published-work – Penny Reilly Artist Beyond the Gate

The story that began the journey into my book, Scraps and Wild Gatherings, of the same name was published in 2017. It was a year or so in the writing and spoke through my love of my country of origin’s mythology and also of the diversity and mystery that abounds in the wildwoods.

Soon there will be a page here dedicated to short stories and book tempters for everyone to enjoy, who signs up for my website mailing list. I’ll also let everyone know of special prices and deals in all the sales channels… but I digress… here for you is Scraps and Wild Gatherings, copyright of course, to moi… a tale of the Wild God who is said to manifest in times of great need for both people and planet… enjoy… and may it bring you a different awareness to ponder on…

Scraps and Wild Gatherings…

A male form stepped silently from the autumn-toned woods. His clothes, of faded brown and mossy green, rustled like their crunchy counterparts underfoot. Taking time to brush himself down, he looked nonetheless, dishevelled for his efforts. Running his hands through thick chestnut hair that dreadlocked easily, his fingers snagged on tiny objects caught in the tangled strands, fragile offerings from his woodland kin.

He journeyed, simply journeyed, fast, manifesting in the lives of people whose tales he heard on the restless wind. Cerne was a traveller, but on occasion, he heard a cry that tugged at him so hard, he had to follow the call. There was no gainsaying it.

He could sense The Lady as she moved about her business in the wood. Her presence meant he was not alone in his endeavours. It was close to Lughnasadh and an almost full super-moon hung in the velvet night sky, a pale balloon. A pond shimmered in the glow. Mist drifted over it, making the pond a cauldron of light. His thoughts stirred it to movement. Tendrils crept across the ground, white fingers seeking. He felt The Lady again as she stirred his innermost places. Her hand caressed his cheek and pulled his hair. “Her Other. Her One,” her whispered words, the susurration of birds’ wings, brushing past him with her love.

His boots squeaked on the frosted ground. Autumn leaves, pellucid, frozen, ice-droplets winked in the moonlight.

As he broke cover, a dog howled in greeting, not in fear, for he was their Lord. He whispered soothing words and the hound fell quiet. Other creatures stirred. He spoke in his mind to each in turn. Another followed him. Never far from his side at this time of year, his hound, Argentea, his fur, silver to match the fading moon, wobbling in her descent, on the edge of the world, before plunging, elegantly downward, to shine elsewhere on another landscape. Dawn lifted the mist, suckling at it, pulling it across the icy landscape. Below in the valley, wisps of smoke rose from the old farmhouse nestled there.

A young woman shifted in her bed …he felt her pain in inflamed joints and eased them, drawing a Sigel of healing with long brown hands. An older woman, one he knew well, stirred in her sleep. She coughed… he whispered a soothing rhyme to her, one she knew from childhood, whilst pulling thick ropes of mucus from her throat and chest. She smiled and, sighing in relief, slept on.

Grace Ludlow, walked the light-dappled woods. Late flowering wild violet and crocus added subtle fragrance to woody aromas of leaf-mulch and pine needles. Bright toadstools grew in circles under the canopy of ancient trees. Her sharp eyes noticed one of them had a single, tiny bite from its edge. Poor creature who’d nibbled… it would be a nasty death. She sighed at the thought, realising she sighed a lot lately. Brushing against a towering Oak released the heady scent of Oak Moss, which brought back in a rush the memory of her grandmother’s favourite, earthy perfume. She shut off the thought… a metal door slamming in her head.

Rain pattered on the crisp leaves underfoot. Those still clinging stubbornly in the canopy above, began to fall in shifting, coloured swirls as she walked toward home, creating for a second a shrouded form, before they floated to the ground.

Reaching the gate between herb garden and orchard, she breathed the thin, cold air, easing and stretching her slender frame from left to right. Pain spread like fire through her back, down her legs. She was used to pain and it was a sure sign summer was over. Autumn’s chilly damp crept into her bones and joints during the night. She’d had rheumatic fever as a child, had overcome much to combat the pain arthritis delivered, the anxiety that accompanied it and sworn it would never get her down for more than a heartbeat. Grace knew it would change nothing to mourn a, so-called, normal life, for normal she was, the gardens surrounding her, testimony to that.

