Cursed Wishes (Three Wishes Book 1)

by Marcy Kennedy

  They reached his room, and he went inside.

  She took one step, two, after him, leaving the door open. “No one good.”

  He dropped onto the bed. A deep purple bruise now covered the right side of his face.

  She eased down to the floor in the corner and pulled her knees up to her chest under her skirt. For the first time, she felt awkward around him. “How is your shoulder?”

  He rubbed his good hand along the sling. “The draught from the physician took the edge off.”

  Tears scalded the back of her eyes. She swallowed them down. Tears would only be seen as manipulation. Whatever decision they made needed to be made unclouded by what he thought he owed her. He didn’t owe her anything.

  One-armed, Gavran had little hope of surviving a fight with the nuckalevee. Maybe their chances of succeeding had never been great, and it’d taken this to allow her to see it. All she’d seen before was her opportunity to be free of the curses.

  She hugged her knees so tight she could have fit in a caterpillar’s cocoon. She envied caterpillars. When they disappeared from sight, they came back better, more beautiful. It was what she’d thought she was doing when she gave Gavran the blessing of the wishes. She’d disappear from sight, forgotten, but in return she’d become beautiful inside—redeemed from what she thought she’d done to her brother.

  The space inside her chest cavity seemed to shrink to a quarter of its size, and her heart struggled to find room to beat. It hadn’t turned out the way she’d planned. Her attempt had left her brother in a worse state than he’d been in before. Now his future and Gavran’s future were in her hands again.

  She wasn’t willing to gamble them a second time on the off chance that a one-armed man and a sickness-weakened woman could defeat a monster. She had to get it right this time. A second chance was rare enough. Third chances came around as often as an eclipse.

  They had to wait to fight the nuckalevee until they had the best chance at defeating it. “The wise thing to do is to delay for you to heal. It’ll give me more time to regain my strength and practice as well.”

  A spark ignited in his eyes. It died as quickly as it lit. He looked away. “We have to take the nuckalevee by surprise.”

  “So says Lady MacDonald, but it’s clear she chooses to tell us whatever serves her.”

  “And all those people?” His lips thinned into unbreakable lines. “We can’t leave them to the mercy of the nuckalevee for months.”

  She suddenly felt lightheaded and suffocatingly warm. In a fair and perfect world, she’d make different choices. But they didn’t live in a fair and perfect world. “The MacDonalds could help them, yet they refuse. If we wait, we’ll have a better chance of coming out alive and saving my brother. His life matters, too.”

  Something gave way in Gavran’s expression. “Aye, but Lady MacDonald will not easily bend on this.”

  Ceana chewed the corner of her bottom lip. Buried within Lady MacDonald must be a reason she fought so hard to convince them to go forward. But if she chose not to share her reasons with them, she shouldn’t expect them to respect them. “She seems to need us as much as we need her at this point. As long as that holds true, we have something to bargain with.”

  Gavran nodded and heaved himself to his feet. “We ought to tell her our decision. There’s no reason to wait.”

  Chapter 19

  Lady MacDonald’s pointy-faced guard blocked Ceana’s path into the chapel where the wood boy had told them they could find her. “She doesn’t wish to be disturbed in her prayers.”

  Ceana puffed out a gust of air. There wasn’t any purpose in aggravating Lady MacDonald. A few minutes wouldn’t matter. She sank down onto the stone steps of the chapel.

  Gavran perched on the step next to her. “I guess now there is a reason to wait.”

  Ceana nudged his good shoulder with hers and felt the connection all the way down into her soul. This might have been the thing she missed most under the curses—the simple companionship of having someone sit beside her. Of knowing someone cared whether she succeeded or failed. She’d forgotten how it felt.

  Movement to her right caught her attention, and she swiveled to face it. One of the gate guards escorted a limping girl into the courtyard and toward the chapel. The girl couldn’t have been more than six. Dirt and what looked like blood crusted her bare feet. The way she trailed along behind the guard reminded Ceana of an exhausted puppy dragged on a string.

