Rampant

Fern chuckled, as if absolutely delighted by that remark. “I doubt I shall be one for much of the haunting, but if I ever do, I’d like to think that I’ll have Annabel McGraw’s flair for the task.”

Zoë didn’t question the older woman’s knowledge about what was going on in Carbrey. In fact it made her feel as if she could relax and chat about it. “I found it so shocking, what they did to her back then. I had no idea that people were persecuted for witchcraft here in Scotland.”

“Oh, yes, barbaric acts. Often it was because it was tied up with religion, and that isn’t what we are about. Thankfully, there are no such horrors these days. The worst the likes of us can expect is to be treated as if we’re insane.”

The way she laughed about it led Zoë to believe she’d been called insane many times, and was way beyond being upset by it.

“Tell me more about Annabel,” Fern added.

“I sense sadness in her, sometimes.” It wasn’t something that she had told Grayson yet. Fern’s sympathetic ear and the fact that she was a woman made her want to reveal that now. “She loved a man that she couldn’t be with.”

Fern cocked her head on one side. “It is for us to learn lessons from this…is that what you feel?”

Now there was a leading question, Zoë thought. Grayson’s grandmother was indeed a canny sort. “I guess so. I want her to tell me what happened to her. It’s like a hunger to know what happened to her and her lover.”

“To love the man that you cannot be with is a terrible thing. It was that way for Gray’s mother, poor child. She died of a broken heart.”

Zoë was unable to find words to respond, for several long moments. “It was a dreadful thing that his father did.”

“Well, yes and no. He meant well. He thought he was protecting their son when he turned his back on the supernatural. The moment he walked away she accepted that. It was never easy, of course, far from it. But the craft is an instinctive, elemental thing, passed from generation to generation, as sure as the color of your hair or the set of your nose. Gray was always going to discover it. His parents loved each other deeply, and they made the ultimate sacrifice for him. It’s a burden to him and it is wrong in our eyes, yes, but they lived with their agreement for many years, so it must have been right for them.”

“I see what you’re saying, but it’s awfully hard to imagine.”

Fern seemed pleased by her response. “Tell me about yourself. You are from London, yes?”

Zoë talked about her job, and her sister, and Fern nodded, her head cocked on one side as she took it all in.

She was just about to ask Fern what she thought might happen in Carbrey, when the door sprang open and Maggie came in with Grayson behind her. Maggie carried a tray loaded with cups and saucers, and a humungous teapot, but it was the sight of Grayson that held her attention. In his hand he carried a three-tiered glass cake stand loaded with delicate sandwiches and butterfly buns. He looked as if he was afraid to hold the thing too tightly in case it shattered.

He lifted his eyebrows at her when she laughed.

It was the first time she had ever seen him looking helpless—she’d seen him in plenty of other moods, but never helpless—and so she stood up and helped him with his burden.

23

“YOU TOLD ME YOU WERE A LONER, GRAY,” teased Zoë, as he drove them back to Carbrey on the inland road. “You didn’t look like a loner when you were in there with your family.”

She couldn’t help asking, she was curious. Especially curious about the odd-looking book that Maggie had given him just as they left. It was thick and looked positively ancient. The covers, if you could call them that, were two pieces of silver bark cut to size, and it was tied like a package with ribbons. Letters had been carved into the bark, but they weren’t in any language she knew.

He kept his attention on the road ahead, although a smile played around his mouth when she called him Gray. “Fourteen years I’ve known them, and yet I still don’t feel part of Abernathy. It’s a hard habit to break, I guess.” He gave a sigh, and she had the feeling he didn’t talk about this much.

“After I came here, it was like all the mysteries of my life started to fall into place, but where did I really belong? When I was growing up, my mother respected my father’s wishes about me not being in touch with witchcraft. But she couldn’t live the way he wanted her to live, with no connection at all. Apparently she used to travel to Edinburgh to see me from afar. I always felt enormously secure, and yet I was oblivious that there was this whole network of women watching out for me and casting spells to keep me safe.

“I remember this one time I stepped out in traffic, when I was about nine years old. Someone hauled me back by my shirt collar. A car shot by, but when I looked around to see who’d got hold of me, she was walking away into the crowd.” He shook his head. “I never saw her face,” he added.

Zoë felt emotion pressing down on her like a weight on her chest. “That must have been so hard for her.”

He nodded. “She didn’t exactly break the rules my father had put in place, but she bent them slightly. There were books I wanted to read as a teenager and they would just appear in my school bag. Stuff that my dad didn’t think was academic enough, like the psychology of dreams, things that were calling to me. I would find the books and assume that he’d had a change of heart. Once I learned about my mother it all fell into place.”

He was silent for a moment, and she could see this was hard for him. She rested her hand over his thigh and he touched it briefly before returning his hand to the wheel.

“I was drawn to psychology because I thought it would help me understand why I felt so at-odds. There was something torn inside me, because the elemental nature of the craft was there but I didn’t recognize or understand it. I was drawn to esoteric subjects, and that led me into research about beliefs and the supernatural and witchcraft. It was like it was my destiny, even though I didn’t know about my heritage.”

“So let me get this straight,” she said, wanting to see him smile again, “your mother was an absentee witch, and mine was a ditzy single mother who was a wannabe witch.”

He laughed, looking at her fondly. “You’re right. What about your dad?”

She shrugged. “We have no clue, and Gina and I had different fathers. All we know is that neither of them wanted to stay around long to put up with her less-than-perfect hippie housekeeping habits.” She winked, pleased to see the humor in his eyes. “Dysfunctional families are us, yes?”