I won the bet. The one I mentioned last time between Fionn and I about Reid’s line of romantic partners. It’s not really anything to celebrate, I suppose. I feel like the amount of time each of them lasts gets shorter by the week. I may have won our bet this time, but Fionn’s been in a dour mood more often than not these past few weeks, so I haven’t cashed in my winnings, nor have we renewed the terms.

I don’t claim to understand romance or relationships, but every time I see Reid’s lover-of-the-week I get the sense I should be equally worried about him as I am about Fionn. It’s unusual, in my opinion. I’ve known him for two years and I’ve never heard him mention anyone like that, yet recently it’s been a constant stream of them. Fionn jokes, we make bets, but why do I have the feeling that something else more sinister is lurking beneath this behaviour? Do I speak to the Madam, find out if Reid’s been possessed with something? Am I overreacting? Being too possessive? Christ, is it jealousy? Reid can have a life outside and exclusive of the shop. I have no right to interfere or to judge. Perhaps my own anxieties about Fionn are being projected onto Reid because I can fix the ones with him easier than the ones about Fionn.

I should stop worrying. Reid’s an adult, he can have as many partners as he wishes, as long as everything’s consensual there’s no problem, and no reason for me to worry.

Fionn, on the other hand. I hate feeling helpless, but that’s exactly what I do feel whenever I’m in the shop. It’s like the burden gets heavier, the guilt weighs heavier every time I see him wandering the aisles, or trying to distract himself with a painting, an item of clothing, every mirror in the damn place. I don’t think he’s really forgiven me for taking away his last toy, his chance of escapism. He’s reluctant to share his finds with me, and I’ve stopped inquiring. To say things are strained would be accurate.

It had been a quiet day, Fionn was lost in the shop, Chronos and I were sorting out the jewellery underneath the cabinet. By sorting I mean I was putting them beside him on the glass counter, and whichever one he didn’t like would disappear as if by magic. So really, it was Chronos that was sorting it out, I was just his hands.

Movement at the door caught my easily drawn attention, and when I turned, I saw Reid with a lad beyond the glass pane. They were standing close, talking, reaching out for each other’s sleeves, arms, hands. The lad, a fair-haired, brown-eyed gangly looking young man, noticed me and waved eagerly, causing Reid to turn around. I waved stiffly back, the dark thought that I’d probably never see this lad again crossing my mind. When I heard Chronos’ voice in my head saying that he’d seen a young lassie behave similarly towards Reid a few days earlier I felt a pit in my stomach. Reid was changing partners more frequently. But that was absolutely fine, nothing to be concerned about.

They kissed each other goodbye, and Reid came into the shop, the bell above the door echoing damply, as if affected by the dour, stagnant mood that settled in the air. I almost jokingly blurted to Reid;

What’s this one’s name?

Before I held my tongue. Instead, I simply asked if he was happy. I thought he’d mutter something stoic, a huff of “obviously”, even a grumpy “of course”. He looked startled by the question, like he’d expected me to tease him, to judge him. He looked away for me, not quite out of embarrassment but something else, bashfulness, self-consciousness, before mumbling “aye”. And that was the end of it.

I asked him if he could go and try to find Fionn, keep him company for a while, and he obliged, whilst Chronos and I went back to sorting out the jewellery. When the bell went again, not long after, Chronos and I stared curiously at the petite woman who came in. Brown curly hair framed a delightfully round face, but this lassie was anything but cheery. She stared at the wee shite and me as though we’d told her we’d kill her dog.

Gingerly, she snapped a simple white card down on the scarce empty space of the glass counter, amongst the cocktail rings and pearl necklaces. I smiled in an attempt to calm her down, but she refused to make eye contact with me for long and followed me at least a metre apart up the stairs to the front room.

Only green tea for this lassie. I was taken aback; I think she’s the first person in two years to ever ask for something else. I was even more surprised when I found some in the kitchen. Assuming it was brewed like normal tea, I scurried back in and took my place on the floor beside the coffee table. Chronos had even joined us for this one.

The lassie wouldn’t look at the Madam much either, and appeared distracted, as though she had an earphone in and was actually on the phone with someone. This went on for so long the Madam had to prompt her to tell her story.

Shifting her position on the sofa, the lassie looked down at her nails and began to pick at them. This action centred her, focused her attention. It was a few weeks ago, she began, she’d started hearing people’s voices, their inner voices, in her own head.

I know better now than to assume she needs a doctor, or a psychologist.

She corrects herself, realising how it sounds. It’s not her own thoughts she’s hearing, but others. She can read people’s minds. The Madam checks that this didn’t happen before, and I remind myself I’ll have to ask if that’s a thing actual people are able to do later. It’s never happened before, the lassie confirms, it’s only started in the last few weeks.

I’m failing to see how this is a bad thing. The number of times I’ve wished I could listen to a person’s thoughts. I wonder if it works on animals?

One morning she’d woken up to go to work. After getting dressed and making some coffee, she went to say goodbye to her boyfriend. He didn’t like her outfit, thought it made her legs look fat. She’d asked him to repeat himself, but he’d claimed to say nothing.

Knowing that having a fight would make her late for work, she ignored it and left, only to hear the same things from strangers waiting for the bus, and on the bus, and from her colleagues in work. Her legs looked fat, her hair was unclean, her make-up was smudged. It began to escalate. She was lazy, she was unprofessional, she was incompetent.

All of the things that all of us fear the world thinks about us, she was hearing from people she considered pals, loved ones. It had been constant ever since. Her boyfriend, her best pals, her colleagues, her parents, her family. She knew what all of them thought about her, what all of them disliked and wanted to change.

Eventually, understandably, she’d had enough. She begged the madam, lower lip beginning to quiver, to make it stop. She’d never asked for this ability, and didn’t want it. She couldn’t stand hearing all of the bad things people thought about her.

I take it back, her ability is shite, I don’t want it either. Who knew telepathy could be such a double-edged sword?

I was prepared and ready to stand up when the Madam instructed me to go to the cabinet and fish out a woven bracelet. At first, I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, a woven bracelet? I opened the door of the cabinet and unusually there were thin woven bands hanging from small hooks on the interior. All different colours, none the same as each other, and none monotonal. Greens, reds, purples, and blues, all woven together in chevrons, or blocks, or on a gradient fading from one to the other.

Madam Norna indicated that it was a blue and white one on a hook near the end of the row. They looked like the friendship bracelets my pals and I used to give each other when we were bairns still in primary school. You could buy them as well as make them, and it was the rage to be wearing one or more at the same time. I bet there’s a mouldy box in my Da’s loft full of the things.

I closed the cabinet and laid the bracelet on the coffee table before the lassie. My boss explained that the bracelet was to be worn for an entire month, without being taken off, and eventually the lassie would stop hearing people’s thoughts.

Wasting no time, she snatched the bracelet from the table and tied it around her wrist, pulling on the knot just to ensure it wasn’t going anywhere. She thanked the Madam and left, without payment.

This isn’t unusual, there are some customers who are helped for free. I presumed it was because someone else, probably Madam Anora, had cursed the customer to have the shitest kind of telepathy.

I said as much to the Madam, asking how the bracelet would halt whatever curse had been thrown at her. Her red lips curved, and stupidly I thought I’d impressed her by hitting the nail on the head. I was proud of myself for about 5 seconds.

Madam Norna began to shake her head gently, the smile turning into a condescending smirk. The customer wasn’t cursed at all. I know my boss doesn’t make jokes, but she was kidding, right?

Did the customer really just wake up one day with this horrible ability? That wasn’t a thing, wouldn’t we have had customers like her before? Wouldn’t it be on the news? Wouldn’t there be even more Youtubers and Tiktokers?

Noticing my confusion, and probably being so used to it she could draw it from memory, the Madam explained that although it was possible to curse someone in a similar way, nothing of the sort had been done to that lassie.

She was doing it to herself.

She wasn’t hearing other people’s thoughts at all; they were her own fears and insecurities that she was mentally projecting onto the people around her. When she thought she was hearing their voices in her head, it was just her own voice masking itself as theirs. That’s why they only ever said negative things about her. Her low sense of worth and her lack of confidence had created a demon of sorts, one that haunted her mind, and one that was excellent at impressions. No one was thinking those things about her, only herself.

There was no curse. Only the customer.

There didn’t always have to be a Madam Anora, or an enchanted object, or an eternal grudge, there was plenty of power in normal people, in the ones that walked past the shop without noticing it. Some people didn’t need to be cursed, because they were more than capable of making themselves suffer.

The bracelet was more placebo than anything more concrete. It would work for a while. But eventually, if our demons aren’t vanquished, they’ll keep coming back, time and time again.

Scots-ish language version

I won the bet. It’s no really anything to celebrate, I suppose. The one I mentioned last time between Fionn and I aboot Reid’s line of romantic partners. I feel like the amount ae time each of them lasts gets shorter by the week. I may have won our bet this time, but Fionn’s been in a dour mood more often than not these past few weeks, so I haven’t cashed in my winnings, nor have we renewed the terms.

I dinnae claim tae understand romance or relationships, but every time I see Reid’s lover-ae-the-week I get the sense I should be equally worried aboot him as I am aboot Fionn. It’s unusual, in my opinion. I’ve known him fae two years and I’ve never heard him mention anyone like that, yet recently it’s been a constant stream ae them. Fionn jokes, we make bets, but why do I have the feelin’ that something else more sinister is lurking beneath this behaviour? Do I speak tae the Madam, find oot if Reid’s been possessed wi’ something? Am I overreacting? Being too possessive? Christ, is it jealousy? Reid can have a life ootside and exclusive ae the shop. I have no right tae interfere, or tae judge. Perhaps ma own anxieties aboot Fionn are being projected ontae Reid because I can fix the ones wi him easier than the ones aboot Fionn.

I should stop worryin’. Reid’s an adult, he can have as many partners as he wishes, as long as everything’s consensual there’s no problem, and no reason fae me tae worry.

Fionn, on the other hand. I hate feelin’ helpless, but that’s exactly what I do feel whenever I’m in the shop. It’s like the burden gets heavier, the guilt weighs heavier every time I see him wanderin’ the aisles, or tryin’ tae distract himself wi a painting, an item ae clothin, every mirror in the damn place. I dinnae think he’s really forgiven me fae takin’ away his last toy, his chance ae escapism. He’s reluctant tae share his finds wi’ me, and I’ve stopped inquirin’. Tae say things are strained would be accurate.

It had been a quiet day, Fionn was lost in the shop, Chronos and I were sortin oot the jewellery underneath the cabinet. By sortin’ I mean I was putting them beside him on the glass counter, and whichever one he didnae like would disappear as if by magic. So really, it was Chronos that was sortin’ it oot, I was just his hands.

Movement at the door caught my easily drawn attention, and when I turned I saw Reid wi’ a lad beyond the glass pane. They were standin’ close, talkin, reachin’ oot fae each other’s sleeves, arms, hands. The lad, a fair-haired, brown-eyed gangly lookin’ young man, noticed me and waved eagerly, causin’ Reid tae turn aroond. I waved stiffly back, the dark thought that I’d probably never see this lad again crossin’ ma mind. When I heard Chronos’ voice in ma heid sayin’ that he’d seen a young lassie behave similarly towards Reid a few days earlier I felt a pit in ma stomach. Reid was changin’ partners more frequently. But that was absolutely fine, nothin’ tae be concerned aboot.

They kissed each other goodbye and Reid came intae the shop, the bell above the door echoin’ damply, as if affected by the dour, stagnant mood that settled in the air. I almost jokingly blurted tae Reid;

“What’s this one’s name?”

Before I held ma tongue. Instead, I simply asked if he was happy. I thought he’d mutter somethin’ stoic, a huff ae “obviously”, even a grumpy “of course”. He looked startled by the question, like he’d expected me tae tease him, tae judge him. He looked away fae me, not quite oot ae embarrassment but somethin’ else, bashfulness, self-consciousness, before mumbling “aye”. And that was the end ae it.

I asked him if he could go and try tae find Fionn, keep him company fae a while, and he obliged, whilst Chronos and I went back tae sortin’ oot the jewellery. When the bell went again, no long after, Chronos and I stared curiously at the petite woman who came in. Brown curly hair framed a delightfully round face, but this lassie was anythin’ but cheery. She stared at the wee shite and me as though we’d told her we’d kill her dog.

Gingerly, she snapped a simple white card doon on the scarce empty space ae the glass counter, amongst the cocktail rings and pearl necklaces. I smiled in an attempt tae calm her doon, but she refused tae make eye contact wi’ me fae long and followed me at least a metre apart up the stairs tae the front room.

Only green tea fae this lassie. I was taken aback, I think she’s the first person in two years tae ever ask fae somethin’ else. I was even more surprised when I found some in the kitchen. Assumin’ it was brewed like normal tea, I scurried back in and took ma place on the floor beside the coffee table. Chronos had even joined us fae this one.

The lassie wouldnae look at the Madam much either, and appeared distracted, as though she had an earphone in and was actually on the phone wi’ someone. This went on fae so long the Madam had tae prompt her tae tell her story.

Shiftin’ her position on the sofa, the lassie looked doon at her nails and began tae pick at them. This action centred her, focused her attention. It was a few weeks ago, she began, she’d started hearin’ people’s voices, their inner voices, in her own heid.

I know better noo than tae assume she needs a doctor, or a psychologist.

She corrects herself, realisin’ how it sounds. It’s no her own thoughts she’s hearin, but theirs. She can read people’s minds. The Madam checks that this didnae happen before, and I remind maself I’ll have tae ask if that’s a thing actual people are able tae do later. It’s never happened before, the lassie confirms, it’s only started in the last few weeks.

I’m failin’ tae see how this is a bad ‘hing. The number ae times I’ve wished I could listen tae a person’s thoughts. I wonder if it works on animals?

One mornin she’d woken up tae go tae work. After getting’ dressed and makin’ some coffee, she went tae say goodbye tae her boyfriend. He didnae like her outfit, thought it made her legs look fat. She’d asked him tae repeat himself, but he’d claimed tae say nothin’.

Knowin’ that havin’ a fight would make her late fae work, she ignored it and left, only tae hear the same ‘hings fae strangers waitin’ fae the bus, and on the bus, and fae her colleagues in work. Her legs looked fat, her hair was unclean, her make-up was smudged. It began tae escalate. She was lazy, she was unprofessional, she was incompetent.

All ae the things that all ae us fear the world thinks aboot us, she was hearin’ fae people she considered pals, loved ones. It had been constant ever since. Her boyfriend, her best pals, her colleagues, her parents, her family. She knew whit all ae them thought aboot her, what all ae them disliked and wanted tae change.

Eventually, understandably, she’d had enough. She begged the madam, lower lip beginning tae quiver, tae make it stop. She’d never asked fae this ability, and didnae want it. She couldnae stand hearin’ all ae the bad things people thought aboot her.

I take it back, her ability is shite, I dinnae want it either. Who knew telepathy could be such a double-edged sword?

I was prepared and ready tae stand up when the Madam instructed me tae go tae the cabinet and fish oot a woven bracelet. At first I didnae have a clue whit she was talkin’ aboot, a woven bracelet? I opened the door ae the cabinet and unusually there were thin woven bands hangin’ fae small hooks on the interior. All different colours, none the same as each other, and none monotonal. Greens, reds, purples, and blues, all woven together in chevrons, or blocks, or on a gradient fadin’ fae one tae the other.

Madam Norna indicated that it was a blue and white one on a hook near the end ae the row. They looked like the friendship bracelets ma pals and I used tae gee each other when we were bairns, still in primary school. You could buy them as well as make them, and it was the rage tae be wearin one or more at the same time. I bet there’s a mouldy box in ma Da’s loft full ae the things.

I closed the cabinet and laid the bracelet on the coffee table before the lassie. Ma boss explained that the bracelet was tae be worn for an entire month, withoot bein’ taken aff, and eventually the lassie would stop hearin’ people’s thoughts.

Wastin’ no time, she snatched the bracelet fae the table and tied it roond her wrist, pullin’ on the knot just tae insure it wasnae goin anywhere. She thanked the Madam and left, withoot payment.

This isnae unusual, there are some customers who are helped fae free. I presumed it was because someone else, probably Madam Anora, had cursed the customer tae have the shitest kind ae telepathy.

I said as much tae the Madam, askin’ how the bracelet would halt whitever curse had been thrown at her. Her red lips curved, and stupidly I thought I’d impressed her by hitting the nail on the head. I was proud ae maself fae aboot 5 seconds.

Madam Norna began tae shake her heid gently, the smile turnin’ intae a condescending smirk. The customer wasnae cursed at all. I know ma boss doesnae make jokes, but she was kiddin’, right?

Did the customer really just wake up one day wi’ this horrible ability? That wasnae a ‘hing, wouldnae we have had customers like her before? Wouldnae it be on the news? Wouldnae there be even more Youtubers and tiktokers?

Noticin’ ma confusion, and probably bein so used tae it she could draw it fae memory, the Madam explained that although it was possible to curse someone in a similar way, nothing ae the sort had been done tae that lassie.

She was doin’ it tae herself.

She wasne hearin’ other people’s thoughts at all, they were her own fears and insecurities that she was mentally projecting ontae the people aroond her. When she thought she was hearin’ their voices in her heid, it was just her own voice maskin’ itself as theirs. That’s why they only ever said negative ‘hings aboot her. Her low sense of worth and her lack ae confidence had created a demon ae sorts, one that haunted her mind, and one that was excellent at impressions. No one was thinkin’ those ‘hings aboot her, only herself.

There was no curse. Only the customer.

There didnae always have tae be a Madam Anora, or an enchanted object, or an eternal grudge, there was plenty ae power in normal people, in the ones that walked past the shop withoot noticin’ it. some people didnae need tae be cursed, because they were more than capable ae makin themselves suffer.

The bracelet was more placebo than anythin’ more concrete. It would work fae a while. But eventually, if our demons arenae vanquished, they’ll keep comin’ back, time and time again.

Iona had been in a foul mood for days. As a reflection of her hurt and confusion the sky had decided to shift to a dismal shade of grey. Ever since she had put the phone down and tried not to smash it against any hard surface, she had been storming around the shop, breaking a few items in the process.

In the subsequent days she had cringed every time she heard the loathsome door creak open in its pitiful way. If she had to answer one more inquiry for those who didn’t have anything more interesting to occupy themselves with than the lives of others, she was sure she would go mad. Her anger hadn’t dissipated significantly when a couple entered the shop a week later. However, her mood did change when she laid her eyes on them.

Sometimes when people’s emotional burdens were so heavy it showed in more ways than lacklustre eyes and toneless voices. Despite their holding hands and closeness of body there was a growing distance between them, one that would prove fatal for their relationship if it was allowed to grow further. Iona watched them carefully as they pretended to be interested in the crystals and trinkets in the first room of the shop. The woman didn’t want jewellery, and the man didn’t want a healing crystal. In that moment, accepting the choice that had been made on her behalf was made very easy.

“Can I help ye with anything?” Iona approached the couple as gently as she could.

The couple looked between one another as couples do, as if in silent conversation. Her parents had done it many times concerning her, and so had her grandparents concerning everyone else in the family. When Iona was younger, she thought it had been an ability only granted to those who were married. It was only as she matured that she realised when you’ve bound your life to another’s for any length of time then conversing through glances was normal.

“We were told you specialised in herbal remedies,” the wife was the first to speak.

“We do.”

“I’m suffering from insomnia, is there anything you’d recommend?”

Lack of sleep seemed to be a common ailment in the bright, lively city she found herself in. However, in this instance she feared a placebo wouldn’t be as beneficial. Iona looked carefully at the woman, beyond the dreary eyes, the skin starting to show signs of premature age, and the discolouration of her already pale complexion. All were signs of an inability to sleep, certainly, but she felt that it was a symptom rather than the cause of whatever distress the woman, and her husband, were under.

“There is a tonic that may help, but I would need a day to make it,” Iona replied, shifting her eyes carefully between the couple.

“That’s fine.”

“If you follow me to the desk, I’ll explain the ingredients in case you’re allergic to any.”

The invitation was an excuse to separate the two, and happily the husband obliged by stating his intention to wait outside because the smell was overwhelming him. Everyone was a cynic these days, and some were blasé enough to throw it around.

“I’m sorry, my husband is a great believer in prescription medicine,” his wife explained.

“It appears ye aren’t.”

“They help me sleep. It’s the waking up that’s difficult.”

The world had been blessed in the development of modern medicine in more ways than one, but thankfully it would always be lacking in some areas where she and her family could fill in.

“It’s a common complaint,” Iona agreed, remembering her many experiences with insomniacs of every description back home, “May I take your name?”

“Nadia Robertson, that’s my husband Paul.”

“Does he have trouble sleeping, like ye?”

Nadia chuckled but the sound was hollow and half-hearted.

“No, his snores would wake the devil.”

The corner of Iona’s lip pulled up in a light smirk as she wrote Nadia’s information down in the customer book. From her previous inventory she knew she had most of the ingredients to make the concoction, although a few may be in need of replacing, Duncan had kept no receipts of any purchases made during his semi-disastrous tenure.

“How long have ye been unable to sleep?”

“It feels like longer than it is, but ever since,” Nadia ceased speaking abruptly, as if she had just remembered the reason but was reluctant to say it.

Something wasn’t right. Her insomnia was just a symptom, the real cause was something that weighed heavily down upon her spirit. Knowing that prying or forcing secrets from people was highly unethical, against what she had been taught, and harmful to client-customer relationships, Iona had no choice but to leave the subject hanging. All would fall out in time. It always did.

“It doesn’t matter,” she smiled, “If ye come back the day after tomorrow it should be ready.”

Still lost in darkness it took Nadia a few seconds to emerge from her memories and thank Iona before she left the shop to be reunited with her equally burdened husband. Iona’s eyes continued with them until they were out of sight of the shop. A shadow hung over them, swirled between them and through them, one she had seen many times before.  A shadow by the name of death.

***

The hospital was still the same, the staff’s faces still held the same hopelessness of life, and a few of the occupants she had seen on her last visit had disappeared. The room she had visited the last time, however, was still occupied. Before she crossed the threshold, she saw the same nurse who had greeted her with a not so friendly offering of judgment the first time she had wandered in. This visit was voluntary, unlike the last one.

“You came again,” the nurse blurted with more than a sprinkling of surprise.

“I did.”

She didn’t sit down in the visitor’s chair because she still didn’t feel like a visitor. A gaoler may be a more appropriate term. The nurse finished her tasks without another word, and briefly gave Iona a glance on her way out. She stood at the foot of the bed staring, as if she could watch him into life. 

When Iona was a bairn, she had asked her parents if she could develop the ability to read people’s minds. Her father, always the more humorous of the two, had chuckled warmly and bent down so he was on her eye level. Now she realised it may have been a gesture of condescension, but when she was no taller than his hip, she had liked someone being as small.

“Maybe one day ye will,” he stated, ignoring his wife’s disbelieving snigger, “but I think ye’d be the most miserable wee beastie if ye did.”

“Why?”

“Because the truths that lay in people’s minds aren’t always nice ones.”

As an adult with more experience of mortals, and immortals alike, she knew that was a polite way of saying some people were just bastards through and through. She didn’t want to read people’s minds anymore, but she did want a peek inside of the person’s laying before her, condemned to a darkness she often shuddered to contemplate. 

If she could search his mind, she would find many things that could help her in her new, unwanted, role. He had been close to some of the players that were beginning to gravitate towards her. His area of expertise had been reading people, a form of divination to Iona but in reality, he was just more observant than she was. One look at Nadia Robertson and he would have been able to name the burden weighing her down instead of just identifying she had one. For all his faults, he had been more suited to the shop than Iona ever would be.

She knew she shouldn’t linger, or even have come in the first place. Her first visit had been ordered; this one may earn her a scolding if anyone were to find out. Iona didn’t know why she had come, perhaps for some inspiration on the cause of Mrs Robertson’s insomnia, or perhaps it was to share her bitterness at someone who had also been dealt a foul hand by her family. One way or another she was going to have to solve the client herself without any external aid, which she supposed was why she was being forced to remain in the miasmic city in the first place.

Ignoring the pang of renewed guilt, she gave one last glance to the man on the bed before walking out of his room. She was under no pretence that this visit would be her last.

***

On her way back to the shop she popped into a café. It was unusual for her due to them being a place where gossip, pain, grief, anger, frustration and an entire myriad of other feelings lingered in the air like the strongest incense she could imagine. They were all the same, and she had avoided them since she could remember. Her father had been different and ever since his memory had snuck up on her in the hospital, she couldn’t quite shake his nostalgic presence. He had loved cafés for precisely the reason the rest of her family hated them; the coffee and cake were also big draws. Iona agreed about the coffee but still didn’t deem it worth more than five minutes in the suffocating atmosphere.

Thankfully there wasn’t a queue, considering the time of day, and she was served before the current cloud of human emotions enveloped her in a deathly embrace. As she was retrieving her purse to pay a hand came from nowhere, money held smoothly between fore and middle finger. She hadn’t noticed the stranger approach, blaming it on her determination to not be coaxed into the rapids of the other customers’ emotions. Unknowingly, the barista behind the counter took the money, assuming Iona and the stranger coming to stand at her side were together, before anything could be said or done to rectify the situation. Sighing silently, she turned around to face the mysterious man. It wasn’t someone she recognised, but he had an essence of another stranger she had met not too long ago.

“Think of it as a ‘welcome to the city’ gift,” he stated, motioning to the coffee being made.

“In return for what? I haven’t done anything for you, nor do I intend to.”

She saw the corner of his lip twitch upwards, a faint sparkle in his eyes as if he wanted to laugh but restrained himself. Where the other one had been fair, the one at her side now was darker. The hair on his head had a slight curl to it, but was easy to miss considering its short length, and where the other’s eyes had been piercing yet warm this one’s were inviting and mellow. There was too much of a family resemblance between them to deny the relation, but how close a relation was it? Immortals were overrunning the city, according to the spiritualists, but were they all from the same family or different ones?

