Chapter 6
Non
Due to my raging hangover, I slept most of the way up North.
My ominous driver only woke me once we were near Dolgellau.
We both awkwardly made our way to the bathroom of a rundown service station without exchanging a word, promptly got back in the car, and continued the rest of the journey in silence.
“We aren’t far from arriving at Llwyn Onn, Miss Meredith,” the driver finally croaked.
“Llwyn Onn?” I repeated, realizing I never asked what the area Granny lived in was called. “Is that the village’s name? Or did you mean the house is called Llwyn Onn?” Because of course my grandmother couldn’t just live at a simple number five.
“A house might be a slight understatement for Llwyn Onn, Miss Meredith,” he said with some mirth.
“You can stop calling me ‘Miss’ anything immediately. My name is Non. And what do you mean an ‘understatement?’”
“Have you no idea what your family home looks like?” he asked, rubbing his free hand against his freshly shaven chin.
“Let’s just say a stranger off the street probably knows more about my grandmother’s house than I do.”
As a curious child, I had often tried to pry more information from Granny about what her house looked like, where it was, and who she lived with. But needless to say, she was notoriously close-lipped.
“Go on, do tell me more about her house. It must be something if she’s got the cash to send drivers to collect her disappointing granddaughter in a Land Rover.”
“It’s probably best for you to see it for yourself, Miss Meredith,” he said as I noticed his eyebrows drawing together in the rear-view mirror.
“Seems like a bizarre place to build a village. We haven’t passed any civilization for at least six miles.” Although it wasn’t surprising that my grandmother was a recluse.
The driver only grunted in response, focusing on the winding road ahead of us. We sat in silence for a little while longer, the gravel road continuing to rock the car as it wound down the side of a valley.
“You should be able to see the estate from your left-hand window, Miss Meredith.”
The heavily tinted windows meant I could barely see the outline of the buildings in the distance. I decided to quickly clamber into the front seat where the passenger window wasn’t darkened.
“You could have just asked me to pull over, Miss Meredith!” the driver protested.
His eyes flick down to the muddy boot print that now marked the immaculate leather. He sighed quietly before looking back to the road ahead.
“Tell the old witch to invoice me for the damage.”
Now seated in the front passenger seat, I had a clear view of the road ahead. The driver started to prattle on about the plans once we arrived at Granny’s house, but his instructions were nothing more than white noise as I tried to comprehend exactly what I was seeing through the window.
Sprawling down the cliff face on the opposite side of the valley was a full-sized sandstone castle.
Multiple turrets jutted out from the side of the main building, all topped with deep purple flags fluttering in the evening breeze.
Thin, vertical windows lined the circumference of the building—so narrow I wondered if they were used for archers in a time long forgotten.
They had since been filled with a rainbow of stained glass that flickered, presumably from candlelight.
A giant arched front door was softly lit by burning torches mounted on either side, highlighting carvings too intricate to fully see from so far away.
The drive and surrounding garden were pristine beyond belief—not a single rock or sliver of grass was out of place.
I opened my mouth to pepper the driver with questions.
Logically, I assumed my grandmother was one of maybe many residents who lived in apartments within the castle.
Possibly, this was some kind of fancy retirement home.
But each time a question formed on my tongue, it disappeared when a dull ache filled my chest. Something inside me told me this was all hers.
In the Welsh language, or the little of it I remembered from school, there was a word that didn’t translate to English.
Hiraeth.
Its definition is the feeling of homesickness for Wales. A teacher once told me about droves of people emigrating back to Wales during the turn of the century, claiming it was due to their yearning for the homeland. Hiraeth.
Even so young, I remembered wondering why on earth anyone would yearn for somewhere they lived; Caerglan was nothing special.
But as the sun set behind Llwyn Onn, I finally understood why.
In some ways, I was glad I hadn’t seen this when I was younger. It would have made the heartbreak of knowing I wasn’t good enough to live here even harder. Knowing this was what I could have had if I had just been a little bit more special.
The driver, who had been silently drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, cleared his throat.
