The Hidden Legacy

leg, as if he’d taken a hostage. “We’re going outside,” my father said around the plastic sword that was clamped between his teeth.
“Dad!” I tossed up my hands. “This is not helping!”
“Damn your eyes!” Eli shouted.
“Eli! Watch your language!” I said, while my mother gaped at the cursing from a four year old, and my father began to laugh.
A few seconds later, my father and his captive disappeared. I could hear them going down the steps, I moved to an open window and glanced out. There they were, playing sword fight on the backyard grass, with the butterfly and herb gardens behind them.
My mother joined me and we stood watching them. As usual, she smelled of herbs and the garden. She was a talented magickal herbalist, a skill that she’d passed onto my sister, and one that came in very handy running the spice shop.
“He’s as bad as Eli.” I cringed when Eli nailed my father in the back of the leg with his plastic sword.
“That’s going to leave a mark,” my mother said.
I snorted out a laugh. “So what did you want to talk to me about?”
My mother’s eyes slid from the scene outside to my face. “I came to talk to you about your inheritance. About the Osborne legacy.”

CHAPTER TWO
My mother went to the kitchen table. “Come and sit,” she invited.
I took the chair opposite of her, and even though my heart was racing, I casually folded my hands on the table top.
“You know that the lawyers read the will a few days ago,” my mother said. “Your Uncle Robert and I had to go through all of Grandma’s things so we could pass along the personal items she had set aside for each of her children and grandchildren.”
My heart broke a little for my mother. “I’m sorry, that couldn’t have been easy.”
“Robert took charge of the family papers, for his research on the family tree,” my mother said.
“Well, that makes sense.” I nodded. “That’s always been his thing. He loves genealogy.”
She smiled. “I divided up your grandmother’s jewelry between you, your sister, and your cousin Rowan. The butterfly locket, earrings and bracelet specifically. She would want you girls to each have one of her butterfly theme pieces.”
“That would be nice. I’d like to have one.”
“Also there is some money for both you and Eli, and then there’s this.” My mother pulled a small wooden box out of her purse and placed it in the middle of the table. “Your inheritance.”
The box was maybe three inches square and was elaborately carved with a butterfly on the lid. Seeing it had my heart jumping. “Is this about what grandma told me the day she passed away?”
“Yes,” my mother said, watching me carefully.
“I remember when I shared with you and dad what she’d said to me right before she died, you weren’t surprised by it.”
“No,” she said. “We weren’t”
She rested her fingertips on the box. “This has been in my care for the past few months, ever since your grandmother began to decline. I’ve been a temporary guardian, of sorts, but this was always meant for you.”
“It was?”
“When you were born, your grandmother foresaw that it would be your duty.”
“Duty,” I repeated, thinking back to what Grandma had told me. “But why mine?” I asked. “Why not your duty. You were her only daughter. Or why not Kayleigh? She’s the oldest.”
My mother brushed at her bangs. “Your grandmother insisted that it would be you. Not Kayleigh, not Nathan, but you.” She smiled. “It was one of the reasons your middle name is Osborne.”
My eyes flashed to hers. “When Eli was born she insisted his middle name should be Osborne, too.” I shook my head. “Here I thought she’d been upset because his father and I never married.”
“Hardly.” Mom laughed. “She never legally married your grandfather either, and insisted on keeping her maiden name—which she passed onto my brother and I.”
“She was a woman ahead of her time,” I said with a grin.
“That she was,” Mom sighed. “But they had fifty years together, and I’ve never seen such a strong bond as my parents shared.”
“I have,” I said. “The love you and dad share makes me hope for something like that for myself someday.”
My mother reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “Bottom line, Hannah, she wanted to be sure that the Osborne name was handed down.”
“Uncle Robert has three kids—two of them boys,” I pointed out. “If this is an ‘Osborne lineage thing’ then she should have passed it on to Uncle Robert and his children.”
“You’re missing the point.” Her voice rose with her frustration. “This legacy is meant to be passed on to the individual who is worthy to hold it. It has been passed down over the centuries—to both sons and daughters...but always to an Osborne.”
I frowned. “Okay. If you say so.”
“Hannah, do you remember everything your grandmother told you, that last day?”
I sat back in my chair. “She told me that the Osborne legacy, started with Felicity…and that our family magick had kept it hidden and safe for two hundred years. That it was my turn now, and my duty.”
“And?” she prompted.
“She told me to keep watch for a pirate, but maybe that was from the medication they had her on.”
“What else did she say?” My mother’s blue eyes watched me carefully.
“Grandma spoke about a bewitched jewel and a poesy ring.”
My mother nodded, reached out and flipped up the lid on the hinged box. “This is the poesy ring that first belonged to Felicity.”
I felt my eyes grow wide. The old ring was nestled inside of its carved box. The band was silver and heavy. I could see words carved inside of the band. But it was the jewel set in the ring that was the most impressive. The emerald caught the light coming through the kitchen window and seemed to pulse. A glowing shade of grass-green with blue undertones. “Good gods!” I breathed.
My mother chuckled. “When my mother first showed me the ring, and explained