She paused to lean on the gate, listening to the wind and the sudden lull in the chorus of birds. It felt chill and there was a sense of something impending …mysterious, unknowable. Although she giggled at her own fancy, she knew there was much that lay beyond the veil, unseen. Turning her head slowly, she made out the definite shape of a man standing on the edge of the Wood, watching her keenly, his features hidden with the light behind him. He appeared and vanished again in seconds, leaving Grace with a vague feeling of unease mixed with a leap of energy akin to sexual arousal. She felt her cheeks redden and heard a deep-bellied laugh from the Oak Grove.

Perturbed but not afraid, she went indoors to light the lamps, close the curtains and stoke the fire. A longing to know overcame her, tinged with regret at his departure and the fear he might sneak up and peer into her windows. Although she shuddered, it was anticipatory. Goodness, what am I thinking? He could be one of the travellers, or a vagrant …he could …he might …she didn’t finish, blushing again at her own thoughts.

Dusk plunged into night, taking no time to linger. Clouds scudded across the face of the rising harvest moon. Grace slipped outside again, to haul in enough firewood for the night and early morning, closing the shutters over the kitchen windows, against the cold. It was the room she lived in most, warm and cheery, her favourite, ratty old chair pulled close to the hearth where she could watch a movie on her laptop or play music until she dozed off.

Slouch, her fat mouser, huge and gnarly as old cats become, would join her, sidling up, before burrowing into the cushions beside her until he literally slouched in the seat, almost pushing her off. He’d been her grandmother’s cat originally but when Grace arrived on the scene, he deserted his long-time companion and followed Grace everywhere. Brought to the farm with the idea he would be an outside cat to keep the mice at bay, Slouch had other ideas, refusing to sleep in the barn, choosing the chair on the hearth, with great disdain.

His name originated from his low slung, slouching gait. Short legged, his belly almost brushed the ground as he slouched along. He was the cause of much amusement between Grace and her grandmother, Meredith, as they worked the garden together or strolled the land, wildcrafting from the bounty of the West-Midlands landscape. His passion was catnip, and the resulting euphoria he displayed, falling over or rolling on his back, tipsy, was a common and hilarious sight.

Grace discovered her passion for gardening, working side by side with Meredith, who taught her the ways of nature in more than the simple growing of pretty plants, including how to look carefully to see what a plant needed, when to trim or feed, when they were sick. There was a more magickal side to Meredith’s teachings too, little snippets of old lore that barely had names to describe them. Meredith simply called it The Old Ways, clamming up whenever Grace asked what she meant by this.

“Soon, you’ll be ready… soon enough,” she said enigmatically.

Soon after, Meredith’s health began to fail, slow to recover after a tenacious virus laid her low for months. Suddenly, an urgency dwelt behind her words as she shared the most intriguing plant lore training imaginable.

“Every plant has its own identity,” her grandmother said, “their Signature, each an individual as each person. Nothing is ever wasted, nothing left to chance.” Meredith encouraged Grace to witness the natural world in new ways, but then slipped away in her sleep just a few months later, leaving Grace her quaint old farmhouse, with its cherished gardens and orchard.

Orphaned as a child, Grace had been unaware there was any of her immediate blood-line left. One day, by chance, she walked through a farmer’s market in the pretty village of Padarn, set amongst rolling hills, when she heard someone shout her name.

“Grace, Gracie, is that you?” a melodious voice called. Turning around, she came face to face with an older version of herself and knew instinctively, this was her maternal grandmother. Meredith insisted, with an air of quiet mystery, Grace call her by her given name and would not be led to explain more than…

“Names have power, a resonation, a note in the melody of all things. They must be used with respect. Titles are just that, labels, which is why, in my day, we weren’t allowed to call our elders by their first name

Meredith, not keen to let her out of her sight any time soon, took Grace by the arm as if it were the most natural thing in the world, leading her to the little corner cafe on the green, declaring, “My treat.” They sat and talked away the years since Grace’s parents died, as if they’d never been.

There were no suspicious circumstances leading to their deaths, just a freak accident. Perhaps an animal ran in front of them causing them to swerve off the road into the tree, Meredith speculated. Under the instructions in their will, Grace was sent to live with close friends of her parents. Her only known relative, Aunt Kaye, her mother’s sister, was a traveller, with no intention of limiting her activities by taking on a child barely in her teens, omitting to mention, Grace’s grandmother was alive and lived in Padarn, simply because the family were estranged.

