Cursed Wishes

by Marcy Kennedy

  Davina scrubbed invisible dirt from the front of her skirt. “I’ll tell your dadaidh to ready the wagon and take her to the kirk on the morrow.”

  “And if she asks why?”

  “I’ll tell her there’ll be no room once Brighde moves in and that the house you’re building won’t be ready in time. It’s true enough with the way you’ve dawdled over the work.”

  Ceana closed her eyes and pressed her knuckles into her lips. She couldn’t let them send her away. She wouldn’t. Once they took her away from him, she’d never find her way back. Not now that she wanted to.

  And he was her only hope of seeing her brother. Her only hope of anything.

  She looked up at where Gavran and Davina had been. Davina was gone, and Gavran strode toward the sheep fold, pitchfork in hand.

  Ceana stepped from behind the beam. Gavran stopped so suddenly he looked like he might topple over.

  In a way, maybe this was all for the best. It forced her to be brave. She couldn’t delay under the guise of finding the right way to tell him the way she had pre-wishes when she’d spent years trying to figure out how to tell him she loved him. She’d ended up never telling him. This kept her from doing the same thing again and losing the opportunity to find her brother.

  She inched closer. “You know me. We have met before.”

  His grip on the pitchfork handle convulsed. The color drained from his knuckles.

  Did he think she meant to attack him? With what? Her bony hands against his muscle and pitchfork tines? She was no fae with supernatural powers.

  She pushed her hands forward, palms up. “We were friends once.”

  “You were ’dropping from the eaves.” Gavran’s lips thinned into a dividing line. “You’ve no need to weave lies. It won’t change anything.”

  “It’s truth.” A perverse desire to laugh leapt inside her. His whole life was a lie she’d created. The only true thing in it was her. She wrestled the laugh back to the ground. He’d only think her mad if she let it loose. “I’ve good reasons why you can’t let them send me away.”

  It was the delay in his response, the quick look away, the rapid blinks. How his chin tucked in a fraction, almost imperceptibly.

  He’d been the one to suggest sending her away.

  The realization hit her like a physical blow before she could brace herself. She stepped back, unsure of where to clutch to stem the pain. A physical blow would have been more merciful. At least she could have tended the wound.

  “I know you must fear being alone again,” he said, “but if we take you to the kirk, you may still find your family.”

  He spoke the words in that slightly desperate, higher-than-normal tone that betrayed him by saying I’m trying to convince myself as much as I’m trying to convince you.

  He’d accused her of lying. She’d combat it with the baldest of truths. “They’re not looking for me. To them, I don’t exist.”

  His shoulders dipped forward, and he leaned the pitchfork against the fence’s top rail. “If you confessed to the priest whatever it is that made them cast you out, I’m sure he’d intercede for you.”

  Spoken with even less conviction than before.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. Light burst on the backs. It was progress, however small. She had to be not only brave, but also patient, and remember that anyone would find this hard to believe.

  Unfortunately, patience hadn’t been one of her strengths even before the wishes. Her mamaidh had always told her that, if she didn’t develop some, the Almighty would find a way to grow it in her that she wouldn’t like. Of all the times for her to be right, it had to be in this.

  “I gave up my family when I wished for you to always find happiness. The fairy said you’d never be happy if you remembered me, so she erased me. I exist without ever having existed. For everyone. My family included.”

  Gavran’s face paled so much that blue circles appeared under his eyes. He slumped against the sheep fence next to his pitchfork.

  She crossed the distance between them. “You keep dreaming the same dream because it happened. We were near to drowning. A fairy pulled us from the water and forced me to make three wishes on threat of throwing us back into the water to die. And one of us had to receive the opposite of whatever the other received. I took the curses and gave you the blessings.”

  He fisted one hand and rubbed his forefinger knuckle with his thumb in jerking strokes. “You haven’t said anything you couldn’t have learned from eavesdropping at another time. How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

  Be patient, she repeated to herself. She needed to be patient but a little longer and not lose her temper. What would he have held back? “You would have let me drown that night.”

