“Yes, Mum,” I said with a smirk. “I was.”
“Shut up.” She made a face. “I was worried about you.”
“Smartassery is my way of coping,” I said, rounding the counter.
“Where did you go?”
“I just had some stuff to do,” I replied with a shrug.
“Magic stuff?” She gave me a pointed look.
Mairead was eighteen, a university drop out, had been disowned by her parents, had only one color in her wardrobe—if you could call black a color—and had been kidnapped by Carman’s henchmen. She had enough problems without me dragging her into this world deeper than she already was.
“Just needed to check an item off my to-do list.” I flinched internally, trying not to let it show on my face. It was such a callous way of describing the punishment I’d dished out on the Nightshade Witches. And here I was describing myself as the judge, jury, and executioner of all witches when I’d only had my magic unbound… When was it? Not even a year ago.
“What are you drawing?” I changed the subject, not wanting to dwell.
Mairead held up her sketchbook, and I smiled when I saw a rather rough pencil drawing of a fox. It looked rather good. All harsh lines and shading.
“It’s meant to be Boone,” she said. “I haven’t seen him you know, so I don’t know if he looks like that. I used me imagination.”
“It’s pretty good.”
“Really?”
“Uh-huh.” I nodded and ducked under the counter. Rummaging through the pile of papers and assorted junk, I found the deck of tarot cards all the way at the back. It had been so long since I’d drawn a card that the box felt unfamiliar in my hand.
“Do you think I’ll see him change?” she asked, picking up her pencil.
My frown deepened. Boone hadn’t shifted since the night of the ritual, and I wasn’t sure when he would. I couldn’t blame him for hesitating. Having your body practically explode into the shape of a wolf had to put a little fear into you.
“I don’t know,” I said, opening the box of tarot cards. “It’s not a pretty thing to look at. It’s quite painful for him, you know.”
“Oh…” Her cheeks flushed, and she began scratching her pencil across paper, gouging a deep dent into the page.
“Don’t worry about it. There isn’t exactly a handbook for these things.”
She didn’t reply, sinking deeper into her sketch.
Glancing out the window, I began shuffling the cards. The days were getting colder. Soon, the tourist season would be over, and the huge coaches packed with cashed-up holidaymakers would stop until March. I wondered what that would mean for Irish Moon. Should I reduce the opening hours or close for the winter? What would Aileen do?
“Hey,” I said. “What happens around here in winter?”
“We freeze our tits off,” Mairead replied sullenly.
“Stop being so sensitive,” I retorted. “I’m talking about the shop.”
“We’d close from Sunday to Tuesday. A couple of backpacker buses come sometimes, but not really. People usually stick to Dublin or Belfast.”
Shuffling the cards again, I thought about it. Trying to keep Irish Moon running and battle an ancient witch hell-bent on destroying magic so she could get to a parallel universe was a major juggling act. I wondered what the cards said about it.
I drew a black and gold rectangle from the center of the deck. Setting the card on the counter, I turned it over, revealing the image was upside down. In the center was a figure in armor with angel wings, sitting in a chariot pulled by two horses. The Chariot.
“Does it mean somethin’ different when it’s the wrong way around?” Mairead asked, peering over my shoulder.
“I guess so.”
Rounding the counter, I went over to the bookcase and scowled when I saw the section on tarot had disappeared. That was right. Mairead had rearranged yesterday.
“I can’t find anything anymore,” I complained. “What did you do?”
“Stop your sookin’. Tarot is to the left, halfway up. They sell better when they’re at eye height.”
“Are you sure you want to get into art? Visual merchandising could be a thing.”
“I’m sure it’s a thing, but I don’t want to do visual merchandising.”
I raised my eyebrows. “What’s this then?”
“Boredom.”
Rolling my eyes, I found the section on tarot and pulled out a book. I flipped through, studying the contents page. Not finding what I was looking for, I took down another and found a section on reversals.
“Great,” I muttered. “Back to front means doom and gloom.”
“A turned over horse and cart doesn’t sound good, anyway.”
Finding a page on the Chariot, I scanned the interpretation and mulled over it. Two stubborn forces going head-to-head. No one is prepared to back down and would go at it until the other fell.
Basically, it was game on. A fight to the death was looming, which wasn’t anything I didn’t already know, but now it was showing up in the cards. After all this time looming across the horizon, it was finally going to happen…and soon.
“What does it mean?” Mairead asked.
“Game on…”
Tossing the book away, I grabbed the laptop from the back room and fired it up.
“What are you doing?” Mairead asked, her sketchbook forgotten.
“Looking at the news,” I replied, setting the computer on the counter.
“Why?”
“Shh,” I hissed, scrolling through the Irish Times website. “Noo…”
Among all the stories about politics, complaining about politics, the latest social media craze, and assorted stories on new obscure research findings—boys twice as likely to cheat on exams—was a story on a strange crop blight.
That was how it began last time. At least, it did in the stories. Carman and her sons laid waste to Ireland, killing crops and spreading disease wherever they went.
Did I really have to die for the curse to be broken? Maybe my blood was enough. If that were the case, then Ireland was completely open for the taking. Carman could already be here!