“I am very sorry, I haven’t introduced myself, have I?” the man turned to face her, “I’m Leif Morrison, I believe you’ve already met my brother Harold.”

Morrison. A name that was known even in the Highlands of Scotland. Real estate tycoons of the century, they owned many buildings, stately homes, and up-market hotels across Scotland, and anywhere you went their name couldn’t be missed. The world thought they were a lucky family, each generation adding to the fortune of the last, but in reality it was the same core members giving themselves new lives, and sometimes names, every so often.  Not only were they giants in the world of mortals, but they were slowly attempting to drive out the spiritualists from the city. A behemoth of force, and just as old.

“You know who I am,” she retorted, eyeing the barista who was taking her time with the coffee.

“It’s hard not to, your arrival sent rumours and whispers flying.”

And outrage too, no doubt. Finally, the coffee was done and without another word to her unwanted companion she took the cup and headed for the door. He quickly moved to walk at her side.

“Would you mind some company back to the shop?”

“Yes.”

“Did my brother offend you in some way?”

“No.”

“That is surprising, he only speaks to offend. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

Iona stopped abruptly in the street, forcing him to stop with her. She pierced him with a gaze, bore into him as if it would make him more real. How could brothers be so different? At least the other had been clear about his agenda and the reason he had for visiting, and it irked her that this one was hiding behind manners and conversation.

“What do you want?” she snapped.

“Who said I wanted-.”

Iona cut him off, “Your brother wanted something, and perhaps he thought the only reason I didn’t give it to him was because of his attitude but let me assure him it wasn’t. I won’t take sides in this petty war you’re both fighting over this city. That’s not what I’m here for.”

“Then what are you here for, Miss Tulloch?” he queried, markedly unoffended by her pertinent tone.

She was caught off guard. He had provoked her to confirm that she wasn’t in the city to support either side, and if she hadn’t been more astute, he would nearly have gotten her to give the real reason why she remained there. He had learned all he could of her character from the brief meeting she’d had with his brother, and had nearly provoked her, with irritating ease, into giving him the information he desired.

The orders from the family had been very clear in their meaning, and they had expressly forbade her to become embroiled in the war for the city. Tullochs were above squabbling over brick and cement.

“That’s a good question,” she muttered before continuing on her way.

When Leif Morrison went to pursue her, he found his feet would not do his bidding. Iona knew it was petty, a waste of her power, but she was determined not to be dragged onto a side. If the spiritualists saw her speaking with two Morrisons they would assume she had been lying to them, and after what she had done the last time, she didn’t need to make more of an enemy out of them than she already had.

Perhaps her family was testing her endurance, how many manipulations, polite manners, begging, and pleading she could take before she finally gave in. Tullochs didn’t give in, at least not the good ones. Instead, she left Leif Morrison merged with the pavement until she was out of sight, and then he was released to do whatever he wanted, although that may just turn out to be more of his brother’s bidding.

***

Upon her return to the shop, she decided it may be time to look into how deeply the squabbling between the two main factions ran. Duncan had managed to make friends of the spiritualists, but neither of the Morrison brothers had mentioned his name. Why had he chosen the spiritualists? Had they begged him to help them after they had learned his name? Had the Mistress given him the same empowered speech she had given Iona? Duncan was averse to writing anything down when it came to the customers he had served, but perhaps he had chronicled his involvement with the spiritualists. Finding out where, if such a place existed, would no doubt take her a while as he was not famed for his organisational abilities.

First and foremost, she would need to take care of the serum Mrs Robertson had ordered for her persistent insomnia. After looking for the records that had been kept by Duncan’s predecessor, she hadn’t found a mention of anyone matching the name or prescription, and so decided the insomnia was a new occurrence, which hardly helped. The serum would send the woman to sleep, not so deep she would have trouble awaking, but the nightmares she experienced during that slumber would be out of Iona’s hands, for now.

It didn’t take her long; potions and concoctions to cure maladies such as sleep deprivation had been her bread and butter growing up, and so it left her time to have a search through Duncan’s belongings, and the shop archives. There was a room up the stairs, one of three, and it was where the books, grimoires, diaries, receipts, and even tax forms were kept, some of it in order, other bits as if a storm had raged around the four walls. The items from Duncan’s time in the shop had been banished to a corner and carefully she made her way through the small pathways towards it. He had kept little and recorded even less. Bending down on her knees she began to look through some of the books that had been stacked in a tower beside a few bags containing clothes.

One was the beginnings of a customer log, which had been filled in relatively diligently in the first few pages, with each customer’s name, contact details, and prescription, sometimes his neat writing would shrink so he could write notes in the margin. A reminder here, an observation there, and often a reason or problem the customer had.  Slowly as the months went on and her eyes reached further and further down the pages, the notes began to disappear, as did the prescriptions, until there were only blank lines left. He had begun with the best of intentions, and slowly as he had spent more and more time in the city, been seduced by its freedoms, its tolerance, and its liberties he had neglected his responsibilities, and even gone against the family’s orders. The city was poisonous to a Tulloch, and Duncan was proof.

The next level of the tower was a thin notepad that upon opening she found was a sketchbook. Duncan had always loved to draw; he’d even confessed once to her he wanted to be an illustrator. She could never understand why, but that was where they had always been different. As she began to flip through the pristine white pages, marked with a smudged fingerprint here from where he had been shading a landscape, or a scribbled signature at the corner of a portrait of a pretty, young woman, something fell out and floated to the floor near her feet. It had landed face down and when she felt the texture on her fingertips, she realised it wasn’t normal paper. Picking it up she was greeted by an embarrassingly familiar face grinning happily back at her. 

Iona couldn’t have been more than sixteen in the picture, and Duncan stood at her side holding the camera, his face closer to the lens, with his arm around her shoulders. Both were smiling, baring teeth unstained by coffee or tea, so naively young she almost chuckled darkly to herself. They both had so many things to learn.

A year after the picture was taken Iona had her first trip to the city, where that incident had happened, and Duncan was already aiming for his first derail from the family tracks. It felt as though little time had passed since Duncan had whipped out the camera and taken a silly picture, but she couldn’t remember the reason it had been taken, why they were both there, or why they were the only two in it. A random memory to her, something she’d forgot along with many other things, but he had kept it hidden in a place where he could look at it whenever he pleased. How often had he taken it out?  Did this picture mean something to him that he had kept it in such a personal place?

They hadn’t had a close relationship since the picture was taken, despite being the only two family members near the same age. Life had put them on different paths, and blessed them with opposite, and at times jarring, opinions. Christmases had been civil, but nothing more. Iona had stopped being the sixteen-year-old very quickly, and when she remembered back that was when they had been closest. Duncan had changed since his teen years, but not as severely or as quickly as she had. The more time she spent in the shop, orbiting around the place where he had spent a good deal of time, evoked more questions she wished to ask him. She had never felt lonely before, and she began to wonder if Duncan had felt the same thing stranded in a city that was doing its utmost to be torn between two warring factions. With no one to talk to, hear advice from, or trust, he must have felt stranded. The longer she stared at the picture the more she began to understand those feelings, the ruddy orange marks on her arms tingling in loathsome agreement. However, unlike Duncan, she did have someone close, a Tulloch like herself, and even more unlike him, she was forbidden from talking to him.

***

There had been no information about the ongoing war between the immortals and the spiritualists of the city. Not even Duncan’s predecessor had been of a mind to record the goings on, if it stretched that far back. The only way to find out what she wished to know was to ask one of the participants, and since she had made an enemy of one, and was trying her utmost to make the same out of the other, she doubted either side would be willing to quell her curiosity without wanting something in return. Briefly her mind wandered to the immortal stranger she had met the day before, the one who had bought her coffee with a side of manipulation. He had seemed friendly enough, but her abrupt words, and the fact she had left him stuck to the pavement, no doubt meant that line of inquiry was scuppered before she had even pursued it. She would have to find other ways of pulling the history of the war from the shallows of time.

Thoughts pranced through her mind, and she let them as she methodically crushed the sage in the pestle and mortar. The rhythmic scraping of stone against stone let her thoughts expand so she could try to come up with a solution to her lack of knowledge. Was this why her family had condemned her to the city? They didn’t have some piece of information, so they’d sent her after it like a gundog? Iona knew it was best not to think of it that way as it would only make her bitterness more pungent, but there was a niggling feeling. What was so important in the city, in this shop, they had never cared about before, that they were willing to force her to remain there? Had she done something wrong recently? Were they more curious about the war than they had intimated? Or was it another matter entirely, kept from her by those who ruled?

The sound of the door opening and closing scared her suspicious thoughts away into the dark recesses of her mind where they belonged, hopefully to remain, at least for a while. Glancing towards the door she saw Nadia Robertson walk through the first room of the shop and to the front desk where she was standing breaking down the sage. The woman had been a mystery ever since she had walked in, and being envious of Duncan’s uncanny ability to read people and their problems wasn’t going to illuminate the matter further. Iona would need to find out the information the old-fashioned way. By asking.

“Good morning,” Mrs Robertson said, a melancholy chime to her voice.

“Morning. Is your husband not with ye today?”

“No, he had to go back into work.”

Her eyes began to roam around, as many others did, at all the trinkets, crystals, herbs, and concoctions arranged in various ways around the shop. Iona still didn’t know which ones were fake.

“I have the draught here; would it be alright if I finished this?” Iona queried, buying some more of the woman’s time.

“Of course, what are you doing?”

“This is sage, the extract from the leaves can be used as a herbal remedy for high cholesterol. I took an inventory a few days ago and noticed we were low.”

Continuing with her task Iona thought of her next words. If she were someone else in her family there would no doubt be an artistic and subtle way to extract the information she wanted. But she was Iona, and, as everyone knew, subtlety wasn’t one of her strengths.

“May I ask if anything is bothering ye?”

Mrs Robertson’s eyes darted to Iona’s face quickly, searching for something Iona couldn’t identify. The woman looked startled and in danger of scurrying off without her prescription just to get away from the question. She was embarrassed, or maybe it was something more.

“Why?” the woman’s voice was a note or two higher than it had been before.

“Insomnia is a symptom of something, it’s not really a disease in itself. Older people get it because they’re not as active as they once were, or people with high powered jobs experience it because they can’t relax, there’s always a reason behind it, and I was wondering what yours was.”

There was a moment of silence as Mrs Robertson seemed to contemplate. There was a big disadvantage for being straightforward, and that was that not everyone appreciated it or even liked it. Being asked a direct question was not dissimilar to being cornered in a bad situation. Some people lashed out, others retreated and changed the subject. In trying to find out the cause of the woman’s insomnia, Iona may have ruined her chances of getting to the bottom of the matter and curing Mrs Robertson instead of simply treating her symptoms.

“You’ve not been here long, have you?” the older woman asked, a resigned crease to her features.

Long enough, she felt like answering. Instead, she shook her head.

“My husband and I are famous in the local area,” she smiled wryly, but there was only bitterness fuelling it.

“What do you mean?”

“Our faces have been in all the newspapers; we’ve even been chased by journalists and producers of television programs.”

Iona didn’t need to ask to know that it wasn’t the kind of fame children dreamt of. This was a type that had been foisted onto the Robertsons unwantedly and had remained as their dark companion ever since.

“Why?” Iona inquired.

“Our daughter went missing whilst we were on holiday, and we became the most talked about family in the city,” she laughed shrilly but Iona could see the painful tears about to spill down her cheeks.

Giving up on the sage Iona went around the counter to approach Mrs Robertson who had begun to furiously wipe at her cheeks, looking sternly at the ground as if it were at fault for her current distress.

“Come with me,” she motioned to the back room of the shop.

The small room served as a greenhouse of sorts, with bunches of herbs hanging from hooks, small buds sprouting from empty toilet roll tubes, rows of plant pots containing the more mature ones, and neat lines of flat trays that housed seeds that would be used to replenish the stock. Amongst the smell of moisture and dirt was a small corner where a kettle and teapot lived side by side. One of Iona’s predecessors had experimented with various kinds of tea leaves, growing them, mixing them, and even creating hybrids of her own through non-natural ways. The successes were still housed in their own jars. Without saying a word Iona showed Mrs Robertson to a seat and switched the kettle on to boil.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” she stated.

The older woman nodded as she blinked back tears that had begun to spill over. Guilt was easy to see, it burdened those who suffered it, and rarely did it ever lessen.

“People say that a lot now,” Mrs Robertson mused bitterly.

“I think it’s the only thing they know to say.”

Iona was sure the older woman had heard many other offers of condolence in the interim since her daughter’s disappearance. Child abductions were more common than adults cared to acknowledge, but it never ceased to shock them when it was reported. She didn’t pretend to recognise Nadia Robertson, or her husband, but missing children were always more common in cities, and journalists were more than happy to hover over the story waiting to tear into it.

“What you must think of me,” Mrs Robertson sniffed, quickly wiping away another tear.

“I don’t think anything,” she reassured, looking the grieving mother straight in the eye.

If Iona had learned anything during her life amidst her family, it was that circumstances were rarely as cleanly cut as they first appear. No one knew what went on in another person’s head, and they only had their own thoughts as a measure of what was deemed normal or too dark to mention. The saying went that there were two sides to every story, but even that was a simplification. Depending on how many people were involved, there could be hundreds of different opinions, accounts, or statements on the same set of events. Mrs Robertson’s daughter had gone missing whilst they were on a family holiday. Her version of events would be different to her husbands, and whoever else happened to be involved.

“I must admit, I thought you just had a good poker face when I first met you. I couldn’t believe there was someone in this God forsaken city who didn’t know us.”

“I’ve not been here a week, so I don’t know anyone.”

Knowing of a group of people and knowing them as individuals were different; at least that’s how she justified the untruth. Faintly the kettle clicked to signal it was done boiling the water and when she looked over steam was spouting from the lid. Carefully Iona checked through the list of ingredients documented on the labels of the jars, scanning through the herbs until she found the ones she wanted. No calming mixture would be complete without the staple of Jasmine and Chamomile, although due to their taste and scent they were used in at least one or another of the tea selection. Winter cherry, better known as Ashwagandha, was listed on one in particular, and due to it not being used as a sedative she chose that one over the mixture with passionflower. After scalding the pot, she placed the tea leaves in and left it sitting on the counter to brew whilst she returned to Mrs Robertson, who had regained control of her emotions.

“What was your daughter like, if ye don’t mind me asking?”

“She was beautiful,” Mrs Robertson smiled reminiscently, “She had lovely long brown hair, the colour of milk chocolate. It always used to knot and tangle, which she and I both hated.  Her eyes though, just like her fathers, a hazelnut brown with flecks of green. She was the sweetest girl, always sharing things with her friends, always excited to tell us about what she had learned at school, or a boy who had annoyed her. I miss that the most, just talking with her, or seeing her play with her dolls. It’s the simple things.”

There was a brief pause as Mrs Robertson choked on her emotions, struggling to keep them down. Grief was terrible. There was no cure, no helpful remedies that would make it disappear, and nothing save time that could ease it.  Grief had many different faces, like a many-faced God, and some were harsher and crueller than others. Death, despite popular opinion, may be the tamest. There were no questions, there was no wondering or contemplating because death was permanent. It was an end to something. When a loved one went missing or disappeared, there was no end, no definitive answer. One day they were there, and the next they weren’t, with no explanation. Humans craved answers, craved knowledge, and without either they would tear themselves apart. When someone disappeared the questions were endless, the speculation sheer torture, and the lack of an explanation was the cruellest part of all.

“It’s all my fault,” she sobbed.

Iona covered the older woman’s hand in reassurance. Sometimes words were not the most powerful gesture, and silence was the best approach.

“We should never have left her in the room by herself, we should have checked on her more often. I shouldn’t have listened to him when he said she’d be fine!”

She presumed that him was her husband but didn’t ask. The word if was a vicious creature. It could destroy even the strongest of sentiments and exacerbate the bad ones. Everyone had times when they looked back on a situation and thought of things they could have done differently, or said differently, but when it was something as powerful as losing a child, a what if could cut deep.

“None of us can change the past,” Iona uttered, “but we shouldn’t use it to torture ourselves in the present. Ye’re not a fortune teller, or a seer, and so you couldn’t have predicted what would happen on that holiday.”

“But..,”

“Am I wrong?”

Mrs Robertson shook her head. Logic was hard to argue with, even in the depths of grief, but Iona knew her words wouldn’t alleviate the woman’s burden any. Mrs Robertson would likely go to her grave without knowing what happened to her daughter, as so many others before her. Not even the Tulloch power could recover that which had been lost so completely. Time would alleviate some of the guilt and grief, but it would always be a badly sewn up wound that the slightest tug could rip open.

“My husband and I never speak about her.”

“Why do ye think that is?”

“I think he blames me for what happened. He’s never said it in so many words, but the way he looks at me sometimes gives me the chills.”

When humans couldn’t find a solution to a problem, they began to lay blame at the feet of whoever was remotely involved in the hopes it would distract them from their troubles. For just a moment they could relieve their conscience by focusing their attention on someone else equally as miserable as them. Mrs Robertson may be imagining her husband’s coolness, or she may be right, Iona was not able to judge, but neither was outside the bounds of reason. If Mr Robertson was here instead, he would no doubt say the same thing, all of it was just a projection of their own guilt.

“Have ye tried to speak about her?”

“I used to at the beginning, but he used to walk away or lose his temper at me. After a while I stopped trying.”

“I don’t think he blames ye for what happened, not really. In your darker moments, don’t ye blame him?”

Recalling what she had blurted through grief a few moments previously Mrs Robertson’s shoulders sagged. Iona took it as an opportunity to pour the tea and she gently gave it to the older woman. She had been taught many times since she was old enough to walk that her power couldn’t solve everyone’s ailment, problem, or worry. Sometimes the only way to help someone was just to listen to what they had to say, with no crushing of herbs, scouring of books, or chanting of spells involved. The skill had taken a while to develop, especially through her teen years, but now that she was an adult she was well-practiced in the art of listening whole-heartedly. And that was exactly what she did for Mrs Robertson.

***

Iona wrapped one of the ribbons neatly around the stalk of the purple hyacinth, and the other around the white peony, the ends of either ribbon she tied in a lover’s knot. When she was finished with the strange bouquet, she chanted a few words to it from a blessing she had seen written in the corner of an old book at home and placed it on the windowsill. It was all she could do to help Nadia Robertson and her husband. She couldn’t bring back their daughter, she couldn’t find their daughter or what happened to her, and she couldn’t force them to love one another again, but she could bless them both and their relationship so that it had a chance of mending. As her grandparents had told her many times, blessings weren’t really magic, they were simply the hopes of the caster released into the world to make things better, or to make the Tulloch witch feel as if they had done something more practical than just listen. They were cynical in their old age, but she still felt that one blessing was better than none, especially if it was anchored to something, like the flowers. A purple hyacinth was for forgiveness, wrapped in the ribbon representing the husband, the other was a white peony, symbolic of healing, embraced by the ribbon of the wife, and the lovers knot tying the ends together symbolised their relationship strengthening where it had been weakened by loss. Iona looked at it for a moment on the windowsill, the Tulloch part sniggering in derision, and the other part hoping it would work.

***

A week later and Iona’s dark mood had rested itself spitefully on her shoulders making it hard to be civil to the customers that came in for trifling wee things. She couldn’t remember it irritating her this much at home, and she blamed the poisonous atmosphere of the city. One windy afternoon the door opened, and a couple came tumbling in like the dead leaves autumn throws to the ground like confetti at a wedding. Their faces were familiar, yet they had a touch of revitalisation. The burden of losing their daughter still plagued the Robertsons, as it always would, but the distance between them had shrunk just a fraction.

Perhaps it was just her wishful thinking.

Rather than waiting outside Mr Robertson began to dawdle around the shop looking at the crystals and antiques that had been gathering dust for nigh on a decade now, Iona had checked in her boredom, whilst Nadia Robertson came up to the counter, a glimmer of a smile catching her lips.

“Good afternoon,” Iona welcomed.

“It’s nice to see you again,” she leaned over the counter ever so slightly, lowering her voice, “I wanted to thank you for the last time, it was very kind of you.”

“Don’t mention it,” she assured.

“I was wondering if you had any more of that tonic you gave me for my insomnia?”

“I can make some up for ye.”

“That would be great. It works so well, my husband even tried some. I can’t remember when we last slept like that.”

Iona smiled, glancing over to the husband who was either pretending not to hear or genuinely interested in a porcelain doll dressed in Victorian attire.

After exchanging a few more words, and stealing a few more observations of the couple, they bid farewell and left the shop, but as the door closed behind them a waft of something tickled the back of her spine. 

It wasn’t the gust of wind they had let in, or the rustling of leaves she would have to clear away, but something less natural. Her eyes wandered out of the shop window until she could see the Robertsons making their way down the street. There was another figure near to the door of the shop, also looking after the couple. Her eyes fixed on the person knowing what it was and having a suspicion about who.

Eventually the person’s gaze tore away from the Robertsons and looked through the shop window, searching for something, or someone. When he noticed her, he gave a polite smile and a small wave of his hand. She exhaled tightly.

She thought about ignoring him, especially when she remembered to their last meeting, but somehow she knew he wouldn’t leave the front of the shop until she came out. Another part of her, the more pragmatic one that cared less about her sense of pride, was curious why he would come all the way to the shop when he must know he couldn’t enter. The curiosity won, as it always did.

Stepping out from behind the counter she made her way to the door and opened it but didn’t step across the threshold, out of suspicion or something more she couldn’t quite tell. Leif Morrison also noticed her refusal and chuckled lightly.

“I promise I’m not here for revenge.”

“Then why are ye here?”

“To finish our conversation. You left me quite stuck the other week.”

“I’m not apologising,” Iona stated flatly as she crossed the threshold and closed the door behind her.

“I would expect nothing less of a Tulloch.”

Iona uncomfortably remembered the way he had manipulated her the last time they met and swore she would be mindful of her words.

“I recognised that couple that just left,” Leif began, “Their daughter went missing, didn’t she?”

She glanced at his face and thought she saw genuine pity nipping at the corners of his eyebrows as he looked down the road after them. His kind weren’t known for their compassion, having lived many lifetimes emotions tended to fade, but he seemed genuinely sorry for the couple.

Iona nodded.

“Did they ask you to find her?”

“Mortals don’t understand what my surname means, and even if they did, they wouldn’t believe it. What they came to the shop about is none of your concern, Mr Morrison. Why have ye come to see me?”

“You are always very abrupt,” he observed politely so she couldn’t tell if it was a reproach or a compliment.

“Ye’re always very elusive.”

He snickered, “Only to some. I came here to speak with you, that’s all. During our last conversation I asked why you had come to the city, and you were reluctant to tell me, but I see now that you are taking Duncan’s place, although hopefully not quite as badly as he handled it.”

Duncan’s movements and decisions since arriving in the city had been questionable, and even her family didn’t know the extent of what he had done. She wasn’t about to trust Leif Morrison, but he could fill in the gaps of Duncan’s story that her family wished for.

“Ah, I see you’re curious about Duncan,” he surmised astutely, “From what you said to my brother he was under the impression he had been banished from your family, but I presume that’s also none of my concern?” he lifted an eyebrow and the corner of his lips.

She remained silent.

“Have coffee with me,” he offered, “The weather is mild, and there’s a park down the road where we can speak.”

The invitation sounded suspicious. It was clear that Leif Morrison held all the information she wanted, and surely it was obvious to him as well, yet why was he offering to give it to her for nothing in return? The only reason she could think of was that he had been sent to persuade her to side with the immortals in the war for the city, or perhaps to bargain for one of the many relics that was kept in the shop. The only way of knowing was to agree to talk.

She nodded in agreement and motioned for him to show the way. The shop door locked behind her causing Leif to glance around curiously.

“I’ve lived here for years, and I never knew it did that,” he observed amusedly.

She eyed him sceptically. It wasn’t the lock on the door that prevented him from entering, and he knew it.

***

Iona cradled the paper cup in her hands, allowing herself a moment to acknowledge that the other Mr Morrison had good taste in coffee; it was the best she’d had in years. He took his black, no doubt from his taste buds being the equivalent of a few centuries old and so not as sensitive to the strong flavour as hers was. Even with only one shot of espresso she still fought the urge to purse her lips at the bitterness. Leif Morrison had chosen the bench where they sat overlooking the regularly maintained flower garden with all the buds and blooms one would expect to see from roses to tulips, daisies and poppies, with a few rows of plum hibiscus and scarlet carnations. There was no apparent order, no complimentary colours, it was all very stark, and even the bright colours of the flowers began to lose their identity amidst the blur.

There weren’t many people in the park considering the time of day, and parks were rarely visited in the autumn when the temperature plummeted, and the wind came for a whirling visit. She took another sip of her coffee as she watched one woman with a pram, inside was a sleeping child with a soft white hat on, one lone sheep stitched lovingly on the fold. This coffee had been bought for her as well, despite her protest. The gesture served to make her more uncomfortable.

“They’re a bit much, aren’t they?” he motioned to the flowers.

She bit the inside of her lip, disliking the feeling of having the same thoughts as him. A quick nod was all she gave in reply before she changed the subject.

“Are ye finally going to tell me what ye want to talk about?”

He gave her a peculiar look before he sat forward, elbows on his knees cradling his coffee in his hands.

“You shouldn’t be in a hurry all the time, you know,” he commented, briefly looking at her before focusing his eyes on the spread of flowers, “Even Tullochs only live once.”

She would rather be dead than admit that he made her uncomfortable, hence why she appeared to be in a hurry for the information.

“Or perhaps it’s just me. You seemed to have plenty of time for that couple earlier,” he continued.

“They needed my help,” she explained, “Ye don’t.”

He smirked and sat back, pulling his full attention so he could focus it on her.

“Duncan did the same thing when he came here, if that’s what you were worried about. He helped people who went into the shop, just like his predecessor, and no doubt all the Tulloch witches for the last few centuries.”

Knowing what he had done summoned the guilt she had been trying to quash since her arrival. It had been easier to think Duncan had let the shop remain closed, shirking his duties, and instead had become a middleman in the war for the city. Instead, she was being told he had remembered his surname and continued the family tradition, so why had he derailed from the decided path?

