Page 67 of A Winding Wave of Magic
Before I could reply, he had collected the rest of his clothes and carried them down the hall to the bathroom to change. I closed my eyes as the vise-like pressure around my temple increased, then bent over, seeking the cold granite counter for relief. The moment my forehead touched the stone, a vision bloomed.
I was still at the counter, but I wasn’t me anymore. I was my grandmother. There were her hands, strong and capable, clawing at the surface, looking in vain for purchase.
Something squeezedthe sides of my head as if it were wrapped so tightly with a bandage that the circulation to my brain was being cut off.
I moaned like a trapped animal, but beyond that, I couldn’t speak. Behind me, a laugh broke through my pain, deep-voiced, male, muted in a shadow.
“Do you think that hurts, Penelope?” The voice hissed with snake’s venom. “It won’t be so bad if you just give me what I want. the Secret. Give me the Sssssecret!”
“Never.”Incantations poured from my mouth, some old dialect of Irish.
A hand slipped around my neck and squeezed, strangling the words.
“Give it to me!”
Both hands moved to my temples. The pressure there began to build. The voice—the man—whispered his own spell in a language I couldn’t understand.Maybe Latin. Some Goidelic, others that almost sounded Greek.
The immense pressure pounded through my temples, and then I blinked as memories started pouring from my mind like water, rushing across the stone, splashing the rafters, spilling onto the floors, where they seeped into the cracks between the cedar planks and disappeared.
Image upon image of a small, red-haired girl running up and down a rocky coastline with a brown-haired girl of approximately the same age. Another memory of cabbage and potatoes again for breakfast. One of an elderly man with a graying beard smiling from where he stood behind a hand plow in the middle of a field lined with rocks. A pretty woman with freckles and a thick cream sweater. Another boy with ashy blond hair and curious green eyes.
“No!” I cried as the images dug deeply, trying to hang on. These people…I loved them. But who were they? Where were they going?
“Give it to me!” the voice demanded. “Give me the Secret, and you won’t lose the rest!”
“Noooooooo!” I screamed, and then there was another scream, one that called after mine, horribly high-pitched, butthe kind that can only come from a man when the deepest parts of him are torn apart.
“Cass? Are you all right? Cassandra!”
I was yanked up to a standing position by Jonathan, now fully dressed.
Hands at my shoulders, waves of concern shimmied through my muscles. The vise around my brain disappeared along with the vision and all of Gran’s perspective.
The world returned. I twisted around and shoved him away as hard as I could.
“Why did you do that?!” I turned back to the counter and smacked a palm against the surface again and again, looking for that horrible connection. “I was figuring it out, Jonathan! I was?—”
“You were screaming and thrashing around on the counter. I thought you were having a seizure.”
“Come back. Comeback.” My slaps echoed through the kitchen, stinging my palm with each one. Jonathan’s hand closed over mine, holding it in place, but I yanked away and pushed him back again, ignoring the cold, clear concern throbbing through that broad chest. “Stop and let me try. I was Seeing what happened. How sh-she died, I know it!”
“A vision? Show me.” Jonathan’s tone sharpened considerably.
“I can’t; I’m not a freaking film reel. I was just figuring it out myself!” Frantically, I kept pressing my forehead to different spots on the counter, again and again searching for the right place where it had happened. Where she was…gone.
But eventually, I stopped. I lay there longer, struggling to catch my breath and suck back pending tears. The granite had long lost its icy appeal, but still, I made no move to stand again. I couldn’t let go. Not now.
“Cass.” A broad hand settled on my back, conveying warm, steady calm and a sense of reciprocity. “I know. I know.”
His fingers rubbed up and down my spine, feeling good. Too good. I moaned, and behind me, Jonathan expelled a labored breath.
I finally managed to stand only after his hand pulled away. I turned to find Jonathan watching me with concern.
“Tell me what happened.”
I took a deep, painful breath, then exhaled. “I was her. Here, in the kitchen, at the end. It was like he was wringing me like a towel. Everything in my mind—my thoughts, my dreams, my memories, my emotions—all of it was draining out of me. Except they weren’t mine; they were Penny’s. They were hers, and then she was gone, and he was hurt?—”
I choked at the thought of Gran lying prone over the counter, literally losing her entire self under the hideous pressure of the shadowed man.