Margaret and Ian Glover took her in and were not unkind, just somewhat, emotionally removed. Being childless, business people, they had little knowledge of how to raise a growing girl, other than to give her the best education they could afford. It helped that Grace’s parents hadn’t left her penniless.

Her guardians were, however, alarmed at Grace’s reluctance to enter the world of academia. She had a leaning toward natural science and alternative thought. Mythology in literature fascinated her, and she battled against their suspicion of anything less than scientific data, unless it was anthropological, or at least, said with pained mien, historically factual. They feared even more for her sanity when she showed an interest in the oldest pagan traditions. Grace dared not argue that it was anthropology.

“We always knew your parents were” they said, sotto voiced, “…ahem, a little strange.” as though someone might overhear and arrest Grace for her interest.

Smart at seventeen, and with no intention of upsetting the people her parents had chosen as guardians, she appeared to confine her interests to things they could never fault. Grace was a sweet-natured girl, showing little of the pain and turmoil going on behind her lovely face. She believed unfalteringly, someone else in her family was alive somewhere but just couldn’t be found, which further sparked her interest in alternative, ancient philosophies that gave credence to an afterlife and the importance of ancestry. Covertly, she studied meditation, the power of intuition and psychic phenomena, secretly wondering about the otherworldly things that so intrigued her.

When Meredith came into her life, she was just at an age to begin making important choices for her future. She dreamed, on occasion, of a voice, calling her by name, but when she looked around in her dreamscape, no one was there. One night, the recurring dream altered. At the edge of sight, the periphery of vision that forces one to turn quickly, yet fears to see, a figure stood hidden in the shadow of great trees. It brought her rapidly awake, her heart pumping.

On the day Meredith called out to her, she had been overwhelmed by a sense of Deja-vu. The voice, the scene, even the scent of the market square, the trolley of blooms the flower-seller wheeled by, were etched in her memory from that dream.

Sadly, they had only seven, shared years, but there was a lifetime of love and learning packed into them. Now, at twenty-four, Grace had a life only dreamed of, despite at times her own physical limitations and, more recently, Meredith’s absence, which left a gaping void in her belly, almost akin to feelings of constant hunger. Burrowing deep into her studies, helped distract Grace from sadness. Nothing alleviated the pain of loss except her love of the land, which led to a journal of daily thoughts on the seasons, as nature’s wheel turned. This became a regular blog, spinning off to become poetic studies about country living, done simply. She took courses in horticulture and viticulture, in foods that heal and the ancient art of herbs for tinctures and tonic wines. Her skills with food became somewhat legendary after she added a professional cooking course to her résumé. From this, her idea grew to set up a small business using her own produce, manufacturing herbal wines, cooking homegrown foods in a restaurant that had a wine-tasting area adjoining.

All she needed now was an original business name.

Grace cycled from town one morning after visiting the post office, parcels balanced precariously in the basket at the front. She’d put up a notice for a strong pair of hands to help with the heavier work. As she peddled along the drive, a strange, yet familiar figure, stepped from the trees, bringing with him the warmth of a summer’s day in his eyes, despite the current chill of autumn. He was accompanied by a huge hound, who took an immediate liking to Grace. Worried the dog would knock her off balance, the stranger whispered to his four-pawed friend in an unfamiliar tongue. On Grace asking what language it was, he replied, “It’s a Fae tongue, Argentea understands,” he said with a wry grin, his words alluding to the intelligence in the giant hound’s eyes. Her curiosity quickened, but before Grace could ask what he meant, he continued, “I’ve come about the advertised work?”

“But I only just posted it on the community notice board a half hour ago. How do you know of it?”

“I keep my ear to the ground,” he replied. “I have strong hands.” He held out lean, long-fingered hands for her inspection, “and a strong back too,” quoting her ad, verbatim. “What do you need done? I need only board and lodging. The barn will do, for I’m used to sleeping beneath the stars.” His grin was mischievous. “So, what can I do for you?”

Grace stuttered her reply. “We …ell, the vines need weeding around the base and feeding. Some may even be ready to harvest; it’s come early this year after all the rain. Do you know about plants then or are you more a handyman?”

“I’m handy, Grace,” he grinned again, summing up her trim figure in a glance, “and I know much about plants. I’ll just stash my stuff in the barn,” he indicated the bag on his shoulder, which looked like a music case, “then take a look at those vines for you, will I?” and strolled away.

