The Firehills (2 page)

The Lord of the Sidhe shook his head, the mane of black
and purple hair twitching around his shoulders.
Mortals
lack the discipline. Who among them would oppose us?

These weekend witches with their
crystals and trinkets? Real
estate agents and
housewives, with their suburban covens? No,
none
remain who truly comprehend the Old Ways. Their kind
is gone.

Then who?

I do not know. But I will find out.
Send out word to our
brethren: Continue the search.
Leave no stone unturned.
Whoever—or
whatever—stands in our way will be found.
And
then I will crush them. This land will fall beneath the
dominion of the Sidhe.

The mental conversation died away, leaving no trace on the
blank faces. Only the girl in the black wedding dress allowed herself a smile,
as the strobe lights flickered and stabbed through the smoke.

Charly skipped through the small herb garden that
separated the workshop from the bulk of the cottage. Though she would never
admit it to her mother, she was excited about their trip, and it was largely
the prospect of seeing Sam again. Every year, Megan went to Hastings on the
southeast coast to sell her pottery at the Jack-in-theGreen Festival, held in
the ruined castle. This year, knowing that Sam and his parents lived close by,
Megan had suggested that perhaps Sam might like to join them in Hastings for a
few days. After all, Jack-in-the-Green was another name for the Green Man. Sam
should be keen to see the festival for himself.

Charly had groaned and squirmed, but inside she was hoping
and praying that Sam’s parents would agree. When a letter had arrived
thanking Megan for her kind offer, Charly had taken herself off to her favorite
spot—a cluster of prehistoric burial mounds on the hill behind the farm—and
in the thin spring sunshine danced her thanks to the Goddess. The weeks had
passed in painful slow motion, but gradually the days lengthened, and April
blossomed into May. And now the weekend was finally here. Charly let herself
into the house, avoided the lunging figure of Amergin as he battled the undead
from his perch on the sofa, and headed for her room to pack.

They set off very early the next morning. It was a long
journey, and Megan would have to do all the driving. Amergin had expressed a
desire to learn, but both Megan and Charly thought it would be wise to wait.
The wizard was still too fascinated by everything he saw around him to be
capable of keeping his eyes on the road. Amergin sat in the front passenger
seat, and as they made their way eastward, he traced their progress on a series
of large and unwieldy maps, chattering excitedly.

Just before midday, Megan spotted something that made her
brake suddenly and swerve off the road into a field entrance. Off to the south
was a gently sloping hillside of spring barley—fresh green and waving in the
wind. Megan jumped out of the car and stood on the shoulder of the road, gazing
out across the field. Charly and Amergin clambered out to join her.

“A crop circle!” exclaimed Charly.

“Mmm,” said her mother, “odd.”

“It’s wicked!” replied Charly. She loved crop
circles, and this was a particularly fine example, a huge central circle of
flattened stems, throwing off spiral arms of smaller circles, decreasing in
size as they swirled away into the field.

“Yes. Yes, it’s nice,” agreed Megan, “but it’s
the wrong time of year.”

“How do you mean?”

“It just seems a bit early. Crop circles usually appear
closer to harvesttime, when the crop’s nearly ripe, though I’ve heard of
circles in canola as early as May before. I don’t know. They seem to be
getting more and more frequent these days. It’s probably all the hoaxers.”

“Ladies, forgive me,” interrupted Amergin, “but what
is this thing?” He gestured across the road.

“Oh, sorry, dear,” replied Megan. “It’s a crop
circle. They’ve been turning up more and more often in recent years. Some of
them are almost certainly hoaxes, people shuffling around in the dark with
planks and bits of string, but some of them—I don’t know. Some of them look
too good to be fakes.”

“I see.” Amergin looked troubled. “And has anyone
seen what creates these . . . these circles? Have there been any tales of
lights or strange energies?”

“Well, there are reports of UFOs being seen near
circles, you know, flying saucers?” Charly explained. Amergin nodded.

Charly continued. “And people have reported radio waves
and balls of light and all sorts of things inside the circles.”

“This is grave,” muttered the wizard, “grave
indeed,” and fell silent.

They ate their packed lunches there on the roadside,
gazing out at the huge spiral stamped on the landscape. Then with reluctance
they climbed back into the stuffy car.

