Lyon's Gift Read Free Page A

die and the one who’d let it in would
remain cursed for all eternity. In her quest to set the sparrow
free, Fia had blocked off every window and every door except for
the one the bird had flown in through, and then had stood speaking
to the creature for hours, until she’d managed to coax it into her
hand with bread crumbs. And then with blessings she had cast it out
the door.
    Meghan hadn’t believed a word of it, of course.
She’d thought her grandmother incredibly silly, while her brothers
had simply thought her raving mad—as everyone else did.
Superstition was, in Meghan’s opinion, merely a way of explaining
away circumstances one could not fully comprehend. Nothing more.
When it came to such notions she was truly quite unromantic. Her
mind couldn’t embrace the mystical, though her grandmother’s tales
had certainly been useful for frightening wee grandchildren into
good behavior.
    The memory brought a wistful smile to her lips.
    Her mother had never meant to frighten Meghan, of
course—and her brothers were entirely fearless—but her grandmother
was another matter entirely.
    All that Meghan remembered of her dear mother was
her sad, grieving face; she’d lived only until Meghan’s third
summer. Her da she remembered not at all, as he’d died when Meghan
was but a bairn.
    But her grandmother, the old lovable lunatic, had
walked the halls of Meghan’s home until Meghan’s sixteenth winter,
all the while talking to faeries and wraiths—at least that’s what
Fia had claimed. Meghan suspected she’d merely been too chagrined
to admit she liked to talk to herself, as Meghan was wont to
do—och, but she made no apologies for it! She liked her own company
and that of animals so much more than she did people.
    People, Meghan often thought, were entirely too
fickle in their attentions, and never seemed to look beyond the
mask of her face. It made her uncomfortable, and truth to tell, she
must not see the same person in the looking glass, for she couldn’t
conceive what it was about her face that made men daft in her
presence and women loathe her at merely a glance. It seemed to
Meghan that nobody cared one whit for the person behind the
face.
    Both Meghan’s mother and grandmother had been
blessed with loveliness, but Meghan hadn’t inherited their delicate
beauty at all. Her cheekbones were much too prominent, her lips
much too full, and her auburn hair a riotous mess of curls that
refused to remain bound. At least she hadn’t the tendency to
freckle, though the sun colored her skin much too dark in the
summer.
    Her most distinguishing feature, she thought, were
her eyes; they were the deep cool shade of a forest glen. She had
her da’s eyes, she’d been told. Betimes they appeared nigh black,
though they were in fact a pure, deep, woodland green. It was the
same eye color her brothers shared, all but for Colin, whose eyes
were the pale shade of a cloudless summer sky.
    She lifted her gaze once more to inspect the
chapel’s ceiling as the raven began to caw. Its blue-black wings
beat the rafters in growing distress, and Meghan frowned. The
chapel had once been naught more than the ruins of an old stone
temple built by the ancients. Its ceiling had stood wide open to
the heavens for most of her life, but her brother Gavin had
recently erected a sloping wooden shelter, and the new wood was
sturdy and true, reinforced by beams that were braced along the
stone walls. No amount of thrashing, not even from stalwart Mother
Nature, was going to raise it. The poor raven had nary a
chance.
    She stood there wondering how best to get the bird
out of the chapel.
    What might her Minnie have done? Her sweet, mad
grandmother had had a way with creatures that far exceeded what
paltry influence Meghan thought she had.
    Though Meghan had been raised by her three brothers,
she’d spent the greater part of her childhood with her grandmother,
either searching for herbs to make potions, or listening to tales
of good