I pressed my forehead to hers. “I’m so glad I chose you.”
“Get the hell on outta here before I knock you into next century.”
“Love you too.”
Desperate for help, frantic to put what pieces I had together for my successor before my time was up, I drove down a pocked dirt road I hadn’t seen since I left running.
Nana’s old white house, hardly standing, sat half caved in at the end of the drive. I’d hoped Garret had fixed it up. Even if he sold it. It needed life. I gulped back aching sorrow at the sight of my childhood in shambles.
Recent rain caked my tires with mud. I didn’t bother closing the door. And to be honest, I worried I’d lock myself out somehow.
Granddaddy’s old hawthorn still stood guard. Colorful fabric had been tied around barren branches. They hung in strips that whipped in the wind.
The closer I got, hot tears welled. I gulped, pressing a hand to the faded carving. “Divine providence.” Cheeks wet, lilac crackles sparked at the tips of my fingers. “Where are you now?”
“All around you, sweet pea.”
I jumped and swirled around to a pair of eyes I knew had to be a ghost. “You gotta be dead.”
Mama Lee tied an orange ribbon on a low branch. “You outta be old.” She winked.
“Touché.” I blinked at her. “Am I dreamin’?”
She reached out and pinched me with strong, leathery fingers. I flinched. “Doesn’t look like it.”
“How is this possible?” I asked while a furry green beasty rumbled inside my own self.
She plucked a piece of fabric from the tree and tied it in a knot around a chunk of my hair. “That, my angel, is a knowing you don’t need on your soul.”
“You don’t know what I got on my soul. I promise whatever you’re carrying is no burden on me.”
Mama Lee patted my shoulder. “Don’t you argue with me, dear. I’ve got work to do and so do you. Now, what in the world are you doing all the way out here? There’re no ghosts here for you.”
I shook my head, eyeing the decaying house. “I ain’t here for her. I’m here for her.” Hand pressed to the tree, magic sizzled on my fingers. “I need a fairy. Granddaddy said fairies lived in this tree and seeing as though everything in the universe seems to be up for grabs, I thought, why not?” Panic set in and it was unbecoming, speeding my voice and tangling words. “You seen a crazy Irish woman floating around in a white dress?”
“Should I have?”
I closed my eyes. It was worth a shot. “No.” I breathed, refusing defeat. It’d happened to me without Avery; it’d happen without her now. I went on faith that she’d find her in time, my successor. Or come at all. “If she stops by, tell her I survived. And she was right. Mostly.”
“Did you enjoy your adventure?” Her eyes glittered, mouth curled into a grin, she reminded me of Puck.
The consequences sucked. But getting there… “It wasn’t the life I longed for. I’ll mourn that life for the time I’ve got left, knowing I was one of a kind. Dying in the name of justified vengeance, I can live with that.”
She pressed a hand to my heart. “I’m glad to have known you, Lynnie Russell.”
“I don’t know what you are, or why the beast brought me to you, but I’m grateful she did.” Fire burned inside, my timer ticking away. No matter how badly I wanted to lay under that tree or slip on up to the porch for a visit, my time was up. Nearly.
Mama Lee’s strong arms wrapped around my middle. Her ear against my chest. “Welp, better get to it.” She sucked her teeth and let me go.
Over my shoulder, a few yards away, I asked, “What’s with the fabric?”
“Wishes. For the fairies. Before they tear it down.”
“Tear it down? That tree is more than a hundred years old.” A new panic rattled my soul. Everything that was Lynnie Russell would be dead and gone. No sign of who I’d been. That naïve girl falling in love under a full silver moon. The boy who’d given his life. Nana and Garret and Hattie.
Refusing to let myself and my people die out, I dug around in the truck, finding a pad of paper and drafter’s pencil. They had to know. Someone. She. The next in the line. She had to know this was here. We were here.
Scrubbing the pencil over a piece of paper pressed to the tree, I rubbed the impression of Granddaddy’s carving into life. It wasn’t pretty, but it’d do. Proof I was there. They’d been there. That magic did live in Havana. In the hearts of my people.
