by Lily Velez
The Connelly Curse
Celtic Witches, Book 2
Lily Velez
The Connelly Curse (Celtic Witches, Book 2)
Copyright © 2019 by Lily Velez
www.lilyvelezbooks.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, or events used in this book are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any semblance of characters or names to actual people, alive or deceased, is completely coincidental.
Cover Art by Covers by Juan, www.coversbyjuan.com
Contents
1. Scarlet
2. Scarlet
3. Scarlet
4. Scarlet
5. Scarlet
6. Scarlet
7. Scarlet
8. Scarlet
9. Scarlet
10. Scarlet
11. Scarlet
12. Scarlet
13. Scarlet
14. Scarlet
15. Scarlet
16. Scarlet
17. Scarlet
18. Connor
19. Connor
20. Scarlet
21. Scarlet
22. Scarlet
23. Rory
24. Rory
25. Scarlet
26. Jack
27. Scarlet
28. Scarlet
29. Scarlet
30. Jack
31. Jack
32. Lucas
33. Rory
34. Connor
35. Connor
36. Jack
37. Jack
38. Scarlet
39. Connor
40. Lucas
41. Scarlet
42. Scarlet
43. Scarlet
44. Scarlet
45. Scarlet
46. Scarlet
47. Scarlet
48. Scarlet
49. Rory
50. Gallagher
1
Scarlet
It was never my intention to spend my Saturday evening traipsing through the home of a dead woman. But when you kept company with boys like the Connellys, things like this were more or less the norm.
When Jack and I pulled up to the small, decrepit cottage in the middle of the woods, the Connellys’ SUV was already parked out front, meaning Jack’s brothers were waiting for us inside.
For a few moments, Jack didn’t move, content to let the car idle, its purring engine just audible over the radio. I turned toward him and started to ask what was wrong, but then I noticed the way his index finger tapped against the hard frame of the steering wheel, moving in sync with the melody of Bobby Darin’s “Dream Lover.”
In spite of the circumstances, I had to smile. He was simply waiting for the song to end. The music conjured up images of teenagers in leather jackets or poodle skirts crowding around the jukebox at their favorite diner, milkshakes in hand. Or better yet, friends gathering at the local drive-in theater to escape into another world for two hours while sitting comfortably inside their Skylarks and Bel Airs.
We certainly had the car to match had it been possible for us to join them. Tonight, Jack was driving a 1952 Jaguar XK120 Roadster, complete with whitewall tires, a convertible top, and a slick, tan interior that somehow still had that heady, new car smell to it. This despite the fact the car had been sitting in a garage in Crowmarsh for months.
It had been a birthday gift from Maurice earlier this year, one Jack rarely drove. But on the days he assumed the driver’s seat, it was like he was transported to another era, and it was impossible not to feel like you’d stepped through time right along with him.
Smiling, I asked, “Have I ever told you how much my mom would’ve adored you?”
Those cognac-colored eyes of his swerved to me. When he paired them with a soft smile, the way he did now, it never failed to make my heart miss a beat.
“I would’ve loved to meet her,” he said, his tone gentling as it always did when the subject of my mom came up.
“She was a fan of by-gone eras. She would’ve enjoyed how much you appreciate them too. She would’ve said you have an old soul.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard it,” he said, his smile warming. “Growing up, Connor and I were the ones drawn to music. Lucas a little bit too for a while. But while Connor leaned toward traditional Celtic guitar music, I was always drawn to music from this decade for whatever reason. I think I just find it calming.”
I imagined that with everything he’d been through in his life, having something he could retreat into and lose himself in was a welcomed gift. I was glad he’d found it.
When the song came to an end, Jack switched off the engine with obvious reluctance. With the glow of the headlights gone, darkness swallowed the cottage before us whole. Pushing a long sigh out of his lungs, he asked, “Are you ready?”
Not really, I thought, but I nodded nonetheless. We exited the vehicle in silence, and I gently clicked my door shut. The pale light of the waxing moon glowed against the shiny, apple-red finish of the car, highlighting its lithe curves. I frowned at my contorted reflection in the polish, hoping the next time I saw it, I’d still be in one piece.
We approached the cottage, brittle leaves crunching under every footfall. In the distance, a chorus of insects chirped, a lone owl occasionally calling out into the night. The stillness of our surroundings was eerie.
Though I was here with the Connellys, I didn’t like how removed we were from civilization. These woods were on the outer bands of Rosalyn Bay, where we were closer to the town cemetery and its famous, neighboring menhirs than we were any living souls.
My eyes flitted from tree to tree, their bare branches like talons scratching at the night sky. Nervous energy blossomed in my chest, hot and dense. The sooner we finished our business here, the sooner we could leave, which I’d be glad for.
With that in mind, I turned my attention back to the cottage, following Jack up the rickety patio steps. I halted when we reached the landing, though, my breath caught in the back of my throat. From edge to edge, the patio was blanketed with long-stemmed flowers. And not just flowers, but stuffed animals, bowls of fruit, and plates holding large pools of wax I assumed had once been pillar candles.
