“It’s a long, weird story that you probably won’t believe.” Sara pulled her keys from her bag and opened the front door. “Uh, it’s probably best if I tell you in my room. I have some…visual aids. We can swim later.”
“Visual aids?” Audrey asked as they bounced up the steps. “Do I really want to see these?”
Sara laughed. “Not visual aids of Ridley or me. I mean how this all came about.”
She stopped outside her bedroom door and took a deep breath.
“Seriously. I’m about to tell you some really messed up stuff. Stuff only Ridley and my dad know. You’ll think I’m crazy, but if nothing else, you’ll have a good story for why I had all those scratches on my arms and legs the morning after my eighteenth birthday.”
Realization dawned on Audrey’s sweet features. “This is all connected? Oh, man. What the hell are you about to get me into?”
“Really, really freaky shit,” Sara said as she opened the door.
Audrey stepped inside and her head immediately swiveled to take in the huge cork board crammed with clippings of death notices, family trees, and the letter from her grandmother’s cousin, Niamh—the one that had led her to Fiona.
“So,” she started. “Turns out that night I dreamed about being over on Salt Lick Road?”
Audrey didn’t take her gaze from the mass of papers, but she nodded.
“Wasn’t a dream. I really was there. And when I was there, I screamed my head off. Not because I was scared. I mean, I was. I thought I was going to piss myself, but that’s not why I was wailing like a banshee.”
Sara smiled at her unintentional slip, and Audrey turned during the pause.
“Well? Why were you screaming?”
“Maybe you should sit down.” Sara nodded toward the bed, and Audrey obeyed.
“I couldn’t help myself. It wasn’t even my voice coming from my body. And then, after I shrieked, someone died.”
“Oh, come on, Sara.” Audrey scowled and crossed her arms. “It’s already weird enough that you and Ridley are together. You don’t need to make the story that much weirder. Just tell me what really happened.”
Sara let out a sigh that turned into a frustrated growl and sank into the chair at her desk. She looked over all the papers pinned to her board, though she had them memorized already. Audrey wasn’t really wrong to doubt her. It was a crazy story, and one that followed an already unlikely tale of star-crossed lovers.
“I wish I was messing with you, Audrey. I really do. My life has been absolute hell since that night. Well,” She trailed off and shivered as she remembered Ridley pressing his chest against her back and running his hands down her arms to help her aim her gun.
“And your dad knows about this?” Audrey asked, doubt still dripping from her words. “Not just Ridley, but all of this screaming and dying stuff?”
“He found me out in the yard after I returned from another screaming trip. You heard about the school librarian’s husband? He died back in May.”
Audrey nodded. “You were there?”
“Yeah. I was there. I woke up before the scream so I had to watch the whole thing. I was conscious the whole time.”
The incredulity on Audrey’s face had melted into awe, but there was still a hint of wariness that told Sara she was waiting for a punchline of some sort. The rest of her body language said she wanted to believe. She’d scooted back onto the white comforter, hands twisted into her lap and face tilted up in expectation. It was time to test that trust.
“So, my dad sent me to my grandmother, who’s from Ireland. Turns out, the same thing happened to her when she was my age. And her grandmother, too. She said I’m a banshee.”
Sara waited for the fallout, but none came. Audrey simply stared, eyes wide, as she digested everything. Before she lost her friend, Sara barreled on and explained the families banshees sang for—pointing to the O’Neill family tree she’d traced forward from Niall of the Nine Hostages—and then about the four other girls out there somewhere in the world who were going through the same thing she was. Finally, she touched on Sealgair, letting Audrey know how close they’d come to death that day at the movie festival.
“And Ridley’s an O’Neill,” Audrey breathed. “Oh em gee.”
“Yeah. Gran said anyone with the actual last name O’Neill is sure to die when I’m around. So, I stalked him all over town and tried to warn him, but he just thought I was crazy.”
“Right,” Audrey said with a smirk. “It’s crossed my mind a time or two in the last fifteen minutes.”
“Yeah, well, things changed a little when the hunter guy caught me leaving the diner one time when I closed up for Kate. He was going to kill me until Ridley happened to pass by and see me fighting him off.”
“And now you’re together.” Audrey collapsed back on the bed with a deep sigh. “God, I think that’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Kind of together,” Sara corrected. “Mostly he’s been following me around and yelling at me for putting myself in danger.”
“Romantic.” Audrey dragged the word out with a sing-song trill. “Well, one thing’s certain. You definitely can’t tell Kristen about this.”
“No shit. She and my mom would work together to have me committed.” Sara stood and turned toward her closet. “So, now you know. Let’s go swim.”
11
Ridley O’Neill
The name she loved thundered through her head, and Sara woke with a scream on her lips. An unseen force pulled her toward the end of the bed.
“No, no. Shit. No!” Sara grabbed for the edges of her bed, fingers scrabbling for the sheet, the mattress, anything she could cling to before her arms fell useless to her sides.
“Not him,” she whispered.
She focused all her energy on her right hand, everything she had in her. Fingers twitched, a small sign that she had some autonomy. The arm still wouldn’t move, but she kept moving her fingers, brushing them against each other until she had enough strength to curl them into a fist.
