Crescent Legacy Nicole Taylor (top young adult novels .TXT) 📖

much risk to our Legacy. We need our strength.”

“When do you think she’ll come?” Mairead asked.

“It’s difficult to say. Tomorrow, the day after, next week… She might call our bluff, and all this would’ve been for nothin’.”

“Will Boone be with her?”

“Err…” I glanced at my mother, my stomach becoming unsettled for the millionth time in the last day.

Aileen nodded. “Most likely.”

“But you said…” the girl started to wail.

“I know what I said. Skye’s go it covered.” She glanced at me pointedly.

Aileen hadn’t said it in as many words, but if Boone was linked to Carman and she fell, then he would go down with her. Unless I did something to get him back.

“Yeah,” I said, focusing on the crystal in my palm. “Covered from head to foot.” Liar.

Aileen threaded her fingers through Fergus’s donkey’s mane and sighed.

She was right about Mary Donnelly. From the mass of people chattering inside, the Derrydun phone tree worked a treat. Gossip really was the currency of getting people together in this town. Unless the gossip was about me, then it was another story. Curiosity had won out yet again!

“This shouldn’t be hard at all,” Aileen said, showing the first sliver of uneasiness she’d felt since coming back from the dead. Or clawing her way out of the earth, or whatever it was she’d done.

“It’s weird more than anything,” I quipped, holding the bag of talismans against my stomach, which was still tender despite the midge cream. “Are you ready for the collective gasp?”

“Oh, let’s get it over with.” Aileen strode forward and wrenched the door open, leaving me to scramble behind her. “Rip it off like a sticky plaster.”

“What’s a sticky plaster?” I called out after her, but it wasn’t really the time to question the cultural differences of what was obviously another name for a Band-Aid.

The moment we stepped into the pub, all eyes turned toward us, and there was a simultaneous intake of air. It was so silent I could’ve heard Fergus’s notorious ‘silent and deadly’ farts Maggie always complained about. Then a glass smashed on the floor.

“Ô mo dhia!” someone exclaimed.

“It’s a ghost!” someone else shouted.

“What the cac is goin’ on?” Roy demanded.

“Surprise!” I said lamely.

“There’s a gas leak,” Aoife said, pressing her palm against her forehead. “We’re all high as kites.”

“So… One, we’re witches,” I said, holding up a finger. “Two, we need your help with this one little thing…” I held up another finger, promptly turning red when I realized I was flipping off the entire pub. “Three, Aileen has resurrected herself!”

“As you can see, I’m very much alive,” Aileen said, addressing the assembled villagers. “I had an unfortunate tussle with a spriggan who drowned me in the earth, but I found my way back. It was all quite unexpected.”

“A twiggan?” Roy asked, his brow furrowing.

“Spriggan,” she corrected. “A fae whose true form is a tree.”

“You expect us to believe you were attacked by a tree?” Sean exclaimed,

“Oh, shut your pie hole,” Aileen said, glaring at him. “I see you haven’t changed.”

“Twiggan,” I said with a giggle. “I’ll have to remember that one.”

“I always said you were a witch,” Sean McKinnon declared. “Felt it in me bones.”

“The only thing you’ve ever felt in your bones is the stench of whiskey,” Maggie said clipping him around the ear. “Don’t be an eejit.”

“If they say they’re witches, they ought to prove it,” he went on, rubbing the side of his head.

He had a point, but there was a glaring indicator standing right next to me, too.

“Is it safe?” I asked Aileen, uneasy about using my magic away from the hawthorn even though there was one outside in spitting distance. Not to mention our production line that afternoon. What if it didn’t gel with the plan?

“That’s convenient,” Sean exclaimed. “When it comes to the crunch—”

“Aileen has come back from the dead,” Mary Donnelly said, cutting him off with a stern glare. “I think that’s proof enough.”

“She could’ve faked it,” he muttered.

“Where’s Boone?” someone asked.

“Yeah,” Sean added. “Where is he, Skye?”

“He went back to where he came from,” I replied. “He’s with his mother.”

Heads turned and started to murmur among themselves.

“His mother?” Roy asked. “He never talked about any mother afore.”

I glanced at Aileen, who smiled before turning toward the villagers. “When Bone came to us, he’d lost his memory,” she explained. “I found him in the forest and took him in.”

“He had amnesia?” Sean asked, scratching his head. “But…”

“Boone is like us,” I said. “Like me and Aileen but much more.”

“Boone is a witch?” Maggie asked. “Are you sure?”

“Boone is a shapeshifter,” Aileen went on. “When I found him, he’d been in the shape of a gyrfalcon, but his main shape is a fox. Lately, he’s been able to shift into a wolf.”

Roy’s mouth fell open. “That fox!” he exclaimed, banging his fist on the table. “There was a fox runnin’ around the top fields when he went missin’ that time. You’re sayin’ that was him?”

I nodded. “Yep.”

“I’ll tan his backside!” the farmer yelled, his face reddening.

“This is all very outlandish,” Mary said. “What’s this have to do with anythin’?”

I turned to Aileen. “Shall you do the honors, or shall I?”

“You’re the head of the Crescents,” my mother replied. “This is your story now.”

“That’s a total cop-out,” I complained. “I hate public speaking.”

“So do I,” she quipped, sitting beside Aoife, who promptly pinched her.

Typical.

Taking a deep breath, I began. “Once upon a time…”

I told them about the Crescent Witches and how they’d sealed the way between Ireland and the fae realm a thousand years before. I told them about Carman’s lust for power and what would happen to the world if she opened the way. I told them the story of the Nightshade Witches and how they conspired to kill the family I’d never had the chance to know, how Lucy had deceived and kidnapped me, and I told of their punishment. I told them everything I knew about Boone’s predicament, his brothers, and his true parentage. I told them