Chapter 1
1258 Words
ONE
LOWER QUINTON, WARWICKSHIRE, 2021 AD
Liffi Wyther, neo-pagan and handbound bride of Jake Conley, paced past the tall lead-latticed casement windows of the lounge. An impartial observer might be excused for thinking the couple lacked for nothing. Jake’s vision of a Red Horse Theme Park had proved so successful that tourists and day-trippers had flocked in such numbers that it topped the charts of most-visited attraction in the UK. His role as development manager had provided them with this Grade II listed building for their sumptuous home. He had the ear of important government ministers and drove around in his customised Porsche. Yet all was not well.
Lips pinched, hands held behind her back, gripping her wrist, Liffi’s stiff posture and clenched tilted jaw were studied posturing. She meant to bring her issues to a head. When she turned at the end of another short span of pacing, Jake finally snapped.
“For Heaven’s sake, Liffi, what’s the matter with you?”
“With me? Do you even care, Jake Conley?”
With a glint of satisfaction in her eye, she saw that she’d captured his attention as effectively as if she’d given his face a stinging slap.
He rose from his armchair, where he seemed to have taken root. “Care? Of course, I do. I love you, corn head!”
He’d begun teasing her with this appellation since she’d had her hair done in boxer braids. She said it made her look like a shieldmaiden and affirmed her pagan beliefs. Although he teased her, he liked her new tight-braided bad-a*s image.
“Strange way of showing it,” she said. “You’re just like all the rest! If you think I’m going to stay at home and do your washing and ironing whilst you turn your b****y dragonfly sanctuary—”
“Oh, so that’s what this is about! Let’s get one thing clear, when you agreed to marry me, I didn’t impose—”
“Clear? Do you know the meaning of the word, Jake?”
He dipped his chin and his chest caved.
“First of all, I didn’t agree to anything. We didn’t marry. We were handbound by a cunning woman, because we were meant to be together. But not like this!”
He paled and shook his head. “How then? Don’t you like our home? What is it you want, Liffi?”
“I love our home. It’s not that. I want my life back. Is that so hard for you to understand, Jake? I thought when we got bound, you’d come on my journey.”
“What journey? What are you talking about?”
“That’s just it, Jake. You have no idea, do you?”
He fiddled with the cuffs of his shirt, then pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut.
“No? I thought not. Have you made any effort to understand how I feel?”
He looked longingly at the door and sighed. “Dammit, Liffi, you know how busy I’ve been making a success of the Theme Park, and it’s thanks to my efforts—” He waved a hand around the room.
“I know. It’s not that I’m ungrateful, Jake. It’s all lovely, but I won’t become a dogsbody, a shadow of myself, for the sake of a house, dammit!”
“It’s more than a house…” He caught the steel in her blue eyes, “You mentioned a journey.” He sat in the armchair he’d made his own and folded his arms across his chest. “Tell me what you mean.”
She faced him by shifting a footstool. Her eyes softened and held his gaze. Then she tipped her head back for a moment, closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
“My journey? How well do you really know my beliefs? I’m going to spell them out for you before I tell you about my idea. I need you, Jake, if I’m going to set out on that path.” Her gaze fixed his again.
He didn’t have the slightest notion of what she was talking about, but he wanted to please her. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing her.
“You know I’ll do anything I can…”
She nodded and her lovely face brightened. “I know. But first, my beliefs. Remember the first time we met, Jake?” She smiled at the recollection.
“How could I ever forget?” He, too, grinned at the memory of their encounter in Warwick on an anti-fracking protest march.
“You told me the earth was sacred. That was what attracted me to you, apart from your bottom.”
“My bum? Seriously?”
“Seriously. For a pantheist like me, the world is sacred and imbued with a divine energy force permeating all life, you see. Your words touched the core of my being. I believe wights inhabit the landscape. They live unseen alongside us. Some are good. Others are evil, but each has its personality. I’m also a pagan and worship the old gods. This you know. But I have a particular devotion to Freya, especially after knowing you.”
“I suppose you’re convinced of the existence of elves, dwarves, and gnomes!” he sneered.
“Of course, I am! Also, I think our ancestral spirits are there to guide us through life.” She glared a challenge at him.
He looked down and scratched at the stubble at his jaw. When he looked back, his gaze was unfocused. The tugging at his earlobe provoked her.
“Jake, are you going to take me seriously, or what?”
“I am listening, honestly.”
“But are you understanding?”
“Liffi, it’s all a bit much for me. I’ve been brought up a Christian and to be a rational, logical thinker. I mean, elves? Really?”
“Just because you haven’t seen one doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Have you seen Jesus?”
“Well, no.”
She sat back and her lip curled. “Christianity is an alien faith, Jake. It’s fundamentally incompatible with the traditions of our Saxon forefathers. I don’t expect you to buy into my Heathenism immediately, but if we’re going to be together you could at least make some effort. Start by thinking through what the word heathen means. It’s the contemporary form of the Old English haeden, meaning one who lives in the country or on the heaths and in the woods. You’ve had tangible proof of the power of the gods, after all.”
He frowned. It was true. He couldn’t deny or explain some of the fortune that had inexplicably favoured him. He believed wholeheartedly in the Red Horse Curse, and he’d seen the cunning woman and benefitted from her powers.
“I promise I’ll sort my ideas out, Liffi. I’ll make a point of studying Heathenism. But for now, tell me what you want me to do.”
It worried him what she might say, but… in for a penny…
She fiddled with her braided pigtail and looked at him from under her brow.
“I told you I had a special devotion for Freya, so I’d like to build a temple where I could worship her. Once it was up, I’d gather kindred around me and we’d perform rites together.”
Jake tried to hide his astonishment and pushed the flood of objections to the back of his mind, but still one of them surfaced.
“What rites? You won’t be sacrificing animals, will you?”
“Absolutely not! That’s primitive and cruel. If you keep your word, you’ll realise there are other ways to honour the gods.”
“I will, but you still haven’t told me what you want from me.”
“Jake, if you say you’ll help, I’ll go ahead with my idea.”
“Of course I’ll help.” He had a sinking feeling.
She seized on his apparently positive response by extracting a series of other promises involving domestic reorganisation. Liffi Wyther had no intention of being a timid little housewife, as she put it. She said she’d make all the arrangements for getting a housekeeper, while he could concentrate on his career, with the proviso that he studied Heathenism.
The pact was sealed with a passionate kiss.
- Writer
