Chapter 11

I ris walked out of her house the next morning with her towel tucked under her arm to find Lynx already sitting outside waiting for her.

‘Hey, you ready?' he said, hopping to his feet.

‘Yes, I'm excited to see it. I feel a bit bad because when I told Ness I was going for a swim, she wanted to come too.'

They started walking towards the village green.

‘She could have come with us, I don't mind,' Lynx said.

She smiled. He really was a decent man. ‘Well I did say that to her but when I told her I was going with you, she said she didn't want to get in the way of our date. I did say it wasn't a date but she refused. And I feel bad because I'm secretly quite glad it's just the two of us. Anyway, she found the other pool at the end of our road yesterday so she's going to go back to that again instead.'

They reached the village green and started walking up one of the roads on the opposite side.

‘That one's nice too, and a much shorter and easier walk to get to. And while I'm always happy for Ness to tag along, I'm secretly pleased it's just the two of us too.'

She smiled up at him. ‘It's not a date.'

He smirked. ‘I never said it was. Although there will be quite a bit of nudity.'

‘Is that what constitutes a date for you?'

He laughed. ‘No, and if this was a date I'd be trying harder. There'd be flowers at least.'

He clicked his fingers and a bouquet of peonies appeared in his hand.

She laughed as he passed them to her. ‘It isn't a date. We're just going for a swim.'

‘So you don't want these?' He clicked his fingers again and some chocolate-covered strawberries appeared in his hands.

‘These are from London,' Iris said, recognising the shop name.

‘I bought some for myself when I was there. But I'm happy to share them.'

‘Maybe you should save them for an actual date.'

He shrugged and clicked his fingers and they vanished again. She felt a bit silly for complaining because they had looked really delicious.

‘Maybe we have them for after the swim,' Iris said.

‘Is that when the date starts?'

She laughed. ‘Stop it.'

‘OK, OK, I'll be on my best behaviour from now on.'

‘You're going to have to teach me that click your fingers thing. It would be handy to do.'

‘Oh it's a summoning spell. You have to be able to see the item clearly in your head and exactly where it is. It's quite hard to do to start off with. It's a lot easier when you've been doing it all your life but I tried to teach Erin how to do it once and she didn't have much success. But I'm happy to try and teach you one day, you might have more luck. It takes a lot of work and a lot of patience, it took me weeks to learn when I was a kid so don't be put off if you can't do it straightaway.'

They reached the end of Holly Lane and she could see woods stretching out either side.

‘Does all this belong to the village?'

‘Yes, the woods on this side go quite far back before you reach the village boundary.'

They followed a path into the woods where the cover of the trees blocked out a lot of the sun so only tiny sparkles of light filtered through the leaves. It was lovely and peaceful.

‘And no one comes in here?'

‘They do but not many of them come this far. And I've been at my little pool hundreds of times over the years and I've never seen anyone else there.' Lynx took her hand. ‘It gets a little bit uneven from here on in.'

She smiled at the tactic, she was quite sure she could navigate walking through some woods easily enough, but she didn't let go of his hand.

‘How did you find the pool?'

‘I was just a bored kid exploring the village and I stumbled across it one day. I love the fact that no one else appears to know it exists. Everyone else is content to just stay in the main village so it really does feel like it's mine.'

‘And now you're sharing it with me?'

‘Of course. If swimming is so important to you, I want you to have it so you have somewhere beautiful and peaceful to come and swim.'

They walked through a gap in the trees and there it was, the most beautiful little pool Iris had ever seen. The sunlight glimmered through the leaves here, casting a gorgeous green glow over the glade. Water tumbled over rocks at the far end, sparkling like diamonds in the sun.

‘Oh Lynx, this is lovely.'

‘I'm glad you like it. It's a special place.' He started laying out a blanket.

‘Is it deep?'

‘Yes, surprisingly so. Especially that side, though it's quite shallow over here.'

