by Kelly Moran
Kaida didn’t know how she felt about that, either. A heads up would’ve been nice. “I had no knowledge of any of this or you until my parents died six months ago. Their attorney gave me a letter from our mother, which said nothing about magick.”
Then again, how would one phrase such a thing? Dear Daughter I Abandoned, By the way, you’re a witch...
“Were they good to you, at least?” Ceara’s concerned gaze trained on the ocean. “You were treated well, I hope. Loved?”
“Yes.” Kaida cleared her throat. There had been an errant disconnect between her and her parents and, most of the time, she’d been left to her own devices, but they’d cared about her. “Yes, they were good to me.”
“I’m glad.” Ceara faced Kaida. “We’ll teach you. If you’re willing to learn, we’ll help you hone your craft.”
What other choice was there? Kaida had been struggling since she was a teenager to control the anomalies, to seek answers to her many questions. Regardless of how insane this all seemed, these women were family. Her sisters. In honesty, that’s what she’d craved all her life. Connection. To be a part of something. Belonging.
If she’d known it would land her in a Harry Potter book, she might not have longed so hard. Reserved as she tried to be, though, excitement bubbled inside her and crackled under her skin.
And her instincts, once she’d learned to follow them, had never led her astray. Every cell in her body was telling her she could trust her new sisters, trust that this was the right path.
“Where do we start?”
Fiona’s grin split her face. “At the beginning. Come on.”
They walked across the meadow and to the cemetery gate. Some of the headstones appeared to date back almost two hundred years, but as they wove through the grave markers, they stopped in front of a recent one.
Meagan Rose Galloway
May the air carry your spirit gently. May the fire release your soul. May the water cleanse you clean of pain and sorrow and suffering. May the earth receive you. May the wheel turn again and bring you to rebirth.
Kaida stared at the stone, awash in unexpected emotion. She’d never known her birth mother, but the loss was staggering even still. The woman who’d given Kaida life was dead, and she’d never get the opportunity to sit down with her mom and chat over tea, to catch up on their pasts, or have that awkward first meeting after being separated so long.
The date of death was particularly gutting. “She died a year to the day after I was born.”
“Yes.” Ceara drew a deep breath. “She developed a blood clot in her lungs, but we think it was a broken heart. Sending you away tore her apart.”
Ceara was two years older than Kaida and Fiona only one. How could they remember? And it had been her mother’s choice to put Kaida up for adoption, regardless of the reasons. At any time, her mom could’ve changed her mind. But she hadn’t, and here they were.
“Galloway women don’t tend to live long, fruitful lives.” Fiona glanced at the sky, her face sullen. “Cursed, we are.” She shook her head. “Come, we’ll show you the true beginning and explain.”
Kaida knew about the spell Celeste had cast three centuries before but, up until now, it had been mere myth. Folklore. Best she could recall, it had been about searching and never finding true love. Had it truly been a curse, and one strong enough to carry over three-hundred years? She glanced at graves as they strode by. Most of them were women bearing the Galloway name, and all had died before they’d turned forty.
As they paused in front of the giant statue she’d spotted from the hedge, she realized it wasn’t an angel, but a goddess. Easily ten feet tall, it was solid white marble. The woman’s eyes were closed as if in prayer, her face a mask of serenity. Wild long strands of hair swirled around her head, frozen for all time in an unseen wind. A loose robe fell to her ankles, and in one outstretched palm was a sphere. The base held a carved trinity knot.
“This is where the pyre was erected, isn’t it? Where they...”
“Burned Celeste for being a witch.” Fiona, body angry and stiff, nodded. “Sometimes, I don’t know what to be pissed off about more—what they did to her or what she did in retaliation.”
Kaida stared at the statue again, trying to imagine how scared her ancestor must’ve been. “A curse only gains credence if it’s given power, if it’s believed.”
A dry laugh, and Fiona sighed. “Spoken like a woman not raised within the craft. Denial will get you nowhere, sister.”
“Fiona,” Ceara warned.
