Chapter 1
A sneak peek of the first two chapters of Cursed Fae!
I stumble through the gateway as the ley line violently expels me from its depths and into the unknown. A whimper slips between my lips, and I wait for the angry magic of a protective ward to hit me.
To rip me apart.
I screw my eyes shut, and my shoulders tense at the ominous whoosh behind me. Oh no. A magic wind whips out, the loose strands of my green hair batter against my cheeks, and… the portal snaps closed.
I gulp.
After a few more seconds with nothing horrible happening, I open my eyes and straighten.
My vision is blurry, and everything around me is a haze of swirling colours.
I can’t focus, and in my panic, I can’t make sense of anything.
Over and above my raspy breaths and the frantic beat of my heart, I catch the heavy hum and pungent fumes of a bus engine and sense the weight of the vehicle as its movement reverberates through the ground underneath my feet.
Traffic. People. Earth.
I slump against the comforting red brick of a now-familiar alleyway wall as relief hits me and take a deep, shuddering breath through the clawing lump in my throat. It’s like trying to breathe through a blocked straw.
Each breath gets easier as the worst of my panic subsides and my vision slowly clears. I did it. I got out without a fiery death. Go, me. The brick bites into my forehead, and without my permission, the innate magic inside me reaches out. It tugs, greedily feeding on the wall’s strength.
The old bricks give willingly. The wall is strong—being so close to the magic of the ley line—but nowhere near strong enough to repair the damage done to me.
It’s a drop in the ocean of magic I’ll need to fix this mess, and if I take too much, I will damage the sedimentary rocks in the clay.
Destroy the wall. That’s what trolls are notorious for.
“I can’t do that. I will never do that.”
I snatch my wayward magic back and push it inside until it’s a tiny, weak ball of power in my chest.
My eyes drift unwillingly back to the now-silent gateway.
I’m being chased. I shudder and suck my lower lip under my teeth.
The excess salt in my saliva makes the nasty cut in the corner of my mouth sting.
My knowledge of portals is rudimentary. I have no idea if they have a redial function.
I’ve used the one near my old clan and only know the two gateway codes. One to here, one to back there.
The mess I’ve found myself in. I can never go back. It’s the end of my life as I know it. Can things begin with an ending? When everything is broken and you’ve hit rock bottom? My trembling sigh hurts my chest. “I’ve done it before. I will do it again.”
Look at me, hanging on to my worthless life by a thread. I have just enough energy left to laugh.
Gathering the last of my courage, I push away from the wall. I escaped from Faerie after a friendly chat with some elves. When I couldn’t answer their questions—you can’t answer what you don’t know—they became pushy. Painfully so.
I got away, used my power to hide, and then took a chance on the random gateway. I had the oh-so-bright idea of dialling a code. Of course in my panic, I frantically smashed in the runes I knew, sloppily entered the code, and only with the grace of fate did I get it right.
It won’t take the elves long to find me.
They have magic that would make your hair turn white with fright, and they will track me.
I left so much of my blood in Faerie it’s inevitable.
And when the spell shows I used their precious portal…
I huff out a pain-filled laugh. Surprise.
I do not want to be standing here like a divvy when they come barrelling through.
This time it won’t be fists and boots but the pointy end of their iron swords.
You’ve got this, Pepper. Everything is going to be okay. Hold on, don’t lose it now. You will not let them kill you or sell you to the Lord of Spring.
Time to get a wiggle on and get out of here. I take a precious moment to deal with my injured wrist. The bone is wonky, and the arm is swelling at an alarming rate.
“That’s not good.”
White-hot pain rips through my nerves. I carefully tuck the broken wrist more securely, manoeuvring it underneath my tunic, using the tight brown fabric to immobilise the damaged limb against my chest. It will have to do for now. With gritted teeth, I move.
I take a heavy step, and my weak right ankle rolls.
I half laugh, half cry as it burns with pinching pain.