  The guard stopped at the bottom of the chapel steps and looked up at Pointy Face. “We’ve got another one that needs caring for.” He raised a hand beside his mouth as if that would stop everyone else from hearing him. “She walked through the night to make it here. The Death wiped out her whole family.”

  Behind him, the little girl’s fragile shoulders hunched, and her face quivered. Then her jaw clenched and she forced her shoulders back. She stared straight ahead.

  Ceana felt it like a punch to her heart, knocking it back in her chest and splintering it into a hundred shards. She pressed a hand to the step behind her. The girl was much too little to have to be that brave. She should have a mamaidh to hold her.

  She slid off the steps, knelt in front of the girl, and drew her into her arms. For one breath, two, the girl stayed still and stiff. Then both arms shot up and wrapped around Ceana’s neck, tight and frantic, holding on while sobs shook her body so hard Ceana was surprised they didn’t break her apart.

  She held her back equally tight. She couldn’t give the girl much, but she could give her this moment where she didn’t have to feel alone.

  Pointy Face rubbed his nose with the back of his sleeve and reached for the chapel door. “I’ll inform—”

  “Her family died of the Death, and you were eejit enough to let her in.”

  The little girl flinched in Ceana’s arms, and Ceana clutched her close again. She looked over her shoulder in the direction of the new voice, keeping herself between the girl and its source.

  A tall man who looked like he’d stolen Lord MacDonald’s nose and chin stood behind Gavran, five feet from the chapel steps. The man wasn’t one they’d seen before. With the resemblance to Lord MacDonald, he must be the Hugh whose arrival was greeted with such a cold welcome earlier. She could guess why. She’d heard more compassionate tones at an execution.

  “Toss her back out before she spreads it to us all,” the man said.

  The guard closest to her shifted his weight but didn’t move towards Ceana and the girl.

  “Shouldn’t we inform our lady first, sir?” It was Pointy Face who finally spoke.

  “My orders don’t need agreement from your lady to be followed. Remove her. Now.”

  Anger erupted in Ceana’s chest, threatening to boil out of control. Gavran’s gaze met hers and locked. He wore his I’m-David-and-this-Goliath’s-going-down look.

  They rose at the same time. The girl looped her legs around Ceana’s waist like a human barnacle.

  Almighty save them, the girl probably thought she was going to do as the man asked.

  “The only place you’re going is to the kitchen for a bannock,” she whispered.

  The girl’s head bobbed ever so slightly against her shoulder.

  Gavran planted himself as a barricade between Ceana’s bundle and the man. “You can’t turn her out. She’s a child.”

  The look on the man’s face was one of confusion, like the steps themselves had risen up and spoken to him. For a second she saw them as he must see them. Bone thin. Dirty. Broken. And her in a hand-me-down dress that had once clearly belonged to a woman of a better station.

  His expression hardened. “And who are you to tell me what I can’t do?”

  “They’re my guests.” Lady MacDonald’s voice said from the direction of the chapel.

  Ceana shifted her field of vision.

  Lady MacDonald stood in the now-open chapel door, her head covering still in place from her prayers. “In a home that belongs to my husband.”

  The
man didn’t do anything as obvious as curl his lip, but the tick in his cheek and his darkened eyes said it all.

  He turned on his heel and was gone.

  Lady MacDonald moved from the doorway, and Pointy Face followed after her, out of the chapel. He must have gone in for her while Ceana was focused on the man.

  Lady MacDonald’s lips tilted up in what passed for a smile from her. “Thank you, Eachann.”

  Pointy Face—Eachann—dipped his head.

  “You did well bringing her to me,” Lady MacDonald said to the other guard. “You may return to your post.”

  She motioned for the rest of them to follow her.

  Ceana shifted the little girl to her other hip. Her arms already ached up into her shoulders, but she wasn’t about to put the girl down and ask her to walk on her torn-up feet.

  Eachann held out his arms. “I’ll carry her.”

  It was the first time he hadn’t looked at her with annoyance or suspicion. Ceana handed the girl over and fell into step beside Gavran.