The force pulled her, toes dragging over the covers of her bed and head barely brushing the light fixture under the moving ceiling fan. Inching forward, one breath at a time.
Sara turned her attention to her left hand, repeating the twitches until she took full control. Fire coursed through her veins, filling her arms until she was able to lift them.
Or was the spirit moving her arms? She couldn’t tell. Her fists, though…those were hers. The spirit had no power over her fists.
“You can’t have him!” she spat in little more than a whisper. The spirit wouldn’t let her speak, saving her voice for the shriek.
Sara pounded her thighs with those fists, willing them to do her bidding and not those of the dark entity within her. The heat flowed from her arms to her legs, and she lashed out with a kick into thin air.
Her body was hers again.
She made her body dead weight, and the invisible strings holding her aloft snapped. Sara flopped back to the bed with a grunt.
Sara scrambled back under the covers, breath ragged in her throat. The throat that had already been preparing to shriek. She could still feel the muscles contracting and relaxing as she pulled the covers over her head like a child hiding from the monster in the closet.
After several minutes of silence, Sara threw back the covers and stomped over to her desk. No way she’d be able to sleep after that. God, how close she’d come to losing him, just like that!
But how? How had she fought the possession? She’d struggled against it before but that had been pointless. What made this time different? Maybe because it was Ridley. She’d fought harder for him than anyone else.
Her laptop screen woke from sleep mode, and she opened Facebook to send Fiona a message. Maybe her cousins would know what was going on.
Only a few minutes later, Fiona replied.
myself and bren’ve been screaming every other night. ould bitch must be exhausted. bren’s gran found an old book her gran
kept. goin thru it soon. let u know if we find anything
Oh. Hmm. Sara’s fingers stilled over the keyboard. Well, there was an answer of sorts. If the spirit had been possessing her cousins, then it had been weak. So weak that Sara had been able to fight it though? That didn’t seem possible.
She dashed off a quick response, promising more later. Maybe Fiona or Brenna would have wiser words. For the moment, Sara sat back and lifted her arms in a cheer.
She’d beaten it. She’d won the battle, which meant she had hope.
Sara’s skin crawled. The little hairs on the back of her neck stood at attention. Someone was watching her.
Sealgair.
He knew where she lived.
She shouldn’t have been surprised. If he’d tracked her all the way to North Carolina from Ireland, he had to have some serious information at his fingertips. He’d probably known the whole time what her address was. He’d just decided he was more likely to catch her alone at home than anywhere else.
At that moment, he was right. Her dad was at the diner and mom was at her office. Sara had taken her coffee out to the back deck like a rank amateur and let the hunter know she was home. Alone. Ridley would leave work if he knew Sealgair was near, but she hadn’t yet seen him. She didn’t want to bother him without knowing for sure.
But she did know. He was out there, watching her.
Sara gasped as hot coffee spilled over her hand. Her fingers trembled, betraying her terror. She stilled them, tensing muscles all the way to her toes. If he was watching, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her fear.
As casually as she could, she leaned over and set the mug down on the patio table next to her and reached for her phone. She feigned receiving a text and answering it. Then, very slowly, she stood and walked to the sliding glass door, forcing herself to walk and not run.
When she was inside, away from stalking eyes, she tore up the stairs to her room. That was why Ridley had said to have her gun nearby at all times. That very moment was the exact reason he’d been so adamant, and she’d still failed.
Her fingers wrapped around the pink rubber grip, and she pulled the little revolver free. She ran around the bed to the other table and dug out enough bullets to load the gun, and then a few more in case she even got a chance to reload.
Back downstairs, she approached the door again, stopped to take a deep breath, and then sauntered back outside. After settling back into her chair, she took another long sip of coffee and pulled the gun from her pocket.
She popped open the revolver and inspected it, making sure to hold it high enough that Sealgair could see what she was doing. Deliberately, she slid the bullets into their chambers and snapped the gun closed. With it sitting safely in her lap, she finally looked up over the meadow to the woods that bordered the property.
From right to left, she swept her eyes, stopping to stare at even a hint of moment. All she saw was a big, black crow sitting on top of her mom’s bird feeder. Sealgair was there, but somehow invisible.
She should have gone inside, locked the doors, and set the alarm. She should have called Ridley. She should have gotten into her car and driven to a busy place. Instead, she sipped her coffee and watched the trees. If he wouldn’t let her see him, then she wouldn’t let him see her fear.
For another fifteen minutes, she drank from her mug and silently dared Sealgair to show himself. When her coffee was gone, she realized the prickly feeling of being watched was, too. She’d won this round, but she’d also given up the knowledge that she had protection.
He’d be ready for that next time.
But she’d made herself an even harder target. One who would fight. One who would shoot. One who’d stare him down, even when he didn’t have the nerve to show his face.
Sara looked around the little diner, glad for a moment to catch her breath. Wednesday evenings were often the lightest, but only after seven o’clock, when the whole town went to their chosen church. Before seven, the tables were all full, and a line waited out the door to pick up to-go orders.
