Kit and Tully | Love or Music?

11 - Celtic Festival

Lunasa is the date we pick to wake Aonghus. Once, there were four major festivals that marked the four cycles of the Celtic calendar. Nowadays, the only one that's well-known is Halloween, the beginning of the half-year of dark, when the nights draw in and the days grow cold. But the feast of Lunasa lingers in parts of Ireland and is celebrated on August 1st.

 It's Spike's suggestion because, according to local lore, Lunasa was supposed to be a time when the gods were well-disposed towards humanity and open to being asked favours. In the past, people would have begged the gods for a plentiful harvest and enough food to survive the long winter months. We have just three days to get ready.

"We should wear flowers, bring a picnic and play music," I say. "After all, Aonghus was the god of music."

"He was also the god of lovers," Spike adds, a malicious gleam in his eyes.

Tully's gaze lingers wistfully on me but I ignore his silent plea. Even though I'm growing fond of him, he's no Mac Whitehead.

"We'll have to get Len to come, so you and him can be the lovers," Spike says to Felice.

She rolls her eyes. "We can't really ask Len without inviting Mac too."

I glance away, not wanting any of them to notice how thrilled I am at this suggestion. In such a small group, I'll have a golden opportunity for Mac to notice me. My body still burns at the memory of his strong hands on my waist when he picked me up and threw me in the sea just after we first met.

Since then, there's been nothing.

This is the chance to change that.

10 pm August 1st (3 days later)

As darkness falls, the van pulls up on Felice's driveway, and it's a surprise when all of Black Death spill out of it, even Baz and Jenna.

"Wow, this is some gaff," Mac looks around him in appreciation. It strikes me this is the real reason he's come, not to wake Aonghus, but to check out Felice's house.

"Yeah, it's cool!" A pair of long legs in strappy silver heels and a head of blonde hair emerge from the van.

My heart bellyflops straight to my stomach as all my hopes of having Mac Whitehead to myself tonight crumble to dust.

Felice leads everyone into the kitchen where we assemble the picnic on Axel's granite counter-tops. It's not just me who's in bad form. The band scowl at each other as they unpack beer and crisps in sullen silence.

Jenna comes over to help me load a basket with sandwiches. She keeps her head bent to hide her red-rimmed eyes. There must have been yet another massive row about the ongoing issue of Baz.

As an offering to Aonghus, Felice has filled another basket with fruit and I raided my mother's garden for flowers this morning. The girls are going to wear them. At the time I thought that would just be me and Felice. So much for the best laid plans. 

My blood boils as I watch Mac adorn his date with my mother's finest roses. I'd imagined staring into his icy blue eyes, exactly as she's doing now, as he selected a perfect stem and placed it delicately behind my ear.

At last we're ready to go. It was meant to be a pilgrimage across the field, laden down with picnic baskets and musical instruments, but Mac's date can't hike in her heels. So the band pile into the van and the rest of us climb into Tully's car and we drive around by the road.

It's close to midnight when we arrive, but the sky is clear and the moon is bright. The passage grave is our place but we've never been there this late.