“Mother Nature.” I shake my head in disbelief, and my lower lip wobbles.
I fix my eyes on the cloudy sky to stop my tears.
Why is my luck always so rotten? Why can’t— I shut the thought down.
There’s no point in lamenting what could have been.
The moaning excuse of if I’d been born into a different clan, the elves would have never touched me, blah, blah, blah. That way lies madness.
I take another precious second to rub my watery eyes and still-bleeding nose on my sleeve—blue bloodstains joining the rest of the blotchy mess. With no cleaning magic to help, there will be no saving the rough fabric from the bin, and that’s a good thing. I don’t want to see this outfit again.
Keep moving, you stupid bug. You’re going to get yourself killed. This time my inner voice has a nasty taint. It does the trick. I hobble towards the safety of the bustling street, my fingertips brushing the old wall in thanks for its gift.
The supply bag I borrowed from the elves during my escape is almost as big as me. With each lurching step, it digs into my shoulders and whacks against the back of my thighs. Each bounce jostles my poor wrist and ankle. I do my best not to limp. If I limp, I’ll throw my hip out. I’m such a prize.
It’s morning, and the street is busy with all manner of creatures: humans, shifters, demons, witches, vampires, and an abundance of fae. Earth has an eclectic population.
I drift to the edge of the street, close to the kerb so I can step off the pavement and into the road when needed. I don’t need to risk anyone getting too close and bumping into me.
When I was around eight, I followed my second-oldest brother and his uncle—not my uncle; long story.
They used this mysterious door in the woods near our clan.
Before they entered, they were excited, loudly talking about their upcoming adventure.
I remember being hungry. Starving. I had nothing to lose, and I hoped I could sneak in and get something to eat.
So I followed them.
As they crossed the door’s threshold, something inside told me to memorise the pattern of the thirteen runes they’d used to get in. Diligently I did, then followed them.
It was a shock when I was spat out of a portal into a new realm. My brother and his uncle were nowhere to be found. I was stuck—it quickly became clear a different pattern of runes was required to open the magical gateway back to Faerie.
I waited for two days.
During those days, I lingered on the streets of the strange, fascinating new world, eavesdropping on its equally fascinating and strange creatures.
For the first time in my young life, I felt safe.
Which is crazy ’cause nowhere is safe, not Faerie and certainly not Earth.
But the seaside town in North West England appealed to me on a strange level, and as a bonus, nobody noticed or cared about the small, odd green girl.
Two days later when my brother returned, I stumbled back to the clan. They hadn’t even noticed I’d left.
All everyone has ever wanted is for me to disappear. Magic has a funny way of making things like that happen. Cultivated by years of wanting, something clicked inside me and I vanished.
It was a new power.
I had disappeared.
No scent. No sound. No hint of my magic. I was still there, just cloaked. Yeah, the only downside: I was still there. I could interact with the world, and the world could interact with me, usually when I wasn’t watching out and a creature tripped over me.
From then on, with my new power, I came to Earth regularly for days and weeks at a time.
When the local kids would leave for hours, I followed them to school, intrigued, and sat unnoticed in an empty chair or classroom corner, hidden, invisible, watching and learning.
I even went home with a few of my friends.
I should have been learning to be fae. But I couldn’t risk getting caught sneaking around a school in Faerie—where magic is more advanced than it is on Earth.
I learned like a human child, and once I had the basics, I floated to and from different classes and different schools, learning all the other skills I liked.
I wobble down Birley Street, a pedestrianised road, and shuffle past the witches’ shop.
The sign written in bold letters above the door states: Tinctures n Tonics—Specialists in Portable Potions.
The magic inside buzzes and bites against my skin.
Strong. The urge to go inside the shop and ask for help, perhaps trade something in the borrowed bag for a healing potion, nags at me, but I keep moving.
I keep my awkward shuffle going as I trudge towards the sea. No one needs to see me in this state, and I don’t want to leave a trail of dead bodies in my wake when the elves come.