“What’s the dirtiest word you know in Irish?” I asked, starting to walk anxious laps around the display of tumbled stones.
“Uh…”
“How do you say the f-word?”
“There isn’t really a way of sayin’ that in Irish… There is the c-word.”
“Even I get scandalized when someone says the c-word.” I fisted my hands in the tub of polished amethyst and tried to absorb the calming energy.
“You, scandalized?”
“The c-word is forbidden, Mairead! Forbidden!”
“You could say gabh transna ort fhéin.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Go…you know…yourself sideways. Pretty much, anyway.”
“Gabh transna… ort fhéin…” The words sounded strange on my tongue but were oddly satisfying to shout out. “Gabh transna ort fhéin!”
A blast of cold air buffeted me as the door opened, and I wrenched my hands from the tumbled stones, sending some clattering to the floor.
“I hope you’re not sayin’ that to me,” Boone said, wiping his boots on the mat.
“Thank goodness you’re here,” Mairead exclaimed, venturing out from behind the counter so she could scoop up the amethyst. “Skye’s gone insane.”
I snatched up the tarot card and shoved it at him. “Look!”
“The Chariot?”
“It’s upside down!” I said, flailing my arms.
“Skye says it’s doom and gloom,” Mairead said, her voice echoing from behind the display.
I raised my eyebrows and widened my eyes, nodding at Mairead. Boone made a face and took out his wallet.
“Here’s a fiver,” he said, handing Mairead the money. “Go over to Mary’s, and get a coffee or somethin’.”
“I’m not a kid, you know.” She pouted but snatched the money from his fi
ngers anyway.
“I know you’re not, but do you want to deal with that?” He gestured toward me.
“Hey!” I cried. “I’m standing right here!”
Mairead took my outburst as her cue to make a run for it. Bolting for the door, she pushed outside and hurtled across the street toward Mary’s Teahouse.
“Don’t be so hard on her. She just wants to be included,” Boone said, rubbing his palm up and down my arm.
“I know, but she’s human. She doesn’t have anything to protect herself with.”
“She handled herself just fine when…” He hesitated.
“She got lucky.” I picked up a piece of amethyst from the floor and tossed it back into the tub with the others. “The talisman protected her in the end, but it’s what got her kidnapped in the first place.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Everything.” Turning the laptop around, I pointed to the screen.
Boone narrowed his eyes and read the headline.
“A crop blight?” he asked, clearly not getting it.
“It’s Carman,” I said. “This was how it started last time. The crops failed all over Ireland, then people started getting sick.”
“There’s no way to link that to Carman,” he argued. “It’s just one crop. Besides, I stopped the ritual remember?”
I grimaced and fell silent.
“Skye…”
“Did you?” I asked. “Did you really stop it?”
Boone didn’t reply, but he started to look rather worried. He wasn’t sure, either.
“She’s not going to come straight at me,” I went on. “She’ll gather her strength, suck the magic out of everything she can get her hands on, and when she’s had her fill, she’ll come for the hawthorn.”
“The hawthorn in the forest?”
“That’s where it all started. That’s where my ancestors sealed the doorways. She’s coming here.”
“Maybe, but there’s no way of knowin’ this story is linked to Carman,” he said, pointing at the laptop. “There’s no way of knowin’ anythin’.”
“Then what about the Chariot?”
“I think you need to calm down,” he murmured. “I can feel you…”
I raised my eyebrows and felt the tension in my shoulders. Placing my hand on my stomach, I sensed my magic simmering just beneath the surface.
“Oh…” This instinctual business was wreaking havoc when my emotions went haywire. I hadn’t noticed it before, even when my monthly lady time came to visit, but my magic was growing every day. PMS was going to be a real barrel of craic.
Boone’s arms curled around me, and he pulled me against his chest. Holding me tightly, he soothed my anxiety until the golden light dulled.
“Can you keep cuddling me forever?” I asked. “Just like this?”
His chest rose as he breathed in deeply, and I nestled closer. What would I do without him? I’d be lost.
“We don’t know anythin’ for sure,” he said after a moment. “Worryin’ about things we can’t control won’t get us anywhere. We’ve got some time to figure it out.”
“The cards are warning us.”
“Aye. So we can be vigilant.”
“You’re so smart.”
Boone laughed, and it was a sweet sound to my ears. Despite all of his own problems—his amnesia, his crazy wolf shape, and his new magic-nullifying abilities—he still found it in himself to calm me down with his Yoda-esque wisdom.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“We’re goin’ through tough times,” Boone replied. “And I made a promise to you and Aileen. We may have lost her, but we’re still here. And while we’re still breathin’…”
“We keep fighting.”
“Aye.”
“Something Carman said is still bothering me,” I murmured.
“What?”
“It was like she expected to see someone else.”
She hasn’t come forth… I worried the words in my mind, trying to understand the meaning. Reincarnation? No, that was absurd even after all the weird things Boone and I had seen. Maybe she expected a link to the hawthorns? They had forced memories into my mind. It was possible Carman expected the tree to link me to the Crescent who’d cursed her and closed the way to the fae realm. I was the last of my coven. It stood to reason…but the hawthorn hadn’t linked me to anything.
