Third Solstice Read online

  Gideon looked at her in wonder. How had his mother found out that Granny Ragwen was a witch? The paths of her life—her trackways—were narrow ones. But then, perhaps she’d always known, carving out a route through the world unimaginable to her husband. Mrs Ragwen was nodding, as if she too understood. “Perhaps I will, my dear. Perhaps I will. But remember, we always take on our own guise at the end. And my kind—we pay back our favours. Remember that too.”

  “I will, but there’s really no need—”

  “Go on with you.” Mrs Ragwen gave Ma a gentle shove. “I’ve got to go in and see to my Madgie now. And you... It’s time for you to go home.”

  She scuttled off, gathering her cloak around her. Ma Frayne leaned down to kiss her boy. “There. She was a funny person, wasn’t she? You were very brave, son, but you’re not to try and scare off big groups of lads until you’re a grown-up. Let’s get you home for your tea.”

  There was a gate at the end of the alley. Gideon had never seen it before. Nor had his mother—she straightened up and stared at it in wonder.

  Gideon would have remembered. He could never have forgotten such a gate. It towered over the cottages around it, and instead of wood or iron, it was made of close-cropped turf. Laughter rose up in him, chasing away his fear. Tiny sheep were grazing on it. Daisies and coltsfoot starred it like galactic dust, and cloud-shadows rippled its sunlit green. “Look, dear,” Ma said to him, turning to hold out her hand. “It’s the door in the hill.”

  Yes. Cornwall had no chalk figures cut into her hills, but when Pastor Frayne had been called to a ministerial conference in Brighton, Ma had taken Gideon on a bus to a place called Wilmington. He’d barely been four years old. He’d stood holding her hand while she read out from a guide book some theories about the huge faceless man shining in chalk-cut outline on the side of Windover Hill. Perhaps the two great sticks he was grasping were surveyor’s tools, or markers to follow Orion’s progress across the winter sky. I don’t think so, she’d said, closing up the book. I think it looks like he’s holding a door.

  He wasn’t faceless now. His mouth was open—smiling—full of stars. His eyes were two bright suns. He grasped either side of the hillside portal, and with a huge, slow power like the shift of a glacier in spring, he began to open the gate.

  There was clear sky beyond it, shading to deep-space blue. “Oh, my darling,” Ma Frayne said suddenly, dropping to one knee and kissing Gideon. “That’s for me. I have to go, and you mustn’t follow me. You have to stay here. You’ve got all your life ahead of you, your beautiful long life. Goodbye.”

  Gideon tried to howl, but the chalk man turned his star-filled smile upon him, and he knew he had to be good. No, better than good—he had to be big, to reach past all the years of his painful growing-up and become Ma’s fine son, the strapping policeman who could change the world. He did it—diving like a dolphin through waves of time, shaking off the waters of childhood. His legs were strong. A bleeding wound in his thigh healed up as he watched, and a deeper scar—the black gash of rage at the loss of his daughter—vanished from his heart. He took one step and then another. Ma was a long way ahead, almost in the shadow of the gate, but he knew he could catch her. Lee Tyack stepped out from the shade of a holly tree, holding an oak-leaf crown like the one he’d had thrust on him in Kelyndar. This was the crown of his manhood, and he stopped, fearless, for Lee to set it in place. He took an unhurried moment to hold his lover’s face between his hands, to kiss him five times—brow, eyelids, cheeks, soft welcoming mouth. Then he ran after his mother.

  He caught her on the very brink. Granny Ragwen had somehow got there before her and was waiting, arms folded. She was old again and so was Ma. She was wearing a fancy-dress witch costume that didn’t look like fancy dress at all. “Told you she wouldn’t remember,” she said to Gideon. “You’d better explain to her, or she’ll want to go through anyway. When they get this far—when they see what’s waiting—they usually do.”

  How on earth could Gideon explain? What could he offer, against the infinite spiralling dark-light beyond the gate. “Ma,” he said hopelessly, taking her hand. “I don’t want you to leave.” That was no good—his own childish wants—but he wasn’t looking through the gate anymore. All he could see was a plain white wall, and Lee sitting across from him beside a hospital bed. “Tamsyn Elizabeth needs her grandma,” he went on more confidently. “It’s just not your time yet, and... I don’t think anyone but you can convince poor Zeke it’s not the end of the world.”