Witches. My small smile pulls at my sore lip. Once I was confident with my power, I even spent a year at the witches’ fancy academy. There was this one girl, a witch with violet hair, a witch no one liked. Tuesday Larson. I liked her and used to sit with her all the time. Not that she ever knew.
I squeak and dodge a swinging arm with a takeaway coffee.
Gah. Hot liquid almost splashes my leg, and the sudden movement makes my entire body scream in pain.
My weak ankle, feeling better from my slow, steady shuffle, gives another angry twinge.
Out of breath and fighting dizziness, I stop, prop the bag’s weight against a lamppost, and take a deep breath.
An unhealthy sweat beads on my brow, drenching my hairline and trickling a stinging path down my back.
I should ditch the bag. It could have rocks in it for all I know.
Yet I can’t seem to let it go. My temples throb in the rhythm of my heart—I must be dehydrated—and my power flutters, fluctuating oddly like butterfly wings against my skin.
I roll my head back against the metal post and catch the eye of a human on the other side of the street.
He is looking right at me.
Oh no. My heart misses a beat. My energy is down to bare fumes, and my invisibility must have flickered.
The man elbows his vampire friend. “Did you see…?” He points right at me.
I pull on the stone beneath my feet, wrapping the concrete’s strength around me. There’s a crack, and moving outward from my feet, a starburst of hairline fractures appears in the pavement slab. Nervously, my eyes flick about. I think it was just the human.
The man rubs his eyes, chuckles, and vigorously shakes his head. “Nah, you know what? That drink from last night is playing with my head. I told ya— Didn’t I tell ya it tasted dodgy? I’m seeing ghosts, man. Ghosts.” He elbows his friend again.
The vampire grins and playfully shoves him. “You’re a lightweight, pal. My cousin can see ghosts. She says she has a bit of necromancer blood.” Their voices drift as they continue down the street, playfully pushing and shoving each other.
Thankfully, I am forgotten. That was way too close. I gaze down at my feet and wince at the damage I’ve caused. Feeling bad, I silently apologise to the concrete slab. Then I take a deep breath and push myself forward. One step at a time, Pepper. This is how you do it—one step at a time.
I must keep a grip on my invisibility power until I can get off the street.
At the junction where the road meets the promenade, I wait for a gap in the traffic.
Crossing the road, I turn left and carefully navigate over the tram tracks, then continue to limp my way down the deserted promenade, following the curved railings of the seawall, away from the bustling town centre and toward the iconic pier.
Central Pier looms ahead, its distant lights flickering.
Each step now sends a jolt of pain through my ankle and travels up my torso to my broken wrist. The winter sun struggles to break through the thick blanket of clouds, casting muted light on salt-weathered buildings. Most are closed for the off-season.
The rhythmic crashing of the waves mixes with the cries of seagulls and the salt-laden breeze. It whips up tiny dust devils made of sand. They swirl, dancing in front of my unsteady feet like they’re playfully trying to trip me. I keep going—one step at a time.
I trudge for another pain-filled five minutes and arrive at my destination.
Central Pier. The flashing lights and the cheesy music from the pier’s amusement arcade are background noises as my stumbling feet land on the old-fashioned subway tunnel.
A subway, not one with trains but an underground walkway, is hidden underneath my feet.
Once, it linked the beach and the Central Pier entrance to the attractions on the other side of the street, and in its heyday, it kept people safe from having to cross the busy tram tracks and road. I see it for what it was: a creepy tunnel with toilets.
Around ten years ago, the Creature Council decided the upkeep of the subway was too much.
The accidents were becoming far too frequent, and they closed it.
I’m sure they planned to have the entire thing filled in, but conveniently, the lazy contractor they hired only blocked off the stairs and made it so both entrances disappeared, and that was it.
Most people wouldn’t know the tunnel existed unless they were like me and had an affinity for stone.
I limp to my usual spot, and with a powerful strum of magic from the concrete, the ground opens and swallows me.