  “I told my mamaidh that.” He shouldered past her and marched towards the house. “We’ll take you to the kirk in Dunvegan on the morrow.”

  “Nae.” She scrambled after him and grabbed his sleeve. “I need to stay with you. When we’re together, the blessing on you and the curse on me cancel each other. Staying with you is the only way I can…”

  He was looking at her with revulsion, like every person who’d ever caught her stealing looked at her. It shouldn’t have still hurt.

  He pulled his sleeve from her grasp. “I’m to marry Brighde. If you’re hunting a husband, you’ll find easier men to trick in Dunvegan.”

  She wanted to spit on his feet, on his face. She’d given him Brighde with her wish that he’d find love that would remain true. After everything she’d given up, after everything she’d done, he still chose to believe she spoke lies. Success had stolen away the things that once made her love him. “I wouldn’t marry you if you begged. I’ve no desire to share your bed, only your land.”

  “No woman will abide another hanging ’round her husband.”

  “You owe me.”

  “I owe you nothing. I saved your life that day on the moors, at risk of my own.”

  “I wanted to die.”

  Her raised voice echoed loudly off the hills and back. She clapped a hand over her mouth. Surely all his family, and Brighde and Tavish as well, had heard. She didn’t so much mind his family hearing her confession, but not Brighde. She couldn’t bear the thought of Brighde seeing the full extent of her shame.

  Pressure filled her head, and she touched her fingertips to the line above her eyebrows. “It’s not the first time I’ve tried. I’ve eaten poison mushrooms and shoved my hand into a nest of adders. This past winter I walked out onto the ice, praying I’d fall through, only to find myself back on the shore. I couldn’t end my life because I wanted to, and I couldn’t find a way to want to live enough that I’d finally be able to die.”

  Gavran laid a hand on her shoulder. She forced herself to stay still under his touch even though everything inside her curled away. If she’d finally gotten through, she couldn’t risk offending him.

  “You need more help than we can give,” Gavran said. “The priest will—”

  She stepped out of his reach. “Eejit.”

  His arm fell to his side like dead weight.

  Maybe she’d asked too much. It’d be enough to get half of what she’d hoped for. The most important half. “At least take me to find my brother. That’s all I wanted when you found me.”

  Wrinkles cragged Gavran’s forehead. “What do you mean?”

  “I didn’t take the curse just for you. My brother.” She couldn’t keep her voice from cracking. She hadn’t confided in Gavran when she’d loved him about what she’d done to her brother. She wasn’t about to do it now that she’d as soon see him dead. “My brother’s life would have been a better one without me in it. So I chose to save not only you, but him as well. I thought he’d be at the old Campbell cottage with my parents. That’s where we used to live.”

  Gavran’s brows lowered, darkening his eyes. “I thought you said your family wouldn’t know you anymore. Why try to find your brother?”

  Tears pressed so hard against her eyes that they fi
lled her head and down into her chest. But she would not—would not—cry in front of him. “Not to talk to him. He wouldn’t know me now. I only wanted to see that he’s well and happy. It would make what I’d lost worth it.” She stretched out a hand to Gavran. “If you’ll take me to find him, I won’t ask to stay with you. Just take me to find him.”

  Gavran stepped out of her reach. “I can’t.”

  He strode away from her again.

  If he wouldn’t do it for her, perhaps he’d do it for himself. She ran after him. “I’m your only hope of ending the dreams.”

  Gavran’s back went rigid.

  “You haven’t had them since I’ve been here, have you?”

  So slowly he hardly seemed to move, he turned to face her. His mouth hung open enough to tell her she was right. It’d only been a guess that, since the dream had been her third wish, it’d vanish as well when they were together.

  “I gave you those dreams,” she said.

  A woman’s gasp erupted from the left.

  Ceana and Gavran both spun towards it. Brighde, Tavish, and Davina stood beyond the fold, no doubt drawn by their raised voices.

