In today's Haunted Halloween Spooktacular, you get a bonus flash fiction story from author Celia Breslin in addition to an excerpt from Eva's Homecoming. Be sure to also enter the great giveaway!
Happy Halloween Month, Everyone! For Halloween every year, I like to share my favorite spooky story from my family’s arsenal of tales about the Fae. In this one, my Irish grandmother recounts her personal encounter with a Banshee when she was a teenager.
Enjoy!
Bumped by the Banshee
by Celia Breslin
… I lived in a large two-story house with my parents, younger sister, and grandmother. It was a cold, winter evening, nothing special or out of the ordinary.
My family dined together, then my sister and I cleaned up while our parents and grandmother drank tea. We joined them at the dining table to do our homework, but my grandmother said she was tired and went upstairs to bed. My parents followed shortly after that, but my father paused on the landing.
“Maeve, it’s going to be a cold night. Fetch us some coal, please.”
I abandoned my homework, grabbed the empty coal bucket from the kitchen, and went down into the cellar. I filled my bucket and returned to the stairs. I had one foot on the first step when the temperature in the cellar, already cold, dropped dramatically. Chills ran down my back. Behind me, someone moaned.
But how could that be? I was alone...
Terror rooted me to the spot. The keening grew louder. I dropped my bucket and covered my ears. A cold wind bumped against my back. I stumbled forward as the shrieking wind rushed over me and up the stairs.
But how could that be? The cellar had no windows...
Above me, the cellar door slammed shut. The sound broke me from my stupor. I screamed and ran up the stairs and out of the cellar, through the kitchen and dining room, and up the stairs to my room. My parents and sister found me under my bed, shaking like a puppy lost in a snowstorm.
“Maeve! Maeve! What is it? What’s wrong?” They asked me, while pulling me from my hiding place.
“I heard the Banshee wail.”
We stared at each other in silence, all of us reaching the same conclusion moments later. We hurried to my grandmother’s room.
She was dead.
(Copyright 2021, Celia Breslin. All rights reserved.)
Heartland Fae
Book One
Celia Breslin
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Celia Breslin
Date of Publication: February 2022
ISBN: 9798201153793
Number of pages: 79
Word Count: 21K
Cover Artist: VWZDesigns
Tagline: A curse stole her away. Can true love lead her home?
Book Description:
After several years away for school and work, Eva O’Reilly is finally home. The West coast was fine, but her heart belongs to the Heartland and the town she grew up in. Sadly, with her mother’s sudden passing and no other living relatives, Eva is alone. And hurting.
Angus of the Tuatha Dé Danaan is elated his one true love has finally returned, and he’s determined to win her heart all over again. There are just two problems: she can’t see him or remember the Fae folk even exist.
As Eva mourns, Angus fights to dispel the veil keeping them apart. With the aid of a gang of flower fairies and the kindly elderly Wiccan next door, these cursed lovers may well receive a second chance at their happily forever after…
Currently appears in the anthology Flip The Trope: Romance Gone Wild
Novella Release February 2022
Anthology
available at Books to Read
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Excerpt
Angus stood in the center of the garden, throat
tight and burning, a huge gulp of air trapped in his lungs.
Around him, a dozen diminutive flower fairies cavorted among the flora,
chortling with glee. “She’s here, she’s here, our Eva is here!”
His gaze targeted the back door, body taut as he awaited his first
glimpse of the female he loved. The only one he would ever love. Mo chroí, my
heart. My heart walks the world, outside my body. “Come back to me.”
His voice was barely audible above the incessant chatter of the flower
fairies. “We sang to her. She heard us! She liked it.”
“Hush,” he commanded, and they fell silent, vibrating with gleeful
anticipation.
Seven years without her. The longest, loneliest bloody years of his
basically eternal existence…
[…]
Eva stared out at the yard with haunted, brown eyes. Dark circles like
the ones she’d sported months ago at the wake and funeral marred the perfection
of her milky skin. He wanted to lay gentle kisses on her eyelids, nip the tip
of her nose with its light dusting of freckles, lave her lips with his tongue
then push it between those perfect lips…
“See me, Eva,” he whispered.
“See us,” Rosina echoed.
Eva cocked her head and touched her ear as if in response to their
words. The incessant giggling of the flower fairies ceased, an expectant hush
falling over the garden.
Though consumed with sorrow, Eva surveyed the yard with appreciation.
Angus and the flower fairies had been tending to the yard and garden since
she’d left. There was little to be done in the winter months but in the Fall,
they’d trimmed and raked, then planted, pruned, and watered in Spring and
Summer. Jasmine, lavender, and other blooming plants scented the air, and he
watched his female take a deep breath.
Her shoulders seemed to lose some tension as she took in the neatly
trimmed yard and carefully curated garden. “It’s perfect,” she said.
Angus’s heart swelled with pride at a job well done only to stutter in
agony when her lovely brown eyes lingered on the central spot where he stood
yet looked right through him.
“No. No, no, no,” he whispered. See me this time, Eva. Let the curse be
gone.
Mrs. Murphy joined Eva near the door. “He tended it for you. From the moment
you went off to school.”
“What?” Eva scanned the yard, then returned her attention to the spot
where he stood surrounded by the flower fairies, all of them quivering with
excitement.
“The garden, girl. He looked after it for you.”
Lines formed in Eva’s forehead, and her attention shifted to Mrs.
Murphy. “I don’t understand, who did?”
He bowed his head and rubbed his brow. Each time she
returns she still cannot See. My fault. All of this. Mine.
Celia lives in California with her husband, daughter, and two feisty cats. She
writes urban fantasy and paranormal romance, and has a particular fondness for
werewolves, vampires, and the Fae. When not writing, you’ll find Celia exercising,
reading a good book, hanging with her family, or indulging her addiction to
fantasy TV shows and movies.
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Hi Andi, Thanks for hosting my lovebirds Eva and Angus on your blog! Happy Halloween! :-)
ReplyDeleteWhat a fun giveaway! I would love that mermaid swag.
ReplyDeleteHi Audrey, thanks for visiting the tour! Good luck in the giveaway!
DeleteThanks for the great excerpt! I have this book on my reading list, now.
ReplyDeleteHi Pippi, Glad you liked it. And added it to your TBR! :-)
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