As Iona stood behind the counter she mused about the origins of the shop. The Tulloch family was so old, and with so many branches, that it wasn’t any wonder one of its many members decided to expand the family archive. She vaguely remembered in her home history lessons being told which one of her ancestors had decided to open the shop, but the name escaped her. Could they have fathomed it would still be standing in the same position hundreds of years later? Nothing lasted forever, nothing should, but the shop had certainly stood the test of time. She was sure, despite her inventory, there were still many objects, artefacts, and items hidden away, and that no one in the family really knew everything that was contained within. Over the years the shop had taken on a personality of its own, hiding cursed rings, and opening when it wished to, she wasn’t sure she liked the amount of control it was starting to have on her life.
After about an hour of no customers Iona decided her time would be best spent sorting through the rooms up the stairs. The sign on the door flipped in approval of her thoughts, and she felt herself silently huff in exasperation. With the door closed to outsiders she would be perfectly safe to complete a task that she had, so far, not had the time to do. With a steady stream of customers ebbing in and out of the shop on a daily basis the only time she had explored the rooms up the stairs had been to try and find out how far Duncan had become embroiled in the war for the city. There were many more items and books, in towers surrounding his own small corner, left unexplored.
There were three rooms up the stairs in the shop. One was a modest bedroom where the current occupier slept, and sometimes ate in Iona’s case. The other two were extensions of the larger archive back on the main family estate. The room where Duncan’s belongings were kept was more of a storage for items and books that posed no real threat, whereas the one Iona only entered once was where powerful and dangerous relics and objects remained. Going in had made her feel queasy, either in fear she would touch something she wasn’t supposed to, or because the items in there emanated such an overwhelming aura it had affected her physically.
Whatever the reason had been, she had decided that she would enter only when absolutely necessary. Thankfully, her perusal didn’t cause her to open that particular door, and so she chose the other one where Duncan’s belongings were being kept until the family saved enough grace to release him from his punishment. She hadn’t been to the hospital since Claire had been put on the first train out of the city, but her family would become suspicious if they found out her visits to the hospital had increased and so she had stayed away – the less they thought about their wayward grandson the better.
The storage room had been chaotically packed with everything one could imagine. Towers of books dating back to the previous century, personal diaries of family members who had served their time in the shop, battered old leather suitcases with the locks broken, a wardrobe she was sure wasn’t full of clothes, a small corner dedicated to her cousin’s belongings, and many more things besides. Iona decided working clockwise would be the best systematic way to sort the chaos that had erupted in the modest sized room. There were small pathways between mountains of miscellanea, one misjudged step could send more items sprawling into another creating a headache of a domino effect. Unfortunately for Iona, she brushed too closely past an empty coat stand and sent it falling to the floor, but not before it had caught Duncan’s belongings in the corner sending them spilling like pieces of a broken plate.
Sighing with frustration, and cursing the person who had attempted to organise the room, she climbed over more obstacles until she reached the sprawling pile of Duncan’s belongings. There was nothing of particular value, his sketchbook that contained a picture of their teenage selves, some pens and pencils, clothes, fiction books, and toiletries. As she was bundling up the clothes to stuff them back in his rucksack something heavy fell from between the imperfect folds and fell to the floor with a loud thump. It was a scarlet stone, the outer layer appeared to be clear quartz, but its heart was as red as the blood flowing through her veins. Held within a clear plastic bag, it was accompanied by a folded note with writing scribbled onto it. At first, she thought it was a family relic he had been about to sell to the next highest bidder. She picked up the bag carefully, reading the handwriting through the plastic. She realised it was words to a spell, no doubt to activate its properties, but the further she read the more the panic began to rise.
Dropping the plastic bag from her hand she staggered back and straight into another tower of manuscripts and comic books from the 70s. In her panicked senselessness she frantically checked the markings on her arm to see if they were still there, intact from the last time she had taken a passing glance. Was one branch missing, was a part near her hand less populated than she remembered?
Trying to overcome her panic was difficult, and she had to fight against her instinct to flee from the room. Slowly she breathed, inhaled and exhaled rhythmically so she could think without hearing her heartbeat thud behind her ears. Her gaze found the stone, still in the plastic bag, lying on the ground a few feet away from where she stood. She swiped a scarf from another pile of outdated clothes and wrapped her hand in it, before gingerly reaching out and grasping the plastic bag by its top corner. Ignoring the feeling that she had come too close to losing something very important to her, she finished the handwritten note that was keeping the stone company. It was Duncan’s unpractised hand, paired with the fact she had found it amongst his belongings, set alarm bells ringing around her. What was he doing with a thing like that? What had he intended to use it for? She shuddered to think.