  Lady MacDonald led them across the courtyard, past the stables, to a building that Ceana guessed was the kitchen based on the two girls sitting outside the door on upended buckets, plucking geese and laughing.

  They stepped through the doorway, and the aroma of a bevy of spices—garlic, rosemary, mint, root ginger, and so many more—filled Ceana’s head. Heat rolled in waves out of the large bread oven and open roasting fires at the end of the room. She blinked against the smoke until her vision cleared.

  The kitchen was larger than Gavran’s cottage and hers put together. And filled almost entirely with children. Children kneading dough. Children peeling apples. Children straining meat jellies. Even the turnbrochie, rotating sizzling geese on a spit, looked to be younger than the boy who carried wood. He used both hands to turn the spit handle.

  Eachann set the girl on top of one of the rough wooden boards balanced on trestles that served as a table. “She’s not the first, as you might guess.”

  Something swirled inside Ceana’s chest. She’d been so focused on her goal and on protecting her brother and Gavran that she’d wanted to ignore the bigger picture. Now it stared her in the face in the form of a child—many, many children and more outside the castles walls that she couldn’t see.

  She’d agreed to fight the nuckalevee for her own sake. She’d wanted to delay fighting it for Gavran’s sake. She had to fight now it for the sake of everyone else who couldn’t. She had to fight it so that Lady MacDonald could go to her contact and try to keep it from happening again. The unseelie fae couldn’t be allowed to continue hurting people without any repercussions.

  Gavran tucked in close to her. She could feel him watching her face. “Ceana.”

  Just her name again, but she knew exactly what he meant. He’d tried to tell her before in his bed chamber that he wanted to fight anyway because more lives were at stake than merely their own. She hadn’t wanted to hear him when he said it then, and she’d thrown her brother’s situation in his face to stop him. At least she’d recognized her error before it was too late. “I know.”

  The cook brought clean cloths and a bucket of warm water without even having to be asked. She handed the girl a chunk of bread, nodded to Lady MacDonald, and returned to tying eggs up in a cloth bundle to go into the pot of water boiling nearby.

  Lady MacDonald knelt in front of the girl, dipped one of the cloths into the water, and washed her feet. Ceana knew she was staring, but she couldn’t seem to look away.

  The MacDonalds refusal to fight the nuckalevee made even less sense now. It was clear they cared for the people on their lands. They’d near enough turned their home into an orphanage. And Lady MacDonald washed a poor girl’s bloodied feet.

  Perhaps they’d just met a clue as to part of what might be driving them. She lowered to the ground next to Lady MacDonald and held out her hand. “Let me help.”

  Lady MacDonald passed her a cloth. “We’ll wrap them up once we finish to help them heal.” She smiled up at the little girl, the most genuine expression Ceana had seen from her. “You’ll be running again before you know it.”

  Ceana dabbed gently at the girl’s crusted sole. “That man. Who was he?”

  “Hugh MacDonald.” Lady MacDonald wrung out her cloth. “My husband’s cousin. His heir. Should Ihon die without a son, Hugh will inherit Duntulm and its lands.”

  Anger leaked through in her voice.

  A man without compassion made for a hard lord to serve. He’d take from the people until they had nothing left to give, and then he’d still expect more. Lord and Lady MacDonald couldn’t risk leaving their people to Hugh MacDonald’s mercy because he had none.

  Ceana swirled the cloth around in the bucket. Brown and red streaked through the water, muddying it until she could no longer see the bottom. She twisted the cloth long after all the dirty water had drained out.

  She’d spent her whole life trying to do something that mattered. Maybe she’d finally found it. “Gavran and I have decided to do as you asked.”

  Chapter 20

  Ceana settled in among the remains of a bearberry shrub and rested her bow and dorlochis of arrows beside her. The bearberry should have been covered in white, cup-like flowers this time of year, but the blossomless branches sagged, their dark green leaves wilted.