She quickly stripped down to her bikini and dived in, immediately feeling the healing power of the water seep into her skin and her bones. She swam right down to the bottom and smiled at the fish, newts and frogs that had made their homes here. This was glorious. She stayed underwater for a while, enjoying the feel of the water surrounding her, the coolness on her skin, the way the sunlight sparkled through the water.

Suddenly she got a flash of her future here – or rather Lynx's, it was impossible now to say whose future she was seeing as they were so intrinsically linked to each other. She saw the first time they made love in the shallow side of the pool under a setting sun, she saw herself giving birth to their daughter here on the banks of the pool, her daughter's first swim when she was a few weeks old, Lynx hovering like an overprotective dad. And instead of freaking her out, these images of her future made her smile. This was a happy future, why was she running away from it?

The images faded away and she was left with a warm glow.

She looked up and saw Lynx treading water above her. His thighs were big and muscular and she was enjoying seeing his chest again without the embarrassment of him seeing her ogling him.

She swam to the top and surfaced in front of him.

‘I was just beginning to wonder whether I needed to swim down and rescue you,' Lynx said.

‘I can hold my breath for a really long time, remember.'

‘I know, but it's still a little disconcerting to witness it.'

‘Were you worried about me?'

‘Of course. I worry about you a lot. I worry that you're safe, that you're happy, I worry about you meeting my grandmother and running away because she is all kinds of crazy.'

She laughed. ‘I'm meeting her later today actually. She and Ness are playing poker at five and Ness asked me to come along for moral support.'

Lynx groaned. ‘I've been asked to come along for the same reason. I thought it was a bit dodgy. My grandmother is the last person who needs moral support.'

She laughed. ‘Oh. I didn't see that coming. My nan told me Zofia had been round, I thought she was just being nice welcoming Ness to the village.'

‘This is a set-up, they're trying to get us together. Zofia loves to interfere, she thrives on it. She's seen us together in the future and doesn't want to wait for fate to take its course.'

‘She's seen us too?'

‘Yeah. I wouldn't let her tell me anything though, I thought you should be the one to tell me, if and when you're ready.'

She sighed. So much for not revealing too much about his future. ‘So what are we in for tonight?'

‘I told her that it's your choice whether we have a relationship or not and that I wasn't going to badger you into it. She didn't like that so this will be some attempt to get us together.'

‘And she's roping my nan into her shenanigans too.'

‘We can just tell them no.'

‘We'll see, I may just come up with a plan of my own.'

He grinned at that.

Iris sighed. There really was no getting away from the plans fate had in store for her. If she believed the visions she'd seen, one day she would be happily married to Lynx, with children, maybe living here in this perfect, safe little community. And if she ran away from that future, avoided it like the plague, it seemed Zofia and Ness were going to pull out all the stops to make it happen.

‘Please don't think I'm rude, but would you mind if I just floated for a while?'

‘Oh yeah, go for it, do what you need. I'm going to have a little swim, but after, do you mind if I float with you?'

‘Not at all.'

He swam away from her to the far side of the pool. Iris starfished on her back, staring up at the sun filtering through the leaves, enjoying the silence. And it was lovely to enjoy the silence with someone else. No expectation to talk, just be together. She'd expected it to be weird to share this with someone else but there was something about being with him that made her feel so peaceful.

She needed to make a decision about Lynx. After that incredible kiss the night before, it was very clear they had a mutual attraction. She also just really enjoyed spending time with him. He was a kind, patient man and she liked he wasn't pushing her about this, even though he must have questions about the future she and Zofia had seen.

He swam back towards her and turned over onto his back next to her, and it made her smile so damn much when he took her hand so they were floating together. It reminded her of two otters, holding hands while they slept on top of the water so they didn't float apart.

