A Crow to Pluck: The Arcane Ancestors Collection, #2

By C.S.Kelly

My name is Ryleigh Byrne.

I am not well.

My mind plays tricks on me, even as my body is betraying me.

I'm not yet twenty years old, but I now live at Peachfield Manor, an assisted living facility almost exclusively devoted to the elderly, where I must rely on the aid of nurses just to survive.
Life isn't fair.
And, something isn't quite Peachy at Peachfield.

My fellow residents- sweet old ladies and grandpa figures with dementia and physical limitations like my own- are being killed! 

I think I know by who... or should I say what?
I see things. At night. Hear things. In the Dark. Evil things...
I know things are not as they seem. Peachfield is home to more than nurses and psychiatric patients. There's something dark living inside these walls, preying on the most vulnerable inside. Lady Death- The Morrigan- herself told me so.
When no one else believes me, I have no choice but to team up with my hot non-binary nursing aid, Larkin, to do a some  investigating...
Before any more patients end up dead- myself included!

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.S.Kelly
• Release date: Sep 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223021513

C.S.Kelly

C.S.Kelly has lived in rural Mississippi for thirty-two years, surrounded by all the good, bad, and ugly of the Dirty South for more than three decades. With the ever-present backdrop of ancient cypresses and oaks, murky swamps and dense woods, even mundane everyday life can take on an air of mystery and magic! She has been writing Urban fiction for over two decades including such series as: “Just South of Normal” and “Cleansing the Darkness”, as well as high fantasy such as “The Realm of Althea”. She has also pioneered the brand new genre, Contemporary Witch Fiction with her series “The Arcane Ancestors Collection”.

Book preview

Acknowledgements:

A special thank you to The Book Well Agency and my editors, K. Boutwell and S. Shaw, as well as their fantastic design team, Abigail ‘Queen’ of Nigeria, and K Boutwell of the USA, who came together to create such hauntingly beautiful covers for the Arcane Ancestors Collection.

In addition, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the following individuals for their contributions to research for this story: Miranda Furrer, Marlena Furrer, and D. C. Boutwell.

And a special ‘thank you’ to the gracious, welcoming folk of Yazoo County, Mississippi, Starkville, Mississippi, and Mississippi State University, for allowing The Book Well’s historical research team and myself to poke around your cemeteries, historical sites, and relating so much local flare, history, and lore to us by mouth during our stay. We cannot thank you enough for these priceless memories and invaluable contributions to this book.

A Crow

to

Pluck

By C. S. Kelly

Copyright © 2021 by C.S.Kelly

All characters in this book have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. All characters, locations, and events depicted in this work are, in fact, works of fiction, and are not meant to represent any actual person, location, or event. Any similarities to individuals, locations, or events are purely coincidental, and the events depicted in this book are all purely fictional.

Chapter 1: 

Mistress Death

Inever imagined I would meet Death at age nineteen.

It’s not what you think, though. She’s actually a pretty cool lady, once you get to know her...

Here, let me tell you about the day I met her:

Why would you do this? I beg for understanding, clarity, closure, as tears stream down my cheeks. "Why would you do this to us?!"

Grayson rolls his ice-blue eyes and purses his lips in an almost-feminine way, "Really? You have no idea? I’ve been telling you for months that I’m unhappy, Ryleigh. Every time I bring up wanting out, you start talking about hurting yourself... what options did you leave me? No matter what I do, I’m the asshole. Well, I might as well rip off the band-aid and be the biggest asshole I can be! I will not continue to live my life miserable! I don’t love you." He snarls the words and they bite through me like a wolf’s jowls.

I recoil, his words causing me literal pain in my chest. I take a step backward, until my back is against the front door.

I have never ‘threatened’ to hurt myself. Honestly, the accusation is insulting. In high school- years ago- I had self-injured to cope with a crappy relationship with my parents. I have not broken open a razor to scratch at my wrists in years, though. I don’t do that anymore; I found better coping mechanisms. The few times Grayson and I have fought before... well, I just couldn’t see a reason to keep living without him... so, I had mentioned ending it- but that’s not the same thing!

