4. Chapter 4
M y pulse skyrockets as I take in the gorgeous hunk standing with me in the middle of the abandoned square. All thoughts of the strange things I just saw vanish when the warmth of his large palm encloses mine.
“O’Byrne, you say?” His eyes gleam with recognition.
Turning on his heel, Patrick slips my hand to the crook of his elbow and escorts me back towards my trusty ol’ hunk of junk sitting on the road by a shiny new pickup. How I hadn’t heard his approach is beyond me.
“I haven’t heard that name around these parts in decades,” he says.
“Decades?” I squeak, pleased to at least get that much out through the too-thick tongue now residing in my mouth. At work, I have no trouble talking to the patrons, but put me out in the world for five seconds, and I’m lucky to string a couple words together.
I probably only managed to introduce myself because of the shock his arrival gave me.
Why did my dreams make it seem like I would find family here if they haven’t been in this area for so long? Oh, right. Because it was a dream, and I was reading the journal and diary and made it all up.
“That’s right. If I remember the stories correctly, the last O’Byrne left and moved to Massachusetts or something after the curse hit. Not that my family knows exactly what happened; we weren’t witches in the coven. My relatives lived far enough away to not be affected by the curse and shared the stories with their grandchildren.”
He shrugs, crossing his arms over his chest as he studies me and my car. “The O’Byrnes were one of Spells Hollow’s founding families. In fact, you share a name with the goddess Morrigan, who is rumored to be where the O’Byrnes got their witch powers from.”
“Powers,” I repeat in disbelief.
Why, oh why, did I drive all this way for this insanity? And a goddess? Maybe the town is abandoned because spending too much time here makes you go crazy. That explains the people I keep seeing who are there and then gone again.
Shaking my head, I back away from Patrick, mind racing. I was just hallucinating. The things I kept dreaming about this place were just coincidences that were caused by sleep deprivation and transcribing the journal and diary from here. That’s all.
Patrick rubs the back of his neck, a sheepish smile filling his handsome face. “Aw shit, sorry. Here I’ve been yakking along about the town and you’re probably ready to get exploring. I just swung through ‘cause I thought I saw some smoke, but it must’ve just been dust from your car bouncing through those ruts. My family’s always kinda taken it upon ourselves to look after the area, so I had to look in on it.”
He walks closer to the car and pats it on the hood, ducking slightly to look at the undercarriage. “I’m shocked you made it down here in this. This road isn’t really even an actual road, more of a dirt path that people traveled on enough to wear out a groove.”
“I noticed,” I say sharply.
My gaze catches on a strange teal shimmer before I’m once again in a time that feels different from my own. One second, Partick and the vehicles are in front of me; then the next, they’re gone, replaced by a jeering crowd carrying… pitchforks and torches? They’re surrounding a bundle of wood in the middle of the clearing, and I find myself walking closer, trying to see what they’re doing.
When I reach a gap in the jostling group, I gasp.
The woman I saw earlier, who was dressed like a pilgrim, is there. She’s tied to a wood post with a defiant glare on her face. Blood runs in rivulets from where she’s been jabbed with the pitchforks even as flames lick along the edges of the pyre.
“Witch! Witch! Witch!” The yelling chant gets louder with every second, and soon she’s enveloped entirely in the fire.
But somehow her eyes are burning through me, making me feel as if I am the one in her place. Her lips move, and in that moment, everything else becomes deathly silent.
“Find your home, Morrigan. Take claim of your heritage and magic. Do not let the evil win!”
With a long, wailing scream, she’s gone, and I’m kneeling weakly in the middle of the dead field. Patrick’s arms are holding me as I rock back and forth, and calming words flow from his mouth, a low murmur beneath the high-pitched screams.
It takes me a few minutes to realize that the screaming is coming from me.
***
We’re sitting at a booth in the diner by the highway turnoff that I’d passed this morning, though it feels like a lifetime ago.
I still can’t wrap my head around how empty this place is. I had felt that pull to keep going when GPS told me to exit the highway when I was driving by, otherwise it would’ve just been a blip in the road that passed by without notice. There’s a couple cars gassing up before hitting the road again, but otherwise I can count on one hand how many people I’ve seen since starting my travels.
After the incident, Patrick bundled me and Quoth into his truck, getting us back to the highway on the little dirt trail in about half the time I’d driven it.
Now, with a warm coffee cradled in my palms and the relaxing atmosphere of the diner at my back, the shakes are finally beginning to subside.
“Are you feeling any better?” Patrick asks. He’s halfway through a thick stack of blueberry pancakes drowned in syrup while feeding the occasional bite to Quoth, kindly leaving me to my own thoughts until I’ve settled. “I’m not exactly sure what happened back there, but you were pretty upset.”
My eyes stay on the coffee, swirling it around in a gentle circle. “I think so?” At least, I’m not watching someone get murdered in front of my eyes right now. “I’ve never seen anything like that before. It was… awful.”
“Do you want to talk about it? I know we haven’t known each other for very long, but my sister always says I’m a great listener.” He leans forward and smiles softly at me. “You’re not from around here, so you don’t know the area or its history. Everyone always avoids Spells Hollow because of the curse. Strange things always seem to happen there. I’m glad I followed my instincts and found you, I usually avoid it as much as the next guy.” His warm palm nudges the side of my knee, grounding me amidst the turmoil bubbling just under the surface.
“I don’t even know how to explain it,” I confess. “There were people yelling ‘witch’ with the whole torch and pitchfork show, and this woman…” My voice wavers. It feels like her eyes are still boring into my soul, even though that accursed field is a few miles away. “She was dressed like a pilgrim, and they lit her on fire. It felt like they were having a fucking celebration after she died, like murdering her was a happy occasion.”
My fingers sting and I release my white-knuckled grip on the coffee cup, forcing my hands to pick at lint on my jeans instead. Unless I’m carefully restoring an old book, my hands are always picking at things. Stress makes it twice as bad as usual.
Patrick is silent for a moment, his forehead creasing while he worries his lip between his teeth. Since he’s not running for the hills, I can only guess he doesn’t think I’m insane. “I hate to bring this up, after everything that’s happened, but… Has this ever happened to you before? Seeing people die or anything like that, I mean.” He catches my hand as he speaks, rubbing gentle circles across the top of it.
“Yes.”
It comes out barely more than a whisper, but he hears it if the sudden tightening of his grip is anything to go by.
Nothing compares to the horror of watching the pilgrim woman burn to death, but when I was a girl, I often saw people dying in my dreams. Strange people, people I’d never seen before, would fall over from heart attacks or slowly drift away, surrounded by loved ones.
I was in my late teens before the first bloody death happened, this one a young man who had been mugged and beaten. After that, the dreams became more frequent. That’s when my love of gemstones began, especially in regards to the healing powers of azurite, which had kept such nightmares away until a few months ago.
Patrick sighs, leaning forward onto his elbows. His blue eyes bore into mine, and the calmness in them keeps me from completely freaking out. An impressive feat, considering the next words out of his mouth.
“Well, there’s no easy way to tell you this, but I think you’re a witch, Morrigan.”