Chapter Six
A Love Curse
Siena, June 18, 2011, Washington, D.C. · Neave, July 18, 1564, Ulster, Ireland
I lay in bed wide awake, chewing on the inside of my lip. For the last few hours, I’d been rewinding the meeting in my head scene by scene, like an old movie. Connor’s mellow whistling had turned into an earworm. It crept under my skin and took residence in my brain. Was it his prominence combined with his obscene estate, or his good looks multiplied by his celebrity?
I released my lip and flounced over, face to the window. The rugged edges of the waning gibbous moon appeared ominous against the clear sky.
Connor’s looks and position didn’t matter, and neither did his whistling. I’d been hired to paint the murals, and he was only another client. Besides, he’d rarely even be there—he said so himself.
I blew out a long breath. Thank heavens for that.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I reached for it without looking—and snatched my hand away like it’d caught on fire. The name on my screen said, Lindsey, Jason’s wife. I’d need to change that, or better yet block it. Jason had a new wife, and her name was Emma.
“This is going straight to voicemail,” I muttered. But as if taken on a life of their own, my fingers grabbed the phone and swiped to answer.
“Hi, Siena.” Lindsey sounded as surprised as I felt.
“Hi.”
“Be right back, babe...” Her voice faded before she returned to me. “How’s everything?”
I pursed my lips, pissed at myself for answering. “What can I do for you, Lindsey?”
“Oh, nothing, actually. Do you know who Peter Beischel is?”
“No.”
“He’s with the Towhees—you know—the baseball team?”
I stared ahead. Why in the hell did I answer? And more importantly, why hadn’t I blocked her?
“Search him up, you should. Peter B-e-i-s-c-h-e-l.”
Just end the call. I typed the name into my search engine instead. Curiosity killed the cat. A man’s face popped up on my screen: square jaw, longish chestnut hair, steel-blue eyes.
“Kind of looks like your warrior, doesn’t he?” Lindsey’s smirk was audible.
I stared at my wedding picture on the dresser. “What do you want, Lindsey?”
“Pete is my fiancé, Siena!”
“Great.” I shook my head. “Congrats?”
“Thank you.” Lindsey chuckled. “How do you like being a single mother?”
I froze, squeezing the phone in my hand.
“A little bird told me Ryan has moved on without you.”
I unclenched my fingers. “You were told wrong.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” she snickered before I could end the call.
After blocking her number, I sank down into the bed and stared at the ceiling, cold all over. She’s not at all my type. Ryan’s words flew back at me for the hundredth time. His voice when he said that was a little too emphatic, his response a little too eager. Why say it at all? Why even bring it up?
My eyes burned, and I swiped at them with a trembling hand. What possessed me to agree to this project? I should have declined while I could.
I grabbed the phone again. Ryan picked up right away.
“Hey, love...” He sounded distracted.
“Are you home?”
“No, at work.”
“It’s 9:30 at night.”
“Swamped. You okay?”
“I miss you,” I whispered, the miles between us suddenly unbearable.
“Hey.” His voice came through more present. “Don’t fall apart on me now.”
He didn’t say he missed me too. Was he even at work? I shook myself. When did I become so insecure?
“Listen, I can’t fly out—” His words were punctuated by a series of keyboard clicks, which brought on an unhealthy wave of relief. “You need to come and visit here, Sie.”
He was right. I needed to visit him. I needed him.
“Can you do a video call?” I said on a whim.
“Shit, I’m stuck here for another couple of hours.”
“Uh-huh.” I reached into my nightstand drawer for the silky black pouch. “I’m touching my Cowboy.”
Ryan chuckled after a weighty pause. “Your Cowboy?”
“It did come from Texas.”
“I didn’t say you could touch it.” His voice deepened with warning.
“Well, I am.”
My phone chimed with a video call request. Ryan was sitting in a black office chair, his shirt sleeves rolled up and tie loosened. His hair looked the way it did in the morning—soft and tousled. He must have been raking it all day. I pulled in my breath. What I would give to burry my hands in that hair.
“Strip.” He reclined, eyes trained on me.
There were only my tank top and panties to remove. I settled the phone against a pillow and knelt in front of the camera, sliding the Cowboy from my neck down.
“Damn. You’re getting a little too good at this.” He leaned forward once I reached a certain point. “Spread your legs.”
I complied, circling the toy downward, the circles getting smaller and smaller. The thing was like a rocket on steroids.
“Ohmigod, Ryan...” I breathed, eyes locked on his.
“Hey, Casey, did you hear my ping?” A woman’s perky staccato cut through my escalating bliss.
Ryan jerked up his head.
“Oh, shit,” she added with a laugh, “are you on a call?”
He blinked. “Wrapping up, have a seat.”
“Go ahead,” he said to me.
“Now?” I whispered with rounded eyes.
“Let’s finish this thing.” He appeared so impassive, he could have been talking about a work report or the weather.
“Reviewing certificates with accounting,” he said to whoever was sitting across from him.
I wanted to finish, too, so I started the Cowboy again, hoping he’d turned down the volume. He kept his eyes trained on me the entire time I fell apart.