Grayson saved me from my controlling, but emotionally neglectful and abusive home life. He was the first person who made me feel like I wasn’t garbage; and, without him, the prospect of returning to my previous existence was- and is- unbearable.

You don’t mean that... I breathe, unable to believe the life I have built with this man I have loved for nearly five years is coming to an end. This was just a fling...

No, he growls, sparking up a Black-N-Mild, his face cold and emotionless, "I don’t love you, Ryleigh, because I love her. I want you out of my house. Tonight."

I glance down at the half-empty bottle of rum in my own hand. I had been pouring myself another rum and coke when he walked in and I had confronted him about the affair he had made little to no effort to conceal.

I pull the cork out of it and throw back four burning gulps.

"I can’t- hick- go anywhere tonight. I slosh the bottle around to show him. This was full two hours ago!"

I don’t give a shit, he growls, I’ve been telling you to get out for three weeks, now. I want you gone. I want you out of my life- yesterday. You’re fucking crazy. You need to get help.

Grayson! Please! I cry out. ‘I can’t believe he can just throw more than four years away, with a whim! That he can throw me- his high school sweetheart- out like yesterday’s trash! After all we have been through! We have that Epic Romance. The kind of love books are written about and then made into movies...The kind of love people die for!’

Or so I had thought...

No, he bellows, "I said ‘Get out’!!! He pinches the bridge of his nose, and then says in an eerily calm, flat tone: You have exactly ten minutes and then I am calling the cops to come drag you off the property. Hurt yourself. I don’t care. Kill yourself. Whatever! Or, if you decide to actually act like a normal fucking adult, you can come get your stuff in a few days, but I want advance notice so I can have a police officer here."

Why are you doing this? I whimper, disbelieving, What did I do?

He rolls his eyes again, "If you don’t know, I ain’t gonna tell you. No one could ever love a woman like you, Ry. You’re pathetic- too messed up. You’re not even attractive enough to overlook the crazy. He shoves away from the couch and stalks towards me, I’m serious. Get help."

Tears continue to pour down my face as my whole body trembles with sobs. But I can’t drive! I’m drunk as fu-!

"I said, ‘I don’t care’! He roars, jabbing his Black-N-Mild in my face, for emphasis. It’s so close I can feel the heat from the ember and I flinch away from it, fearful that he might burn me, again... my face this time... the mark from the last time still mars my upper arm. My fault: I didn’t dodge it fast enough. He spins away, and snaps, Call a Goddamn Uber!"

I have no money! I cry, No job! Nowhere to go...

Well, you cannot stay here. So, get. The. Fuck. Out.

Everything seems to go numb and the world doesn’t feel real, anymore. I know I shouldn’t take the open container in my car, so I toss back the remaining third of the bottle.

My throat burns, but I don’t feel it.

I can’t feel my arm as I draw it back and hurl the heavy glass bottle across the singlewide trailer. It narrowly misses Grayson’s head and collides with the floral, frosted-glass doors of the built-in china cabinet. The entire thing rains glass like water across the faux-wood floors.

"What the actual fuck?! Grayson roars, spinning around, You crazy fucking bitch!!!"

Knowing- and fearing- this side of him well, I, too, spin around. I throw open the door and slip through it as quickly as I can.

I hurry across the small, rickety porch Grayson and his stepdad had built when he had purchased and moved the dilapidated old tinderbox onto the family farm for us to call home.

I nearly hit my ass as my feet fly out from under me on the slick, muddy steps on my way to my green 1999 Ford Mustang convertible. I grab the railing and find my footing just as Grayson explodes from the trailer.

I’m filing charges on your crazy ass! he screams, "I want you locked up!"

More sobs burst from my chest as I reach the car, yank the door open, and dive into it. I stab the key into the ignition and peel out of my-Grayson’s driveway.