She had often watched the otters on the sides of lochs and rivers and found herself envious of them because they had mated for life. It seemed otters didn't spend years trying to find their other half, drifting through unsuitable partners, being betrayed by them, they somehow just found the one. That simplicity of finding their life partner, that person that would be there for them through every up and down, their soul mate, had always appealed to Iris. She had always told herself when she met him she would know. The connection between her and Lynx had been instant from the moment they'd met and, according to the future she'd seen, he was her forever, so why the hell was she holding back?

She rolled up so she was standing shoulder-deep in the water and he did the same, facing her.

‘I've been constantly second-guessing everything since I've come here because all roads lead back to you. I stopped us making love last night because I'd seen that exact moment and I thought by stopping it I was proving I was in control. But I'm really not. We were fated to be together years ago. Did you know Star saw us together eighteen months ago? How crazy is that? We didn't even know each other existed then. How could we be destined to be together when we'd never met?'

‘Ah, you're the mystery red-head that nearly drove Star and Wolf apart?'

‘It's mad, isn't it. And for the last few days I've been trying to decide what to do. Whether to give in to it because I'm pretty sure you'll be the best thing that's ever happened to me, or keep fighting it, live a life of misery just to prove I'm in control of my own life. When I say it like that, there is only one choice. When I'm with you, when I'm kissing you or cuddled up to you, it just makes so much sense. And you're so laid-back about it all, you're not fazed by our future together. I just want to be with you and feel that way too and stop worrying about what's going to happen. I didn't want to tell you about what I saw because I've been freaked out enough as it is, coming here to see my whole future laid out in front of me, and I didn't want you to be freaked out too. But if you want to know, I'll answer your questions. I shouldn't be the only one deciding whether I want that future, you should get to decide too.'

‘OK, I'm not sure I want to know it all, there is some fun in finding it out for myself, but…' he reached out and ran his fingers through one of her curls. ‘What colour is my baby's hair?'

She smiled at the way he was going with this. ‘I can't tell you that.'

‘Then you kind of already have.'

‘I can't tell you because in the flashes I've seen of her here, growing up, she has green hair, blue, pink, gold, purple. She changes it every day, although I think she quite likes the purple.'

His eyes widened. ‘She… she's a metamorph?'

‘Yes she is.'

He stared at her in shock.

‘And now I've freaked you out too. But yeah, that's what I've been struggling with for the last few days.'

‘I'm not freaked out.' His voice was choked.

She laughed. ‘Sure you're not. You thought we'd have a few dates, have a good time, and now you realise you're playing with fire, I'm the mother of your child, surprise!'

‘I've been playing with fire my whole damn life. You don't scare me, Iris McKenzie.'

‘You… you're OK with this?'

‘I felt our connection was something special and beautiful the second we touched. This explains why.'

‘But—'

Lynx stepped closer and stroked her face, then gave her the briefest, sweetest kiss that made her melt into him. ‘I get that you're scared by this and that's OK. I'll be here waiting, if and when you're ready. And if you're not, that's OK too. It's one possible future, right? If that future includes marriage, or children, or whatever else you've seen, if we're going to bring a child into this world, then it will be in a loving relationship. If I ask you to marry me, it will be because I love you, completely and utterly. If I'm going to spend the rest of my life with a woman, I want to know she's there for the right reasons. That she loves me and I love her. Knowing this possible future doesn't change that. No one is going to force you into doing something you don't want to do.'

Iris stared at him. She hadn't been expecting him to be so calm about it.

‘Come on, let's go and chill out over here for a bit, I'm sure it's time for that box of chocolate-covered strawberries,' Lynx said.

She followed him out of the pool, dried off a little and cheekily pulled his shirt on while he was still drying himself. He had a lot more to dry than she did and it was all muscle.

He turned round to see her wearing his shirt and smiled. ‘That suits you.'

They lay down on the blanket and he clicked his fingers so the box of chocolate-covered strawberries appeared between them. She took one and it tasted delicious.

He bit into one too. ‘That is good.'

