Beneath the Tor (13 page)

thirteen

shell

It was boiling the
following day. I met Wolfsbane and Shell at a pavement table outside Heaphys where we could watch Glastonbury parade along its streets and in and out of the abbey gardens in summer finery.

Wolfsbane had promised to treat me to lunch and I thought it was only what I deserved. I didn't feel very supported by my long-
standing mentor at the moment. I would have told him exactly how I felt about walking into a blazing row between him and Stefan so shortly after the entire workshop membership had witnessed a death at a sacred time and sacred place, but there seemed no point going over painful memories. Maybe it was the weather; it was too hot to quarrel.

Wolfsbane got us paninis and plates of carrot cake and a tray of cool drinks, and we tucked in.

“Best place to eat in the entire universe.” Wolfs waved the food on his fork at the market cross. “Hub of the universe, in fact.”

“Centre of its own zodiac,” Shell pointed out.

“You're learning, gorgeous.”

“I
can
read, actually,” said Shell. “I bought some secondhand books while we were here for the solstice. I even spent an hour in the Glastonbury library. Which is amazing, by the way. I'll know more than you, soon, Wolfsie.”

I hid a grin. Wolfsbane chose his girlfriends from outside the pagan community so that he couldn't be accused of mixing business and pleasure. He certainly hadn't made a play for me when we'd first met. Not that I'd assumed he would, or wanted him to. I don't like heavy smokers, and Wolfs's breath always smelt of tar products. And I've never fancied guys with goatee beards—Wolfs's habit of stroking his made me cringe for no reason. It was good that we weren't physically attracted; this was a man with astounding skills as a shaman, and our robust
pupil-teacher
relationship had grown into something close to a junior and senior partnership.

Wolfs tried to mould each of his girlfriends like raw clay, starting with a foundation template of buxom breasts, piles of dark hair, and uniformly empty minds chocked full of
ga-ga
-ness over Wolfsbane. But Shell was proving different. She was displaying a mind of her own in lots of ways. She'd recently chopped her hair into a thick bob and henna'd it until it flamed red. Also, I'd seen her flirt with Ricky. Wolfs wouldn't have like that one bit, had he known.

Not that I was going to tell him.

“Dion Fortune had the idea, didn't she?” Shell was saying. “About the zodiac on the Glastonbury landscape.”

“Dion Fortune
ran
with the idea,” said Wolfsbane. “She wasn't the instigator. That was Katharine Maltwood.”

“I've been reading the stories, too,” said Shell. “Balls of lights hovering over the Tor, people meeting strange beings when they're alone on the summit. I bet it's the place to find ecstasy.”

She was staring at Wolfs intently and I remembered what she'd said about tantric sex on top the Tor.

Wolfs refused to take the hint. “You got the wrong idea, Shell. It's impossible to see the zodiac from up there.”

“Whatever.” Shell shrugged. “It's cool. I want to walk the labyrinth to the top of the Tor like Sabbie did. Then lie down in the cool grass, under moonlight …”

As she talked, her earrings swung. They were the size of poker chips but finely enamelled to resemble the bright eyes at the end of peacock feathers. To set them off, she sported the shortened end of a peacock feather in her raffia sun hat.

“I love your earrings.”

“Thanks. I make them myself.”

“Wow! That's amazing!”

“I could make you a pair.”

“Sounds good. How much d'you charge?”

“For you, they'd be complimentary.”

“Thanks, Shell. I'll offer you a massage in return, if you like.”

Wolfsbane drew a fresh ciggie from his pack and tapped it several times on the table. “Can we get back to the subject in hand? We have to decide when to hold the workshop … and where to hold it.”

“Is everyone committed to coming? Apart from Brice, obviously.” I was determined that Freaky and Anagarika would not both be at the next workshop, but I did want a few more women, to prevent it from positively minging of football changing rooms. While I tried to find a way of putting this, Shell said, “Brice rang me yesterday. He's in absolute bits.”

Wolfsbane inclined his head. “It's still very fresh.”

“He said some cutting things about the workshop.”

“There was no workshop.”

“He didn't like the dynamic,” Shell reported.

“He should have told me, not burden you.”