“Maybe she expected to be facin’ Aileen.”
“Maybe…”
Peering over his shoulder, I caught sight of Mairead coming out of Mary’s with a paper bag in her hand. Those better be cookies…
“Are you feelin’ a bit better?” Boone asked, sensing her approach.
I nodded as he let me go. “For now. Will you come over tonight?”
“Aye,” he said. “I wanted to ask for your help.”
“With?”
He frowned and shrugged. “With me wolf shape…”
“Oh…” My heart twisted as the door opened.
“Is it safe?” Mairead called out. “I brought cookies. Chocolate ones.”
“Outta my way!” I exclaimed shoving Boone aside.
“You’ve got a real problem with sugar,” he said, shaking his head. “A real problem.”
Chapter 4
The memory of Boone’s wolf shape haunted my thoughts for the rest of the day.
The white and silver of his coat were beautiful, but his snapping jaws and burning eyes were a stark reminder of the beast hidden underneath the sweet Irishman I’d come to love. Who knew what kind of person he’d been before his memory had been taken?
It didn’t matter. Who he was now was more important to him than what he’d been before. Besides, a person’s core didn’t change when you took away their memories.
After locking up Irish Moon, Mairead went off to work on her painting, and I went over to Molly McCreedy’s.
I crossed the street, passing under the hawthorn tree as I went. Her branches tickled the top of my head, spreading warmth through my frosty fingers. Old Fergus’s donkey was tied up out the front of the pub, her nose in a feedbag. Her big brown eyes found mine as I approached, and her ears flicked forward.
“Hey, girl,” I murmured, rubbing the swirl of chestnut hair between her eyes. “Fergus doesn’t go anywhere without you, does he?”
The donkey lowered her head and resumed eating, the promise of food better value than talking to me. Leaving her to the bliss her oats were giving her, I pushed into the pub.
Maggie was pulling a beer when I approached the bar. Sitting on my usual stool, I peered out the back and saw Boone elbows deep in the sink, scrubbing a large cast-iron pot. With all the troubles we’d had lately, it was a rather normal thing to be doing. I hated doing the dishes, but it was strange how even the most mundane tasks had become cherished items on the to-do list in the wake of having my arms sliced from wrist to elbow.
Maggie let out a loud laugh at old Fergus, who’d told her one of his dirty jokes by the sounds of it. His Jack Russell terrier was sitting under his feet, curled up on the floorboards and never made a peep.
Thankfully, Sean McKinnon hadn’t arrived for his nightly vigil over a pint glass, so I was spared his smartass commentary. For tonight at least.
“Skye,” Maggie said, leaning against the bar when she was done. “Where’s your kid?”
I scowled. “She’s not my kid.”
“I’m just jokin’. Calm your farm. It’s a good thing what you’ve done for her.”
“Tell that to her parents.” I rolled my eyes. “I saw Beth at the Topaz yesterday, and she looked at me like I was possessed with the devil or something. I was surprised she didn’t cross herself before she ran away.”
“With a daughter like Mairead? I cannae believe it.” She clucked her tongue. “If Mairead wasn’t happy at Trinity, then she wasn’t happy. Best she finds out now than in three years when it’s time to start repayin’ the student loans.”
“That’s a good point.”
“Did you go
to university back in Australia?”
I nodded. “I did a Bachelor of Arts.”
Maggie laughed, her eyes sparkling. “The most useless degree in the world.”
“You don’t have to tell me that. Life works in mysterious ways. Mairead tells me she wants to be an artist.”
“Really?” The barmaid’s ears pricked up. “Is she any good? Maybe she can paint us a new portrait of Molly McCreedy.”
I glanced at the painting hanging over the open fireplace. “That one? It’s an original, isn’t it?”
“An original paint by numbers from the Internet.” Maggie winked.
I gasped dramatically. “Are you saying there’s no such thing as a Molly McCreedy?”
She tapped her nose. “Mum’s the word.”
“Nooo…”
“The tourists love the story,” she said. “The pub’s as old as the hills, but Molly McCreedy was just a name they made up. There was never any Molly. No one ever told you?”
“The whole village knows? Why didn’t anyone tell me!”
“Well, you were new even though your mam was Aileen. Then they probably figured Boone’d tell you.”
“I’m shattered. Absolutely shattered.”
Maggie nodded toward the taps of beer. “Can I get you somethin’ to drink to soothe your broken heart?”
“Nah. I’m waiting for Boone.”
“We’ll let him go in a few,” she said. “How’ve you been keepin’? You haven’t been around in a while.”
“I’ve been busy, I guess,” I said with a shrug. I couldn’t exactly tell her about the time I almost became a human sacrifice, so busy it was. “Tourist season is winding down, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to keep things going over the winter.” It was a half-truth but the truth nonetheless.
“It does get quiet here over the chilly months, to be sure. Aileen used to have shortened openin’ hours and close down over the Christmas and New Year holidays.”
“Mairead said.”
“Hey, have you thought about openin’ an online shop? There’s good money in the Internet.”
“The thought has crossed my mind…” But now I knew why Aileen never did. The whole Crescent thing was time-consuming, to say the least.