***
The shop was slowly growing into a dangerous place for her to be. It seemed a fitting lesson to give someone who had scoffed at the idea of being in charge of it, of looking down upon it as a demeaning task. Iona sat in the private room at the back of the shop, amidst the drying bunches of herbs, the brewing concoctions, and the Tulloch tea leaves. Two items sat before her on the worktop, surrounded by sharp knives, sieves, and chopping boards. She decided she would take her chances with a sharp knife over either of the two objects. One was the cursed tome she had confiscated from a secretive mortal a few weeks previously, and the other was an equally cursed mineral she had found amongst her cousin’s personal belongings, accompanied by a note written in his own hand. If it hadn’t come with his instructions on how to use it, she would have thought her family had been cruel enough to send it to him.
Witching families like the Tullochs had a set of rules to live and conduct themselves by, any breach of those rules would result in a punishment. Duncan had broken many minor ones, and that translated to temporarily being removed from the living world. What Iona was beginning to understand was that her grandparents hadn’t even touched on the severity of his misdemeanours. If beginning a serious relationship with a mortal wasn’t bad enough, he could add creating a forbidden stone to the ever-growing list.
The blood red stone that remained in its plastic bag was a forbidden object to make by any of the witching families. To do so could result in something more permanent than a comatose state. Yet, that was exactly what Duncan had done. He had created a stone that, when it came into contact with another witch, swallowed their powers indefinitely. It was considered one of the greatest sins a witch could ever commit, and was on par with harming mortals unnecessarily. Both could result in a death sentence. Once these objects were found they were immediately destroyed, and so there were none in recorded existence, except the one that sat in front of her intimidatingly on the worktop. According to legend they were not easily made, and it took a great deal of stamina and power to create them. Duncan had always played the fool, but had evidently been underestimated by the family. The note was instructions on how to complete the stone, and the various formula and theory scribbled in corners was of Duncan’s own devising. He had created it from scratch. She was at least thankful to him that he’d kept it within a plastic bag, because if she had touched it the markings on her arms would be gone, and she would be mortal.
Gingerly she picked up the plastic bag and held the stone up to the light, for a moment letting her curiosity overcome her revulsion and fear. Unlike a natural mineral, one that had been created was always in flux, always changing its nature and appearance until it was finished. The inside moved and writhed in the light, flowing and ebbing as an ocean on a blustery day. It possessed a strange kind of beauty, and for a few moments she allowed herself to commend Duncan on his craftsmanship. If he had put as much effort into maintaining the shop as he had into the gem then he probably wouldn’t be in the position he now occupied. Slowly she placed it back down on the table and sighed to the empty room.
It was as dangerous as it was beautiful, and the poignant question still remained; what had he planned to do with it? Without asking him she would never know, and she doubted Claire knew either. The temptation to wake Duncan up swept over her but she brushed it off. There would be no explanation that would placate her disappointment that he had fallen so far from the family path.
Perhaps she didn’t understand the lengths to which he had hated being a Tulloch, or the strength of his desire to lead another life. Beginning a very mortal relationship, not having his life decided for him, and having a family of his own who would accept him for everything that he was, it wasn’t that Iona didn’t understand all of those desires, but she had never experienced them as poignantly as, it appeared, Duncan had. Had he created it to use on himself? Or had he sensed the increasingly powerful presence that could be felt in the margins of all the city’s problems? She could never be certain. One thing she was sure of was that she had stumbled upon one more thing that she couldn’t tell her grandparents.
***
Iona was beginning to think that her particular generation of the Tullochs were prone to making disastrous mistakes. She may have begun the cycle, but Duncan had continued it. Another day came, another sun rose in the sky to be blocked by the clouds, and the shop opened as routine, regardless of if she could concentrate or not. The stone haunted her, in sleep and in everything else. She had kept it with the cursed tome in the private room, still having told her grandparents about neither. Unsure why she was being so secretive about the book of curses, she decided that until her emotions were made clear she would continue to withhold the information.
“Excuse me?” a voice ripped her from her undesired reverie.
An old woman was standing on the other side of the counter, looking at Iona with an expectant gaze. She was older, perhaps no more than fifty, with real diamond earrings glistening in her ears, and an equally smart jacket and handbag to accompany them.
“Sorry,” Iona uttered, “Is there anything I can help ye with?”
The older woman appeared to be more at ease with the shop than most of the other customers who wandered in. Her gaze was not easily captured by items, and there was no sense of awe about her tone or the way she carried herself.
“I used to be a regular here when Isobel was in charge, but I haven’t visited in quite a few years. Does she still work here?”
Iona shook her head, “I’m afraid she doesn’t. Is there something I can help with?”
“Perhaps. I used to come in here to have my fortune told, she was very good at it. Do you still provide that?”
Although Iona had scoffed at the idea of knowing the future of one’s life, due to recent events her mind was beginning to turn. She could no longer blame the mortals that wanted their futures laid out in vague terms. Isobel had been talented at divination, she could remember that, whether or not she could live up to those standards was something she wasn’t sure of. Each witch had talents, seeing the future was not one of hers. Her immediate hesitation only served to give the customer some hope.