‘I am way too drunk...’ I realize as I am driving away that I have consumed an entire bottle of rum in under two hours. I am a rather juicy chick— and I drink fairly regularly— but, even for me, that’s a lot of alcohol in my bloodstream.

I can barely see the lines on the road, much less keep my car between them. I cannot tell if I am driving twenty-miles-per-hour or eighty, and if I look down at the speedometer, I am afraid I will go off the road, entirely.

I am crying so hard that my hands are trembling on the wheel, shaking and unable to grip it well.

I feel like I am going to vomit as my car tops a small hill- apparently going far too fast- and my stomach feels as though it falls out of me.

I know the curves of this road well, but suddenly I cannot remember where I am or how to get out to the freeway.

‘Where am I even going?’ I think to myself, ‘I have nowhere to go...’

My mother and father haven’t spoken to me since I had moved out to live with Grayson and his family, nearly three years ago, at age seventeen.

I had dropped out of high school, got my GED, and went to work at gas stations and restaurants and helping out on Grayson’s parents’ farm- Malley Farms- and that was an unsurmountable disappointment to my suburbs-loving, college-degree-holding parents.

Rumors spread like wildfire that I was pregnant, and they believed them... my own parents! Right up until no grandbaby came a knockin’. Nope, not pregnant, just young, dumb, and in love...

I swerve as, with no warning, the road decides to veer in an unexpected direction.

Jesus, I gasp, my heart racing, Maybe I should just find somewhere to pull over... I say, aloud, to myself, trying to sober up.

I have driven this road two-to-six times a day for the past four years, but I am so sauced I cannot remember which turns turn left and which right.

I squint through the darkness, driving as slowly as I dare, and search for somewhere to pull my car off the road. It’s all private driveways, though.

Suddenly, a set of headlights crests a hill in front of me and I realize they are coming straight at me!

I yank the steering wheel and swerve back into my own lane.

My heart races, my breath coming in jagged, unsatisfying gulps.

Still, I press onward, driving at a tortoise’s pace, clutching my chest, and panting.

There are no viable spots to pull off, aside from strangers’ driveways, and what good would it do? I will have to go somewhere eventually...

I pull out my cell and it lights up the entire interior of the car. With a shaking finger- my elbow keeping the wheel somewhat steady- I tap on the phone icon in the bottom left corner and pull up my contacts list.

I glance between the road and the screen, scrolling through the list with my thumb, searching for my mother’s legal name, saved with no sentiment or cutesy flare.

With a moment’s hesitation, my thumb hovers over her name.

Monika Byrne.

‘Monika’ and I haven’t spoken a word to one another in nearly a year; and, that last particular few words had been something along the lines of "never come ‘round again".

With no other options coming to mind, I groan and drop my thumb on the name.

It rings twice before she answers, Ryleigh? her incredulous voice makes my insides squirm, Ryleigh? Are you there? Did you pocket-dial me?

N-No, I mumble through my tear-tightened throat, I-I mean, yes. I’m here. I didn’t butt-dial you. I... I meant to call you.

Well, well, she drawls, Hell must have frozen over...

Please, Mom, I whisper, C-Can I come home? Grayson k-kicked me out, and I have nowhere else to go.

I grit my teeth as her smug chortle echoes through the phone. I always knew this is how this would end. You can’t say I didn’t tell you so...

I clench my fists on the steering wheel, remembering just why I despise the woman who birthed and raised me. Every snide remark, every cutting statement, every vile insult comes rushing back to me, just with the sound of her voice.

You know what? I growl, unable to help myself, "Never mind. I’d rather go to Hell, literally, that come back to that house."

I hit the red circle and end the call.

Tears continue to roll down my cheeks as I grip the wheel, twisting it, squeezing it, imagining it to be her throat... or Grayson’s...

‘It’s not fair,’ I agonize, ‘This isn’t how my life was supposed to go...’

Grayson. Grayson is where it all went wrong, just like my mother had warned me... just like Monika had known, five years ago, as infuriating as that is to admit to myself...

