After a few days she found she grew accustomed to her uncle’s presence. He was there when she got up, he would help her open up the shop, and his vast wealth of customer experience made the day run smoother. Very rarely in its history had there been two Tullochs running the shop, but perhaps the current method should move with the times. There were more people in the city now than ever before, which meant more customers and not enough time to see to them all. How Duncan had managed to balance it along with his clandestine deals was another area for Iona to be impressed. Iona liked having someone to speak to again. At the main estate there were always people, her grandparents, her uncle, and various other guests and visitors on official and unofficial business alike, over and above the regular staff members who came and cleaned, or the cook who came in early in the morning and left after she’d had dinner. In the shop there had only been Iona, the relics, and her memories, none of which had been decent company. It felt comforting to have another Tulloch present, especially one as precocious as her uncle.
A few days after her uncle had arrived, he stood behind the counter filling out the customer ledger as Iona was showing a curious older woman the herbs they currently stocked. After completing the purchase at the counter, she took a deep exhale.
“I was thinking we could close the shop early today,” her uncle began.
“Why?”
He hesitated as the pen was placed slowly back on top of the lined pages. The reluctant tilt to his gaze as he glanced briefly at her made her shrivel away in foreboding.
“Ye want to go and see aunt Isobel,” she surmised.
Iona was about to ask whether she had to go with him, but knew the answer and so remained silent. She had been expecting him to mention his younger sister at some point during his visit, but it had quickly been forgotten amidst the comfort his presence brought. Despite her visits to the home where her aunt was kept, she still felt some reluctance at the thought of going. Every time she went, she would remember what she did, and the subsequent consequences, neither of which made her feel good.
“You’ve been to see her, haven’t ye?” he queried with a hint of concern in his tone.
She wondered what his reaction would be if she said that she hadn’t. Her handful of visits to the home had been brief considering she engaged in a one-sided conversation, but her last visit to her aunt had revealed something that still disturbed her. After months of stubborn silence, Isobel had spoken a few brief words concerning the mysterious force that was hidden behind the war for the city.
“Only a few times,” Iona confessed, “but she isn’t very talkative.”
“That’s perhaps for the best,” he muttered, “Good, it’s settled, we’ll close early and go and visit your aunt.”
Iona was sure she had a small grimace perched on her face and tried her best to hide it. Visits to Isobel were emotionally taxing when she was on her own, but she felt as though the bubbling guilt inside of her would break its banks if she went with her uncle. For the first time since her tenure in the shop had begun, she found herself not wishing for the clock to move forwards, or for the shop to close. Her reluctance was hard to explain given that she had voluntarily visited the home several times since she had arrived in the city, but the thought of going with her uncle invoked a sense of great discomfort. No one had ever spoken about or really acknowledged what she had done to her aunt, therefore she had never bore the brunt of their hatred or disappointment. Did her uncle loathe her for what had happened? She found that it was a question she would gladly never have an answer to.
Even Tullochs couldn’t stop time, and quicker than her liking, the hour hand of the clock struck closing time, and with heavy feet she reluctantly locked the front door and flipped the sign. It was a short walk to the home, made even shorter by Iona’s persistent reluctance to go inside accompanied. The heat and concentrated smell of age and disinfectant were the first things to assault her nostrils as they entered. It was busier than she remembered during her last visits, with residents being escorted in their frames across the hall and up the stairs, whilst there were visitors waiting to be seen on the bench opposite the reception desk, apprehensive shadows on their faces as if the world were about to end. Her uncle went over to the reception to inform them who they were both there to see whilst Iona observed the many people in olive green t-shirts putting jackets on in the day room where her aunt usually spent her time. They all had a logo printed on their chests, and a word across their backs indicating that they were volunteers. During her first visit she remembered one of the nurses telling her that Isobel had a regular volunteer who spent a lot of time with her during visits. The group was all of differing ages, from what appeared to be teenagers all the way up to the woman with grey shimmers in her otherwise brown hair. Her uncle joined her and led the way into the day room, straight through the crowd of volunteers.
