She was right. If Carman knew Aileen was here, she would alter her plans to compensate, and we would lose the only advantage we had.
“Right, down to business then?” I asked.
“I’d love to have more time with you, but magical apocalypses and all.”
“Maybe after, we could…” I shrugged.
“We’re goin’ to kick her witch ass,” Aileen declared. “But we have to have a plan.”
“Any ideas? Because that stabbing in the dark thing…”
“We need to lure her here.”
“What?” I shot to my feet, the chair almost falling over. “You do know if she gets to the hawthorn, it’s game over. Kaput.” I dragged my finger across my neck. “Curtains for the Crescents!”
“We can’t leave Derrydun, Skye. Without anyone guardin’ the hawthorn, everyone will be in danger.”
“What’s stopping her from breaking into any of the hundreds of hawthorn trees over Ireland, anyway?”
“They’re all sealed.”
“I know that but why ours? It’s where the spell was cast, wasn’t it?”
Aileen nodded. “Crescent spell, Crescent hawthorn. We’ve got the master key flowin’ in our veins. The network has to originate from somewhere, and it’s that tree out in the forest.”
“Then we have to lure Carman here and not fail. Easy…not.”
I had no idea how we were going to do that. I hoped Aileen had some aces up her sleeve because my suggestion was to troll Carman on Facebook. Somehow, I didn’t think the thousand-year-old witch had a profile.
“If we take out Carman, the rest will fall,” she added.
My mouth dropped open. “So the fae who follow her, her sons, her power…”
“It’s all linked to her.”
“That makes things a little easier.”
“She’ll be heavily guarded…and warded, so no. Not so easy.”
“And Boone?”
Aileen ignored me, which signaled the answer wasn’t a good one, crossed the kitchen and peered out the window. “We have another problem to deal with first.”
“We have more problems?” I wailed.
“I can’t go out there,” she stated, pointing to the outside world. “They’ll think I’m a zombie.”
“You’ll have to come out of the closet eventually,” I said. “You can’t hide in here the rest of your life. I should call Mairead.”
“Mairead? What about Mairead?”
“Uh…” I’d left that part out, too, about the kidnapping and the disclosure.
“Skye…”
“I, uh… There was an incident with a talisman and a van with tinted windows, a kidnapping, and Mairead dropped out of Trinity. Then there was a thing with her managing Irish Moon and wanting to be an artist. Oh! And her parents disowned her, so she lived with me for a while, then they made up, and she put barcodes on all the stuff in the shop, and here we are.” I picked up the frozen pizza. “Hungry?”
“Skye!” Aileen exclaimed. “In all my life…”
I winced. “Am I grounded?”
Chapter 16
I raced out of the cottage, acting a sight more spritely than I was feeling. I was running on fumes, fueled by adrenaline, powered by life or death. I leaped over the garden bed, commando rolled over the low stone fence, fell on my ass, and then catapulted toward the main street like I was competing in the Olympics.
Rounding the corner, I weaved around a startled Father O’Donegal, who shook his fist at me as I went, hurdled over a pile of donkey poop, then landed on the doormat in front of Irish Moon like a long jumper landing in a sandpit. New world record! Someone play the national anthem!
“Mairead!” I shrieked, barging into the shop.
“Give it a rest,” the Goth girl grumbled, emerging from underneath the counter.
“What are you doing under there?”
“I’m hungover.”
Skipping the lecture on the dangers of binge drinking and brain cells, I grasped her shoulders and shook. Her head flopped back and forth, and her scowl deepened.
“What part of hungover didn’t you understand?” she declared, swatting my hands away.
“I’ve got news!” I chortled. “Big news! Humungous, ginormous, elephant-sized news!” I flung my arms wide.
“Are you on drugs?”
“Am I…” I pouted and turned my face to the side. “Why, I never!”
She rolled her eyes and blew a strand of hair off her face. “All right, all right, spit it out.”
“Close the shop, and go to the cottage,” I said. “There’s a surprise waiting for you there.”
