Page 136 of A Winding Wave of Magic
“Now then, how about a cup of tea, love? Then you and I shall really get to know each other.”
40
CAITLIN
When I am among my elders
I am proof that sport is forbidden.
— ANONYMOUS EIGHTH-CENTURY POET, “MOLING SANG THIS”
The kitchen, with its scents of fresh herbs and newly baked bread, wasn’t large enough for even two people to sit in comfortably. So, at Caitlin’s invitation, I wandered through the rest of the house while she made tea.
The rest of the cottage had the same timeworn charm as the outside. A nickel-gray stone floor, shining with age and wear, extended down a short corridor to a pair of French doors looking out to a view of the sea at the back of the house. Three doors spilled into a sitting room, a dining room, and a cluttered office off the hallway, while a fourth led to a staircase winding up to a set of bedrooms, I presumed.
I settled in the sitting room, drawn by a pair of oversized armchairs covered in rose sprigs facing a well-used sofa, all situated around a fire of rowan and juniper in a stone hearth,which was likely the primary source But something else was clear. Caitlin Connolly didn’t like gloves, but she cleansed her home like every other seer I’d ever known. The familiarity of the procedure was a comfort.
I sank into one of the armchairs as Caitlin entered with a tray of biscuits, milk, sugar, and a pot of strong black tea, which she set on an oak table between the chairs. She poured the milk into the cup first, followed by the tea, which whirled around until it was the color of rich toffee. Sipping on the brew, I immediately began to relax.
“That’s it, just let it go,” Caitlin said as she took her own seat.
We sipped in silence, allowing the crackle of the fire to converse for us until some of the tension that had been in my shoulders all morning gradually slipped away.
“Thank you,” I said when my cup was half empty. “I needed a few moments.”
“I didn’t have to be a seer to know that. You’ll have had a hard enough day or two without me pestering you. The goddess knows I love Jonny, but the eejit’s a ball of nerves when it comes to dealing with people. Can’t seem to say more than two words without acting like a muppet.”
I smiled, suddenly imagining Jonathan as a character on Sesame Street, wagging his chin at me the night before. I took another sip of tea, which was deliciously strong and sweet.
“Did you know him as a boy?” I wondered.
Caitlin raised a brow. “Oh, sure, didn’t he tell you? Robbie took him in just after his mam died. Caleb Lynch sent him to the Brigantian years too early—that’s the school for sorcerers where Robbie teaches. Jonny was a scrawny thing, skin and bones, that Rob found him trying to conjure up an apple from the orchard when he thought no one was looking. Didn’t speak hardly a word of English, and the older boys at the school teased him something terrible and stole his lunch. Rob had to explain to himthat it’s no good asking the leaves to turn into apples, for they’ll just turn back to leaves the moment you forget about them and give a terrible stomachache.”
I was partly enchanted, partly saddened by the thought of Jonathan as a small, foreign boy looking for magic in an apple tree. I imagined him a striking child—fair and wiry, with graceful coordination far beyond a plain eleven-year-old and bright green eyes that never stopped watching.
“Why did you take him in?” I asked. “His father was overseeing him at that point, wasn’t he?”
Caitlin snorted and shook her head. “Caleb Lynch only ever saw to Jonathan so far as his pounds had spectacles. Jonny never met him a day in his life before he finished at the Brigantian, and even then it was just for a moment. ’Twas Robbie who was first sent to fetch him from Italy, you see, and though Jonny was paid through to stay at the school year-round until he was eighteen, Robbie just couldn’t stand to leave him there through the holidays, a little boy all by himself. Heartless devil, is Caleb Lynch.”
I wholeheartedly agreed. While both of us stewed on the dirty deeds of Jonathan’s father, the room’s energy seemed to darken noticeably.
“Jonny told us what happened last February,” Caitlin interrupted my thoughts as she set down her cup and began to refill it, going through the same routine as before. Milk, tea, sugar, stirring in a practiced clockwise motion with a small silver spoon.
“Did he? What all did he tell you?”
She sat there a moment and offered a meaningful look. When I didn’t answer, her thin brows lifted. “You’re no shield, since I can See your confusion clear as day,” she pronounced. “But I won’t probe, so tell me what’s the matter?”
I gulped more tea and set my cup on the small table just off my elbow. Normally, I convinced myself that it didn’t matter what other fae thought of me—I was what I was, and there was no changing that. But for some reason, I didn’t want to see pity reflected in Caitlin Connolly’s sharp gray eyes. I wasn’t quite ready to lose her good opinion before I’d had the chance to earn it.
“Why would I pity you?”
I frowned. “I thought you said you won’t probe.”
“You’re not giving me much of a choice, silent as you are.”
I sighed. There wasn’t any getting around it. “Why don’t you remember again what Jonathan said to you? And I’ll tell you if there is anything missing.”
She nodded, then watched curiously as I reached across the table and placed my fingertips on her forearm, bracing myself for the potential onslaught.