Iona brushed past them all but there was something in particular about one that made her look back. It was quite a young girl, perhaps the same age as Iona if not younger, and she had long, thick golden hair that hung down her back in silky waves. She never turned around so Iona couldn’t see her face, but there had been a taste of something as she had walked briskly past. Shrugging the feeling away as a part of her reluctance to be in the home, she continued to follow her uncle to where her aunt Isobel sat in the armchair staring out into the windswept garden. Differing shades of green rippled through the bushes and kempt grass, with hints of brown where the incessant rain had turned it into mud. The pruned, tidy trees swayed in the wind that promised to turn into a gale in a few more days.
“Isobel?” her uncle queried when he saw her, an array of emotions evident in his tone, “It’s Callum and Iona.”
Her aunt gave her older brother the same treatment that she’d given her niece every time she had visited. Her gaze continued to be drawn to whatever was of interest outside in the empty garden, and she never acknowledged their presence. Undeterred, her uncle pulled up a seat and sat beside her.
“I know it’s been a long time since I’ve seen ye,” he started, “How are ye doing here? They treat ye well, don’t they?”
At Isobel’s adamant silence Iona began to wonder if she was not the only family member whom her ire was directed at. She may have given her the potion that caused her infirmity, but it was her family who had thrown her into a home so far away from the main estate and left her there. Iona had never bothered to question why they hadn’t brought her back to the estate and hired a full-time nurse to take care of her. It was the first time she thought of how heartless it had been. Perhaps Isobel’s silence wasn’t down to her crippled mind, but her anger at how she’d been treated.
Silence followed her uncle’s questioning.
“We all miss ye, father especially. Unfortunately, I think they’re too old to leave the estate now. It’s strange seeing them age so rapidly when all I can remember them being is active. Mother’s still the same, age doesn’t seem to have caught up with her yet.”
Iona hadn’t seen her grandparents in months, but agreed with her uncle’s conclusions. Her grandmother was the head of the clan and had either refused or been too busy to use her age as an excuse for infirmity. She was still as active now as she had been ten years ago, but time hadn’t been as kind to her husband who suffered from regular joint pains and fatigue.
“They send their love.”
Iona observed as her uncle continued to have the same one-sided conversations that she conducted during her visits. This time Isobel did not reiterate her earlier warnings, and it left her wondering if she had imagined it. The longer he spent there the more disheartened her uncle became, and it was hard to watch. It only took half an hour for him to accept that all conversations with her were doomed to be unanswered. His depression affected him for the rest of the day, even after they returned to the shop.
***
Her uncle never suggested going to see his sister again, and never spoke of what had happened. If he hated Iona for it, he never showed it to her face. When they ran out of food, he was more than happy to go and get some, and she suspected it was more for a change of atmosphere than a genuine desire to mingle with mortals. She couldn’t blame him, at times the shop was filled with unwelcome memories, and leaving its four walls was often a welcome reprieve. It left Iona alone for the first time in four days and she found that she liked it less than she had before her uncle had arrived. The silence was heavy when once it had been peaceful, and the niggling of guilt and regret crept up on her from the nooks and corners when it had been settled before. She felt a ripple in the boundary of the shop and looked out the door to see Leif Morrison standing waiting. Hurriedly she dashed for the door, afraid that her uncle would see the immortal being lingering outside the shop and think the worst.
“What are ye doing here?” she hissed, scanning the street frantically.
“It’s been a while since you’ve greeted me so abruptly,” he commented.
She threw him an exasperated look when she was sure her uncle wasn’t within sight of the shop.
“I was hoping you would join me for coffee.”
“That’s not a good idea,” Iona answered curtly.
Her anxiety that her uncle would return and see her speaking with Leif blinded her to the stung look he wore on his features after her abrupt reply.
“I was hoping to speak with you about something.”
“I’m not really in a position to handle your problems,” she threw, “I know I owe ye a favour or two, but it’s going to have to wait.”
