My head started to throb like a headache was coming on, and I glanced around the room. What if the wolf came back? Boone had said someone had come looking after Aileen’s death like they were waiting to see if a Crescent Witch would show up and take over her duties. She’d left me in Australia with bound powers to protect me, and now I was exposed with no way to protect myself.
Oh, no. What if the wolf was a shapeshifter like Boone? What if it was hunting me for another reason? If I was right, and I couldn’t get hold of my magic, then I would be up shit creek without a paddle. Anyway, if it weren’t the wolf, it would be something else, and it would be all over red rover.
Aileen, why did you have to leave me? Springing off the bed in a fit of passion, I turned around and around, searching for something to grab. My gaze settled on the dresser, and I strode toward it, my heart beating frantically as desperation began to tear at my fragile emotions.
“Who were you?” I exclaimed, tearing through the drawers. “Tell me what I’m supposed to do!”
I pushed clothes aside, searching, hoping, desperate to find something, anything, that would give me a clear answer.
“You owe me this!” I said, fighting back a torrent of tears. “You left me all alone, and now you’re doing it again! I hate you!”
Flinging open the closet, I pulled out clothes, tossing them over my shoulder and digging deeper. There were no hidden compartments or mythical door to Narnia, so I turned my attention to stomping on the floorboards. There had to be something here. I’d found the spell book, right? But…nothing else moved.
Bolting downstairs, I tore apart the living room, tossing books off the shelves and flipping through pages. I pulled the horrible floral cushions off the couch, but they were just ordinary pieces of furniture.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I shrieked. “Show yourself!”
In the kitchen, I opened cupboards, banged pots and pans, and leafed through recipe books but still found nothing out of the ordinary. There was nothing magical in this whole cottage.
Where would I find her? Where… I froze, my pulse racing.
Snatching my jacket from the kitchen chair, the house keys rattled in the pocket, and I raced outside, slamming the door behind me. Running through Derrydun, I saw the spire of St. Brigid’s peeking over the treetops. Not giving one hoot, I rounded the end of the little church, skidded on the slippery grass, and fell to my knees beside Aileen’s grave.
At some point, someone had placed some flowers beside her headstone, some red things I didn’t know the name of, and the capstone had been set into place. It was a really nice grave if the dead gave a toss about what their remains were stuffed in after they’d crossed over.
Placing my hands on the stone, I closed my eyes and prayed. I had no idea if I was doing it right or if I was being reckless with something I would likely never understand, but I did it anyway. I needed my mother now more than ever.
I felt my mind fall through the earth, and dizziness almost brought me back, but I forged on. I sensed worms wriggling through tons of dirt and then a void. That had to be the coffin, but there was nothing. It was just a space filled with air.
The moment I realized the truth was the moment I felt a familiar presence behind me.
I didn’t have to look up to know it was Boone. The one thing I could control was sensing his aura. His and no one else’s. What was the definition of irony? Probably this.
“I can’t feel anything,” I said, not even glancing up.
“It’s because she isn’t there,” he murmured, voicing what I already knew deep down.
Lifting my hands off the stone, I pushed to my feet and slid my ass onto the end of the empty grave. I didn’t feel so bad about sitting on it now I knew no one was down there.
“I want to hate you,” I whispered. “So much.”
“I deserve it.”
Allowing my head to fall into my hands, I covered my eyes and tried to halt my tears. For a woman I grew up despising, I sure felt drawn to her now.
“Tell me,” I said. “Tell me how it happened. From the beginning.”
Boone shifted from foot to foot before sitting beside me on the end of the grave. Above, the sun was beginning to set, the clouds broken enough for light to stream through. The sky was on fire, and every shade of red and orange streaked across the tops of the trees.
I shivered, burying into my jacket. The ground was still wet from the earlier downpour, and my jeans were soaked through at the knees. The mixture of old and new gravestones was as eerie as it was beautiful, made even more chilling knowing the story Boone was about to tell.
“Hannah used to be the bartender at Molly McCreedy’s,” he began uncertainly. “After…no one remembers her. Robert said it was because she was one of the higher fae. Trickery was her nature. She’d been livin’ in Derrydun under our noses. For how long, I don’t know. Well before I arrived, anyway. She said she’d been feedin’ off the hawthorn behind Sean McKinnon’s house.”
“The hawthorn that died?”
“Aye.” He nodded. “The one where I was attacked by the craglorn.”
“How did she…” I swallowed hard.
“Hannah first appeared to me as a fox,” he went on. “Though she didn’t let on who she was until much later. Until she…changed in front of me. I thought she was a shapeshifter like me. I was so alone, Skye…to think there were others like me? It was worth the risk.”
“You went outside the boundary,” I stated. He’d already
