Emerald Witch

Amelia Morgan was secretly hidden by her family in the wilds of Ireland when she was just a baby. She was raised by her eccentric grandmother and is a level-seven hypochondriac. Nothing exciting ever happens in the sleepy Irish seaside town she calls home.

When her boyfriend drops off the face of the earth, the rate of human combustion in the town goes stellar and a maniacal stranger purporting to be her long-lost father starts hanging around town melting people Amelia starts to question her 'normal' life.

It turns out Amelia Morgan is a witch, daughter to a mad man and granddaughter to the ancient Celtic Goddess of war, death and destruction ­­– the Morrigan.

She leaves 'normal' behind to fight a battle of epic proportions - encountering headless horsemen, dark angels, power-crazed goddesses and her deadbeat Dad who requires her blood to raise his corpse mother from the grave.
She discovers magical worlds - under the streets of Dublin, under the Emerald Lake, beneath the Emerald Forest and races of ancient Irish people who she must lead out of the darkness the Morrigan spreads across the land.
No one said being a teenager was easy. 

Emerald Witch

Excerpt...

He bounded to the top of the windswept field, his long leather coat flapping angrily about his legs. His breathing was slow, even, and did not betray the fact that he had been travelling for miles across the wild and windy Irish countryside.

He stopped at the peak of the hill, in the shadow of a Rowan tree, and scanned the scene below. Rugged fields swept down to an immense black lake and a mansion, which jutted out beyond vast forestland. This is where they had found her.

He rummaged in his pockets for his cigarettes and lit one, flicking the match to the ground. He exhaled with a hiss, the smoke escaping out through his gritted teeth. He hated the countryside; the smell of it made him nauseas.

The tree at his side rotted and lurched. It’s branches waved violently, like a drowning man, crackling and snapping as if engulfed by an invisible flame. A family of blackbirds fell with a sickening thump to the singed and shrivelled grass beneath his feet.

He stared down at the gothic mansion perched on the lakeside. Tall church-like windows cast warm green reflections on the still waters of the lake. Pointed gables and turrets pierced the night sky like daggers.

A fiery green aura rose as if flames around every inch of the house. This is where they had tracked her. It seemed the many veils that had hidden the Emerald Hall and his daughter were being swept away by the passing of time.

He stared unblinking at the house, looking for signs of life, signs of movement.

She was there, he could feel her power. He could hear it. It was very weak, like listening to music through a closed window. He was certain that the coming days and weeks would see it intensify. He would have to be patient. If he moved now the old witch could bind her powers again, spirit her away and he’d take another 17 years to find her.

He turned and laid his two hands on the remains of the gnarled Rowan tree, spitting as he recited ancient words of Irish with head bowed. The rotted trunk twisted and coiled to form a human shape. The decaying tree contorted furiously, sucking in leaves and soil, to form flesh. The creature stepped out of the ground, ripping the last of its roots from the soil, and stood to attention.

“Guard her,” growled the man, not removing his gaze from the house. “She must not evade me. She is mine. When the witch’s protections fall, spirit her away to me.”

The tree creature took sentry position at the peak of the hill as the man bounded down and into the depths of the dark forest, letting the gentle sound of her power lead him through black silence to her door. He stood on the forest track and gazed around, still hidden in the shadow of the trees. The vast Emerald Lake lay silent at his back. He could feel the protection wards the old witch and her pathetic friends had in place. This was as far as he could travel without alerting anyone or anything.

A woman’s voice pierced the silence. A cheery goodbye. A slamming door. Gentle footsteps on gravel.

He stepped out into the woman’s path.

“Is she there?” he growled and the woman stopped in her tracks and made to scream. A wave of his hand took the breath from her lungs.

He moved in so that his nose almost touched hers.  “Answer me, woman! Is she there?”

His eyes were dark, deranged and dangerous.

The woman whimpered and spilled some of the contents of the small package she held as she put her hands to her neck. “Who?”

“Amelia Morgan,” he snarled.

The woman nodded nervously and tried to back away. The dark figure moved towards her and took her in an embrace. She turned to a black ash statue at the touch of his hand and was gone in the next soft breeze, her paper package floating gently to the ground.

He bent down and looked inside, smelling the contents. Rosemary, thyme, nutmeg, rose and mint. “Love potions,” he whispered. “How predictably pathetic.”

He threw it in the lake and lit another cigarette. He turned his back to the mansion and entered the forest again, bounding up the hill from whence he came.

He stopped alongside his tree creature. He looked into its black eyes for a moment and averted his gaze as quickly, disgusted by the sight of its dark veiny neck, it’s thin, knotted hands like that of an old man. The thing smelled of damp moss, of rotting leaves, of the countryside.

“Do not fail me,” he hissed.

He’d return, when it was time.

He threw his cigarette at the base of a crooked and twisted fairy tree, setting it ablaze. As the flames licked up the tree’s trunk he spun on the spot, swirls of thick black smoke turning his form into a whirlwind of screeching black ravens, which beat violently off into the moonlight night.