Army of Sorrow (Donegal Sidhe #1)

Chapter 1

Brea O’Brien yanked on the wrench and the pipe fitting finally moved a little.  With a feeling of victory, she spun it around.  A smile spread across her lips.  Maybe this isn’t as bad as I thought it would be.  As she let go of it, a barrage of dirty water and gunk poured over her head.

“Ahh!” she screamed, scrambling out from under the sink.  And maybe it is…  “Mam, I thought you said this would be simple, that humans do it all the time.”

Her mam, Maeve, looked down from where she sat on the edge of the toaster, shoulder deep inside, jiggling one of the heating elements.  Her auburn hair was tidy in its bun and her hazel eyes sparkled.  Brea had the distinct impression she was trying not to laugh. 

“I can’t even rinse off since now the drain pipe is undone,” Brea complained, pulling a potato peel out of her hair.  She shuddered, trying not to think about what else might be in it.

“Well, now you have more of an incentive to get it fixed, don’t you?” Maeve said, brushing crumbs off on her red pants.  Her smile was unmistakable now.  Brea huffed and wriggled back under the sink.

She had to work for more than an hour to get the pipe back together so that it didn’t leak every time the water was turned on.  Her mam had long since finished with the toaster and had moved onto the flower beds outside.  It wasn’t technically her job, but she loved to do it.  She had also glamoured herself into human size.  It’s hard to work on rose bushes when they’re equivalent to the size of giant trees.  One of the downsides to gardening as a leprechaun.

Mam had a way with plants though.  They seemed to bloom under her fingers.  They tried to commit suicide when Brea went anywhere near them.  One more thing she sucked at.  It wasn’t surprising though.  The things she couldn’t do made a pretty long list.  Starting with being normal.

Normal in her world would start with being the first or second child in her family, but no, she was the third.  Again, normally that would be awesome but not for her.  All leprechauns had one of four powers so that a family group always had all of them: weather, healing, mechanical, or languages.  Her sister, Una, could practically heal a bone by looking at it and her brother, Orin, could speak any language, as well as to any kind of animal.  As the rare third child, a trian, she should have gotten something bigger, better.  Nope, she got nothing.  Not even one of the typical four. 

That was why she now stood in the doorway of Bramblewood Cottage with potato peels in her hair.  Her mam had this bright idea that if she learned how to do everything the hard way, aka the human way, her gift would just magically appear.  After over 500 years, Brea had pretty much given up on that idea.  So had the rest of her family.  No one really talked about it or what it had cost the family.

Before Brea had unexpectedly arrived, the O’Briens were one of the highest ranking families in Ireland.  Her da, Liam, had fought in the battle of St. Patrick and for his loyal service he had been given the responsibility of taking care of the descendants of one of the druids who had fought alongside the fey.  It was a great honor.  Most leprechauns simply used their gifts at their discretion to help Ireland in general.  Typically that meant they stayed out of it, especially as the world got more advanced and people forgot about them.

It bothered her just a bit that leprechauns didn’t get any credit for all the work they did. Most people thought of leprechauns as little old men who sat around hoarding gold and hiding it at the end of rainbows, not really believing in their existence. First, leprechauns were made up of equal numbers of males and females, and second, why would anyone hide their money at the end of a rainbow, especially after everyone knew about it? That was just asking for someone to steal it. It all seemed rather silly.