Fire: Chapter Twenty-Two

A WITCH OF MY OWN

Michael gaped at Shannon. She waited in silence for the other shoe to drop.

"You're a what?!" he asked, as though he had misheard her, but then continued. "You mean like this: 'She's a witch! Burn her! Burn!' " Michael
broke into his "ignorant peasant" voice from the scene they had done earlier that day.

In spite of herself, Shannon snorted and burst out laughing."Well, not quite like that, I hope, not these days anyway!" she said,
giggling.

Michael grinned broadly. "I think I've heard of this - it's called Wicca, right? Gardner and the Golden Dawn, all that... am I right?" He looked
intensely interested and definitely not angry. Shannon allowed herself a tiny sigh of relief.

"Yes, sort of - although my family has been Craft for centuries - we're not hippy wannabes from Masonic backgrounds..."

Michael smirked and started to bounce in his seat. "Just wait until I tell Terry about this," he said, suddenly quite animated. "I'm engaged to a bona fide inheritor of the Old Religion! A witch of the blood!" He leaned forward and looked at Shannon earnestly, speaking with an excited edge to his voice. "Do you have any concept of how long we've been looking for you?!"

Shannon was a little baffled. "Um...sorry, but what do you mean - looking for us?"

Michael jumped up, and started talking rapidly, gesturing with his hands like a Frenchman. "Terry and I - we're historians at heart, you know - when we were studying anthropology, we had to read Murray, Fraser, do the research, you know - and we always said to each other, after reading reams and reams of material - that there has to be somewhere, still, a surviving thread of original, hereditary bloodline..."

Much as Shannon loved to hear Michael's stream of consciousness, she had no choice but to interrupt him."Michael....MICHAEL!!" she yelled. He gaped at her, his mouth hanging open in mid-sentence.

"Sorry!" he said, sheepishly.

"You know that you can't make a documentary about me!" she said, firmly but with a touch of amusement in her voice.

Michael's face fell. "Oh, bugger," he said, obviously disappointed.

"But," Shannon continued, "I do have another idea, if you're agreeable...?"

Michael brightened. "Anything - as long as it doesn't involve goat's blood or headless chickens...."

"No, that's Satanism and Voodoo."

"I know. I was testing you."

Shannon poked Michael in the ribs and he yelped.

"I was thinking about our wedding...and obviously we'll have a Church of England service, but I'd really like to have a traditional Craft
handfasting.... that is, if you don't object..."

Michael grinned from ear to ear. Shannon thought he was going to burst. "Oh my God! That's allowed? I mean, if I'm not.... one of you?"

Shannon nodded. "As long as you agree to respect our ways, and as I am a practising priestess of hereditary Craft, yes, it's allowed." Shannon couldn't resist adding "And Terry can even film it, if he likes."

That was too much for Michael. He grabbed Shannon by the waist and swung her around the tiny, cramped trailer.

"Did I tell you today, that I love you?"

Shannon smirked. "Maybe!" she replied.

"Well I do. And thank God we wrapped that witch-burning scene already because I don't think I could have gone through with it now!"

They fell about laughing, tickling each other and knocking over most of Terry's carefully stacked books. "Jones is going to kill me," laughed
Michael. "But I don't care."

Suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks and looked at Shannon, with a deadly serious look on his face, but Shannon could tell he was trying not to laugh by the way he was biting his lip and frowning. "Hey," he said. "Did you put a spell on me?"

Shannon pouted. "No... sorry. Do you want me to?"

Michael didn't need to reply. He slid his arms around Shannon's waist and kissed her hungrily, leaving her breathless and wanting more. "My very own witch..." he murmured.

"Michael...I think you're quite the weaver of magic yourself..." Shannon breathed, as he laid her down on the couch in the tiny trailer.

They kissed for a long time, like teenagers in a parent's caravan, sneaking their hands up inside each other's clothes and touching, keeping as quiet as possible, undoing buttons and zips and stroking, kissing, pushing against each other, fully clothed yet utterly undone, hands and fingers and lips taking them higher and wanting deeper until their secret touching could no longer hold back and they came in the other's hand, moaning low and shuddering against each other, holding each other tight as their orgasms subsided and they were washed into the ocean of sleep.