Grace could have sworn his clothing took on the colours of bright green leaves and his hair a tangle, like matted roots. A rush of warmth hit her cheeks, flushing them a tender pink. The blush didn’t stop there, flowing down her body in a liquid rush of longing. She recalled the similar energy she’d felt only nights before, then realised she’d not asked his name. “It’s Cerne,” he called from the barn, “Lleu Cerne.”

“How did you…?” She called out, but unwilling to engage, she walked away to continue her work in the herb garden. Lleu …he must be Welsh or Cornish, she thought.

Slouch appeared from beneath the barrow she’d left in readiness, winding his way between her legs and generally making it difficult for her to work. When she pushed him away, he simply jumped onto the wicking bed she was weeding and butted her face with his knobbly head. Climbing up her back when she rebuked him, caused Grace, to almost fall headlong into the mulch. Hands grasped her shoulders, pulling her back firmly. She struggled, but they were warm and strong and again, a surge of delicious energy coursed through her body and she found herself leaning back into his broad chest. He turned her around to face him. “Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes on hers, as blue as the flowering rosemary she tended.

“Yes, thank you.” A frown formed creases between her eyebrows. Reaching out, Lleu smoothed them away with a touch. Pain, which she normally felt keenly at any jolt or jar, eased away as if by magic. “Who are you?”

His smile was kind. He exuded the warm scent of moss and loam. “I’m a traveller. I go where I’m needed, for a while at least, before the Mother calls me.”

“I don’t understand. You talk in riddles. Your dog is like a silver-grey wolf and you smell wonderful.”

He roared with laughter at the horrified look on her face. “Oh no! Did I say that aloud?”

“Aye you did, but there’s no harm done, for you smell like the rosemary you love, and the sweet scent of hay.”

They studied each other a while longer. “Will you come to dinner this evening?” Grace asked, tentatively.

“Why, you’d invite me in?” His mischievous smile broadened but there was no sense of any ulterior motive behind them.

“Yes.” Grace said, simply.

“Then yes, Grace. I’ll be there at dusk.”

Grace spent time on her appearance that afternoon. Meanwhile a pot of soup simmered on the hob and cornbread baked in the oven. It had been a long while since she’d felt female and lovely, she mused as she dressed in her favourite amethyst-coloured skirt and white peasant blouse. She knew she wasn’t ugly by any means, but shy and a little stiff with strangers… the local men thought her a little prickly. Lleu brought out another side to her she’d not felt before. A languorous heat, spread through her body when he was near. It made her movements slower, graceful, as she groomed and readied herself as if he were already her lover.

Promptly, as dusk hazed the windswept autumn skies, Lleu arrived on her doorstep, a bunch of wild orchids in one hand, an unusual bottle in the other. Across his back was slung the bag he’d taken to the barn. Seeing her stare at it, he said, “My pipes, they go everywhere with me.”

She took the proffered flowers and leather bottle from him. It felt ice cold as if from a refrigerator.

“I had it in the stream for a while and the water is cold and clear. I found the flowers on the bank as I was chatting with an Otter.”

She wrinkled her forehead at his words. “You say the strangest things,” as, laughing and shaking her head, she opened the door wide in silent invitation.

“You have to say the words, Gracie,” he said. His tone deepened, becoming serious.

Not sure what to think, she playfully took his hand, ignoring the rush of energy and heat that took hold of her. “Lleu Cerne, your name sounds like a Swiss Canton. Please, come in.”

Slouch, eyed Argentea balefully from the chair on the hearth. A peel of laughter came from the garden. Meredith’s laughter, Grace thought.

He poured the amber liquid from the ancient leather bottle with great care. It glowed amber, in the sparkling, crystal glasses, Grace had set ready. Cerne looked at her as if assessing how much he should give her. Grace busied herself with the platter of fresh grapes from her vines, dried and fresh elderberries and cheese, as soft as butter, from her sheep. All would go well with the seed crackers she’d baked that morning.

It was as if he belonged, for now at least, in her kitchen. He walked the floor, stirred the soup, sniffing with unconstrained delight, at the earthy aroma of early squash, potato and herbs simmering in the leaf-green pot.

“Please, sit. Eat,” she said, indicating the platter.

He nibbled a grape as if it were the first he’d tasted, whispering words over the food in blessing.

“You’re Pagan then?” Grace asked.

