It was too much—the vision, the memories, the present rushing back in, and blunt realisation of things he should have known all along. On his knees, Michael threw up.

  Nat was there, crouching beside him. ‘Take it easy, Mikey. What happened?’

  Toby kept his distance, pacing. ‘We don’t have time for this. They aren’t here.’

  Nat rubbed Michael’s back, like he would have done when they were fifteen and he’d drunk too much cider, taking the piss out of him as he chucked his guts up. There were no jokes now, only concern. ‘Mikey?’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Michael wiped his mouth.

  ‘Tell you what, mate?’ Nat said, but Michael knew he wasn’t playing dumb. He was coaxing, letting Michael come all the way. He had to do the work himself. Nat, nor anyone else, could say anything. Before, he wouldn’t have believed them anyway. It had always been thus, generation after endless generations, the cycle had to repeat itself.

  ‘It’s all true.’ Michael dragged his arse off the ground. The fairy circle wasn’t spinning anymore. ‘Where’s Sally?’ This he asked Toby, who looked off in the direction the white doe had fled before the woodland spun Michael into his revelation.

  ‘Not bloody here, like our kids. We need to get going.’

  ‘Wait a second, Tobes...’ Nat put a hand on Michael’s arm steadying him.

  ‘Oh right, wait for our Lord and saviour to remember his arse from his elbow.’

  ‘It’s alright, Toby, I do remember.’

  ‘Brilliant, he’s remembered! Fan-fucking-tastic! Well, that’s alright then, isn’t it? Michael fucking-Lorimer to the bollocking rescue. We’re saved. ’cept you’ve not told your boy a dickybird about the crossing, have you? No, ‘cos you’ve this second recalled. And your Sam is off with my Tink. And things aren’t normal this time, are they? Otherwise, you would have been back months, maybe years, ago. Not that you’ve had to worry about any of that. Blissfully, un-fucking-aware. That’s the luck of the Lorimer’s, right there.’

  The wind had grown stronger, gusting through the trees, creating a deafening static of rustling leaves and creaking bows.

  Michael pulled out of Nat’s grip. He was steadier, the silt of reality settling back into the ordered sediments of time and place. ‘And what do you think we are doing, Toby?’

  ‘Pissing around waiting for you to find yourself, like always.’

  Michael felt his hackles rise. ‘I’m sorry. You’re not the one whose family gets screwed over every generation.’

  Toby took a step closer across the circle. ‘No, you’re right, Mikey. It’s just you. No one else has a price to pay for the deal your family made.’

  The forest shifted agitatedly around them. Septic clouds had infected the summer sky, turning it dark and noxious.

  ‘I didn’t ask to die for you.’ Mikey shouted to be heard over the wind.

  ‘Die for me? You arrogant wanker...’

  Nat moved between them. ‘Right, lads. No time for a lovers’ tiff.’

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  ‘Piss off, Nat!’ Toby put a hand on Nat’s chest and pushed him out of the way. Nat fell on his backside, shock travelling up from his tailbone to his face. The growing temper of storm whipped leaflitter into the air, and, shaken from their branches, leaves fell to earth in gyroscopic tailspins.

  Michael matched Toby’s aggression and pushed him back, two hands shoving in the middle of the big man’s chest. Toby rooted a foot behind himself. As he did, he grabbed Michael by his shirt collar. The rip of the top two buttons was lost beneath the wind’s howl. Toby cocked one of his fists. Michael did the same. Before they could launch their attacks, all three men froze and turned their heads at the snapping of a tree trunks. A wall of sand harried through the woods towards them, boiling over itself. It enveloped every tree and bush and finally the three arguing friends in a churn of filthy orange.

  Toby let go of Michael and they were both lost in the blinding cloud. Michael choked and shielded his eyes with this forearm. Tears bled down his face. Something knocked against his side. He tensed, ready to throw down on Toby. When a hand seized hold of his shoulder, he punched blindly.

  ‘Ow! Herne’s nuts! It’s me, Mikey!’ Nat cried out over the shrieking sandstorm. Michael stood down.

  Nat was a vague blur, tugging Michael closer and shouting. ‘Tobes, where are you?’

  Michael shouldn’t have been in the mood to find Toby but being engulfed by the sandstorm had reminded him of the consequences of his inattention. Sam knew nothing about this. He was out there defenceless, and on that, Michael could empathise with Toby. He’d only had Sam in his life a matter of days. Tink had been in Toby’s life from an extra blue line on a pregnancy test, then a bump in Sally’s belly and through to a helpless screaming bundle and two AM nappy changes. First crawl, first tottering steps and first words and all the rest. Layer upon layer of effort and every emotion. Forging a parental bond, like iron made strong by a thousand folds of struggle.

