Page 138 of A Winding Wave of Magic
“But we know one thing,” Caitlin continued. “Penny meant for you to apprentice here. With me. So for now, love, we should figure out what youcando, and then find ways to fill in what’s missing. Sorcerers go away to school. They’ve got to learn spellcraft and immerse themselves in languages and whatnot. But with us, it’s more about practice. Meditation. Grounding. It’s why we apprentice. Seers must learn to control their minds, not the elements. And every mind is different.” She twisted her thin lips ruefully. “Penny would have been the best—a more controlled seer I never knew. I can’t think why she didn’t teach you, but there’s got to be a reason.”
Dread piled in my belly. There must have been something wrong with me for her to make that decision. Just like there was something wrong with my mother.
“No,” Caitlin admonished me quickly. “First things first. Whatcanyou do?”
I considered the question and tried to calm the roiling in my stomach. “I can sense everything going through a person’s mind. But I need to touch them. I can also sense memories or history in a room, but I need to be physically in contact with the place where it happened. And I can’t tell when exactly events took place.” I stopped, considering. “The power ebbs and flows. Sometimes I can block or at least muffle my Sight with a barrier, like clothing or gloves. But sometimes not even shoes work andeverything comes all at once. And when that happens, nothing helps except?—”
I cut myself off, thinking of Jonathan’s kiss for no reason whatsoever. Thinking of the way my mind for once had shut off. All I had felt was him.
“Except what?” prodded Caitlin.
I blinked. “Except water. Gran did teach me some saining rituals. Smoke and water. A mantra.” I took a deep breath and recited the familiar phrases. “Find the elements. Touch the water. Breathe the air. Feel the earth. Light the fire. Hear the silence.”
“And then?”
I shrugged. “Sometimes it works. But sometimes I actually need to jump in. So I do.”
I thought of the frozen reservoir in February. The chilly waves in Manzanita. Outside the cottage, the ocean seemed to sing my name. Even now, I yearned for it.
I turned toward the windows behind us, where gulls flew at the ocean’s edge, calling for me along with the tide. Caitlin shuddered.
With some struggle, I tore my gaze away from the waves. “I think that’s it.” It didn’t seem like much, now that I’d said it all out loud.
“It must be hard, always having to avoid everyone’s touch. A bit lonely. I’d like to See your impressions,” Caitlin said.“After dinner, we’ll have you dip a toe inside Robbie’s head. Jonny’ll never let you in there, secretive coot. He’s not a seer, but somehow he manages to shield like one.”
I didn’t mention that Jonathan had let me in, several times before. Or so I’d thought.
Almost on cue, Jonathan’s and Robbie’s voices floated from the outside as they marched through the stone gate protecting the house from the sea, the girls laughing behind them. Caitlinwaved, and the twins raced to the front door while Bronagh stayed close to Jonathan, watching with bright eyes as he spoke to her.
Catching sight of me, Jonathan smiled shyly and waved. I waved back, feeling, for some reason, somewhat shy myself. Robbie held up a basket out of which hung a large, slick fishtail, and his wife gave him a bright smile in payment.
The merry quintet banged into the house, and the twins charged through the kitchen and into the room with us, where they immediately burrowed into their mother’s lap.
“What’s this, mousies? You’ll have the entire house stinking of fish!”
“Got the pollack, as requested,” Robbie said as he strode in. “Caught just two hours ago. Left it in the kitchen.”
Jonathan and Bronagh hovered in the room’s entry. His expression asked how things were going. I smiled to let him know all was quite well, and his posture visibly relaxed.
“Robbie, come stand here next to Cassandra,” Caitlin ordered. “We want to do an experiment,mo chuisle.”
She kissed the twins once each on their brows and murmured something in Irish. They scampered down the hall and up the stairs. “You too, Bronagh,” Caitlin said.
Her elder daughter, who had been watching with a hawkish expression, heaved a reluctant sigh before following her sisters out of the room.
“Chores,” Robbie said to me. “And they need to wash up. Their mam’s always fair: the twins do smell like a pair of merrows.” He squatted between the chairs and held his hands out to the fire as he peered up at his wife with a good-natured grin. “What d’ye need me for,mo chroí?”
“Just let Cassandra See whatever’s going through that thick head of yours.”
Caitlin ran a hand through her husband’s gray-streaked hair when he leaned to deliver a kiss to her brow. Then she leaned over the far side of her chair and opened a basket that held several skeins of yarn and multiple works in progress. Pulling a half-finished sweater into her lap, she started to knit, the pleasant clicking of the wooden needles complementing the crackle of the fire.
“Tourists will pay the earth for a real Aran jumper,” she said. “There’s only a few of us who still know how to make them this way anymore. Now then, let’s start. Jonny, are you just going to stand there, about as useless as a lighthouse in a bog?”
“What would you have me do, Cait?” Jonathan spread his arms wide even as he walked further into the room.
“You might sit down and join us, instead of hovering like a bat.”
Jonathan sprawled gracefully on the couch. “Chafe all you want. I know deep down you’re glad I’m here.”
