Basically, it was game on. A fight to the death was looming, which wasn’t anything I didn’t already know, but now it was showing up in the cards. After all this time looming across the horizon, it was finally going to happen…and soon.
“What does it mean?” Mairead asked.
“Game on…”
Tossing the book away, I grabbed the laptop from the back room and fired it up.
“What are you doing?” Mairead asked, her sketchbook forgotten.
“Looking at the news,” I replied, setting the computer on the counter.
“Why?”
“Shh,” I hissed, scrolling through the Irish Times website. “Noo…”
Among all the stories about politics, complaining about politics, the latest social media craze, and assorted stories on new obscure research findings—boys twice as likely to cheat on exams—was a story on a strange crop blight.
That was how it began last time. At least, it did in the stories. Carman and her sons laid waste to Ireland, killing crops and spreading disease wherever they went.
Did I really have to die for the curse to be broken? Maybe my blood was enough. If that were the case, then Ireland was completely open for the taking. Carman could already be here!
“What’s the dirtiest word you know in Irish?” I asked, starting to walk anxious laps around the display of tumbled stones.
“Uh…”
“How do you say the f-word?”
“There isn’t really a way of sayin’ that in Irish… There is the c-word.”
“Even I get scandalized when someone says the c-word.” I fisted my hands in the tub of polished amethyst and tried to absorb the calming energy.
“You, scandalized?”
“The c-word is forbidden, Mairead! Forbidden!”
“You could say gabh transna ort fhéin.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Go…you know…yourself sideways. Pretty much, anyway.”
“Gabh transna… ort fhéin…” The words sounded strange on my tongue but were oddly satisfying to shout out. “Gabh transna ort fhéin!”
A blast of cold air buffeted me as the door opened, and I wrenched my hands from the tumbled stones, sending some clattering to the floor.
“I hope you’re not sayin’ that to me,” Boone said, wiping his boots on the mat.
“Thank goodness you’re here,” Mairead exclaimed, venturing out from behind the counter so she could scoop up the amethyst. “Skye’s gone insane.”
I snatched up the tarot card and shoved it at him. “Look!”
“The Chariot?”
“It’s upside down!” I said, flailing my arms.
“Skye says it’s doom and gloom,” Mairead said, her voice echoing from behind the display.
I raised my eyebrows and widened my eyes, nodding at Mairead. Boone made a face and took out his wallet.
“Here’s a fiver,” he said, handing Mairead the money. “Go over to Mary’s, and get a coffee or somethin’.”
“I’m not a kid, you know.” She pouted but snatched the money from his fingers anyway.
“I know you’re not, but do you want to deal with that?” He gestured toward me.
“Hey!” I cried. “I’m standing right here!”
Mairead took my outburst as her cue to make a run for it. Bolting for the door, she pushed outside and hurtled across the street toward Mary’s Teahouse.
“Don’t be so hard on her. She just wants to be included,” Boone said, rubbing his palm up and down my arm.
“I know, but she’s human. She doesn’t have anything to protect herself with.”
“She handled herself just fine when…” He hesitated.
“She got lucky.” I picked up a piece of amethyst from the floor and tossed it back into the tub with the others. “The talisman protected her in the end, but it’s what got her kidnapped in the first place.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Everything.” Turning the laptop around, I pointed to the screen.
Boone narrowed his eyes and read the headline.
“A crop blight?” he asked, clearly not getting it.
“It’s Carman,” I said. “This was how it started last time. The crops failed all over Ireland, then people started getting sick.”
“There’s no way to link that to Carman,” he argued. “It’s just one crop. Besides, I stopped the ritual remember?”
I grimaced and fell silent.
“Skye…”
“Did you?” I asked. “Did you really stop it?”
Boone didn’t reply, but he started to look rather worried. He wasn’t sure, either.
“She’s not going to come straight at me,” I went on. “She’ll gather her strength, suck the magic out of everything she can get her hands on, and when she’s had her fill, she’ll come for the hawthorn.”
“The hawthorn in the forest?”
“That’s where it all started. That’s where my ancestors sealed the doorways. She’s coming here.”
“Maybe, but there’s no way of knowin’ this story is linked to Carman,” he said, pointing at the laptop. “There’s no way of knowin’ anythin’.”
“Then what about the Chariot?”
“I think you need to calm down,” he murmured. “I can feel you…”
I raised my eyebrows and felt the tension in my shoulders. Placing my hand on my stomach, I sensed my magic simmering just beneath the surface.
“Oh…” This instinctual business was wreaking havoc when my emotions went haywire. I hadn’t noticed it before, even when my monthly lady time came to visit, but my magic was growing every day. PMS was going to be a real barrel of craic.
Boone’s arms curled around me, and he pulled me against his chest. Holding me tightly, he soothed my anxiety until the golden light dulled.
“Can you keep cuddling me forever?” I asked. “Just like this?”
His chest rose as he breathed in deeply, and I nestled closer. What would I do without him? I’d be lost.
“We don’t know anythin’ for sure,” he said after a moment. “Worryin’ about things we can’t control won’t get us anywhere. We’ve got some time to figure it out.”
“The cards are warning us.”
“Aye. So we can be vigilant.”
“You’re so smart.”
Boone laughed, and it was a sweet sound to my ears. Despite all of his own problems—his amnesia, his crazy wolf shape, and his new magic-nullifying abilities—he still found it in himself to calm me down with his Yoda-esque wisdom.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“We’re goin’ through tough times,” Boone replied. “And I made a promise to you and Aileen. We may have lost her, but we’re still here. And while we’re still breathin’…”
“We keep fighting.”
“Aye.”
“Something Carman said is still bothering me,” I murmured.
“What?”
“It was like she expected to see someone else.”
She
