Part Two
This place felt like home. Farrah had no fear and no trouble wandering the hills and woods of this western gem of the Hebrides.
She couldn’t get lost—she just had to listen for the pounding and pulsing of the waves, and she’d find her way to the edge of the island, and then she’d be able to get home from there.
Well, home to where she was staying.
Home was a tricky word at the moment.
But her craft could become a dark little secret, a hidden thing. She could get a job working in a store, or she could try to wrangle her two years of biology and her two years of English literature into an actual degree, and then do something... normal.
Normal people didn’t wade naked into the river. Normal people didn’t fall into a quagmire of silty mud trying to collect herbs. Normal people would take a picture of the pretty herbs on their phone, then shower when they got home.
There’s that word again.
Her parents weren’t helping. Not that they weren’t being supportive, but they were no help about choosing a path or a place to live because they straddled the normal and magical worlds neatly together.
Many of the women on her mother’s side were witches, and her father’s grandmother and great-grandmother had been witches.
But her dad was a quality-control inspector for a grocery conglomerate, and her mother was a stay-at-home mom.
Well, she had been. Now that they were “empty-nesters,” her parents were traveling all over the British Isles and America together, hopping around the globe as her father inspected different packaging plants and grocery stores, being tourists when he was done with his workday.
I could stay in Scotland or England, where half the family lives. Or America, where the other half lives. Pine Ridge is a nice place to settle down.
Farrah had enjoyed her teenage years in the magically friendly town.
At least her parents had let her put down roots for high school.
It wasn’t their fault she’d taken two years of post-secondary school at the University of Edinburgh and two at Pine Ridge’s small NYU branch campus.
With a family split evenly on both sides of the Atlantic, Farrah had hoped to feel a strong pull to one place or the other.
And she hadn’t.
Give me a sign. I want to know where I belong.
Pine Ridge popped into her mind again—but again, it came with the words “settle down” attached.
Yes, I want to find the person who settles my heart, and the rest will follow.
That’s divine wisdom.
All at once, Farrah felt calmer, and the water’s icy chill made itself known. She had drifted to another plane of concentration, received the clear answer she needed, and now she was back to reality with a thud.
She hurried out of the stream with a soft squeal, racing toward her muddy dress and boots, happy that at least her legs and hands were clean now.
Farrah shivered into her dress and socks after shaking them out, breathing hard as she realized what her path must be.
But what a silly path. You can’t expect to drift around the world until you magically stumble across your future husband. What kind of husband would even put up with your “witchcraft” and wood lore, your spells and charms? No Mr. Normal for you, Farrah.
Speaking of charm and wood lore, she’d seen a perfect branch in passing, one with a perfect double fork on the same branch. Very rare, and it was a necessary component for making a blessing for twins. Her college roommate wanted twins.
Twins are a blessing and a rarity.
For a moment, Farrah thought about snapping the branch for herself.
The urge grew so strong that she couldn’t fight it and ran ahead, suddenly pulled toward one tree as if the other end of the red thread wrapped around her rowan cross was attached to it.
Wait... That was a rowan tree. One of the biggest she’d ever seen!
Farrah sped up, eyes squinted, senses tingling, legs damp against her skirt, and breasts bouncing under her loose shirt.
“Ah-aahh!” A broken gasp ripped out of her throat when she made it to the tree, and her hand came down hard—on an arm.
“Shh!” A thick green face with shining white tusks and wide eyes hushed her. “It’s all right. Nothin’ to fear.”
“Orc!” Farrah blurted, choking out the word.
The green half-giant blinked at her and made a hushing, settling motion with his hand, palming the air as if soothing a frightened dog. “Aye, that’s right. How’d you come to know?”
“Witch.” Farrah’s voice was still equal parts broken gasp and guttural choking.
“Aye, I thought so.” He nodded. “Heard that bit about the crimson and rowan.”
“I—Were you watching me?” Farrah backed up, blushing, suddenly feeling way too exposed, despite being fully clothed.
The handsome Orc—yes, there was no denying he was handsome—blushed and skirted her gaze. “Not on purpose. I was hunting and came up this way, and there you were. I didn’t know how you’d react. I hid. I looked back, and you were in the river.”
“Oh. I was muddy.”
“‘Tis easy to get muddy around here. I’m Ian Fenclan.”
“Farrah Fenclan. I mean, Farrah Falkirk! Flustered.”
“Falkirk. Like little Widow Falkirk who lives by the beach? She’s tough as nails.”
“My grandmother,” Farrah said proudly.
“Grand! She’s a good lady to know.”
“She never told me there were Orcs on the island. She said Faefolk...”
