Cleo’s witchy room, to other eyes, was a screened back porch with an unreasonable amount of plants. The air was fresh, though, from those plants and the breeze of Cleo’s backyard. She had encouraged the plants to grow lush, and they so did gladly for her. She felt their contentment, a wyrd hum just underneath her hearing.
Nan had figured out Cleo’s connection with plants before Cleo had, of course. Cleo hadn’t known people couldn’t hear their susurrus murmuring of contentment or the faint vibrations of distress when dying. Orlaith tried growing basil and lavender once, of all things, and promptly began to kill them both with over- and under-watering them once they got home. Cleo had told Nan how unhappy the plants were, and Nan listened. She usually didn’t listen, but this time she held still as Cleo explained what she heard.
Apparently this time Cleo was saying something that needed listening to. Nan started teaching her witchery properly then. It was awkward, Nan wasn’t a green witch. She didn’t understand how Cleo did what she did, or even what Cleo could do. She was an impatient teacher, and frustrated easily. Nan helped women, painful periods, getting pregnant and birthing babies. Cleo suspected Nan did other, darker things about husbands and boyfriends and bodies, maybe, but could never quite get to asking.
But Nan did understand how to call the Goddess in the moon, and how to sharpen her will and attention into a pike, so straight and sharp it could go anywhere, slide into intent and purpose and action. She’d taught Cleo runes, wyrd symbols to encourage pregnancy or to ease pain. Nan mentioned other runes, darker ones, her eyes and mouth full of satisfaction. The darker ones never worked right for Cleo. She was too much a green witch to bind another’s will or keep internal bleeding from healing. Cleo had wanted to press Nan about why she used these spells, but didn’t. She wished she had, later. Nan tried her best to tell Cleo about family lore, about working in covens, but most of that had been lost with her great-grandmother.
Great-grandmother Fiadh - Cleo didn’t find out the spelling until years later, until then it was just Great-grandmother Fee-a - according to Nan was a once-in-a-generation beauty. She was known in her county for her deep red curling hair, warm smile, and sweet disposition.
Apparently it hadn’t been an act, not at first.
Something happened. Something bad, likely involving a man, Nan said. Men were always trouble, according to Nan and later confirmed by Cleo’s own experiences. Whatever happened, Great-grandmother Fiadh left Ireland, carrying both a curse and baby Nan with her.
The curse was brilliant, in its way, devastating in its simplicity. It had sunk deeply into the women of her family without sign of decrease with each generation. It was triggered by deep emotion - fondness, love, friendship - and exploded that feeling, twisting it, turning it into obsession, rage, or hate. Sometimes all three, which was confusing.
Nan was impressed with the curse, even if she loathed being pushed around by it.
When Cleo first found out about the curse, she’d wondered about how Nan managed to suppress it. She’d asked her grandmother, who looked at her, laughed, and said it wasn’t triggered “if you don’t give a shit.”
Cleo knew how the bond affected her mother, though, no mystery there. Orlaith must’ve loved her daughters at some point, because Cleo had only known disdain and anger from her mother. The curse must’ve triggered when Cleo was a baby.
Siobhan believed it was simple mental illness, and in her words, was “exacerbated by an intergenerational cycle of neglect and abuse.” Cleo would’ve believed that too, but for one thing - when the curse first triggered for Cleo, she had studied enough witchery to see the runes appear on her skin. She had caught their appearance by accident. Cleo had been bathing, the water cool against her heated skin. She’d kept the light off, feeling very mysterious and witchy bathing in the light of the moon streaming through her window. Her thoughts drifted to Nathan, her first kiss and then-current boyfriend, and she’d idly began to stroke her breasts like he did. He was so thrilling when he kissed, but admittedly boring when he spoke. Nathan liked the sound of his own voice, and waited impatiently to talk again when Cleo offered her opinion about… anything. He had opinions, and those opinions were the only ones that mattered.
Her hand had stopped, the irritation building. Cleo pushed those memories aside. Why be so negative? He was nice to her, wasn’t he? Nicer than any of her mom’s stupid boyfriends. She turned her thoughts towards his hands and resumed stroking. The water was getting cold when she had finally brought herself to orgasm thinking about Nathan.
What she remembered best, however, wasn’t the orgasm itself, but its aftermath, the pleasure still buzzing through her limbs. Cleo watched with confusion, then horror, as the rune suddenly appeared as if it had always been there, shining faintly against the center of her chest, ran down her belly, arching over her legs and arms. She’d tried frantically to brush it off, she hadn’t recognized it from the few Nan knew, but knew, knew with bone-deep certainty that it was wrong. It twisted weirdly, a sickly yellow-green, and hurt her eyes to look at it. And it wasn’t coming off, no matter how hard she rubbed.
She’d jumped out of the bath, grabbing the towel as she looked for Nan. She’d found her grandmother in her bedroom, brushing her curls so they poofed around her face. Nan had started when Cleo slammed the door open, then slumped. Nan watched the water dripping down Cleo’s legs instead of her eyes, an expression of sadness twisting her