“No, she needs to hear it.” Fiona eyed Kaida, arms defiantly crossed. “Look around you. Not one Galloway woman has lived to see her fiftieth birthday, and not a one has found lasting love. Three centuries with no sons. Flip that over to the Meaths, and you have the same pattern. Celeste was one of the most powerful witches the world has known. She was of the original line granted powers. Through the generations, her kin has inherited pieces of her gift, but never all.”
She strode forward, getting in Kaida’s face. “We are the first to be born of the three she spoke of. The Meaths have their three. And it’s been three hundred years since the spell was cast. Notice the pattern? Three is of importance in our world. We are it, sister. We are the ones chosen to end it or the cycle will remain for all eternity.”
No pressure or anything. Kaida wanted to laugh, to claim reality with both hands, but Fiona had a point. “Mara is older than fifty.”
“Mara is the exception. She is our protector. If we don’t see this through, she is damned to remain here, as well. She’ll never have peace.”
Kaida blinked, wondering what that meant. “I don’t understand.”
Ceara set a hand on Fiona’s arm. “Not now. She just arrived. Don’t overwhelm her.” She focused on Kaida. “What’s she’s trying to say is, we are part of a greater purpose. This is our destiny, your destiny, to come together. Let’s show you the cottage. Perhaps we can better explain there.”
She guided Kaida out of the cemetery and toward the small structure, Fiona at their heels. Once there, Ceara turned an ancient knob to a thick wooden door and stepped aside.
Hesitant, Kaida walked over the threshold. The small space, but one room, smelled of hay from a straw pallet in the corner. Her shoes thunked the aged floorboards and dust motes plumed, catching the muted light. To her right was a simple table, straight ahead a stone hearth. Other than that, there was nothing.
Then, her gaze landed on a painting over the thick mantel, and her breath caught. The woman who’d come into her dreams last night was in the likeness. Long red coils, similar to Ceara’s, trailed over her ample breasts, and she bore the peasant gown Kaida had seen her wearing. In her arms was a swaddled baby with a trinity knot branded on its inner wrist. Next to the pair was a woman of the same age and coloring, but her hair was much shorter, her face fuller.
Kaida stepped closer, goosebumps skating up her arms. The second woman was Mara. A much younger version, but Mara just the same. There was no mistaking those eyes and smile. And the painting was old. Very old. She was no expert, but she’d taken some art history classes as part of her degree, and the oils used, along with the dated style of brush strokes, pegged the piece at roughly two hundred years old. Even the frame was aged.
“Aunt Mara painted that shortly after she turned her sixty years. She wanted a rendition for future generations while the faces were fresh in her mind.” Ceara moved beside Kaida. “The cottage is exactly as it was the night Celeste was killed. A protection spell guards it from falling to the elements or changing with time.”
“That’s Mara in the painting, which is impossible because it’s at least two centuries old.”
“Nothing is impossible.” Ceara studied the painting. “Celeste cursed Aunt Mara, too. In the pretense of the three needing a guide, Mara was to stop maturing once she hit sixty, and would forever watch over the Galloway women until the spell was broken.”
“Impossible,” Kaida said again. Even if the tale w
ere to be believed, certainly people would notice Mara from pictures and illustrations, wondering why she’d been around so long without aging. Dying.
“Aunt Mara used glamour spells to change her appearance.” Fiona shrugged. “I figured you were wondering about details. Family can see her true features, but not others. When you were born, she stopped casting glamours and looks now as she did then.”
Hold it. Just...hold it. Powers, curses, spells, and premonition dreams? She was taking all that rather well, if Kaida did say so herself. But...immortality? Come on! No to the no.
Ceara must’ve sensed Kaida needed a topic change because she pointed to the straw pallet. “Mara and Celeste settled here as young women, but they were born in Ireland. Right over there, the first Galloway in the States was birthed. Hope, aptly named. That would be the baby Celeste is holding in the painting.”