“Thanks, that’s perfect.” He flicked me a nod when I’d finished. “Talk to you later.”
I froze, my stomach hard and tight. I thought he’d say something only the two of us would understand or at least promise to call back.
The screen flittered, then blurred and darkened.
“What’s up?” His voice carried muffled and distant.
He forgot to end the call. I bit into my lip until it hurt. He never forgot anything.
“Certificates with accounting! Were you having video sex, Casey?” The woman’s voice mused from a distance.
I suppressed a gasp and stared at the screen. It flickered with the same blurry image of what was probably Ryan’s desk.
“Unless you were watching a porno with a ‘Ryan’ in it?” She seemed closer.
“Very funny. What can I do for you, Viv?” Ryan sounded as calm as if he’d just typed up an email.
She laughed—a vulgar, boisterous braying. “Is there enough space for me under your desk?” Her voice turned conspiratorial. “I haven’t had a date in months.”
I held my breath, listening in the silence that followed.
“Come on, dude, I’m fucking with you!” Viv snorted. “Although—” She sounded closer. “Hell, I’d let the entire department have their way with me for that flash drive. Literally.”
She laughed hard, gasping and squealing. Ryan joined in—a sincere, hearty laughter. Some inside joke? I lurched with a sudden painful cramp in my neck.
“Dude, stop!” She gave a rich snort through their guffawing. “I can’t even...ah...seriously...you’re killing me—”
Their mirth fizzled out.
“What do you say we get out of here?” Her voice softened. “I need a fucking break.”
“You go ahead. I’ve got to finish this pile of shit before I call it quits. Drowning, Viv.”
“Alright, suit yourself. I’m outta here.” She seemed farther away. “Close your laptop if you decide to self-abuse. I’m pretty sure they’re watching us.”
“I’m touched by your concern.” Ryan sounded amused.
She tittered. “My offer stands if your hand gets sore, Casey.”
The screen lightened, and I ended the call. Then, I watched my phone for a short eternity, hoping he’d call back. He didn’t.
I shoved away the Cowboy and curled into a ball. What a jokester Viv was. But all jokes aside, she’d just offered Ryan a blow job. Twice. And while he didn’t say yes, he also didn’t say no.
For an hour, I tossed and turned, trying to banish scenarios that made me want to rush to the airport and catch the next flight to Dallas. I didn’t go to the airport, but neither did I sleep.
***
I stroked Ronan’s goldenhair, settling with him in the chair before the hearth. “Is it the legend of Midir and étaín you want, a leanbh?”
His steel-blue eyes lit up, bright and eager. The shapeshifting fables were his favorite, and this one was no exception. Although, I never regarded it so much a story of the king and his second wife as a sad tale of the king’s first wife, Fúamnach.
“Once upon a time, an immortal warrior-king, Midir of Tuatha Dé Danann, was wed to a powerful witch-goddess, Fúamnach,” I began. “They lived in love and contentment until it so happened that Midir traveled far from home and met another woman, étaín.”
“Was she a witch-goddess, too?” Ronan shifted in my lap, impatient for his favorite part.
“She was a mere mortal, a leanbh.” I scoffed. “But younger than Fúamnach, and lovelier, too, so Midir fell in love with her.”
Ronan frowned, his question at the ready. “Did she fall in love with him, too?”
“She did, as you well know.” I bit the inside of my lip, shivering with sudden chill. “What say you I tell you another tale tonight?”
Ronan shook his head, a small groove between his golden brows deepening. “I want this one, mama!”
I pulled him close. “When Midir returned home with étaín, and Fúamnach saw she’d been replaced, it was as though she received a fatal blow. She sickened with an ill fever, refused all food, and stayed in her chamber for a sennight.”
Despite knowing the ending, Ronan studied my face with anxious eyes. “Did she die of sorrow, mama?”
“She didn’t die, my wee love.” I swallowed. “A spurned woman, she had set her heart on a terrible revenge. She was powerful, mind? So she turned étaín into rain. But her spell had failed, for she’d likely grown frail from her heartbreak, and étaín soon returned to her human form. So Fúamnach cast another spell and turned her rival into a pool of water. That spell, too, had failed, for once again, étaín turned back into a woman, lovelier than before. Enraged, Fúamnach gathered all her powers to turn étaín into a fly. Instead, she’d only succeeded in making her into the loveliest fiery butterfly anyone had ever laid eyes on.”
Ronan sighed, hoping against hope. “Did Midir come to his senses and return to Fúamnach to live in love and contentment again?”
Something inside me squeezed with such pain, I gasped. “He didn’t, a leanbh, for being a self-indulgent creature, the king no longer loved his first wife, who gave him all her youth, love, and children, withal. And though Fúamnach sent two great storms to blow étaín away forever, she’d failed in that, too. So Midir kept the butterfly as his most cherished companion and had Fúamnach put to death.”
Ronan pouted and shook his golden head. “So Midir was left with no wife.”
“After étaín was reborn as a woman in her next life, he found her and carried her off to the otherworld to be with her forever.”
The little boy hopped off my lap, eyes wide. “Da is a warrior-king. Why doesn’t he keep other wives, mama—?”
Someone rapped at the door.
