The Connelly Curse

by Lily Velez

  As she did this, the other two came behind me, exploring the breadth of my shoulders, the column that was my spine, the solid muscles of my back. Before long, there were hands everywhere on my upper body. I didn’t get the sense they understood the immodesty of their assessment either.

  The first merrow-maiden touched her fingertips to my lips. There was webbing between her long, thin fingers, the delicate film like the skin between an egg and its shell. The merrow-maiden touched her own lips next, as if comparing the shape of our mouths. Without preamble, she moved forward and made to kiss me.

  I caught her face in time but gentled my touch, not wishing to offend her. Instead, I pressed our foreheads together as we floated in the water’s depths. Her arms looped around my neck, her body pressing into mine. The other two drew closer as well until I was sandwiched between the three of them, their touches growing ever more brazen.

  I relaxed my body lest my disinterest give me away. I smoothed a thumb over the cold cheekbone of the first merrow-maiden, my fingers threading into her hair, her lips nearly ghosting over mine. Our noses slid beside each other as I leaned in. She melted into me, ready.

  And in that instant, I snatched the scarf from her head.

  Before she could react, I threw up my hands and summoned the water’s magic, and it blasted me back into my vacuum of breathable space, where my lungs quickly took in the oxygen they so urgently needed.

  The merrow-maiden I’d deceived screeched in horror. Her two companions, meanwhile, hissed. Their upper lips peeled back to reveal nothing but long, needle-sharp fangs ready to tear into me. Eyes full of venom, their tails switched back and forth in angry jerks.

  I held up the scarf. It dripped sea water down my wrist. “Bring me The Goddess’s Pearl,” I said, “and I’ll return to you what’s rightfully yours.”

  The two companions swam around me in furious circles, as if they thought they might be able to simply reach into my vacuum and snatch the scarf back from me. I widened the walls of my space, putting more distance between us. I could feel the waves of their fury as they continued to hiss and glare and bare their teeth.

  The scarf-less merrow-maiden all the while only watched me, her face a portrait of despair. She clutched the seaweed-like fabric covering her breasts, and her mouth opened and closed like a goldfish’s, as if her power to breathe underwater was already waning. Without any sort of acknowledgement, she darted away, and within seconds, her companions followed after her.

  I waited.

  For what seemed an eternity, I waited.

  The merrow-maidens never returned.

  My stomach tightened. I raked my fingers through my hair, my eyes sweeping over the sea floor. Somehow, it seemed bigger than it had earlier, as if it stretched on endlessly. Clenching my jaw, I moved to my hands and knees, combing through plants as I resumed my search for The Goddess’s Pearl, relying solely on the luminous glow of the underwater flora.

  Time passed slowly. Half an hour, an hour, more—it was hard to tell how many minutes slipped through my fingers. Again and again, I went back to the image of Scarlet I held in my mind. I thought of soft skin that smelled like magnolias. I thought of a pink, heart-shaped mouth that never failed to slightly part in wonder whenever she witnessed breathtaking magic. This couldn’t be the end for her. I wouldn’t stand for it.

  It was while I moved aside gravel that I felt a presence.

  It was the scarf-less merrow-maiden. She floated as still as a statue, looking on with those sorrowful eyes. She was paler than she’d been a short time ago, as if her power had drained out of her in excess and drained out still.

  I straightened and approached her, stopping just short of the wall dividing us.

  Her mouth was drawn in a straight line, and she looked away from me, as if embarrassed. Even so, she extended her hand. At the center of her palm sat a smooth, ivory sphere. The Goddess’s Pearl. By the way my pulse accelerated, I knew it to be true.

  I reached for it, but the merrow-maiden made a fist over it and yanked it away. She extended her free hand, demanding the scarf.

  “Together,” I said.

  She frowned, but at the same time, we offered up the item we possessed to the other, and in unison, we quickly seized the prize we sought. The merrow-maiden swiftly tied her scarf back atop her head, taking special care to double-knot and tighten its ends. Her color returned to her immediately. She breathed in deeply, her body relaxing.