“And less than a month later, Celeste was murdered.” Fiona sighed, gaze on the table. “She prepared the infamous spell there by candlelight. According to our aunt, Celeste hid items in another plane for when the three completed the tasks she set forth. They’ll appear once we finish, which is why Galloways have protected the cottage all this time.”
Kaida blinked, unmoving. Forget Harry Potter. She’d stepped into a jacked up version of The Twilight Zone. She picked one item amid all the crazy, and zeroed in on that. “What tasks?”
“No one knows for certain, dear.”
She whirled to face Mara, standing in the doorway. White waves fell to her shoulders and sad blue eyes met Kaida’s.
“My sister was very mysterious about what the three were supposed to do, exactly. But I am positive the solution to generations of heartbreak begins with you.” Mara’s Irish brogue thickened. “It started here, and it shall end here. One way or another.”
An inhale, and she smiled, the gesture forced. “I know what you’re thinking, I do. Your thoughts are loud again.” She winked. “I look pretty good for being three-hundred, don’t I?”
Chapter Five
Beside his brothers, Brady headed across Meath Mansion’s grounds and toward Galloway Forest. A new moon made visibility near nonexistent and a heavy, but brief storm this afternoon left the grass sodden. Stars winked overhead and saltwater clung to the cool breeze as they stepped into the woods. A canopy of birch, oak, and maple swallowed them while creatures scurried. Leaves rustled. An owl hooted.
His stomach a riot of nerves and anticipation, he strode in silence, his brain firing on all cylinders. A quick glance proved the tension from his brothers was just as palpable as his own.
Tristan had often played in the woods as a boy but, to Brady’s knowledge, he hadn’t entered since they were teenagers. He was unsure what scenario had set his eldest sibling off, Tristan had never mentioned it, but it had been jarring enough to bar him from venturing this way since. Riley hadn’t much interest in the area, far as Brady could tell, but he hadn’t known the guy’s opinion one way or the other on the lore surrounding the forest between the Meath land and the Galloway’s.
It had been said Celeste and Finn first met in the clearing three-hundred years ago, and thus had begun their affair. A love and passion that was destined to end in tragedy. Forbidden, and naive on their part, to even try. Things were different back then and, how funny that all these centuries later, the two founding families were still butting heads.
Wary censure tightened both his brothers’ expressions as they made their way deeper into the thicket. Peat moss and soil mixed with the scent of brine the closer they got to their destination.
Tristan stopped and cursed. “I can’t see for crap.” He pulled his cell from a pocket and activated the flashlight.
An eerie beam of light led their path, and they continued, shoes shushing damp earth.
“Anyone else feel like they’re in a bad remake of Blair Witch?” Riley rubbed his neck, glancing around unblinking.
Despite his nerves, Brady laughed. “If you see a strange pile of rocks, warn us.”
“I don’t know how you talked me into this.” Tristan stepped over a fallen tree. “They couldn’t meet at a cafe or a pub like normal people?”
The Galloways weren’t exactly normal and neither were the current circumstances, so Brady kept mum.
After a few minutes, they came to the empty clearing and stopped. There was a break in the canopy and trees, a circle of grass perhaps thirty feet in circumference, and his blood hummed. The girls were absent, but he and his brothers had left early for this mysterious meeting. Alone, they stood unmoving, and waited.
For years, Brady had been seeing Kaida in dreams. As much an enigma as the fact she kept surfacing. Truth be told, he cared about her like she was a flesh and blood person he came across daily. She was a dominant part of his life, both awake and asleep. Now, she not only had a face, but a name. He’d be lying if he hadn’t hoped this day would come. To learn she was real, to give him something tangible to hold onto that wouldn’t dissolve in the morning light.
He tapped his fingers against his thigh, impatient for answers. Would she recognize him? Did she remember him like he did her? Could the connection they seemed to share carry over into reality? Above all, how was it possible they knew each other and had never actually met?