  The old lady drew a breath, coughed, and opened her eyes. “What isn’t, dear?”

  “That he’s knocked his girlfriend up out of wedlock.”

  “Gideon!”

  He twisted round on the hospital chair. There was his brother, wrath-of-God face much altered by the tears running down it. “Well,” Gideon protested weakly. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? Even if you could forgive yourself, you’ve still got our dad breathing hellfire down your neck. But he’s dead, Zeke, and we’ve still got Ma. Look—she’s awake.”

  Wide awake, pushing upright on her pillows, ignoring the nurses running to her side. “A baby, Ezekiel? Eleanor?”

  Zeke thudded down on the chair next to Gideon’s. “Yes, Ma.”

  “And is the child wanted?”

  “Yes.” He took a deep, rasping breath. “Oh, yes.”

  “A cousin for Tamsyn, and another beautiful grandchild I’ll live to see?”

  “Yes, Ma.”

  “Then, praise be to the Goddess of increase and life!” She lifted a silencing finger. “I’m sorry, my dear, but it just doesn’t feel like a God, not where these things are concerned. Listen to me, Ezekiel. I grieve deeply that your father’s religion has shadowed you. You’ve followed in his ways as best you can, but those ways must be changed now. Do you understand? You don’t have the right to preach one way of life and live another.”

  “No, Ma.”

  “And I have to say something else to you. I neglected you greatly after Gideon’s birth, my lovely firstborn son. I left you in your father’s hands. Can you ever forgive me?”

  Chapter Eight

  Gideon didn’t wait to hear the answer. He knew what it would be, although poor Zeke was unable to get the word out, going down for the third time with his face pressed to Ma’s blanket. Lee had slipped out into the corridor. Gideon followed on instinct, closing the door silently behind him.

  “Sweetheart. This way.”

  He was so tired. He needed Lee’s pause in the doorway a few rooms down, his smile and beckoning gesture. Earlier today he’d have tracked him down without the signal, but the inside of his head was silent, filled only with relief and desire. He stumbled into the little office—the kind of bland space where doctors took loved ones to break the worst news—and into Lee’s arms. “What just happened?”

  “I think you popped one of my ribs.”

  “Oh.” Gideon unclenched his grip the bare minimum to allow Lee to breathe. “Sorry. But what did I do?”

  “A spirit journey, some people would call it. You brought her home.”

  “Okay. That’s what it feels like. But... how?”

  “It’s something you can do. I realised that when we lost Tamsie, and I could take you into my visions with me, and you could travel with me and see everything I was seeing.”

  “I don’t think I could do it now. I can’t even feel our link, just... the outside of you. Your voice and your hands and the way you smell.”

  Lee caressed him, holding tight. “You’ve probably burned it out for now. Maybe even long term. Isn’t the outside of me enough?”

  Oh, yes. Warm and solidly muscled, rich with the knowledge of how Gideon loved to be touched. “Very much so.”

  “Sorry about the smell. I’ve been in this shirt all night.”

  Gideon shivered with laughter. Lee was drawing him powerfully forward into the one corner of the room that couldn’t be seen from the porthole in the door. “What are you up to? We can’t do this i
n here.”

  “Well, I can’t wait to do it anywhere else. And I put up the room-in-use sign.”

  “Oh, you did, did you?” Gideon pushed him back a little to look at him. Everything he wanted was right here. Soon he would start to think about his daughter again, his brother and his mum, his house and his life and what it meant not to be able to read Lee’s mind anymore. Just for this moment, he didn’t care. He could see all the lights of solstice in the green eyes raised to his. “Is it shut now—the gateway? Is everyone safe on this side?”

  “Everyone who should be.” Lee clasped his shoulders, caressing. “You can come off duty now. You can stand down.”

  “I think I need to. How do you do this, Lee? All the voices, all the visions... You must end up feeling as if you belong to the whole world.”

  “Sometimes. Until you close the doors. Then you make me feel as if I just belong to you.”