“You do, don’t you?” she smiled, a sparkle lighting in her eyes.
“Yes and no,” she conceded, “We are supposed to offer that service, but I’m afraid I’m not very good at it.”
“Don’t worry, I don’t need the answers to life’s big questions at my age,” she chuckled, “It was just for nostalgia’s sake.”
“If ye insist then I can,” Iona offered hesitantly.
Her grandparents would say she needed the practice, but in an age when science was worshipped as fact and fortune tellers condemned as charlatans she begged to differ. Eagerly, the older woman nodded and Iona led her through to the private room where the herbs and the dangerous objects lived. The tome and stone were hidden away from the sight of mortals, but not completely from Iona’s mind. Asking the older woman to sit she began to rummage through one of the drawers until she found the mirror that she was looking for. It wasn’t a special mirror by any means, not unlike a woman would have on her vanity table, or hung on the wall for the occasional brief glances before leaving. She placed it on the table between them and looked carefully at the woman sitting opposite.
“Could ye place your hand on the edge?” Iona invited.
Smiling nostalgically the woman did as she was bid and Iona peered into the clear surface, hoping she would see anything but her own gaze reflected back. The hope wasn’t in vain as she began to see glimpses of someone else’s life, images like photos in an album or moments captured for posterity. The more skilled diviner could see more than just images, they could be present in the memory itself, but for witches like Iona who had spent more time peering into a pestle and mortar flashes were all she could hope to get.
Pasts and futures never came in order, and it took a great deal of study to put them chronologically. The age of the customer often helped, but if one saw an event where their appearance was unchanged it was difficult to tell if it had already happened or was yet to come.
A child clutching a stuffed bear in one hand and a mother’s in the other was ushered to a bomb shelter in one vision, whilst a proud and beaming woman with more grey hair than the one before her possessed was holding a grandchild in another. It was easy to get drowned in the past, and equally so with the future. Both were fluid in that they changed and altered. The rule of thumb was that only good news was divulged. Dates of death, accidents, and other equally painful events were best kept to oneself. In every session there were always a few headstones or cremation curtains that appeared from the woods of time, and discerning which ones had already come to pass was, at times, difficult. Headstones with dates helped.
“I’m sorry about your husband,” Iona uttered, “His death must have been quite a shock.”
“And you said you weren’t very good,” she gave a small smile but there were tears in the corners of her eyes.
Death was relatively easy to see due to the mark it made on a person’s timeline, it was a big event with many spiralling consequences. It was the details like marriage, order of grandchildren, and whether or not they would win the lottery that were the most difficult things to see. From what Iona could discern from the chaotic images the woman had a difficult childhood, with her father lost to war and her mother lost to grief and struggling to cope on her own, even from an outside perspective it was painful to watch. The husband that she’d lost had been a lifeboat on what had been a stormy sea. As frustrated as his stubbornness could be, she loved him more than anything, even in death. Her children had been a great comfort, all three of them, and it must pain her that one was more distant than she would have liked.
“Ye must be looking forward to a grandchild,” Iona commented.
“Am I?” she baulked, surprised by the news.
Iona broke her gaze and looked up in confusion; she must have placed the date wrong.
“Your middle daughter is pregnant, or if she’s not now she soon will be.”
“Well, it’s about time,” the woman smiled happily, “Honestly, three years of marriage and not one child. They wanted to enjoy married life first, apparently.”
She stifled a chuckle at the typical response from someone of an older, more traditional generation.
“What about the eldest one, any sons-in-law I should look out for?”
“A few potentials, but ye might have to wait a while longer.”
Bad news was no news. Iona didn’t say that it was only after the woman died that her eldest daughter would finally meet someone she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. There was a debate amongst the witching families that false hope was crueller than no hope, and Iona would agree in every situation but this one. What happened after the customer died was of no worry to her now, and no customer wanted to worry about their death. People wanted reassurance from fortune telling, not facts or dates, but hope and comfort that their lives, and the lives of their loved ones, wouldn’t be hellish. That was exactly what she had been taught to give them.
“I suppose potentials would be an improvement.”
“Was there anything else more specific ye wished to know?” Iona queried.
The older woman hesitated. For a dreadful moment Iona thought she would be asked for a date of death, but it passed as quickly as the woman’s hesitation.
“Will I ever see my son again?” she croaked painfully.
“Yes,” Iona confirmed, wiping all emotion from her face, “You’ll be reconciled.”
Life was never as fair as mortals thought it should be. Not everyone’s life had a balance of good and bad things, and no one would ever be able to explain why. The woman before her had a difficult childhood and adolescence, and now in her twilight years she seemed fated to relive some of her earlier pain. The estranged son would be reconciled to his concerned mother only during a battle with cancer Iona wasn’t sure he would survive. It was a fact that she didn’t need to know. The older woman pierced her with a scrutinising gaze, as if she had some important secret written on her forehead.