He stroked her hair again. ‘Listen, you don't have to decide now between all and nothing. It's not like we're going to be walking down the aisle tomorrow. It doesn't need to be a big deal.'

‘It doesn't?'

‘We can go out for dinner, have a few dates. If you're willing I'll make love to you.'

‘I'm very willing.'

‘And we see how we fit together. We can see if we like each other for something more. It doesn't have to end up with marriage, babies and a happy ever after. We'll just see how we go. But at least we'd know and we can stop worrying about the future.'

‘You make it sound so easy.'

‘It kind of is. It's just a few dates. No big deal.'

‘But what if it ends with marriage, babies, the whole caboodle?'

‘Then it will be because we've both fallen in love with each other, not because fate has decreed it so.'

Iris smiled. He made it sound so simple and she wanted that, she really did. ‘OK.'

His face split into a huge smile. ‘Really?'

‘Yes, we can date. Maybe it's how you make me feel when I'm with you, that it just makes sense. But I'm not running from you any more. I'm not saying I'm going to suddenly start trying for a baby, but I want to give us a chance and see where this goes between us. And that includes dinner tonight.'

‘Excellent. How about a picnic instead? I've taken you to my favourite place, you could take me to yours.'

She sat up. ‘In Scotland?'

‘Yes, I'll show you how to use the key stones. As long as it's nowhere near your house, I'm not risking you by going back there, but maybe a loch or beach or somewhere that's special to you.'

‘I would love that and I know the perfect place.'

‘Great, it's a date.'

She smiled and leaned forward to give him a sweet kiss. ‘It's a date.'

Lynx pulled back. ‘And I want you to know that it'll just be dinner, we'll talk, maybe kiss. But I absolutely promise not to take it any further than that, not tonight, so you don't need to worry about sex.'

‘Unless I want to.'

His smile grew, then he shook his head. ‘No, not tonight. I want to get this right and I don't want to rush things and—'

She put her finger on his lips to stop him talking. ‘Relax. In the spirit of ruining things for you, the first time we make love is right over there near where the willow tree touches the water, the sun is setting, painting everything rosy gold. It's quite lovely. It won't happen on a beach in Scotland.'

He smiled. ‘Right there?'

She nodded.

‘Wow, this place is going to become a lot more special for me.'

She laughed. ‘You have no idea.'

Iris opened the door to Fire and Ice and walked upstairs, excited to see what Wolf had done with the place.

She had left Lynx in his house after their swim and she was buzzing with excitement about their date that night. She really liked this man and it was silly to hold back just because she'd seen their future.

She stepped inside the shop and gasped. It looked exactly as she had designed on the VR headset but so much better. The design had looked digital, while this looked so real, she could almost feel the cold. She reached out to touch one of the ice walls and it did feel cold and wet to the touch. It really looked like she'd walked into a cave in the deepest Arctic. The ice sparkled and glittered in the natural light coming from the windows and from the little spotlights that would hang over the displays. Icicles hung over the windows and in stalactite and stalagmite type shapes around the room. But the pièce de résistance were the ice sculptures in the corners and at the entrances to each ice chamber. They looked so real, even down to the fine lines of the animals' fur.

She wandered through the different ice chambers and knew it would look spectacular once all the jewellery was in place.

‘Hello!' Star called from the entrance to the shop and Iris came out of the tunnels to see her. ‘What do you think, is it OK?'

‘It's wonderful,' Iris said. ‘Wolf has done an incredible job, I can't believe this is the same place that was four dusty walls yesterday.'

‘He is very clever. He built the whole of Stardust Street himself, obviously with a lot of magic but you have to have that creative ability to pull something like this off.'

‘I agree, it's incredible.'

‘I'll tell him you're happy. But if you work here for the next few days and realise something is missing or in the wrong place, it will be very easy to change it.'

‘OK, thanks.'

‘And you should probably know you were right about the baby. We took the test this morning. Several in fact.'

‘Congratulations.'