“Yonder lies the Camp of Goosehill!” exclaimed
Amergin, thrusting out one finger and knocking the rearview mirror out of
alignment for the eighth time. “A fine town in its time, before the shadow of
the Malifex fell upon it. It dates, you see”—he screwed himself round in
his seat to address Charly—“from the days when the Malifex sought to speed
the destruction of the Old Forest by teaching men the secrets of iron.”

“Mmmm,” sighed Charly, staring out of the window.

“Nice.” At first, she had been excited by Amergin’s
tales. They reminded her of that breathless summer with Sam, when they had
battled the evil of the Malifex and her own powers had first begun to stir. But
Goosehill was only the latest in a long series of hill forts, Roman villas, and
ancient tombs that had attracted Amergin’s eager interest since their journey
had resumed after lunch. Now Charly just wanted the journey to be over. The
holiday traffic was slow, and the sun beat down through the window. Charly
continued to stare across the fields to the distant blue bulk of the South
Downs, which had loomed on the horizon to their right for some time now. They
reminded her of the ridge of hills behind their cottage, back at Woolgarston
Farm, but these were much bigger and somehow more threatening. Their northern
flank was scarred by deep clefts and gullies, like a row of clenched fists, and
a dark blanket of trees clung to the steep slopes. Charly shivered and settled
deeper into the back seat.

They followed the South Downs for much of the afternoon.
Sometimes the downs were visible as a blue smudge on the southern horizon.
Sometimes the road climbed their steep slopes or passed through them in
cuttings through the blinding white chalk. They stopped once more, briefly, to
buy gas and stretch their legs. Then it was back to the car and a long, dull
crawl through the traffic jams on the outskirts of Eastbourne. As the afternoon
wore on, Charly finally succumbed to boredom and drifted off to sleep. Sam
carried his small traveling bag out to the car and dropped it into the open
trunk. As he turned to go back into the house, he noticed a group of figures
across the street, loitering by a phone booth. They were dressed all in black,
long coats and leather jackets, dark hair, pale faces, nose rings, and pierced
eyebrows. Sam paused. He had seen groups of Goths and bikers hanging around in
town, but it was unusual to see them out here in the quiet suburbs. They were
standing in silence, staring sullenly at the ground or out into space. But as
Sam was about to turn away, one looked up, and their eyes met for a moment. Sam
felt a shudder start at the base of his neck and run down through his
shoulders. Turning quickly, he headed back into the house.

Ten minutes later, his father eased the car out of the
driveway and turned left into the road, passing the phone booth. Slumped in the
back seat, Sam gazed out of the window with a feeling of mild anxiety, but the
group had vanished. He settled back and closed his eyes. As the car pulled away
smoothly, a handful of dry leaves, ragged survivors of the previous autumn,
swirled briefly into the air and danced along the pavement. As quickly as it
had arisen, the vortex of air collapsed, and the leaves whispered to the ground
once more.

Charly awoke to find that they had arrived in Hastings.
The car had slowed to a crawl in the holiday traffic pouring down into the town
from the high ground to the north. Twisting her head from side to side to
loosen the stiffness in her neck, she peered out of the window. The streets
were teeming with holiday visitors, brightly colored hordes in T-shirts and
shorts despite the weak spring sun. Tour buses were pouring out more of them
every minute. The car reached the bottom of the long hill and crept around the
corner onto the seafront. To her left, along a side street, Charly saw the
cluster of strange buildings, narrow and dark, that loomed above the crowds.
They looked like wooden sheds, painted a somber black, but they were three
stories high, as if a collection of garden sheds had stretched upward to find
the sun.

Megan, tired and irritable after the long journey, swerved
out from behind a tour bus that had stopped to drop off its passengers and sped
off along the seafront. Soon after, however, she turned inland again and slowed
as the streets became narrow and choked with parked cars. The engine began to
labor as they climbed back up the hill. Rounding the squat bulk of the church
of Saint Clement, patron saint of fisherfolk, Megan turned into a tiny side
street and pulled to a halt. Above them, sheltering under the bulk of West
Hill, towered the faded paintwork of the Aphrodite Guest House. Leaving Amergin
and Charly to struggle with their bags, Megan strode inside to find the
landlady, Mrs. Powell.