“What is all this?” I asked.
“Offerings,” Jack supplied as his eyes scanned the items, his face expressionless.
“Offerings to who?” But it dawned on me a moment later. “To Elizabeth?” The Connelly who’d lost her life to persecution centuries ago, the one from whom Jack and his brothers descended. This had once been her home after all.
“To appease her spirit,” he explained. “The anniversary of her death is approaching. Every year, the townspeople make a pilgrimage to this spot to bring gifts in hopes of staving off Elizabeth’s curse against Rosalyn Bay.”
The curse that warned that one day, Elizabeth's descendants would rise up against the people of Rosalyn Bay and see that the town was devoured in fire in the same way fire had been used against her.
“Of course,” Jack went on, “not all visits are amicable.”
He knelt beside the frayed doormat, its coarse threads so worn its wording was no longer legible. Slipping his fingers between a crevice in the floorboards, he pulled back on one of the slats. It gave way with a crack. He dipped his hand into the inky black abyss underneath, and when his hand reappeared, he was holding something I hadn’t expected.
“Is that a shoe?” It was hard to tell, the moth-eaten leather practically in tatters.
Jack flung it over the railing of the patio, and it landed with a quiet thud. “In the thirteenth ce
ntury, an English priest claimed to have trapped the devil in a boot. Almost immediately, people began hiding shoes in various parts of their home, figuring if the devil could be trapped, then surely the devil’s children could as well.”
I tightened my arms around myself to incubate whatever lingering warmth my coat could provide me and swallowed the tight knot in my throat. I knew this was every-day, run-of-the-mill, Sightless prejudice against witches, but now that I knew I was a member of witch-kind (a concept I was still trying to wrap my head around half the time…me, a witch…it was mind-blowing), not to mention a part of a class of warrior witches called the Daughters of Brigid and one of only two known descendants of a long-lost Irish witch clan (my dad being the other…and here, my chest gave a sharp tug as I thought on his current predicament, having first seen those telltale red flecks in his eyes only days ago), it was hard not to take things like this personally. What did people think we were going to do if they didn’t try to ward us off? Steal their children and make a meal out of them like the witch in Hansel and Gretel?
“What’s with all the stuffed animals?” I asked then, my eyes lingering on a teddy bear with a pink ribbon tied around its neck.
“They’re for Elizabeth’s daughter, Abigail. She was only four when the witch trials rendered her motherless. She was actually forced to stand trial herself.”
My chest constricted and burned, the words catching me by the throat. “They tried a four year old for witchcraft back then?” I couldn’t help the disgust that bled into my tone.
“It happened more often than you think. And happens still really. It didn’t help that Abigail was born out of wedlock and never baptized in the local parish, which essentially made her a heathen in the eyes of the townspeople.”
The knowledge blistered. “What ended up happening to her?”
“She was eventually cleared of her charges, but she lived the rest of her life as a pariah. She never married, and she died young—though not before giving birth to the son who’d go on to carry the Connelly namesake.”
My heart cracked in a dozen little places. Elizabeth and Abigail were the only reason Jack and his brothers were alive today. I hated that the women had experienced such despair in their lives.
Jack’s eyes continued roaming over the gifts, his hands buried deep into the pockets of his trademark black coat, the collar popped up to defend against the nipping, mid-November winds. “There aren’t typically this many offerings,” he said. “But I doubt it has anything to do with a newfound sense of guilt.”
No, it didn’t. We knew what the true cause was. It was why we were here in the first place. I tried to swallow, but my throat was practically made of straw.
Inside the cottage, it was pitch-black. Strange, considering Connor, Lucas, and Rory were already supposed to be here. I crossed the threshold behind Jack, floorboards whining in protest under my weight. The air was still, as if we were in a tomb, and a chill slithered through my chest and stomach.
Something wasn’t right.
I opened my mouth to say as much to Jack, but I never got the words out.
A warm hand clamped over my mouth and pulled me away.
2
Scarlet
Terror sliced through me.
I struggled against my assailant, but my arms were pinned to my sides in their unrelenting hold, my body pressed against their tall, firm frame. My pulse accelerated, each heartbeat fiery and painful. One name looped through my mind on repeat, coloring my thoughts with dread.
The Black Hand.
They were a notorious band of witch hunters, one Jack and I had contended with back in Dublin. Connor had said Dublin hadn’t been Jack’s first skirmish with the group. Sadly, it probably wouldn’t be his last either despite my threats against one of their leaders, a ruthless woman named Mary-Anne. My incendiary words had probably only served to kindle her hatred for us further.