  Gavran awkwardly lowered himself next to her using the staff of his Lochabar for support, his right arm in its sling, two days into healing. It was all Lady MacDonald thought they could risk.

  “Do you think we’ll catch the Black Death from fighting it?” he asked.

  He still worried about the consequences of fighting, which meant he still thought they could win this battle. A tiny seed of optimism battled to break through inside her and failed. Gavran had always been the optimist. “We’ve no way to know.”

  She pulled out an arrow and scored a line in the dirt. The top layer puffed away, and beneath it, her arrow tip barely made a scratch, like the ground hadn’t seen rain in over a year. If they failed tonight, it would be a desert after a year had actually passed. Though perhaps the nuckalevee would move on once it’d killed everyone and everything on MacDonald lands.

  Gavran didn’t say anything more, and the silence hurt her ears. Not even a mosquito buzzed. The whole grove lay abandoned. The only bird’s nest she could spot hung in tatters from the branches, unused. They hadn’t broken through a single spider’s lair when they pushed through the trees.

  What kind of beast could drain the life from an entire grove? Even with all the questions she’d asked Lady MacDonald about the nuckalevee and its abilities over the past two days, she felt nowhere close to understanding it, like she’d tried to plumb the mind of the Almighty. It seemed naïve to believe they could defeat a creature they knew so little about.

  A branch snapped, and she nocked an arrow.

  “Peace,” Gavran’s voice came from the darkness next to her. “It was only me.”

  She’d been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn’t even heard him rise. “Where did you go?”

  “To look for a better spot.” He clumsily edged back down, using a tree and his good arm to guide him. “But there isn’t one.”

  Maybe they needed to look a bit farther out. They didn’t need to wait right on the edge of the clearing. “How far away did you go?”

  “I didn’t go far enough away for the wishes to cause you any trouble. You didn’t miss the nuckalevee because of me.” His voice carried an edge.

  She hunched her shoulders. “That’s not what I meant.”

  He thumped his head back against the tree. “I’m sorry. Something about this place. It’s draining me from the inside.”

  She felt it, too. Like sorrow and decay crept in through her pores and dried up everything good. If she’d had any doubts they were waiting in the right place, sitting here the past hours had broken them away. This had to be the right spot.

  She looked up to where the moon dipped low, already half covered by the treetops. Th
e backdrop of the sky shifted away from cobalt into blue.

  It had to be the right spot, and yet the night had nearly passed without a sign of the monster. “It should have shown itself by now.”

  “We’ll have to try again on another night,” Gavran said.

  They’d achieve nothing by simply sitting out here every night except to exhaust themselves. “We’ve missed something, and there’s no sense in coming back until we figure out what. Why didn’t it come?”

  “We’ll have to ask Lady MacDonald.”

  “Assuming she’ll tell us any more than she already has.”

  Every time she’d spoken to Lady MacDonald about the nuckalevee, she had the unsettling feeling there was more hiding right behind the words the lady actually said. Unfortunately, she had no way to prove it and no way to make Lady MacDonald be more forthcoming.

  The sun had forced the moon from the sky by the time they walked back to Duntulm Castle. The boy who hauled wood pointed them in the direction of the chapel to find Lady MacDonald. Eachann, as usual, waited outside the door. This time they entered despite his protests.

  The chapel stood empty except for Lady MacDonald, morning prayers already done.

  Lady MacDonald knelt in front of a stone altar, on the floor like a servant rather than in one of the balconies reserved for the lord’s family and honored guests, her covered head bowed. Snatches of her soft prayers carried to the door, magnified by the vaulted ceiling.

  Ceana couldn’t catch all the words, just their names, and Lady MacDonald’s tone—more reverent, more awed and humbled and filled with trust than any prayers she’d heard spoken by a priest. For the first time since the wishes, she wanted to kneel down and join in the prayers.

  Gavran’s heavier footsteps echoed on the stone floor, and Lady MacDonald turned.

  The lines around her mouth deepened. She rose and adjusted her head covering higher. It cast her face into shadows. “You didn’t fight the nuckalevee.”