Page 2 of A Winding Wave of Magic
Threats that I, Cassandra Whelan, PhD candidate in Irish and Celtic Studies, overworked grad student, and somewhat misanthropic witch, had to fight on a daily basis.
Sleep was supposed to be my reprieve from that battle, but last night, the universe had other ideas.
Like any good witch, I reached for the black journal on my nightstand and scribbled down what I could remember. I’d call Gran later to go over the dream. A seer like me—that is, a clairvoyant fae in a world that also included sorcerers, shifters, and sirens—she still lived in the house where she’d raised me on the Oregon coast, at the mist-covered foot of Neahkahnie Mountain. The only teacher I’d ever had in the magical arts, Gran would undoubtedly be able to offer guidance, along with yet another nagging reminder to come home to finish myrealeducation before it was too late.
Not yet, I say, as I always did.
I still had four more months to finish my degree.
Four months until I could take up the assistant professorship waiting for me at a rural Oregon college just an hour from Gran’s house and the ocean that still beckoned my soul.
Four months until freedom from this city heaving under the weight of its memories, which often invaded my thoughts with a single touch.
But I had to get through today first.
I rolled over to check my alarm. Oh, goddess,no. It couldn’t be. “Shit.”
I jumped out of bed, grabbed one of the few skirts I owned out of my closet and tugged it on, followed by a thick pair of tights and wool kid gloves I kept for special occasions.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I chanted as I ran down the hall to splash water on my face and brush my teeth in the tiny prewar bathroom. When I made it to the kitchenette to hunt for a portable breakfast, I looked at my phone again. 9:10. Oh, hell.
My roommate, a twenty-three-year-old master’s student named Aja, groaned from the old corduroy couch that took up the lion’s share of our small common room. “Cassandra. It’s Saturday. Why are you running around shrieking like a banshee?”
I winced at the casual use of the term. Aja was an Irish Studies student like me; she knew very well that the stereotype of the shrieking banshee originated from the Irishbean sídhe,the walking woman who heralded death. As a plain person, however, Aja wouldn’t know that the mythological figure was rooted in very real types of mind witches. Seers, like me.
Like my people.
Or what little I’d ever known of them.
“The mini-seminar today with Rachel Cardy.” I stuffed a banana into my pocket and slathered some peanut butter onto a piece of stale bread. “You know, she just did that new translation ofLebor Gabála Érenn. The department is trying to convince her to come here from Yale, and Professor James put me in charge of the whole event. I’m supposed to be there to welcome her at nine-thirty.”
“Oof. Good luck. Isn’t James your dissertation chair?”
“The one and the same.”
It was all I had to say. Horace James was a brilliant scholar of Irish mythology, head of my committee, and the man who essentially held my future in his gnarled hands.
He had also refused to approve my dissertation for defense on four separate occasions this year, and I was running out of time. Agreeing to organize and emcee a crowded event that would likely be standing room only—otherwise known to me as hell on earth—was my last-ditch effort to curry the old curmudgeon’s favor enough to get his rubber stamp of approval on the final chapter.
And thanks to that horrible dream, I was late.
Aja made a face as she sat up, almost likeshewas the mind reader in this apartment, not me. One side of her bobbed blonde curls was flattened to her cheek while the other was bunched up by her ear.
“Long night?” I tucked a notebook into my messenger bag along with a granola bar, ignoring the whiffs of beer and fleeting memories that tingled, even through my gloves, from Aja’s jacket.
“You could say that. Wait. I was going to tell you something, but you’d already gone to your room when I got in last night.”
I didn’t reply. I had one rule for roommates: once my door was closed, I was done for the night. Usually, that was before eight p.m., after a bath and the saining I did to cleanse the apartment of the memories that had been clinging to its corners and surfaces since it was built sometime in the early eighteen-nineties. The smoke of juniper, sage, and rowan couldn’t get rid of its history completely. Nothing could. But along with the Old Irish spell Gran had taught me when I was thirteen, it was enough to help me sleep.
Although last night, maybe I’d slept a littletoodeeply. I’d have to take it easy with the rowan next time.
“Anyway, the weirdest thing happened,” Aja continued, oblivious to the fact that I was more focused on scarfing my toast than listening to her story. “Nick and I were at the show. The band was going off, and everyone was dancing like crazy. Gorgeous neo-soul, tribal-music-type stuff. You should come out with us sometime, Cass. If you can ever get over your fear of crowds, that is. Therapy does wonders.”
“Uh-huh.” Unlikely. Therapyandgetting over my fear/pathological hatred of crowds. I twisted around the kitchen in search of my scarf and boots. “So, what was weird, then?”
Aja rubbed a bloodshot eye, smudging some leftover makeup under it. “Well, when Nick went to grab us some drinks, this guy tried to chat me up. At first, it was your pretty average pick-up kind of thing. You know, ‘good band, huh?’ He was pretty hot and had this posh British accent, but I was there with someone else, so I just brushed him off. I thought he got the idea.”
I made a motion like I was winding a tape as I located my scarf by the hearth. “Little faster here, Aj.”