A rustling stirred in the distance and his pulse hammered. The women emerged through the foliage, all three wearing jeans and loose-flowing blouses in varying colors. He skimmed right past Ceara’s auburn curls, Fiona’s cocoa waves, and locked onto Kaida’s caramel strands.
His heart squeezed inside his chest in a vise determined to stop the beat altogether. She walked with her head down, her hair a partial curtain. Yet he knew, without getting a decent glimpse of her face, that it was her. Her gait was as graceful as a dancer, light-footed and sure, and as recognizable to him as his own hand.
He’d had those sultry curves under his palms, had held her against him, but he couldn’t seem to dredge up memory of what it had felt like. They’d never made love in his dreams, and every caress had been like having his senses dulled. Touching, but not truly. Contact, yet with an invisible barrier.
As if by their own volition, his arms lifted automatically to pull her to him. He caught himself before anyone noticed, dropping them to his sides and making fists. Swallowing hard, he forced himself to look away and eyed his brothers. Both had tense and unforgiving postures, their arms crossed and jaws locked.
Riley’s brows rose. “There’s a joke in here somewhere. A blonde, a brunette, and a redhead walk into the woods...”
Fiona tilted her head, a tease of a smile curving her full lips. “Shouldn’t we be naked for an effective punch line?”
Tristan slammed his eyes shut and Riley choked. Judging by the strangled sound, the images he’d conjured weren’t unpleasant.
The women stopped several feet away from them in a row, facing the guys in some hocus pocus version of a wild west showdown. Then, only then, did Kaida look up.
Cerulean eyes locked onto Brady with abject surprise and a margin of fear. The meager amount of starlight cast her skin in ethereal tones and only served to amp her mysterious aura. The tiniest of wrinkles formed between the perfect arch of her brows, and she emitted a gasp while taking a tentative step in retreat. Trembling, she swept her gaze over him and resettled on his face.
Awareness and something he couldn’t name vibrated the air between them. Crackled. It slithered up his spine, wound around his heart, and crept into his head to root around in his skull. Cold fingers of curiosity doused the heat of attraction in the errant path, leaving him winded.
Her respirations increased the longer she studied him, and he had to fight to keep his feet planted. Every atom in his body screamed at him to erase the distance, to move. Take her. Protect her. She seemed to be battling instincts of her own because she leaned forward and then snapped herself upright.
And damn. She knew him, too. Her recognition was obvious. He hadn’t been alone in slumber after all or at the whim of the Sandman’
s amusement. He didn’t know whether to sigh in relief or don a straightjacket.
A sheen of tears built in her eyes, and she jerked her gaze to the others. He realized they were bickering amongst themselves and shook his head to clear it.
“Whatever, Fi.” Riley glanced around. “We’re here, now tell us what’s up.”
“Boys, meet our sister. Kaida, this is Tristan, Riley, and—”
“Brady,” Kaida whispered brokenly, the fragileness of her voice slicing him deep. “You’re...real.”
“Wait.” Ceara held up a hand. “You two have met before? Where? How?”
Riley offered a strained laugh. “Once upon a dream.” At Ceara’s look of confusion, he elaborated. “He’s been dreaming about her since he was a kid.”
Ceara blinked in surprise and faced Kaida. “I assume this is true for you also? Why didn’t you say something?”
“I...” Kaida shook her head, her trembling increasing.
“Never mind that.” Tristan shoved his hands in his pockets. “What do you mean by sister?”
Fiona flicked him a pitying glance. “Do I need to explain the dynamics of family?”
“Cut the crap.” He eyed the “sisters” as if considering the pros and cons of manslaughter. “Where has she been all this time? Why haven’t we known about her?”
“We’re telling you now. Welcome to your destiny, Tristan. It begins today.”
He flinched, looked at his brothers as if seeking help, and back to Fiona. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Three,” she waved her hand at both sides of the proverbial chalk line, “by three. Three sets of green eyes. Three sets of blue.”
If possible, Tristan paled more. “The curse? Are you kidding me? If you think for one second I’m falling for that bull, you’re crazier than all your ancestors combined.”