‘Thanks,' Star said, nervously. ‘We're excited but it is a little worrying. Blaze is only seven months and she is into everything. The fact she's magical makes it even more exhausting, you have to have eyes everywhere. And she's brilliant and funny and I love her so much, but having two under the age of two is going to be a rollercoaster.'

Iris smiled. ‘Well, I'm always here to help, and I'm sure Lynx will lend a hand too.'

‘I know, he's already helped so much. And thank you, I might just take you up on that offer. But living here has been wonderful, I can't imagine what it would be like to raise a magical child out there in the mundane world. Here it's safe. She can set fire to our plants in the front garden and no one bats an eye. She made Wolf's car fly the other day and everyone coos how cute she is. She'll never have any fear or judgement or hatred from those that don't understand or know about our world. It's a haven here and I feel so lucky to have it.'

Iris nodded, knowing she felt the same. It was silly to think that far ahead when she was having her first date with Lynx tonight, but if everything played out how fate had shown her, she would be bringing a child into the world in the next year or so. Despite what Lynx had promised her about spending half the year here and half the year in Scotland, she wanted to raise her daughter here, where it was safe, where she wouldn't have to grow up like Iris, keeping the best part of her hidden. This was going to be her home and, although she'd miss Scotland and they'd have to visit often, she couldn't be happier about staying here.

Lynx was walking towards Stardust Street with a big smile on his face. Iris was going to be the mother of his child? When she'd said it, he'd been quite calm about it, but now it was really starting to sink in.

He'd always been a believer in people having a soul mate, the one person they were supposed to be with. And after watching Wolf and Star get together, he now believed in it a whole lot more.

When he'd dated other women, he'd always felt that he had been missing something with them although he'd never known what it was he was looking for. He'd told himself he wanted a deeper connection, without knowing what that looked like. And then, there was Iris McKenzie and he suddenly felt like he'd found what he'd been searching for all his life. To find out they were fated to be together kind of made a lot of sense. Although it was still going to take a bit of getting used to. A few days before he'd had no idea this whole life was laid out in front of him and now it looked like he was going to spend the rest of his life with her, and he couldn't help smiling about that. But only if she was willing to let him in.

He saw Ashley coming towards him.

‘Hey, Ashley, did Iris talk to you about the locket?'

‘Yes, she did.' Ashley was looking worried.

‘What's wrong?'

‘Lynx, something is very wrong with that locket.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I could feel it, lying in bed last night, this weird energy in the house. I went downstairs to see if I could locate it and it was coming from the cupboard where the locket was. I took it out and I could feel this bad energy coming from inside the locket.'

‘Some kind of magic?'

‘I don't know. If it is it's certainly nothing I've ever come across before.'

‘Iris said the locket wasn't magical, that the only energy it had was from being worn by someone magical.'

‘Well she's either lying, or she doesn't know. Or the man that took it from her did something to it, maybe a curse. I can't be sure until I open it.'

‘A curse? Her ex-boyfriend is a mundane. And when she used her magic to steal it back from him, it was quite clear he'd never seen magic before, so I can't see it would be that.'

Which meant it could only be the first two options.

‘Look, I like Iris,' Ashley said. ‘I can just get a feeling for someone and I've never been wrong. She's a good person, I can feel that. But there is something dodgy about that locket and it gives me a really bad feeling. I suppose what I'm feeling could just be kelpie energy from her nan wearing it, and its kelpie heritage, but it didn't feel like the energy that I felt from Iris, nowhere close. And the kelpie energy I feel from Iris isn't bad, just different.'

Lynx pushed his hand through his hair. ‘I trust Iris.'

Ashley smiled. ‘I do too. It's the locket I don't trust.'

‘I need to talk to her about this.'