“Oh indeed,” he laughed, as if holding a mystery to himself. “I am that, but I don’t take well to putting labels on m’self.” His words rolled off his tongue in a soft burr.

When Grace stood to bring the food, he put a hand on her arm. “Allow me to serve you. Are not the words to the rite of food serving, let the Priestess be seated while the Priest serves?”

She smiled up at him, an open sunny smile and a little more pain-etched grief eased away. She remembered the rites Meredith taught her and the words he spoke, remaining seated while he served the steaming soup and broke the corn bread with his lean brown hands.

Before sitting, he raised her to her feet, handing a glass of the amber liquid to her. A tiny knife appeared in his hand from out his layered clothing. For a moment, Grace saw the blade glint. Lleu, ignoring her startled look, handed it to her, handle first. He knelt at her feet, holding up the glass that, for a moment, appeared as a clay chalice, wreathed with vine leaves. Words remembered, flowed. She plunged the tip of the knife into the liquid, stirring three times. “As the Athame is male,” she chanted, “and the cup is female,” he intoned, “conjoined they bring blessedness,” Grace sang, her voice clear and bright, “and oneness in truth,” finished Lleu, his eyes not leaving her face, as she took the first sip and then, hesitantly, kissed his proffered lips. If there had been music, it would have paled into insignificance at the sound she heard as their lips touched, of wind in cornfields and rustling leaves. If the sun were shining, it could not have brought the flush of heat to her body or the melting sensation in her belly.

He steadied her with a hand on her shoulder as he took the glass from her nerveless fingers, taking a sip himself. “Well that’s done it,” he said, his eyes not leaving her face. They ate in silence. Grace thought the liquid he poured tasted of honey and salt combined, of the finest wine and the simplest sweet grape, of sunshine and ozone, on her tongue. Her own simple soup was pungent with herbs of earth and moss.

When they’d eaten, Lleu led her to her favourite chair by the hearth and, pulling up a stool at her feet, began to play. His Uilleann pipes, skirled in sweet, haunting tones, a music that brought tears to her eyes in joy and grief combined.

Drifting with the music, Grace walked again with Meredith through the orchard, she’d lovingly tended. Talking to the trees as friends who understood, together they planted younger trees. They pruned ancient apple, pear, plum and cherry. They later grafted young, vigorous stock, from new trees to failing elders, feeding them liberally with manure from chickens and goats.

It was the sound of the kettle whistling that brought Grace back to herself. Only one lamp remained lit, the kitchen was clean and tidy and the bottle of amber liquid in its leather bottle, sat on the kitchen table next to the orchids, in a chalice of autumn-coloured leaves that wound around the stem and into the cup. There was no sign of Lleu, and Grace knew he was gone. He left her a longing to know more and a warmth in her bones, where pain no longer dwelt.

Wood baskets were filled, dishes done and the whole room, shone with a glow not of this world. Argentea, his silver-grey hound, lay on the hearth. He raised his huge head to regard her through eyes the colour of Lleu’s wine, before laying it on her feet. A throw, the colours of all the seasons combined, was across her lap, soft and delicate yet warm. She knew it held stories and she would find her way through their weavings as time passed. She looked closely at the colours of autumn, seeing corn and wheat in golden yellow and green. A figure ran free through the woven landscape.

“Lughnasadh Night…” she whispered, “Lleu or Lugh,” She sighed. “It’s the night of sacrifice.”

With more strength in her limbs than she’d had in a long time, Grace climbed the stairs to bed. Argentea followed on her heels and settled himself comfortably on one side of her bed. “Are you staying with me then?” She swore the hound grinned, as Slouch moved from his chair and curled on the bed next to him.

She undressed in candlelight, not wanting to spoil the glow in the house or the feeling it engendered. Argentea groaned as she slipped into bed next to him. He settled, his head in her lap. Dreams were rich and full-bodied, of wine and food, peat and oak-moss, indistinguishable from the taste of Lleu’s lips on hers. Sensations overwhelmed, lean hands moved over her, full, warm lips drank from her liquid places, leaving her trembling and spent. “Well that’s done it.” Lleu said in her mind before he filled her anew with his life force.