“I was one of Alys's best friends. He can tell me what he wants.”

“Yeah, but if he has criticisms—”

“He is grieving, Wolfsie. Hurting.”

“Of course.”

“The memories are raw and we don't have a place to hold the workshop anyway,” I said. “Have you considered just refunding
everyone?”

There was a pause. Wolfsbane lit his cigarette and inhaled deeply, blowing the smoke gallantly away from our food.

“Darling,” said Shell, “she has a point.”

“I don't have enough left to give everyone their money back.”

I found myself sharing glances with Shell. Naturally, finances were tight, but I'd assumed Wolfsbane made a reasonable living out of being a
well-respected
shaman.

“You could try holding it Bridgwater,” I half joked. “It's better value.”

“Might as well use Chippenham, in that case.” Wolfsbane and I both lived in market towns in neighbouring counties and they were quite similar in some ways; neither big nor bold, but both proud of their history and their rivers. Chippenham was charming and perhaps a bit posher than homely Bridgwater. “I might attract punters from London, it's a direct run.”

“At the very least, we need to get in touch with all the participants, talk them through the idea of holding the workshop elsewhere, and get some dates out of them.”

“Good thinking, Sabbie. I'll action that to you, then.”

“Right.” Was I his employee, of sorts? It was a simple enough desk job. I looked away across the town square, trying to get on top of my vexation, shading my eyes from the sun. A familiar figure was sitting on the steps of the market cross, hugging his knees.

“That's Freaky,” I said. “I'm going to say hi.”

I walked the short distance and plonked down next to him. He glanced at me briefly but went back to turning a leather friendship bracelet round his wrist.

“Hey, what's up?”

“I'm good. Just catching my wind.”

“And catching the sun?”

“The light has gone out of the sun for me, Sabbie. Midsummer, and I grieve for it.”

“I know. I still feel the same about Alys.”

“Alys is in the Summer Isles, now. The living is where the trouble always lies.” Freaky took off his glasses, a
tortoiseshell-rimmed
pair that he'd had for longer than I'd known him, and wiped his eyes. “There is no homeland. No solidarity. No bond of communal feeling.”

“What's happened, Freaky?”

“My caravan. I believed it to be a song to the god and the goddess. According to Stefan McKiddie, it's a sore sight for any eyes. A blot. He towed it out onto the road.”

“What? Why did he do that?”

“My friend …” said Freaky. He trailed off. His lips were moist. I could see he was close to giving way. His hand went to his eyes again. I took his spectacles from him and gave them a
much-needed
cleaning with a tissue.

“Has this anything to do with the row Wolfsbane had with Stefan?”

“I think not. Except that it left Stef … vulnerable.”

“Vulnerable! You mean
cold-hearted
.”

“The Plods towed the caravan off the highway. Impounded. Fine to pay. Impossible, my dear, dear, friend.”

“Look, Freaky … have you eaten today?” I got up and slid my hand under his arm, easing him into as standing position. We walked like an old couple over to the others. “Wolfsbane, will you get Freaky a panini?”

Wolfs didn't move for several seconds, as if he had to compute my words to make sense of them. Shell was already on her feet. “Fruit juice with your food, Freaky?”

“Could I plump for a hot chocolate? It's kinda warming.”

Shell disappeared. I brought Wolfsbane up to speed and he finally woke himself, slapping Freaky on the arm in camaraderie. “That's the pits, mate. Pits. Sodding cops.”

“Sodding Stefan McKiddie!” I added.

“Yep. Not filling the universe with love and light at the moment, is he?”

“I have a theory,” said Freaky. “He's under the influence of a very malign spirit.”

“From what plane?” asked Wolfs.

“From this one.” Shell had returned with the hot chocolate and he sipped at it fast. “I speak of Esme Hall.”

I thought about Esme. Stefan had met her at a Pagan Craft event at the Town Hall and in weeks she was living with him at Stonedown. Her pots were popular in an underground,
person-to
-person sort of way, but it was when Stef offered to set up a website that her work took off. Was she a malign influence on Stef? Had he changed for the worse since they'd been an item?

“He is supportive of some mates,” I said. “You know, the chap attacked just after the solstice?”