‘I agree, maybe she can shed some light on it. And I need to talk to Wolf and tell him we could potentially be dealing with a cursed item here. We'll have to put some protective spells around it once I can open it. I have a spell I'm going to do on it at midnight tomorrow, under a full moon, which should get rid of the glue but it will take a few hours for the spell to kick in, normally twelve, so it will probably be ready at lunchtime the day after.'

‘OK, we'll be there.'

She nodded and hurried away.

He swore under his breath that he'd now have to talk to Iris about them having brought a potentially cursed item to the village.

He walked into the shop and could hear her singing upstairs. He stopped and listened. It was sweet and melodious and beautifully haunting. He could easily imagine her sitting on the side of the loch, singing, and how that would charm passersby.

He walked upstairs and looked around in awe at the incredible ice cave. The villagers were going to get a big kick out of this. She was tweaking the displays of jewellery. She looked up at him and her face broke into a huge smile.

‘Hey, I'm going to be ready to open tomorrow and whoop your ass.'

He laughed. ‘Are we still doing the competition? I've already got a dinner date for tonight, so it kind of already feels like I've won.'

She moved over to him and, wrapping her arms around him, leaned up and kissed him. This was so much nicer than her running away from their attraction.

‘If you win, I'll give you dessert.'

He laughed. ‘Then you need something better than me just kissing your feet if you win.' He ran his finger over his lips as he thought and then fixed her with a dark look. ‘I'll think of something.'

She laughed. ‘You know I have a slight advantage. As it'll be opening day people are going to be curious about the new shop, I'll probably get a lot more footfall tomorrow than an average day.'

‘That's OK, it feels like a win for me either way. Besides, extra footfall for you means extra footfall for me too.'

‘True.'

He stroked her hair from her face and she looked so happy. There was no way she was hiding some dark secret from him. He trusted her completely.

‘Listen, we need to talk. Ashley has sensed something bad about the locket.'

She frowned. ‘What do you mean?'

‘She says she felt this bad energy last night and traced it to the locket. She doesn't know what it is as it's not any kind of magic she's ever felt before, but she thinks there's something inside the locket and whatever it is she has a bad feeling about it. She wondered if the locket might even be cursed.'

‘Cursed? Surely if Ness had been wearing it every day for the last sixty years, opening it daily to see the picture of her and her husband on her wedding day, we would have let the curse out by now or felt it, or seen it or reaped the bad luck from it? And I can't see her husband giving a cursed locket to her as a wedding gift. That doesn't sound romantic to me.'

‘Could Christopher have done something to it?'

‘He's a mundane, he doesn't know anything about witches or kelpies or magic.'

‘Something is wrong with it.'

Iris frowned as if remembering something.

‘What's wrong?'

‘I don't know, just something my nan said last night. I need to talk to her. This doesn't make sense. I didn't feel anything and neither did my nan when I gave it back to her briefly.'

‘I didn't feel anything either. Well, I felt it had an energy when I first saw it, but as we said that was just residual kelpie energy from your nan wearing it. It would be infused with that energy, just as any item of jewellery would be after being worn by someone magical. But kelpie magic or energy isn't bad. Even so, I have to trust Ashley's instincts about this. If she says there is something bad inside that locket, then I believe her. Is it possible Christopher has hired a witch to put some kind of protective spell on it? There are witches all over the internet offering their services. Most people don't believe in witches and magic but that doesn't stop desperate people paying for a spell. That locket is worth millions, that would make someone pretty desperate to protect it.'

‘What do we do?'

‘There is nothing we can do right now. Ashley says she is going to do a spell on it tomorrow night at midnight under the full moon, to cleanse the locket of the glue, and that we'll probably have to wait until the day after for it to kick in. Then we open it and… we'll see what's inside. Whatever it is, we'll deal with it then.'

‘I hate this, I don't want to do anything to curse the village or hurt anyone.'

‘There's no point worrying about this until we can open it. And we have some very powerful witches in the village. I'm sure we can deal with it safely.'

Iris nodded and he hugged her. Whatever it was, they'd face it together.