Mama Lee ran a hand over my arm when I shuffled by, hurrying back to the truck. Our fingertips grasped at the last second, tangling crackling tendrils of magic. A final farewell.
The little red-haired girl I remembered seeing not a week before answered the door a grown woman. Crow’s feet, and the skin around her jaw sagged, but her daddy looked back at me in her eyes, and I knew I had the right house.
“Maureen Russell?” I asked.
She blinked a few times before settling on my eyes. Shock took over her expression and the thought of slamming the door in my face passed over her before she quelled it. I was her long-lost auntie come for a visit looking not a day older.
“It can’t be.” She shook her head. “Are you a ghost?” I pinched my lips between teeth, shook my head. “I thought you were a dream.” She stepped back, hand on her chest. “Daddy always said you were special, doing God’s work. When Nana died she said…. She was all doped up on morphine, I didn’t believe her.”
It hurt to hear about Mama on painkillers before she died. She’d been in pain. She’d probably been scared too. I shook off the hurt and focused on my last duties on earth.
“Your blood, mine, chosen by women, powerful and ancient, carry a burden. It’s hard, and it’s lonely, but it’s necessary for the world. I wish I could stand here and tell you every secret I know, but I can’t.” The beast roiled. “There’s just no time. Where is she?” Maureen shook her head. “Whether you want it or not it’s coming. I can’t stop it. Neither can she.”
“She’s not.” She shook her head. “She can’t be. This… this is hogwash. I can’t be a part of this abomination.” She pushed the door to close but I caught it.
Eyes flamed, Black Sentry sprung to life, lighting my face green. “Maureen Eleonore Russell, you listen to me.” She gasped. “I promised your daddy I’d come and I did. I’m here. I should’ve been here sooner, but I can’t change that now. It’s coming, you hear me. It’s coming fast. You can choose to pretend I’m a ghost and this is all bullshit, but the long and short of it is your daughter, my great-niece, is very close to becoming something that will change her life forever. Her pain, her existence, everything she will become has the potential to destroy her. It can turn her into something inhuman. A beast that without a rein can and will hurt people she loves. Your actions from here on out are the only thing that will prevent that. Your knowledge, her knowledge, my being here is the only thing that will make her life better than mine was. I don’t know everything. Hell, I don’t think I even know half of it, but I sure as hell know I screwed up and lost more than I thought I had.” I looked her in the eyes and saw my brother. “I need to see her.”
“She’s not here,” she said after a long pause. “She’s at a church retreat in Flag Lake.” The look on her face sent chills to my toes.
They needed the quiet. I wondered if they laid in wait for the moment to find them. Cool soil underfoot. Moon high, trees and nature to draw from. Croí na Tlachtga will find her, change her. I let out a shaking breath, closed my eyes, and forced that ancient power back home until it was time.
Glowing dimmed at my throat, eyes fizzled to blue. “I’m sorry I scared you. Know that your daughter will fight that same fight and she’s going to need her mama to keep her tethered to the earth. Like I needed my brother.” She nodded. “You’re so beautiful.” I reached out and squeezed her hand. “Have your daddy’s eyes.”
She searched my face, looking over every smooth inch. “You told me once you were a warrior. Is that what my baby is? A warrior.”
I sucked in a gulp of air. “She is.”
“Will you bring her back to me?”
No. “That’s not how it works.”
“Then I’m coming with you.” She turned to snatch keys from the peg. I stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.
“I can’t let you do that.” Her brows pulled together in the middle. “She’ll need you alive when she comes home, and she will. Trust me, it doesn’t work out well for those not meant for magic.” I touched her cheek. “Here,” I said, pulling a stack of photos from my bag. “These belong with family.”
Maureen flipped through the photos of her parents, me, Rusty. “I’ve never seen these.” She looked at me with tears in her eyes. “You never came back.” Hurt hit her face.
“I know. Sometimes the choices we make cause more problems than they fix.”
She sniffed, looking back down at a photo of Garret. “That’s life, I guess.”
I nodded. “A series of shit options.”
“He loved you. Until the day he died.”