“What chap?” said Wolfs.

“Gerald Evens. He was bashed on the head in the abbey grounds.”

“Bloody hell,” said Shell.

“Esme was the one who told me. Although, to back up Freaky's assumptions, she wasn't very nice about how Stefan was spending time with him.”

Freaky's food arrived and he tucked in with the vigour of the recently starved, saying nothing more. We all agreed that he should try to get his caravan out of the pound, and that Wolfs, who had a tow bar on his ancient estate car, would find somewhere
off-road
for it. We threw some tenners into a kitty.

Freaky stuffed the last of his food into his mouth as Wolfs eased himself up from his chair using his staff, which was as tall as Wolfsbane and took up its own sacred space at the table. Wolfsbane never appeared in Glastonbury without his full pagan regalia of bright cotton trousers, Celtic knot tunic, and
full-length
cloak. Freaky had carved the ash staff with runes and triskelions way back—it had to be twenty years old.

Once they left for the police station, Shell and I ordered teas and sat soaking up the sun.

“Slightly
gender-ridden
division of labour.”

“Don't knock it,” said Shell, fishing sunglasses from her bag. “Personally, I'm glad to get a bit of
me-time
.”

“Wolfsbane's too
full-on
?”

“Hmm. Not in every department, I'm afraid.” Her eyes were shielded by the glasses. “He's like Jupiter, you know?”

“What, you mean a seeker after intellectual and spiritual wisdom?”

“No, a massive, shining star … full of nothing but gas.” I couldn't help the snort that came down my nose. Shell took a tiny sip of tea and masterfully changed the subject. “Brice wanted me to thank you, Sabbie. For going to the inquest with him.”

“That was not the inquest. Believe me, when it gets going, he'll need all his friends there.”

“Brice is really worried what the outcome will be.” She turned her teacup round its saucer, using a single finger. “He's terrified, actually.”

“Is it drugs?” My voice came out in a sort of choke. “Does he think Alys took something?”

“No, Sabbie, and don't you dare mention that to him. He thinks Alys will be found to be pregnant.”

I felt my eyebrows shoot up. “He's not thinking that she died because she was pregnant, is he?”

“Maybe. He's not thinking straight, to be honest.”

“Had she lost a baby or something?”

Shell gave me a sharp look. “Why d'you say that?”

“Because she'd been having bad periods. I remember wondering at Stonedown if she was miscarrying that day.”

“No, Sabbie, you're way off beam.” She took a couple of minutes to drink her tea and let me think about that. Then she said, “I may as well tell you. Wolfsie says you're good at getting to the truth anyway.”

I felt an inward preen go through me, as if my feathers had ruffled pleasantly. It was nice to know Wolfsbane thought well of me as a shaman.

“Alys and I met at school, did I say? So I know her better that any other friend; better than Brice. Do you follow? I know things Brice does not.”

I gave a nod.

“She was always mature for her age, you know? She sneered at the boys in our year. We were doing our GCSE courses when she started seeing this older bloke. A specific older bloke, actually. A teacher.”

“Goddess!”

“This chap was new in the Humanities department and to be honest, we wouldn't think of him as old at all now, I guess he was two, three years out of university. He was a fantastic looker and Alys wasn't the only girl with a crush on him, a gaggle of girls used to follow him around on the pretext of their history studies. It was Alys who got him in the end.” Shell smiled. “She wasn't especially pretty or anything, but back then she had a big, cheeky personality. She knew what she wanted and usually got it.”

“So she got this teacher.”

“It was the worse thing that could have happened. She fell so heavily. It couldn't end in anything but disaster, could it? She got pregnant and he paid for her to have an abortion in a private clinic, in the hope of keeping it quiet. In fact he put a lot of pressure on her to have the abortion, although I don't suppose she had many other options. She'd left it late telling him, so by the time she went in, she had to have the drip and everything and it went horribly wrong. The bleeding wouldn't stop and she was rushed into the general hospital. Naturally, it all came out at school. Alys was sixteen, over the age of consent, but the bloke got the sack. She never heard from him again. She messed up her exams and we didn't see her all summer holidays because she refused to come out with the rest of us.”