“My dear!” cried Mrs. Powell as Megan entered.

“Hello, Mrs. P.” replied Megan with a tired smile,
bending slightly to embrace the old woman.

“You look dreadful. Come on in. I’ll put the kettle
on.”

Mrs. Powell bustled off to the kitchen at the rear of the
building, and Megan could hear the comforting clinks and clatters of tea being
prepared.

As she wandered through to the kitchen in Mrs. Powell’s
wake, she heard the front door open and Amergin and Charly shuffle in with the
luggage. She shouted, “This way!” over her shoulder and made her way to a
battered old chair by the stove, where she collapsed with a sigh. Charly burst
in moments later and ran over to Mrs. Powell. Grabbing her in a boisterous bear
hug, she shouted, “Hi, Mrs. P.” and stepped back.

Mrs. Powell turned and fixed her with a penetrating stare
from the palest of blue eyes, then broke into a grin. “My dear,” she said,
“I swear you’re prettier than ever! And so tall!”

Charly was, in fact, about the average height for her age,
but even so, the top of Mrs. Powell’s head barely reached her chin. The old
woman was dressed all in black—a long black skirt and a baggy black sweater
with a large and saggy turtleneck. Like Megan, Mrs. Powell was a practicing
Wiccan, but unlike Megan, she believed in looking the part. In addition to her
preference for black, she was festooned with an assortment of beads, chains,
and mystical amulets. Her hair was dyed an alarming shade of foxy red, fading
to a line of gray at the roots. All in all, she looked as excitingly witchy as
anyone Charly knew. Mrs. Powell suddenly noticed Amergin, who was lurking by
the kitchen door looking uncomfortable. She raised one eyebrow.

“Oh, sorry, yes,” said Megan, “Mrs. P., this is
Amergin. Amergin, Mrs. Powell.”

“My dear lady,” began Amergin, striding across the
room with one hand extended, “delighted . . .” and then he faltered under
the force of those piercing blue eyes.

“A pleasure, I’m sure,” replied Mrs. P., shaking his
hand as if it was a dead fish. “Megan has told me all about you.”

Amergin gave her a nervous smile.

Mrs. P., her eyes never leaving Amergin’s, said,
“Well, you’re very welcome in my house, Amergin.” She turned to Megan,
and the wizard visibly sagged with relief. “I’ve given you your usual
rooms—first floor, with a view of the sea. Oh, my dear, it’s super to see
you again! I’ll make a spot of dinner. No, I insist! Off you go! Freshen up!
Come back down at six.” And with that she began to clatter around the kitchen
once more.

Precisely at six, they assembled in the dining room,
taking their places around a battered old table. Mrs. P. bustled around with
steaming bowls of food before collapsing into her chair in a jangle of beads.

“So,” she began, “Charly. Tell me, has your mother
spoken to you about your initiation?”

“Mrs. P.,” interrupted Megan, “it’s a little early
to be thinking about that. She’s only—”

“Megan,” said Mrs. P. sternly, “look at the
child.”

“What about it?” Charly looked from Mrs. P. to her
mother, then back again.

Megan sighed, looking suddenly tired.

“I think it’s time, my dear,” said Mrs. P. “From
what you tell me, she’s had, shall we say, adventures already. Who knows what
the future holds?”

“She’s too young.” Megan frowned down at her plate.

“And besides, we’ve only just got here. There are
preparations to be made, correct ways of doing things. We can’t just rush
into it.”

“Flimflam,” replied Mrs. P. “And you know it.”

“If one of you doesn’t tell me what you’re talking
about soon, I think I’m going to scream.” Charly folded her arms and looked
exasperated.

Mrs. P. looked from mother to daughter, marveling again at
the similarity. “Have you been reading your books, my dear?” she asked.

Charly turned toward her. “Books? Oh, those books. Yes.
I have my own
Book of Shadows,
and I’ve learned
all the responses to the rituals. But . . .”

“Good,” said the old woman decisively. “Eat up.
I’ll get my things together.”

“You mean, I’m going to be initiated now?” asked
Charly, grinning from ear to ear. “Cool!”