For the moment, Sara and her dad were the only people in the building. Until Ridley finished up his overtime and came in for a late dinner, she probably wouldn’t see anyone else.
“Did you do okay today, kiddo?” Sean poked his head through the cook’s window.
Sara pulled out the wad of cash she’d stashed throughout her shift and swayed her hips to the radio while she counted. The church crowd was notoriously stingy with tips, so she didn’t expect a lot.
“Thirty.” She waved the wad of bills, mostly ones, in his direction.
“Have you saved much?”
“I’m doing okay. It’s helpful that I don’t have much to spend it on.”
Her father didn’t speak for another minute, working instead to clean the grill while he had a few minutes of peace. She could tell he had something on his mind, though. The silence had a purpose.
“How’s everything else?” he finally asked.
Meaning Ridley, the night shrieks, her fight with Kristen. All of it.
“Ridley’s next.”
Her dad poked his head through the cook’s window again, brows furrowed in concern.
“The spirit tried last night to make me shriek, but it felt weaker than usual. It couldn’t make me move. I managed to beat it.”
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” His face disappeared from the window. He pushed through the swinging doors that led to the dining room.
“If I knew for sure that Ridley wasn’t next on the list, I’d say it’s a good thing. But he’ll always be in danger. I might not be strong enough next time. I think it will come back with everything it has.”
“Why do you think you were able to control it?”
“Fiona said she and Brenna have been screaming lately. I guess the spirit was too weak this time.”
Her dad sat on one of the bar stools and swiveled back and forth. “Would be helpful to know when it’s weakest. What happens if it comes back stronger?”
Sara thought for a long moment. She’d never before been able to fight the force that lifted her into the air and dragged her like a rag doll all over the mountainside. But maybe she just hadn’t tried hard enough. If the spirit that drove her to shriek at night wanted Ridley dead, then Sara wouldn’t stop fighting.
She’d fight like hell. Maybe that meant Sara had what it took to beat it.
Or maybe that was wishful thinking.
Still, she said it out loud, because she needed someone to tell her she wasn’t crazy.
“Maybe I can actually beat it if I want to enough. Like, the next time it goes after Ridley.”
“Because you love him?” Her dad asked, voice absent of teasing.
So serious, in fact, that Sara had no choice but honesty.
“I do. And because I do, maybe I could actually resist long enough for him to escape.”
Dad gave her a knowing look. “Ridley wouldn’t run. He’d try to help.”
And she knew that. She knew he wouldn’t try to save himself. And besides, even if he did run, she’d probably show up outside his house again, and again, and again.
“Well, there’s also that guy that tried to kill me outside the diner. I could feel him watching me from the woods this morning.”
Dad did a quick double-take, mouth ajar. “I assumed that was some wanderer. You think he was at our house?”
“I know he was.” Sara fought a grimace. She definitely should have brought up Sealgair before. Her dad had been super cool about everything so far. He’d have understood—as in, he wouldn’t think she was crazy like everyone else would.
“He’s been here for the whole summer. The first time I saw him was that night after my birthday, when Kristen and Audrey and I went to the film festival. They thought he was hot—”
Her dad huffed an affectionate laugh for her friends, but the amusement faded as quickly as it had arrived.
“—but I knew as soon as I saw him that he was a creep,”
Sara continued. “I’ve just tried to be near other people whenever I can, but he managed to get me alone at the diner.”
“I wish you’d said something sooner. What makes you think he’s after you, specifically?”
“Didn’t Gran ever talk about a hunter? She says there’s one for each generation. When she moved here, the one chasing her couldn’t find her. Now, of course…”
“Yeah, the internet.” Dad propped his elbow on the bar and pressed a hand to his forehead.
Silence settled between them for several minutes. Her dad just kept rubbing his palm over his face, over and over and over again. Sara was about to scream, just to maybe startle them both into action, but then he spoke.
“I have an idea. Not a permanent solution, but maybe we could keep you and Ridley alive long enough to figure out exactly what we’re dealing with.”
“Like what?”
“Like, what if we were in another country for a week?”
Sara’s heart gave a huge thump. “Like Ireland?”
Dad grinned and wrapped an arm around her neck. “Like, totally.”
“Your eighties childhood is showing.”
Ridley eyed the little pick-up truck with distaste, his heart already yearning for the motorcycle he was about to trade. One drawback to leaving his father to fend for himself had been the loss of the truck he’d been able to borrow on occasion.
He had a dog to think about, though. And a…girlfriend. He couldn’t rely on her to drive whenever they did something together, and he’d never ask her to get on the back of his bike, even if she wanted to. There was a chance Sara’s mother could forgive the relationship someday, but not if he put her daughter on a motorcycle.
How had he gotten to this point? All this domesticity, considering a future with his brand-new girlfriend and dog, and he didn’t even have a home of his own to go to.
Step by step, he thought. First the truck, then maybe the house.
With teeth gritted, grinding and groaning against each other, he handed over the keys to his bike and accepted the new keyring in an even trade. His bike hadn’t been worth much to begin with, so the truck would probably break down on his way home.
Shriek: Legend of the Bean Sídhe Page 13
