Page 76 of A Winding Wave of Magic
I frowned. “What would that matter? It would have been way before she was born.”
Jonathan gave me a strange look, then appeared to relax. “Well, what did you See?”
I shrugged. “I Saw…his confusion. His passion. How much he loved others and wanted them to love him and his people too. But how hard he found it in his isolation I suppose in that moment, I Saw myself too.” I shrugged. “That was it. I was hooked. I wrote my thesis on Yeats, and then of course realized how much more I could learn about my past when I started to consult older texts. Archival bits. Things real people had written, not just sent to the printers. It took me a bit longer to finish—I had to spend a few years learning all three versions of Irish, plus Ogham too.”
“Did it keep happening? These visions?” Jonathan pressed.
“Not every time. But the older I got, yeah. The more I could See.”
“Just from touching the paper?”
I nodded. “Pretty much. Anyway, after that, I was hooked. I came home at Christmas and told Gran my plans to learn Irish and Latin and runes so I could read as many of the original texts as I could. She laughed and thought it was marvelous—she said the myths had a foot in the truth of fae history anyway. If Iwasn’t going to learn it from her, I might as well learn it on my own.”
“She never told you the stories?” Jonathan looked around the house like Penny would pop out and tell him what he wanted to know. “Not even when you were living with her?”
I shook my head. “No. She said it wasn’t the right time. It wasveryfrustrating, let me tell you. Even more now, considering this…inheritance.”
Jonathan chuckled. “For you, I imagine it was. So you understand old Irish and Latin?”
“Yes, but I’m still learning. I’d have to immerse myself to learn either of them properly, and since both are dead languages…”
“You do have an opportunity to live in Ireland,” Jonathan pointed out. “In a Gaeltacht, I might point out. It’s not old Irish, but it wouldn’t get more immersive than that.”
I didn’t answer. I had wondered about that, actually, but I wasn’t going to tell him so.
“Do you speak any other old languages?” Everything about him tightened. The tendons of his forearms suddenly appeared, and his right toe twitched.
“Not well,” I said slowly, watching as the lines of his body released the tension they had assumed just a moment before. “Just Irish and Latin, and a bit of ancient Greek because I had to. But I can’t speak any of them. That’s why they’re called dead.”
Jonathan rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. “Yes, Iknowthat. But surely you realize they’re not really dead.”
I frowned. “I do?”
To avoid his shocked gaze, I put another log on the fire. It gave a loud pop as I returned to my sheepskin.
“Cassandra. That’s essentially what spell craft is. Old languages. Seers, shifters, sirens, sorcerers. We all have our own versions of it. ”
I blinked, feeling rather like an owl. “Um. What?”
He sighed. “Another thing Penny didn’t teach you?”
I nodded, cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “She told me just to focus on Seeing. Let it come naturally. I know a few spells out of necessity, but mostly she just wanted me to learn by doing until I came home again after school.”
I couldn’t help the mounting frustration in my voice.
“Do you have a favorite?” I wondered, suddenly eager to change the subject. “Since you’re a fan and all.”
Jonathan seemed to think on that for a bit. “Of Yeats? Out of everything?”
I tipped my head. “So you are a fan. Let’s just say from ‘Oisin’ and other poems, then.”
With a proud wink, he cleared his throat and recited again:
Autumn is over the long leaves that love us,
And over the mice in the barley sheaves;
Yellow the leaves of the rowan above us,