“Just like Isobel,” she surmised, “I could never tell when she was lying either.”
“Family habit,” Iona replied.
“Do you know how she is? We used to be good friends before I moved away.”
Iona faltered, a fresh wave of guilt rendering her mind unable to make words. After a moment or two to recover herself she managed to stutter a reply.
“S…she’s well.”
“Good, I’m glad to hear it,” the older woman said as she stood up to leave, “Tell her Elizabeth Doherty sends her regards. I’m sure she’ll remember me, I used to be in here every month.”
“I’m sure she will,” Iona replied and hoped she didn’t sound as disbelieving as she felt.
***
Where she couldn’t visit the hospital where Duncan lay as freely as she would wish, she could visit someone else who was perhaps more deserving of her time. She had only been once since her arrival in the city and it had been as awkward then as it felt now after a few weeks had passed. Her visit had been a while ago, and so she didn’t expect anyone to recognise her. After giving the person’s name to the receptionist she made her way into the day room and had a horrible sense of Deja-vu as she glanced around at the other inmates. There was something almost deranged in the air, as if she was walking in to someone else’s fevered, nonsensical nightmare. There were waves of confusion, fear, anger, and injustice which she hadn’t sensed on her last visit.
The person she had come to see still sat in the chair facing out towards the immaculately kept garden. The subdued winter colours pervaded everywhere, and Iona found she was curious to see what it looked like in the blooming summer months. Pulling a chair from a nearby table she sat beside the older woman and took a glance over her. She still didn’t acknowledge Iona’s presence, and her gaze never left the dark green shrubbery or the rain-stained window. There had been no visible change to her demeanour or her appearance, which Iona thought she should be thankful for.
“I’m sorry it’s been so long since my last visit,” she piped up, “Things have been unusually hectic.”
With confiscating a bible of curses, bundling Duncan’s fiancé and unborn child to another city, and wrestling with the dangerous stone she had found in his belongings, on top of completing her normal customer duties, she felt she didn’t have the time to breathe. She should be grateful that she had heard nothing else from the spiritualists or the Morrisons.
“Someone came in to see ye yesterday,” Iona continued, “An Elizabeth Doherty, she said you would remember because she was in quite often to have her future told.”
She had hoped that the mention of a name from her past would perhaps earn her some form of recognition or reaction, but Isobel sat motionless, staring out into the garden. Briefly Iona followed her gaze, half expecting to see something, but the garden was empty and the rain still came down heavily, bouncing off the concrete slabs to create a light mist. Saddened, Iona turned her gaze back to Isobel and continued her one-sided conversation.
“I’d like to hear your thoughts on something I found in Duncan’s belongings. He was creating a stone that takes a witch’s powers, and I want to find out why.”
Her confession was followed by an expected silence, and Isobel continued to stare out into the garden. Perhaps she held a grudge for what happened all those years ago, perhaps her silence was intentional and signalled that she didn’t wish to speak to her attacker. Iona still vividly remembered how it had all happened, it was a recurring nightmare that invoked a strangling sense of frustration and shame. There would be nothing she could do in her lifetime to make up for what she took away.
There were the normal excuses that her mother and uncle had been more than forthcoming with; she was young, it was an accident and not intentional, and that she hadn’t really known what she was doing. The first two were true, the third was so far from the truth that she hadn’t dared admit it to herself for years afterwards. She had been seventeen, and it was her first time to the big, lively, liberating city where all of the interesting things happened. Back in the village near the family estate there was one pub filled with the ageing local populace, and a night down there was what they called fun. In the city there was every kind of bar imaginable, with cocktails, spirits, mixers, and so much more. There were nightclubs where people her own age would go to mingle, dance, kiss, drink, and talk, listening to music so loud it engulfed everyone in the room. Iona wanted to experience that, and she didn’t care that she was underage. She was a Tulloch, and she could do what she liked and fool whichever mortal got in her way.
Isobel had been in charge of the shop then and was more than happy to receive a visit from another member of the family. Her older brothers occasionally came down, but her niece and nephew were still a little young to be freed from the family estate. Until the summer of Iona’s seventeenth year when she was put on a train and shipped down to her aunt in the city for a long weekend. It was meant to be an educational trip, one where she would learn the ins and outs of running the shop, what was kept there, and what services they provided to the city customers. Iona hadn’t been interested in the slightest, arrogant in her position as heir that she would never be demeaned so much as to be sent to the shop. There were many things she had been wrong about back then.
Instead she had wanted to go out at night, and had expected her young aunt to support the idea of teenage freedom. She had been disappointed. Isobel refused to let her go, saying she was underage, knew no one else in the city, and that it was a dangerous place to be at night. Iona had scoffed and questioned what could possibly hurt her? Still, permission wasn’t forthcoming, and so she resolved that she would sneak out when her aunt had gone to sleep. It was an easy thing to do, what was her magic for if not to help her in situations like this one?