“When…,” she trailed off, not realising she had spoken until she heard her own voice.

“When did he start dealing with the spiritualists?” Leif checked.

Concentrating her gaze on the cup she nodded briefly.

“I can’t be sure exactly, but it was quite a while after he arrived. One moment he was stubbornly neutral, and the next he was trying to play both sides.”

Iona looked at him despite herself. Had she missed a relic when she had been taking inventory? Had Duncan been stupid enough to give one to the immortals as well? A surge of panic jolted through her and the coffee felt like acid in her stomach.

“He didn’t give us anything,” Leif continued, “My brother refused to pay the price he asked for, but evidently the spiritualists did.”

“He wanted money?” she blurted.

Leif nodded and took another sip of his coffee. Iona puzzled. What would a Tulloch want with money? The family had plenty of it, taking from customers was only a formality, reassuring the world that they were a business and not conmen, but selling or loaning out powerful relics for money was unheard of. No doubt it hadn’t been mere pocket change he had asked for in return, which begged the question of what he intended to do with such large sums of cash? The Tulloch who had written nothing down but had kept an ancient picture in a sketchbook. She couldn’t fathom what he had been trying to do.

“Then he disappeared one day, although I presume that’s your family’s doing?” Mr Morrison queried, glancing at her sideways.

She drank her coffee and said nothing. In all honesty she wasn’t entirely convinced Duncan hadn’t sold them something, and so she was eager to return to the shop to take another inventory.

“You don’t intend to become involved in the conflict?” he checked again.

“No.”

“That’s what Duncan said, at first.”

She looked over at him, irritated, “I’m not Duncan.”

He chuckled, “I think you’ve proved that well enough.”

Her ill-thought decision of destroying the spiritualists most important graveyard and killing one of them had slipped from her mind in the weeks she had spent in the city, but every so often she would do something to remind herself and a bitter taste swirled through her mouth.

“How much do you know of this war that’s going on?” Leif probed.

“Only that it’s ongoing, nothing else.”

“Not how it started?”

She shook her head. Mr Morrison looked contemplative, but she was unsure why. He no doubt knew the ignition of the conflict very well, so why the hesitation? Did he think she would be insulted by the truth?

“Duncan didn’t tell you?”

He never told us anything, she thought inwardly but spoke nothing aloud. Family business was none of his.

“Your silence on the matter only makes me more curious,” he announced, a hint of a smile curling his lips.

She was afraid their conversation would turn into a negotiation, one side exchanging information so they could get the others’. Thankfully, Leif Morrison wasn’t in the bargaining mood.

“You met my brother Harold when you first arrived here?” he checked.

“We spoke briefly.”

Mr Morrison snickered, “Yes, there’s not much more to be said. Harold is very…,” he hesitated, “strong-willed. He likes having his own way and doing what he wants when he wants to.”

He was probably used to others letting him do it, but Iona didn’t add her opinion into the mix, especially about an immortal she had exchanged a few scathing comments with.

“It doesn’t sit well with many people, as you can imagine. We came to this city with the intention it be our home for a while. Harold had free reign in the city where we used to live, and he assumed it would be the same here. The spiritualists didn’t agree.”

“Why would they be affected by your brother’s liberties? This city is big enough for the two groups to go about their business without affecting the other.”

“You underestimate my brother’s taste,” he retorted, offering to take her empty cup.

As she lifted her arm to place it in his hand the sleeve of her top rode up, baring the curved edges of her markings to the fresh air.

“They’re different from Duncan’s,” Mr Morrison commented casually.

She froze instinctively. Mortals couldn’t see the markings, but anyone who waltzed with any form of magic could see them as plainly as a member of her own family. It took her a while to realise she had never met an outsider who had commented on them before. Self-consciously she snatched her arm back and pulled her sleeve down over her wrist. She thought she saw him smile briefly before he walked over to the bin to dispose of the cups. When he returned, he sat slowly down beside her.

“Forgive me, I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”

She nodded briefly in acknowledgement but couldn’t bear to look him in the eye for more than a few seconds. Shaking off her discomfort she reigned the conversation back.

“You said I underestimated your brother’s tastes,” she prompted.

“Harold is uninhibited, and very exuberant when he wishes. The city may be large, but the spiritualists couldn’t escape his frivolities.”

Iona knew without asking that it wasn’t just parties, loud music, and copious amounts of alcohol that had offended the spiritualists. It was the immortal’s arrogant hubris, that attitude of thinking they could get away with or take anything they wished. They bribed their way into the pockets of the powerful, they tricked their way into the good graces of the mortals, and they dodged the consequences of their actions. They slotted themselves in the highest echelons of the city so they couldn’t be touched and live the free life they thought they were entitled to.

“The spiritualists were here before we were, but that counts for nothing to my brother. He wants to be king.”

“How did it go from ill feeling to war?” she queried.

“The Mistress,” was all he said in reply.

Iona recalled the small, pert teenager she had met during her first days in the city. She seemed sweet, but behind it was a dangerous sense of self-entitlement and arrogance.

“What did she do?”

The problem with teenagers was that they thought they were invincible because they rarely had a true sense of their own mortality, and it would be especially difficult for one who had been given the trust and power of a cult of spiritualists. She was their leader, the head of their growing group, and all the influence had gone straight to her head.

“I see you’ve already met the young Mistress,” Leif surmised by her lack of questioning, “She thought she could remove my brother with as much ease as one of her disciples flushes away a spider. Her plan failed, but she did manage to relieve my brother of some of his closest friends, if not all of them.”

Iona found it hard to believe the young girl she had met would be stupid enough to charge headfirst into a battle with an immortal. Arrogance didn’t necessarily translate into idiocy, but perhaps the combination of her age, lack of experience, and sense of grandeur had made her senseless. It took a great deal of power to kill an immortal, levels of such magnitude that no spiritualist would ever be able to summon. For a Tulloch it would be difficult, most likely even fatal. Immortals weren’t given their name lightly.

“My brother doesn’t like to be challenged,” Mr Morrison continued, “and he wanted vengeance for his friends. He has difficulty finding good ones.”

“How many of the spiritualists has he killed in return?”

“I don’t keep count,” he shrugged.

The spiritualists weren’t powerful enough to defeat an immortal, hence why the Mistress had been so desperate to keep the Tulloch family relic in her possession. It was one of the only things in the city which would have killed Harold Morrison, along with a great many others.

“Has my story changed your mind?” he asked.

From the look in his eye, she wasn’t entirely sure he was joking. Had he told her with the intention of bringing her to his brother’s side? If so, he had done a terrible job. He had not asked for anything in return for telling her the truth, so why had he done it? She had been afraid of some hidden agenda he had behind his polite manner, but it appeared he didn’t have any.

“No,” she retorted flatly, standing up, “Thanks for the coffee. I hope it’ll be the last one you buy me.”

“Do you think?” he raised an eyebrow, “I don’t.”

He said it with such confidence it made her teeth grind. She turned on her heel and walked back to the shop with many things to contemplate, only some of which to tell her family.

Next Chapter

Her inventory continued into the next day. No further customers entered the shop, to her sense of momentary respite. The minutes ticked by unchecked and with no one arriving to return the relic she had requested. It had been many centuries since anyone had witnessed the power the Tulloch witches yielded. Mortals had become less accepting of the supernatural and for the survival of magic it had to be kept hidden. Over the generations the Tullochs had receded into the background, allowing the world to carry on without them, standing stationary and simply observing, collecting, and chronicling what came to pass. It was only rarely they interfered in anything. 

Duncan had taken it upon himself to change the families’ mantra by loaning out belongings that weren’t his to give. It had all accumulated in Iona being sent down to fetch it, mingling with parlour magicians and their petty tricks. Their power was inferior, but if they wielded the relic now in their possession the effects were filled with devastation, not just for their special enemies.

Time went by and no visitors came.

When she heard the door open and close, she was pulled from her subconscious time keeping and into the present when Barbara’s footsteps floated through the archway and into her ears. Passive aggressive friendliness bloomed in the smile the older woman gave as she appeared in front of the desk. It was near the end of the day, about time for the shop to close and her real task to begin.

“Is it good news?” Barbara queried.

“It was written down,” Iona confirmed, handing over the glass bottle with the ready-made placebo liquid sloshing around inside.

Duncan hadn’t written anything down about Barbara and her requirements, but from what Iona could fathom from Isobel’s meticulous recording the entire prescription was a fake. Some ailments could be solved with herbs, others were cured by belief, and it was important to tell the difference.

“Excellent,” Barbara beamed as she took the bottle and slipped it into her handbag, “Will ye be here long?”

If all went well later that day then she wouldn’t. However, that would mean the shop’s closure, and by its decision to open once a Tulloch was inside, she thought it may have other ideas about another lengthy time in solitary.

“I couldn’t say,” she replied vaguely.

The older woman hid her disappointment well. Repeating her gratitude, she left, and the door locked behind her, the sign flipped to the closed side. There would be no further visitors that day.

Iona briefly glanced at her watch before walking out, trying to ignore the excitement that had begun to bubble through her veins like tiny speckles of air through water that’s coming to the boil. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been free, uninhibited by constraints placed on her by her family. They had finally given her permission to use whatever amount of force she saw fit, and Tullochs weren’t ones to leave their threats unexecuted.

Her warning to the spiritualists had been more than clear, yet they had refused to cooperate. Iona would need to remind them what the price was for ignoring a Tulloch request.

Spiritualism, Wicca, herbalism, tarot readings and divination were all small, but equally flimsy, branches of a tree that spanned the entirety of human history. Where there were humans and nature there had always been power ebbing and flowing between the two. Some lucky ones had been able to harness the full power for themselves, but they were rare, almost unique. For those who wished to feel special in a world that was edging towards globalisation there were the twigs and branches that diverged away from the trunk, weaker alternatives that gave them a taste of power. Spiritualism was one.

Its focus point was not on the ground beneath their feet, the proud trees who breathed new life into the world, or the rushing of water and streams, but those who had been buried beneath the dirt. Ancestor worship was not new, but drawing power from the dead and calling it magic was a relatively novel idea. With a history spanning little over two hundred years it was the infant cousin of the Tullochs ancient gift.

They drew on the power the lingering dead gave to the places where their bodies were interred, and only a select few were spread across the city. Outside of the city boundaries it would be nigh on useless, but within the invisible walls it was more concentrated. If one was destroyed, however, it would release the spirits and allow them to move on, effectively removing a large piece of the spiritualist’s source of power. By refusing to return the Tulloch family relic they showed that they were in desperate need of power, a boost to their own, and hence would not be pleased if she were to destroy a piece of it.

Her journey from the shop ended outside a cemetery that dated back to the 18^th century. She had chosen it purposefully because it was the one that gave her the worst feeling. Most of the pollution the city emanated was from this metropolis of the dead. She may not be able to see them, but they made their presence felt by stifling the air everyone breathed.  Ordinary mortals walked past it on their daily routine and didn’t think twice, it was one of many in the city, but not all were special. Most of the original spiritualists were buried within, and hence why Iona had chosen it first.

She crossed the threshold and felt the air change, taste the rejection on the tip of her tongue. The dead knew the intentions of the living, could feel the power coursing through her veins like an electric current, and knew they were all in danger of being forced to let go of their mortal memories. Without their graves, without a constant stream of offerings, prayers, and visitors they would cease to be a part of the world, and their grip would loosen until it was gone.

They had very little power themselves to do anything about her presence in their cemetery, and she was glad for it. One of the more ancient ones, the graves were much more than just marble slabs with gold writing scrawled on the surface. The land was made up of intricately designed mausoleums, statues of crying angels, carvings of Roman vases and oddly eerie birds. Some names were faded, others still as bright as if they had been painted yesterday. If one were to fall over it would crush the unlucky soul beneath it.

Iona bent down to the ground beside one of the graves and rubbed her fingers over it, feeling the sacred power sparking against her own like two pieces of metal. The cemetery stones and dedicational plaques may hold the power of the spiritualists, but the soil, the trees, and their deep roots were a conduit for hers. She pushed her fingers deeper into the soil until they were completely immersed, the gritty moist flakes clinging to her skin and digging under her nails until they were an extra part of her.

The vibrations were tremors at first, ones that someone wouldn’t feel unless they stopped and stood still, concentrating on the ground beneath their feet. Gradually they became bigger until the soil surrounding her hands quivered and bounced like grains of sand moved by the ocean. The tremors began to pound at the bases of the headstones, knock on the sides of the mausoleums, and shunt against the feet of the weeping angels until cracks grew like ivy up each one. Pieces of glistening black marble began chipping off, bigger chunks soon falling away, creating clouds of dust that floated into the air and swept out across the city as if a multi-storey building had been demolished too quickly. Iona’s will dismantled the graves of spiritualists long dead, and she would see them destroyed. It released a concentrated earthquake within the boundaries of the necropolis.

When she was finished there was nothing but a large plume of dirt and dust in the air, pieces of marble, stone, and granite lying on the ground in fallen disarray. Despite being unable to see very far in front of her, due to the smog, the air felt cleaner, and she breathed easier now that she had destroyed the spiritualists’ centre of worship.

A crowd had gathered outside of the cemetery, but she managed to slip out unnoticed by most. There was a handful who saw her and recognised her for what she was. Where some saw a destroyer, others saw hope.

***

It wouldn’t take long for word of the destruction to reach the ears of the spiritualists of the city and their young Mistress. Wasting no time, Iona didn’t return to the shop but went directly to the source, to the place she had been summoned to like a dog to their master and reiterated her reasonable demands for the return of her family’s property. She could hear the disgruntled buzz from the bar before she rounded the corner of the street it was on and saw many strangely dressed people running in and out, muttering and conferring between themselves. When she entered everyone took notice, including the Mistress who had descended from her royal apartments and mingled with her subjects.

The door swung closed to a silence which crackled. Iona could feel power begin to tingle her fingertips, reacting with the growing fear of the patrons and the possible threat a room full of weakened, angry spiritualists could do.

“Do you know what you’ve done?” the Mistress was the first one to speak, panicked indignation lining her voice.

“You were warned of the consequences of not returning my family’s relic,” Iona stated plainly.

“We need it now more than ever!” the young girl protested as if her life depended on it.

The invisible war raging beneath the surface of the bustling city was beyond Iona’s knowledge, but she was aware she had given the opposition a new advantage. She hadn’t meant to interfere, but inadvertently through her actions she had. Her instructions had been to use anything necessary to retrieve what belonged to their family before it was used, and in that moment as she stood surrounded by a gaggle of them, she was tempted to destroy every cemetery in the city to render them powerless.

“Return the relic,” Iona reiterated, losing patience.

 “Why are you so unsympathetic to your own kind?” the young woman implored, her eyebrows drawn together sadly.

Irritation surged through Iona and made the thought of destroying the cemeteries more tempting. Rather than eliciting sympathy it had caused grave insult to Iona’s buoyed pride.

“You’ve said that ye need the relic to win the war, yet you’ve had it for some time and never used it. Indecision is a sign of a weak leader, as is being unable to protect your people’s sacred places of worship. Why should these people follow you when you can’t protect them or their inheritance? What power of your own do you have to lead them in this war you’ve waged on the immortals?” Iona put harshly.

“The immortals are older than us, they have power of their own and duplicitous natures, they manipulate their enemies into losing.”

“The weak are manipulated. The object ye stole from my family would give ye all the power you need to defeat them, but I think the reason ye haven’t wielded it is because ye know yourself not to be strong enough.”

“That’s not true!”

“You are a leader in name only” Iona continued viciously, “A figurehead that people are quickly losing faith in. Ye can’t protect your cemeteries, your home, or your followers.”

In a burst of temper, Iona reached out to the older man who had come to see her just the day before, standing on the threshold to the shop scruffily dressed, a royal summons in his hands. 

He had annoyed her then and now he was about to feel her wrath. 

His blood began to solidify like water touched by winter frost, his muscles would harden until they were more like marble than flesh, and finally his skin would become like rough stone hewn from a quarry. Everyone looked on in awe as one of their companions was turned to finely chiselled granite, a perfect rendering that no mortal artist could have completed.

Iona could have left him as a statue, she should have for restraint was one of the only things that separated the Tullochs from others like them. However, restraint wasn’t high on her list of priorities and in another surge of ill-thought temper she crushed the stone statue until it crumbled to sand on the floor. The gasps, although inaudible, were filled with blood curdling fear.

“For every hour ye refuse to give me what I ask for one of your followers will be turned to the same ash that your cemetery lies in. What sort of leader will you be, Mistress?” she spat the word in the disgust she had felt when she had first heard it, “What use will triumph over the immortals be if you have no followers to share it with?”

Iona had seen many a crestfallen face, but none of them had pulled her out of her ill-advised temper quicker than the one that adorned the young woman’s features as she looked at the pool of sand on the ground. Control and restraint were the only things separating the Tulloch witches from the barbaric, extinct clans that had gone before them, and in her rage and blinding irked pride Iona had thrown that lesson away, allowed it to crumble like the loyal servant in a pile on the floor. She had wanted respect, even if it was through fear she needed to get it, but even she sensed it had gone too far.

It was too late to recant, too late to cease with her forceful comments and bullying tactics. Her orders were to retrieve the relic at whatever cost. Deciding to embrace the reputation she was carving for herself she swept her eyes around the room suggestively, making it appear like she was looking for her next pillar of salt.

“Enough.”

It was barely a whisper, one that would have been missed if the room hadn’t been as deadly quiet as it was. The surrender came from the young Mistress, her face ashen as she continued to gaze at the pile of sand on the ground. Iona waited for her to speak again, to be sure that it was surrender lingering on her lips.

“I see we’ve been mistaken in thinking you were our ally. You are not Duncan. He was kind, he sympathised with us, and he was a better person than you will ever be,” the Mistress threw spitefully at Iona.

She was unaffected by the rebuke. The saintly version of Duncan the young Mistress had known was only one of his personas, one of his many faces for many clients. Perhaps Iona was being unkind, but she doubted he would have aided the spiritualists without some form of recompense, whatever that may have been.

The Mistress reached into her pocket and brought out a small midnight velvet covered jewellery box. Iona ignored the urge to grin. All this trouble for such a small trinket seemed ridiculous, but it was always the smaller things that held the most power, so her grandmother said.

“Here, take it!” the Mistress spat.

Iona, for once, did as she was bid by the young girl. As her fingers enclosed around the box about to take it away the Mistress tightened her grip.

“We will beat the immortals, and then you’ll regret this interference.”

“I’m not your enemy.”

“If you’re not with us you’re against us,” the girl seethed.

“The world isn’t always so clearly divided,” Iona warned.

The Mistress loosened her grip on the box and let Iona take it. She didn’t linger to enjoy her ill-won victory. As the door closed behind her she could hear the sorrowful cries of the Mistress mourning her follower, and the breeze blowing away the sandy remnants of his life.

***

Guilt. It was an emotion that she, above most people, was very well acquainted with. Should she feel bad for her actions in retrieving the relic? Was what she did wrong? Children are taught to tell the difference, and then given examples where there is a clear distinction, but in life that was rarely there. Killing the man was drastic, and not her best hour, but a point had to be made. Many more people would have been needlessly slaughtered if the Mistress had indeed gathered the strength and courage to use the relic she had carelessly carried around in her pocket. It was all for the greater good. At one time she thought that saying was simply to make her family feel justified in the pain they caused others. That thought had passed with experience, but now it reared in her mind.

As she turned the corner onto the street the shop was on, she felt a buoyancy in her soul at the thought of returning home a success. She had spent too long in the bustling, poisonous, unclean city and longed for the clean air and friendly atmosphere of the north.

Her soul quickly returned to guarded and mistrusting when she saw the small entourage gathered outside of the shop and the shiny, black limousines parked illegally outside. She could tell the small mob was well dressed from a distance, their personally tailored suits were obvious, as was the bespoke details adorning some of them.

To Iona it was obvious they weren’t mortal, and it appeared that the Mistress of the spiritualists wasn’t the only one to think that people took sides so easily. As she was about to pass the small gaggle of followers one emerged from the crowd and stepped in front of her to block her path.

“Miss Tulloch, I presume?”

“It’s hardly presumptuous when you already know,” she retorted.

His smirk turned jagged at her sharp response. From the glint in his eye, she could tell he wasn’t accustomed to being spoken to in such a way, and if she were any other being she would have felt intimidation at the way he was looking at her, as if in just one swipe he could end her.

“Not one for niceties, I see.”

She remained silent. The man before her was tall, at least a head more than she was. His hair was a strange marriage of red and gold, whilst his eyes were a warm, melting hazel that sparkled as he looked at her. Everything about him was neat, kempt, and high maintenance, which she supposed was to be expected when you’d lived a few hundred lifetimes.

“Then allow me to get straight to the point,” the smirk faded, and he took a small step towards her, another bid to intimidate, “I’d be greatly honoured if you and I could find somewhere to talk. It seems we have much to discuss.”

Iona brushed past him, heading for the shop door, “We have nothing to discuss.”

“That’s not what your actions have implied.”

She turned around, preferring the new distance between them, “I have no enmity with the spiritualists, which is what I know you’ve come here to talk about. My business with them is done.”

“You encompass a great deal in the term,” the smirk returned, “I don’t destroy anything when I do business.”

“I was making a point, but it doesn’t mean I’m their enemy or your ally. I will give you the same answer as I gave the spiritualists when they asked me for an alliance. I have no interest in your petty squabbling over this city, and neither does my family. Any arrangement ye had with my predecessor, if there was any, ceases with me. Am I clear?”

The smirk still adorned his face like the dark twinkle of his eye, but it was strained and certainly not as full of mirth as it had been. Through it she could see a myriad of emotions, one of them disappointed hope. He had seen the destruction of the cemetery and thought that the one weapon that could help him drive away the spiritualists for good had finally shown up on his doorstep. Now he knew that it hadn’t.

“Perfectly.”

He turned sharply back to the limousine and got in, slamming the door closed. If she had made one enemy that day, then she had made two.

She watched as the cars pulled away from the double yellow lines painted perfectly on the tarmac and was glad she was going home.

Next Chapter

Upon her return to the shop, she found a middle-aged woman lingering outside, pretending to peer at the display when her eyes were trying to see behind it into the shop itself. By the way she was slowly moving from one side to the other, conspicuously trying to peer through the glass panel of the door, she needed something within.

Before she could arrive, the stranger had wandered off, deciding that she had hovered outside long enough only to be disappointed. Despite knowing she should call the woman back she went inside and shut the door, reminding herself she wasn’t here for that purpose. Moving through the shop she let its power, its siren song, lap against her skin like fresh water in a bath, engulfing her from toe to shoulder; she didn’t wish to be immersed in it just yet. There was a missing piece, something that caused the tones and chimes to falter, to sound discordant, an orchestra without a musician, or a quartet without a quarter. It was what her family had been wary of and had hoped they were wrong about.

When a fresh, cooling breeze came through the door, followed by the gentle clatter of the door closing, she looked around briefly, prepared for whatever face appeared under the archway. She wasn’t surprised that it was the same woman she had seen lingering outside.

“I’m sorry, we’re closed,” she announced clearly.

The older woman stopped mid-step and furrowed her eyebrows, gaze flicking down to the ground as she recalled the last thirty seconds of her life, what she had seen, and why she had dared to cross the threshold when she had been reserved before.

“The sign said ye were open,” she pointed out with a hint of uncertainty, as if her desire to be inside had caused her to see things that weren’t there.

Briefly her own gaze focused over the woman’s shoulder to the sign, with the closed side facing the shop. She hadn’t moved it on her way in. The shop’s talent was shadowed by her mild frustration that she hadn’t been the one to make the decision.

“I suppose we are,” she answered, a light smile grazing her features, “is there anything I can help ye with?”

“I was a regular customer of Duncan’s, and Isobel’s before that. I have trouble sleeping and they gave me a herbal concoction that’s worked wonders,” she babbled cheerfully.

“How long have ye been a customer?”

“Och, years, I’ve ne’er been an easy sleeper. I met Isobel in the bookshop down the road one day and she said she could help cure my insomnia. She was good to her word.”

“Since you’re a loyal customer I’m sure it’s been written down somewhere. I’ll find it for ye and have it made up. Come back tomorrow and it should be ready,” she informed the older woman.

The woman paused and subtly eyed her up, “Oh, are ye taking over this shop then? It’s been family run for as long as I can remember. Duncan did say he had some family up north.”

“I’m taking care of some family matters,” was the only reply she got, followed by a forced smile.

A strange silence extended, filled with mild tension and a battle of wills – who was going to be the first to back down, to either leave or share some personal knowledge? The older woman may have been determined, but the younger was a born and bred expert on keeping information close to her chest. Eventually, disliking the rippling atmosphere, the older woman backed down, but not without one last attempt.

“I’ll leave ye to it then,” she announced, beginning to float backwards towards the door, “I didn’t catch your name.”

She allowed a hint of a genuine smile to grace her lips, “Iona.”

“I’m Barbara, it was very nice to meet ye.”

“And ye.”

Iona watched as Barbara exited the shop, not without a few investigative glances around at the herbs and gems lying strategically, some to gain attention, and others for genuine protection. If everyone was as nosy as she was in the city, then the days when Iona could head back up north couldn’t come quickly enough.

***

It didn’t take long to make Barbara’s herbal concoction that invoked sleep in a restless mind, and it appeared from Isobel’s records that she had been slowly weaning the woman off such remedies. Duncan had not been so diligent in his writing, and there were intermittent entries since his arrival a few years previously.

Brewing the concoction didn’t take her mind from the discordant note that resonated through the shop, amplified by the crystals and gems that lingered. It had been a great fear of her family’s and once they even suspected something was missing, they had put her on the first train away to investigate. Now that their suspicions had been confirmed she had to find a solution before she could return home. A quick phone call the next morning and she had permission to find what had gone missing, and where it had gone missing to.