“A surprise?”
“Don’t get too excited. There’s a lot to do!”
“A lot of what?” Mairead’s frown deepened. “Better not be work.”
“It’s time,” I said mysteriously.
“Time?” Her expression began to change as understanding dawned. “You mean?”
“Yep.” I nodded. “We’ve got a plan, but it’s going to take everything we’ve got.”
“What plan? Who’s we?”
I snatched a calico bag off the shelf and began tipping crystals into it. Points, tumbled stones, agate slices, geodes. You name it, it went in.
“Hey! I’ve got to scan those!” Mairead exclaimed squirming. “You’ll ruin the system!”
“Here,” I said, thrusting the heavy bag at her. “Take these to the cottage. Aileen will explain the rest.”
“Aileen? But… Skye, are you sure you’re not…”
“I’m not high!” I exclaimed. “Go, Mairead. We haven’t got much time to prepare. We’re going to lure that bitch Carman here and end her for good.”
“But—”
“Go!” I thrust my finger toward the door.
“What about—”
“Mairead!”
“Fine!” She rushed out of the shop and disappeared.
That girl was about to get the shock of her life. Hmm… I should’ve packed a defibrillator.
Taking her lead, I followed her outside, though I had another errand to run before I could make it back home to help Aileen with the crystals. Locking the door behind me, I sprinted across the street to the teahouse.
Mary Donnelly was the biggest gossip in Derrydun. If there were such a thing as an emergency phone tree in this place, she would be right at the top like a star on a Christmas tree. One word from her and the whole village would mobilize.
“Good mornin’, Skye,” the little old lady said as I barged in. “What’s ticklin’ your nether regions this mornin’?”
When she held up a bucket, I grimaced.
“That was one time!” I exclaimed.
“Can’t take any chances, dear,” she replied. “My back isn’t what it used to be.”
Taking it from her, I hugged the plastic against my chest, more to appease her than to catch any wayward spew. It was slightly humiliating, but not as awkward as things were going to get.
“I’m calling the banners,” I declared.
“The what?” She blinked at me, the reference going straight over her head.
“It’s a Game of Thrones reference.”
“A Game of who?”
“A Game of…” I clucked my tongue. “I’ll lend you the boxed set. Right now, I’m calling a village meeting. Tell everyone.”
“A village meetin’? The last time we had one of those was when…” She trailed off, looking troubled.
“When my family was burned alive?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Why, I wasn’t goin’ to say it so bluntly,” Mary said with a huff.
“Can you do it?”
“Call the banners?” Mary asked with a quizzical look. “What’s so important? You’ve been actin’ really strange lately.”
“No, I haven’t!”
“Well, ever since Boone—”
“I’m going to stop you right there,” I declared holding out my hand. “This is very important. The life or death kind. It involves the who
le village, so if you’ll humor me, pick up the phone and start ding-a-linging.”
Mary tilted her head to the side and clucked her tongue. Picking up a pair of tongs, she lifted the glass lid off the cookie display and retrieved a double chocolate chip, slipped it into a paper bag, and thrust it at me.
“Eat up, dear. A little sugar will have you feelin’ better in no time.”
I wasn’t about to argue over a free chocolate cookie, so I took the bag and pointed to the phone. “Remember. Life or death.”
I didn’t look back as I ran from the shop, darted across the road without looking, and crossed the garden out the front of the cottage. I was hardly feeling the cold anymore, and the added sunshine warmed my back and shoulders as I raced across the village.
The talisman factory was in full swing by the time I barged into the lounge room.
The first and second steps in our ‘make it up as we went along’ plan were in action, but if no one turned up at Molly McCreedy’s tonight, I wasn’t sure what we would do. The flare our magic was sending up while we charged all these crystals was epic. It was a giant neon sign in the shape of a middle finger Crescent salute aimed right at Carman, and the first piece of bait on the lure. Yet more evidence my barrier had been a pathetic fart in the wind.