The resulting silence crackled around her like an exposed electric socket with the wires carelessly cut. It caused her to stop scanning for her uncle and look straight at Leif Morrison. During their entire acquaintance she couldn’t remember ever seeing him visibly angry. His usual polite demeanour had vanished, and he looked at her with such a cold expression it made her insides recoil.
“I do apologise for being an inconvenience,” he stated heatedly, “Rest assured that you don’t owe me any favours, although I thought I’d made that clear when we last met. I won’t bother you again.”
Before she could open her mouth to say anything he had already disappeared and was halfway down the street. She was adamant she wouldn’t feel bad about their exchange but as soon as she closed the shop door behind her it was biting viciously at the back of her mind. Leif Morrison had helped her more times than she cared to acknowledge, he had released her from her servitude to a teenager, and prevented her from committing a cardinal sin, yet she had, with sickening ease, dismissed him. It oozed with ingratitude and selfishness. However, at the core of it all was the knowledge that she shouldn’t be so deeply involved with an immortal. Her fear of getting caught by her uncle, and therefore her grandmother, outweighed her sense of gratitude, and any other emotions she felt towards Leif. Once her uncle had left, she would need to seek him out and explain her behaviour. How was it that she was making so many enemies in the city, even when she wasn’t trying?
***
Her uncle had never told her when he planned to leave the city and return north to the main family estate, and the longer he kept his silence the worse she began to feel every time she relived her last encounter with Leif. Outwardly she couldn’t let it distract her, but at night she thought about sneaking out to go and explain. The longer she let it linger the more she thought Leif would assume she wished to cut off all ties.
One mid-afternoon, as the shop was beginning to reach its daily dip in customers, a man stumbled unsteadily over the threshold. It felt to Iona that every customer seemed to be in increasingly worse states when they found their way to the shop. She was sure the next one would be a corpse. The man, tall and very thin, was noted by her uncle who was chatting to a young herbal doctor. He managed to make his way, swaying this way and that, towards the counter where Iona stood. As he neared, he practically stumbled over his own feet and it took the counter to stop his fall. With tremors wracking through his arms he managed to prop himself up and give her a pleading gaze of such strength that it froze her blood.
“You need to help me,” he begged, “I think something’s gone wrong.”
His words confused Iona who was growing more concerned with every passing moment. Observing the customer more closely, she noticed that his clothes were crumpled and hung loosely around his frame, as if he had suddenly lost weight. The skin was drawn in around his cheekbones, and was discoloured to an unhealthy grey. The wedding ring on his finger looked about to carelessly fall off, and the way he swayed from left to right told Iona he wasn’t in a good state. This was further confirmed by his coughing blood all over the counter and then falling to the floor, what strength he’d had left in him evaporating. Almost immediately Iona and her uncle moved to the man, checking his vital signs and for any other symptoms that could identify the cause of his unconsciousness.
“We need to get him in the back room,” her uncle commanded tightly.
Together they managed to move the customer’s body to one of the worktops in the back room. Hurriedly Iona shooed away any remaining customers with vague excuses and closed the shop to any more disasters. When she returned her uncle stood shaking his head darkly. They were too late. It turned out her next customer was a corpse.
“What happened?” she queried with concern, going over to the body and examining it once again.
“I thought it might be poison, or a curse, and so placed one of the anti-magic stones on him and went to prepare an emetic and some charcoal, but he died before I even got to the drawer.”
“He said he thought something had gone wrong,” Iona recalled with a frown, “And he also came here instead of a hospital, which means he knew it was something enchanted.”
“Do you think he knew what it was?”
“Perhaps,” she conceded.
What had he meant by his words? What was it that had gone wrong? The man was a mortal, yet had come into the shop with some hope that they would be able to save him, which meant he knew what they truly did. Iona knew of many poisons that caused the same kind of harm to mortals, they didn’t necessarily have to be of magical origin, but this one evidently had been.
“What do we do now?” she queried, unsure of how to proceed.
Tullochs may be influential in the witching community, but in the city run by mortals they were just small business owners with very little power. They may be witches, but they also lived by the mortal laws.
“We’ll need to report it to the police,” he admitted, “It might not even be magically related.”
