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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
J.C. Yeamans
Read between
December 28 - December 29, 2024
“Everything was a shock to me on Samhain. In an instant, I knew I existed in a different world than
I’d known all my life.
And something near the ceiling moved. A black shadow, slithering like a snake as it...
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“We’ll petition the city to use the gardens for our Winter Solstice celebration,”
“It has an eight-foot fence, and it’s where the Sluagh resides. We do it there.”
The deep caws of a bird and the growling of wolves echo off the buildings on the Green. They’re behind me. No. To my right. To my left. No. Above me!
panic at the sight of an approaching monstrous, flapping figure—an enormous, black raven, glimmering in the moonlight.
It’s heading straight for me, its beak opened wide enough to swallow me whole!
Elijah and Tanner shove me to the ground. They chant and stretch their hands toward the sky
with fireballs of amber in the palms of their hands.
The vision of the Sluagh violates my inner thoughts, and I can’t stop quivering.
he wraps his arms around my upper body, still quivering uncontrollably from the attack of the Sluagh.
“It’s possible you inherited heightened empathic skills, experiencing the attack through the eyes of a victim. Sensed it from the Sluagh as it approached.”
“Although I jest, I don’t make light of your fear. The Sluagh has supernatural power and presents a danger to all of us. We must send it back.”
“And if we can’t?”
must kill the Sluagh with my family’s dirk. Only a strong ancestral witch can summon enough of its power to eliminate the evil fairy.”
“The Host of the Unforgiven Dead is near! We must invoke our combined energies to force the portal open!”
“The Sluagh is only a few hundred feet away. We must increase our combined energies to the maximum you can bring forth!”
The Host of the Unforgiven Dead avoids the suction of the portal and dives into the hawthorn tree, transforming into a terrifying tree of evil,
Without warning, it stretches its arms to the circle, grabbing a witch—Ronnie! She screams, flailing her arms about, and tries to break free but doesn’t have the strength.
“A witch must be controlling the Host of the Unforgiven Dead!”
“What if it’s no one here?! Could it be Agnes Pritchard?!”
“Agnes has no reason to call for the Sluagh!
It is someone in our midst!”
Courtney. She has guilty-as-charged stamped on her face, a billboard advertising wicked witch for hire.
Audrey is missing.
Trinity breaks from the circle and approaches Courtney Davies with a jade-green glare, demanding the whereabouts of her friend.
Trinity glimpses the flickering of blue light in a second-floor window of the mansion and releases
her clamp around Courtney’s neck.
“I’ll go with you, Elijah!” Archie says. “You may
need help if she’s truly an ancestral witch!”
Archie hands me his family dirk. “Elijah and I will deal with Audrey.”
“Your skin must contact the handle to empower it. When she releases the Sluagh, you must pierce the tree with all the strength you have.
“Yes, you can, Gwyn.” A glimmer of faith shines in his eyes. “I believe in you. You have an untapped power.
In my peripheral vision, I catch sight of a fireworks display in Audrey’s hideout on the second floor.
I raise the dirk, summoning my witch energy to ignite its power, and it radiates with the brightness of
the sun’s...
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I sprint to the Sluagh with all the vigor my legs can muster. It swipes at me with a free limb, but I drop on my butt and slide on ice to the tree, slashing a limb with the dirk.
The draw of the portal nabs the Host of the Unforgiven Dead as it closes, sending it back into the closing void.
“She’s alive,” I say in a cloud of white mist. “We should call 911 for an ambulance.”
“She won’t last
long. We don’t have the ingredients or the time for a healing spe...
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“You need to explain yourself.” Audrey eyeballs the witches in the circle. “I can’t. A spell was cast to stop me from divulging my intentions.”
“I
called on the Sluagh to eliminate you,” Audrey says. “I didn’t expect your suppressed powers to grow so strong.
Audrey straightens her coat and walks to the gate but turns toward us. Summoning her witch energy, she blows on the amber light, shooting a flame of fire that stops short of singeing
us.
I stand and walk toward the gate, stopping to give Archie his family dirk, covered in blue sap from the Sluagh.
Derek didn’t leave Ronnie’s bedside for days. But I couldn’t bring myself to visit her in the hospital while she slept in a drug-induced coma.
What kind of person doesn’t visit her best friend in the ICU? I enter to find
