Chapter 9
Rowan knew the second she hit send everything would change.
Her thumb hovered over the WhatsApp group, the message sitting there like a lit match.
Callum. The symbol. His mother. Jean’s papers.
All of it.
Once this was out, there was no pulling it back.
“Shit,” she muttered, and pressed send.
The dusky-pink skies of Glasgow were just beginning to darken outside the sash windows. Rowan huddled up on the sofa with a cup of coffee and her phone in her hand, waiting for the fallout.
Cat was the first to respond.
Okay. I don’t think we can wait until the next meeting. We need to meet before Thursday.
Elspeth agreed. Fiona too.
This is too big, Fiona said.
Morven was obviously formulating a longer response. The three dots flashed on and off beside her name.
Cat got in before Morven again. God, Morven’s writing War and Peace here Cat typed.
Isla chimed in. Full disclosure. I’ve been helping, or trying to help, Rowan find out more information about this guy.
Rowan took another sip of coffee and waited, wondering what on earth Morven was typing.
She was about to turn on the TV just to take her mind off things when Morven’s response finally came through.
Five or six lines. Morven said this could be connected to what the others had been feeling – the dent in the Veil, the sense of something being off.
But the other worrying thing, she said, was the Council.
If Veil Walker descendants were living in the West End, the Council could be watching all of this already.
Lorna’s words were echoing in her mind, she said.
They all needed to be watching their backs.
Shit, Rowan thought. She hadn’t really considered the Council. Not properly. She’d been so focused on Callum and the symbol and Jean’s papers that she’d forgotten the bigger picture.
She thought about it as the television’s muffled sounds floated over her.
This had taken another direction entirely.
Okay. I think we should meet up. What about tomorrow night? Isla typed. I’m free. I’m out just now, but I’m free tomorrow night. What about everybody else?
Tomorrow night was set within minutes.
Rowan stared out the window as the dusky pink turned to a deep blue over the rooftops.
She thought of Callum. His eyes. She could hear his voice in her head. There was a strange quality to it. His speech was clipped, but his tone was soft at the same time. She couldn’t quite describe it.
She felt a rush going through her. A rush she hadn’t felt in a long time. A rush she had been waiting to feel for a long time.
There was a ping on her phone. The group was still talking.
Okay. I want to meet this guy, Cat said. He sounds hot.
Morven was quick with a sharp ‘OI’ in reply.
Only joking, Cat said.
Rowan smiled. Even now, Cat could make her laugh.
Rowan felt another wave inside her. Cat’s right. He is hot. Rowan thought. But he could be dangerous.
Isla’s response was slower in coming. The three dots appeared beside her name and stayed there for a while.
The response pinged up just as Rowan was finishing her coffee.
I think me and Alistair might have found something. I think you should all come over.
Rowan’s eyes widened.
She quickly typed back. What is it?
Isla’s reply was immediate. Honestly. I think everybody should come over.
Fiona typed into the group. When?
Isla. NOW would be a good time!!!
“Shit,” Rowan said to herself, and jumped up from the sofa. She pulled on her shoes, grabbed her keys and phone, and slipped out the door, pulling on a jacket as she ran down the stairs.
It was normally a twenty-minute walk from Clarence Drive to Byres Road. Rowan made it in twelve.
She cut through the back streets off Hyndland Road, past the lit windows of the tenement flats, the blue flicker of televisions behind drawn curtains. A fox crossed the road ahead of her, unhurried, and disappeared under a parked car.
The air had that Glasgow smell it got after a warm day cooled, stone and grass and something faintly metallic.
As she walked, she wondered what on earth Isla and Alistair had found. It had to be the papers. Isla must have kept going through the box she’d taken home. Something in Jean’s journal. Something big enough to call everybody over on a weeknight.
She was the first to arrive. Alistair opened the door. He was tall, quiet, and warm in the way he always was. He smiled when he saw her.
“Rowan. Good to see you again,” he said. “Come in, come in. We’ve just opened a bottle of white wine, if you want a drink.”
“Actually, a glass of white would be excellent.”
“Coming up. Isla’s through in the living room. Just be careful of all the papers scattered around,” he said, smiling.
Rowan smiled as she walked into the living room. The flat smelled the way it always did – old paper, strong tea, and the faint sweetness of the jasmine plant Isla kept on the windowsill.
Papers were spread across the coffee table, the floor, the arms of the sofa.
Through the tall back-window, the lights of Byres Road glowed below, and Rowan could hear the faint bass thump of music from one of the pubs further down.
Isla was sitting cross-legged in the middle of it all, her reading glasses pushed up on her head, a glass of white wine beside her.
