Chapter 11

The joy of living alone was that you didn't have anyone to worry about you and you didn't have to worry about anyone else. There were downsides to this. She had called the inn as soon as she got phone reception on her way back down, to apologise for not letting them know about the room, in case they had been worried about her. They hadn't even realised she wasn't there. So much for help coming out to her on the moors.

No one had realised she'd spent the night out there. She could have been found three days later wandering the moors lost and completely out of her wits. Or even dead, like Belle in the story. As she had been saved from all this by a tall, dark, handsome and devilish stranger though, she could just slip down to her back kitchen door, slide in and put the kettle on as normal.

‘Where do you think you've been?'

The aggrieved voice of Peggy greeted her as she made her way through the wildflowers which brushed their damp heads against her hands. Peggy had been peering through the kitchen window and now stood legs akimbo and hands planted on ample hips.

Flora was torn between being glad someone had missed her after all and being annoyed that they were angry with her after her ordeal.

‘I've been lost on the moor in the middle of last night's storm' she said sharply. ‘I was cold, wet, miserable and could have died.'

Peggy didn't change her expression.

‘What sort of idiot goes out on the moor when a storm is threatening?' she asked with what seemed like genuine curiosity.

‘An idiot who has lived in a town all her life and isn't used to country ways. When we're out walking and there's a storm we pop into the nearest cafe or catch a bus home. That kind of idiot.'

‘You acknowledge you were an idiot then? When you said you could have died, it was very close to the truth. There's not much shelter out there.'

Peggy nodded at the door during this speech expecting Flora to open it. On their short acquaintance, she had come to realise that Peggy either kept ominously quiet or told the whole blunt and unvarnished truth.

Flora unlocked the door then rooted in a box that was on the table, coming out with a kettle, two cups, tea bags and powdered milk, the last of which Peggy turned her nose up at. This was the emergency box with essentials she had brought in the car.

After a few minutes of silence while she made the tea – Peggy didn't speak as she seemed to be waiting for an answer to her question - Flora pushed the steaming black tea across to her.

‘I was too preoccupied with what I was going to do with the cottage, the business, my life... I do have a lot on my mind you know? I hadn't looked at the weather forecast. What's more, because I was deep in thought, I hadn't read the signs. I hadn't felt the wind change or the feeling in the air. I hadn't seen the sky turning slowly to a forbidding…

‘And you can usually read the signs?' Peggy seemed more animated.

‘I – well, yes. I think so. I like the weather changes. I take an interest in it. Maybe it's because it's Yorkshire and further up north that it took me by surprise this time. Anyway, yes Peggy, I was an idiot and I won't be doing it again in a hurry, not without reading the signs anyway.'

Peggy let a smile flit across her face. Flora looked her in the eye.

‘Did you miss me then? I didn't know you cared.'

She gave the older woman a sweetly innocent smile. Peggy tutted.

‘I called at the inn but you weren't there. Mary thought you might be at home but your car is still in the car park. I had to trust to Nature that you would be safe. I certainly wasn't going to roam on the moors looking for you' she paused. ‘So did you find shelter then?'

‘I did eventually. At the farmhouse with Culhain's fairy demon rider and his terrible, ferocious hound. After thinking at first that I would rather face a slow death on the moors, than the temper of the rider and his horse, I found them all agreeable. In the end, I managed to calm down both the horse and the dog.'

‘You did?'

‘Yes. Sybil said that I had the gift when she left my parent's house when I was seven. It's the thing I remember most about her visit. Next door's uncontrollable dog snapped, snarled and barked at everyone as usual, when we went out into the front garden to see her off. Yet it loved me and wagged its tail when I went over to stroke it. Sybil was very impressed. She asked if I was like that with people too.'

‘Mmm. And are you?'

‘Not as much but I'd like to think I can empathise with people when they need me to. Anyway, he let me sleep in his bed for the night.'

Peggy had a straight face but there was a slight shift of her right eyebrow.

‘He wasn't in it at the time' Flora laughed, ‘he was in the kitchen sleeping on the comfy chair. ‘

‘The folklore man who wants to write about the Witches of Farstone?' Peggy asked in a slightly dismissive tone.

‘Yes, He's a little eccentric perhaps.' Flora answered, aware that possibly most of the village folk she had met so far could be described as such.

‘You don't believe in witches then?'

Peggy grunted as she eased her aching knees into a standing position and waited for her answer.

‘The modern-day concept? Yes. There are women today who do a similar thing to what I intend to do. They heal, they read the signs in situations, they believe there is more to this world than we can see - and they work with Nature. So if they are witches, yes, I believe in them. If you want to give them' she stopped ‘–us, I suppose, a label. I imagine Sybil was a healer but in that case, she could be called a witch too. Cal said she was called the Wildflower Witch around here.'

Peggy allowed a smile to reach her eyes.

‘She was. Cal?' she asked, ‘On familiar terms then?'

‘Well, after you've slept in his bed you feel almost obliged to find out his first name' she winked.

The wheeze of a laugh came from Peggy. Flora was beginning to recognise her little idiosyncrasies.

‘Come around when you're ready, if you have any questions about Sybil. And it wasn't really your fault, the storm was sudden and wasn't forecast, which is curious… Anyway, I'm very glad you didn't expire on the moors' she smiled.

Flora grinned back.

‘I might have done if I hadn't come across the stones on the hill above the farmhouse first.'

‘ Stones?' Peggy stopped abruptly and turned, overbalancing slightly as Flora put a hand out to steady her.

‘Yes, they gave a bit of shelter because they had a large stone balanced across the top of two others. I tried to get dry but I was already too wet. Then I saw the farmhouse when the lightning flashed again, thank goodness.'

Peggy frowned.

‘Stones in the middle of the moor?'

‘Yes, I know it sounds weird and I couldn't see exactly where they were when I left this morning. They were like, you know, that stone structure at Stonehenge that looks like a huge door. This was much smaller but…'

Flora stopped talking and watched, puzzled as Peggy moved down the grass driveway without another word.

*

Peggy burst into the bookshop and went up to the startled figure behind the counter.

‘Jennet, get hold of Bianca. We have to call a gathering at the Folly. Flora found the Fae portal and we have to discuss what this means'