Jack had pivoted the moment I was seized. Moonlight leaked in through a nearby window, casting us in a silvery film, and I could just make out the outline of his shoulders. He advanced forward cautiously, but he wasn’t armed, so I didn’t know what could possibly happen next. I was too close to the hunter for him to use magic without possibly harming me too, and I certainly didn’t have enough of a grasp on my waking powers to appropriately defend myself.
Checkmate, I imagined my captor thinking.
Except against my back, I felt the hunter’s body shaking, his shoulders inexplicably spasming.
Was he…laughing?
“Hello, Scarlet Ibis,” a pair of grinning lips greeted against the shell of my ear.
With a snap, the flames on dozens of candles flared to life, chasing away the darkness. My eyes winced at the brightness. The hand over my mouth fell away, as did the arm curled around my waist.
Once free, I spun around to face my would-be attacker. “Lucas, are you out of your mind? You gave me a heart attack!”
Lucas’s grin only lengthened, his bright blue eyes glimmering in the firelight. “There, there, love,” he said, pulling me against him as if comforting a scared child, petting my head. I slanted my eyes, my limbs stiff. “You know I can’t help myself when these opportunities present themselves.”
Jack shook his head, his fingers closing around my wrist to gently tug me toward him, rescuing me from Lucas’s hold. “Are you all right?” he asked, his thumb tenderly brushing against the corner of my mouth, as if to smooth away whatever redness lingered from when Lucas had all but muzzled me. Though perhaps, I thought with a flip of my stomach, he only wished to smooth away any and all traces of Lucas period. His thumb traveled to the light scar on my cheek from Mary-Anne’s knife next. Thanks to magic, it had faded significantly, but now and then, I still caught Jack’s eyes fastened to it, the guilt in them heartbreaking.
“Gods, get a room,” Lucas quipped.
My cheeks blazed. I cleared my throat and turned my head from Jack’s fingertips, tightening my ponytail to give my hands something to do. “Where are Connor and Rory?” I asked.
Lucas led us out back, where Connor was aiming the beam of his cell phone’s flashlight toward a hedge of overgrown bushes. A moment later, Rory emerged from the shrubbery, leaves and twigs entangled with his auburn locks. Something nestled in his arms, shivering. There was a soft whine and then the twitch of a white-tipped tail.
“Is that a fox?” It was a rhetorical question, of course. The vulpine face and pointy ears were unmistakable. Nevermind the reddish-orange pelt, though the poor thing’s fur was more than a little dull. A closer look revealed the fox was emaciated as well, too weak to even lift its head to properly regard us. Even so, that didn’t stop its gaze from hopping all over us with obvious anxiety as it tried to determine if we meant it harm.
“It looks like it hasn’t eaten in days,” I said, my heart as tender as a bruise. I had a soft spot for helpless animals. I couldn’t count the number of times back in Colorado that I’d nursed little critters back to health; mostly birds, tiny babies that had fallen from their nests or adults burdened with a broken wing. Releasing them back into the wild had always been hard after bonding with them, but it paled in comparison to the joy of seeing them take flight the way they were meant to.
“Unfortunately,” Jack said, “these aren’t ideal hunting grounds. Most of the animals who come here don’t do so with the intention of making this place their home.”
“What do you mean?”
To answer my question, Connor brought up a recent picture on his phone and showed it to me. At first, I only saw the trees in the darkness. Then I glimpsed a bump on the ground, and then another, and another still, and my heart seized when I realized they weren’t bumps at all.
I enlarged the picture. They were the bodies of small animals. Dozens upon dozens of them gathered in a clearing. Bile rose in my throat.
“They’re back again,” Connor told Jack, showing him the picture next.
“Back?” I asked.
“Every time we pa
ss by here, we come across this sight in one of the clearings deep in these woods. We bury the animals, but it doesn’t matter. Others eventually come to replace them.”
But they didn’t just come to replace their predecessors. Apparently, they came to these lands to die. “Why here of all places?”
“That we’re not entirely sure about,” Jack said. “Our best guess is that they regard it as hallowed ground since magic was once practiced here.”
“Is this why the town condemned the cottage and wants to tear it down?”
We filed back inside the cottage, and I wrinkled my nose against the staleness in the air, wanting so badly to open a window. Thanks to Lucas’s candles, however, the warmth inside the cottage was savory, something my bones very much relished and didn’t immediately want to part with. I’d have to make do.
“Technically, it was always condemned,” Jack said. “Though it’s a historical landmark for our family, being that Elizabeth and Abigail lived here, later Connellys unfortunately never saw to its upkeep, leading it to fall into disrepair. Nowadays, it’s become a sort of escape for the local teens. They come here to do all the things they don’t want their parents finding out about.”
As he said this, I took in the bare space, the clutter of empty beer bottles and cigarette butts strewn across the floor along walls vandalized with crude words and drawings. My blood heated in my veins. Sure, it was the typical territorial markings of unruly teenagers, but considering what Elizabeth had been subjected to, it felt wrong and disrespectful, like disturbing a grave. Could the woman not have peace even in death?
