Chapter 7

I ris walked towards the village green the next morning, ready to join the group of people making the decorations for the summer solstice. The village was just starting to come to life, with most people heading towards Stardust Street again.

She reached the village green and looked around. The fountain was a big, beautiful thing depicting potion bottles pouring into the cauldron below. There were Victorian-style lanterns surrounding the green with huge flower garlands already draped between each of the lamps ahead of the solstice celebrations.

But there wasn't a group of people that could be the decorating team. In fact, as her eyes swung around the green, Iris realised there was no one waiting there at all. She wasn't early, but she supposed that the others could be running late.

‘Hey.'

She looked up at Lynx as he fell in at her side.

‘Hey, what are you doing here?'

He smirked. ‘I live here, remember?'

She looked away as she suppressed a smile. It was really hard to hate this man when he was so bloody likeable.

‘I thought you might be queuing for a bus the way you were standing and waiting. Thought I'd join you. It's quite exciting, we never get buses here.'

She rolled her eyes, although she was having a real problem not smiling.

‘I'm part of the decorating team actually, for the summer solstice. I'm just waiting for the rest of them to turn up.'

‘Ah, that would be me,' Lynx said.

She looked at him. ‘What?'

‘Well the garland team have already done their bit, but Star wanted something else hanging from each lamppost. As the solstice is a celebration of sun and fire, she thought I could do something similar to my jewellery, but on a bigger scale. She mentioned about maybe doing sun-catchers. But I wasn't expecting an assistant.'

‘I'm not your assistant. Star saw some of my jewellery and said it would be perfect for the decorations too. She asked me to work on the sun-catchers with the rest of the decorating team.'

‘There's just me,' Lynx said.

‘Ah,' Iris said, wondering whether she should bail out, leave him to it. But she didn't want to let Star down and maybe it would be a good time to get to know him better, see if there was anything between them more than just a crazy-good kiss.

‘Do you think you can handle it?' Lynx said.

‘I can handle it just fine. We're both adults. As I said before, it doesn't need to be weird between us just because we've kissed.'

‘OK then. Shall we take a seat?'

He gestured to the large oak tree at the edge of the green and they wandered over and sat down next to each other under the great branches.

Lynx took his bag off his shoulder. ‘So, Star wanted something fire-related as that's my speciality.'

‘Oh yes, you're a fire witch'

‘Yes.' He held out his hand and a large flame suddenly burst to life in his palm. He closed his hand in a fist and the fire went out without so much as a sizzle or a bit of smoke left behind. ‘And you, as you're part witch, what's your strongest element?'

‘I'd love to say it was air or fire, but rather predictably my mum married a water witch.'

‘But that's still pretty cool. You can freeze things, right, produce snow from your fingertips?'

She held out her palm and it gently rained from it, as if she was pouring out a watering can. With a wave of her hand the rain turned to snow, gently swirling and dancing in the air.

‘See, that's pretty awesome.'

‘I hope so, this is the basis of my jewellery.'

She caught one of the snowflakes in her palm, waved her other hand over it and froze it forever. She passed it to Lynx who examined it. ‘Now this is lovely.'

‘I do the same for icicles, raindrops, bubbles, anything you can make from water, and then make them into pendants, earrings and other jewellery.'

‘I can see them being very popular.'

‘Popular enough for me to win the competition?'

He laughed. ‘Maybe. I think my jewellery is a bit more masculine, so we probably appeal to very different audiences.'

‘So you're saying there's enough room for us both and we don't need a fight to the death?' Iris said.

‘Oh no, we definitely need the fight to the death. I'm still holding out for you to have dinner with me.'

She smiled but ignored that comment. ‘So what are you thinking for the decorations?'

‘I work with stained glass in some of my pieces of jewellery. I was going to make some sun-shaped sun-catchers to hang from the lampposts. But I can adapt to whatever ideas you have.'

