Page 93 of The Last De Loughrey Dynasty

My dear friend Callahan told me that he saw my daughter (or granddaughter, he doesn’t know our relation, but he told me the girl looks like a carbon copy of me) reading this diary, perhaps at this very moment. It is so exciting how talented he is with the sight. Mairead is too, but her ability frightens me. She sees the bad, and lately, she has been dreaming about her little sister, Alessandra. I wish I could help her somehow, but she says this vision is different. It’s cloudy, while they are usually so vivid that she believes certain things have already happened. All she’s able to see is her sister’s headstone.

Things have happened since we discovered how to open the Book of Shadows. The spirits barely talk anymore, and if they decide to visit, all we feel is death calling us through the veil. Sometimes, I wake at night and hear female voices echo through my room. A warning, a plea. But I see no one, and they all cry, but I can’t understand.

James, who has almost moved into my room, suffers from insomnia the same as I do. He hears them too, and I start to worry about him. He looks so tired, and my heart hurts every time I take in his exhausted features.

Until next time,

Dottie x

“Alessandra will die in less than two months from this time,” Archer said after I finished reading.

“She will, and something is blocking Mairead from seeing how it will happen.” I thought about what Maisie had told mebefore the holidays. “Didn’t Maisie and Nathaniel say that their visions have been acting abnormally lately? They barely see anything, but if they do, it’s just mere seconds before the actual event, and–”

“Cloudy,” Archer nodded, sitting up, grabbing a pen, and writing this detail in the notebook Jesse had left here. “Callahan saw you reading her diary, which is a good thing for us and indicates that we’re on the right path.”

I held the diary open with my index finger and looked up at him. His black curls had fallen into his eyes, and he almost looked messy, if it weren’t for his jeans and jumper, which were free of any creases. “If Callahan and Mairead could see a glimpse of fifty years in the future, why can’t Nathaniel and Maisie?” I asked out of curiosity.

The corners of Archer’s lips turned upwards, and he lay back down. “Mai hasn’t been able to see anything past a year in the future. But Nathaniel used to be able to.”

I leaned back into the pillows. “What did he see?”

“When we were sixteen, I spent the last weeks of summer at his place, and one night he woke up with the biggest smile on his face–I know, hard to imagine–but since I was still awake, watching the night sky, I caught him, and he joined me on the balcony.” Archer chuckled lightly. “When I warned him not to dare and tell me anything about the dirty dream he’d had, he punched me in the arm, but his smile never faltered. Then he told me about a little blonde-haired girl he saw dancing with the help of her mother in the light of the new moon.” While Archer told me about the memory, he seemed nothing but happy at the thought of a future. At the sight of him, I smiled, knowing what further explanation was about to come.

“The mother he saw was Maisie, and the girl is their daughter, right?”

Archer nodded as he finished his story.

“He said that Mai must have been in her mid-twenties, and the girl was around four or five. I’ve never seen him this happy–perhaps when Mai’s around, but him knowing that the future held only good changed something inside him that night. He said he’d make me her godfather.”

I smiled and nudged him gently with my elbow. “You’d make a good godfather.”

He put an arm behind his neck and nodded, agreeing. “I certainly will. I’ll give that girl the world.” Archer’s smile faded. “If I ever get to meet her.”

After he said that, my smile faded equally, and I reopened the diary. “We’ll make that happen,” I promised, flipping to the next page.

March 11th 1970

Dear Diary,

Mairead and I spent the night at the church because she wanted to try something with my help, but she didn’t want to involve Callahan and the others because she feared they’d stop her. As soon as she told me, I should have known that what I was about to help her with could be nothing good. But she’s like a sister to me, and how could I say no when she’d do anything for me? I just had to trust her.

She discovered a ritual when we first translated specific parts of the Book of Shadows. It took her almost an entire month to figure out the different herbs and where to get them. Mairead said we had to wait until the full moon to be able to carry out the ritual.

Last night, it was time. We took what we needed and sneaked out to the church, where my dear friend Gwyn welcomed us. Sometimes, I wish Mairead would be able to see her. I’m all Gwyn has left, and next year, when I graduate, I’ll have to leave her forever.

The ritual Mairead and I were trying to carry out was supposed to help her sight see what will happen to Alessandra. It was supposed to reveal our greatest sorrow, but what she saw wasn’t her sister, and she didn’t see it the way she usually does. Mairead’s eyes rolled to the back of her head, and she screamed in agony. I didn’t know what to do. I thought she was dying in my arms last night. The last time I was this terrified was when Gwyneth broke into the lake, and I couldn’t help her.

Never in my life do I want to feel as helpless as I did the day I lost her.

When Mairead ripped her eyes open, they were milky, almost completely white, and she mumbled words so fast it was difficult to follow. She had commanded me to write down whatever the vision would show her, and with my shaking hands, I did.

Whatever she saw, it wasn’t her sister’s death the ritual chose as her bloodline's greatest sorrow.

It was a tale about a Doe and her Archer.

The entry stopped without her well-known goodbye, and the words continued on the page parallel to this, in the form of lyrics, or as she called it, a tale.

The Tale of the Doe and her Archer

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