  ‘Toby,’ Nat screamed, turning this way and that. Groping forward, Michael joined in.

  ‘Toby, where are you?’

  Something big threw its arms around them. ‘Bloody Dunes! I’m here, you stupid gits. Can we go now?’ At last, his anger had deflated.

  ‘Good idea!’ Michael called.

  ‘Aw, that’s beautiful!’ Nat shouted.

  ‘Piss off!’ Michael said.

  ‘Sorry, can’t hear you, mate. Let’s go before you two start snogging.’

  They relied as much on the worn grooves of childhood memories of the woods as on reference points they could make out through the storm. The sky cracked and so did branches, crashing to the ground. Once they located a wide path, Toby led the way. They formed a chain, with heads down and hands on shoulders. They emerged on the road not far from the Land Rover.

  Michael pressed the keys into Toby’s hand. ‘Ma gave them to me. Said we should go on. She’ll catch up to us.’

  Toby hesitated.

  ‘You want to wait for her?’ Michael shouted.

  Toby shook his head. ‘No.’

  Nat banged the bonnet of the four-by-four. ‘Ladies, are we shifting our fannies or not?’

  They dived in. Toby started the engine and performed a U-turn. Full-beam, headlight diffused into hazy smudges, smeared onto the front grill.

  Toby hunched over the wheel. ‘Can’t see a thing.’

  There was a sickening snap, and, like the dismembered arm of a Nephilim, the mature bough of a tree crashed down in front of them. Toby slammed on the brakes, and they screeched to a halt. Nat, who was in the back without a belt, swore as he clattered into the cab. The branch lay across the road. Leaving the engine idling, they dismounted and together dragged the obstruction out of the way.

  Back on track, visibility was near zero. Toby weaved either side of the centre white line, and debris battered against the Land Rover. When they broke out of the woods and into Hernshore, it was no better.

  ‘What do we do if the kids aren’t at the ruins?’ Michael asked.

  ‘What do you think?’ Toby’s anger had been replaced by a hollow resignation. He took a cautious left and crept past Nat’s garage. There were people hurrying down the pavements and ducking into houses, struggling to close the doors against the wind and snatching curtains shut. A right turn and they were on Alaric’s Way. The hill rose gradually at first, before the incline became steep at the crumbling pillars marking the old gateway to the Lorimer’s ancestral seat. In truth, it had always been more of a keep than a full castle, with some additional stone out-buildings on top of the potbellied hill. It was now a ruin of scorched tumble-down walls. Michael had never known it as anything else. Lightning struck it when his father was working on his burgeoning movie career in America. With his memories and knowledge of Hernshore returned, Michael suspected the conflagration had been part of the magical tryst, luring his father home. It hurt that Tara’s death, and perhaps even his own mother, was part of that same magic trick that Herne played on the Lorimers, and Toby was right, it wasn’t just the Lorimers. The entire town was part of this and always had been. The storm was proof of that.

  In the old legend, when the Lorimers entered the dunes to trap Sugnar, it was the people of Herneshore who revolted against the evil Hardrada, his witch Nwyn, and their allies among the townsfolk. In an eternal recurrence, that same battle played out each crossing. However, for some reason, this time no one was prepared. Something had gone wrong. Michael thought of the black spider from his vision struggling to bind it all together, and the worms from Sally eating through her bindings. She was Fletcher’s daughter, a ‘snake’. That’s what they called them. The ancestors to the old allies to Hardrada and Sugnar. Was that the course of this? No, Michael thought, at least not that alone. It wasn’t as if his vision back when he was a teenager or now, as a grown man, made sense. He’d been afforded a glimpse of things no mortal had any business comprehending. But he was pretty sure he wasn’t caught in a giant cosmic spider’s web of fate, that was simply how his mind attempted to make sense of it.

  Toby shifted down the gears. The Land Rover growled as they climbed the hill. Cresting the rise, they rose above the sandstorm. The ruins lay waiting like a gang of old men wearing moss-speckled cloaks, huddled around a fire.

  They weren’t alone. A pair of headlights glared at them through the preternaturally early dusk. Toby stopped and pulled on the handbrake. Lightning guttered. Thunder rumbled a second later. They exited the vehicle and slammed the doors, shielding their eyes from the light. Between the two beams of the tractor stood Ma Tunstall, brandishing a shovel.

  ‘Where in the bloody dunes have you three been?’