When she had dragged herself back to the shop in the early hours of the morning, just as the dawn was about to break over the horizon, Isobel had been furious. Iona accepted the lecture, but what she didn’t accept was the threat to tell her grandparents what she had done. Her aunt was tame compared to her grandmother, and she didn’t want to be punished on her return. Like all deviants she had played the penitent for the rest of the morning, but as soon as her aunt’s back was turned, she rummaged around in the private room, quickly concocting something to make her forget about what had happened the previous night. She had seen the instructions in a book on the family estate somewhere before, and her memory was good, at least she thought it was. After brewing some of Isobel’s own tea she slipped in the draught and watched as Isobel drank it all. Waiting eagerly in anticipation Iona lingered beside her aunt for the first few moments, expecting the memory loss to begin taking effect. What she hadn’t expected was for her to collapse into a writhing mass on the floor, gurgling and cracking as if all her bones were being broken.
Iona had staggered back and watched in horror, thinking Isobel was going to die rather than just forget. That was the moment that would never end for Iona, and one that continued to plague her. It couldn’t have lasted more than a few minutes, but to her seventeen year-old self it may as well have been hours. After the fit had stopped Isobel lay lifeless on the floor behind the counter, her eyes glazed over with sickening finality. Panicked, Iona had rushed to lock the door to the shop so no customers could enter, and stood with her back pressed to the glass, her heart thumping against her ribs wanting to jump up her throat. What had she done? What had happened? It was just a forgetting draft, it couldn’t possibly have this much of an effect.
The next phone call she made would continue to be the worst of her life. The only reason she had given her aunt the potion was so she wouldn’t have to call that person. The call was tense, the details had blurred over time but the memory of the tone had not. The moment her grandmother stepped from the private room not half an hour later Iona wanted the floor to swallow her and never let her go. What was worse is that Iona was never scolded, never shouted at or lectured, but was made to be a witness to the painful process of watching as Isobel was committed to a home for people who couldn’t look after themselves. The family passed it off as very early onset dementia, but Iona knew that it was the forgetting draft. It had been too strong, or the dosage too high, no one would ever really be sure, but it had ruined Isobel’s life.
Iona had looked back over those events many times since, and she was sure it was only to torment herself. A few weeks later Duncan had been banished to take his aunt’s place in the shop, and unbeknownst to the family another cycle of mistakes had begun. When Duncan’s mistakes finally caught up with him it had caused Iona to rethink what she had done to Isobel. As far as her knowledge at the time went, her own misdemeanour was many times worse than the many Duncan had completed pooled together, yet he sat in a hospital bed and she was still free, in a restricted sense, to live. At first, she had allowed herself to think she had escaped punishment because she was the heir, and they couldn’t banish her to slumber if they one day expected to hand the family reigns over to her. Those thoughts had been persistent until she thought more deeply. She had been punished, just not by her grandparents. Iona would have to live the rest of her life knowing what she did, knowing that she had taken the future away from one of her family members, and in some ways that was a punishment.
Iona had been arrogant regarding Duncan. She had thought he had deserved his punishment for going against the family rules time and time again, but she never had any right to judge his mistakes. In the wider picture they were just as bad as each other, and were living through their respective punishments. She still dreaded to think what further things her grandparents would do to him should they ever find out about Claire, or the stone.
There wasn’t enough words to express how apologetic she was to Isobel, and there wasn’t enough time in the world to show her how repentant she was. At the end of the day what had been done couldn’t be reversed, and as a result Isobel Tulloch had been deprived of the rest of her life. The burden of that knowledge would weigh Iona down for the rest of her life – that was her punishment. Both Tulloch grandchildren had learned the hard way that Clan law was there for a good reason. One day Duncan would be awoken, but Iona had a sense that he wouldn’t meagrely step back into line. He’d had a plan, she was sure of it, although the details remained obscure.
“I’m sorry,” Iona uttered, “I don’t think I’ve ever said that.”
Her heartfelt apology fell on deaf ears. Inhaling quietly she squeezed her aunt’s hand and stood up prepared to leave.
“T…take care,” a small, almost unrecognisable voice croaked, “they’re…close.”
She baulked and looked at her aunt, only to find her gaze directed away from the garden and straight back into Iona’s. For a moment it seemed as though Isobel had regained some of her senses, her eyes shone with a sense of knowledge that no one had seen from her in years, but just as soon as it was spotted it receded back into oblivion. Isobel blinked lethargically and focused her gaze back on the garden. The moment was gone with frustrating ease, but Iona didn’t need to ask who they were. The invisible force that lingered in the shadows of the war, who was backing the spiritualists with dangerous nonchalance, and could erase themselves from the past. Isobel could feel them too, and she knew that they were coming.