  When her eyes returned to me, they flitted between me and The Goddess’s Pearl in a silent inquiry.

  “It’s for someone I care very deeply for,” I explained.

  She looked down shyly, fiddling with her necklace of shells. Finally, deciding something, she pressed a hand to the wall separating us. I faltered, unsure of the gesture, but I didn’t get the impression she bore me any malice. I met her hand, pressing my palm to hers.

  She smiled, a bittersweet smile that spoke of longing. She offered a deep nod in farewell, and I nodded back, expressing my gratitude to her before she peeled away and disappeared into the darkness.

  Tucking the pearl into my pants pocket, I took one long breath of air. Then I left my vacuum, making powerful strides with my arms as I ascended into the darkness of The Dreaded Sea. I tried not to think about the shoal of red-eyed piranhas swimming somewhere in the depths, praying to the gods they were preoccupied with other prey. I tried not to think of whatever other terrors laid in wait as well. I simply kept swimming, my possession of The Goddess’s Pearl making me feel buoyant.

  Before long, the water above me lightened, the light of three moons still glimmering upon the face of the sea. I swam faster, propelled by my proximity to safety. As soon as I broke the surface of the water, I hauled myself onto the shore and moved as far away from the water’s edge as my taxed body would allow. Judging myself to be at a safe enough distance, I crashed into the waiting earth to rest my muscles, my breaths bursting in and out of me.

  I allowed myself only seconds to gather my bearings, though. I was already racing against time, and it was impossible to know how long I’d been underwater. I still needed to navigate The Everwoods and find my way back to Scarlet. All this before the night was gone.

  I recovered my shirt and shoes and started for the forest, studying the location of the moons and stars once again to orient myself.

  I’d only taken a dozen steps when there was a significant snap under my foot. A mechanism sprung, and in the next moment, I was swept off my feet. The back of my head smacked against the ground, and then I was hanging upside down from a tree.

  A ring of inverted figures slowly approached me. They were cloaked in animal skins, but I saw the weapons they bore, and my adrenaline spiked when I realized what they were.

  Marauders.

  Otherwise known as demonic bounty hunters.

  And it was immediately clear what bounty it was they sought to claim.

  The one the Dark Lord had placed on my head.

  32

  Lucas

  I stared at the trigonometry problem, something about sines, cosines, and the law of tangents staring back at me. Gods, did people really get off on this sort of thing? I might as well had been trying to decipher Greek. In what real-world situation would I ever need to figure out the angle of a bloody triangle? The only triangles I cared about were slices of pizza.

  Now there was an idea. Extra cheese with loads of pepperoni, sausage, and bacon. Already salivating, I checked the time on my phone. Did I have enough of a window to wayfare to Galway and back? I knew a place there that specialized in wood fired pizzas, importing a fair share of their ingredients straight from Italy. If that wasn’t authentic, I didn’t know what was.

  Unfortunately, it looked like Galway would have to wait. There was only fifteen minutes left for lunch before classes resumed. Of course, I could always bunk off trigonometry, but Professor Carroll would have a fit, claiming I was purposely avoiding today’s exam.

  And he wouldn’t be altogether incorrect.<
br />
  Technically, I was supposed to be in pre-calculus this year with Connor and Rory. Because I was apparently the only one in this family who had a social life, though, I’d torpedoed my finals last school year. No regrets there, but my sentence? An encore of trigonometry.

  Except they didn’t refer to it as ‘repeating’ the subject. No, no. That would be a stain on the glorious St. Andrew’s reputation. Instead, it was called a ‘review.’ A thorough, deep-dive, agonizing, chapter-by-chapter review that, for an hour each day, made me feel as if my brain were being shoved into a meat grinder.

  Jack thought he was cursed? Try being subjected to trigonometry for two terms!

  I was entirely convinced math had been originally developed by ancient civilizations as a form of torture. I'd told the headmaster of St. Andrew's as much during one of my regular visits to his office, which were usually preceded by my having ‘caused a disturbance’ in so-and-so's classroom (which, in my opinion, more so translated to ‘lightened things up,’ usually in reference to a professor’s soulless, uninspiring lecture, but no one ever seemed to want to debate the semantics of the matter).