Deciding that identifying the object was the most helpful, she checked to see if the independent sign on the door had taken it upon itself to decide if she were serving customers or not, and then began her search through the relics and wonders held humbly within the shop, taking an inventory of sorts. It had been many years since one had been done, Duncan was haphazard and careless when it came to the family rules and traditions, shirking them at every corner, and the running of the shop was no exception to his whims. There were many additions, and just as many items missing, or sold, but that would be another job in itself.

A knock resonated around the shop, reaching her ears with polite clarity but making her sigh with exasperation. Barbara was early, and no doubt just as eager to sniff around the new arrival. Leaving the inventory notebook on a glass counter she went to unlock the door and allow the persistent woman entry, only to find that it wasn’t the avid insomniac. An older man stood in loose shirt and years old trousers, the piercing, inquisitive stare directed straight at her as she opened the door.

“Can I help ye?” she asked coldly.

Where she had tolerated Barbara, she would extend no such courtesy to the man before her. It wasn’t preferential treatment, or her being sexist, but out of the knowledge that he wasn’t, nor would ever be, a customer. He had the stench of something she despised, and her top priority was to rid the threshold of his presence.

“Duncan said this place wouldn’t be vacant long,” the older man commented as he motioned to the shop front.

A wave of exasperated irritation jolted through her, and in a wave of residual spite she was satisfied that Duncan had got what he deserved. It was a short effect. Patiently, but not without a hidden attitude, she gazed expectantly at the older man hoping he would soon get to his point.

“The Mistress would like to extend you an invitation, she has a desire to meet you,” he explained, handing her a white card with blood orange writing printed front and back.

“Who?” she queried with raised eyebrows and unimpressed tone.

“The Mistress of the spiritualists of this city. She is our leader. We are all in grave danger and she has promised to protect us from our enemies, and on that vein, she is interested in making your acquaintance.”

It was a polite way of saying she wished to broker an alliance. Enemies, danger, and a desire for protection was all a very dramatic way of saying that the spiritualists were not alone in their city where they had been before and wished to be so again. Her family ensured they kept abreast of changes to the secret structure of the world, the one behind the schedule of commuting and council budgets, but they rarely bothered to get involved. It appeared that others had a different idea.

On the card was a place and time for a meeting and Iona gazed at it with a mixture of fizzing, irritable emotions.

“Thank you for the courtesy. If I wished to learn more about the spiritualists, where could I find you?” she asked with insipid manners.

“There’s a bar, the Cemetery Bell, a few streets over, and that’s where we all meet. You’re very welcome to join us before your meeting,” he offered eagerly.

“I’m sure,” she replied, smiling thinly.

After accepting his gratitude and encouragement she closed the door to hear it lock, crumpling the card in her palm, crushing it with immense satisfaction before allowing it to fall from her hand to a ball of crumpling fiery ash on the floor.

***

Her meeting with the spiritualist zealot had darkened her mood, and it further plunged to bitterness when she found what object was missing from the shop. Duncan had managed to find one of a handful of extremely precious and dangerous objects in the possession of their family and given it to someone, and she had a very good idea who. The spiritualist’s mention of her predecessor had given her as many clues as she needed to paint a very condemning picture. After another tense phone call home, she was given very firm commands, ones she had become eager to obey.

Despite burning the small invitation card, she remembered, or sensed, the location that had been printed on it. Spiritualism, once tapped into, was like a faulty, leaking gas pipe filled with carbon monoxide, invisible but deadly to those surrounding it. Unlike the deadly gas, this type of magic left a trace, a tang in the air, a pulse through the ground, providing a subtle tint to the world, a shimmer like heat from tarmac on a hot day. No one else save her could sense it, or feel it thicken the air. It would only grow stronger if left unrestrained, and it did not look as though completing that task was high on anyone’s list.

After making her way to the bar she stood outside of it and tried not to wrinkle her nose. It was like a bad smell or an overpowering taste, whatever was oozing from the building made her feel nauseous. Her previous passion and eagerness fettered out against the incessant battering on her skin and the back of her throat. Clenching her fists, she centred her mind and placed a wall to block out the overpowering stench.

It was the middle of the day but unlike every other bar in the city this one had customers who were not middle-aged men with nothing to do. Her eyes flickered around the darkened room, no doubt for ambience when the sun went down and the daylight hid away. Some were lounging in comfortable chairs, whilst others were writing profusely in battered notebooks. There were those who noticed her entrance, perhaps weren’t so obtuse that they didn’t feel her power, but they were few, and the majority ignored her arrival. The man who had come to see her earlier was hovering near the bar, chatting to whoever was serving behind it. When he felt the cool breeze that she had brought in with her, his gaze shifted to the door and his eyes brightened eagerly. Dropping his conversation with the bartender he hurried over and took her hand like a compassionate family friend at a funeral for a loved one.

“I’m so glad you came! The Mistress will be very pleased.”

He spoke of the mysterious woman, if a woman she was, with such reverence it bordered on pathetic. The familiar sense of irritation washed over her, momentarily blocking out the magic that coiled like a dragon ready to breathe fire and burn the place to ash, her included.

“Please, come this way,” he ushered to a door that no doubt led to a private room.

Iona’s body stiffened and she became as immovable as a stubborn mule. She was not going to be summoned by one of them, she was not here because of some thinly veiled summons, and she certainly was not going to be at the beck and call of these parlour magicians.

“If she wants to speak to me then she can descend from her throne to do so,” Iona muttered through gritted teeth.

Something about the tone of her voice, the rigidity that her body held, or the burning, barely restrained wrath that lingered beneath her eyes caused the older man to recoil, his grip loosening on her hand. A brief flicker of courage quickly fluttered away, and after returning her hand he disappeared behind the door. Her outburst, or the anger crawling beneath her skin, had caused ripples to shimmer through the bar, and by the second more and more people were paying attention to her presence.

When the door opened Iona’s narrowed eyes found the young girl who appeared from behind it. Iona didn’t claim to be an expert on guessing people’s age, but the so styled Mistress looked no older than eighteen, barely mature enough to be in a bar let alone in one during a school day. Attempting to ignore the wall of prejudice that was being piled high in her mind she watched as the young woman approached with languid grace, the arrogant pout of her lips doing nothing to help Iona’s worsening opinion.

“You came,” the girl observed.

“I did,” Iona confirmed politely.

“Sit down with me, we have much to talk about.”

Once more Iona refused to move, to be silently commanded by a juvenile young woman who thought she could summon a Tulloch witch like a dog.

“I simply came here to ask ye to return one of my family’s relics. I believe Duncan lent it to ye.”

“He said we could keep it as long as we need it.”

“Circumstances have changed,” Iona retorted icily.

“Not for us,” the girl corrected.

They spent a moment gauging one another. It was a one-sided conversation. Iona had nothing to gain by staying, and she wanted nothing more than to walk out of the door and put as much distance between the building and her as was possible just to get some fresh, untainted air. The Mistress, on the other hand, seemed all too eager to have her stay. Her haughtiness vanished, replaced by an eager, bright-eyed teenager who thought she could have anything she wanted just by being determined enough. Iona had never been like that in her youth, but her upbringing had been different, almost unrecognisable to this young woman who now sought to woo her with words and doe eyes.

“You surely know about the infestation our city has suffered from these last few years?” the Mistress queried.

“I do.”

She wasn’t going to make their conversation easier just because she was the older, and supposedly wiser, one of the two. Her spite had been commented on by many members of the family; none complimentary.

“We have been trying to regain our city, to banish them to the abyss where they crawled from, but we are not strong enough and our numbers are frightened. We need a powerful relic like the one Duncan loaned us. He understood our need and offered to help us. Won’t you do the same? We are all witches; we should work together to rid our home of those abominations.”

Iona was sure it would have been a compelling argument to Duncan, the black sheep of the family, but for her it only served to fan the flames of irritation and chagrin. She had many curt retorts for the mistress, but she had been raised not to lose her temper so easily. It was hard, but it was necessary. Arrogance made enemies, and frequent outbursts of anger and spite ensured there was always a steady stream of new ones.

“Any dealings you had with Duncan was made independent of our family. Therefore, any alliance you brokered with him, and any advantages you reaped because of such an alliance, is void. My family wish no part in this petty war you have with the immortals of this city.”

“It’s no petty war!” the older man exclaimed desperately.

“My family wish for the return of the relic that was given to ye by Duncan. It’s dangerous if used.”

“That’s precisely why we wished for it.”

“Too dangerous to be used in squabbles over a city,” Iona reiterated curtly.

Despite her short, somewhat impolite way of speaking, she could sense their situation had come to an impasse. The relic wouldn’t be returned, not when they knew its value and when they thought it could give their city back to them. It would be easy to force their hand now, but her family abhorred the use of brute force tactics when nothing else had been tried, and unfortunately for the ruffled Iona this was her first encounter with the spiritualists, and she shivered to think of the punishment reserved for her if she disobeyed the Clan code.

“We could be allies,” the Mistress attempted again, a lulling hint to her voice like soft lavender, “Like Duncan was.”

“There’s no benefit to us to have an alliance with ye,” Iona replied brutally, “and we wish no further exchanges. Return the relic and I’ll be gone.”

“I can’t give away my people’s only hope,” the young girl reasoned.

She fought the urge to clench her fists, but her teeth received most of the brunt of her frustration. Her trip into the city was meant to be brief – visit Duncan in the hospital, take an inventory of the shop, and then return with a report. Naively when she had left she thought it wouldn’t take more than a week, and it would be more like a holiday. Her hope was slowly crumbling and had been since her arrival. From the determined insomniac in the shop to the haughty teenager who now stood before her, all seemed determined to trap her, to ensnare her for their purposes. A steady stream of air made its way into her lungs, and she expelled it evenly, taking a brief few moments to gather herself, and attempt to control her boiling anger.

“If ye don’t return my family’s relic, I will turn your cemeteries to dust,” Iona stated simply.

There was a flash of genuine fear on the Mistress’s face before it was engulfed by the haughty curve of her lip. The girl may be young, but she was in possession of good leadership qualities, bar the stubbornness and stupidity she had displayed thus far. The older man, to the contrary, seemed to know better than his youthful counterpart, and his anxiety remained in the grooves of his face.

“You have until the end of tomorrow,” Iona stated before spinning on her heel.

Before she could reach the door, another scent mingled with the spiritualist magic, one that was not as foreign to her as she would have liked. Pungent, and tasting as strong as it smelled, the unmistakable waft of blood that jumped down the back of her throat was almost enough to make her wretch. A quick glance in either direction revealed the source of the stench to be the enemy the spiritualists were holding her family’s relic hostage in order to defeat. The immortals. Spelled to a chair, the drips of blood congealed together on the floor emanating the sickening smell. Pursing her lips, she ignored it and closed the door behind her.

Next Part.

Where to start? The least interesting first. It’s my final semester of uni. In a few months I’ll hopefully get to throw my certificate scroll up in the air with my pals, all dressed in our fancy robes and fancier clothes. It’s the getting there that’s the problem. Exams, more exams, a dissertation, and a fuck-ton of coursework. If that wasn’t bad enough, I’ve got everyone on my case about after. My pals are lining up jobs, further studying, readying themselves to become adults. What about me, they ask, what are my plans? I’m finding’ myself avoiding people so I can dodge that question. I don’t want to think about it.

Let’s move onto something more interesting, and less panic inducing. Reid’s got himself a girlfriend – I think the latest one is a girlfriend. There’ve been a few, and I don’t mean to sound judgmental, it’s just unusual that there’s any at all. It’s starting to feel like there’s a new one every few weeks. Boyfriends, girlfriends, people without labels who last a few days. It’s gotten so bad Fionn and I have a bet at how long each will last, and that’s the ones we hear about. It’s not like it’s something to worry about, which is why it’s hard to pin down why I feel a bit…uneasy about it.

Speaking of Fionn. It’s been…I don’t know what it’s been. Some days he’ll be fine, his usual cheeky, cheerful self. Other days he’ll barely speak a word, especially to me, and moves around the shop like a ghost. Sometimes he won’t even look me in the eye, let alone speak to me. If he does, he’s civil and distant, a stranger I don’t know. It depends on the day, the time, where the moon is in its cycle, who knows. Sometimes it’s a challenge going to the shop because you never know what version of Fionn you’re going to get. It’s cruel of me to complain. I did that to him, and he knows it. I trapped him in a place at times I’m happy to be free of. He has to look at the same walls, the same objects, the same faces of Norna and Chronos. He can never leave.

It’s hard to watch, to see. Did I do the right thing? And who did I do it for, me or him? Was I being selfish? Should I just have let him die? I’m too afraid to tell anyone these doubts, these questions. So, I’m telling you.

Other questions involve Fionn’s death. How did he end up there in the first place? From what I’ve learned, wyverns are supposed to be difficult to kill, to overpower. He’s lived for centuries, and yet one single person managed to corner him with a single knife and end life as he knew it. Fionn’s never brought up that day, but Reid and I are convinced he knew the man that attacked him. It’s not like it really matters now. Fionn can never leave the shop, and he can never die whilst inside its boundaries. That person, whoever they were, didn’t get what they wanted.

Fionn’s become more knowledgeable than even Reid on the objects in the shop. So much that he gets lost in them. Chronos believes it’s intentional, a form of escape from his antique lined prison. I’m starting to believe the wee shite has a point.

For a few days he’d been spending a lot of time in silence, lost in the aisles of the shop. It was during one of his darker periods, the times when he barely looks or speaks to me. I attempt to coax him out of it on occasion. It’s a different silence, it’s tense, awkward even, especially if it’s just the two of us. Reid’s rarely in the shop these days, and Chronos comes and goes as he pleases.

Feeling brave, and having a slow day from customers, I went in search of him. Finding him in a corner of the shop, perched on top of an ancient looking box, scratched and dented with wear and use, he was staring into a mirror. Fionn was a bit vain about his looks. I gathered from the occasional ogling customer that it was not without reason, but he’d never been a Narcissus about it, staring at his own reflection for hours on end. He could be staring at the mirror, it was pretty, set into a silver frame, a pattern engraved onto his edge.

I approach cautiously, half hoping he’ll notice me before I give him a fright. He doesn’t, but the creaking floorboards beneath my feet give me away. He glances up briefly, as if expecting a customer. When he realises it’s me a shadow passes across his face and he turns back to the mirror. I hate when he looks at me like that, it makes my eyes sting and my conscience scream. I breathe out slowly, clench my fists as though the physical pain will mask the emotional.

I try to keep my tone light, and I ask him what the mirror is. There’s space on the grand, ancient chest, but I remain standing. Even I’m not stupid enough to think just by closing the physical distance it’ll fix the emotional one. Reluctantly, almost begrudgingly, Fionn explains that whenever he looks into the mirror he can see different times of his life, as though he were living them again. But there’s a difference. The things he’s seeing have never really happened, rather – they’ve only happened in his imagination.

As reluctant as I was to be intruding on his space when he evidently didn’t want me to, I wasn’t sure what he meant. Did the mirror allow you to experience your wildest dreams? Did it make your inner most imaginings reflect back at ye?

Has there ever been a decision in your life, a point in time when you went right instead of left, when you went out instead of staying in, when you took the bus instead of a taxi? De you ever wonder what would’ve happened if you’d made the other choice? Fionn said it was like that. It took him back to moments in his life where he had other choices and showed him how his life would’ve played out if he’d gone down a different path, made a different decision.

His words weighed heavily on me. I’d banished him to this, only having moments to relive and not living any new ones. I’d condemned him to infinite time to dwell on his life, his mistakes, and the mirror was making the job a lot easier. I didn’t ask to see it, to take it away from him even though a voice in my head said it’d be best to. I couldn’t tell if Fionn found comfort from the mirror, or it was a slow form of torture. Was he wondering what choices he could’ve made differently that would’ve avoided his death in that alleyway? Was he trying to find a single point where it’d all gone wrong?

I couldn’t bring myself to say anything, I couldn’t think of words that were sincere without being too serious. I was about to leave him to the mirror when he handed it to me, standing at my shoulder curious to see the reflection. I looked in every direction apart from at my reflection. I didn’t know how much control you had, but I knew what I’d see. Was that why he’d handed it to me? To check if I would’ve made a different decision in that alleyway?

I wanted to hand it back, to refuse, knowing I wouldn’t be able to bear what it showed me about that day. Fionn either didn’t notice or didn’t care about my discomfort as he told me I needed to look directly into the mirror in order to see. I let my guard down, I let my eyes slip to the surface, to the reflection of my own face, crystal clear in a mirror that looked freshly polished. But that was all I did see. My ugly mug. Confusion started to draw my eyebrows together and I looked blankly at Fionn, as though he’d know how to fix this mysterious object.

As confused as I was, he took it from my hands and peered in, and right enough there was a scene from at least a few centuries ago playing out in the reflection. A version of Fionn I didn’t know, talking with people that were probably long dead. He handed it back to me and we both stared intently at our reflections, but again, that’s all there was to see. There was no image of me deciding which uni to go to, which flat to get, which parent to live with. Just two people who appeared close but felt as far apart as we ever had.

I was relieved, and when it was clear the image wouldn’t change, I handed it back to Fionn and shrugged. Maybe I was immune to its charms. He was happy to have it back and sat back down on the ancient chest and continued his journey through his memories, through the opportunities he missed, through the lives that never were.

Every time I came to the shop in the following days he’d be in the same corner, in the same position, staring at the reflection. I suppose in a life as long as his there were a lot of decisions that dictated how the rest of the time would go. I never went near him, or the mirror, thinking I’d had a lucky escape. I thought that was it. Chronos predicted Fionn would get bored eventually and the mirror would disappear back into the nooks of the shop from where he’d plucked it.

It was that same week I started to get strange emails and texts. It was funny at first, laughing at someone else’s mistake. It’d be confirmations of orders to companies I’d never heard of, for shoes, sports equipment, furniture. It never had my address on it, but it had my name and was sent to my email address. I’d show my flatmates, we all had a laugh, and then I’d delete them.

I was in a queue at the bank a few days later. A stranger came up to me and started talking as though we were pals and had known each other for years. I tried to tell them I wasn’t who they thought I was, but they assumed I was making a joke, telling me we’d gone to school together, and that I’d been in their bridal party last year. Something similar happened in a clothes shop where the manager treated me like I was an employee. I sprinted out and have vowed to never return.

I began having dreams, not unusual in itself, but these were boring dreams. Ones where I’d be a barista, a lawyer, a lorry driver, an archivist. Nothing strange would happen, I’d go about a normal day. Nothing chasing me, no cursed objects, no creatures that looked like humans, no zombies.

About a week after I’d spoken to Fionn about the mirror I was in a lecture taking notes. When I’d looked up at the board from my laptop, I found myself in an office, a spreadsheet that I hadn’t created open on my laptop, rows of numbers and equations and calculations I didn’t know how to do. I was surrounded by others doing the same, typing away, having quick conversations by an office printer, sneakily looking up cheap holidays whilst the manager’s head was turned the other way.

I blinked away the mirage, assuming I was dreaming again, but nothing changed. I was the same, my chipped nail polish was still the same colour, but I was in smart clothes, office wear. Why was I here? Where was my lecture theatre, and my laptop, and my life? I shot up from my chair, only to be back in the lecture theatre with everyone staring at me.

In the next few days, I experienced the same thing twice, being in my own life one minute and then someone else’s the next. By the third time I marched straight to the shop, grabbed Fionn, and went to see the Madam.

As I was explaining the strange things that’d been happening to me, Fionn cast his eyes away, eventually admitting that similar things had been happening to him, but that he’d been transported to different points in his own life, rather than whatever had been happening to me.

The Madam, in her silent way, listened, and when we’d finished, and the mirror was placed on the coffee table, she began to explain. Like with many items in the shop, the mirror had been created by someone who thought they’d made many mistakes in their life. What if they’d said something different, what if they’d chosen this, or that, or the other? They thought the misery of their current life would be explained by the decisions they’d made along the way. Where had it all gone wrong?

The mirror had shown them, had taken them down memory lane and given them the glimpse into how their life would be if they’d turned right instead of left, if they’d fought instead of ran, if they’d spoken out instead of staying quiet. The mirror had been doing the same thing ever since, showing people alternate fates. Fionn had been transported to the decisions in his life that he thought should’ve been different, eventually transporting him physically instead of just through a small reflection.

That left the sticky problem of what’d been happening to me. I’d seen nothing in the mirror apart from my own reflection. That’s because I had no alternate fate. No matter what I’d done, no matter what I’d chosen, I’d have always ended up at the shop. I didn’t have alternative fates, only one.

The emails I’d been getting, the lives I’d been living through, they weren’t alternate fates, they were alternative realities. The mirror was shifting me between worlds as that was the only way to show me different versions of how my life could’ve been. An office worker, a barista, a furniture buyer, a holiday maker. There was a me in some other dimension, in some other world who could be those things.

Madam Norna leaned over to the mirror and slid it into her hands, solemnly telling us that something so powerful couldn’t be left in the shop. It’d have to go in a locked box in storage. Although I was a special case, there was no guarantee it wouldn’t do the same to an unsuspecting customer. Any item with the power to merge worlds, send one being from one to another, was too unpredictable to let into general circulation.

My relief was soon followed by guilt as I saw Fionn’s face fall. That mirror had been his escape, his hobby, some kind of solace. And because of me it had to get locked up. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. Why does it seem recently that I’m cursed to take away his freedoms? That my selfishness is so out of control that it backs him into a cage of my making? I’m glad that mirror didn’t work the same way with me, I don’t want to know what decision I’d have made in that alleyway given a second chance.

Scots-ish language version

Where tae start…? The least interesting first. It’s ma final semester ae uni. In a few months I’ll hopefully get tae throw ma certificate scroll up in the air wi’ ma pals, all dressed in our fancy robes and fancier clothes. It’s the getting’ there that’s the problem. Exams, more exams, a dissertation, and a fuck ton ae coursework. If that wasnae bad enough I’ve got everyone on ma case aboot after. Ma pals are linin’ up jobs, further studying, readying themselves tae become adults. Whit aboot me, they ask, whit are ma plans? I’m finding’ maself avoidin people so I can dodge that question. I dinnae want tae ‘hink aboot it.

Let’s move ontae something more interestin’, and less panic inducing. Reid’s got himself a girlfriend – I think the latest one is a girlfriend. There’ve been a few, and I dinnae mean tae sound judgmental, it’s just unusual that there’s any at all. It’s startin’ tae feel like there’s a new one every few weeks. Boyfriends, girlfriends, people withoot labels who last a few days. It’s gotten so bad Fionn and I have a bet at how long each will last, and that’s the ones we hear aboot. It’s no like it’s something tae worry aboot, which is why it’s hard tae pin doon why I feel a bit…uneasy aboot it.

Speakin’ ae Fionn. It’s been…I dinnae know whit it’s been. Some days he’ll be fine, his usual cheeky, cheerful self. Other days he’ll barely speak a word, especially tae me, and moves aroond the shop like a ghost. Sometimes he won’t even look me in the eye, let alone speak tae me. If he does, he’s civil and distant, a stranger I dinnae know. It depends on the day, the time, where the moon is in its cycle, who knows. Sometimes it’s a challenge goin’ tae the shop because ye never know whit version ae Fionn you’re gonnae get. It’s cruel ae me tae complain. I did that tae him, and he knows it. I trapped him in a place at times I’m happy tae be free of. He has tae look at the same walls, the same objects, the same faces ae Norna and Chronos. He can never leave.

It’s hard tae watch, tae see. Did I do the right ‘hing? And who did I do it for, me or him? Was I being selfish? Should I just have let him die? I’m too afraid tae tell anyone these doubts, these questions. So I’m tellin’ you.

Other questions involve Fionn’s death. How did he end up there in the first place? Fae whit I’ve learned, wyverns are supposed tae be difficult tae kill, tae overpower. He’s lived fae centuries, and yet one single person managed tae corner him wi’ a single knife and end life as he knew it. Fionn’s never brought up that day, but Reid and I are convinced he knew the man that attacked him. It’s no like it really matters noo. Fionn can never leave the shop, and he can never die whilst inside its boundaries. That person, whoever they were, didnae get whit they wanted.

Fionn’s become more knowledgeable than even Reid on the objects in the shop. So much that he gets lost in them. Chronos believes it’s intentional, a form ae escape fae his antique lined prison. I’m startin’ tae believe the wee shite has a point.

Fae a few days he’d been spendin’ a lot ae time in silence, lost in the aisles ae the shop. It was durin’ one ae his darker periods, the times when he barely looks or speaks tae me. I attempt tae coax him oot ae it on occasion. It’s a different silence, it’s tense, awkward even, especially if it’s just the two ae us. Reid’s rarely in the shop these days, and Chronos comes and goes as he pleases.

Feelin’ brave, and havin’ a slow day fae customers, I went in search ae him. Findin’ him in a corner ae the shop, perched on top ae an ancient lookin’ box, scratched and dented wi’ wear and use, he was starin intae a mirror. Fionn’ was a bit vain aboot his looks. I gathered fae the occasional ogling customer that it was no withoot reason, but he’d never been a Narcissus aboot it, starin’ at his own reflection fae hours on end. He could be starin’ at the mirror, it was pretty, set intae a silver frame, a pattern engraved ontae his edge.

I approach cautiously, half hopin’ he’ll notice me before I gee him a fright. He doesnae, but the creakin’ floorboards beneath ma feet gee me away. he glances up briefly, as if expectin’ a customer. When he realises it’s me a shadow passes across his face and he turns back tae the mirror. I hate when he looks at me like that, it makes ma eyes sting and ma conscience scream. I breathe out slowly, clench ma fists as though the physical pain will mask the emotional.

I try tae keep ma tone light and I ask him whit the mirror is. There’s space on the grand, ancient chest, but I remain standin’. Even I’m no stupid enough tae think just by closin’ the physical distance it’ll fix the emotional one. Reluctantly, almost begrudgingly, Fionn explains that whenever he looks intae the mirror he can see different times ae his life, as though he were livin’ them again. But there’s a difference. The things he’s seein’ have never really happened, rather – they’ve only happened in his imagination.