On the anniversary of Meredith’s death, Grace worked in the orchard, her fingers busy checking that old and new trees thrived. She felt Meredith close, hearing her voice clearly…

“Gracie, when I taught you about Magick, it was to instil in you the awareness to truly experience life. You have an innate love of all things natural, but if you’re not aware in the present moment, much is missed. When you work, or sit in nature, are you undistracted? Do you drink it in with all your senses or just one or two? Can you say you breathe leaves, taste their odour, colour, essence? Do you realise when you shed hair and skin, moisture droplets as you sneeze or laugh, so do the trees and every other creature that inhabits your world? Spiders and microscopic mites teem, leaving little particles of themselves everywhere. A tree sheds leaf, bark fragments, twig, branch and seedpod; drops of water and sap from their woody skins fall, just as the cells, known for a while as Meredith or Grace, fly off to become something else. As you breathe, you breathe their essence in minute particles. In turn, they, yours. How can you then say you are separate, that you have no knowledge of one another? The trick is to remember what it is to be tree, animal, bug or bird …in fact, all things. Part of you already does have memory of it. Its own Signature.

Gracie, the past is done; let me go. I’m still here in the wind, the trees …everywhere. Look to your future with joy. Find healing in the Magick that is you, for I …why, I’m still made of all those scraps and wild-gatherings.”

Grace whooped aloud at this. “That’s it, the business name! Scraps and Wild Gatherings.”

Laughter echoed. Trees shook in wild mirth. Leaves brushed her cheek… gentle fingers of memory.

Grace moved with ease through the dawn light. It was spring and wildflowers bloomed underfoot. She was careful not to trample them in passing, aware as she was of every scrap of being that fought for life each day, throughout the turning seasons. It was her birthday. Today, she was a quarter century old. A smile that never quite left her face, since her brief time with Lleu, deepened. She stepped onto the path that led to the village.

That was how Luke Kernow first saw Grace Ludlow. Argentea, at her side, greeted him with a low, cautionary growl. He walked the lane toward the farm restaurant he’d heard needed strong hands to help in the garden and kitchens. Scraps and Wild Gatherings, he loved the sound of it. He stepped back so as to appear in her line of sight without startling her. She was slender and what should have been fragility, showed as strength in the tilt of head and long-legged stride. Nut-brown hair, left to blow free, brushed her shoulders in curling skeins. She carried a basket and was obviously heading toward the village. His heart did a curious, flip-flopping thing; a salmon wriggling on a line came to mind. Is that how fast a man can be caught then?

For a second Grace hesitated, placing her hand on Argentea’s head as the man approached. Lleu? No, of course not, this man looked groomed and tidy in comparison. He was tall and lean, carried a backpack and a small grip in his hand. His stride was confident, even cocky, she thought …and yet. There was something about the eyes, a familiarity. They both stopped, taking each other’s measure.

Luke broke the silence, holding out his hand. “Hi, Luke Kernow. I’m looking for Scraps and Wild Gatherings. I heard there’s work to be had there.” His voice held the hint of Australia that flattened vowels and rolled words together. He was brown from the sun, his handshake, firm. His eyes, she saw, were the green of oceans before storms.

“Grace Ludlow,” Grace replied. “Well, looks like you’ve found what you’re looking for then!” He noticed, her eyes were almost violet in the growing light.

“Yes. Looks like I have.” His smile broad and cheeky, he bent to ruffle Argentea’s fur, letting him sniff at his hand. To his surprise and Grace’s, the hound rubbed against him.

From the woods, they both heard a deep-bellied laugh and watched as a young Stag bound away.

Exchanging startled looks, Grace turned back toward home. “Come on then, Luke Kernow. You want work, do you? What do you have to offer? The vines are close to bud burst and I need help in the preserving room and kitchen.”

“I’m handy, Grace,” he grinned, summing up her trim figure in a glance, “and, I know much about plants.” They reached the farm and he nodded to the barn. “I’ll just stash my stuff in there for now,” he indicated the bag on his shoulder, which for a moment looked like a music case, “then take a look at those vines for you, will I? He strolled away, humming in a rich baritone. “Oh, if you need a musician to entertain, I’m your man.”

“Well, first things first,” she called to him. “There’s someone else come to meet you and he’s the toughest to please.”

A large cat slouched along toward him, sniffed his boot, much as a dog would and, without a backward glance, jumped onto the stone wall to sit, washing his backside. “So that’s a yes then?” Luke’s laugh was rich and deep.

“Well, that’s done it.” Grace whispered.

“Blessed Imbolg, Gracie,” came the reply from everywhere.

Walk softly… dream a little… Awen /|\