  Gideon smiled. Lee had done the same for him, and hung out a do-not-disturb sign. For the next five minutes—because that was all it would take—they would belong to one another, forsaking all others. And then they would take up their places, shoulder-to-shoulder, in their candle dance with the world, for as long as they both should live.

  ***

  Tamsyn had her party after all. Like many events in her short life so far, it was strange. Eleanor opened the festivities at eight AM, blowing into the side ward where Ma had been sent to recover, buttoned primly up to the chin and in a storming rage. Gideon and Lee stood aside as she buttonholed Zeke: ripped him off a fiery strip for keeping Ma’s illness a secret. The words our baby’s grandmother got bandied about until not only Zeke but most of the ward staff had become accustomed to the idea of the minister’s unplanned child. Then she pulled out of her handbag the musical plush ball she and Zeke had bought for Tamsyn, sat down hard on the edge of Ma Frayne’s bed and began to cry.

  Ma held her hand. The old lady was nicely dressed in day clothes, and other than the stitches in her brow, looked the picture of health. She had to submit to a day’s observation and more tests, then she could go home. It turned out she still had a lot to say on the subject of children and how they found their way into the world. Lee and Tamsyn sat in the corner looking on, a pair of worried referees.

  Amused by the family drama swirling around the bed, Gideon went to return a phone call from DI Lawrence. He took his first deep breaths of new-year air on the pavement outside the hospital. A few days would have to elapse before the dawns brightened, but the wheel had turned, palpable in the song of the blackbirds across the misty car park. Lawrence took a while picking up, and Gideon set off unconsciously towards the hidden music. “Morning, ma’am,” he said eventually. “How’s Penzance this morning?”

  “Slightly barbecued, but still there—mostly thanks to you, I gather.”

  “Not at all. I just helped the locals put out a few fires.”

  “Well, the owner of Jenkins Photography thinks it was a bit more than that. He’s in the burns unit at Trelowarren, if you want to go and enjoy his gratitude in person. I heard about your mum, Sergeant. How is she?”

  “She’s fine.” Gideon sidestepped a scuffling and banging of car doors, determined to let Cornwall look after itself for a few minutes at least. “She woke up a few hours ago, right as rain. Nobody’s quite sure what happened.”

  “I’m so pleased she’s all right. I’m sorry to disturb you yet again, but this is a follow-up on an issue from last night. You reported having seen a lady from Dark, a Jana Ragwen, in one of the warehouses up on Gwidder Hill?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Gideon considered the truth, then decided he’d do better as a copper if he wasn’t strapped down in a psych ward next door to Dev Bowe. “She’d got herself up into the rafters somehow. There must have been a way back down, because when I went back to check on her, she was nowhere to be seen. Have you been in touch with her daughter?”

  “That’s the strange thing. We sent a constable around there this morning to see if the old lady had made her way home. Madge Ragwen not only refused to report her mother missing, she seemed completely unconcerned about her disappearance. Said it was time—and I quote—for the old bird to fly.”

  We’ll soon need a new witch at Dark. A conversation overheard through a baby monitor, unreal and like an echo from years ago now. Still, Gideon suddenly wanted to be back upstairs with his daughter and Lee. “Will there be an investigation?”

  “She’s elderly and vulnerable, so the Penzance squad will conduct some enquiries around the places she was last seen there. If I know you, you’ll do the same at Dark, whether you’re on leave or not.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Gideon hung up. He could see his mother’s side-ward window from here, and there seemed to be a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, more than could be accounted for by Zeke, Lee and Eleanor. Frightened Ma had taken a turn for the worse, he ran back indoors, dodging the smokers and wheelchairs. He made short work of the four flights of stairs: pounded down the corridor, where an odd silence was emanating from the room despite the extra people. He darted inside, braking sharply at the sight of the strange tableau around his mother’s bed.

  Eleanor was still in pride of place, her mortification turning to pleasure in the fuss the old lady was making of her. Zeke and Lee had been giving Tamsyn her breakfast, to judge from the state of their sweaters, and Tamsyn was sitting in Zeke’s arms, clutching her plush ball. So far so good, but the sheepdog with a helium balloon attached to its collar was harder to explain. Isolde gave a grunt of joy at the sight of him and shot across the room, all her manners forgotten. Gideon absorbed the impact as best he could, ruffling her ears and beginning to laugh at the absurd silver balloon with its One Today! message emblazoned in bright pink. “Hello, you. What’s all this, then?”

