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“I’ve got to see this place,” said Sun. “Is there time before class?” It was established that there was not. “Do you think you had a mystical experience?” she asked us.
We both shrugged.
“Sacrificing virgins and devil worship?” said Simone with a sneer.
Sadie laughed from further up the table.
Sun was informatively cross. “The devil is actually a Christian construct. These sites predate male-dominated society and religion, so it’s far more likely to have been created by people who honoured a female deity. There are rites still performed today where a woman can embody the spirit of the Goddess. It’s extremely empowering.”
“Is it? Phi?” Justin clicked his fingers in front of my face, causing more giggly laughter. “Feeling empowered, are we?”
“Yeah, you know…” I stretched out my arms and observed Simone leaning in towards Aleks. “I feel very Zen. I see how things are, and it’s all okay.”
“You’re definitely in an altered state,” said Sun. “How are you feeling, Will?”
“Dunno really.”
“Eloquent as ever,” noted Justin.
Holly sat down with a large platter of toast for us all and surveyed Simone and Aleks. “Some folks is cosy, anyway,” she said.
But that wasn’t right, and I actually felt a stab of something empathetic for Simone.
“Phi,” continued Holly, turning to me. “I’ve bin meaning to speak to you aboot Ross.”
“Oh?”
“He’d be a right good lad for ye…” So began the sermon on Ross’s eligibility. He was a nice boy, only twenty-three, and would inherit the farm which was big and profitable. He could also boast being down-to-earth, had no airs and graces—
“An unsophisticated man of the soil?” interjected Justin. “Now, that does appeal.”
“I can just see you as a farmer’s wife,” said Simone.
“No,” I told Holly. “No,” I repeated, pointing a stern finger, sensing part two of the Ross parade about to begin.
“Go on, Phi,” advised Justin. “You might get a ride in a tractor, a roll in the hay; checked shirts, big boots, a stable…”
“Don’t project your fantasies onto me, Bevan,” I said. “I’m going for a shower.”
Will got up too, but Michelle accosted us before we reached the door.
“Miss Treadwell, I need a word about your timetable. The contemporary teacher starts next week, and two of the lessons coincide with your individual tuition from Aleks.”
“I’m no longer having that, the individual tuition.” It was hard to concentrate on mundane matters. I wanted to think about sparkling snow and tall stones and the sun.
Aleks whipped round on the bench. “Why you say this?”
“There wasn’t any this last week,” I noted. “And Simone told me she was having those sessions instead of me now.”
“That’s not exactly what I said, Amalphia,” replied Simone with a light laugh.
“It is exactly what you said. You instead of me, things better now we’re here, remember?”
Michelle intervened. “You’re still down for them, but you can’t do contemporary also as the teacher wants participants to do all of her classes. What’s it to be?”
“Contemporary,” I said at once to her satisfaction, but not Aleks’s.
He followed us into the foyer and demanded to speak with me. Will wandered over to the stairs while Aleks and I went a little way into the kitchen passage.
