”

  “Is this where we all end up under the duvet like a Christmas ad for one of the more forward-thinking stores?”

  “Yeah. So not Trago, obviously.” Gideon put out an arm, shivering in pleasure as Lee and the baby scrambled into place. He should have remembered the disadvantages of having that perceptive head pressed to his shoulder: after a minute’s contented silence, Lee murmured, “Wow. We do worry about the same things.”

  “Comes with the marriage certificate, I think. What’s uppermost?”

  “Poltergeist Annie here, for both of us.” Lee ruffled the little girl’s hair. She had curled up between them and was serenading herself with a tuneless version of the porridge song. “The last time I saw Siobhan was long before I met you, you know. What if Tamsyn doesn’t happen to find someone in her life who can protect her, make her decide she doesn’t need walls?”

  “She’ll have us,” Gideon said staunchly. “For as long as she needs us, and probably long after.”

  “You’re good as gold, you are. I’m not sure I want her having to make those choices, though—what to conceal about herself, what to risk revealing.”

  “Everybody has to do that. Look, she scared the bejesus out of me too. But she was on hyperdrive, remember, getting you back after a whole week away. It’s like everything else with kids—if we don’t make a big deal of it...”