By his tone she was sure he didn’t believe his own words. No dying mortal dragged themselves into the Tulloch shop without being connected to magic in some way. She threw him a disbelieving glance.
“Alright,” he put his hand up and sighed heavily, “We’ll take some blood and find out what’s in it.”
Blood magic was something her uncle particularly excelled at. She was sure he could paint someone’s entire life story just from one drop of it. The type of magic itself took a great deal of concentration, grace, and finesse that many witches didn’t possess, Iona amongst their number. She and her uncle began to search through the back room for the right tools. Iona grabbed one of the mortars from the shelf painted white, whilst her uncle found a needle big enough to coax out the volume of blood he needed.
Iona had only seen blood magic in process once or twice in her life and was fascinated by its dexterity. More complicated than divination, and more detailed than charms, it required a sharp, toned mind, one her uncle had been working on his entire life. Carefully he picked up the customer’s hand and drove the needle into the middle finger. Iona watched with morbid fascination as the drips of blood pooled in the bottom of the bowl, one large droplet after another until there was an adequate enough puddle for her uncle to conduct his work.
She had always thought the art was a bit like reading tea leaves. Interpretation was dependent on the pattern. When her uncle was finished, he returned the hand reverently and placed the bowl and needle on the table. Holding his palm flat over the rim he closed his eyes and concentrated. She felt a surge of power, her blood resonating with his own as he silently incanted a spell she didn’t know. After his magic settled, he picked up the bowl and gently blew on the surface of the blood, sending uneven ripples across its viscous surface. When he was finished the blood began to move languidly, splitting, opening and re-joining to make different symbols, like a letter in a different language. Iona didn’t understand blood symbols, but her uncle did. According to theory the symbols each represented something that had been deposited in a person’s veins, usually through ingestion. Sometimes it was emotions, diseases they had, and in very rare circumstances it was their future. Her uncle was able to discern the meaning of each different symbol in the bowl, of which there were a few.
“Can you write these down?” her uncle queried.
Quickly she swiped one of her notebooks from the counter and had her pen poised over a blank page.
“Rose water, dandelion, Maca, red clover, and Burdock.”
It only took Iona to get halfway through the list to realise what the herbs were most commonly used for in unison.
“This is a concoction to help fertility,” she told her uncle, “But it’s usually for women, and it isn’t harmful enough to kill.”
“Not on their own, but when accompanied by an enchantment herbs are powerful enough to do anything,” he frowned and placed the bowl back on the counter, “It’s ancestor magic that caused this.”
It perhaps should have been more obvious that any mortal with a magic related problem was also related to the spiritualists. There had been numerous incidents since Iona had arrived in the city when their spells were too powerful, and caused too much harm. Her mind wandered to the mysterious figure that was feeding both the spiritualists and the immortals. What had been the point in the fertility spell? Why make something so innocent into something fatal? Sometimes Iona thought they didn’t have a plan at all but were just out to create havoc. Laid before them was the evidence that spiritualists couldn’t be trusted to wield more powerful magic than their own.
“You’ve had problems with them before, haven’t ye?” her uncle checked grimly.
His characteristic calm demeanour had quickly been replaced with one of barely contained distaste. If her own opinion of spiritualism as a magic was as abysmal as it was then she could only imagine what disdain her uncle held it in. Now that they had killed an innocent mortal with their own stupidity, it was time for the grown-ups to step in.
“We need to report this to the police first,” he muttered and then went to find the phone.
All throughout their interviews with the police as their statements were taken her uncle maintained his air of disconnect. To look at him no one could have noticed that inside he was boiling with a rage that Iona knew too well. The police thanked them for their help but did warn that they might be called on again if the death was found to be mysterious. The deceased customer’s name was Ross Inglis, and he had cared enough about someone to voluntarily take a fertility tonic.