As reluctant as I was tae be intrudin’ on his space when he evidently didnae want me tae, I wasae sure whit he meant. Did the mirror allow ye tae experience your wildest dreams? Did it make your inner most imaginings reflect back at ye?

Has there ever been a decision in your life, a point in time when you went right instead ae left, when you went oot instead ae stayin’ in, when you took the bus instead ae a taxi? De ye ever wonder whit wouldae happened if ye’d made the other choice? Fionn said it was like that. It took him back tae moments in his life where he had other choices, and showed him how his life wouldae played oot if he’d gone doon a different path, made a different decision.

His words weighed heavily on me. I’d banished him tae this, only havin’ moments tae relive, and no livin’ any new ones. I’d condemned him tae infinte time tae dwell on his life, his mistakes, and the mirror was makin’ the job a lot easier. I didnae ask tae see it, tae take it away fae him even though a voice in ma heid said it’d be best tae. I couldnae tell if Fionn found comfort fae the mirror, or it was a slow form ae torture. Was he wonderin’ whit choices he couldae made differently that wouldae avoided his death in that alleyway? Was he tryin tae find a single point where it’d all gone wrong?

I couldnae bring maself tae say anythin’, I couldnae think ae words that were sincere withoot bein’ too serious. I was aboot tae leave him tae the mirror when he handed it tae me, standin’ at ma shoulder curious tae see the reflection. I looked in every direction apart fae at ma reflection. I didnae know how much control ye had, but I knew whit I’d see. Was that why he’d handed it tae me? Tae check if I wouldae made a different decision in that alleyway?

I wanted tae hand it back, tae refuse, knowin’ I wouldnae be able tae bear whit it showed me aboot that day. Fionn either didnae notice or didnae care aboot ma discomfort, as he told me I needed tae look directly intae the mirror in order tae see. I let ma guard doon, I let ma eyes slip tae the surface, tae the reflection ae ma own face, crystal clear in a mirror that looked freshly polished. But that was all I did see. Ma ugly mug. Confusion started tae draw ma eyebrows together and I looked blankly at Fionn, as though he’d know how tae fix this mysterious object.

As confused as I was, he took it fae ma hands and peered in, and right enough there was a scene fae at least a few centuries ago playin’ oot in the reflection. A version ae Fionn I didnae know, talkin’ wi’ people that were probably long deid. He handed it back tae me and we both stared intently at our reflections, but again, that’s all there was tae see. There was no image ae me decidin’ which uni tae go tae, which flat tae get, which parent tae live wi’. Just two people who appeared close, but felt as far apart as we ever had.

I was relieved, and when it was clear the image wouldnae change, I handed it back tae Fionn and shrugged. Maybe I was immune tae its charms. He was happy tae have it back and sat back doon on the ancient chest and continued his journey through his memories, through the opportunities he missed, through the lives that never were.

Every time I came tae the shop in the followin’ days he’d be in the same corner, in the same position, starin’ at the reflection. I suppose in a life as long as his there were a lot ae decisions that dictated how the rest ae the time would go. I never went near him, or the mirror, thinkin’ I’d had a lucky escape. I thought that was it, Chronos predicted Fionn would get bored eventually and the mirror would disappear back intae the nooks ae the shop fae where he’d plucked it.

It was that same week I started tae get strange emails and texts. It was funny at first, laughin’ at someone else’s mistake. It’d be confirmations ae orders tae companies I’d never heard ae, fae shoes, sports equipment, furniture. It never had ma address on it, but it had ma name, and was sent tae ma email address. I’d show ma flatmates, we all had a laugh, and then I’d delete them.

I was in a queue at the bank a few days later. A stranger came up tae me and started talkin’ as though we were pals and had known each other fae years. I tried tae tell them I wasnae who they thought I was, but they assumed I was makin’ a joke, tellin’ me we’d gone tae school together, and that I’d been in their bridal party last year. somethin’ similar happened in a clothes shop where the manager treated me like I was an employee. I sprinted oot and have vowed tae never return.

I began havin’ dreams, no unusual in itself, but these were borin’ dreams. Ones where I’d be a barrista, a lawyer, a lorry driver, an archivist. Nothin’ strange would happen, I’d go aboot a normal day. Nothin’ chasin’ me, no cursed objects, no creatures that looked like humans, no zombies.

Aboot a week after I’d spoken tae Fionn aboot the mirror I was in a lecture takin’ notes. When I’d looked up at the board fae ma laptop I found maself in an office, a spreadsheet that I hadnae created open on ma laptop, rows ae numbers and equations and calculations I didnae know how tae do. I was surrounded by others doin’ the same, typin’ away, havin’ quick conversations by an office printer, sneakily lookin’ up cheap holidays whilst the manager’s heid was turned the other way.

I blinked away the mirage, assumin’ I was dreamin again, but nothin’ changed. I was the same, ma chipped nail polish was still the same colour, but I was in smart clothes, office wear. Why was I here? Where was ma lecture theatre, and ma laptop, and ma life? I shot up fae ma chair, only tae be back in the lecture theatre wi’ everyone starin’ at me.

In the next few days I experienced the same ‘hing twice, bein’ in ma own life one minute and then someone else’s the next. By the third time I marched straight tae the shop, grabbed Fionn and went tae see the Madam.

As I was explainin’ the strange ‘hings that’d been happenin’ tae me, Fionn cast his eyes away, eventually admittin’ that similar things had been happenin tae him, but that he’d been transported tae different points in his own life, rather than whitever had been happenin tae me.

The Madam, in her silent way, listened, and when we’d finished, and the mirror was placed on the coffee table, she began tae explain. Like wi’ many items in the shop, the mirror had been created by someone who thought they’d made many mistakes in their life. What if they’d said somethin’ different, whit if they’d chosen this, or that, or the other. they thought the misery ae their current life would be explained by the decisions they’d made along the way. Where had it all gone wrong?

The mirror had shown them, had taken them doon memory lane and given them the glimpse intae how their life would be if they’d turned right instead ae left, if they’d fought instead ae ran, if they’d spoken oot instead ae stayin’ quiet. The mirror had been doin’ the same thing ever since, showin’ people alternate fates. Fionn had been transported tae the decisions in his life that he thought should’ve been different, eventually transporting him physically instead ae just through a small reflection.

That left the sticky problem ae whit’d been happenin tae me. I’d seen nothin’ in the mirror apart fae ma own reflection. That’s because I had no alternate fate. No matter whit I’d done, no matter whit I’d chosen, I’d have always ended up at the shop. I didnae have alternative fates, only one.

The emails I’d been getting’, the lives I’d been livin through, they werenae alternate fates, they were alternative realities. The mirror was shiftin’ me between worlds as that was the only way tae show me different versions ae how ma life couldae been. An office worker, a barrista, a furniture buyer, a holiday maker. There was a me in some other dimension, in some other world who could be those things.

Madam Norna leaned over tae the mirror and slid it intae her hands, solemnly tellin’ us that somethin’ so powerful couldnae be left in the shop. It’d have tae go in a locked box in storage. Although I was a special case, there was no guarantee it wouldnae do the same tae an unsuspectin’ customer. Any item wi’ the power tae merge worlds, send one being fae one tae another, was too unpredictable tae let intae general circulation.

Ma relief was soon followed by guilt as I saw Fionn’s face fall. That mirror had been his escape, his hobby, some kind ae solace. And because ae me it had tae get locked up. Maybe I shouldnae have said anythin’. Why does it seem recently that I’m cursed tae take away his freedoms? That my selfishness is so oot ae control that it backs him intae a cage ae ma makin’? I’m glad that mirror didnae work the same way wi’ me, I dinnae want tae know whit decision I’d have made in that alleyway given a second chance.

The train swept through picturesque countryside. Rays of bright, untainted sunshine rippled and illuminated the glens and the valleys that Scotland was famed for. Snow glistened as it caught the light, becoming reflective, deepening the crisp colour of the cloudless sky. The further south one went the less rugged the land became, blurring from craggy mountain peaks coloured grey, to the luscious pastures of smooth hills and valleys. The world changed from vibrant shades of autumn to a sharp, distinct spring palette.

She remembered the last time she had made the long journey. She had not been as placated by the scenery as she was now – teenagers can be oblivious to the true beauty around them, too busy caring what everyone else thinks of them. She had been that age once and shuddered whenever she reminisced. To get to where she was going, she had to spend a lot of time on many different trains as she wound her way down the country to a small city that some of her extended family had taken great interest in. They were the reason she travelled the hundreds of miles down.

Alighting from the train at the bustling station she took a moment to acknowledge the change from her local town and her family’s country home. The city was a different world, one where kindness hid in the shadows in fear of its grotesque cousins – greed and selfishness. She had always found city folk to be very self-absorbed, always in a hurry to be nowhere, incapable of basic manners, and lacking the ability to apologise. Why her family had allowed some of its branches to set their own roots within one was a small mystery. The noise of the station was overwhelming, as was the smell that permeated the air so thickly she felt she could reach out and touch it. It was different in the city than it was to home, and it wasn’t only pollution that poisoned the atmosphere. The relentless ambition, questionable morals, and the desperation to succeed all mingled together to create a fog visible only to outsiders. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it wasn’t comfortable. Everything was harsh, fast-paced, and abrupt, yet there was no pretence, no falsehoods meant to lure and deceive. Everything that was true about the city, and its people, was clear to see. This wasn’t a metropolis of fashion, culture or art, it was a city with hundreds of thousands of people clawing away at their lives to make something of it that was worthwhile telling.

The bus was considerably quieter, the passengers more inclined to keep to themselves, looking out the window or at the other vehicles on the road. Some buildings had changed, shops had disappeared to be replaced by cafés and eateries, and the same family businesses were still clinging onto their leases on a rapidly growing commercial street. After recognising a park, and a pub, she pressed the button and alighted the bus. It was surprisingly quiet but had an air of secret allure, a nucleus of fashion and modernity. Independent businesses still managed to survive here, on the outskirts of the city, where the national chains dared not go. Eccentric cafés, shops packed full of vintage clothing, and quaint, enchanting bistros and restaurants made up the modest metropolis.

Everything faded back, receded to the nooks of her mind as she felt her skin, her blood, and her bones resonate with the petite shop front a few doors down from the bus stop. It sang to her like a siren to a ship, enticing her to draw nearer, but it wasn’t death that awaited her, only familiarity and a home away from home.

Closing the distance, she paused in front of the window, casting her gaze over the real, and equally fake, relics that lay behind the spotless glass. Some sparkled, yet that did not mean they were valuable, and an odd piece lay gathering dust and the companionship of spiders, but it had the ability to protect its owner from anything this world, or the other ones, had to throw at them. The display had no order, jewellery mixed with helpful gems and stones, or an antique bracelet hanging onto a sprig of dried lavender sprouting like grass from a bed of mint leaves. It was a shop of many things, an antique jeweller, an unofficial therapist, and a local herbalist. It had been passed down through many of her ancestors’ hands over the centuries, always in the same spot despite the marching of time and the coming of modernity, but it still stood, as it no doubt always would. The blue of the façade was the same shade her family favoured, the emerald green under layer visible when the rays of sunshine settled upon it. The frames, and the door, had been painted many times through the generations, but only ever back and forth between scarlet, beryl, and lapis. She had been told that once it had been all three colours simultaneously.

Taking her eyes from the chaotic display she edged further towards the door, reading the sign that said it was closed with a wry half-smile. As soon as she came within touching distance, she heard the barrels of the lock click and clunk until the door swung open silently welcoming her in. Allowing the faint grin to rest on her face she crossed the threshold and revelled in the scent of gentle lavender mingled with sweet mint, of mellow lemongrass and pungent bergamot. There was an undertone of ginger, holding hands with a very faint juvenile garlic. All were fighting for dominance in the air, swirling their way around the shop and resting on everything they could, including the fibres of her clothes.

The first room was full of glass cabinets packed with old cigarette boxes, postcards that had never been written from various towns and seaside resorts across the country, combs and enamel brushes, and strings of pearls, both false and real, snaking around other various odd pieces of jewellery. One wall held shelves that supported glass jars filled with the herbs she smelled, and many that she didn’t, whilst there were paintings and sketches on the others with price tags as their companions. The walls were coated with a deep grape emulsion, whilst the floor was made of uneven, creaking mahogany. There was an archway leading through to the next room and she passed through it to the nostalgic green room, filled with herbs, ointments, and special earth talismans. So called the green room due to the faded emerald paint that adorned the walls. It was the nucleus of the entire shop, and the most frequented by customers looking for a natural remedy for their ills, whatever they may be.

There was a door near the back that led to the private room, and upstairs was a branch of the family archive. She had always thought of it more as a storage space for items that weren’t in need of as much protecting as the ones at home, but as she felt the power surround her like a security blanket to a child she began to think twice.

Her family had spent generations nurturing the shop to be a haven, a cocoon of protection against those who had unnatural abilities to hurt the innocent, which accumulated to more than one would think. In reality, the shop was more powerful than some of the artefacts her family kept in their home, and one that was much overlooked, none more so than her.

She didn’t have time to linger and admire a beauty she had not seen before in her youthful ignorance because she had somewhere else to be of equal importance. Opening the door to the private rooms she left her suitcase standing solitary amongst enchantments and objects of wonder whilst she made her way outside, back onto the swarm filled street, keeping a modest smile on her lips as she heard the satisfying clunk of the door locking behind her.

***

In the north hospitals were modest. The biggest one was in a city, the only large city so far up. Everything else was conducted in local clinics that had been passed down from one pair of hands to another like a precious family heirloom. She had been born at home, the hospital being too far away and difficult to get to. They were something else entirely in the city. 

Large edifices dedicated to health, like the temples in Rome or Athens, holding a strange kind of beauty, a fragility that reflected those stuck inside. As it was beautiful it was also garish, large and sprawling, it took up many acres of land, a colony of many buildings housing departments she couldn’t pronounce, much like a high security prison with separate wards depending on inmate behaviour. Also, like a prison, some people went in for months, even years, and some never left alive at all.

No matter where, how large, or how many falsely cheery nurses prowled the hallways with their hollow smiles and practised manners, all hospitals smelled the same, of bleach and cleanliness, as if it were trying so hard not to have a smell that it created an entirely new breed. The walls were painted in a narrow array of colours, never white though – that was deemed garish. Any pastel colour, usually of the mint variety, was smeared across the walls to elicit reassurance and solidity, although depending on the ward depended on the colour. 

The one she wanted was baby blue, but not due to the inhabitants. It held different names in different hospitals, and no doubt had many unsavoury nicknames from staff, but it was the floor, or the wing, where people who weren’t coming out were kept. A hospice of kinds, or a precursor to a graveyard, very few people were awake. The doors opened for her, and she passed through them into silence.

There was a low hum in a hospital, either of loved ones talking, reassuring each other, an underlying buzz of boredom and waiting, staff members running corridors they could navigate in their sleep, and the clunk, whine, and clatter of machinery. As soon as the doors closed behind her with a deep exhale, all of it remained on the other side, in the land of the fully living. She received a glance and nod of acknowledgement from the nurse at the station, hiding a questioning look, she moved past quietly, giving him a well-mannered smile. Walking silently so as not to disturb the atmosphere of the ward she glanced at the room numbers, searching for the one she wanted.

It was on the corner, flanked by two other rooms, one empty, the other occupied by an elderly man who needed a machine to help him breathe. He was surrounded by family who had fully grey hair, and others who looked as though they were not far behind. The room she wanted was empty except for the person she had come to see.

There were no monitors, no rhythmic electronic beep to signify a pump of the heart. If possible, the room was more silent than the ward itself. Lying on the bed, far too young to be condemned to more than a few days there, was a man. He had light auburn hair, spread wildly on the pillow beneath his head like an unkempt array of flowers and weeds. A peaceful crease glanced across his face, and for a moment it felt like she could reach out to graze her finger along his skin and he would wake.

The moment passed fleetingly.

The silence around her elicited memories she had long forgotten, left to be buried in a mind full of experiences and lessons, gathering dust as a discarded child’s toy. Despite the flurry and flashes of the past she couldn’t remember when she’d last seen him, or even what words had been exchanged. All she knew for certain was that it had been a few years, if not more. She didn’t know how long it would be before he awoke.

The peace was disturbed momentarily by a pair of rubber shoes squeaking on the polished floor. Briefly turning around to acknowledge the new entrance, she could smell the cleanliness before she saw the navy-blue uniform and simple nametag. A female nurse shuffled in dazedly until she set her eyes upon the unusual visitor. Immediately a practised smile slid onto her face, the eyes surrendered the glimpses of hopelessness and dissatisfaction that lingered beneath.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think he had family,” the nurse began.

“Everyone has family,” she reasoned, “It just depends how close they are.”

The nurse hid her disapproval well, clinging to the friendly façade that kept her job. She came further into the room, bent down beside the bed and began to rustle the thick plastic of the catheter.

“I can go and find the Doctor,” the nurse offered when she had finished.

“I’d prefer if you tell me.”

She looked taken aback, feeling exposed now that she had been placed in a spot of knowledge. Nurses were notoriously overlooked, and often they knew information far more valuable than that of the doctors. Every day, perhaps more than once, they visited the patients in the ward, spoke with them, asked questions, kept their spirits up, and if it were genuine or not hardly mattered.

“He’s in a coma,” she announced gingerly, “but we can’t find the cause.”

They never would. Despite the bounds of progress science had made, there were still gaps in the widely accepted knowledge, areas of grey that they could never fully explain.

“He collapsed in the street a few weeks ago and he’s been like this ever since. We contacted you then,” the nurse continued, a careless piece of disapprobation colliding with her tone.

She never said anything in reply but simply looked over at the face that had once been so familiar, like a brother. Still, she couldn’t recall their last meeting or their last conversation, and she began to feel the building of regret squirming at the back of her mind like a kettle about to boil.

“Thank you for taking care of him,” she stated politely before she left the room.

There was no point in lingering for there was nothing she could do to help him. A visit was all that had been permitted, a minute or two confirming what had happened to him before she was to leave. He served as a reminder, a warning, of what happened when orders weren’t obeyed. It made her uneasy the longer she looked at him, knowing that there was no mercy to blood who strayed too far away from the intended path.

Unfortunately, the easiest part of her task was complete. However discomforting it had been, now the real work began.

Next part

Scottish vocabulary

Sweetie – Sweets, Candy.

Bodach (Glas)– I seem to have confused the normal Bodach with the Bodach Glas, which is the thing I’m referring to in this story. A Bodach Glas is an omen of death, and comes in the shape of an old man. A Bodach is also an old man figure, but in typical fashion, is a figure that comes down the chimney and kidnaps naughty children. A boogeyman meant to get children to behave. I’ve altered the script to correct this mistake.

outwith – Scottish word for outside of, beyond the bounds of.

Story

Believe it or not, there’s a few things I never expect to see in the shop. A smartphone, a laptop made any time after 1985, and everyone’s favourite anti-Madam. I know she’s been in before, many moons ago, but never since.

The bell went, interrupting my game with Chronos, and I took the obligatory glance over, expecting a stranger to be staring around like a bairn in a sweetie shop. Our game was quickly abandoned when my feline pal and I realised who’d walked through the front door. Just as well, I was losing pretty badly as usual. I felt my body tense up as she walked further into the shop, the last echoes of the bell replaced by the clip of her heels on the wooden floor.

Chronos gauged her languidly, and I was half-hoping he’d activate beast mode, or at least give her a menacing hiss, but he wasn’t as bothered by her presence as I was. Reid, probably receiving a distress signal from my familiars’ ring emerged from the aisle he’d disappeared down half an hour before and froze when he realised this was no ordinary customer.

A wee, stupid part of me expected her to pull out Madam Norna’s card and ask to be escorted upstairs. Never one to miss a social cue, Anora spread a smile across her dark lips. It wasn’t friendly or vicious, reassuring or antagonistic. Enjoyment curved her mouth, rested in the fine lines of her cheeks. She liked being feared.

In her deep, smoky voice she informed us we didn’t need to be afraid; she wasn’t here to cause trouble. All of us found that difficult to believe.

Realising that none of us were going to offer her a cup of tea, she came to lean gracefully on the glass counter, a metre or two away from Chronos and I. I didn’t like her this close, didn’t like that she smelled like spices and autumn and red leaves blowing in the wind. Didn’t like that she smelled like the end of something, I just didn’t know what.

She was simply here to tell us something she thought we’d want to know. Fionn was in need of our help. His past had come back, not just to haunt him but kill him in retribution of all his past deeds. I had so many questions I didn’t know what to ask first, so ended up biting the inside of my lip instead. How much did Anora know about Fionn, especially his past? Did she know what had happened at the funeral, and the history behind it? How did she know he was in trouble now? If what she was saying was true, then had she set his vengeful past onto him? Why, though? He hadn’t been unfaithful to her? Right?

Reid was the first one to voice something by asking why we should believe her. Her grin deepened, almost showing the pearl whites of her teeth. As our anxiety began to grow fangs her enjoyment grew with it. Anora shrugged her shoulders with a nonchalance that had me biting so hard on ma lip I began to taste blood.

It was up to us if we believed her, but were we really willing to take the risk? She replied.

I hated that she had a point. I knew I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror if something were to happen to Fionn that I could’ve prevented but didn’t just because I was suspicious of Anora. I glanced at Reid, for once not knowing what he was thinking. Ever since the day Fionn told us the truth about his past the atmosphere between my two familiars had been civil at best and downright chilly at worst. It was different from the start when they were bickering like bairns. I wish I hadn’t complained about it as much at the time because I’d give anything for them to start doing that again. The cold civility was torture.

It didn’t sit well with Reid that Fionn had got away with his sins, with the awful things he’d done to people, with not taking responsibility for his choices and actions. Perhaps Reid thought it was time for some retribution, for the debts to be paid. Did I think the same? What if it was Fionn’s fate to die today? What if that was the price he had to pay for his past?

The silence had stretched too long for Anora. Our faces and frowns must’ve grown tiresome. She stood up from leaning on the counter and told me I’d know where to find him whilst she gestured to her pinky and nodded at my own hand, clenched in a fist at my side. The ring.

Before she left the shop, just as she’d opened the door and the bell had rung quietly, as if not wanting to draw attention, she looked back at me and said she didn’t usually give her help without asking for something in return, but she’d forgo the price this time, as long as I remembered who it was that’d helped me. This went in one ear and out the other at the time, but thinking about it now, it sounds like a warning. Maybe not a warning, but a promise; of what, I don’t know.

Anora left the three of us alone to the silence. I feel terrible now for that silence, for the time I wasted. What was I doing hesitating? This was Fionn, but this could also be Fate. If he was destined to die today then so be it, but I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try to save him. I stared at Reid, thinking that the frown of his brow was hesitation, or relish, or reluctance, or whether I was projecting my own emotions onto him.

“Are you coming?” was all I asked.

He hesitates and my heart clenched. Was this who Reid really was? Did he feel that strongly about Fionn’s misdeeds that he’d forget the good things Fionn had done? Were friendships and bonds really so easy for Reid to break and forget? Was taking the moral high ground more important?

If I went, would I lose Reid instead? If I didn’t decide I was going to lose both ae them.

“I’m goin’,” it came out as a growl.

I couldn’t look at Reid on my way to the door, not even in his reflection in the windows. I hated the disappointment in him that was threatening to overwhelm me. I pulled open the door so violently I thought the glass was going to break, only for it to be caught by someone behind me.

Reid followed me out onto the street.

Anora had said I’d know how to find Fionn. I don’t think she was aware of how stupid I was, but even I could see the red string that attached to my familiars’ ring and wound down the street and around the corner. At the other end was Fionn.

How long this mysterious crimson thread was was anybody’s guess. I don’t know how long we were walking away from the shop, following it. Everything became a blur, the traffic, the other pedestrians, the buses, taxis, and bikes. Eventually we made our way to an area of the town that was called Murder Mile by some locals with a dark sense of humour. No one wanted to be here in the dark. It was a dilapidated part of town, you know the ones, all the businesses have been shut up for years, most of the residents are connected in some way to drugs, gangs, or both, and the police have given up patrolling the area altogether. It’s a lost cause.

The thread ran down a dingy alleyway covered in graffiti and overfilled bins, eventually making its way through an ajar door. I peer through the gap, slowly opening it to reveal a tiled room inside, the remnants of a kitchen or butcher. There are two people on the floor, one bearing down on the other. I see the glimmer of cold steel as it reflects the daylight filtering through the doorway.

As soon as the person on top notices we’ve entered, he stands up and stumbles back, away from the other man lying on the floor. I don’t need to see the victim’s face to know it’s Fionn, and the orange floor tiles do nothing to hide the blood that’s now seeping from his body. To my surprise, Reid launches himself through the door to Fionn’s side, his hand pressing on the puncture wounds to try and stem the bleeding.

The attacker makes the mistake of shuffling, of trying to stop himself from falling, but I still see the glimmer of the knife, and I feel the same rush of anger I did at the shop with the academic. The man yelps in fright as the knife in his hand disintegrates, falling through his fingers like sand. I’m not satisfied, I want him to disappear, to hurt, to be nothing but a pile of particles on the floor.

This time’s not like the last. I’m not overwhelmed. It’s like I have a calm kind of control over whatever this power is. I can feel it causing my whole body to tingle, like I can do anything with a simple thought, a simple movement. The man crumples to the floor, drawing my attention back to the current situation. I see the remnants of the knife, the pile of dust it’s become, and want to make a second, larger pile that I can watch blow away in the breeze.

“Maya!”

Someone shouts my name, and the power flowing through my veins evaporates. I glance shakily to Reid, who has Fionn’s head cradled on his knees whilst trying to keep pressure on the wounds on his chest. Reid tells me to leave the man, that Fionn needs me now, needs me more.

The attacker seizes his chance and blows past me out the door. I let him go. I step closer to where Fionn and Reid are on the floor, notice with silent horror as the blood begins to reach my feet. Fionn chuckles weakly and says he’d always hoped he’d die in the arms of someone prettier.

Before Reid can make a retort, Fionn’s gone.