‘I used to make sun-catchers when I was a kid to celebrate the solstice. Just simple orbs like this that we'd hang up around the outside of the house.'

She formed a ball of ice in her hands, making it grow to the size of a small football. And just before she magically froze it forever, she added a small loop so it would be easier to hang. She passed it to him.

‘This is wonderful,' Lynx said, holding the ball up to the light and smiling when the light fragmented through it almost as if it was a crystal.

‘When I make something similar and a lot smaller for my jewellery I sometimes put flowers inside, or other natural elements. And Star suggested I do something like that but she suggested we entomb fire inside. I'm not sure if that will even work.'

‘That's a good idea, fire plays such a big part in our solstice celebrations.'

‘But fire and ice are not a great mix.'

‘Are you worried my fire will melt your ice?'

She smirked at the double entendre. ‘No, it's magically frozen, it's never going to melt. I was more worried that my ice would put out your fire.'

‘I don't think that would ever happen,' he said, looking at her in a way that made her pretty sure he wasn't talking about the sun-catchers anymore. She smiled at his flirting. He was going to be impossible to work with.

He focussed his attention on the orb for a moment. ‘My fire is magical too so let's give it a try. How would you put the flower inside?'

‘I just hold the flower in my hand and form the ball of ice around it.'

‘OK, I can do that. Hold your hands out as if you're going to form an orb of ice.'

She did that and to her surprise Lynx leaned over and placed his fingers on top of hers.

‘I'll form the fire and immediately you produce the orb around it.'

She nodded.

A flame appeared in his hand that looked like the end of a sparkler. It floated fractionally off his hand and he quickly removed his fingers as she created an orb of ice around it. A few moments later the sparkle was magically encased inside the frozen orb.

‘Wow, it's beautiful. I really didn't think it would work,' Iris said.

‘OK, so we make a load of these and hang them from the lampposts. But as they will be quite high up I think they need to be a little bigger, around the size of a beach ball.'

‘I can do that.'

‘And I need a better position,' Lynx said, getting up and sitting behind her so he was leaning against the tree and her back was to his chest, his massive thighs bracketing hers.

She looked at him over her shoulder. ‘Really? What was wrong with how we did it before?'

‘This is going to be much easier. And kinder on our backs.'

‘You sound like an old man.'

‘That may be, but the amount of time I spend on the floor playing with Blaze, it's much easier to do it for long periods of time leaning against the sofa. Come on, relax into me, I promise I won't bite.'

She scowled but she knew he was testing her. He expected her to say no because she couldn't cope with being so close to him and there was a huge part of her that did think that herself.

‘Are you going to pick my pockets again if I do?'

He laughed. ‘I promise that was a one-time-only thing. That's not the normal way I introduce myself to women.'

‘So it wasn't a chat-up line.'

‘I'm sure I can do better than that.'

‘Like asking me to lean against you when we're making decorations?'

He grinned. ‘This is practical.'

‘Really? So if you were making these decorations with Wolf, this is how you'd sit?'

He laughed. ‘That's fair. Look, I'm going to sit here, against the tree, but you can sit however you want. But our hands obviously have to be touching so we're going to need to sit fairly close.'

She sighed, heavily, letting him know she was doing this under protest, then leaned back into him, ignoring the way his hard chest felt against her and his glorious spicy scent that wrapped around her. But he was right, it was definitely more comfortable to sit like this.

She held her hands out, palms up, and he placed his hands in hers with his palms up too while they started creating the orbs with the sparkles inside. There was something irritatingly intimate about this. Not just the way they were sitting, the way his legs were hard against her own, or the way their hands were touching, but creating something beautiful by uniting their magic. The completed orbs were almost a representation of them, his fire, her water – or ice in this case – and how incredible it could be if they came together.

‘So how do you celebrate the solstice?' Lynx said, his breath warm on the back of her neck.