‘And now— just like she warned me— my life is ruined and I’m all alone, with nowhere to go and no one to help me... not a penny to my name...’

The sobs intensify even more as I finally reach the end of Old Jackson Road and turn onto Siwell, which would lead me right into Jackson...

Traffic is heavier on Siwell Road and I wait so long at the stop sign— terrified to turn out in front of the oncoming headlights, as I cannot tell how far away they are in my current state— that another vehicle comes up behind me and waits so long he feels the need to honk,  and even pull around me, flip me the bird, and merge effortlessly into traffic.

I hold my breath as I take my chances and pull out, headed toward the city.

‘I could sleep in my car in a Kroger parking lot, or something,’ I debate, panic beginning to set in, ‘I’ll probably get murdered by some homeless meth-head,’ I press the petal down harder, unintentionally.

I cannot, no matter how hard I wrack my brain, come up with any other alternative plans, though. I literally have no options. I have no friends, aside from Grayson’s pothead chick friends- all of whom are blatantly fucking him. I have no family who claim me. There are no safe shelters in Jackson- not for a young, defenseless woman like me. At least, that’s what I have always been told, and I have no reason to believe otherwise.

Tears continue their unending stream down my face and my body literally shakes with the sobs.

‘Not one person on this Earth really, genuinely cares whether I live or die. Not Grayson, not my parents... not me...’

‘I should just... give up.’ The tiny voice in the back of my mind begs, desperate for relief from the pain. ‘What is the point of staying if no one wants me here? What’s the point of continuing to live if no one cares if I die tonight? Even me... Especially me...’

I would be lying if I tried to claim my issues all started with Grayson’s cheating and the end of our relationship.

More honest would be admitting that my issues were the cause of both...

‘I’m fucked up.’ I realize, ‘Just like Grayson said. I’m crazy. Too crazy to love. Not pretty enough... worthless...’

I see the bridge ahead of me. It’s an over-pass. There’s a highway underneath and I know how busy it stays— even this late at night.

The thought flits through my head, un-beckoned, but I do not have the strength, energy, or sobriety in me to fight it.

‘I give up.’

I take my hands off the wheel, entirely, knowing full and well that the ancient car has pulled drastically to the right for ages.

I hold my hands above my head, and I close my eyes, relaxing into blissful surrender.

The only thing I remember after that is the surreal feeling of weightlessness as I fly over side of the

overpass.

I still feel weightless.

The stomach-flip-floppy-feeling is gone, but the weightlessness remains.

It is dark. And quiet. And peaceful.

Like deep sleep during a light storm with a fan running on a hot, humid, Mississippi night.

I do not wish to wake. I do not wish to return to the world.

The world offers me nothing but sadness and pain. Here, I am... not happy... better than happy. I am at peace.

I am warm but also refreshingly cool, as though suspended in water my own temperature.

I feel cradled, supported, as if by a mother’s arms...

"I prefer to think of myself as the grandmother of humans, my sweet child," a warm, elderly female voice echoes across my ocean of peace.

It is not an unwelcome intrusion, though. The voice is somehow distantly familiar and does not detract from the peace, but adds to it. It belongs here.

I never knew my real grandmothers. Both passed long before my birth. And yet, somehow, the sensation her voice brings to my heart is familiar, as though long forgotten.

Who are you? my soul asks her, though I do not know where to direct the question; she does not seem to have a body, and neither do I.

They call me many names, she answers, cryptically, But you may refer to me as The Morrigan, or simply Morrigan...

The Morrigan? I think back, confused. Even her name is ringing some distant bell... "What are you?"

I am the Goddess of Death and The Guardian of the Dead. She replies, with little hesitation and no apology.

What I feared but did not voice, I now know to be true:

I am dead.

Yes, Dear, she confirms, You are dead, in this moment.

In this moment? Hope sparks.

I am willing to offer you a deal, Child, her voice is like honey, "You see, I have a favor to ask and, as Fate would have