“It was your fault?” I demanded, recoiling. “You were the reason she died?”
“Nay…” His expression was twisted in agony. “Nay, I wasn’t.”
“I trusted you!” My heart broke as I scrambled to my feet so fast I almost hit my head on the roof of the druid’s cave.
“Nay, Skye, it was no one’s fault. Let me explain…”
But I didn’t want to hear anything he had to say. Bolting from the cave, I ran through the rain, leaping over logs, and sliding down embankments, trying to get as far away from him as I could.
“Skye!” he shouted after me. “Wait!”
His cries only spurred me on, my feet pounding on the earth as I fled back toward the village. I ran so far and fast I was back on the main road in no time.
Bursting into Irish Moon, the bell jingled furiously, and Mairead shot me a surprised look from behind the till.
“What happened to you?” she asked, curling her lip. “You’re drippin’ all over the floor, and I just swept there.”
“I… I need a towel,” I declared.
There was nothing else to say.
Chapter 13
I sat on the end of Aileen’s bed, the spell book and tarot cards in front of me. Now completely dry, I was a sight warmer, but my heart was still a freezing block of ice.
A spriggan had killed Aileen? I didn’t understand, which explained how I’d felt the entire time I’d been in Derrydun. I didn’t understand the accent. I didn’t understand my mother. Now I didn’t understand the secret world of witches and fae that apparently coexisted with reality and mediocrity. Who knew what was real anymore, anyway? Not me.
Grabbing my phone, I tapped spriggan into a search engine. I could ask Boone, but I couldn’t bring myself to look him in the eye. His stupidity had brought about my mother’s death and everything that had happened to me since that day. He was the reason the Crescents had called me ‘home.’ He was the reason my life had fallen apart.
The Internet was no help with my spriggan search. All I found were silly stories about treelike creatures that apparently stole mortal babies only to replace them with changelings. And something about guarding buried treasure, which sounded like something from a video game. It also said they were ugly old men with big heads, which was a complete contradiction to Boone’s story.
“What am I supposed to do now?” I asked the air.
She died saving Boone, and everyone thought she’d had a heart attack. How could he live with himself? Rubbing my tired eyes, I sighed. It was like she’d died all over again, only this time, I couldn’t tell anyone about it.
Opening the tarot cards, I shuffled the deck, taking comfort in the repetitive motion. Taking a deep breath, I pulled a card from the middle of the pack, just to confuse the Universe, and turned it over. It was an image of a naked woman standing in a pond full of rushes. Above her was an array of stars, and she was holding a jug in either hand, filling them in the waves of twin waterfalls. She was called the Star.
Flipping open the book, I found the page describing her qualities. The star hints at the possibility of rebirth. You have endured life’s challenges brought forward by the collapse of the tower, and you are now open to healing and transformation if you choose to be open to it. The Star is a symbol of rejuvenation and hope. You may now be in a phase where you have to have faith in yourself and the world around you. A better future is possible, but you must remain steadfast.
A better future? I snorted and tossed the card down. How was this a better future than the one I already had in Australia? Was being a witch supposed to be like this? Clueless and alone, hunted by twisted, starving creatures for my magic…magic I couldn’t even feel inside me.
I’d made a bunch of leaves float, but that was at the hawthorn with Boone’s help. Now that I was alone, the tingling sensation was gone, leaving me cold. I couldn’t feel my power at all. Some Crescent Witch I was. Last in the line and they’d gotten a complete dud.
Shuffling the cards again, I drew another. There she was again. The Star. I put the card back and shuffled the deck a little more violently. I pulled another, but this time, from the bottom. The Star.
I drew again and again, each time turning the card over to find the same bloody thing. Every time, the Star. Star, Star, Star. I drew her so many times the word began to lose all meaning.
Letting out a frustrated cry, I flipped through the spell book, but the words ran into each other, making less and less sense as I went.
This was ridiculous. I couldn’t do it.
“What am I supposed to do?” I exclaimed to the empty room around me. “I can’t even light a candle. You know, like all those witches do in TV shows and stuff? There’s the one with the witch and the vampires, and she’s all like, I found out I was a witch five minutes ago, and look at all these feathers just hovering in the air. I just need to raise my hands and poof! Like she was some witch prodigy or something. I made a bunch of leaves hover, but I guess that had everything to do with the hawthorn and nothing to do with me. You know, I got a C minus is maths, but somehow, I don’t think that counts. This witch stuff isn’t like astrophysics, is it?” I waited for a moment, almost expecting a reply to my rant, but I only got silence. “C’mon, you don’t have to tell me everything, I’m not