  Davina’s lip curled. “Brighde was right. She is a witch.”

  Chapter 6

  All of the muscles in Gavran’s body that had been tightening until it felt like they’d snap relaxed. If Ceana was a witch, then nothing she said was true. The dream hadn’t happened. He owed her no debt.

  “What’s going on here?” Tavish roared the words. They echoed off the hills like Ceana’s yelled admission, but with the power of thunder.

  Gavran’s mamaidh chaffed her hands up and down her skirt. “Gavran’s been having the same dream every night. I’ve been saying something unnatural caused it. And now the girl admits to being behind it all.”

  Tavish’s face turned sunburn red. “You mean he’s cursed. Were you going to tell us this before he wed my daughter?”

  “He’s not cursed,” Ceana said. “He’s blessed.”

  She spoke so softly Gavran wasn’t sure anyone other than him heard, until Brighde whirled on Ceana.

  “Shouldn’t we do something about her?” Brighde’s face was crinkled like a withered crab apple. “Bind and blindfold her before she bewitches us all.”

  Tavish stalked forward. “Grab her arm, Gavran.”

  Ceana backed away, her hands up. But she didn’t look at Tavish. She stared straight at Gavran. “If you’d just let me explain.”

  “Gavran!” Tavish yelled. “Now!”

  His feet seemed to have grown roots. He couldn’t do what Tavish asked.

  Tavish clasped Ceana’s arm and twisted it behind her. He pushed her ahead of him.

  Ceana looked back over her shoulder, her eyes wide, as if she couldn’t believe what was happening. Couldn’t believe he was letting it happen. “Gavran, please. You know I’m not a witch. You know I’m telling the truth.”

  Tavish bent Ceana’s arm up, and she cried out. Gavran took a step after them, but his mamaidh blocked his path. She placed a hand on his shoulder and shook her head.

  Ceana continued to cry his name until his ears threatened to explode.

  Ros’s and Morna’s heads peeked out from behind a grove of trees.

  His mamaidh spun on them. “Morna, take Finnegan inside. Ros, go find your dadaidh. And don’t dally.”

  The girls scattered in opposite directions. Tears streamed down Brighde’s face, and his mamaidh nudged him toward the house.

  He trudged forward. It all seemed less real than his dream.

  He dropped onto the bench next to the table, ignoring Morna’s mosquito-like questions. Brighde sat across from him and shot glances from underneath her eyelashes. Almost as if she were afraid. Of him.

  He smashed his fist on the table. It shimmied, and Brighde jumped. Morna’s sentence trailed off.

  Course she was afraid of him. She thought he’d been cursed.

  His dadaidh returned with Ros.

  His mamaidh grabbed two wicker baskets and shoved them at the girls. “Both of you go fetch some spring herbs. And don’t come back ’til you hear me call for you.”

  They went out, and Tavish ducked inside, too tall to walk through the door frame when standing straight. “I bound her and locked her in the shed.”

  “We can’t leave her there to starve.” His dadaidh scratched his brow with the back of his knuckles, leaving a dusty smear. “I’m not one to be cruel, even to a witch.”

  The world had erupted with people telling him things but no one offering any proof. They wagered too much to hang decisions on either the word of a potentially crazy woman or the panicked reactions of his family. Ceana’s fate on the one hand and everything he thought he knew about his life on the other. “We don’t know for certain she’s a witch.”

  Brighde burst into tears again. “Your defense proves it.”

  Tavish collected her into his arms. Her harsh sobs filled the room. No one else spoke.

  Gavran clutched the edge of the bench with both hands to keep from stuffing a wad of cloth into her mouth. This wasn’t about her. It wasn’t about whether the thought of him being cursed frightened her. The truth mattered. “You’ve taken my words and warped them. I’m not defending her. But it might be she’s not be in her right mind rather than a witch. We can’t drown her or burn her at the stake for being off her head.”

