Page 1 of The Women of Wild Hill
Blood
Every morning when I was a wee girl, women would come knocking at our cottage door. They came to see my mother, who was known far and wide for her tonics and potions. In the iron cauldron over our fire, she would cook whatever was needed. A remedy for persistent fever, a salve for bothersome rash. If she deemed her guest trustworthy, she might fashion a philter to entice a reluctant suitor, a draught that could empty the womb, or a poison to rid the woman’s house of a troublesome pest.
Even as a child, I knew what could happen to women like my mother. Her very own sister was put to death by order of the king. When it came time to begin my training, my mother told me what made us different. A powerful elixir flowed through our veins. By then, I knew blood was essential for life to flourish. Spill too much and death would follow. My mother pricked her finger and showed me the drop. Inside were thousands of years of our family history, she told me. It held our treasures and secrets and fatal flaws. All of it was passed from mother to infant, in an exchange so perilous it often proved fatal. But if the child lived, it would inherit a unique set of gifts. If it was a girl, she would learn our ways.
I wanted nothing more than to follow in my mother’s footsteps. But she knew from the moment I was born that I was meant for something different. My gifts would carry me far away, to a land we hardly knew existed, to a place called Wild Hill. The Old One had chosen me for a special mission. I was to watch over six generations of the Duncan family—and wait for their bloodline to produce the most powerful of our kind.
The Duncan Family Bloodline
Weird Sisters
Queen of the Dark
Brigid Laguerre was halfway to drunk and all the way stoned. When she was working, she never dabbled. The business required every ounce of her focus. But on her few idle days, she liked to maintain a state of inebriation. If her mind was free to wander, it was prone to go places she didn’t want it to go.
At the moment, it was captivated by the ripples on the swimming pool. They shifted direction whenever the devil winds changed course, the water seeking a way out of the box that trapped it. She needed another drink to maintain her buzz, but she couldn’t bear to slide her legs off the chaise lounge or leave the shade of her umbrella. The walk to the wet bar might be short, but the sun felt fierce. She briefly regretted giving her staff the day off. Then she remembered the mood she’d woken up to. There were days when it was dangerous for her to be near another living soul. This was definitely one of them.
Brigid’s foul moods usually came with obvious causes, but the previous day had been a delight. Production had wrapped on her latest movie. She and her favorite lover had eaten excellent tacos from a roadside stand and enjoyed some of the raunchiest sex of her life. Then she’d gone to sleep all alone, just the way she liked. Nine hours later, she opened her eyes to find herself stuck in a very dark place. She could only hope it was due to a shift in her hormones or a nightmare she couldn’t recall. She didn’t want to consider the other options.
Brigid reached out for the joint she’d left on the side table. Thelighter was already in her other hand. Before the two had a chance to meet, she caught a whiff of smoke in the air. She pulled off her sunglasses and squinted through the sunshine at the surrounding mountains. Four decades earlier, when her mother first pinned her fire map to their wall, California wildfire season had lasted a few months of the year. Now, entire communities went up in flames every day.They’ve been building homes where the Old One doesn’t want them, she could hear Aunt Ivy say. And while there was a great deal of truth in that statement, according to the news, most of the latest fires had been arson.
Brigid could see no sign of smoke in the sky and the stench didn’t linger. Satisfied that her house wasn’t in danger, she lit her joint, just as the phone wedged under her right butt cheek vibrated with an alert. She picked it up, certain she’d put the goddamned thing on do not disturb mode. The day was determined to fuck with her vibe.
Calum Geddes dead at 78.
Brigid stared at the phone. Out of hundreds of texts and notifications, somehow that one had made it past her defenses. If that was what the universe was desperate to tell her, it could have saved its energy. Brigid scrolled through her other notifications.
Meet the Queen of the Dark’s latest lover!
Toxic plume envelops Salt Lake City
Tornado touches down outside Manhattan
Queen of the Dark gets her groove back in Jamaica!
Brigid re-tucked the phone under her butt cheek and slid her sunglasses back on. Was she supposed to give a fuck that Calum Geddes was dead? If so, maybe someone could tell her why. Brigidhadn’t spoken to her mother’s last boyfriend in thirty years. Nor had she possessed any desire to do so. Brigid had always suspected Calum went out of his way to avoid her. They both knew what her mother would have thought of the man he’d become. Maybe he’d been that way from the very beginning. If Brigid had learned two things over the past thirty years, it was people are fucking full of surprises. And she’d inherited her mother’s shitty taste in men.
Though she knew she shouldn’t, Brigid took another long drag on her joint before tapping it out. Then she lay back with her eyes closed, all the bad memories swirling around in her head. Brigid needed a drink to stop thinking. She opened her eyes to find two more staring back at her. A raven stood between her bare feet at the end of the chaise lounge. One enormous black bird might be a coincidence. But there were two more perched on a neighboring chair. She didn’t need anyone to tell her that three birds staring straight at you was a sign.
“What?” she demanded, sounding ruder than she wanted.
The ravens didn’t need to respond. Brigid knew what they had come to tell her. Someone was going to die.
“Who?” she asked, and the ravens flew off over the trees. Brigid let her eyes pan the remains of the orchard her mother had loved. After a decade-long drought, only a few trees still fruited. The animals that had once made their home in the branches had long since passed away of old age.
She spotted the man half hidden behind a dead orange tree, his phone camera aimed in her direction. If her employees had been at the house, Brigid might have worried for their sake. But she and the intruder were alone on the property, and Brigid knew for a fact she’d be just fine. If she were going to kick the bucket, she’d have already seen it. That was her gift. She knew how people would die.
Sitting perfectly still, Brigid waited to witness the man’s demise. She’d stopped fighting the visions years earlier. Instead, she’dlearned to use them as fodder for her work. Critics called her movies inventive, original, and (more than once) the product of a diseased mind. She wondered what they would say if they knew how much she’d stolen from real people’s lives. There wasn’t a single species of death she hadn’t witnessed at some point over the years. She still marveled that no two passings were ever the same.
The vast majority of the dead were strangers—people who’d accidentally passed through the range of her sight. But Brigid had seen loved one’s deaths as well. After her mother’s suicide, she’d attempted to stop a few, just to prove to herself that she was utterly helpless. And she was. Her efforts never amounted to anything. So she’d decided long ago not to have any loved ones.
All she could do was refuse to take part. In her youth, she’d helped dispatch men the Old One marked for death. In the three decades that had passed since her mother’s death, Brigid hadn’t murdered a single soul. She’d wanted to. Oh, how she’d wanted to. But she hadn’t—and wouldn’t. She refused to play the Old One’s game.
Now, as she watched the intruder, she wondered how he would perish. He seemed to be too far away for her gift to work, but the presence of the ravens could only mean one thing. Growing impatient, she decided to bring him closer. As soon as the thought passed through her head, the lead raven hopped to the side of the chaise lounge and out of her way. Brigid rose and put on a black silk robe but didn’t bother to tie it. He’d already seen everything she had.
“So how much do naked pictures of me go for these days?” she called out.
The intruder ducked back behind the orange tree.