***

When I was a bairn I used to go swimming. Sometimes, instead of going up and down the pool, doing laps like I was supposed to, I’d hold my breath and plunge beneath the water. All of the noise of splashing, of screaming bairns, shouting parents, the radio station coming through the speakers, was gone, like I’d been thrown into a vacuum. The moments after Fionn’s death were like that. The world collapsed to that small room on Murder Mile.

Suddenly there’s a darkness about the room, a shadow that wasn’t there before. It’s barely noticeable, but there’s a shift, as though something’s looming over this place. Feeling a presence at my back I whip around and don’t know how I managed to stifle the scream.

My grannie used to tell horrible stories when I was wee, about the monsters and ghouls of Scotland. She even had a book full of pictures and tales of them. One that always stayed with me was the bodach glas (bot-ach). A cloaked humanoid figure whose face is never seen and who only appeared when someone was about to die. What scared me the most was the mystery of it. All of the other creatures, fairies, mischief makers, and hags, all had faces, had descriptions, but the bodach glas was a figure cloaked in darkness, no discernible teeth, fangs, eyes, or face.

It moved past me, taking no notice, and made its way towards Fionn. I knew what this presence was, of course I did.

Death.

I watch as it moves silently across the tiles towards my two familiars. Reid doesn’t seem to notice, his eyes fixated on Fionn’s peaceful face. This thing was death, this creature in the same room with us.

I tell it to stop. I don’t know how I found my voice, or where I pulled the courage from, but I wasn’t prepared when it turned around to face me, looking exactly like the bodach glas from my childhood. Almost too much like it, an exact replica. Wasn’t Death supposed to be the grim reaper with skeletal face and large golden scythe? Had I missed something?

It still has no face, but I know I have its attention. Especially when it greets me and calls me Fate’s Apprentice. Aye, it would know who I was. It tells me it likes my choice of image; it’s been a while since it’s been a bodach glas. I recall a similar conversation, not so long ago, with another entity. Fate needed people to give it a form, was Death the same? To me Death was fear, and fear was a bodach glas.

I beg the bodach glas not to take Fionn. The plea falls from my mouth even though I know it’s impossible and that he’s already gone and that you can’t reason with Death. My mind draws blanks, reeling from watching as Fionn’s blood inches closer to me. I have no leverage, no clever plan, no witty retort, no charm.

I have nothing.

I don’t remember seeing the Bodach glas move, but it does until it’s a breath away from me, close enough to reach out and touch. Every fibre of ma being screams at me, but I stand my ground. Somewhere in the background Reid asks me who I’m talking to, but I ignore him. Apparently, only I can see Death.

It may have been my imagination, but I swear the figure sighs. In truth, it says, Fionn wasn’t scheduled to die that day, it was why they were a wee bit late. Since that was the case, they supposed they could make a deal, since it was with Fate’s Apprentice.

Unfortunately, Fionn was already dead, so couldn’t be brought completely back to life in the wider world. However, the shop was a neutral zone, outwith the usual rules and regulations, so Fionn could happily “live” within its boundaries.

But we weren’t in the shop, I pointed out stupidly.

The orange tiles beneath my feet were replaced by wood, the emptiness replaced by the chaotic clutter of the shop. In a breath, we were inside the neutral zone. I noticed Reid’s confusion as he glanced around, everywhere but at Death who stood in front of me. Fionn would live as long as he was within the shop’s boundaries, Death confirmed, but as soon as he stepped foot outside he’d be dead for good.

All I could do was nod.

The bodach glas disappeared, taking the shadow with it. I felt sick. I thought I was going to collapse, but before I could, I heard Fionn take a large gasp of air.

Fun fact: the red string that connects Maya to her familiars is inspired by the red thread of fate in eastern folklore. I mainly learned it from Japanese culture, but I believe it originates in China.

Scots-ish language version

Believe it or no’, there’s a few ‘hings I never expect tae see in the shop. A smartphone, a laptop made any time after 1985, and everyone’s favourite anti-Madam. I know she’s been in before, many moons ago, but never since.

The bell went, interuptin’ ma game wi’ Chronos, and I took the obligatory glance over, expectin’ a stranger tae be starin’ roond like a bairn in a sweetie shop. Our game was quickly abandoned when ma feline pal and I realised who’d walked through the front door. Just as well, I was losin’ pretty badly as usual. I felt ma body tense up as she walked further intae the shop, the last echoes ae the bell replaced by the clip ae her heels on the wooden floor.

Chronos gauged her languidly, and I was half-hopin’ he’d activate beast mode, or at least give her a menacing hiss, but he wasnae as bothered by her presence as I was. Reid, probably receivin’ a distress signal fae ma familiars ring emerged fae the aisle he’d disappeared doon half an hour before and froze when he realised this was no ordinary customer.

A wee, stupid part ae me expected her tae pull oot Madam Norna’s card and ask tae be escorted upstairs. Never one tae miss a social cue, Anora spread a smile across her dark lips. It wasnae friendly or vicious, reassurin’ or antagonistic. Enjoyment curved her mouth, rested in the fine lines ae her cheeks. She liked bein’ feared.

In her deep, smoky voice she informed us we didnae need tae be afraid, she wasnae here tae cause trouble. All ae us found that difficult tae believe.

Realisin’ that none ae us were gonnae offer her a cup ae tea, she came tae lean gracefully on the glass counter, a metre or two away fae Chronos and I. I didnae like her this close, didnae like that she smelled like spices and autumn and red leaves blowin’ in the wind. Didnae like that she smelled like the end ae something, I just didnae know whit.

She was simply here tae tell us something she thought we’d want tae know. Fionn was in need ae our help. His past had come back no just tae haunt him, but kill him in retribution ae all his past deeds. I had so many questions I didnae know whit tae ask first, so ended up bitin’ the inside ae ma lip instead. How much did Anora know aboot Fionn, especially his past? Did she know whit’d happened at the funeral, and the history behind it? How did she know he was in trouble noo? If whit she was sayin was true, then had she set his vengeful past ontae him? Why, though, he hadnae been unfaithful tae her? Right?

Reid was the first one tae voice somethin’, by askin’ why we should believe her. Her grin deepened, almost showin’ the pearl whites ae her teeth. As our anxiety began tae grow fangs, her enjoyment grew wi’ it. Anora shrugged her shoulders wi’ a nonchalance that had me bitin’ so hard on ma lip I began tae taste blood.

It was up tae us if we believed her, but were we really willin’ tae take the risk? She replied.

I hated that she had a point. I knew I wouldnae be able tae look maself in the mirror if somethin’ were tae happen tae Fionn that I couldae prevented but didnae just because I was suspicious ae Anora. I glanced at Reid, fae once no knowin’ whit he was thinkin’. Ever since the day Fionn told us the truth aboot his past the atmosphere between ma two familiars had been civil at best, and doonright chilly at worst. It was different fae the start when they were bickerin’ like bairns. I wish I hadnae complained aboot it as much at the time because I’d give anything fae them tae start doin’ that again. The cold civility was torture.

It didnae sit well wi’ Reid that Fionn had got away wi’ his sins, wi’ the awful things he’d done tae people, wi no takin’ responsibility fae his choices and actions. Perhaps Reid thought it was time fae some retribution, fae the debts tae be paid. Did I think the same? Whit if it was Fionn’s fate tae die today? Whit if that was the price he had tae pay fae his past?

The silence had stretched too long fae Anora. Our faces and frowns mustae grown tiresome. She stood up fae leanin’ on the counter and told me I’d know where tae find him, whilst she gestured tae her pinky finger and nodded at ma own hand, clenched in a fist at ma side. The ring.

Before she left the shop, just as she’d opened the door and the bell had rung quietly, as if no’ wantin’ tae draw attention, she looked back at me and said she didnae usually gee her help withoot askin’ fae something in return, but she’d forgo the price this time, as long as I remembered who it was that’d helped me. This went in one ear and oot the other at the time, but thinkin’ aboot it noo, it sounds like a warnin. Maybe no a warnin, but a promise, ae whit, I dinnae know.

Anora left the three ae us alone tae the silence. I feel terrible noo fae that silence, fae the time I wasted. Whit was I doin hesitatin? This was Fionn, but this could also be Fate. If he was destined tae die today then so be it, but I knew I couldnae live wi’ maself if I didnae try tae save him. I stared at Reid, thinking that the frown ae his brow was hesitation, or relish, or reluctance, or whether I was projectin’ ma own emotions ontae him.

“Are you coming?” was all I asked.

He hesitates and ma heart clenched. Was this who Reid really was? Did he feel that strongly aboot Fionn’s misdeeds that he’d forget the good things Fionn had done? Were friendships and bonds really so easy fae Reid tae break and forget? Was taking the moral high ground more important?

If I went, would I lose Reid instead? If I didnae decide I was gonnae lose both ae them.

“I’m goin’,” it came oot as a growl.

I couldnae look at Reid on ma way tae the door, no even in his reflection in the windaes. I hated the disappointment in him that was threatenin’ tae overwhelm me. I pulled open the door so violently I thought the glass was gonnae break, only fae it tae be caught by someone behind me. Reid followed me oot ontae the street.

Anora had said I’d know how tae find Fionn. I dinnae think she was aware ae how stupid I was, but even I could see the red string that attached tae ma familiars ring and wound doon the street and roond the corner. At the other end was Fionn.

How long this mysterious crimson thread was was anybody’s guess. I dinnae know how long we were walkin’ away fae the shop, followin’ it. everything became a blur, the traffic, the other pedestrians, the buses, taxis and bikes. Eventually we made our way intae an area ae the town that was called murder mile by some locals wi’ a dark sense ae humour. No one wanted tae be here in the dark. it was a dilapidated part ae town, ye know the ones, all the businesses have been shut up fae years, most ae the residents are connected in some way tae drugs, gangs, or both, and the police have given up patrolling the area altogether. It’s a lost cause.

The thread ran doon a dingy alleyway covered in graffiti and overfilled bins, eventually makin’ its way through an ajar door. I peer through the gap, slowly opening it to reveal a tiled room inside, the remnants ae a kitchen or butcher. There are two people on the floor, one bearin’ doon on the other. I see the glimmer ae cold steel as it reflects the daylight filterin’ through the doorway.

As soon as the person on top notices we’ve entered, he stands up and stumbles back, away fae the other man lyin’ on the floor. I dinnae need tae see the victim’s face tae know it’s Fionn, and the orange floor tiles do nothin’ tae hide the blood that’s now seepin’ fae his body. Tae ma surprise, Reid launches himself through the door tae Fionn’s side, his hand pressin’ on the puncture wounds tae try and stem the bleedin’.

The attacker makes the mistake ae shuffling, ae tryin’ tae stop himself fae fallin, but I still see the glimmer ae the knife, and I feel the same rush ae anger I did at the shop wi’ the academic. The man yelps in fright as the knife in his hand disintegrates, fallin’ through his fingers like sand. I’m no satisfied, I want him tae disappear, tae hurt, tae be nothin’ but a pile ae particles on the floor.

This time’s no like the last, I’m no overwhelmed, it’s like I have a calm kind ae control over whitever this power is. I can feel it causin’ ma whole body tae tingle, like I can do anythin’ wi’ a simple thought, a simple movement. The man crumples tae the floor, drawin’ ma attention back tae the current situation. I see the remnants ae the knife, the pile ae dust it’s become, and want tae make a second, larger pile that I can watch blow away in the breeze.

“Maya!”

Someone shouts ma name, and the power flowin’ through ma veins evaporates. I glance shakily tae Reid, who has Fionn’s heid cradled on his knees whilst tryin’ tae keep pressure on the wounds on his chest. Reid tells me tae leave the man, that Fionn needs me noo, needs me more.

The attacker seizes his chance and blows past me oot the door. I let him go. I step closer tae where Fionn and Reid are on the floor, notice wi’ silent horror as the blood begins tae reach ma feet. Fionn chuckles weakly and says he’d always hoped he’d die in the arms ae someone prettier.

Before Reid can make a retort, Fionn’s gone.

When I was a bairn I used tae go swimmin’. Sometimes, instead ae goin’ up and doon the pool, doin laps like I was supposed tae, I’d hold ma breath and plunge beneath the water. All ae the noise ae splashin, ae screamin’ bairns, shoutin’ parents, the radio station comin’ through the speakers, was gone, like I’d been thrown intae a vacuum. The moments after Fionn’s death were like that. The world collapsed tae that small room on murder mile.

Suddenly there’s a darkness aboot the room, a shadow that wasnae there before. it’s barely noticeable, but there’s a shift, as though something’s loomin over this place. Feelin a presence at ma back I whip aroond and dinnae know how I managed tae stifle the scream.

Ma grannie used tae tell horrible stories when I was wee, aboot the monsters and ghouls ae Scotland. She even had a book full ae pictures and tales ae them. One that always stayed wi’ me was the bodach glas (bot-ach). A cloaked humanoid figure who’s face was never seen and who only appeared when someone was aboot tae die. What scared me the most was the mystery ae it. all ae the other creatures, fairies, mischief makers, hags, all had faces, had descriptions, but the bodach was a figure cloaked in darkness, no discernible teeth, fangs, eyes, or face.

It moved past me, takin’ no notice, and made its way towards Fionn. I knew whit this presence was, of course I did.

Death.

I watch as it moves silently across the tiles towards ma two familiars. Reid doesnae seem tae notice, his eyes fixated on Fionn’s peaceful face. This thing was death, this creature in the same room wi’ us.

I tell it tae stop. I dinnae know how I found ma voice, or where I pulled the courage fae, but I wasnae prepared when it turned aroond tae face me, lookin’ exactly like the bodach fae ma childhood. Almost too much like it, an exact replica. Wasnae Death supposed tae be the grim reaper wi skeletal face and large golden scythe? Had I missed something?

It still has no face, but I know I have its attention. Especially when it greets me and calls me Fate’s Apprentice. Aye, it would know who I was. It tells me it likes ma choice ae image, it’s been a while since it’s been a bodach. I recall a similar conversation, not so long ago, wi another entity. Fate needed people tae give it a form, was Death the same? Tae me Death was fear, and fear was a bodach.

I beg the bodach no tae take Fionn. The plea falls fae ma mouth even though I know it’s impossible and that he’s already gone and that you cannae reason wi’ Death. Ma mind draws blanks, reelin’ fae watchin’ as Fionn’s blood inches closer tae me. I have no leverage, no clever plan, no witty retort, no charm. I have nothin’.

I dinnae remember seein’ the Bodach move, but it does until it’s a breath away fae me, close enough tae reach oot and touch. Every fibre ae ma bein’ screams at me, but I stand ma ground. Somewhere in the background Reid asks me who I’m talkin’ tae, but I ignore him. Apparently, only I can see Death.

It may ha been ma imagination, but I swear the figure sighs. In truth, it says, Fionn wasnae scheduled tae die that day, it was why they were a wee bit late. Since that was the case, they supposed they could make a deal, since it was wi’ Fate’s Apprentice.

Unfortunately, Fionn was already dead, so couldnae be brought completely back tae life in the wider world. However, the shop was a neutral zone, outwith the usual rules and regulations, so Fionn could happily “live” within its boundaries.

But we werenae in the shop, I pointed oot stupidly.

The orange tiles beneath ma feet were replaced by wood, the emptiness replaced by the chaotic clutter ae the shop. In a breath, we were inside the neutral zone. I noticed Reid’s confusion as he glanced aroond, everywhere but at Death who stood in front ae me. Fionn would live as long as he was within the shop’s boundaries, Death confirmed, but as soon as he stepped foot outside he’d be deid fae good.

All I could do was nod.

The bodach disappeared, takin’ the shadow wi’ it. I felt sick. I thought I was gonnae collapse, but before I could, I heard Fionn take a large gasp ae air.

Scottish vocabulary

Fret – to worry

Story

None of us are sure there’s any such thing as privacy in the shop. Is there a blind corner, a spot that’s hidden from prying eyes, a place where our voices don’t inevitably carry up the stairs? Somehow one of us decided it was near the door, just at the window, as though our voices were Wi-Fi signal and would aim more outwards than in.

Who were we hiding from? Madam Norna. Fionn had noticed it first, an unusual tick in her behaviour, a glimmer missing from her eye. It’d taken me longer to see, longer to understand that all wasn’t well with my boss. Reid had heard the mysterious conversation between the shadow and the Madam as clearly as I had when we’d been rifling through storage.

All of us stood at the window, watching the world outside go about its day as though one of the most powerful people in it wasn’t acting strangely. Fionn lists what he’s noticed, I contribute my own experiences, Reid nods his head, and every so often one of us will glance back at the private door. Maybe we think if we keep checking it then our voices will stay on the right side and not wander up to ears we’d rather not hear.

After a few minutes of muttering, nervous glances at the private door, and a spiteful laugh as a bairn fell down in the street outside, silence descended as Chronos appeared from somewhere in the shop to join us. None of us had realised he’d been down with us, assuming he was with the Madam. I wasn’t ever certain who’s side Chronos was on. As the guardian of the shop where did his loyalties lie?

My familiars must’ve felt similarly as neither attempted to include him or draw out his own thoughts and observations on the matter at hand. Eventually, after a few more moments of tense, suspicious silence, Chronos informs us he knows what we’re talking about. I swear he’d roll his eyes if he could. He shared with us that something is wrong with the Madam as she won’t let him share her thoughts anymore.

One. Is that a thing?

And two. I wasn’t aware it was an option to stop Chronos from getting in your head.

It might’ve seemed like a small thing, but I suppose it meant that the Madam was shutting out her closest companion, closest pal, and no matter who you were, that was a strange thing to do if nothing was wrong. I’d taken it seriously before then, but now it was beginning to take on a more sinister edge. It came to the inevitable question of what did we do?

Reid and I, being similarly straight to the point, thought we should just confront the Madam with everything we’d noticed and heard. Perhaps because it was all of us, she’d open up about what it was. Chronos and Fionn, on the other hand, disagreed. They said if we confronted her about it, she’d just deny it, and make excuses. Reid and I didn’t put up much resistance to this as we were the ones who knew the Madam the least.

Rather than a counter suggestion Chronos began to confess that he had a hunch of the reason the Madam was acting strangely. He, as the Madam’s companion and guardian of the shop, could go anywhere he wanted, sit it on any meeting, any customer, anything else he desired. Until recently. In the last month or so, occasionally, when he’d make his way to the front room the door would be closed. He’d wait outside patiently only to see a woman come out. Was this woman the shadow I’d heard in the front room with the Madam? The one who neither of my familiars could describe?

Chronos continued that there was something wrong with the woman as that was all he could ever remember about her, even though he’d seen her come and go on multiple occasions. He’d rarely experienced anything similar, but thought it was an enchantment of some kind. I informed Chronos of the shadow, of the little I knew, and the little I’d heard in storage. We all agreed we needed to find out who this woman was, and our feline pal had just the solution.

The only cameras I ever see in the shop don’t look as though they’ll take a very good selfie, but there is a form of CCTV.  The phrase if the walls could speak wasn’t that far off being true. As the apprentice I could tap into these echoes like rewinding a video. Chronos always makes things sound so easy. Just think back to a day, a month ago. I can’t even remember what takeaway we’d gone to last night let alone what I was doing a month ago.

It had snowed, Reid pointed out. He remembered because the trains, in typical fashion, had all been delayed or cancelled and he’d been late getting to the shop. It’d been the first snow of winter, coming down in a slow, steady cascade throughout the night. I’d awoken in the freezing cold to find amber light trying to seep through the gaps in my curtains. When I’d had the courage to get out of bed, I watched the cars laden with snow, fresh tyre marks slicing through the untouched surface. It’s always quiet when it snows, every car horn, door slam, and footstep engulfed by the silence.

A bell echoed through my reverie, unaffected by that snowy scene. I turned around to take a glance at the customer, only to find them heading straight for me, straight through me. I’d been standing on the customer side of the counter, and before I could be collected by this customer Reid pulled me to safety, where he and Fionn were on the employee side.

There was something a bit off about this customer, and I don’t mean in the normal clueless way. She seemed a bit…transparent. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out, and although she was talking to someone behind the counter, no one was actually there. She nodded her head and then disappeared through the private door, without it even opening. Reid and I stared after her stupidly, but Fionn nudged us to look outside.

Snow.

I’d managed it. We could see all the customers, or anyone, who’d come to the shop since that day, when Chronos said he’d started seeing the shadow. I’m surprised to say the shop is still busy when I’m not around. I didn’t recognise half of the faces that came in. Being the Madam is a full-time responsibility.

Eventually the bell struck an uneven chime, and I observed as the shadow walked to the shop. She, if it was a she, was the same as I’d seen through the jewellery box mirror. A shadow. Great, this was helpful.

Chronos chimed in that if I concentrated a bit more, we might be able to see her face. Wee shite, what did he think I was doing? I heard the sound of her flat shoes on the wooden floorboards of the shop, the sound of her trousers brush against each other with every step she took. The more I thought about this shadow, the more was uncovered, until the very tip of her chin was exposed. But that was all I could manage. No matter what I did, no matter what I thought, I couldn’t get the shadow to disappear from her face.

She spoke to the strange blur of people at the counter and then went through the private door. The outline of Reid and Fionn throwing down cards on the counter made me realise they’d even spoken to this woman but didn’t seem to remember. Was I the same? Had I actually met this shadow before but just couldn’t recall?

As Chronos had reported, the woman came and went, always in similar smart clothes, a blazer and trousers, occasionally a skirt. She had a satchel slung around her shoulders, and a shiny gold pin with a strange shape stuck to her lapel. What made my unease grow was how frequent her visits became. I estimated it was at least once every three days. I kept trying to see her face, to pry the dark mask covering her, but I’d obviously reached my limit.

Eventually the mirage caught up to the present time, and the ghostly apparitions disappeared, leaving only the four of us in the shop.

Fuck. What were we supposed to do now?

Fionn’s usual chipper voice told me not to fret, that he’d seen something that could help us. The badge on her lapel, the one that’d caught the light every time she’d walked to the shop, was a very exclusive pin. It belonged to a club of sorts, a group of academics who believed in and studied Fate. Secret society or consortium, the distinction wasn’t really clear, but they’d been around for a long time. Over the last century it’d gained traction, with some believing that they had Fate cracked, they knew how it worked, they knew how to exploit it. To them, you just had to be clever enough.

My stomach clenched. From surprise, shock, or insult I wasn’t sure. Had that been what I was missing? Brains? If I’d just been clever enough Fate would never have beaten me?

Reid announced, a hint of irritation in his tone, that was bullshit. Rather than directing the comment to everyone, he was looking straight at me. We’ve been spending too much time together; he’s getting as bad as Chronos with knowing what I’m thinking.

Fionn and Chronos appeared to agree, but I was having trouble getting the thought out of my head. Had I just been too careless? Were these academics right?

Those thoughts were for another time, there were more pressing matters at hand. Why was an academic who studied Fate coming to see the Madam? Why was she pressuring both Madams to do certain things? A confrontation was in order. And unlike many of my lecturers and tutors at university, this one appeared to have a regular schedule. All of us agreed to be in the shop for the next time she came.

And we were.

I don’t really know what I expected. It’s strange how my imagination never stretched as far as what was underneath the shadow. This woman, this academic, was as plain as anyone else. There was nothing striking, suspicious, scary, or enrapturing about her. I probably had come across her before and just forgot. Yet, at the same time, she had this glint in her eye, as if she knew something the rest of the world didn’t, and that frightened me more than I can say.

But this wasn’t the time to be afraid.

My familiars and I blocked her path, Chronos sitting safely on the glass countertop, tail flicking around erratically. I briefly wondered if he’d go into beast mode before thinking better of it. I informed the unwanted guest that she wasn’t going to see the Madam today, on her next visit, or ever again. She was to leave and never come back.

When she smiled at me my confidence faltered, and when she burst out laughing it vanished altogether. The academic told us we’d get out of her way and never try to stop her again.

We were all safe in the shop, practically untouchable, but what about outside? A mugging gone wrong, caught in the midst of a gang war, a drunk driver. We were just as vulnerable as everyone else. And although it might not kill us, it certainly might make us wish we were dead. If we got in her way, if we tried to interfere with her plans for the Madams, we’d find out.

We’d all benefit from her plan in the end, if she got her way, which she would. A few more thread pulls, a few more manoeuvres, a few more customers’ fates altered, and she’d finally stick it to Fate.

What. The. Fuck.

She was doing exactly what I’d been doing, on a larger scale. Why the fuck was she getting away with it? Why had I been subjected to psychological torture, yet she was allowed to waltz in here day after day, manipulating the Madams to do her bidding? Why was I living in fear that I’d lose the people I loved, and she wasn’t?

I didn’t hear the private door open, but the Madam appeared from behind me. I felt myself give her a cold stare, even though I knew none of this was her fault. My anger simmered when she told us all to let the academic pass.

I heard the blood rush to my head and a sharp twinge bloomed from my temples, as if there was too much pressure in my veins.

No, I inform the Madam, and my voice sounds different, deeper, a hint of an echo, similar to when we were ambushed in storage by the candle monster.

I turn to face the academic, the thrumming in my head growing louder, the pressure causing my jaw to tighten. She thought she was so clever, so untouchable, doing what she liked to strangers she hadn’t even met, to our customers, to Anora’s clients. All of that intelligence she prized, she used to potentially devastating effects, would one day be lost. As the second hand ticked by her cleverness would break up, consuming every other part of her mind until she couldn’t even remember her own name. Her mind would wither away until she was nothing but an empty shell.

I vaguely hear my name being called, a hand on my arm, my shoulder, but just like they’ve been electrocuted, they’re gone just as quickly. I’m not sure I’m speaking out loud, I don’t think I am, but something’s changed. There’s an atmosphere to the shop and the pain in my head threatens to make me sick.

Then the academic collapses on the floor like a doll fallen from its place on the bed. I gasp in air, like I’d been holding my breath for the last few minutes, and the pressure in my head is gone, causing me to sway unsteadily, tempted to collapse as the academic has. Reid holds me up whilst Fionn walks over to the academic’s body as it lies lifeless on the floor. The haunted look in his eye when he glances back after checking makes my legs slacken and I can feel Reid hold onto my arm tighter.