“Okay,” Rowan said, taking off her jacket and slinging it over a nearby chair. “What have you found?”
Isla looked up at her. “You’re never going to believe this.”
“Well, what is it? Tell me.”
Isla looked around at the papers scattered across the floor, took a sip of her wine, and held up a finger. She put the glass down and picked up a sheet of paper. “This is it. Listen to this?—”
Just then, the buzzer went.
“Oh, shit,” Rowan said.
Isla screwed up her eyes apologetically. “We might as well wait until everybody else is here before I say anything.”
“You’re right,” Rowan said, shaking her head.
The others filed in within the space of fifteen minutes.
Cat and Morven arrived first, then Elspeth and Fiona together.
Orla was last, slightly out of breath. They found seats where they could – on the sofa, the armchair, the floor between the papers.
Alistair poured wine for those who wanted it and disappeared quietly into the kitchen.
“Okay,” Orla said, looking around the room. “So, what have you found?”
Isla sat forward, the sheet of paper in her hand. “I was just about to tell Rowan this when you all arrived. I’ve found out what powers the Veil Walkers have.”
The room went still.
“It’s from a couple of Jean’s journal entries, and actually, from my gran’s writing as well. So I’ve got two separate sources saying the same thing.”
“Jesus, you sound like a policewoman,” Cat said.
Nobody laughed. Everybody was watching Isla.
“So,” Isla said, “the Veil Walkers have powers. Not unlike witches. But they don’t cast spells or practise magick the way we do. Their energy is different.”
She looked down at the paper and then back up at the group.
“A Veil Walker on this side has a certain energy frequency. It’s dormant.
It sits underneath everything, and they don’t know it’s there.
A witch’s energy frequency is much higher than a normal human’s – that’s why we have the abilities we do.
Now, when a witch’s energy intermingles with a Veil Walker’s energy …
” she paused, searching for the right way to explain it.
“It’s like a key being turned. Our energy unlocks theirs. That’s the best way I can describe it.”
“When you say a Veil Walker’s energy is intertwined with a witch’s energy,” Rowan said, “what do you mean? What actually happens?”
“Their energy activates,” Isla said. “The frequency lifts. Their powers start to wake up. They start to become what they were always carrying but never knew about.”
There was silence around the room.
“Okay, what happens,” Fiona said slowly, “if – and I say a big if here – Rowan gets involved with Callum?”
Isla looked down at the papers again. “We don’t know for sure. Jean cut off her relationship with the Veil Walker she was involved with. She didn’t let it get that far.”
“But there’s more,” Isla said. She took a breath. “When a Veil Walker’s energy is unlocked by the higher frequency, it acts like a beacon.”
Rowan’s blood went cold.
“What?” she said.
“That’s how the Council found out about Jean and the Veil Walker in the sixties.
His energy went off like a signal the moment it activated.
The Council picked it up.” Isla looked around the group.
“Think about it. It’s a bit like what we do.
We check the Veil every morning. We send out our energy to scan it, and we can feel if there are any anomalies.
That’s how we felt the dent. Not quite a tear. Just something off.”
She paused.
“That’s what the Council do as well. They’re scanning for exactly this. Veil Walkers whose energies have been activated.”
“Just for that?” Morven asked.
“Not just for that,” Isla said. “From what I’ve read through these papers so far – and there’s a lot more we haven’t gone through yet – they’re scanning for all kinds of things. But that is one of them. And that’s how they caught Jean.”
Isla set the paper down. “And there was a threat. From what I can see in these notes, the Council threatened to bind Jean. Strip her of her powers as a witch. And I think Lorna told us a couple of months ago – they’re looking for any excuse to bind us.”
“Wow! This is huge,” Orla said, looking around the room. She turned to Rowan. “How involved are you with this Callum guy?”
Rowan had to be honest. But the truth was, she didn’t quite know herself. There was something there she couldn’t name. Something she could feel that she hadn’t felt for a long time.
Nobody spoke as they waited.
Rowan shook her head. “Okay. The best way I can describe it is this. There’s something there. But I don’t know what it is yet. I can’t feel anything from him – not even with my ability. But, by his actions, I’m getting a feeling that he thinks the same.”
“Oh, shit,” Cat said. “That’s not good at all.”
“You’re going to have to be really careful,” Elspeth said quietly. “Or just cut it off. Totally. Cut it off right now.”
Rowan looked around the group. At the six faces watching her. At the concern in their eyes and the weight of what Isla had just told them sitting heavy in the room.
Fucking typical. Rowan thought. The first time in years I’ve felt this way about someone, and I’m going to have to cut it off before it even started.