The Omen

By Lavinia Vi

The irrational has never been part of the everyday life of 28-year-old Áine O’Quinn: the only puzzles she is aware of concern her family and the mysteries of the books she reads – in that order – but it seems that St. Patrick’s Day is ready to bring her a brand new one. Forced to return to the small town where she was born and from which she fled to escape her parent’s oppression, Áine will come across strange phenomena to which she cannot give a name, but which she is determined to investigate until the end. Could she maybe unravel the secrets of the Irish moor, even finding a new love?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lavinia Vi
• Release date: Nov 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9781071575642

Book preview

The Omen

Lavinia Vi

Translated by Amanda Jane Zullo 

The Omen

Written By Lavinia Vi

Copyright © 2020 Lavinia Vi

All rights reserved

Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.

www.babelcube.com

Translated by Amanda Jane Zullo

Babelcube Books and Babelcube are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.

This book is a work of fantasy. Names, characters, places, and events are the fruit of the author’s imagination and are used for pure fiction. Any similarities with facts, places or real people, existing or existed, is to be considered purely incidental.

Prologue

It was raining that day.

Áine was sitting in the uncomfortable bus that ran the 60-kilometre route from the heart of Dublin to County Kildare, where she was born. She was looking out of the window smeared by fingerprints of those who had preceded her, trying to ignore the subdued snoring of her neighbour and the cheerful chatter of two little girls occupying the seats in front of her.

She watched the raindrops flowing down the glass, joining and separating along their way. The landscape changed before her eyes as the modernity of the Irish capital gradually shifted to the unspoiled nature of the moor.

Not that Kildare had remained the backward place that it used to be. By now the county had become a chic hangout for wealthy patrons, filled with spas, glitzy hotels, and renowned restaurants.

A luxury break would certainly have benefited her; however, it was not there that Áine was headed.

The O’Quinn family owned a large estate near the Bog of Allen – one of the wildest and most untouched places in central Ireland, almost entirely dominated by swamps and uncultivated vegetation – and was proud of its noble lineage. There was no point in Áine reminding her parents that the country had moved on, that there was no one left to notice the noble descendants, and that by now there were hundreds, if not thousands, of O’Quinn’s scattered throughout the island and beyond. There was very little nobility left in that last name.

This was one of the reasons why the young woman had left her home country just after her graduation.

Her family had shut her life up inside the rigid walls that formed an unsurmountable boundary. They expected her to marry some rich heir of a well to do Irish family and spend her life tending her vast estate as though it was a small city and she was the lady of the manor. But Áine was not cut out for that kind of life. She wanted more. She wanted a career, intellectual stimulus and, above all, the freedom to choose what was best for her. She hated Kildare, or rather she hated what it represented. Her parents had been very disappointed in her decision to move to Dublin and become a notary: it didn’t matter that she was one of the most requested in her field and was admired by everybody, except by them of course. They would never approve her lifestyle, despite having accepted her rebellion at this point.

A loud meowing brought her out of her dark thoughts. Estia couldn’t stand being in her cat carrier for too long, and Áine couldn’t blame her. After all, at that moment she had the very same feeling of being caged in.

It was ironic that Áine had given her cat the name of the Greek divinity who protected homes, as she herself had repudiated her own.

She rarely returned to Kildare to see her parents. She hated being criticised and humiliated despite having reached all her goals, which would have made any normal parents very proud. However, she hadn’t been able to put up with her mother’s accusing tone or her father’s hurt voice when she kept inventing excuses to their invitations.

Saint Patrick’s Day was very heartfelt in Ireland – as in other parts of the world – and on March 17th all the main cities organised splendid parades and magnificent parties.

In Áine’s traditional family, on the other hand, they preferred to attend morning mass and return home with friends and relatives to honour the