  “How…how would she know about your dreams?” Brighde hiccupped. “You didn’t tell me about them. How could she know?”

  His mamaidh compulsively stacked the dishes from the evening meal. “She’s been here near a week. She could’ve overheard.”

  Gavran tried to run through each barb Ceana threw at him. Had they talked about everything she said in the past week?

  He gouged his nails into the wood. He couldn’t remember. Maybe. Maybe not.

  He hadn’t told anyone she looked like the woman in his dreams. The chances of her making a guess that she looked enough like the woman in his dreams to pass for her were slimmer than taming a fox. Which meant she couldn’t just be crazy. She either was right or she was a witch.

  He got up and stared out the doorway at the shed. If she spoke true, he’d have abandoned her not once, but twice. He’d be honor-bound to help her.

  Tavish patted Brighde’s back one more time and straightened on the bench. “Which brings us back to what we do with her? Allan’s right. We can’t leave her bound up in the shed. If she’s not a witch, we’ll be guilty of murder.”

  “She claimed responsibility for causing his dreams.” Gavran’s mamaidh massaged her bad leg. “I say we take her to the kirk as planned. Let them try her and decide. Then it’s in the hands of the Almighty. If she’s a witch, they’ll judge her heart and put her to death for her crime.”

  Gavran woke up reaching for a dream woman who wasn’t there. Except, this time, she wore Ceana’s face.

  He swiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. It was the first time since he found Ceana that he’d had the dream. It was also the first night she wasn’t on his family’s croft. His dadaidh and Tavish had loaded her into the back of the wagon and set out for Dunvegan immediately, unwilling to keep her around him another night.

  So at least that part of what she’d said was true. Having her around stopped the dreams.

  He rolled onto his other side. True or not, it didn’t prove she wasn’t a witch.

  But what if she wasn’t? What motivation would a witch have for cursing him to dream the same dream every night? And wouldn’t a witch have been able to escape when Tavish bound her and locked her in the shed?

  Besides, it seemed that a witch’s power should have been greater when she was nearer to him. His dreams should have strengthened with her around and weakened the farther away she went.

  He tossed the blanket aside, hunched over his knees, and buried his face in his hands. He had a good life. He was respected. Happy.

  If he allowed what she said to be true, all that might change. If he went after her
and brought her back—if he could even convince them to allow it—it could jeopardize the welfare of his family. If her wishes were what kept them fed and healthy, he wouldn’t be sacrificing only his own happiness in bringing her back.

  Yet it said something about him if he didn’t, if he let the woman who gave up her happiness for his be tried and potentially executed as a witch. If he wouldn’t do the small thing she asked in helping her find her brother.

  He also had no guarantee that the dreams would stop upon her death. They might continue every night until he died as well. Or went mad. Though, if enduring the dream was the price for keeping his family safe and well, he’d find a way to survive it.

  He slid from his bed. She’d said she would be satisfied if she could see her brother. His debt to her would be paid if he did that much for her. He didn’t need to bring her back here and put his family at risk.

  If the dream were true, Ceana made the choice to take the curse side of the wishes on herself. He might not have stopped her, but he hadn’t forced her, either. As his dadaidh would say, whoever burns his backside must himself sit on it. He shouldn’t be held responsible to pay for a choice she made.

  Now he’d repeat those arguments to himself until he believed them.

  He tiptoed across the room. No one slept by the fire tonight. Ros and Morna huddled together in bed with Brighde and his mamaidh, too frightened of being cursed by a witch themselves to separate.

  He tugged on his boots. His mamaidh would worry when she woke and found him gone, but telling her he was leaving was spoiling for a fight.

  He slipped outside. His dadaidh and Tavish would have camped for the night around sunset. By the position of the moon, he still had four hours until first light. That should be enough time to catch them before they broke camp, even though he chased them on foot. They didn’t own a horse, and he’d never been much of a rider anyway. He’d make it faster on foot than if he got himself thrown and broke his neck with a borrowed mount.