  The headmaster was never charmed by my arguments, but what could you do? Not everyone had a sense of humor.

  “You’re not applying yourself, Lucas,” he’d say time and again. “I see no reason why you shouldn’t be getting top marks in all your classes same as all your brothers. Or why you shouldn’t be turning your assignments in on time. Professor Byrne claims you fail to submit your history assignments at least once a week.”

  That I could explain. Those were just the days I hadn’t managed to copy Rory’s homework. Rory and I had this wonderful arrangement in which I copied his assignments and he...well, he continued to not have the slightest clue about it. It worked fantastically well for me.

  “Soon enough, you’ll be sitting for your Leaving Certificate,” the headmaster would go on. “But if you don’t apply yourself, there’s little your professors can do for you. There’s a gold mine of opportunities here at St. Andrew’s, Lucas. You’d be wise not to squander your years with us.”

  He was right about one thing. There were plenty of opportunities here. Opportunities to practice magic.

  It was probably a good thing the headmaster didn’t know I was a witch, or our lovely heart-to-hearts would take on a wildly different tune. He thought my truancy and lack of scholarly drive were the reasons for his graying hairs?

  Who did he think was the reason behind all those frogs suddenly filling the campus pool right in the middle of last week’s swim meet? It’d been like something out of biblical plague. Father Nolan would’ve been proud that I’d managed to pay attention during chapel for once (he wasn’t, by the way).

  And how did the headmaster make sense of the entire interior of Kelly House turning cotton candy pink overnight? All Kelly House residents had to be put up in the gym while their residence hall was repainted, and the sprinkler system may or may not have malfunctioned every night they were there. Tint the water with permanent dye, and you had a running joke that lasted all week.

  I couldn’t lie. There was something massively satisfying about seeing Gallagher in the halls with giant splotches of fuchsia all over his face and neck. Did he really think I didn’t see the way he took the piss out of Rory every so often? Let him keep at it, and he’d be sleeping with bed bugs one of these nights. That, or I’d make it so that he caught a permanent itch in a very unforgivable place.

  Gods, it was a shame some of my best work was going uncredited! These professors were more worried about my mathematical aptitude, or lack thereof, and here I was putting on a fierce performance for them from week to week.

  Smirking to myself, I flipped the trigonometry book shut (let’s be honest, it’s not as if I was actually going to manage a devoted study session) and pushed it away. To hell with trigonometry. My chips were getting cold.

  I dipped one in ketchup and popped it into my mouth, making a sound of approval over still being able to taste the canola oil on its golden, crisp skin. Taking out a deck of cards, I went through my usual routine of shuffles while I corralled my thoughts. I usually spent my lunch session in the refectory with friends, but call me a saint, I was spending time with my kid brother instead.

  My eyes flicked to where Rory stood in the greenhouse, the smell of soil surrounding us. For a moment, he looked like an apothecary from the days of old, an army of vials before him as he stood behind a wooden worktable and threw together a concoction for gods knew what. I thought I caught a glimpse of hemlock root, snake skin, and blood meal. Hardly a dedicated student of spellcraft, the combination of ingredients didn’t strike a chord of familiarity with me. But considering I didn’t really peg Rory as the type to stray from the ‘if it harm none, do as ye will’ mantra, I wasn’t exactly worried.

  At Rory’s feet, his bushy-tailed fox, Jinx, let out high-pitched yelps as it scampered back and forth with a tennis ball. The fox’s comeback was a type of magic all its own. The thing was already double its initial size and growing still. For the time being, Rory kept it in our room at Seymour House, cloaking it with magic whenever we were in class, but eventually, the fox would have to return to its natural habitat where it could hunt and live out the rest of its years.