***
It was easier to forget the larger problems when a stream of small ones kept occurring. Mortals with headaches, stress, nerves, and every other malady besides. They were easy to solve, and Iona was thankful that something in her life was. On a quiet day, a few days after her visit to Isobel, a man stalked into the shop with a purpose. He didn’t look around him, he didn’t hesitate at the threshold like so many others did. He made a straight pathway from the door to the counter where she stood and stopped abruptly, foisting a phone in her direction.
“It’s for you,” he announced blankly.
Iona narrowed her eyes and observed the stranger. The only thing she knew for certain was that he was mortal because he had been able to cross the threshold. He appeared in all senses of the word to be an average one, in his mid-forties with a widow’s peak and thinning hair on top, a slight gut where too many beers had gone in during football games, and an expensive looking watch peeking from underneath the cuff of his worn winter coat.
Carefully, she took the bulky phone from his hand, briefly marvelling at the technology, before putting it awkwardly to her ear.
“Good morning, Miss Tulloch,” a deep voice called.
“Who is this?” she demanded curtly.
“It’s Harold Morrison, I presume you haven’t forgotten me since our last meeting?”
The arrogance dripping from his tone was obvious even on the phone and she clenched her teeth in frustration.
“Despite my best attempts,” she retorted, “Why all the theatrics?”
“As you’re well aware my friends and I are unable to enter your shop, and I saw little other solution to get you to meet with me.”
Iona’s gaze turned to the door where she saw a man in a dark suit lingering at the threshold, unable to get any further. By his build and hair colour she could tell it wasn’t the eldest Morrison brother but one of his many so-called friends.
“This is hardly a meeting.”
“This is just the invitation,” he corrected, and she could hear the smirk in his tone, “If the mortal in front of you leaves the shop unaccompanied my friend waiting outside will kill him. We wouldn’t want that, would we?”
Temper surged through her and she had to struggle not to hurl the phone at the wall. She wondered for a brief moment if what he threatened would actually happen, but then realised she was unwilling to find out. Her frustration was palpable. She hated being forced to do anything, and the only time she was willing to swallow her pride was before her grandparents and no one else.
“Ye can’t be ignorant of what happened the last time someone thought to summon me into their presence,” she growled.
“I wouldn’t dare to summon a Tulloch witch,” he gasped sarcastically, “I’m inviting you to join me with some insurance you’ll accept that invitation.”
Iona regretted a few things, some she acknowledged and others she dared not. Killing one of the spiritualists on her first day had been a niggling regret, one she knew would only be amplified if she let the innocent mortal in front of her march outside to his certain death. Even if she had only met with the eldest Morrison once, his reputation was far reaching, and reputations weren’t usually based on empty threats.
“Where would ye like to meet?” she spat.
“I knew you’d be sensible,” he commended, “My man outside will show you the way.”
“If he so much as touches this mortal I’ll ensure he doesn’t live long enough to regret it,” she warned before hanging up.
After placing the phone on the counter, she drove her fist into it and watched as the pieces splintered off in every direction. She motioned for the mortal to follow her outside. The shop locked securely behind them and she motioned for the suited man to show the way. Without another word the mortal went on his way.
After bundling ungracefully into a Mercedes saloon car with leather seats and privacy windows she was chauffeured through the city to the suburbs, passing mansion after mansion until she stopped outside of one. The Morrison mansion was the epitome of luxurious residences for the rich and affluent. A private driveway, neatly trimmed grass, and more windows than she dared to count. It appeared to be better suited to a hotel than a house for just one family. What could one expect from an immortal family who were real estate tycoons? Not even the Tulloch main estate was this large.
Trying to hide her awe, she followed her escort inside into the tiled floor of the foyer, littered with large, antique mirrors and paintings, a vase or two of flowers on top of the lacquered tables. There were people floating from one room to another, some dressed in suits whilst others looked more casual, but all, she was sure, were part of the Morrison nest. Immortals were known to keep both immortals and mortals around them at all times, variously called a coven, a gang, and a nest. It was as if they could never be alone or just wanted the constant adoration of those weaker than themselves.
Rooms for pleasure and gaming were littered around downstairs, and after a while she stopped looking in all of them. The stares that followed her through the building only served to put her more on edge and waft the flames of her anger. Their short journey stopped as they entered a neat looking living room with polished leather sofas and a clear glass table in the middle. The room was cavernous, with a set of spiralling stairs at the back corner, more mirrors on the walls, and even more antiques placed conspicuously around.
Harold Morrison sat lounging on the sofa directly in front of her, flanked by two men bulky enough to be body guards. What he needed them for was beyond her. She spotted Leif standing beside a table, looking at her with what she would recognise as an apology, but she couldn’t be sure given her current circumstances. Albin eventually emerged from a door at the back of the room and paled when he saw her. She was greatly outnumbered, but only a handful of the people in the room were actually immortal, the rest were idiots.
Iona knew she was going to have a battle with her temper during their exchange and braced herself.
