Page 113 of A Winding Wave of Magic
One powerful. So powerful. But so young all the same.
She sits on a stool at the counter and stirs her tea, sinking into memories she hasn’t stolen from herself yet. The ones that wouldn’t hurt anyone, because the people in them are long dead and gone.
A sunbeam flashes through a prism hanging in the kitchen window. Ciarán’s face flashes with it.
Oh, Ciarán with his brash looks and dark hair. A merrow’s mane that looked wet even when dried in the sunlight. His fresh scent of kelp and salt water. His voice, the deep, old Irish that no one speaks anymore, not even in the farthest corners of the Gaeltacht.
“My love,” Penny murmurs. “Oh, my love, I shall see you soon.”
A sudden gust of wind flies through the grass dunes in front of the house. The rooster-shaped weathervane on the deck squeals.
Penny presses a hand to her heart. Can it be here already? She sniffs the air and looks around. The bread. The sun. The crystals.
Ciarán’s face. Oh, her darling man.
Yes, it’s today.
In she breathes deeply through her nose. Then out again, channeling calm through her chest. Everything has been taken care of. She has been preparing for more than forty years. That she knew for sure. Now it was time to face it.
She turns off the oven and puts the bread in the bin .A shame, too. It had the makings of an excellent loaf, but there’s no point in keeping it now.
To her left, the front door opens.
“Hello, Caleb,” she says as if she’s greeting the postman. “I thought you might drop by today.”
Caleb Lynch’s tall, thin form shuffles into the house while he mutters a spell under his breath. Bent like a tree with too much fruit on its branches, he reminds Penny of the reaper, dressed all in black, but with a fedora to cover his gaunt face instead of a hood.
A few more words spew from that wrinkled maw, and the door swings shut behind him. Around Penny, the air chills and thins.
“Is that all?” she asks. “Last I remember, you enjoyed making an entrance. Has that dulled in your old age?”
He hobbles into the kitchen with a sneer. One of his gnarled hands, curved like talons, knocks on the stone counter.“Penelope. How long has it been? Sixty years? Seventy?”
Penny shrugs. “Give or take.” She honestly doesn’t know anymore. Time stopped when she came to Oregon.
“Well, if I didn’t know why you left then, I do now,” says the sorcerer. “Aged a bit, haven’t we?”
“We certainly have. You don’t look well, Caleb. Like you need a doctor, I’d say. Or four.”
Lynch’s papery skin crinkles when he scowls, but he doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to. Both of them know he’s knocking on death’s door.
“Either way, it seems I was right,” Penny says. “Sure, and the arrow comes for us all in the end.”
Lynch seems to cringe. “I wouldn’t call it that. But I can’t fault the metaphor of Cupid and a weapon.”
“Surely you haven’t real regrets, have you?” Penny prods. “After all, Cupid gave you a son, didn’t he?”
“I have no son.” The words seem to shake Lynch’s frail body.
Penny closes her eyes a moment, recalling Jonathan’s sweet face as a child. “Oh, don’t I know it.”
“A seer’s intuition.” Lynch’s lip curls. “You know, I’ve always wondered about that. If you knew I was coming, then you know why I’m here. Which then begs the question…why not stop me?”
Penny shrugs. “No sense in making a scene. If I didn’t let you in, you’d have done that voodoo you love so much and probably burned the house down. I actually take the laws of secrecy seriously, unlike you, flapping your wings all over the place.”
Lynch’s face flushes the color of a new holly berry. “I do not?—”
“Yes, you do. Do you think the only thoughts I can See are human?” She points a finger toward the window and the bird feeder where several sparrows peck away at the seed. “Gossipy little creatures. And they don’t like strangers. Especially nasty big ravens that swoop overhead like a demon.”
