NOW

Kieran stands with his arms wide open within the circle he conjured, as a gust of wind rushes over him. His long, dark coat billows out behind him, flapping up and down like the wings of a crow. He takes a deep breath as a dark shadow sweeps over him, and he feels the apparition surge through his body. He can hear the screams of a million ghosts rush through him and the feeling gives him hope. Hope that everything could still be as it is supposed to be. Heather could still be his.

At first, he feels disappointment because he trusted Jayden. Jayden told him this time it would be different, this time he would help him find a spell to break the curse which kept them here.

For centuries, Heather died each time she chose him, but he had faith, it would be different this time. He believed this time they would find a spell to break the curse. Now, she chose Jayden. She spoke the words, and she is lost to him forever.

Kieran presses his lips together so tightly they turn white.

He is so naive.

He should never have trusted Jayden with Heather.

When he came here to prepare everything for the spell to banish his mother and the dark shadows, he believed Jayden had given up on trying to get Heather to choose him, even though Heather was betrothed to Jayden, but that was centuries ago.

Since the day he was cursed, he had never kissed another girl, never even flirted with another girl, unlike Jayden had recently done with Candice.

It dawns on Kieran. Was Jayden only trying to make him feel complacent when he made out with Candice? To make Kieran believe he is not interested in Heather anymore, and that he wants the curse to be broken so they could stop going in continuous cycles, lifetime after lifetime?

For as long as he had known Heather, his love for her is what defined him.

After centuries of loving her again and again, he now loves her with a fire which burns within his soul. A fire now ignited with hatred and revenge. Death has not come to him for a long time, and the passage of time makes the way he feels about Heather, that much stronger.

“Why are you doing this to me?” He asks the night sky. “I never asked for it. I never asked for any of this. All I want is Heather and now she is with Jayden. The curse is broken, and I will not get another chance to make her love me, to choose me.”

Memories flash through his mind of Heather. Her soft, dark hair. Her bright, beautiful smile.

Kieran’s eyes blaze as a feeling of rage rushes through him.

The three of them first met in New England, a little more than three hundred years ago.

Heather was born in sixteen seventy-six to John and Amy O’Halloran, immigrants from the old world. Kieran and Jayden were born out of wedlock to Katherine Fitzgerald, in sixteen seventy-six and sixteen seventy-four respectively, with Jayden being the eldest.

When they were born, New England had been settled by religious refugees seeking to build a pure, Christian society and at the time there were many disputes between the inhabitants of Salem Village. Arguments about property lines, grazing rights, and church privileges were rife, and neighbours were argumentative. The immigrant families intended to build a society based on their religious beliefs and the O’Halloran’s were prominent members of their congregation.

Prior to sixteen ninety-two, there had been many rumours of witchcraft in villages neighbouring Salem and other towns, but in the village of Salem, it started with only two girls who began to utter strange sounds, crawled under furniture, and contorted themselves into peculiar positions. Then, other young women in the village began to exhibit similar behaviours, which included Heather, then aged sixteen. Always aged sixteen.

When Katherine Fitzgerald was arrested, she was told she was not living a Puritan lifestyle, always dressed in black and being able to look as youthful as she did with two grown sons was nothing but witchcraft. She went to trial the same day she was arrested and was convicted that same day.

There was no time for Kieran to bid her farewell, as Katherine was carried in a wagon with other accused witches, through the streets to her execution. He could not get near the wagon as jeering and sneering town folk crowded the street. He could see his mother pushed into a corner of the wagon, a distant look on her face while her lips were pulled into a small, amused smile.

When the flames started licking at her black dress and quickly engulfed her body, Katherine started chanting in a strange voice. The wind came up, the clouds gathered ominously in the sky and lightning crackled on the outskirts of the village.

A whirlwind began to twirl around Heather as she stood beside him in the crowd around the burning stake. It pulled her hair up and away from her face. Kieran was standing next to her, and he saw Heather levitate momentarily before she collapsed onto the ground.

Jayden, feeling guilty because he convinced Heather to accuse his mother as a witch, was not there. The Magistrate threatened to put Heather in a pulley where her hands would be tied behind her back and then she would have been suspended by a rope attached to the wrists. Weights would have been added to increase the pain, and she would have had to stay like this until she confessed who the witch was who inflicted her. It would have most likely resulted in her death.

Being empowered with gifts of sorcery themselves, Jayden believed his mother would have freed herself, using black magic, but Katherine did not. Katherine instead cursed her two sons and Heather. Katherine knew Kieran loved Heather even though Heather was betrothed to Jayden, to be married within a fortnight.

Kieran thought no-one knew his secret until Katherine cursed them.

When Heather collapsed, he knelt beside her quickly and felt his heart ripped from his chest as he realised, she was dead. He did not know about the curse until that night when Jayden told him he met the spirit of Katherine in the forest, and she told him of her plans. An intricate spell that would alter the fabric of the universe.

The curse she put on them was that Heather would die each time she chose Kieran. Then she would be reincarnated, and it would start all over again. If she chose Jayden, the spell would be broken.

Sometimes they found Heather when she was still young and other times, they only had a few months to convince her to choose either one of them. They could have stayed away, let Heather live her life to the end, to die a natural death, without the two of them interfering, but it would have meant that Jayden and Kieran would have missed an opportunity to break the curse and they would continue walking the earth, until the next time.

He could have let her choose Jayden; it would have been so easy, but he loves her. Have always loved her.

Slowly Kieran turns in a circle, looking at the preparation he made earlier to perform the spell.

He knows what he must do now.

CONTINUE READING

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