Crescent Calling: The Crescent Witch Chronicles - Book One, R Nicole [electronic book reader .TXT] 📗

where Boone was still cutting Mrs. Boyle’s hedge, I grimaced. It was quiet now…but the whole village would be on top of me tomorrow with their questions and stories. What was I supposed to say to them?

“Well, we’d better get started with my training,” I said to Mairead. “Today, you’re the boss.”

* * *

The cottage behind Irish Moon was a two-story bluestone building that looked just like the rest of the village. The garden was in full bloom with purples, yellows, oranges, and reds all over the place. A vegetable patch was at the side where another door was set into the wall, and in front of me was the main entrance.

I was afraid to go in, so I stood there, the keys heavy in my hand, my suitcase at my feet. I’d moved the silver rental car into the space behind the house once the tourist coaches started arriving, and just like Mairead had said, business was booming.

Derrydun had already surprised me in more ways than one.

Sighing, I grasped the handle of my suitcase and rolled it up the path. The only thing I knew about my mother was she’d left us—a man who loved her and a helpless toddler. She’d left us all alone. I was the spitting image of her, which mustn’t have been easy for Dad, and now here I was about to step into her home. Twenty-five years of my mother sat behind that door. What if she turned out to be a real bitch? Or worse, what if she was nice?

Unlocking the door, I opened it and was immediately hit with the scent of home. Somehow, it was familiar, and as I stepped over the threshold, everything tingled with static like it had the other day at the beach house. Shivering, I closed the door and found the light switch in the hall, then flipped it on.

To my right was a sitting room filled with furniture with unfashionable floral coverings, an open fireplace, and a television in the corner. A bookshelf sat against one wall, overflowing with all kinds of tomes. Straight ahead was a staircase, and to my left was the kitchen. Naturally, I went for the food first.

Leaving my suitcase in the hall, I stood by the table. Everything here smelled earthy. Wet and woody with a hint of rosemary and mint from the herbs by the back door.

There was a note on the table from Robert detailing how the heating worked and that I would find some welcoming gifts in the fridge. The lawyer had thought of everything, and I was grateful. Now that I was here in my mother’s home, it really hit me. I would never get a chance to know her. Not really. She was gone, and I hated that it had taken her death to finally bring me here. Needless to say, I wasn’t going upstairs. Not tonight.

Opening the fridge, I found a bunch of casseroles inside with notes taped to them. Flipping over the first one, it was from some people named Fiona and Mark Ashlyn. Friends of Mum, I suppose. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about finding something to eat for a while.

Taking out the top container, I set it on the bench while I opened and closed all the cupboards and drawers looking for a plate and some cutlery. Dishing out a healthy portion of some lamb concoction, I watched it rotate in the microwave. Aileen cooked her meals here. The evidence she was a virtuoso in the kitchen was all around. Battered pots and pans hung from the wall, herbs were drying in bunches in the window, and tired-looking recipe books were propped up on the counter.

The microwave beeped, and I pulled out the steaming dish. Sitting at the table, I stared into space, wondering how in the hell I’d gotten from there to here.

She was all around me but still so far away.

Chapter 3

I stared at the gravestone in front of me and sighed. The Celtic cross reached up into the blue sky, the stone worn from enduring hundreds of years out in the harsh Irish elements.

Here lyeth the body of Mary Byrne, who departed this life on the… The rest was unreadable.

“Ah, you found your ancestor,” Robert said, appearing beside me.

He’d turned up at the cottage that morning as promised, I’d signed the last of the paperwork with his posh gold pen, and it was done. Everything my mother had owned now belonged to me. I was expecting some kind of closure, like a book snapping shut, the moment I signed the last bit of paper, but nothing happened. Nothing at all. It was such an anti-climax.

“She was related to me?” I glanced at the lawyer and back to the headstone again. We had different family names.

“Aye. This one’s an old one. Died seventeen somethin’.” He rubbed his hands together and bounced from foot to foot. “It’s chilly out here. Do you want to go inside?”

“I thought it was almost summer?”

“Summer? What’s summer?” He laughed and offered me his arm.

Watching the stream of people walking into the church, I made a face. Mairead was right. Everyone had turned up for the funeral and had dressed in their finest black outfits to boot. There were no corners for me to hide in once I walked through those doors. All eyes would be on me, the mysterious daughter of their beloved Aileen.

“Do I have to go in there?” I asked.

“I don’t know what’s worse. Goin’ to a funeral or being stared at by the entire village. But strength in numbers, or so they say.” He wiggled his arm like a chicken flapping its wings.

“Has anyone ever told you that you look like Danny DeVito?”

“You’re a master, Skye, but I’m not fallin’ for it. Let’s go.”

“But surely someone’s told you,” I said, taking his arm.

“Aye. I auditioned as his stunt double for that Batman film.”

“Really?” The lawyer was earning some serious cool points.

“No,” he said, bellowing with laughter.

“That’s mean!”

“Now