Aileen and Mairead were sitting on the floor when I walked in, and there was a mountain of crystals piled on the coffee table.
“I’m still worried she’s goin’ to eat my brains,” the Goth girl said, glancing up from her notebook. She’d been scrawling down barcode numbers so she could update the computer later. Talk about obsessive.
“Unless you’re a lamb, I wouldn’t worry about it,” Aileen quipped, closing her fingers around a little spike of clear quartz.
“Gross.”
“I’m glad to see you too, Mairead.”
A smile crept across Mairead’s black lipstick-stained lips. “Me, too.”
“How did it go with Mary?” Aileen asked me.
“She gave me a cookie and sent me on my way, is what she did,” I complained, sitting on the floor.
“She would’ve picked up the phone the moment you left,” Aileen replied. “Mary Donnelly is a busybody, who lives for scandal. Don’t let her blue rinse fool you.”
“So we can count on the whole village being there tonight?”
Mairead blew a raspberry and rolled her eyes. “Duh. Nothin’ else happens around here.”
“But a magical cataclysm?” I raised my eyebrows as I reached for a crystal, adding my magic to the mix. “How can we ask them to fight with us?”
“Don’t underestimate the Irish,” Aileen declared.
“If only we had a few more athames.” I glanced at the dagger on the coffee table, studying the silver and gold hilt. Crescent moons wove an intricate pattern, signifying that it was a Crescent Witch heirloom. It had worked wonders on that craglorn. Stick it in and poof!
Wow. That didn’t sound dirty at all.
“We’re doin’ what we can,” Aileen said. “Anythin’ more would be too much risk to our Legacy. We need our strength.”
“When do you think she’ll come?” Mairead asked.
“It’s difficult to say. Tomorrow, the day after, next week… She might call our bluff, and all this would’ve been for nothin’.”
“Will Boone be with her?”
“Err…” I glanced at my mother, my stomach becoming unsettled for the millionth time in the last day.
Aileen nodded. “Most likely.”
“But you said…” the girl started to wail.
“I know what I said. Skye’s go it covered.” She glanced at me pointedly.
Aileen hadn’t said it in as many words, but if Boone was linked to Carman and she fell, then he would go down with her. Unless I did something to get him back.
“Yeah,” I said, focusing on the crystal in my palm. “Covered from head to foot.” Liar.
Aileen threaded her fingers through Fergus’s donkey’s mane and sighed.
She was right about Mary Donnelly. From the mass of people chattering inside, the Derrydun phone tree worked a treat. Gossip really was the currency of getting people together in this town. Unless the gossip was about me, then it was another story. Curiosity had won out yet again!
“This shouldn’t be hard at all,” Aileen said, showing the first sliver of uneasiness she’d felt since coming back from the dead. Or clawing her way out of the earth, or whatever it was she’d done.
“It’s weird more than anything,” I quipped, holding the bag of talismans against my stomach, which was still tender despite the midge cream. “Are you ready for the collective gasp?”
“Oh, let’s get it over with.” Aileen strode forward and wrenched the door open, leaving me to scramble behind her. “Rip it off like a sticky plaster.”
“What’s a sticky plaster?” I called out after her, but it wasn’t really the time to question the cultural differences of what was obviously another name for a Band-Aid.
The moment we stepped into the pub, all eyes turned toward us, and there was a simultaneous intake of air. It was so silent I could’ve heard Fergus’s notorious ‘silent and deadly’ farts Maggie always complained about. Then a glass smashed on the floor.
“Ô mo dhia!” someone exclaimed.
“It’s a ghost!” someone else shouted.
“What the cac is goin’ on?” Roy demanded.
“Surprise!” I said lamely.
“There’s a gas leak,” Aoife said, pressing her palm against her forehead. “We’re all high as kites.”
“So… One, we’re witches,” I said, holding up a finger. “Two, we need your help with this one little thing…” I held up another finger, promptly turning red when I realized I was flipping off the entire pub. “Three, Aileen has resurrected herself!”
