Third Solstice CALIBRE with cover (2 page)

“Fine. Long. You were asleep.” Lee returned his embrace with hungry warmth. Tamsyn emerged serenely from sleep at the sound of his voice, and he lifted her onto his knee, smiling. “God almighty, look at her. She’s grown while I’ve been away.”

“Not surprised. She’s been eating like a tentacled sea-monster. Do you have to go back between now and New Year?”

“Nope, we’re all done. Jack and Anna just wanted some talking-head stuff to wrap up the
London Hauntings
series. We’re cleared for our festive take-off.”

“Wonderful.” Gideon had bargained away part of his paternity leave to get this first birthday and Christmas at home with his small family. He rubbed his eyes, trying to focus. Lee’s outline was blurred to him, somehow unreal. “Weird that I didn’t wake up, though. I normally feel you coming a mile off.”

Lee raised a suggestive eyebrow at him, then visibly changed the subject. “Seriously, she’s huge. A week’s too long to be away at the moment, isn’t it? What have I missed?”

“Not much. Some truly horrific nappies.”

“Must be all those sailors and galleons she’s been eating. What else?” His brow creased. “I
did
miss something, didn’t I? Oh, no—not her first step.”

“No, no. She’s been standing on her own, but she always flops down onto that well-padded backside of hers. Speaking of which, I’d better get her swaddled up before she wrecks this towel.”

“Hang on a second. Tell me.”

Lee would never just reach in. Gideon had learned to lower barricades inside his mind, to offer silent permission. The soft, delicious pushing was absent tonight. Well, having a mindreader in the family was no substitute for honest conversation, and some things just had to be said. “She’s developed a bit of a new party trick. Might be better if she showed you, rather than me trying to explain.” He patted Tamsyn’s cheek with one fingertip to draw her attention. “Tamsie. Where’s your bear?”

She pointed to the floor where the toy had fallen, a clear indication that he should pick it up for her. “You get it,” he encouraged. “Get the bear for Lee.”

“No.”

It was clear and decisive, and made both her parents start to laugh. After
Dada
and
Eee
, her first word had been
no
, and she’d made liberal use of it since. “She’s not gonna do it,” Gideon said, picking up the bear for her instead. “Here. No more porridge song, though, please.”

She cackled and began to pull the string. Lee grasped his head in mock agony. “Would it be cruel of us to cut that off? What were you expecting her to do, anyway?”

“I’m not sure.” Gideon rubbed his eyes. “It’s been a long week. I was probably hallucinating. Right, you little rug rat—let’s get you to bed, so your daddies can have some food and sex the way they occasionally used to before you came along.”

Lee grinned and got to his feet, hoisting her ceilingwards. “I remember those golden days. The room looks beautiful, Gid. Who knew a big Cornish plod would have such a talent for decoration?”

“Big gay Cornish copper. Comes with the territory.”

“In that case, shouldn’t I be getting a home-baked quiche for my tea, not microwaved lasagne?”

“Only if you want to home-bake one yourself.” Gideon watched the two of them—his husband and his baby—with pride and love warring for place in his heart. He’d never imagined that life would hold such riches for him. “I found a box of ornaments in the parish-house attic. What do you think?”

“Beautiful. Especially the little silver sphere with... Does it have lights in it?”

“No, but it catches the light in the room. That one was my mum’s favourite too.”

“I can’t imagine the pastor approving.”

“Oh, he didn’t. She used to put a little tree up in her parlour where he wouldn’t see it.”

“Looks like it’s found its proper home now.”

Yes, it did. Gideon surveyed the replantable fir he’d strapped to the roof of the police truck to bring home. Nothing but the best for his little girl’s Christmas—her solstice, her Yule, Pagan trimmings aplenty. The little sphere rotated gently, as if a breeze had touched it. Sparkles flashed hypnotically from within its wire cage. Something tugged at the back of Gideon’s brain. Isolde sat up on the sofa and emitted a faint whine.

“Uh-oh. I think she’s gonna do it.”

“What?” Lee asked in alarm. “Nappy?”

“No. Look at her hand. Watch that bauble.”

“Gid, are you all... Oh. Holy fuck.”

The sphere drifted slowly off the branch. Its string caught on the needles, and Tamsyn frowned as if she’d been given a new puzzle and shifted her hand, left and then right. She beamed and gave a yell of delight, and then—because Gideon could have no further doubt of cause and effect, that she was deliberately doing this—she brought the glittering thing to a brief halt in midair, then fired it squarely at Lee.

He caught it on reflex in his free hand. For a few long seconds he stood motionless, cradling the child and the bauble with equal care. Then he turned to Gideon, his colour fading. “Gid, no.”

“No what? I know it’s freaky, but we’ve seen weirder stuff than this.”

“You don’t... Look, she should be in bed. Will you help me put her down?”

“Of course, but—”

“Seriously. Now.”

Gideon followed him into the nursery. He shook out the blanket in the cot, grabbed an industrial-strength night-time nappy from the box and set it out on the changing mat. “There you go.”

“Ta. Come on, you. Don’t give us a hard time tonight.”

She didn’t. She lay watching Lee with huge eyes while he wrapped her up and manoeuvred her little limbs into a romper, his hands long since grown deft about their task. For once she launched no objection to being laid down in her cot. “Wow,” Lee said, flashing Gideon a too-bright smile across the cradle. “What did you do to her? Drugs?”

“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 about 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—”