Shatter - Sins of the Sidhe (6 page)

“I was five when I saw the first creature. He was small, like the size of a fat cat, and sat at the end of my bed.”

Adam perked up with a look of surprise that was quickly masked. He didn’t expect Rowan to speak first and her boldness gave him a startle. His hard Sidhe-side was getting sloppy after spending so many centuries away from the Faelands. Not blinking, Adam sat straighter and gave her a nod signaling she had his undivided attention.

“He didn’t do anything but just stare at me. Wouldn’t talk, move, or go away. I just remember closing my eyes and feeling the corner of the mattress go from sinking with his weight to light and flat again when he’d gone. I didn’t open my eyes though, just in case.” She gave her small audience a little smile and a shrug. “He came back a few years later, lashed out and scraped my leg. It wasn’t a deep scratch, but left a scar all the same.” Eyes lit with a flash of courage then, and Rowan looked away from the fire and straight to Devlin as she continued.

“Shortly after that, I was at my best friend Brinley’s house for a slumber party.
She got a Ouija board for her birthday and all us girls sat in her basement and tried to speak to the dead.”

Grabbing her pendant she fiddled with the charm as she went on lost in the memory of that night.

“At first, you know how it goes: everyone’s trying to push the oracle back and forth to make out words and all. But one girl there asked if we could try and contact her grandmother who had just passed away the previous week. Of course we said yes and when I said her Gran’s full name, I opened my eyes and there she was sitting in front of the fireplace. She wore a pink skirt and matching blazer with a corsage pinned to it. She stared right at me and I couldn’t even move. It was then I knew I had a something special: I could see and talk to dead people. It didn’t scare me though, it felt… good. Afterwards I was obsessed with seeing more of them. I got to the point where I would try Ouija boards, automatic writing, pendulums, and candle flames, anything I could think of to contact someone from the other side, including the greats like Poe, Jim Morrison, and Patsy Cline.”

She smiled while thinking about how silly that was. Clearing her throat nervously, she continued.

“One day, my mom found me doing a séance on my own in the basement bathroom. No windows were in there and it was quiet and calm, the air was still so I could feel the energy better down there. She totally freaked out and said that I was never to do such things on my own. She said it was dangerous and foolish. But I was a young, rebellious as hell too, and when she threw out all my boards, papers, and candles, I did what any unruly teenager would have done. I went all out. I made a new Ouija board out of birch wood, used a burning tool to brand symbols around the edges and bought more candles and herbs. That board was amazing; it was triangle-shaped and gorgeous.”

Devlin stared at Rowan like she had six heads. He was astonished that such a wee young thing would go against her parents like that and still have such delight in her face while recalling her actions. By Danu, ye could see the pride she still had for her craftsmanship. Why didn’t she understand that such things of power are nay used in frivolity? Anger stirred in him and then he realized he was not one to throw stones. Had he not misused his own powers in the beginning? She had no way of knowing what her actions would lead to, a curse he knew all too well.

Rowan continued spilling out her story like someone who had held in sins for too long and was happy to release it with confession. “I got my first job at the New Age store close to home. It had all kinds of cool stuff in it like dream catchers, magic crystals, singing bowls and such. I loved it because every time I went in I got this great vibe like a bunch of hummingbirds fluttering in my chest, ya know?” She looked up waiting for someone to respond.

Devlin shook his head staring at her with a look of half fear, half pity. Aye, he knew that feeling. ‘Twas strong magic. He couldn’t imagine how she had lasted this long without any guidance. He was starting to feel sorry for the poor lass.

“Anyways, I got hooked on Wiccan spells and Paganism shortly after. The stuff just seemed to make sense to me. A lot more sense than what I was taught in my confirmation classes at church. So I’d take my homemade board I kept hidden under my bed, and I’d head up to the cemetery closest to my house and sit under my favorite tree in the oldest part and just soak in the vibes. Then I’d open up for whoever wanted to come to me.”

Rowan loved cemeteries. It was part of what she liked to call “her weirdness.” She’s loved them since she was a kid going on walks with her mom. As she got older, she started to really appreciate them for what they were. Most people saw death and sadness buried behind those gates. But to Ro, they were a place of positivity, each marker representing a person who had done something great in their life. Even if it was just one thing, it was something good and that goodness went out into the universe and had made life a little happier and made the world a better place. Rowan was a glass half-f kind of girl.

Devlin smiled then, beamed actually. ‘Twas an odd interest to have, that’s for sure, but a tender one at that. He loved walking through the old graveyards in Ireland himself. Gorgeous and ancient, they held such fantastic energy. Only a few were to be avoided, and easily done so.

And now came the part of her confession that she hadn’t told a soul, not even her nearest and dearest. Ro’s nerves were making her palms sweaty and knees bob. She didn’t want to stop her story, it all needed to come out.

“After a while though, spirits stopped talking to me. I went from having a line of them waiting to speak, to no one answering me but some crows cawing in the trees. I got frustrated and impatient. So one day, I went out for a walk in the woods and I tried to imagine where they were hiding.
I could feel something close, but couldn’t get a good read on where or what it was. S
ometimes I can see an apparition clear as day like they were living flesh, and sometimes I see them only in my mind. Other spirits I just hear or smell. It’s never the same. But this particular time, I wanted desperately to talk with someone. Something. I didn’t care what or who. My body was vibrating like I was sitting on a hood of a car with the engine running and my head was pounding. I’ve never done drugs, but I imagine it’s the same feeling as needing a fix.”