When the police left, they had dinner in relative silence. Iona let her uncle boil in his own outrage. She’d had many hostile meetings with the spiritualists and none of them had been to any avail. Her uncle could vent at them, he could even kill one or two if he chose, but Iona doubted any of it would change their attitudes or behaviour since they were in league with a powerful, mysterious figure. They assumed that their use of powerful spells would go unchecked, but it rarely did. There were always consequences to harming mortals, even for spiritualists. No magic was allowed to go on creating havoc, and whether it was done by her uncle, or one of the other witching clans, someone would be called into account eventually. Iona just hoped she was around to see it.
***
The next day she led her uncle to the Cemetery Bell, the popular haunt of the spiritualists in the city to share enchantments and ideas, and to come into possession of powerful spells. She had only been in twice before, but from the sense that assaulted her the closer they got she could tell that her destruction of their sacred cemetery hadn’t permanently damaged their power base. Her uncle strode at a brisk pace, his anger lapping off him like smoke from food that had been burnt in the oven. He had spoken very little about what he planned to do when they reached the hive of the spiritualists, and had snorted in derision when told about the arrogant Mistress. Iona scurried along beside him, wondering what he would do to the spiritualists upon their arrival. He was aware of the extreme measures she’d had to take against them when they refused to return one of the family relics, but the situation was different now than it had been then. Who would be held to account for the death of the mortal Ross Inglis? What sort of justice was her uncle permitted to give out?
Upon their arrival there was nothing reluctant in his demeanour as he threw open the door so forcefully it slammed hard against the wall, and marched in with broad shoulders rigid and braced for a fight. She could feel his power surge through his blood, resonating clearly with her own that was on edge in the face of unknown events. The same tense silence that had proceeded her own visits settled over the Cemetery Bell and everyone that was in it. Iona noticed the bar maid hurrying through the door she assumed led to the Mistress’s private rooms, or perhaps her throne room, she couldn’t be sure having never been across the threshold. They didn’t have to wait long before the young Mistress descended into the bar and greeted the Tulloch duo with as much grace and humility as she could muster. Iona’s uncle was an imposing man when he wished to be due to his stocky build and height advantage, and he would have made a successful policeman in another life.
“We don’t have any of your relics,” she stated coldly, her gaze sweeping over Callum Tulloch grudgingly.
“That’s the least of your worries,” her uncle growled, “You’re the Mistress, aren’t ye, the leader of this infestation?”
“Infestation?” the young woman baulked, “You’ve no right to speak of us like that.”
“I’ve every right to say what I want to the petulant teenager in charge of inept idiots!” he barked in reply, “Do ye know what your followers have been doing with their craft, how many mortals they’ve been harming, or do ye encourage them?”
“I have never encouraged them to harm anyone,” she bristled, “We’re different from Tulloch witches.”
Iona didn’t fail to notice the glare that was aimed in her direction.
“Then one of two things has happened. Your acolytes don’t respect ye enough to follow your encouragements, or your leadership is so haphazard that ye don’t know about the spells your followers cast. Either way, both make for a bad leader, which isn’t surprising considering you don’t even look old enough to be in a pub.”
Before the Mistress could speak in her defence Iona’s uncle had already launched into his own questioning of the rest of the spiritualists who were in attendance.
“Do any of ye know Ross Inglis?”
Questioning ripples and murmurs weaved amongst the observers but no one stepped forward to claim an acquaintance.
“What about Ross?” the Mistress demanded.
Iona observed as her uncle’s eyes narrow in disgust, “He’s dead.”
She had only seen the young woman look perturbed once before when she had been an observer to the brutal death of one of her followers. When she swallowed the news of Ross Inglis her skin visibly paled and she looked as though she would be sick.
“H…how? Why?” she stuttered.
“Ye should ask whoever gave him a fertility tonic,” Iona interjected.
“That wouldn’t have killed him!”
“Even weak magic can kill when cast by an idiot,” her uncle scolded, “You’re as responsible for his death as the one who gave him the tonic and cast the enchantment. The old magic clans have tolerated your cult for many years because we thought you didn’t pose any danger. I shouldn’t have to tell the leader of the spiritualists that harming a mortal is a crime, and if it happens again the clans will take action to prevent any further incidents.”