“Miss Tulloch,” Harold welcomed, a sickening smile gracing his sharp features, “I’m so glad you accepted my invitation.”
She remained staunchly silent, her manners purposefully left in the shop.
“Still eager to get straight to business, I see,” he commented slyly.
“What do ye want?” she questioned.
“I want to ask you for a favour.”
Despite herself she glanced at Leif who shook his head shallowly, indicating that it had nothing to do with him. As much as she wanted to believe him, the same sense of mistrust kept plaguing her. She sighed internally. Why did everyone in this city think that Tullochs were fairies who granted wishes?
“I don’t do favours,” she stated.
“Of course I wouldn’t expect you to grant me a favour without anything in return. You can ask for anything you wish, I’ll even stop attacking the spiritualists if that’s what you want.”
“I’ve made my views on this petty squabbling between ye very clear,” she reminded, “There is nothing ye have that I want.”
“I think you may change your mind,” Harold stood up and walked over to a young man standing near him, “You see, I want you to turn my friend here into an immortal, and in exchange I’ll return this family relic of yours.”
She gave the eldest brother some credit, he knew how to make an impact. Every time she felt sympathy for Duncan and his plight someone always came along and reminded her of what an idiot he had been. The frustration was also directed at herself for being too scared to enter the room with the powerful objects, she might have been able to see if there was anything more missing. All of those thoughts paled in comparison to the ones that spiralled in her head about the requested favour. Turning someone into an immortal was no small task, and it was another one of the witching sins.
There were two ways immortals could exist; one was being born, like the Morrisons; and the other was to be made into one by a witch who practiced old magic. Immortals weren’t born very often or the world would be overrun with them, and the witching families still alive who practiced old magic were almost as rare. It just so happened one was standing in front of them. She felt herself pale and her heartbeat begin to slow, dissipating the anger that had been fuelling her since the shop. Slowly she breathed and tried to calm her racing thoughts. Her priority should be the relic, which she could feel from where she was standing as it sat neatly in Harold’s hand. A pendant with leather strap, it appeared to be simple enough, but it was always the simple things that posed the most danger. She had taken an inventory of that damned shop many times and never come across it.
Had Leif lied when he said that Duncan had never sold any of the Tulloch family relics to the Morrisons? She had been in the city for a few months and had never found any evidence of a connection between Duncan and the immortals; he had seemed to favour the spiritualists. Playing both sides wasn’t out of the question. Then she began to remember the events that had passed since her arrival. The powerful enchantments, curses, and spells that had been in circulation, provided by a mysterious benefactor. Iona was becoming more confident that nothing was missing in the shop, she would have noticed, like an out of tune key on a piano similar to when she had entered at first and realised something was missing. It couldn’t be a coincidence that this powerful object had come out of nowhere when the spiritualists were also being fed the same objects. Isobel’s warning that someone was close repeated.
“Let me see the relic,” Iona requested.
Harold Morrison narrowed his eyes, uncertain of her intentions. She wondered for a moment if a small part of him was frightened of her, one of the only witches alive who was strong enough to kill him. Nodding slowly he handed it to one of his suited servants who came to show her. Without touching it she perused the pendant more closely. An archaic silver symbol she thought she recognised dangled form the leather strap. A sense of familiarity brushed over her gently but there was nothing nostalgic about it. She didn’t pretend to have memorised the entire inventory of the shop, or the family archive, but she was sure that it wasn’t of Tulloch origin. The family archive was a mixture of family created objects and ones they had confiscated or collected along the way. Although she was sure it seemed familiar, it certainly wasn’t something she had come across in her many afternoons in the archive. Upon looking at the back she saw a name carved in, like a hallmark.
It was only visible to other witches, and hence had been missed by the immortals. The name read Leslie, but Iona was sure it was a mark of Clan Leslie, another old witching family of the Highlands. Their territory was Elgin and Moray, and many generations back they had frequently intermarried with the Tullochs. This was one of their family relics, not hers, but she was curious as to how it had arrived in the city. She remembered the item because it was documented in one of the tomes on the estate. A somewhat stupid family member had wished to know what others were thinking, every single thought and emotion to be like an open book, and so they had created the pendant. Whoever was wearing it could hear the innermost thoughts of those around them. It was a curse, however, as many people who had worn it in the past had been driven mad enough to kill themselves. It was tame compared to other objects she had seen.
Nodding slowly she waved it away until Harold Morrison was once more holding it. As long as he wasn’t wearing it, she didn’t have a problem.
“Who gave that to ye?” she queried.
“That hardly matters,” he replied.
Which she took to mean the mysterious stranger who was pawning relics, otherwise he surely would have said Duncan’s name, but why had they told the eldest brother that it belonged to the Tullochs when they must have known it didn’t? Had Harold Morrison been manipulated? Whoever had given him the relic must have known she would realise it didn’t belong to the Tullochs, therefore he would have no leverage with which to ask her for a favour.