“You’re in more danger from the London laddies who come up and drink whiskey all day before they try to hunt something.”
Farrah shivered again, not from cold, but because she’d already met her fair share of grabby college boys and drunken businessmen.
“Night’s coming on quick.” Ian Fenclan whipped off a stagskin cape and laid it over her shoulders.
“I’m not cold.” Farrah’s voice drifted away, flying like the guga over the coves. The longer she looked at Ian, the more handsome he became, and the strangeness of him became more enticing.
“Keep it. It looks right bonny on you. More than it ever did on me.”
“I c-couldn’t. I’m not sure I’m staying on the island.”
The soft smile on his face fell. “Ah. Just a visit?”
“Maybe. I need... I need... I’m still trying to decide which part of the world I belong in. My parents travel a lot between America and the United Kingdom.” Why am I telling him all this?
Farrah didn’t know, but her mouth kept moving.
“So, no family home to go back to? No clan lands?”
“I mean, there’s always my adopted ‘hometown’ of Pine Ridge in New York State.”
The Orc faltered forward, his big, beefy frame suddenly towering over her, snapping a branch.
The perfect branch that she’d wanted.
“Are you all right?” she cried.
Ian nodded, looking thunderstruck. He placed the branch with its double fork in her palm. It was snapped clean, so perfectly broken that it looked as if it had been cut.
It was her turn to look thunderstruck.
She could feel the magic moving around her, and if only she knew for certain that it was moving between them... Then maybe she could take it as a sign.
“Pine Ridge?”
“Yes, in New York state, back in America?” Farrah explained again, speaking more slowly, twirling the branch in her fingertips.
“That’s our clan land! I mean, we have clan lands here in Scotland, too, but my uncle bought us one hundred and sixty acres in the mountains that border the town of Pine Ridge— years and years back, right at the beginning of the Troubles.
One of our ancient cousins of cousins was one of the first settlers, even before the land was bought and papers filed through all the ‘official’ channels!
There have been Fenclans and Silverbows around Pine Ridge all the way back to the 1800s”
“Oh, God. You have Irish clans, too?”
“Aye, and English. Not just the Fenclans. It’s in trust to us, the Silverbows, the Wickstaffs, Bogchurches, and more. But the big acreage in the mountains, it’s held in the name of the Fenclans. In case.”
Farrah didn’t have to be told about “in case.” Any witch who read about Salem knew the meaning of “in case.”
“So. What a coincidence, meeting a lass from Pine Ridge in my back garden, when I could end up in hers.”
Farrah tried to speak. “Too big to be a coincidence.”
IAN WALKED TOWARD THE beach with the willowy goddess on his big, meaty arm, feeling like a giant holding a china doll. She was tall and slender, and his chest would have made three of the span of her shoulders. Even with her height, he was a full head taller.
The perfect height to watch her, and to see her look up at him.
“When do you leave?”
The girl didn’t say anything for a long time. When she did, she stopped and faced him. The salt air blew strands out of her braid and out of his. It took everything he had in him not to kiss her right then, risking everything for one single perfect moment of beauty, waves, sand, and salt.
He leaned forward a little, and the long, dark-blonde wisps from the tail of his plait met hers. He could see the light, ashen-wheat strands from Farrah’s head twining with his errant ones. Weaving.
She’s magic. A little glimpse of magic.
“I’m not sure I’m leaving. I’m looking for the person I belong with before I find out where I go. I need to have him with me. Home isn’t a place—”
“It’s a person,” Ian finished.
Little fingers fondled the rowan branch as he looked into his eyes.
Twins. He could see twins, their wee bairns, half-human, half-Orc, nestled in her arms as he stood guard over them.
“Will you please not leave without me?” He made a slip of the tongue. Or was it? “Will y’ not leave without telling me, please?” he corrected himself.
Farrah nodded, stepping closer to him as the scraggly woods gave way to the pebbled beach. “I promise.”
She rose on her tiptoes, and his head bent in perfect timing, two dancers knowing all the steps despite it being their first waltz. His tusks fit perfectly around her slender chin, and their lips met, green to rose.
He let her walk to the water, watching her, his pain growing with every step she took. Every step was a step too far from him.
With a heave, he jerked himself around and made his way back to the circle of wood and stone bungalows where his parents were proudly watching Dougie skin a deer.
“Where’ve you been? And where’s your catch?” his father asked, graying, tufted eyebrows raising.
“She’s back at the beach, Da.” Ian swallowed and thought of how his parents would react—and found his doubts stamped out by the memory of Farrah’s kiss. “I’ve met my bride.”