The warning was as clear as the chiming of a clock. Spiritualism was tolerated as long as they kept within the boundaries of the city, didn’t expose themselves, or do any damage to the mortal population. Just as they would do with a clan, if the spiritualists broke witching code they would be eradicated. The law was absolute, and no one who stepped into their world could go against it without feeling the repercussions.
“Are you threatening me?” the Mistress seethed.
“It’s only a threat if there’s no chance it’ll happen,” he warned darkly.
The room bristled, and with her uncle’s foreboding words everyone shrank back in their seats in the hopes they would avoid his gaze. Without another word, Callum Tulloch turned on his heels and stormed out of the Cemetery Bell with Iona close at his back.
***
It had been a short visit in many ways, and a long one in many other. Iona knew she would miss the company, in the shop during the day, and at the dining table in the evening, but what she would miss above all of the small details was her uncle’s reassuring presence. If something went wrong, if one of her many enemies decided to strike, she would be alone to manage the consequences. The shop was her responsibility, as were the customers and the city factions, but it was a heavy burden to bear in times of war, and even heavier when her own nature worked against her, depriving her of allies elsewhere. Her uncle was the best ally she could hope for, and one that deserved absolute trust. Without him she was on her own to defend the shop, her cousin and his clandestine family, and her incapacitated aunt. She knew she would have to become accustomed to having heavy burdens on her shoulders if she were to one day become clan chieftain, but that day still felt far in the distance, after some much needed days of development.
As she observed her uncle’s rucksack waiting for him beside the door to the shop she exhaled forlornly. The liberation she had been given in the shop came at a high price, a sense of security and company were sacrificed in exchange, and not for the first time since she had been told to stay in the city did she miss the main estate, but most of all she missed her uncle’s company. He had always been a connection to the father she had lost, and had always been the reassuring shoulder to lean on when things became too difficult. Iona had never wanted the responsibility of the shop, and she feared it may take her a while after her uncle’s departure to warm to it again.
Callum Tulloch emerged from the private rooms up the stairs fixing his watch tightly to his wrist and checking he had plenty of time before his train was due. Iona couldn’t tell if he was as reluctant to leave as she was for him to go, but what purpose would it serve? There had rarely been more than one Tulloch witch in the shop on a permanent basis, and she was sure that as they got older her grandparents relied on their only conscious child more heavily. He was needed on the main estate more than he was needed in the shop. Iona had wrongly assumed at first that her grandparents didn’t trust her to manage things in the city, and that was the reason they’d sent her uncle to check on her, but she was beginning to think she had been too cynical. If they didn’t trust her in the shop they would have sent her uncle there permanently to keep an eye on her, but they hadn’t. They trusted her enough in the city to recall their youngest son to the main estate, and leave her there alone, fully responsible for everything.
She turned to her uncle as he came towards her, a light smile on his lips. Asking him to stay would only indicate how much she was struggling, and it would arouse her grandparents’ suspicions more than necessary. Iona had chosen to bear her secrets, and Duncan’s, and there was a price for that concealment. Callum Tulloch stood in front of his niece, and she could sense his perusing eyes glancing over her once more in order to reassure himself that she was fine. What he chose to ignore was that it was rarely anything on the outside that posed the biggest problem.
“Ye know I’ll always be here if ye need me,” he reminded gently, “One phone call and I’ll be here.”
She nodded, knowing that if she replied she would start crying. It was better for everyone if her uncle, and her grandparents, thought that everything in her life was as mundane and uncomplicated as it always had been. They didn’t need to know how isolated and alone she felt, how every time she left the shop she was on guard from an attack from one of the many enemies she had created, or that Duncan had a family that she had arranged to hide away. Sometimes ignorance was bliss.
Her uncle hugged her tightly, silently reiterating his promise, before letting her go and picking up his rucksack. Iona stood in the shop window, watching as her uncle walked down the street to the bus stop, and out of sight. She took a glance around the shop, empty and hollower than she remembered. She knew it would be days until her routine returned, and she got used to, once more, being isolated.