“I can’t turn your friend into an immortal,” she announced.
Harold Morrison had not been expecting this answer and the flash of white rage that passed his features indicated to Iona she would have an argument on her hands.
“It’s a sin, and certainly not worth that relic.”
“I must admit, I think this is the first time I’ve ever witnessed a great Tulloch bow in defeat. How about you, Leif?” he goaded.
Iona dared not wait for the younger brother’s answer, “Provoking me won’t get ye what ye want. It’s no easy thing to make someone an immortal, and I think my life is worth more than your friend’s,” she narrowed her eyes, “but why don’t ye just ask the person who gave ye that relic, they should be powerful enough to do as ye ask.”
“You know them, do you?”
Enough to know they have ye in their palm, she thought but didn’t answer.
“I was hoping we could do this amicably,” he sighed, “Show Miss Tulloch to the guest room, it appears she needs some time to think about her situation.”
Two men from near the door moved towards her. Between one breath and another they had fallen to the floor, crippled. The sounds of every single inch of their bones being broken resonated throughout the room, along with their screams. Iona had already made an enemy of the spiritualists, and now it looked as though she was going to make an enemy of the immortals as well. Tullochs were not untouchable, or indestructible, and only time would tell if making an enemy out of Harold Morrison would be as bad for her as it had been for the spiritualists, but she was not, under any circumstances, going to be forced to do anything for him. She didn’t hesitate and went straight for Harold Morrison, toppling him straight to the floor and keeping him there, pressure on his bones. Immortals could still feel pain, although their thresholds were a little higher than the average mortal’s.
“If anyone moves I’ll kill him,” she announced abruptly, “And Mr Morrison here knows that where I can give immortality, I can also take it away.”
She didn’t mention that it would probably kill her to do either. The surge of justice that she felt as she watched the eldest Morrison brother pinned to the floor was exhilarating, almost sweeping her away in its blissful current.
“I’m going to make a few things perfectly clear,” she seethed, “I am not one of your people, I am not your ally, and I am not your pet that you can summon at will. Tullochs do not grant favours to immortals, and we don’t take kindly to threats. If ye ever do either again you’ll find yourself with an uncomfortably short lifespan. As for the person who gave ye that trifle, ye can tell them I’m waiting, and they can come and get me whenever they please instead of hiding behind ye and the spiritualists. Do ye understand?”
Harold Morrison growled in frustration, which only served to increase the pressure she was putting on his bones, muscles, and internal organs. Iona towered over him, ignoring the flicker of regret that ushered in the back of her mind where the reasonable side of her resided.
“Fine,” he bit out.
She released him momentarily. Quicker than anyone could see he stood up and went directly for her throat. Being immortal had its unfortunate advantages, and speed was one of them. Just before she could break the hand that came hurtling for her throat someone else intercepted it on her behalf. With wide eyes she looked at Leif Morrison who had appeared beside them, grasping his brother’s hand with a tight grip.
“That’s enough, brother,” he begged, “It’s not worth it.”
Harold Morrison was used to getting his own way. She remembered Leif telling her that during one of their first encounters. What she had never spared a thought to was what happened if he didn’t? Adamantly ignoring the possibility that she had made a mistake, and lost her temper too quickly, she didn’t linger in the Morrison mansion. Everyone rushed to jump out of her way as she left, stepping over the broken bodies as she went.
**
She had always condemned Duncan as an idiot. He had embroiled himself in the war for the city, allying with the spiritualists, or at least inadvertently helping them. Had the Morrisons ever known the extent of that help? Whatever mistakes Duncan had made, he had never been targeted by the immortal family or despised by the spiritualists. Iona had managed both in the space of four months. Who was the greater idiot? She may be safe in the shop, but what about outside? Would Harold send someone after her? Was she really afraid if he did? Immortals may be hard for her to kill now but that wouldn’t always be the case. The more power she cultivated the more things she could accomplish. Folk of the old magic ways hated immortals because they were unnatural, they flouted the laws of the earth, and there were many instances of hunts and purges throughout history. She wouldn’t be condemned for killing any of them. On the contrary, she would be praised.
The possible threat that Harold Morrison posed was nothing compared to the shadow that brushed past him. Who were they? Why were they selling spells and relics to both sides of the war? What did they stand to gain from it? So many unanswered questions, and no one to help her solve them. A small sense, biting away at the back of her mind, kept thinking that whoever they were was doing this to torment her, and to ensure she made an enemy of everyone in the city. She hadn’t made it hard if that was their purpose. Should she have provoked them? Probably not, but somewhere inside of her she was still the arrogant teenager who had done what she wanted regardless of consequence. Or perhaps she was just sick of waiting for whoever it was to show themselves. In either case the threat had been sent and it could not be revoked.
Both she and Duncan had made more mistakes than either was willing to admit or even divulge. Only time would really tell if they were mistakes at all.