Want to read the prologue of my WIP?

Great! I knew you would. Here is a sneak peek into what I've been pouring my blood and sweat into. Hope it doesn’t disappoint!

"I learned early that love and damage can come from the same hands; mine. 

They’ve held her when she cried, smoothed her hair back, promised things I’ve meant in the moment. They’re also the same hands that released a fire so potent, that it stole her breath from her lungs, carved up her skin, betrayed her. I don't always know the difference until it's already done, until I see it in her face. That flicker of hesitation, like she's bracing for something she shouldn't have to expect from me. That's the part I can’t outrun, the part that hurts my sister coming from the same place I keep calling love.

The love between sisters is not always gentle, I’ve learned. Sometimes it's wild, like roots tangled beneath the same trees. But Blessing and I are made of the same storms, shaped by the same laughter, scared by the same grief. I was the heather; bent low by wind, stubborn in my blooming, clinging to the high places where the air feels too thin and the world too wide. Blessing was the loch; dark, still, holding secrets in her depths, reflecting the blue of the sky so perfectly you might forget how deep she ran until you fell in. 

And fall we did. Into each other, again and again. But beneath it all, the scars, the sharp edges and the ache, there was something sacred.  I was the one to break us wide open. My love was not a blessing, it was a curse. 

That day is burned into my heart like an iron poker straight from the flames. It had begun with a spell born of love that ended in tragedy. Like most of my life. 

What had I done? Echoes across my memory still. Just ten and eight, our mothers love a blade that we're constantly running from.

That day we tore past a row of council houses, their pebble-dash walls the color of weak tea. Past Mrs. Kerr’s washing that snapped on the line—high-waisted bell-bottom pants with holes in the knees, a paisley peasant blouse, several small wool jumpers. As we flew around the last house on the street, we passed an old Ford Cortina, its dash cluttered with cassette tapes and a pack of cigarettes.

           “Come on, let's hurry!” I remember Blessing squealing. 

The heather whispered against my knees as my sister and I scampered across the hillside, our laughter snagging on the wind. Each step I take sends a sigh through the blooms, the purple heads brushing my legs. I welcome the wind's breathy sigh all through my bones as Blessing and I run hand in hand, our bare feet making imprints in the damp, mossy ground, our girlish laughter echoing between the birch trees as we race to the coastline.

I looked behind us at the rise of the dark, Scottish Highland cliffs, at the heather covered hills, their slopes veined with rivulets from unseen springs. Sheep, like ghosts, grazed on the edges.

The freedom, like crashing waves inside me. 

A sister spell to keep us together forever, our fear that mam would send me away to a boarding school making our pulses race. Ignorant of the latent chaos simmering  just below the skin. A moment away from changing our lives forever. 

The air had been sharp with salt and peat, carrying the mingled scents of seaweed and cold stone. Wind blasted our faces, tugged at our hair, whispered through the tall marram grass that grows in small, defiant patches along the dunes. The sand was pale, but coarse, flecked with fragments of shell and the dull shimmer of mica. Nearest the shore, the sand gave way to pebbles—smooth, rounded stones of grey-green and blackened granite.

I remember my sister's face the most; bright-eyed, eager, trusting, her button nose wrinkling.  I thought of the words to say; twin-souled, everwoven, braided, tethered, woven into one story. Words threaded so tightly together that not even the sun could get through. Earlier, I had searched the ground for something to use, an old string floating in the flotsam. I pulled it out of my pocket then clasped our hands together. Spinning the string around and around our entwined hands, pulling it tight with my teeth. “Ready?” I asked, looking Blessing in the eye. She nodded, trying hard not to smile, though the corners of her mouth lifted upwards before she yanked them back down again.

The words I had uttered were not mine. They boiled up from my stomach to my throat, un-rehearsed, from some undiscovered place inside of me; “By blood, by breath, by heart, by name. We call the bond that none can tame. Through shadowed wood and silver sky, our spirits walk, you and I. One flame kindled, never part, one thread woven, heart to heart, when sorrow calls or fear draws near, your voice, my soul, I’ll always hear. As rivers find the waiting sea, so shall your path return to me. By the moon's bright eye and earth's soft hand, our fates entwined shall ever stand. So, it shall be.”