I leaned toward it. “Come in!”
“A missive for you, m’lady.” Betha approached with a small parchment. “Delivered by a friar.”
Through the window, the waxing gibbous cast its cool light onto my hands. A time of laboring and ripening. I studied the scroll before unrolling it—no seal, only a coarse flax twine. The letter contained no greeting, but the handwriting, jagged and tight, appeared familiar.
It may come as a surprise to you, but tidings of life outside my place of confinement are scarce. And what whispers I hear in this lonesome corner, I cherish. Savor even. Word by precious word. Now that you have an infinitesimal notion of the misery that is my life, envisage my wonder at receiving tidings of yours, sister.
“What’s wrong, mama?”
Ronan’s voice made me jerk so violently, I almost dropped the parchment.
“Only a chill, a leanbh,” I whispered.
“A quilt, m’lady?” Betha petted Ronan’s head, uncertain. The fire in the hearth burned hot and bright.
I returned to the letter, knowing I ought to feed it to the flames, yet unable to do so.
Did I hear, as I well expected, that you met your fitting end in leper-town? Or that after cheating fate, you sought repentance in a nunnery for your fowled soul and flesh? Or that you begged your husband’s forgiveness for your sins and nobly stepped aside to make room for a deserving, virtuous woman, unlike yourself? Behold, that was not what I heard!
Fancy, if you will, my astonishment at learning instead that you had wormed your way back into the O’Neal’s matrimonial bed and born him children, no less! Indeed, I hear you fare quite well as the Prince of Ulster’s wife while I, as highborn as you are, languish in this forsaken place amongst weak-minded women who fancy themselves the brides of Christ. While I, a maiden of nineteen, rot here, buried alive.
But have you no worry, for despite my great sorrows, I do not dwell here in idleness. Instead, I pray. I pray day and night, sister of mine, that fate would come for you yet, so you, too, would drink from the bitter chalice of despair. I pray without ceasing, sister, and with all my heart and immortal soul, that you will soon bear the full breath of my pain. That you feel deep within your loins the terror of having no hope of escape, nor of improvement. Of having your life stolen from you. Of being robbed of all that makes it worth living.
I trust you will see the smeared ink, for I weep bitter tears as I write. I weep for the injustice done to me for having dared to love a man I was not sanctioned to love. (I love him no more, for he has proven a traitor to my heart.) But even as I grieve and wither here, a single notion warms me, sister. And it is this. Although I will surely perish here without laying eyes on the world again, you, too, shall know sorrow. For I pray day and night that you taste the sort of loneliness and abandonment that shall drive you mad and make you yearn death.
“Mama needs a rest, m’lord—”
I raised my head. Betha was walking the bewildered Ronan from the chamber.
“Mama—” He turned to me, face creasing with worry.
“Betha has it right, my wee love,” I heard myself say. “I must lie down for a bit, and I’ll be as good as new after.”
I waited for the door to close before returning to the filth in my hands.
Mind, I know well who I pray to, sister, and I welcome him, all the same. I have no faith in this god of love and mercy of theirs, for no such god would condemn an innocent maiden to such a fate as mine. So, I call upon the Prince of Darkness—who reigns here above all—to grant what you so richly deserve. And I beseech, too, that he aids me in casting a Great Curse on the arrogant, heartless man, who was too blind to see true, selfless love when it was laid out for him in plain view.
But I am no fool, sister of mine. I know you will run with this letter to the man I used to call father, and he might let it fall into the hands of those who would torment me worse than they do now. And they might lash me ’til I bleed, starve me ’til I am gaunt, and make me stand on my knees ’til they give out. Do run to him soon, then, for I have no fear of torment, sister. For I wish to bleed till my life’s blood runs out, starve ’til I feel no hunger, and kneel ’til I cannot stand. For I have no fear of death. Indeed, I welcome it.
And I pray that you, too, would soon learn that those who have no life embrace death in all its forms.
- Isibeal McConway, whose life was stolen by her vile sister, Neave McConway
This 1st day of July, 1564
I crumbled the parchment with icy hands and tossed it into the hearth. It struck the floor. Shaking all over, I bolted to where it lay and threw it clear into the fire.
The door creaked open.
“Are you unwell, a dhlúthchara?” Maura’s warm eyes searched mine as I stared, unblinking. “Betha said you’ve taken ill.”
“A letter from my sister, Isibeal—” I shifted my gaze to the flames.
Maura frowned at the sight of the crackling parchment and smoothed my hair. “Sent from the nunnery?”
“She wishes me great sorrow and...” I gasped. “She put a curse on...on Aedan.”
“Don’t fret so, Neave.” Maura squeezed my hand. “She’s raving mad is all.”
My chin quivered. “A curse, Maura. And while he’s contemplating a trip to the Tudor court.”
Maura circled her arms round me, holding tight. “Come now, a dhlúthchara. What sort of a curse?”
“She thinks he spurned her!”
Maura drew back to wipe away my tears. Why did her hand tremble so?
“A love curse, then?” She forced a smile. How disturbed she was for me. “What foolishness. Put it out of your mind, will you? No power in this world can ravage the love the O’Neal has for you.”