Page 131 of A Winding Wave of Magic
I was being unfair, considering I had already decided not to pursue anything more with him. But bitterness lacks reason.
With every accusation, Jonathan flinched. “For all of it. You’ve no idea. Cass, I—” He stopped as his voice cracked, betraying the first sign of real emotion, his eyes seemed endless, a soft, grass green that begged to be rolled in.
I softened, unable to help myself.
Because that was something he always managed. A sorcerer, of all folk, was able to crack my defenses like the thinnest piece of glass.
What I’d thought were brick walls were barely even windows to him.
He took a seat beside me, though he was still careful to keep at least a foot between us.
“I don’t understand,” I admitted, though I didn’t clarify whether it was his behavior or his ability to break me that was so confusing. Both, if I was being honest.
Jonathan didn’t answer. But he didn’t look away either.
We stared at each other for a long moment as the magnetic pull that always seemed to exist between us grew stronger. Jonathan bit his lip, and the muscle in his jaw ticked again. His eyes drifted down to my mouth, and then he looked away.
“We’ll forget about it,” I said with a sigh. And then, before he could stop me, I reached out to pat his hand where it lay over his knee.
Desire-tinged remorse slipped through his surprise at my touch. I pulled my hand back, as much to guard my thoughts as to protect anything he didn’t want me to See.
Jonathan tucked his hand under his arm like a wounded paw. The sun was high now, a thin light through the fog that cast the trees surrounding the airstrip in myriad shades of green. I counted the leaves of a nearby rowan, willing myself to put aside the bone-deep urge to tuck comfortably into the crook of Jonathan’s shoulder and ignore the ache of rejection in my heart.
As we hurtledover the cliffs of Galway Bay, twin wells of nausea and excitement rose in my stomach with the movements of the plane.
My surfboard and wetsuits were shoved in the space behind my seat and hung overhead, forcing me to hunch over. Crammedinto his own seat and thrust forward, Jonathan smiled grimly at me.
“Not quite a private jet, is it?” I shouted over the roar of the engines.
Jonathan bared his teeth as the plane shook again.
I looked out my window and watched the cliffs of Moher recede into the distance, the waves crashing at their feet reduced to a fine line of whitewash. Even from this distance, the rims were cast vibrant green.
Part of me wished we had more time to explore some of the other parts before journeying out to the islands that were, by most accounts, quite barren. I would have liked to meander more of the streets inUlyssesor walk the moors that inspired Yeats’s “Wanderings of Oisin.”
The plane took a sudden dive, and my stomach lurched as three small islands came into view. Tiny guardians of the coast, they were lonely, treeless outposts against the open sea. But barren, they were not.
As the plane dropped further to our destination, the knit of stone grids crisscrossing most of the island came into high relief against brilliant green swatches of grass and plants.
“Limestone!” yelled Jonathan. “The Irish soil was too rocky to grow much, so the farmers used to dig up the rocks and stack them without mortar so they could move them easily when property changed between families. On the islands, the walls protect the topsoil from blowing away.”
I nodded. I had read about Ireland’s famous limestone fences. But it was another thing to view the mosaic of green in person.
A solid pressure warmed my shoulder, along with remorse and shame pulsing through Jonathan’s hand, paired with the desire to protect me. He cared about me a great deal, for my own sake, along with his allegiance to my grandmother. Thoughhe couldn’t deny the physical attraction between us, it was more important to him that I trust him, as Gran had wanted before, as he wanted now.
Friends?he asked.
His eyes began to blaze, and I felt him struggle against his headache to activate his Sight. For the last few minutes of the flight, we watched the green and gray checkerboard beneath us burst into a kaleidoscopic blend of color. Though I knew it must be wishful thinking, it seemed to me that a shade of turquoise green the color of the ocean swirled just a bit brighter beneath the rest of the hues, winking as if it had been waiting so long for me to arrive.
We were metat the airport by an elderly man named Jock with truly mountainous shoulders, whose snow-white hair stuck out in tufts under his ancient driver’s cap. He was the director of the island’s cultural center, which offered tours and Irish classes, and also doubled as the island’s entire car service, driving those who needed it around in an ancient red station wagon. Jock had greeted Jonathan with a bone-crunching hug as we walked off the airstrip, clapping him merrily on the top of his head as if he were a mischievous boy home on school holiday and not a stalwart scientist who walked with a straight spine and spit-polished his shoes every night.
“Been too long, Jonny,” Jock said as he lifted my board with one hand and carried my oversized suitcase with more ease than should come to a man his age. Powerful forearms rippled under the faded plaid of his rolled sleeves as he walked us to his car. “And who’s this? Brought one home to meet Rob and Caitlin, have you?”
Jonathan glanced at me. “Something like that.”
He didn’t need to touch me to let me know that it was better to let folks make what assumptions they wanted. They definitely shouldn’t know my family was from here.
“Sure and they’ll be glad to see you,” Jock said. “This yours,a chara?”