‘When I was a child there were flowers everywhere. Inside, outside, hanging from the trees and parts of the house. We used to spend weeks gathering them, making them into garlands or little bouquets or posies to hang up. I remember the smell, it was heaven. I'd make these orbs to hang round the outside of the house and the trees to capture all the sunlight for the following weeks and months when the daylight got shorter, and then we'd hang the orbs back up on the winter solstice to release the sunlight on our shortest day as a symbol that the days would start getting longer again. It was kind of like decorating for Christmas hanging those orbs, watching the sunlight sparkle inside them like tiny fairy lights.'

She finished the orb and placed it to one side before starting another.

‘A lot of our celebrations involved swimming in one of the lochs, mostly naked.' Iris continued and smirked when Lynx cleared his throat. ‘There is nothing better than floating on top of the surface of the loch as the solstice sunrise comes up, bathing your skin in that rose gold of the first rays. We do the same at sunset too and under the moon for some of our celebrations.'

‘Sounds idyllic.'

‘We get a lot of peace from the water. We swim in the lochs, rivers or sea almost every day. Well, I did when I lived in Scotland. It's restorative. We have a stream at the back of our garden now, which is lovely for water bathing, but I'll need to find somewhere to swim soon enough.'

‘There's a couple of pools around the outer parts of the village. There are several streams that run through the village and also little lagoons or pools created by them. If you go to the far end of our road and keep going across the grass towards the trees there's a pool there just before you go into the woods. And the opposite side, that way, out the back of Holly Lane, you'll come to the woods quite quickly but you keep following the path through the woods and you'll come to a little waterfall and a freshwater pool there. It's one of my favourite places actually. I'll take you there. Most people here don't go beyond the main village and shops but the woods are lovely and very secluded as they are still within the private village boundaries. The pool is in a little glade, it's very beautiful. I love to swim there.'

‘Naked?' she teased him.

‘Well yes. But if we swim together, I promise to keep my clothes on. Well, some of them.'

‘We'll swim together?'

‘If that's OK? Or I can just stand awkwardly on the side and watch you swim in my favourite swim spot.'

‘No, of course you can swim with me.'

Why did the idea of swimming together suddenly feel even more intimate than what they were doing here? Swimming and water bathing were such huge, important parts of Iris's life, and she'd never shared them with anyone beyond her family. Though she hadn't even swam with them since she was a kid, she preferred the peace of being alone. And it wasn't the potential nudity that made it intimate, she could easily keep her clothes on or swim in a bikini or swimsuit. It was sharing such a big part of her.

Lynx must have heard the hesitation in her voice.

‘It's fine, I can show you where it is and leave you to it. If swimming is a private thing for you, I wouldn't want to intrude.'

‘It's not a private thing. I've just always swam alone. I've never found someone I'd want to go swimming with or that would like to go swimming with me. A lot of people shy away from open water swimming, especially in Scotland where it gets very cold.'

‘I get that. But I've always loved outdoor swimming. And I understand what it feels like to just enjoy that peace and silence. If you want, we can enjoy it together. But there's no pressure.'

‘No, I'd like that.'

‘OK. We'll go, maybe tomorrow?'

She nodded, trying to ignore the flutter of her heart at that thought. It didn't mean anything, it was just a swim. She decided to change the subject.

‘How do you celebrate the solstice?'

‘Well, it's a festival of the sun, we get up in the morning and watch the sunrise. Many witches go to significant places around the country like Stonehenge. On the morning of the solstice the sun rises exactly behind the Heel Stone, outside the main circle, and the sunlight is directed straight to the heart of the circle. We have something like that here, not standing stones that have been there for thousands of years, but the fountain in the village green. It was built in the exact right place to capture the sun's rays when it appears over the hills on the morning of the summer solstice. For a few minutes it reflects off the water coming from the potion bottles in the fountain and into the cauldron so it looks like a golden potion. One of our most popular gold potions is the one for happiness, so we believe that if the fountain sparkles with gold on the morning of the solstice then the village will have happiness for the rest of the year.'