  Sarah Kemp stood up from the end of Ma’s bed. She had one infant by the hand, and Wilfred, the new boyfriend, had charge of the other. Lorna came romping up after the dog. “Gideon! That’s what you’re supposed to say.”

  “What is, chick?”

  “What’s all this, then.” She dipped her knees, tugged at imaginary braces. “And this. Evening, all.”

  She was hilarious. He couldn’t work out why no-one else was laughing. Sarah’s smile was distinctly watery as she gestured the little girl back to her side. “Ignore her, Gid. She’s been watching Carry On movies.”

  “How did you sneak the dog in here?”

  “We took our chances and ran in when there was a crowd around the reception desk. It was probably stupid, but...”

  That was the ruckus Gideon had heard in the car park. “Of course it wasn’t. Thank you.”

  “Well, I went round to yours this morning to get some food for Isolde, and I saw Tamsie’s presents piled up, and I wasn’t sure if you and Lee would get home today. And it seemed such a shame if she missed her party, so—”

  “You brought it here.” Gideon nodded at Wilfred, gestured round the cramped little room made festive by well known faces and the parcels set out on Ma’s bed. “That’s great. Now, we’re all probably gonna get kicked out any second, so I suggest we sit down, grab a cup of coffee, and... What’s the matter, Ma? Why are you all looking so worried?”

  A figure stirred in the corner. She was so nearly concealed by the door that Gideon hadn’t spotted her. “It’s me,” she said miserably. “They’re all worried because I’m here.”

  Gideon grabbed a breath. “Elowen!”

  “Yes. Hi. I would never have come near you all, only Ezekiel texted me that Ma was ill, and Michel and I were on our way to see Uncle Jago for Christmas. And you did invite me to Tamsyn’s party, so—”

  “Zeke texted you?”

  “Why shouldn’t I?” Zeke interrupted. “It wasn’t a family secret, and if you recall, Gid, Ma was the only one of us who really showed Elowen any compassion, after...”

  He faded out, as if realising what kind of wolf he might have invited into the fold. Gideon gave him a look which told him he really wa
sn’t on safe ground with the whole family-secrets thing at all, and turned to his mother, who was propping herself up vigorously on her pillows. “You all right, Ma?”

  “Yes, dear. Elowen, it’s nice to see you. But I have to say, my compassion will be limited this time, depending on the object of your visit.”

  From Ma, this was practically a punch in the face. Elowen winced, and it was Gideon’s turn to feel an unwanted sympathy. He thought about the chalk figure on the sunny hill, and the gate swinging wide, and the star-filled smile, and the necessity for all things to grow up, move on, become what they should. “I think,” he said cautiously, “Elowen’s only object is to see that Ma’s okay. And maybe to wish Tamsyn happy birthday.”

  “Oh, it is!” Elowen burst out. “That’s all, I swear.”

  “How are you, Elowen?”

  “I’m fine. Job’s going brilliantly. Michel and I are going to get married next year. Locryn, won’t you even look at me?”

  Lee had taken Tamsyn back from Zeke. He was standing with his head down, his face buried in the baby’s curls. His hold on her was gentle as ever, but his knuckles were white. Gideon knew that his patience and good nature were almost without limit, but he’d refused even to speak about Elowen since last August, and Gideon had feared that the bonds between brother and sister had been severed.

  Maybe he’d secretly hoped so. Shame swept over him. He broke paralysis, strode over and took his husband by the hand. “Lee, it’s all right.”

  Lee’s hand was cold. He swallowed audibly. “Is it?”

  “Yes. I promise. I won’t let harm come to you or Tamsyn ever again.”

  Lee straightened up. A smile like solstice dawn touched his face. He kissed Gideon once: silent, fervent, on the cheek. Tamsyn, who’d shrieked the house down for a whole night and a day the last time her mother had come near her, put out her arms and began to crow. Lee turned to Elowen. “Come and have a hold of her. Look how much she’s grown!”