I think I’m going to be sick, I want to be, anything to make this feeling go away.

It all happens quickly after that. Someone phones an ambulance, it’s certainly not me. Paramedics swarm the shop, somehow managing to fit a gurney through the narrow door and wheel the academic off to hospital. Fionn goes with her, and the agonising wait begins. Many hours later, I think, Fionn phones.

The academic is alive but has severe brain damage. One day, in the not so distant future, she’ll not be able to look after herself, and will have to be put in a home or have full-time carers. The doctors were waiting until she woke up to tell her.

I’d found a nook in the shop to hide whilst waiting for the news. Reid had to take my phone and end the call. He didn’t try to say anything, he was smarter than that.

Not long after the phone call there was another set of footsteps in the shop. Reid raised his head to find the Madam towering over us.

She took his place beside me.

I don’t understand what happened. Did I do that to her? Did my thoughts do that to another person? How? I was no one, just an apprentice. I hadn’t meant it.

I felt the Madam’s smooth fingertips wipe the tear that had cascaded down my cheek. She began to explain that the academic hadn’t had the best luck in life. One day she’d found out about the club that studied Fate and joined. Over time, the more she learned, the more she began to think, like I had, that Fate could be manipulated, tweaked to give certain people different outcomes. To change their Fate. She wanted to change hers. She wanted the luck she thought she was owed. The easiest way to do that was by going straight to the source. The Madams. It hadn’t been a problem recruiting Anora, but in order to get my boss to help threats had been made. If Madam Norna didn’t follow instructions, then Reid, Chronos, Fionn, and I would pay the price. The same threat she’d given us before I…

My boss continued that there’s very few differences between the two Madams. One was created to be equal to the other. One followed Fate, helped it run smoothly, the other caused havoc, and in order for there to be balance they had to be equally powerful. Just because Madam Anora traditionally helped to curse people didn’t mean that Madam Norna couldn’t do the same. They just chose not to. Every Madam, regardless of name, had the power to cause hurt, to enchant, to curse. And I’d just unleashed my first one. Whatever power I possessed, as Madam-in-waiting, was amplified inside the shop. I’d been so angry at the academic, angrier at myself, that I’d condemned her to the same bitterness I’d felt when Reid was hurt, ripping away the one thing she treasured the most.

I did that.

Me.

I hadn’t known whit I was doing…but was that even true? Perhaps some dark part of me did, the sense deep down that knows more than I do. I was starting to think I may be apprenticed to the wrong Madam.

Scots language version

None ae us are sure there’s any such thing as privacy in the shop. Is there a blind corner, a spot that’s hidden frae prying eyes, a place where our voices dinnae inevitably carry up the stairs? Somehow one ae us decided it was near the door, just at the windae, as though our voices were Wi-Fi signal and would aim more outwards than in.

Who were we hiding fae? Madam Norna. Fionn had noticed it first, an unusual tick in her behaviour, a glimmer missin’ fae her eye. It’d taken me longer tae see, longer tae understand that all wasnae well wi’ ma boss. Reid had heard the mysterious conversation between the shadow and the Madam as clearly as I had when we’d been riflin’ through storage.

All ae us stood at the windae, watchin’ the world ootside go aboot its day as though one ae the most powerful people in it wasnae actin’ strangely. Fionn lists whit he’s noticed, I contribute ma own experiences, and Reid nods his heid, every so often one ae us will glance back at the private door. Maybe we think if we keep checkin it then our voices will stay on the right side and no’ wander up tae ears we’d rather no hear.

After a few minutes ae mutterin’, nervous glances at the private door, and a spiteful laugh as a bairn fell doon in the street ootside, silence descended as Chronos appeared fae somewhere in the shop tae join us. None ae us had realised he’d been doon wi’ us, assuming he was wi’ the Madam. I wasnae ever certain who’s side Chronos was on. As the guardian ae the shop where did his loyalties lie?

Ma familiars mustae felt similarly as neither attempted tae include him or draw oot his own thoughts and observations on the matter. Eventually, after a few more moments ae tense, suspicious silence, Chronos informs us he knows whit we’re talkin’ aboot. I swear he’d roll his eyes if he could. He shared wi’ us that somethin’ is wrong with the Madam as she won’t let him share her thoughts anymore. One. Is that a thing? And two. I wasnae aware it was an option tae stop Chronos fae getting’ in your heid.

It mightae seemed like a small ‘hing, but I suppose it meant that the Madam was shuttin’ oot her closest companion, closest pal, and no matter who ye were, that was a strange ‘hing tae do if nothin’ was wrong. I’d taken it seriously before then, but noo it was beginnin’ tae take on a more sinister edge. It came tae the inevitable question ae whit did we do?

Reid and I, bein’ similarly straight tae the point, thought we should just confront the Madam wi’ everythin’ we’d noticed and heard. Perhaps because it was all ae us she’d open up aboot whit it was. Chronos and Fionn, on the other hand, disagreed. They said if we confronted her aboot it she’d just deny it, make excuses. Reid and I didnae put up much resistance tae this as we were the ones who knew the Madam the least.

Rather than a counter suggestion Chronos began tae confess that he had a hunch ae the reason the Madam was actin’ strangely. He, as the Madam’s companion and guardian ae the shop, could go anywhere he wanted, sit it on any meetin’, any customer, anythin’ else he desired. Until recently. In the last month or so, occasionally, when he’d make his way intae the front room the door would be closed. He’d wait ootside patiently only tae see a woman come oot. Was this woman the shadow I’d heard in the front room wi’ the Madam? The one who neither ae ma familiars could describe?

Chronos continued that there was somethin’ wrong wi’ the woman as that was all he could ever remember aboot her, even though he’d seen her come and go on multiple occasions. He’d rarely experienced anythin’ similar, but thought it was an enchantment ae some kind. I informed Chronos ae the shadow, ae the little I knew, and the little I’d heard in storage. We all agreed we needed tae find oot who this woman was, and our feline pal had just the solution.

The only cameras I ever see in the shop dinnae look as though they’ll take a very good selfie, but there is a form ae CCTV.  The phrase if the walls could speak wasnae that far aff ae bein’ true. As the apprentice I could tap intae these echoes like rewinding a video. Chronos always makes ‘hings sound so easy. Just think back tae a day, a month ago. I cannae even remember whit takeaway we’d gone tae last night let alone whit I was doin a month ago.

It had snowed, Reid pointed oot. He remembered because the trains, in typical fashion, had all been delayed or cancelled and he’d been late getting’ tae the shop. It’d been the first snow ae winter, comin’ doon in a slow, steady cascade throughout the night. I’d awoken in the freezin’ cold tae find amber light tryin’ tae seep through the gaps in ma curtains. When I’d had the courage tae get oot ae bed I watched the cars laden wi’ snow, fresh tyre marks slicin’ through the untouched surface. It’s always quiet when it snows, every car horn, door slam, and footstep engulfed by the silence.

A bell echoed through ma reverie, unaffected by that snowy scene. I turned aroond tae take a glance at the customer, only tae find them headin’ straight for me, straight through me. I’d been standin’ on the customer side ae the counter, and before I could be collected by this customer Reid pulled me tae safety, where he and Fionn were on the employee side.

There was somethin’ a bit aff aboot this customer, and I dinnae mean in the normal clueless way. She seemed a bit…transparent. She opened her mouth, but no sound came oot, and although she was talkin’ tae someone behind the counter, no one was actually there. she nodded her heid and then disappeared through the private door, withoot it even openin’. Reid and I stared after her stupidly, but Fionn nudged us tae look ootside.

Snow.

I’d managed it. We could see all ae the customers, or anyone, who’d come intae the shop since that day, when Chronos said he’d started seein’ the shadow. I’m surprised tae say the shop is still busy when I’m no aroond. I didnae recognise half ae the faces that came in. Bein’ the Madam is a full-time responsibility.

Eventually the bell struck an uneven chime and I observed as the shadow walked intae the shop. She, if it was a she, was the same as I’d seen through the jewellery box mirror. A shadow. Great, this was helpful.

Chronos chimed in that if I concentrated a bit more we might be able tae see her face. Wee shite, whit did he think I was doin? I heard the sound ae her flat shoes on the wooden floorboards ae the shop, the sound ae her trousers brush against each other wi’ every step she took. The more I thought aboot this shadow, the more was uncovered, until the very tip ae her chin was exposed. But that was all I could manage. No matter whit I did, no matter whit I thought, I couldnae get the shadow tae disappear fae her face.

She spoke tae the strange blur ae people at the counter and then went through the private door. The outline ae Reid and Fionn throwin’ doon cards on the counter made me realise they’d even spoken tae this woman but didnae seem tae remember. Was I the same? Had I actually met this shadow before but just couldnae recall?

As Chronos had reported, the woman came and went, always in similar smart clothes, a blazer and trousers, occasionally a skirt. She had a satchel slung aroond her shoulders, and a shiny gold pin wi’ a strange shape stuck tae her lapel. What made my unease grow was how frequent her visits became. I estimated it was at least once every three days. I kept tryin’ tae see her face, tae pry the dark mask coverin’ her, but I’d obviously reached ma limit.

Eventually the mirage caught up tae the present time, and the ghostly apparitions disappeared, leavin’ only the four ae us in the shop.

Fuck. Whit were we supposed tae do noo?

Fionn’s usual chipper voice told me no tae fret, that he’d seen somethin’ that could help us. The badge on her lapel, the one that’d caught the light every time she’d walked intae the shop, was a very exclusive pin. It belonged tae a club ae sorts, a group ae academics who believed in and studied Fate. Secret society or consortium, the distinction wasnae really clear, but they’d been aroond fae a long time. Over the last century it’d gained traction, wi’ some believing that they had Fate cracked, they knew how it worked, they knew how tae exploit it. tae them, ye just had tae be clever enough.

Ma stomach clenched. Fae surprise, shock, or insult I wasnae sure. Had that been whit I was missin? Brains? If I’d just been clever enough Fate would never have beaten me?

Reid announced, a hint ae irritation in his tone, that was bullshit. Rather than directin’ the comment tae everyone, he was lookin’ straight at me. We’ve been spendin’ too much time together, he’s getting’ as bad as Chronos wi’ knowin’ whit I’m thinkin.

Fionn and Chronos appeared tae agree, but I was havin’ trouble getting’ the thought oot ae ma heid. Had I just been too careless? Were these academics right?

Those thoughts were fae another time, there were more pressin’ matters at hand. Why was an academic who studied Fate comin’ tae see the Madam? Why was she pressurin’ both Madams tae do certain things? A confrontation was in order. And unlike many ae ma lecturers and tutors at university, this one appeared tae have a regular schedule. All ae us agreed tae be in the shop fae the next time she came.

And we were.

I dinnae really know whit I expected. It’s strange how ma imagination never stretched as far as whit was underneath the shadow. This woman, this academic was as plain as anyone else. There was nothin’ striking, suspicious, scary, or enrapturing aboot her. I probably had come across her before and just forgot. Yet, at the same time, she had this glint in her eye, as if she knew somethin’ the rest ae the world didnae, and that frightened me more than I can say.

But this wasnae the time tae be afraid.

My familiars and I blocked her path, Chronos sittin’ safely on the glass countertop, tail flickin’ aroond erratically. I briefly wondered if he’d go intae beast mode before thinkin’ better ae it. I informed the unwanted guest that she wasnae gonnae see the Madam today, on her next visit, or ever again. She was tae leave and never come back.

When she smiled at me ma confidence faltered, and when she burst oot laughin’ it vanished altogether. The academic told us we’d get oot ae her way and never try tae stop her again.

We were all safe in the shop, practically untouchable, but whit aboot ootside? A mugging gone wrong, caught in the midst ae a gang war, a drunk driver. We were just as vulnerable as everyone else. And although it might no kill us, it certainly might make us wish we were deid. If we got in her way, if we tried tae interfere wi her plans fae the Madams, we’d find oot.

We’d all benefit fae her plan in the end, if she got her way, which she would. A few more thread pulls, a few more manoeuvres, a few more customers’ fates altered, and she’d finally stick it tae Fate.

What. The. Fuck.

She was doin’ exactly whit I’d been doin, on a larger scale. Why the fuck was she getting’ away wi’ it? Why had I been subjected tae psychological torture yet she was allowed tae waltz in here day after day, manipulatin the Madams tae do her biddin’? Why was I livin’ in fear that I’d lose the people I loved and she wasnae?

I didnae hear the private door open but the Madam appeared fae behind me. I felt maself give her a cold stare, even though I knew none ae this was her fault. Ma anger simmered when she told us all tae let the academic pass.

I heard the blood rush tae ma heid and a sharp twinge bloomed fae ma temples, as if there was too much pressure in ma veins.

No, I inform the Madam, and ma voice sounds different, deeper, a hint ae an echo, similar tae when we were ambushed in storage by the candle monster.

I turn tae face the academic, the thrummin’ in ma heid growin’ louder, the pressure causin’ ma jaw tae tighten. She thought she was so clever, so untouchable, doin’ whit she liked tae strangers she hadnae even met, tae our customers, tae Anora’s clients. All ae that intelligence she prized, she used tae potentially devastatin’ effects, would one day be lost. As the second hand ticked by her cleverness would break up, consumin’ every other part ae her mind until she couldnae even remember her own name. her mind would wither away until she was nothin’ but an empty shell.

I vaguely hear ma name bein’ called, a hand on ma arm, ma shoulder, but just like they’ve been electrocuted, they’re gone just as quickly. I’m no sure I’m speakin’ oot loud, I dinnae think I am, but somethin’s changed. There’s an atmosphere tae the shop and the pain in ma heid threatens tae make me sick.

Then the academic collapses on the floor like a doll fallen fae its place on the bed. I gasp in air, like I’d been holdin’ ma breath fae the last few minutes, and the pressure in ma heid is gone, causin’ me tae sway unsteadily, tempted tae collapse as the academic has. Reid holds me up whilst Fionn walks over tae the academic’s body as it lies lifeless on the floor. The haunted look in his eye when he glances back after checking makes ma legs slacken and I can feel Reid hold ontae ma arm tighter.

I think I’m gonnae be sick, I want tae be, anythin’ tae make this feelin’ go away.

It all happens quickly after that. Someone phones an ambulance, it’s certainly no me. paramedics swarm the shop, somehow managin’ tae fit a gurney through the narrow door, and wheel the academic aff tae hospital. Fionn goes wi’ her, and the agonisin’ wait begins. Many hours later, I think, Fionn phones.

The academic is alive but has severe brain damage. One day, in the no so distant future, she’ll no be able tae look after herself, and will have tae be put in a home or have full-time carers. The doctors were waitin’ until she woke up tae tell her.

I’d found a nook in the shop tae hide whilst waitin’ fae the news. Reid had tae take ma phone and end the call. He didnae try tae say anythin’, he was smarter than that.

No’ long after the phone call there was another set ae footsteps in the shop. Reid raised his heid tae find the Madam towerin’ over us. She took his place beside me.

I dinnae understand whit happened. Did I do that tae her? Did ma thoughts do that tae another person? How? I was no one, just an apprentice. I hadnae meant it.

I felt the Madam’s smooth fingertips wipe the tear that had cascaded doon ma cheek. She began tae explain that the academic hadnae had the best luck in life. One day she’d found oot aboot the club that studied fate and joined. Over time, the more she learned, the more she began tae think, like I had, that Fate could be manipulated, tweaked tae give certain people different outcomes. Tae change their Fate. She wanted tae change hers. She wanted the luck she thought she was owed. The easiest way tae do that was by goin’ straight tae the source. The Madams. It hadnae been a problem recruitin’ Anora, but in order tae get ma boss tae help threats had been made. If Madam Norna didnae follow instructions then Reid, Chronos, Fionn and I would pay the price. The same threat she’d given us before I…

Ma boss continued that there’s very few differences between the two Madams. One was created tae be equal tae the other. One followed Fate, helped it run smoothly, the other caused havoc, and in order fae there tae be balance they had tae be equally powerful. Just because Madam Anora traditionally helped tae curse people didnae mean that Madam Norna couldnae do the same. They just chose not tae. Every Madam, regardless ae name, had the power tae cause hurt, tae enchant, tae curse. And I’d just unleashed ma first one. Whitever power I possessed, as Madam-in-waiting, was amplified inside the shop. I’d been so angry at the academic, angrier at myself, that I’d condemned her tae the same bitterness I’d felt when Reid was hurt, rippin’ away the one thing she treasured the most. I did that. Me.

I hadnae known whit I was doin…but was that even true? Perhaps some dark part ae me did, the sense deep doon that knows more than I do. I was startin’ tae think I may be apprenticed tae the wrong Madam.

Scots vocabulary

Peelie-wallie – pale, ill looking.

Picts – the name modern historians use to refer to the group/culture of people who inhabited parts of Scotland (mainly the North-East) before it was unified as Scotland, along with the Gaels (who came from what is today Ireland). They’re a relatively mysterious culture as they left no written records of themselves, but plenty of Pictish stones. What happened to them is also a mystery.

Clootie – Scottish word for a piece or scrap of cloth.

Clootie Well – Old, mystical well on the Black Isle in Scotland thought to have healing properties.

An Empty – Glaswegian slang for a house-party when the pal’s parents are away.

Story

*warning: reference to suicide

How do people make wishes? It seems as though there’s always an opportunity. Candles on a birthday cake, a shouting star, dandelion seeds, even the wishbone from your Sunday roast. Then there’s paying for your wishes by tossing a penny in certain bodies of water. Although I wouldn’t try it at your local loch. Fountains, ponds, and wells; I’ve thrown many a coin and watched it flutter to the bottom, landing amongst all of the others in various states of green. I don’t imagine I’m the only one who’s had the urge to dip my hand in and take a scoop. Each coin, every penny, cent, and yen is someone’s wish. Whether the water gods are in the mood to grant it is another story.

A special customer has arrived, looking a bit worse for wear, death warmed up. She’s peelie-wallie, contrasting with the dark moons underneath her eyes, which have a glazed look, like she’s struggling to see, to focus. Some recent weight loss causes her clothes to drown her. She looks at the tea as though it’s dog shite she’s stepped in. I wish I hadn’t bothered. I also wish I wasn’t in the same room, you never know if these things are contagious.

She tells us that she’s not been sleeping, not been eating, has rashes all over her body that she can’t stop scratching, and pains in every muscle she has. If it’s not one thing then it’s the other. She’s been to the doctor more times than she can count, they’ve done every test, scan, and examination they can think of but can find nothing wrong. Somehow the Madam’s card had made its way into her possession, and she’d come straight to the shop in the hope of a cure.

Occasionally I’ll glance at the Madam trying to read her expression. Usually, I have no luck. This time is different. There’s a shift in her features, that distant glaze to her eyes as she stares straight through the customer, her words nothing but fading background noise. My boss may not say much, but she always listens. This time it appeared her attention was drifting.

When the customer finished, her eyes pleading for help, the Madam nodded and directed me to the cabinet of wonders. It takes me a lot longer to fetch things from inside now, I’m too busy ogling at the rest of the contents. The shelves full of glass bottles, various candles lined up by colour spectrum and size, boxes containing mysteries, and dividers overflowing with crystals, stones, and precious gems. My task this time was to get one of the glass bottles with a green ribbon around its neck, filled with clear liquid that I would’ve said was vodka or water, but was probably something a bit more exciting. I placed it on the coffee table between the Madam and the customer, taking my seat to hear the explanation.

The woman was to drink the water over three days, taking an equal amount each day. After that her symptoms should disappear. I waited for the usual instruction to return to the shop if the remedy didn’t work, but it didn’t come. I felt my eyebrows start to crease into a frown, which I quickly smothered. It’s not like they ever came back unsatisfied anyway, perhaps my boss was sick of saying it.

The woman nodded her head in the most eager way a sleep-deprived person is able and left clutching the bottle like it was filled with holy water and she was being possessed by a demon. I kept my face as neutral as I was able as I looked to my boss, waiting for the explanation.

I’m surprised to say I actually knew this one. Well, half of it anyway. On the Black Isle, in the heart of the Highlands, lies an ancient and mysterious well. Thought by historians to date back thousands of years, with connections to the Druids and Picts of old, Cloutie Well, as it’s known today, is thought to bring healing and good health to anyone who ties a scrap of fabric soaked in its waters to one of the ancient trees surrounding it. As the rag decomposes or disintegrates so will the person’s illnesses.

It’s always water with Scottish folklore. That’s where our monsters come from and where our wishes are offered. We’re scared of it, yet we revere it. Scared of drowning in a loch or stream, but we’ll soak a rag in a well in the hopes it’ll heal us of our ailments. I suppose there’s a lot of it lying around, it’s only inevitable it makes up the foundation of our myths.

There are a few similar wells in Scotland, meant to have mystical and magical properties, usually the healing sort. What I didn’t know is that there’s one that does the opposite. A cursing well of sorts. Much like with Cloutie Well, this cursing well requires a piece of clothing belonging to the person you want to harm. All you need to do is soak the rag and then bury it near the well. This will visit all kinds of illnesses and ailments to the victim.

Well, that’s fucking horrible. I’m glad it’s not well known.

It had been water in the bottle given to the customer, some from a wishing well to counteract or break the curse put on her. I wonder why she has to drink it, when that’s not how it usually works. Maybe its quicker?

To me that was the end of it. More information I didn’t want to think about, another satisfied and uncursed customer, life went on. Until 4 days later when the woman returned. Her appearance even drew my familiar’s attention away from their game. This was unheard of. The Madam’s remedy hadn’t worked, the woman looked as awful as she had when she’d first arrived. I stumbled over my words, unable to string a coherent sentence together in the face of this customer’s return. As I passed by Fionn I noticed the shadow across his face, the glimmer in his eye that made the growing unease in my stomach clench painfully.

It’s fine. The Madam, although semi-immortal, is still mostly human. We all make mistakes. Or perhaps it was like medication and didn’t work the same way on everyone? There were plenty of explanations, I didn’t need to be concerned. So why was I despite all of those arguments?

I forgot about tea, preoccupied with the situation we unexpectedly found ourselves in. The customer sat down, told the Madam the remedy hadn’t worked, produced the empty bottle, and waited for the next suggested cure. A trip to Cloutie Well? To all of the healing wells? Some kind of ritual?

My boss let the silence linger as she surveyed the customer across the coffee table. There were cracks in her usual blank façade, a storm in her eyes I couldn’t tell was anger, frustration, or sadness. It didn’t make me feel any better.

I think a part of me wasn’t surprised when she said there was nothing else she could do. Something deep down, buried along with other useful things, could sense that something about this whole thing wasn’t right, a wrong note in a song, an incorrect harmony. The customer slumped on the sofa, her remaining energy and will seeping out of her like air out of a tyre. Madam Norna had been her last hope. Now it was gone only despair remained. People did drastic things when they were desperate.

When the customer left, I went with her. I opened the front door, heard the bell chime above my head and hoped that its echoes would drown out what I was about to do next. I followed the customer out and asked her for a piece of her clothing. I didn’t promise her anything, but said there was something else that I could try, it might take a few days. My own thoughts did point out that I might be giving this woman false hope, an impossible dream to cling to through her misery. But what was the alternative? Letting her go so she can throw herself off a bridge?

She reluctantly gave me a ripped piece of the lining of her coat. Emerald, green satin fabric that was silky soft between my fingers as I shoved it into my pocket. When I went back inside, I quickly told my familiars what was going on, keeping an eye out for Chronos. I didn’t want him knowing what I was going to do next.

I was going rifling through storage, but in order to get there I needed to slip past the Madam. Fionn was to be the distraction, allowing Reid and I to sneak past the front room and into storage without my boss noticing. If that was even possible. The comedy sketch of all three of us going upstairs in sync so the floorboards creaked at the same time tested my ability to hold in a laugh. Fionn went in, started talking about something I wasn’t really listening to as he closed the door behind him, and as silently as we were able Reid and I slinked past. Despite his height, Reid’s surprisingly light on his feet, fox-like. I’ve never been jealous of him before but that’d would’ve been a really handy skill when I used to sneak back to my Da’s house after a pal’s booze-filled empty during ma school days.

It was only when we got through the door into storage that I began to realise how badly thought out this plan had been. I had no idea where anything was, let alone a small bottle with some water in it. I vaguely remembered from the last time I set foot in there that there were a few cabinets that looked identical to the one in the front room. If there were fragile glass bottles anywhere, wouldn’t they be safely behind some doors? The only question was which doors.

The deeper we went the more cabinets I began to see, and the more wind was taken out of my sails. We had no choice but to check each one. We stuck together for a while, I stopped Reid from falling into a dark pit in one of the cabinets, he helped me close the doors of another that a long, grotesquely stretched arm shot out of grabbing chunks of my hair in its attempt to pull me in. Remembering that time was different in storage we reluctantly agreed to split up, but always kept the other within sight, just in case.

A few cabinets later I was growing exasperated, and when I flung open the doors in the hopes of spooking what was inside all I heard were the chink of glass bottles rippling against each other. It was the cabinet in the front room, it looked exactly the same, even down to the precious gemstones in the divider. Eagerly I begin to look for a bottle similar to the one the customer was given.

I began to hear a voice coming from the other side and assumed it was Fionn still distracting the Madam. It wasn’t long before I had the cold realisation that it was someone else, someone I’d heard before.

I felt Reid join me, kneeling down at my side. Just as he opened his mouth and uttered the first syllable of relief I grabbed his arm and shook my head as frantically as I could, motioning to keep silent with my other hand. His face tensed, the usual frown between his eyebrows deepening.

That voice, the one from beyond the cabinet, it was them. The shadow from Madam Anora’s shop. The person I couldn’t see, the only blind spot in the mirror.

The shadow is talking to someone, asking, or more checking that they didn’t help the customer who’d been cursed. There’s silence. I expect it to be filled with Anora’s voice. Something was wrong with the shop; this was the second time I’d been allowed to eavesdrop on her. Were we connected somehow, through something more than fate? The shadow doesn’t like the silence, and reminds Anora what’ll happen if she doesn’t do as she’s told.