“When we arrive at the main doors of Llwyn Onn, I’ll be leaving you in the capable hands of Ail Llew. I presume you’ve made his acquaintance before?”
I shook my head in response.
“He’ll look after you from here, Miss Meredith.”
As the car finally came to a stop outside the looming doors of Llwyn Onn, a single figure stood with their hands clasped behind their back, chest puffed out with authority.
Ail Llew was a man in his mid-sixties, I guessed. Grey was sprinkled throughout his neat beard, continuing to his short-cropped hair. He wasn’t tall by any means—only a few inches shorter than me, I guessed. But what he lacked in height, he made up for with an intense look of disdain.
The only thing not intimidating about his appearance was the deep purple belted outfit he wore.
“Nice dress,” I said, finally breaking the silence stretching between us as I stood in front of him. The driver sped off as soon as my bags were unloaded at the front door.
Eventually, he broke the painful stretch of silence.
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance again, Non.” He pried my sweaty hand from my side to shake it, nearly pulling my shoulder from the socket in the process. “And to clarify, this is what we call a habit, a tunic of sorts, in the colours of the Northern Coven.”
Embroidered on the front of his habit was the head of a horse; the high collar was dotted with snowflakes that continued down his sides.
While I eyed the detail of his clothing, Ail Llew kept shaking my hand vigorously before dropping it and wiping his own on his trouser leg.
“We’ve met before?” Doubtful— I would have remembered someone so miserable.
“Some time ago, I joined your grandmother in escorting you on the day of your Cychwyniad.” The smile he gave me was fucking feline. Any mention of that day was a sure-fire way to always break my composure, so it was no surprise when my forced smile dropped.
Clearly not one for small talk, Ail Llew turned on his heels and marched towards the colossal front doors.
Hopelessly, I tried and failed to keep pace behind him.
The faint memory of my younger self tripping and fumbling through a dry field came to mind.
A well-buried memory of the last time I met this man.
The doors, which was far too humble of a word for those things, swung open of their own accord. As I passed through the entrance, I glanced up at the intricate carvings, which seemed to move fluidly under the flicker of the candlelight.
On the right-hand door was the carving of a nude woman. Long golden hair cascaded down her chest, covering her private areas. She stood with arms spread wide and palms turned up to the sky. Hovering above each palm was a sphere of light.
Her features were vague. The faint outline of eyes, nose, and mouth had been etched.
The only discernible feature was the golden glow to her eyes.
On her brow sat a halo of ivy, the wood stained a deep green beneath the carvings.
Behind her were lush trees with twisting branches that snaked around her arms. White snowdrops grew in abundance at her feet.
I wasn’t sharp by any means—Catrin was always the one with the brains—but my best guess was that this woman was some kind of deity.
Everything about her screamed that she was something other, something divine.
Ail Llew cleared his throat from behind me, already sounding annoyed at my brief pause to admire the door.
As I turned, he was striding towards me. For a short man, he moved quickly and was already halfway across the foyer. Not looking for an earful this early on in my visit, I pointed towards the door, hoping he could bestow some information about this bizarre place.
“Was this one of your Wielder gods?” I tread carefully with throwing around the word Witch.
“More than a God, our Crewr.” He stepped to my left-hand side and craned his neck up to take in the full door.
After a few beats of silence where we both admired the carving, he continued, “We have many gods that we worship, but they were all created from D?n.” He nodded towards the woman etched on the door. Something about her name seemed familiar.
“I remember Granny referring to us—I mean you—as the Wielders of D?n.”
Ail Llew nodded. “Precisely. D?n’s power is passed down through the bloodline. We are biologically human, but as we carry a miniscule amount of power in our blood, we benefit from some Otherworldly gifts that mean we are something in between.”
The need to remind him that I have zero magic in this podgy body of mine made its way up my throat, but I sealed my lips shut before I could quip back.
“What other gifts do you have?”
“Extended lifespan compared to mortals, nothing like the gods themselves, but an average lifespan for a Wielder is around a hundred and fifty years.”
My eyes practically bulged out of their sockets. Did that mean I would live that long? To be perfectly honest, I had already had a gutsful of this life at twenty-five.