Rowan let that memory fill her up, and a heat surged in her very bones as she sat there in the living room with these two men listening to her tell her tales. Rowan remembered the feeling of the air that day, charged and tingling, her body felt like a singing bowl, playing a music that no one else around could hear. She was drawn to the woods, always was, like the very earth beckoned for her to sink into it and become part of its making. It felt amazing. Rowan closed her eyes and shook her head, locking that memory and those feelings back into their box in the hiding spot inside her head. She didn’t open that box anymore, and was a little nervous having done so just now. Looking up at the man with whiskey eyes, she spilled the last of the secret.

“I asked out loud if anyone was out there, anyone at all. And then I said that even if it was Lucifer himself I didn’t care. I sliced my hand with a knife my dad gave me, and asked for whoever was hiding to come out and find me. I said that I was here for them. I smeared my blood over the board and watched crows fly out from every direction. They started to dive bomb me and all but chased me out of the woods. I knew after I’d said it that I had gone too far. I was so fucking stupid. I ran home, left the board where it was, and didn’t go back.”

Well that was unpleasant.

What the hell, it had been years ago. She was just a kid then. Yet, somehow, it felt like it just happened. Feeling the shame of her foolish actions all over again, Ro thought of one of her favorite sayings:
Don’t let your elephant mouth get your hummingbird ass in trouble.
Rowan let out a big sigh, filled her glass with more whiskey and pounded it. Her body was starting to tremble to the point where she couldn’t sit still even if a house fell on her. Her hands shook, feet tapped the floor and her teeth started clacking together. Boy, was it cold in here? Her hands were freezing.

She looked at Devlin and her gut clenched in fear. She’d done something wrong but didn’t know what it was. The look on his face had her wanting to find where Nora the Brownie’s hiding spot was and go there herself. She turned her gaze towards Adam who glared at her with a stone face. He was so still she couldn’t even tell if he was breathing or not. He was the kind of stillness that comes from an animal that has spotted its prey and was biding its time for the stupid dinner to come closer. The looks the two men sent her made Rowan feel awful. All the years of guilt, fear, and shame washed over her body and poured out of her eyes. She cried hard and ugly. Cried for friendships she had ruined throughout her life by carrying such secrets around. Cried for her loneliness. Cried for being foolish, rebellious and selfish. Cried for the emptiness inside her.
Once the flood gates opened, she didn’t know how to stop the tears. She was a sobbing basket case, in a house not her own, with two men that looked very much like they wished they had never met her. Stupid, unwanted, and weak - That was all Rowan was.
 

Maiden, Mother, and Crone!
Devlin and Adam were not prepared for this feisty sprite. Not her tale, not her talent, and not her tears. Snapping out of his thoughts, Devlin had just enough time to duck as Adam’s glass shattered into the fire. Shards sprayed everywhere and the whiskey enticed the flames to burn higher. Adam let out a hiss that rivaled the fire’s taste of whiskey, and bared fangs as his temper rolled off of him in icy bursts. Rowan let out a scream, struggling to find her ground, and then she bolted from the house.

“What are ye thinking man?” Devlin shouted.

“I am no man, Druid. That fucking bitch has single handedly given the Shadow Lord a way into this world. She opened that door because she was frustrated that the dead nay talk with her? Lashing out, making blood sacrifices, and for what? NO rules. NO respect for the magic. NO precautions taken or oaths given. The wench just set about frolicking into the woods and set loose a very dangerous devil.”

Adam snarled and wrenched his shoulder out of Devlin’s grasp. Stalking out of the room, he went to chase down the woman before she caused more trouble. He ran fast as all Sidhes do. Not, I-can-beat-you-in-a-race fast, but Sidhe-style fast. Adam was a blur running up the hill and towards the trees. Leaves swirled in the air by the disturbance from the winds his body made as he ran to get her. Devlin raced to catch up, he was fast, but Adam was much faster. The Sidhe zipped through the trees, tracking Rowan’s scent like a wolf, and found her quick enough behind a fallen tree.

Covered in dirt and tears smearing her cheeks, she faced him with all the bravery she could muster. Fists at her side and fire burning in her eyes, she didn’t budge. If it was Fate’s will that she die like this today, then fine; but she wasn’t going down without a fight. Damnit.

Just as Adam took a step forward to say something to her, Devlin charged through the trees like the Devil was after him. If Rowan had the time to look, she’d have marveled at the powerhouse that was Devlin, he was pure muscle, speed, and fortified strength in these woods, but she wasn’t about to take her eyes off the fanged man in front of her.

Fangs, the man had real fucking fangs.

Devlin cautiously walked between the two of them. Lest it came to actual blows, Devlin was going to try and bring the peace here. He was not going to let Adam strike down their only chance at reaching Lorcan. He stared at his lifelong friend and Adam’s eyes changed from angry to empty.

Letting out a slow breath, Adam bowed his head to Rowan. “Apologies my dear. I tend to let my temper get the better of me as of late.”

Devlin carefully walked closer to Rowan. The lass was covered in dirt, leaves in her hair, eyes red rimmed and weary. She must have tripped more than ran to get away from them. Poor thing has had quite a day, but by the Gods the wee sprite had such fire in her. There she stood, ready to take on a full grown Sidhe with her bare hands and a wee knife, accepting whatever the end would be – hers or his. Spunk like that had to be admired.

Devlin took in the view of this feisty sprite brandishing her wee blade at them. She looked wild and dangerous, and sexy as hell. The woman had a spine, and perhaps a slight death wish. Devlin pleaded in a quiet and calming voice. “Rowan, please come back to the house with us.”

“Come any closer and I swear to God I’ll cut you from asshole to appetite,” she brandished a knife in her hand, one she kept in her pocket at all times, and stood unwavering in front of the two men. Ro’s eyes shifted from one man to the other with her chin thrust out defiantly. She was trying to keep her mind calm and body ready for whatever was going to happen next. Just then, she smelled the strong scent of herbs, the fragrance filled her nose and clouded her senses.