I needn’t have worried about a connection. It wasn’t Anora’s sharp voice that I heard next.

The velvety tones of my boss filtered through the gaps in the cabinet door. She confirmed that she didn’t help the customer who’d been cursed by the ill-wishing well, and that the water she’d given her was fake. I glanced down and saw the bottle I’d been searching for, halfway back on the shelf. I felt my lips press together, my grip loosen on Reid’s arm.

I don’t know how long it was, if any more words were exchanged, but I heard the familiar click of the door to the front room open. I bolted out of storage. I needed to see this shadow, this person. I had to get rid of this feeling, this simmering fear that made my chest tight and my stomach churn. I needed to put a face to the voice, an eye colour, a build. I needed to make it human, something I could understand.

I heard the first syllable of my name as Reid followed me out. The door to the front room was shut, but I didn’t really care if Norna heard me. When I got down to the shop I could hear the faint echoes of the bell as it faded out. Fionn appeared from behind the counter, surprised momentarily before asking if we’d managed to find the water.

I interrogated him about the person who’d just left, just come for the Madam. I could hear the shrillness in my voice, the higher octave, the quiver. Fionn’s bemused face and his inability to remember anything about them, even though they’d walked right past him, only served to make my chest clench tighter. Was it a man or a woman? Brown or blonde hair? Tall or short?

The more I demanded the more Fionn floundered. He didn’t know, he couldn’t remember.

Why? Who were they? Why couldn’t I see them in Anora’s shop, why couldn’t Fionn remember them now? Why were the Madams obeying their commands? Why did I feel like it was only a matter of time before I knew the answers?

Scottish folklore time. Clootie Well is a real place in Scotland, it is situated on the Black Isle, and no I’ve never been. I’m such a bad Scottish person, I’ve never been to half of these cool places. Which actually might not be a bad thing as there’s some environmental problems with Clootie Well now as so many people have left bits of fabric that it’s starting to harm the wildlife and the trees that surround it. Also, because everything’s made of polyester these days, even clothes, the cloots or rags aren’t decomposing, which negates the point of the well in the first place. Outlander was great for tourism, but not so great for the environment. There’s a lot of places in Scotland that were featured on the show that are becoming hazards now, but I won’t get into that.

The way it works is the same as I said in the episode. You get a cloot, the Scottish word for rag or cloth, dip it in the water of the well, tie it to a nearby tree, and as the cloot decomposes your ailments will as well. Pretty simple.

Don’t worry, there’s no such thing as the cursing well, I made that up. Although there is a ceremonial well in Moray that goes back to the Picts but no one has been able to figure out what exactly it was used for. Almost definitely not cursing people to bad health but one can imagine.

Scottish culture time: I mentioned Maya sneaking back from a friend’s “empty”. This might be a generational thing as well, I don’t know if the bairns still use this terminology these days, but when I was a teenager and someone’s parents used to go away on holiday, or somewhere similar, and leave their children in the house alone, that child would have friends over, and we used to call that an empty. You can bet there was underage drinking and a lot of inappropriate shenanigans. It sounds quite irresponsible now, leaving your teenage children in the house alone. I’m talking late teens, I think it probably started when I was about 16, so not entirely irresponsible. But who am I to judge? But there you go, an empty was literally a gathering or a party in a friend’s house when their parents were away.

Scots language version

*warning: reference to suicide

How do people make wishes? It seems as though there’s always an opportunity. Candles on a birthday cake, a shooting star, dandelion seeds, even the wishbone fae your Sunday roast. Then there’s paying fae your wishes by tossin’ a penny in certain bodies ae water. Although I wouldnae try it at your local loch. Fountains, ponds, and wells. I’ve thrown many a coin and watched it flutter tae the bottom, landin’ amongst all ae the others in various states ae green. I dinnae imagine I’m the only one who’s had the urge tae dip ma hand in and take a scoop. Each coin, every penny, cent, and yen is someone’s wish. Whether the water gods are in the mood tae grant it is another story.

A special customer has arrived, lookin a bit worse fae wear, death warmed up. She’s peelie-wallie, contrastin’ wi’ the dark moons underneath her eyes, which have a glazed look, like she’s strugglin’ tae see, tae focus. Some recent weight loss causes her clothes tae drown her. She looks at the tea as though it’s dog shite she’s stepped in. I wish I hadnae bothered. I also wish I wasnae in the same room, ye never know if these things are contagious.

She tells us that she’s no been sleepin, no been eatin’, has rashes all over her body that she cannae stop scratchin, and pains in every muscle she has. If it’s no one ‘hing then it’s the other. she’s been tae the doctor more times than she can count, they’ve done every test, scan, and examination they can think ae but can find nothin’ wrong. Somehow the Madam’s card had made its way intae her possession and she’d come straight tae the shop in the hope ae a cure.

Occasionally I’ll glance at the Madam tryin’ tae read her expression. Usually I have no luck This time is different. There’s a shift in her features, that distant glaze tae her eyes as she stares straight through the customer, her words nothin’ but fading background noise. Ma boss may no’ say much, but she always listens. This time it appeared her attention was drifting.

When the customer finished, her eyes pleading fae help, the Madam nodded and directed me tae the cabinet ae wonders. It takes me a lot longer tae fetch things fae inside noo, I’m too busy ogling at the rest ae the contents. The shelves full ae glass bottles, various candles lined up by colour spectrum and size, boxes containin’ mysteries, and dividers overflowin’ wi crystals, stones, and precious gems. My task this time was tae get one ae the glass bottles wi a green ribbon aroond it’s neck, filled wi’ clear liquid that I wouldae said was vodka or water, but was probably somethin’ a bit more excitin’. I placed it on the coffee table between the Madam and the customer, takin’ ma seat tae hear the explanation.

The woman was tae drink the water over three days, takin’ an equal amount each day. After that her symptoms should disappear. I waited fae the usual instruction tae return tae the shop if the remedy didnae work, but it didnae come. I felt ma eyebrows start tae crease intae a frown, which I quickly smothered. It’s no like they ever came back unsatisfied anyway, perhaps ma boss was sick ae sayin’ it.

The woman nodded her head in the most eager way a sleep-deprived person is able and left clutching the bottle like it was filled wi’ holy water and she was bein possessed by a demon. I kept ma face as neutral as I was able as I looked tae ma boss, waitin’ fae the explanation.

I’m surprised tae say I actually knew this one. Well, half ae it anyway. On the Black Isle, in the heart ae the Highlands, lies an ancient and mysterious well. Thought by historians tae date back thousands ae years, wi’ connections tae the druids and picts ae old, Clootie well, as it’s known today, is thought tae bring healing and good health tae anyone who ties a scrap ae fabric soaked in its waters tae one ae the ancient trees surroundin’ it. As the rag decomposes or disintegrates so will the person’s illnesses.

It’s always water wi’ Scottish folklore. That’s where our monsters come fae and where our wishes are offered. We’re scared ae it yet we revere it. Scared ae drownin’ in a loch or stream, but we’ll soak a rag in a well in the hopes it’ll heal us ae our ailments. I suppose there’s a lot ae it lyin’ aroond, it’s only inevitable it makes up the foundation ae our myths.

There’s a few similar wells in Scotland, meant tae have mystical and magical properties, usually the healin’ sort. What I didnae know is that there’s one that does the opposite. A cursing well ae sorts. Much like wi’ clootie well, this cursing well requires a piece ae clothin’ belonging tae the person ye want tae harm. All ye need tae do is soak the rag and then bury it near the well. This will visit all kinds ae illnesses and ailments tae the victim.

Well that’s fuckin’ horrible. I’m glad it’s no well known.

It had been water in the bottle given tae the customer, some fae a wishing well tae counteract or break the curse put on her. I wonder why she has tae drink it, when that’s no how it usually works. Maybe its quicker?

Tae me that was the end ae it. More information I didnae want tae think aboot, another satisfied and uncursed customer, life went on. Until 4 days later when the woman returned. Her appearance even drew ma familiar’s attention away fae their game. This was unheard of. The Madam’s remedy hadnae worked, the woman looked as awful as she had when she’d first arrived. I stumbled over ma words, unable tae string a coherent sentence together in the face ae this customer’s return. As I passed by Fionn I noticed the shadow across his face, the glimmer in his eye that made the growin’ unease in ma stomach clench painfully.

It’s fine, the Madam, although semi-immortal, is still mostly human. We all make mistakes. Or perhaps it was like medication and didnae work the same way on everyone. There were plenty ae explanations, I didnae need tae be concerned. So why was I despite all ae those arguments?

I forgot aboot tea, preoccupied wi’ the situation we unexpectedly found ourselves in. the customer sat doon, told the Madam the remedy hadnae worked, produced the empty bottle, and waited fae the next suggested cure. A trip tae Clootie well? Tae all ae the healin’ wells? Some kind ae ritual?

Ma boss let the silence linger as she surveyed the customer across the coffee table. There were cracks in her usual blank façade, a storm in her eyes I couldnae tell was anger, frustration, or sadness. It didnae make me feel any better.

I think a part ae me wasnae surprised when she said there was nothin’ else she could do. Somethin’ deep doon, buried along wi’ other useful ‘hings, could sense that somethin’ aboot this whole ‘hing wasnae right, a wrong note in a song, an incorrect harmony. The customer slumped on the sofa, her remaining energy and will seepin’ oot ae her like air oot ae a tyre. Madam Norna had been her last hope, noo it was gone only despair remained. People did drastic ‘hings when they were desperate.

When the customer left I went wi’ her. I opened the front door, heard the bell chime above ma heid and hoped that its echoes would drown oot whit I was aboot tae do next. I followed the customer oot and asked her fae a piece ae her clothing. I didnae promise her anything, but said there was somethin’ else that I could try, it might take a few days. Ma own thoughts did point oot that I might be geein’ this woman false hope, an impossible dream tae cling tae through her misery. But whit was the alternative? Lettin’ her go so she can throw herself aff a bridge?

She reluctantly gee me a ripped piece ae the lining ae her coat. Emerald green satin fabric that was silky soft between ma fingers as I shoved it intae ma pocket. When I went back inside I quickly told ma familiars whit was goin’ on, keepin’ an eye oot fae Chronos. I didnae want him knowin’ whit I was gonnae do next.

I was goin’ riflin’ through storage, but in order tae get there I needed tae slip past the Madam. Fionn was tae be the distraction, allowin’ Reid and I tae sneak past the front room and intae storage withoot ma boss noticin’. If that was even possible. The comedy sketch ae all three us goin’ upstairs in sync so the floorboards creaked at the same time tested ma ability tae hold in a laugh. Fionn went in, started talkin’ aboot something I wasnae really listenin’ tae as he closed the door behind him, and as silently as we were able Reid and I slinked past. Despite his height, Reid’s surprisingly light on his feet, fox-like. I’ve never been jealous ae him before but that’d wouldae been a really handy skill when I used tae sneak back tae ma Da’s hoose after a pal’s booze-filled empty durin’ ma school days.

It was only when we got through the door intae storage that I began tae realise how badly thought oot this plan had been. I had no idea where anythin’ was, let alone a small bottle wi some water in it. I vaguely remembered fae the last time I set foot in there that there were a few cabinets that looked identical tae the one in the front room. If there were fragile glass bottles anywhere, wouldnae they be safely behind some doors? The only question was which doors.

The deeper we went the more cabinets I began tae see, and the more wind was taken oot ae ma sails. We had no choice but tae check each one. We stuck together fae a while, I stopped Reid fae fallin’ intae a dark pit in one ae the cabinets, he helped me close the doors ae another that a long, grotesquely stretched arm shot oot of grabbin’ chunks ae ma hair in its attempt tae pull me in. rememberin that time was different in storage we reluctantly agreed tae split up, but always kept the other within sight, just in case.

A few cabinets later I was growin’ exasperated, and when I flung open the doors in the hopes ae spookin’ whit was inside all I heard were the chink ae glass bottles rippling against each other. it was the cabinet in the front room, it looked exactly the same, even doon tae the precious gemstones in the divider. Eagerly I begin tae look fae a bottle similar tae the one the customer was given.

I began tae hear a voice comin’ fae the other side and assumed it was Fionn still distractin’ the Madam. It wasnae long before I had the cold realisation that it was someone else, someone I’d heard before.

I felt Reid join me, kneelin doon at ma side. Just as he opened his mouth and uttered the first syllable ae relief I grabbed his arm and shook ma heid as frantically as I could, motioning tae keep silent wi’ ma other hand. His face tensed, the usual frown between his eyebrows deepenin’.

That voice, the one fae beyond the cabinet, it was them. The shadow fae Madam Anora’s shop. The person I couldnae see, the only blind spot in the mirror.

The shadow is talkin’ tae someone, askin’, or more checkin’ that they didnae help the customer who’d been cursed. There’s silence, I expect it tae be filled wi’ Anora’s voice. Somethin’ was wrong wi the shop, this was the second time I’d been allowed tae eavesdrop on her. Were we connected somehow, through somethin’ more than fate? The shadow doesnae like the silence, and reminds Anora what’ll happen if she doesnae do as she’s told.

I neednt’ae worried aboot a connection. It wasnae Anora’s sharp voice that I heard next.

The velvety tones ae ma boss filtered through the gaps in the cabinet door. She confirmed that she didnae help the customer who’d been cursed by the ill-wishing well, and that the water she’d given her was fake. I glanced doon and saw the bottle I’d been searchin’ fae, halfway back on the shelf. I felt ma lips press together, ma grip loosen on Reid’s arm.

I dinnae know how long it was, if any more words were exchanged, but I heard the familiar click ae the door tae the front room open. I bolted oot ae storage. I needed tae see this shadow, this person. I had tae get rid ae this feelin’, this simmerin’ fear that made ma chest tight and ma stomach churn. I needed tae put a face tae the voice, an eye colour, a build. I needed tae make it human, somethin’ I could understand.

I heard the first syllable ae ma name as Reid followed me oot. The door tae the front room was shut, but I didnae really care if Norna heard me. when I got doon tae the shop I could hear the faint echoes ae the bell as it faded oot. Fionn appeared fae behind the counter, surprised momentarily before askin’ if we’d managed tae find the water.

I interrogated him aboot the person who’d just left, just come fae the Madam. I could hear the shrillness in ma voice, the higher octave, the quiver. Fionn’s bemused face and his inability tae remember anythin’ aboot them, even though they’d walked right past them, only served tae make me chest clench tighter. Was it a man or a woman? Brown or blonde hair? Tall or short?

The more I demanded the more Fionn floundered. He didnae know, he couldnae remember.

Why? Who were they? Why couldn’t I see them in Anora’s shop, why couldnae Fionn remember them noo? Why were the Madams obeying their commands? Why did I feel like it was only a matter ae time before I knew the answers?

Scottish vocabulary

Minister – A person ordained in the Church of Scotland to hold services. The Church of Scotland is what eventually came out of the Reformation in the 16th century and is a non-catholic branch of Christianity, they call themselves Presbyterian. It is not the same as the Church of England, who’s official head is the Monarch of England.

Papa – Common Glaswegian term for grandfather. Nana is the grandmother equivalent.

Roaster – slang term for idiot/wastrel.

Story

There’s a lot of mysteries in the shop, a lot of unanswered questions. About the antiques themselves as well as the creatures and people who frequent the aisles. Madam Norna, Chronos, even Reid. But I think the biggest question mark has to be Fionn.

It’s strange when you become pals with someone. You get to know them, their likes, dislikes, sense of humour, tolerances, level of competitiveness with a cat, but what do you really know about them? Where were they born and grew up? Their education, their life up until the point they came into your story?

I don’t know much about Fionn’s life before I met him, apart from his relationship with my boss. There’s been mention of heiresses, of coming across some of the antiques before, but details are few. I don’t even know how old Fionn is, only how old he looks.

When I found that jewellery box the other day Fionn had come in the shop. I noticed his agitation, his unusual reluctance, at the time, but I’d been too preoccupied to ask. I feel bad about that now. I should’ve made time, should’ve pulled my head out my arse. I’ll not make the same mistake in future. By the time I’d got back down to the shop he was gone.

He came in a day or two later, and the shop was back to being full. I was trying to concentrate on some course reading whilst one eye kept drifting over to the strange, unnamed game Reid and Chronos were playing. The bell rang, we all took the obligatory look to check for a customer, and then sighed in bored disappointment when we realised it was Fionn. Instead of coming over to the counter or going upstairs to see the Madam, he beckoned me over to one of the aisles of the shop.

This was unusual, but didn’t raise my suspicions. I put my book down and went to join him. He was acting in a similarly nervous manner, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, checking to see if I’d come alone or Chronos had snuck over the antiques to listen. I hadn’t taken notice before, but the more I saw the more anxious I became. Fionn was always calm and levelheaded, he always knew what to do. When a person like that begins to act shifty, it’s never a good sign.

He began to tell me that a pal of his had died recently, and he wanted to go to the funeral and pay his respects. The pal was an old one, so it was important he attended. He glanced up at me, gauging my reaction even though there’d been nothing to react to. He asked if I’d go with him. I chuckled, wanting to belly laugh, but the anxious atmosphere that had descended prevented me. Did he want me to protect him? I joked, expecting the tension set in his face to lighten.

Yes, he told me.

The silence was filled with my attempts to form a sentence, a question, even make another joke. Before I could manage Reid’s voice cut through informing us that he was coming as well. I don’t know when he’d left the game with Chronos, but I could feel him behind me, determination lining his usual frown.

Fionn, to my surprise, didn’t object, and I never got to ask him why he needed an escort to attend a pal’s funeral, or what he thought he needed protection from.

Our trio cut a sombre figure in the shop dressed in our deepest black clothes. Reid had even managed to find a suit I was certain was only used for special occasions. Fionn was the last to arrive, accidentally or purposefully looking as dapper as an actor from the 30’s. He led the way in silence whilst Reid and I kept exchanging glances at each other encouraging the other to ask questions first. Neither of us worked up the courage on our journey to the church.

I expected us to get there, console with the other guests, make our way into the church and listen for an hour about how much of a saint the deceased was. As we reached the gates a procession was making its way out, pallbearers walking in sync, a heavy burden resting on their shoulders. Fionn’s step slowed as he saw the crowd, a stream of black following behind a lacquered box. I noticed Reid look away, as if he thought death was contagious. If he was uncomfortable with funerals, I wondered at him wanting to come along.

We watched the procession make its way through the graveyard to a distant 6-foot deep, freshly dug grave. We kept our distance at the back. It was like Fionn didn’t want to be noticed; wasn’t even sure he should’ve come. With every step past a grave, Reid’s eyes didn’t know where to look, and by the time we’d finished our short journey he was practically perched on my arm. It’s unusual for me to be the sane one.

We watch from a distance as the minister finishes his sermon and the coffin is eased into its resting place, handfuls of dirt thrown solemnly onto the lid along with roses and tulips. The mourners begin to disperse, ready for a strong drink at the wake, condoling with the family as they appear reluctant to leave the graveside.

Fionn tried to fold into himself, make his body smaller, make his presence disappear. But it was too late, someone from the crowd had already spotted him. It’s a middle-aged woman with grey streaks in her hair and a softness to her eyes. She leaves the other mourners and makes her way over to us. I think she must be a pal or acquaintance of Fionn’s as he straightens up beside me.

There’s a sudden, almost unnoticeable change to her features. There’s a spark in her eye, and before anyone knew what was happening her right fist whipped out and struck my familiar hard across the face. Fionn stumbles back a few steps, blood already dripping between his fingers from his nose. Reid reaches an arm out to steady him.

Fuuuuck, I was supposed to protect him. Whoops.

To remedy any blame, I stepped in front of Fionn as he attempted to stop the bleeding, blocking any more punches from this woman. She gives me such a look I think I’m going to be the next victim of her temper. Instead, she tries to peer around me, but it’s not to admire her handiwork. She starts calling Fionn all kinds of names, and none of them are tame. I haven’t heard language like that since my grannie found out my papa got scammed. My being in the way didn’t stem the verbal tide. I didn’t know what to say, and Fionn took the abuse without a word.

The woman took one last parting shot by telling Reid and I that we should stay away from Fionn, as we were the only ones who’d end up paying the price of his friendship.

That’s always nice to hear about a person you’re contracted to be pals with.

The spectacle had drawn the attention of some of the other mourners, and not wanting a repeat performance, Reid and I steered Fionn out of the churchyard and down the road, dried blood beginning to flake off his face.

All that excitement made me hungry, so we went to the nearest MacDonalds. Whilst Reid and I were bickering over what to order Fionn went and cleaned himself up in the bathroom. We all congregated outside in the car park.  We picked a quiet corner and spread out our feast, but Fionn stared at it as though it’d told him he was going to die tomorrow.

Almost at the same moment, Reid and I, in our usual tone-deaf way, asked why he’d been punched. Perched on the kerb at the very edges of the car park, hearing the traffic go by and the drive thru window open and close, gorging ourselves on handfuls of fries, Fionn began to tell his tale. One of them, at least.

He hadn’t always been the reliable level-headed wyvern he was today. Living a long life, longer than humans, twisted priorities and behaviours. Made the world different, shifted perspectives and motivations. Death was a large motivator for humans, but what if that wasn’t really a factor?

Debauchery, apparently. About 200 years ago, freshly single from his relationship with Madam Norna, Fionn did the rounds of the back alleys and dens of iniquity in Europe, gathering followers, fans, and sworn enemies alike. Gang, cult, something less sinister, call it what you like, Fionn was at its centre, the fearless leader that set the tone and made the decisions. His minions followed suit, and wherever they went chaos and destruction was never far behind. They broke more than their fair share, from objects and homes to people and lives.

My familiar wouldn’t look at me or Reid, he stared at the untouched pocket of fries we’d handed him, that must be offensively cold by this point. It was like we weren’t there, he didn’t have an audience, didn’t have people to hear of his sins and bear judgment. Reid and I remained silent, our burgers growing stale.

One victim became one too many when they turned out to have thorns. I don’t think I can name a better example of the term “a woman scorned”. Men, women, they all became the same to Fionn, people to use, seduce and discard as he saw fit, when they got boring, which inevitably, they always did. He used to play games, ones he made the rules to, and didn’t tell them he was playing. This woman, a famed beauty amongst the salons of Paris, was his final victim.

Fionn never gloated, never said it was easy or a challenge, never went into detail, but he wooed and seduced her, let her love him, let her assume they were engaged, and then moved on to someone else, someone new. To his surprise, and centuries old regret, this woman wasn’t the type to let go, and she had just the power to ensure she never had to. Fionn had a type, then.

How was Fionn still standing here talking to us if this woman had done her worst? There’s the catch. During their romance, Fionn had never given her his real name. Instead, he’d used one of his pal’s. He used to do this a lot, he confessed. It was in case any of his conquests wanted to try and catch up with him, they’d end up tracking down the wrong person.

To curse a specific person, you needed their name. This woman had a name, just not the right one. She let loose a vicious curse on Fionn’s blameless pal, and he briefly surmised she must’ve had a helping hand from everyone’s favourite anti-Madam. The curse itself was relatively simple. The cursed would age, but never die, not until their suffering was the same as hers. I mean it doesn’t sound great, but it didn’t sound that terrible either. Fuck, was I wrong.

The curse almost immediately aged Fionn’s pal, stripping him of whatever youth and vivacity he possessed, making him a bent-backed, shaky old man. That was only the start of his troubles. Just like a human old person, he began to get every disease in the book, but he’d never die from them. Normal people, humans, are old for a few decades and eventually pass away. This poor sod had been old for two centuries and had suffered through everything that age and infirmity brought with it.

When Fionn found out about this curse he wanted to go and beg her to reverse it, beg to be cursed in his pal’s place. But he never did. He was too afraid after seeing what it’d done to his pal. He’d moved on, from the curse, from his pal, and from that debauched life. Vowing he’d never repeat those mistakes.

Eventually, mercifully, the curse had loosened its grip and allowed its victim to pass away, after centuries of suffering. Fuck sake, people can be so vicious.

I finally understand why Fionn can’t look at us. Why he probably couldn’t look at himself in the mirror this morning. At least as humans we don’t have long to live with our regrets, but what happens if time is no longer finite? If you have even longer to make those mistakes and live with them?

I didn’t know what to say. Reid did. As he was picking up the empty packets, he stood up and threw that he always knew Fionn was a piece of shite and walked away. I wasn’t sure he was coming back. It wasn’t mg place to forgive Fionn, it wasn’t my place to absolve him. Did it change my opinion? Yes. Was my familiar one bad breakup away from relapsing back into those destructive behaviours? I couldn’t tell.

How do you come to terms knowing that someone you care about has done one, or many awful things? Did it change who Fionn was now? Did it change our friendship? Should it?

There’s no such thing as good or bad people, only good or bad deeds. People don’t fit into neat, polar opposite categories where judgment and punishment are easy. Fionn is neither good nor bad. He’s just Fionn. But he tries, he’s trying to be better, to be reliable, level-headed, supportive. He’s still my pal.

Whether or not he’s been held accountable for his actions isn’t for me to decide, or even know. I can only affect what happens now, what happens in the future. But you can bet if he does something similar again, I’ll be teaming up with Madam Anora to make sure he doesn’t get away scot-free twice.

I could see Reid loitering around the bin, giving me heated glances, wanting to leave to make his point, but reluctant to leave me behind. What a fuckin’ roaster. I let out an exasperated sigh and got up, using Fionn’s shoulder as support. I let my hand linger, squeezing ever so slightly. I turned to go but his voice called me back. He was looking at me this time, his eyes saturated with an eerie kind of concern. He asked me if I’d noticed anything strange about Madam Norna recently. I said no. He nodded in understanding, but I could tell he didn’t agree. It was only when I was halfway over to Reid that I remembered what had happened the day I’d found the jewellery box. I’d taken it up to her and given her the fright of her life. I’d thought it was strange at the time. Is that whit Fionn meant? Was there something else? If he, of all people, was asking, then there must be.