I swiped away a loose tear. “Yeah.” Without warning, I pulled her into a hug. “Call your brother, huh?” She nodded, warm tears soaking my shirt. “Your mama got a shock this morning, too. Check on her for me.”
Her hand wrapped around the back of my head. “I never forgot you.”
“Me too, baby.” Lavender veins zipped along my arms and I let her go. “Time waits for no man—or woman.” I held up a hand that crackled with magic. Her eyes went wide. “Tell her I tried.”
Maureen stepped off the porch after me. I didn’t turn back. Couldn’t. Time would soon run out, nightfall would come. Her time would come. So many things she needed to know and no way to tell her. I should’ve been there. Before. Long before.
Knockma should’ve been my refuge, a place of knowledge, understanding. A way to help my successor reign mighty in her quest. I’d learned enough to know the Cu Sidhe must continue. The pain and fear would not. I’d stop it. Somehow.
Fiery pain seared my gut. I leaned, panting against the side of Garret’s truck. Sun blazed its final rally against the night. Lime, magenta, violet, and jade, waves of crackling light zipped over my skin. Hands shaking, I pulled the cotton pouch from my bag. I squinted against the brightness of the Black Sentry, lifting it over my head. It dimmed, blinking out when it left my skin, sliding into the bag.
Would she miss me? My beastly sister. I closed my eyes, living one final moment in the world of the Sidhe. Listened to animals scurry home for the night, drawing in the scent of fall. Wet rain. Chin quivering, I swallowed any idea I would get out of this alive.
“Accept what you are or it’ll eat you alive,” I repeated Puck, desperate for something I couldn’t put a finger on. Life? Or was it salvation?
Whizzing power that stitched us together snapped, one string at a time. I bent in half, doubled over. Black vomit poured from my lips. Remnants of a decade of souls reaped. She roiled, fighting to be free, knowing what was to come.
I folded pages of yellow paper into a square and pushed them into the pouch. The last words of a dying warrior. My final grasp of a world I hardly knew.
Sky turning a deep blue, a single star twinkled overhead. Night had officially arrived. A shift in the universe—something I’d come to know as Puck’s magic—gripped hold of me. Searing pain etched lines down my back. If I’d had a mirror, I was sure I’d see the ogham carved from my skin. Not Puck’s magic, fae magic.
“Hold on, old girl, we’ll get there.”
Pouch clenched in my trembling fist, I stumbled off into the darkening woods. Skin glowed, vibrant, wild. Feral. Lighting my way. Ancient magics calling me home.
Successor
I had no real reason to be in the deep woods. Nothing that I could pin down to a set of steps, down one specific path that led me there. But there I was. Alone, scared, cold, and something I couldn’t explain. The blood of four women dried around sharp claws.
A fire that once blazed a vibrant green was a pile of glowing embers. Rust splattered drips crusted on stones surrounding the pit. I’d never intended on venturing off on my own, leaving the campsite behind, making myself vulnerable. The night beckoned me. An invisible crooked finger, whispered promises in words I didn’t understand.
I died tonight, beside that roaring fire. Sliced open and bled, lamb at the slaughter. Resurrected in the body of a creature. A monster.
“I’ve been hunting for you all night, sweet pea.” A blonde woman stepped out from a line of trees. She looked down on the pile of dead things I’d left in my wake. “Well, looks like you’ve already gotten started.”
She let out a long whistle and walked toward me, fearless. “I know what you’re feeling right now, and I want to tell you, it’ll be all right.” A small baggy dangled from her fist. “First, these women aren’t what you think they are. You did your job just as you should’ve. Leave them where they lay. They’ll pull a disappearing act soon enough and no one will be the wiser. Second, I know you’re scared, alone. Be grateful. It was better that way, trust me. Third, and this is the most important, so pay attention. Keep your soul about you, baby, in the end, it’s all you’ve got. It’s all that matters.”
The monster I’d become growled, low and deep, at the woman, but she didn’t flinch. Without a word, she set the pouch on a large rock, patting it once. “This is yours now.” She shrugged a bag from her shoulders and set it on the ground. “You’ll likely be needing this too.”