“As you can see, I’m very much alive,” Aileen said, addressing the assembled villagers. “I had an unfortunate tussle with a spriggan who drowned me in the earth, but I found my way back. It was all quite unexpected.”
“A twiggan?” Roy asked, his brow furrowing.
“Spriggan,” she corrected. “A fae whose true form is a tree.”
“You expect us to believe you were attacked by a tree?” Sean exclaimed,
“Oh, shut your pie hole,” Aileen said, glaring at him. “I see you haven’t changed.”
“Twiggan,” I said with a giggle. “I’ll have to remember that one.”
“I always said you were a witch,” Sean McKinnon declared. “Felt it in me bones.”
“The only thing you’ve ever felt in your bones is the stench of whiskey,” Maggie said clipping him around the ear. “Don’t be an eejit.”
“If they say they’re witches, they ought to prove it,” he went on, rubbing the side of his head.
He had a point, but there was a glaring indicator standing right next to me, too.
“Is it safe?” I asked Aileen, uneasy about using my magic away from the hawthorn even though there was one outside in spitting distance. Not to mention our production line that afternoon. What if it didn’t gel with the plan?
“That’s convenient,” Sean exclaimed. “When it comes to the crunch—”
“Aileen has come back from the dead,” Mary Donnelly said, cutting him off with a stern glare. “I think that’s proof enough.”
“She could’ve faked it,” he muttered.
“Where’s Boone?” someone asked.
“Yeah,” Sean added. “Where is he, Skye?”
“He went back to where he came from,” I replied. “He’s with his mother.”
Heads turned and started to murmur among themselves.
“His mother?” Roy asked. “He never talked about any mother afore.”
I glanced at Aileen, who smiled before turning toward the villagers. “When Bone came to us, he’d lost his memory,” she explained. “I found him in the forest and took him in.”
“He had amnesia?” Sean asked, scratching his head. “But…”
br /> “Boone is like us,” I said. “Like me and Aileen but much more.”
“Boone is a witch?” Maggie asked. “Are you sure?”
“Boone is a shapeshifter,” Aileen went on. “When I found him, he’d been in the shape of a gyrfalcon, but his main shape is a fox. Lately, he’s been able to shift into a wolf.”
Roy’s mouth fell open. “That fox!” he exclaimed, banging his fist on the table. “There was a fox runnin’ around the top fields when he went missin’ that time. You’re sayin’ that was him?”
I nodded. “Yep.”
“I’ll tan his backside!” the farmer yelled, his face reddening.
“This is all very outlandish,” Mary said. “What’s this have to do with anythin’?”
I turned to Aileen. “Shall you do the honors, or shall I?”
“You’re the head of the Crescents,” my mother replied. “This is your story now.”
“That’s a total cop-out,” I complained. “I hate public speaking.”
“So do I,” she quipped, sitting beside Aoife, who promptly pinched her.
Typical.
Taking a deep breath, I began. “Once upon a time…”
I told them about the Crescent Witches and how they’d sealed the way between Ireland and the fae realm a thousand years before. I told them about Carman’s lust for power and what would happen to the world if she opened the way. I told them the story of the Nightshade Witches and how they conspired to kill the family I’d never had the chance to know, how Lucy had deceived and kidnapped me, and I told of their punishment. I told them everything I knew about Boone’s predicament, his brothers, and his true parentage. I told them about the true power of the hawthorns and the spirits who lived inside them. And I told them about the craglorn and the fae that’d stolen Alex’s face.
I told them everything, leaving nothing out. Well, except for the naughty bits.
Finally, I explained what we needed to do to save magic and Ireland from the power Carman wanted to unleash.
I was well aware everyone was staring at me with their mouths hanging open, half in a state of disbelief and the other in shock. The whole thing was outlandish and dramatic, much like a supernatural soap opera. Asking them to believe and then fight beside a couple of smart-mouthed witches was probably a step too far, but we’d run out of options.