I remember it felt like I’d swallowed lightning. My skin pricked, burned. The air pressed closer until I could feel it squeezing my skin. My lungs pulled in breath that tasted like ash. My heartbeat pounded loudly in my ears, syncing with something outside of me. The wind. The tide. The blood of my ancestors rising from the soil.

“Rowan?” Blessing had called out, but I couldn’t answer her. I had been petrified with fear, frozen in place. My fingers twitched. My spine arched, my shoulders rolled back as if something was lifting them from within. Terror controlled everything for the breath of a heartbeat, then, after I had shoved  it down, relief flooded me. I remember thinking, relief from what?

I had felt something dangerously close to joy. Like taking a tight boot off after miles of hill walking. Like the world had been whispering my name my whole life and I had finally answered. There'd been a hum in my bones, ancient and steady.

Aye, the shock of it still brings goosebumps on bare flesh. My eyes had flown open to see that the world was also awake. The wind had risen to a roar, and both Blessing and I’s hair had lifted around our faces, flowing as if we were under the water. Sand had circled our ankles as the tide pulled away. It had circled higher, I remember thinking that I had broken the world, broken her.

Then it came, hitting me like a punch to the gut. My sister's screams filled the air as the string around our hands had burst into flame. It squeezed tighter and tighter until the pain was unbearable. Until we were both howling together, panic and pain turning our faces into ghouls. “Rowan! Rowan! Make it stop!” I remember her voice like it was yesterday. She had wailed over and over again.

It had been Blessing that had the sense to save us, her thoughts quick and sure. She had pulled us under water, the spell breaking as the sea pulled us down. Seconds pass as we stared at each other, our hands still bound, our eyes wide as the Kirk door on a Sunday. I remember that the frigid water had been cool on my fried skin while my eyes had been trained on Blessing, her face pale with shock. Once I had noticed her shivering, I had pulled us to the shore, the string around our hands now in ashes, floating in the water. ““Hush noo, my bonnie wee lass…it’s a’ ower” I had repeated over and over. 

“Rowan, what are ye?” Had been her shocking reply, forever tainting the way I saw myself.   Her voice had been barely audible over the crashing of the waves. It began to fade in and out, her breath coming out in ragged gulps. She mumbled something that I couldn’t  hear, and then her words slipped away from her as she went limp in my arms, her hair slicked and darkened, clinging to her cheeks like seaweed. Salt water streamed from her lashes. The color had drained from her face, leaving her skin almost translucent, bluish around the mouth and fingertips. Her chest rose, only the faintest flutter of life beneath her skin.

For a terrible second, she looked like a doll abandoned by the tide—still, delicate, almost otherworldly.

The pain came next, sharp and clear. I looked down at my hands, my flesh red and blistered, angry where the flames devoured my delicate skin. I grasped Blessing's hands and held them up. Tiny burns snaked around her wrists where our hands were bound, they traveled upwards, all the way under the sleeves of her shirt. Faint traces of something glimmered beneath her skin. Threads of light pulsed faintly.

I wailed as I watched my sisters’ eyes roll into the back of her head, not understanding what had just happened. Panicked that I was some demon unearthed from the old tales. “Blessing!” I screamed. “Wake up, please! Wake up!” I shook her, trying to get her to respond, but she slipped away from me. Without thinking, I began to run with Blessing in my arms, scrambling up the cliff side, through the heathered moor, faster than I’d ever run before, praying to whomever would  listen.

And this is the prayer that I whispered the whole time in her petal-soft ear; Smoke, begone. Heat, lie still. I name ye ended by my will. Sister mine, come back to me. Whole as the day ye first drew breath. Ash to earth, fire to rest. What burns no more is truly blessed.

The words burned as they were released, my tears ran free.

In that moment, I learned an important lesson.

A sister’s love can also burn."