Excerpt
From Fae Horse
If the men caught her, they would tie her to the stake and set the fire.
Eileen O'Reilly crouched beneath a hawthorn tree, her heartbeat dinning in her ears so loudly it nearly drowned out the sound of her pursuers. Torchlight smeared the night, casting fiendish shadows over the hedgerows. She clenched her hands in her woolen skirt and gasped for air, trying to haul breath into her shaking lungs.
She had heard there was no worse agony than burning alive.
The flames would scorch and blister her skin before devouring her, screaming, as her bones charred. Eileen swallowed back bile.
Shredded clouds passed over the face of the half moon. One moment, sheltering darkness beckoned; the next, the newly-planted fields were washed with silver, her safety snatched away.
"I see her—there, across the field!"
Cursing the fickle moon, and her fair hair, which had surely given her away, Eileen leaped to her feet and ran. She crashed through a thicket, heedless of the thorns etching her skin with blood. In the distance she heard the pounding waves below the cliffs of Kilkeel.
Better a death by water than by flame. There was no other escape.
Five months ago, when the new vicar came to town with his fierce sermons and piercing gaze, she had not seen the danger. She'd lived in the village most of her life, first as apprentice to her aunt, then later taking on the duties of herb-woman and midwife.
But Reverend Dyer sowed fear and superstition—an easier harvest to reap than charity and love, to be sure.
Eileen stumbled, falling to her hands and knees in the soft soil. Get up, keep running. She must not give in, though her side ached as if a hot poker had been driven through it, and the air scraped her laboring lungs.
"There's no escape, witch!" The vicar's voice, deep and booming, resonated over the fields.
The stars above her blurred, and she tasted the salt of her own desperate tears. She risked a glance over her shoulder.
If she did not find a hiding place, they would catch her before she reached the cliffs. She veered toward the remains of the ancient stone circle that stood beyond the fields. Only two of the stones remained upright, the rest tumbled and broken. Still, she might find some shelter there.
She reached the ruin, and a figure loomed before her, large and dark. Lacking the breath to scream, Eileen staggered to a halt. What new enemy was this?
Four-legged and blacker than the shadows, it let out a soft whicker. A horse, untethered, with a rope halter dangling from its neck.
Blessing her luck, Eileen caught the rope. It stung her hands, as though woven of nettles, but she did not care. Hope flared, painfully bright. She might yet live to see the dawn.
"Easy now," she whispered, forcing back the panic pounding through her.
The horse was tall, and lacked any saddle or bridle. She gazed up at it and choked on misery. Her escape was in her hands, but she could not mount it unaided.
"Quick, lads!" the vicar bellowed.
Now, she must go now. For a strangled second she considered kicking the horse and holding fast to the rope, letting it drag her to her death.
A faint glimmer of gray caught her eye—a fallen stone tangled in the tall grasses. She tugged, and the horse followed her to the stone. Fingers trembling, trying to ignore the pounding footsteps of the men of Kilkeel, she scrambled onto the stone and pulled the horse close.