The woman closed her eyes and nodded once, falling to her knees in the dirt. Her eyes, wet, glistening, half closed with a sad grin. Scratching along my chin, she said, “Don’t worry about me, baby. I’m not what you think either. I’ll pull a disappearing act soon enough too.”
She looked off into the still darkness, listening to the sounds, feeling the cool breeze on her cheeks. “You’ve got lots to learn, little one. Trust your gut, she knows what to do. Don’t be afraid to love and be loved.” She patted the small cotton bag. “I did my best to say what needed said.”
The monster licked her face, a face I realized I’d seen before. Only in photos. Old pictures my granny had. She bowed her head, exposing the back of her neck. “I’m tired, baby. I’ve had my fill of this place. I got a sweetheart waiting on me, and you’ve got a long life ahead of you. Be swift. Be just.” She swallowed, and whispered, “Listen to that fucking Bean Sidhe like your life depends on it. It does. Stay safe. Stay alive. And whatever you do, stay the hell away from the Otherworld.”
A banshee? I asked, but she couldn’t hear me trapped in the monster.
Curved, deadly claws stretched. One heavy paw slashed at her neck. Blood splashed in long lines across my face, plopping in blobs to the dirt. No!
Shouting did no good. Amethyst blood glugged from her neck, pooling in blackberry under her body.
Breaths uneven, shaky, I could hear her faint heartbeat slow. Eyes glistened, glazing over with coming death. “Oh, there you are,” she breathed, sucking in her final, ragged breath.
The monster sniffed the air—piney aftershave—knowing that scent well. It snuffled at the woman on the ground, nudged her shoulder with a snotty snout, and let out a quiet whimper.
Golden dust glittered in pitch black, swirling down from thick treetops. The twisting wind picked up leaves, spreading them around her.
A shimmering gold angel in blue jeans stood over the women. “Come on, girl. I’ve been waitin’ on you all night.” He grinned at the monster—me—then looked at the girl again and ran his hand through sandy hair.
Golden specks flowed from her, spinning through the air, mingling with his before whisking away in the twisting wind.
The monster flopped in the dirt beside her body and stayed there. I couldn’t say for sure I�
�d had any control over that, but I prayed all night we stayed right there. Right near that pouch she’d left just for me. I wanted whatever was in it. Something told me it was my deliverance.
Dawn chittered in the air, the sky turning white through the trees. Chirping and singing, day-loving animals woke with the sun, as I did. A tingle hit deep in my stomach and bled into my limbs. The monster stood on all fours and panted—a rolling discomfort, like squeezing into shoes that were a size and a half too small.
Fur and teeth sank into my skin and gums the same way they’d grown out—a squelching crackle that turned my stomach. A slurping pop and out I slid, spilling bits of the creature onto the forest floor. A lavender current zipped up my arms.
The blonde girl’s body remained where she’d fallen, the sun beginning to glisten against her tan skin and golden hair. Dark blood dried in stripes on her chest. With a shaking hand, I cleared her face of wild hair. I had seen her before. My papa called her a warrior.
Morning breeze chilled my skin, drawing out shivers and goose bumps. On all fours, I scurried to the black bag she’d dropped beside the rock. Light, I almost wondered if it was empty. Unsteady hands—coursing with adrenaline—fumbled with the zipper. Inside, a pair of pants and a tank top.
“Thank you,” I whimpered, cold setting in.
Grateful, I pulled the clothes on. The pouch lay exactly where she’d left it. I snatched it from the rock. Fragile cotton felt like it might fall apart in my hand. I pulled the aging drawstring gently and tipped it over to spill the contents into my hand. A small rolled up piece of parchment, a black stone that hung on a strap, and a thick, tightly folded square of papers spilled out.
I opened the roll. Scrawled in lines of rust colored ink, centuries old script spelled out what seemed to be a poem. I clutched the trinket and square of papers in my hand while I read the words under my breath.
“By the Moon, power in thee, this stone charged in protection be. Who wishes harm render still, not spoil a soul nor bid thy will. Hear my plea on this night; impart protection on this bearer of fight. By these words power shone, grant your guard upon this stone. Wholly in power and divinity, by these words so mote it be.”
And the Creek Don't Rise Page 23