Page 1 of Charmed

Prologue

1918: Galloway House, Six Fates Island

In her claw foot tub, Mara Galloway rested her head on the lip and turned the faucet off with her toes. Steam wafted, hovering like a fog, and she sighed as hot water lapped her skin. Indoor plumbing. Best invention ever. She'd been around long enough to attest to that fact.

The white candles she'd lit for purity and peace flickered in the otherwise dark room. Which was almost funny because she'd never find peace. It was merely one of those fleeting illusions she never could or would quite grasp.

Rivulets of blood flowed from the deep cuts she'd sliced down her forearms with a straight razor and turned the heliotrope-scented water a mesmerizing red. Through heavy lids, she watched the swirling ribbons of her life force drain from her body. So morbidly pretty.

If only the attempt on her life would end in success. As if. In an hour or two, the slashes would heal themselves and she'd wake up in a bath having grown tepid and a headache for her efforts. Such was her fate. One not of her own making.

She wearily closed her eyes and fished for memories of happier times. There weren't many. The carnage of her existence had begun on the voyage from Ireland. Ma and Da hadn't survived the journey, leaving her and her sister alone in a strange new world. She should've stayed in her homeland.

Hindsight. Another useless thing to toss on the heap.

After two-hundred years, the pile reached the endless expanse of sky. Goddess, to know then what she did now, though. She'd been but a girl of twenty when the curse had been cast. By her own sister. A curse that didn't allow her to mature past her sixtieth year. Her once flowing auburn hair was now white, her porcelain skin wrinkled with time.

And her heart was so leavened, it barely beat anymore.

How innocent she'd been. Naive to faithfully, blindly follow her older sister's path. Celeste had been the more powerful witch. The strongest in their line to date, actually. But had she wielded said power to save herself that dreadful night the villagers, on Minister Meath's orders, dragged her from their cottage? No. Had she attempted to stop them as they'd shackled her to a post upon a pyre and burned her? No.

Instead, she'd passed her newborn babe, Hope, off to Mara with vague instructions about destiny's course, then used her magick to doom them all. Why? For what purpose?

Ah, yes. The age-old reason for everything. Because Celeste had fallen in love with the wrong boy. Finn had been a precarious judgment from the start. Mara had warned Celeste about the dangers of entangling with the Minister's son. Not that she'd listened.

Look where young infatuation had landed them. Because of the spell, the Meaths and Galloways couldn't find or keep true love until the cycle came to pass. After two centuries, Mara feared it would never happen. She'd had no children of her own. What was the point? But she'd helped to bring so very many of her bloodline into the world. And she'd buried them. Too soon, all of them.

Day after day.

Year after year.

Decade after decade.

Mara had, as always, simply been a pawn. Someone had to be, she supposed.

"You must stop doing this to yourself, love."

The lilting accent from her homeland had tears burning behind her lids. As much or more so than the familiar tone which had spoken it.

She'd almost forgotten the sound of Celeste's voice until she'd appeared to Mara a few weeks ago while she'd been in between planes. The result of her first attempt at suicide had allowed her sister to talk to her for the first time in eons. In honesty, Mara didn't know if she kept trying to harm herself in the hopes it would someday work or just so she could see Celeste again.

"Worry not, Celeste. I know I cannot die." Lazily, she opened her eyes and looked at her sister standing by the pedestal sink.

Her beautiful features were the same as the night she'd been killed. Long red hair coiled in ringlets down her back. Her slender frame was slightly offset by her generous bosom and flare of hips. The peasant gown showed none of the scorch marks the flames had made, nor did her peaches and cream complexion. She was frozen in time just as she had been, forever gorgeous and everlasting.

"Then why, sister?" Celeste crossed the room and knelt by the tub, fingering the opal pendant resting on her collarbone. "It hurts me to see you like this."

"Hurts you." Mara laughed without mirth. "Try delivering countless heirs, only to bury them in the ground some odd years later. Watch them grow and perish. Over and over again until you're mad with jealousy that you can't follow. Live the same wretched existence trapped in your own unfailing body for centuries." She idly waved her hand. "What do you know of hurt?"

"This was a terrible burden I put on you." Her blue eyes shimmered with tears. "The cycle will end eventually and we can truly be together. Keep strong, sister. You always were more brave than I."

"Brave," Mara muttered. "I don't feel it, and I'll never understand why you did this to me. To both families involved." Celeste hadn't explained much of anything beforehand. There hadn't been time. It wasn't until Mara had enough of living and had eaten poisonous belladonna leaves, sending herself temporarily into another plane, that she'd even seen Celeste since the night of her death. Thus far, Mara had jumped off the cliffs near their home and had hung herself in the attic to repeat the process. Every instance she came back. "I'd like an explanation. You owe me that much."

"Aye, you're right." Celeste let out a quiet breath and reached over to stroke Mara's hair from her temple like she used to do when they were girls. "It began the night I learned I was with child. The Goddess herself sent me a vision." She paused, her expression gravely solemn. "The Galloway and Meath households were headed toward destruction. If things remained as they were, there would've been none of us left."

Mara frowned. "Whatever do you mean?"

"The Meaths were bent on killing our kind. We would've fought them. In the end, all would perish. Ripples from that would cause unseen damage to the fabric of existence." Celeste gazed out the window over the tub, her eyes distant and sad. "Something had to be done, and it had to start with my death. That's all I was shown."

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