‘I like that.'

‘Then we spend the day celebrating. There's always music, dancing and singing on the green and lots of food to eat. Some people prefer to celebrate with their own families, so not all the villagers will celebrate together and that's OK. We light a bonfire in the evening as the sun sets. Some people will write their wishes or resolutions for the year ahead on bits of papers, then throw them into the fire and the smoke releases their wish or goal so it can come true. When the fire starts to go out some people jump over it to bring them luck in love. Couples will often jump over it together.'

Iris smiled. ‘I love the sound of a community celebration. We've never done anything like that. We've never been part of a community of witches or kelpies.'

‘I do love that part of village life. There's a lot of nosy, interfering people here and everyone knows everything about everyone, but I do love how they all come together. And if you end up staying here, for good, you'll be able to get involved in the eight village celebrations that take place throughout the year.'

She smiled at that but then frowned. ‘The plan was never to stay.'

‘I know, but plans change.'

‘Home is Scotland, it's the lochs, river and hills, it's the farmhouse where I've lived for almost my entire life. It's the memories and familiarity I have there. I like it here in Midnight but I'm struggling with the idea of leaving my home. Despite what I saw yesterday, I love my farmhouse too much.'

Lynx was silent for a moment. ‘Despite what you saw?'

Iris cursed softly.

‘You… saw yourself here in the future?' Lynx asked. ‘Is that what made you run out of my house with such speed yesterday – because you didn't like what you saw of your future?'

She shook her head. ‘I didn't run because I didn't like what I saw. I've never seen my own future before, that's not something I can do so that was a big shock in itself, never mind the content of the premonition.'

He was silent again.

‘But yesterday, you said you saw my future. But now you're saying you've seen your future too.'

‘I didn't see my future. I saw yours.'

‘And you were part of it?'

‘Yes. But it's not as straightforward as that. As I said before, what I see is only one possible future.'

‘But one of the futures that's possible is us, together, here?'

The orb she was in the middle of making flopped uselessly around the spark and melted in a pool of slush. She quickly dropped it on the floor. What could she say? She didn't want to lie but saying yes almost felt like a lie too because what if what she'd seen never happened?

‘Lynx, I can't tell you what I saw, because then it might become a self-fulfilling prophecy. You'll make it happen because it's been foretold, rather than it happening naturally because you want it to happen.'

He was silent and she didn't know whether he agreed with that or not.

‘That's fair, I suppose,' Lynx said eventually. ‘Can you at least tell me if we're friends in the future you've seen?'

She turned to look at him. ‘The very best of friends.'

His smile spread across his face. Why was he so calm about this? She'd all but told him they were together in the future and he was just taking it in his stride.

‘I have one more question and I promise not to ask anything else, but this one is the most important. Is your future a happy one?' Lynx asked.

She felt touched by that. He didn't want to know if he was happy or rich or successful, which most people would ask when faced with a premonition of their future. He wanted to know if she was happy in his future.

‘Yeah it is, I seem ridiculously happy. Like I said, it's not that I don't want that future, it's just I'm battling with seeing everything laid out in front of me as if I no longer have a choice. I want to feel like it happens organically, not just because I've seen it.'

‘I understand that. So it's not that you don't want it, it's more that you want to get used to the idea?'

‘Yes, and feel like I'm still in control of my own life.'

He nodded. ‘I get it. There's no rush to make that future come true, whatever it is. But if in some far-off distant future we do end up together, married or whatever, it doesn't have to be here. Or at the least we can spend half our time here and half our time in Scotland. Scotland is your roots, your heritage, it's who you are. I'd never want to take that away from you.'

She smiled, warming to him even more. ‘I like that idea. If we get together.'

‘Yeah of course.'

‘I still haven't decided whether I like you.'

He grinned. ‘I'll have to work on that.'

‘You do that.'