Maggie Shayne: Weddings from Hell

"Would this be a Miss Kira MacLellan?"

She shivered. His accent was thick and so very much like her mother's had been, that it caused her throat to close up and her eyes to burn. But there was something beyond that. Something familiar, that made her stomach clench up tight. Swallowing with difficulty, she drew a breath. "It's Kira Monroe. My mother was a MacLellan."

"And so're you, as you always will be. But that's neither here nor there, is it now?"

"I…have no idea. Who is this?"

"My name's Ian Stewart. I'm a solicitor, calling from Scotland on behalf of your great aunt Iris MacLellan. It's my sad duty to info rm you of her passin'. And sorry I am to be tellin' you of it. She was a fine woman."

"I'm sure she was, though I never met her. I never even knew I had a great aunt Iris."

"Ah, you've a raft of relations here in Scotland . An' it's long past time you should be meetin' 'em. Better late than never, I suppose."

"I'm sorry?"

"The viewing will be on Thursday next. We've delayed it a bit to give you time, what with the distance you'll be travelin'."

"I'm sorry Mr.—"

"Stewart," he said quickly. "But you must call me Ian. I'm practically family myself."

"I'm not going to be able to make it for the funeral."

"Oh, but you have to make it within two days of the funeral, at the very least. The readin' o' the will is to be held then. And it's required ye be present or your inheritance will be divided between those who are."

"My inheritance."

"Aye. It's substantial. More than three million pounds."

She blinked. "What's that in dollars?"

"Ahhh, let me see then…oh my. At today's rate of exchange, that would be six million dollars, give or take."

She pulled the telephone away from her ear and stared at it.

"Miss MacLellan? Kira? Have ye fainted dead away, then?"

Blinking, she brought the phone back to her ear. "Is this some kind of a joke? Or one of those international scams or something? Are you going to ask for my social security or bank account numbers next?"

He laughed. It was a warm, deep sound that stroked her senses through the shock and disbelief currently taking up most of her attention. "Are you as lovely as you sound, Kira MacLellan?"

"I…" Her face heated at the compliment that sounded sincere, though it couldn't be. She hadn't even met the man. He was a stranger on the phone. And yet it felt like more.

"I suggest ye place a call to a solicitor of your own choosin'. Give him my number here. He'll be quite able to verify this is all legitimate."

"I will, believe me."

"And glad of it, I am. Once you've done that to your satisfaction ring me back. I'll help you get your travelin' arrangements in place. All right, then?"

"Sure," she said, not believing it for a minute.

"All right, then. Have a lovely day."

Kira hung up the telephone and the whispers that had long since haunted her called her closer. So she turned toward the bedroom of the small efficiency apartment she rented in the small-town city of Cortland , New York . It was on Main Street , which was convenient, since her job tending bar at Hairy Tony's was only a few steps away, and her classes at the State University of New York were within bicycle distance.

Life was going the way it had nearly always gone. Boring, and slow, and with no real direction, but it was going. She made enough to pay her bills, and take the occasional class, though she had no real goals. It was as if she'd been marking time, or killing it, waiting for something to come along that would tell her what it was she was supposed to be doing. Or, more accurately, not really waiting for that. More expecting it, but not with any sort of excited anticipation or eagerness. She liked her slow, boring life. She'd had enough drama as a child to last her a lifetime.

She stood in front of the closed closet door for a long moment, before she finally worked up the nerve to open it. And then she reached up onto the top shelf and moved things around until she found the shoebox, way in the back. Warily, she pulled the box down, carried it with her to her full-sized bed, curled up with her back against the padded headboard, and stared at it.

Her mother's belongings hadn't amounted to much. Her father had sold most of them in the days following her death, probably in preparation for his own. At his funeral, there had been a woman sobbing as if her very heart had been broken. Kira asked everyone there who she was, but no one knew. She'd stayed in the back of the crowd at the cemetery, and left as soon as anyone ventured near her.

It was only in hindsight, as a teenager, years later, being raised by her father's parents, that she'd begun to understand. Her father had been having an affair. Her mother had known that at the end. She remembered her words, "How could ya, Paul?" All the signs had been there, she'd just been too young to see them.

With hands that trembled, she took the lid off the shoebox, and looked inside. A black velvet box held her mother's wedding band and engagement ring. Another held a favorite gold necklace with a butterfly suspended from its chain. There was a stack of letters and postcards, all bound together with a rubber band, and it was that bundle Kira reached for now. She'd never read them. She'd been afraid to. Something hidden, deep inside her, made her nervous about those letters.

But now, she reached for the rubber band, to remove it for the first time in eighteen years. And just as her fingers touched it, it snapped in two, and she jumped, so startled that the letters fell from her hands, and onto the bed.

She sat motionless, frightened by the way the band had snapped as if on its own, even while she told herself she was being silly. It was nothing. Coincidence.

Without touching the letters that fanned out on the bedding before her, Kira scanned their return addresses. Most of them had come from Scotland . And all of the surnames were MacLellan. She'd never met any of her mother's relatives, had never even heard her mother speak of them.

She didn't know why, but decided it was time to find out. Given that phone call she'd just received, and the constant gut-level curiosity that had dogged her for years, it was time. Her urge to delve into her mother's closely guarded secrets had always been outweighed by the irrational fear of what she might find.

Six million dollars, however, was a powerful motivator. And as much as her practical brain told her it couldn't possibly be for real, her belly told her it was.

Kira picked up one envelope, flipped it over and paused. It was still sealed. Frowning, she checked another, and then another. None of them had been opened.

What had happened to make her mother turn so completely against her own family?

Because of the curse.

She ignored the voice that whispered in her mind. There was no curse. Her mother had been dying, her brain misfiring, her words coming from some irrational place inside her. She'd asked her father. He'd said there were no such things as curses.

Drawing a breath, she chose the envelope she would open. It was from Iris MacLellan, and the postmark date was April, 1981. Before she had even been born. She slid her thumbnail beneath the envelope's fold and sliced it open, and swore a chorus of breathless whispers spilled out with the sheet of vellum.

For a moment, she went still, looking around the room as if in search of those whisperers. But of course, there was no one there.

Straightening her spine, she unfolded the letter. A scent of lavender wafted from it, touching her face along with what felt like the slightest breath of a breeze. Impossible, of course. Her emotions were heightened, and the long sense of dread and fear of curses were making her imagination play tricks on her.