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Author: Wendy
Higgins
Pub. Date: March 5, 2024
Publisher: Wendy
Higgins
From the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the YA paranormal Sweet Evil series comes a modern fantasy romance of mystery with Celtic and Gaelic mythology.
Seventeen-year-old Colette “Letty” MacIntyre has everything going for her: a
great life with her Aunt Lorna in Brooklyn, a promising singing career, and
enough distractions to forget the tragic disappearance of her parents. She’s
banking on a bright future in the city until strange things begin to happen.
People are suddenly having peculiar reactions to her singing voice, and a giant
wolfhound starts following her like a lost puppy. But the cherry on top is when
the mayor of her long-forgotten birthplace, Shehan, a mountainous island off
the craggy northern coast of Maine, shows up on her doorstep with an impossible
revelation. The Gaelic folklore she grew up hearing is real. Letty is the last
land siren on Earth…and he needs her help.
An escaped kelpie—a monstrous water horse—is terrorizing Shehan, and Letty’s
voice is the only thing that can stop it. Despite the shock at learning her
heritage, Letty returns to the island, which is filled with as much mystery as
it is fog. She wants answers to her parents’ disappearance as well as a chance
to prove herself. But in a race of mighty druids and formidable Scottish
witches, Letty’s power is an anomaly, feared and reviled by the mystic
community. Her lineage must be kept secret. It becomes even harder to fulfil
these tasks when a new enemy threatens her—an alluring, powerful druid boy
filled with darkness who would just as soon kill her as kiss her.
Will her deadly melody be enough to save the town and herself?
Excerpt:
Chapter One: Death of the Dress
I tipped my chin from side to side with my hand, feeling the satisfying cracks in my neck before shaking out my arms and meeting my instructor’s eyes. Mr. Goneley smirked with amusement as he sat at the piano in his office at my high school. I ignored the occasional muted blare of car horns from the city streets outside.
He adjusted his glasses. “Ready, Letty?”
I nodded and exhaled, though I wasn’t nervous, exactly. I’d had many in-person auditions and recitals in my life, and recently with college applications. I adjusted my silken blue choir gown. Normally I’d wear all black to match my eyeliner, nails, and dyed black hair. No black lips, though. Red all the way. And I wore my long hair in a series of intricate braids that the camera would probably not be able to capture. Oh, well.
“You’ve got this,” Mr. Goneley said. I granted him a smile. He’d helped me a lot, pushing me to apply to all the nearby musical schools for next year. This tape was for the final round of auditions with Manhattan School of Music, but Mr. Goneley had contacts in the theater world and had encouraged me to get a side job in a local theater this summer, despite my aunt’s insistence against it. A foot in the door. We’d use this video for that, as well.
“Here we go. Three, two….” He silently mouthed one as he pressed the record button on my propped phone and began to play. I closed my eyes and let everything else fall away except the notes floating up. It was a haunting, Gaelic inspired tune that I’d written myself to match my voice perfectly—smokey and breathy, yet rich. My voice was attuned to the slow, deep melody of long-ago ancestors, the hardships I could barely fathom.
Through the night, my fire bright
I wait for my sailor, nigh
I sit in the breeze, but my soul does not ease
As I wait for my lover, nigh
When I opened my eyes, I looked into the camera, willing it to hear every nuance. My arms moved of their own accord with the emotion of the song. As the notes rang from my throat a strange sensation came over me, like heat razing my skin. I’d never felt anything like that before while singing—a slight burn and tingle that only strengthened as I lost myself to the music. A sense of command filled me, and I embraced it.
Three weeks he’s been gone as I stare at the dawn
Awaiting my sailor, nigh
Powerful. That’s what I felt. Holy crap. Like I could do absolutely anything in that moment. Was the camera getting this?
The sky has gone black, the thunder does crack
As I wait for my lover, nigh
It was that moment when I noticed Mr. Goneley sweating, moisture beading along his hairline and lip. It had been abnormally hot today in New York City for May, but not that hot. The AC was pumping overhead, yet he was grimacing. I closed my eyes again to force myself to concentrate on the rumble of reverberations in my throat.
When Mr. Goneley flubbed a note, I opened my eyes and wondered if he’d stop, but he kept going for another few seconds before pulling away from the keys and staring at me. His eyes looked blank and lost as he made a strange noise at the back of his throat. I wanted to scream in disappointment because that had been the best I’d ever sang in my entire life! Would I be able to do that again on the second take? He finally broke the weird stare and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, slumping.
“Mr. G?” I said. “Are you okay?”
“I…did you change anything?” he asked in a croaky voice.
“What?”
He shook his head and rubbed his chest with the heel of his hand. “With the song? I don’t know. Your voice is…” He cleared his throat and looked at me funny. “Different.”
“No,” I told him. “It was the same, but it did feel kind of different. Like, stronger. Did it sound bad?”
Again, his head shook back and forth, almost as if in confusion. “I’m not sure how to explain it. I think it must be me. I’m not feeling well all of a sudden.” He blinked up at me as his eyes began to clear, a nervous sounding chuckle escaping him. “I’m so sorry about this, but do you mind rescheduling?”
“Yeah,” I said, regret washing over me. “No problem. I hope you feel better.”
There was a strange, awkward tension in the room as I gathered my things and Mr. Goneley gave me a wide berth to leave.
I swung my bag over my shoulder and walked quickly out of the school building, my purple boots hitting hard with each step on the Brooklyn sidewalks. A giant bird swooped down from the ledge of a window and I jumped, cursing as its wings lifted my hair for a second. Was that an eagle? I watched it dart skyward and tried to shake off the startled feeling. I didn’t have many wildlife encounters here in Brooklyn, other than pigeons and the occasional rat. I absently weaved through people, speed walking. Sweat ran down my back, probably soaking into the satiny material.