  But a fox was the least of our worries. My playing cards rushed from one hand to another in a clicking blur as I thought about the mess formerly known as Five Maidens Beach. Rory’s witching year had been a total snore-fest up until a few days ago, when we’d faced off with the Amadan Dubh. Against it, Rory hadn’t just used magic. He’d used it. He’d used the hell out of it.

  And in front of a member of the Sightless no less! The cherry on top? When Connor had tried to take charge, immediately informing us that he’d revise Liam’s memories by way of his Mastery, Rory, suddenly growing a pair, had said, and I quote, “No.” He would take care of the problem himself.

  I could’ve shed a tear of pride. Finally, some rebellion in the Connelly ranks! I’d only been waiting seventeen years for a partner in crime. The glorious day had at long last come.

  Granted, Connor wouldn’t let up about me talking some sense into Rory, seeing as how nothing had been done about Liam yet. You knew it was a sign of the end times when I, Lucas Connelly, was being called in to talk sense into someone.

  So would I do it?

  Of course not! So Rory wanted his best mate to know we were witches. So what? I was far more interested in finding out whether or not Rory would be up for joining me in a prank against Connor later.

  Speak of the devil…

  The greenhouse door burst open, plants shuddering in their terracotta pots, the panes of the building trembling in their frames. I let out a low whistle as the maelstrom that was Connor charged inside.

  “You and Zoe have another spat?” I quipped.

  With a flick of his hand, he sent a pot of mandrake soaring for my head. I barely ducked in time. The pot slammed into the wall behind me, shattering.

  “I’ll give you a nine for execution,” I said. “But your aim? Abysmal.”

  Connor stormed up to Rory, eyes smoldering. You could almost see the smoke coming off him from that temper of his. I said it again and again. One of these days, Connor was going to spontaneously combust. And there I’d be, dancing in the ashes. Probably drinking a Guinness while I was at it.

  “Want to tell me why my magic’s not working against Misaki?”

  Oh, this was going to be good. There really was never a dull day when Connor got into one of his moods. Which was pretty much every day.

  Rory didn’t respond. Surprisingly, he wasn’t taken aback by the sudden line of questioning. He didn’t even look the slightest bit intimidated. Our youngest brother wore his witching year well.

  And his silence was answer enough. He’d obviously spelled an object to protect Misaki from our magic, most likely a bracelet or necklace or coin, something Misaki could have on him at all times.

  This plot was quickly thicken
ing, and it was rich as hell. I almost wished I’d gone for that pizza after all. I set down my cards, crossed my arms, and reclined into my front row seat to this spectacular disaster.

  “Have you completely lost it?” Connor asked. “You’re putting us all at risk. We know nothing about Misaki.”

  “We can trust him,” Rory said evenly. He continued mixing his concoction, stirring the ingredients with a mortar and pestle in a quick, grating rhythm.

  “I’m not going to stand for some random Sightless classmate knowing our secrets.”

  “Does it really make any difference?” I asked. “Almost the entire town already believes we’re actual witches. What’s one more? I say we shout it from the rooftops. It’d certainly make things a bit more interesting around here.”

  Connor muttered something under his breath about me being an eejit, and I grinned. It was too easy getting under his skin.

  “Whatever you’ve given him to ward off my magic,” Connor told Rory, “I’ll figure out what it is. I’ll take it from him. And then his memories of what happened the other day are as good as gone.”

  Something flickered in Rory’s eyes, his jaw tightening. “I said I’d take care of it myself.”

  “Except you’ve done nothing about it!”

  “Either way, it’s none of your business.”

  “Treason very much is my business. Do you realize you can be sentenced to The Citadel for this? This is one of witch-kind’s highest laws. By revealing the truth of our existence to a member of the Sightless, you’re essentially betraying your own people. You’re spitting on the graves of every witch who was ever persecuted and murdered by the Sightless. They drowned us, burnt us, hung us, and tortured us, Rory.”

  “Centuries ago.”

  “Last time I checked, The Black Hand wasn’t centuries ago.”

  “Not everyone cares if we’re witches. Least of all Liam. He hasn’t treated me any differently since Five Maidens.”