14. A Jack of Three Trades
14
A JACK OF THREE TRADES
So write it out and don’t forget
We may be all quite famous yet.
— brIAN MAC GIOLLA MEIDHRE, CUIRT AN MHEADHON OICHCHE ( THE MIDNIGHT COURT )
I marched over to the table, where a familiar green-eyed “scientist” was waiting for me, his mouth twisted into an infuriating smirk. Those eyes, the color of wood sorrel in the spring, sparked through wire-rimmed glasses, which he removed before flipping a newspaper up to hide his face. The rest of him was as irritatingly polished as the other times we’d met. Today, the starched button-down was white, covered by a thick gray sweater with a shawl collar, dark jeans, and tan brogues that looked new out of the box.
“Hey,” I barked.
The sorcerer was seemingly engrossed with an article on off-season salmon poaching.
“Hey, you.” I flopped into the chair opposite him. “I see we lied about the stalking. Don’t tell me, you’re doing research on sleepy senior communities on the Oregon Coast, and you have a little house just down the road.”
The stranger looked over the edge of his paper, obviously annoyed. “One moment, please.” He murmured something under his breath, and the air around us seemed to expand somehow.
I reared. “What did you just do?”
“Some people don’t want every conversation broadcast to every person within a five-mile radius,” said the man before taking a sip of tea the color of dungeon water. “Considering the decibel of your voice, I suspect you are not one of them.” He looked me over. “Odd.”
“ What did you do?” I demanded again.
He shrugged. “I muffled the conversation. Delighted to see you again, Ms. Whelan. Please, won’t you join me?”
His diction was precise and nearly perfect, his mild accent which still wasn’t exactly English or Irish, was infuriatingly calm. I stared at him, trying to compare the voice to the vaguely English-sounding chatter at the house. It had never been clear enough for me to understand it other than the demands for the Secret, at which point The shadowed man sounded insane. There was malice about that voice that I didn’t feel at all from the man in front of me. This green-eyed sorcerer was arrogant and obviously had some boundary issues. But not evil.
He did, however, test my patience, which was already running very low.
“Don’t ’Miss Whelan’ me,” I snapped. “Now you’re going to tell me who the hell you are and why you’ve stalked me across the country. Or I’ll?—”
“You’ll what?” he interrupted with a smirk that made me want to smack him. “Make me think I’m a toad? Convince me to walk into oncoming traffic? Drown myself in the ocean?”
My mouth dropped. Those were, in fact, the threats I’d been contemplating, though I hadn’t said any out loud.
I’d never do it, of course. It was completely taboo, the power that some seers had to manipulate another’s thoughts and subsequently, their actions. I’d been lectured on that particular taboo so many times I thought Gran had melded my brain waves with her speeches.
Seers are the consciences of the world , she’d told me again and again. Our standards set everyone else’s. We couldn’t afford to be corrupted by our power, or else everyone would suffer for it.
I’d listened, of course, but that hadn’t meant I wasn’t curious. After all, wouldn’t anyone want to know what it felt like to have that kind of power over another? Wouldn’t they at least want to know if they could?
“Maybe I’ll just make you fall in love with me,” I suggested in an overly sweet voice. “At least that would get rid of the attitude.”
“That’s what you think.”
His eyes popped open with something that looked like surprise. Then he shook his head like he was disgusted with even the idea of being with someone like me.
Awareness jacketed my spine—though for what, I wasn’t sure.
The stranger glanced down at my hand, braced on the table, still in a black knit glove appropriate for running. “Don’t bother much with pleasantries, do you?”
“Not when a weird sorcerer is following me, no.” I tucked my hand in my lap so I could remove my glove. I didn’t trust this man. I needed all weapons—no matter how unpredictable they were—at my disposal.
“I told you,” he said, sounding distinctly bored. “I’m…on faculty at Oregon.”
“You said you live in Portland. Eugene is almost two hours away. Not that it matters, since I’m pretty sure you’re lying about all of it.”
The sorcerer sighed and set his cup on its saucer with an audible clink. Then he turned the handle of the cup slightly toward him before adjusting it back to me. He did this three more times before appearing satisfied with the result.
“What’s that, another spell?”
He looked up curiously. “No. Did you think it was?”
I didn’t answer, just tapped my gloved fingers impatiently on my paper cup. A mountain of decisions was waiting for me today, not to mention a houseful of belongings to go through, plus a likely trip to Seattle before I had to get back to Boston and somehow figure out how to finish my PhD in spite of everything going on. I didn’t have time for these games.
“Maybe it would be easier if I called the cops,” I said finally. “The sheriff and I went to high school together. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind catching up.”
“And I’m sure you would quite prefer the opposite.” One brow raised in an expression that indicated he was perfectly aware that I would enjoy nothing less than catching up with Danny Mansfield. But also that it would be in the sheriff’s best interests not to encounter a sorcerer in a bad mood.
Then, instead of waiting for me to come up with a fresh retort, he extended a hand across the table.
I stared at it.
“I think proper introductions are overdue,” said the stranger. “My name is Jonathan Lynch. And I have something you need.”
I didn’t reply, just waited for him to continue.
“Please, Ms. Whelan. You’ll see I mean you no harm.”
“Is that so? Mr. Lynch, is it?”
“It’s Doctor if we’re still using formal address. But yes.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course, you’d go by Doctor.”
Nevertheless, I took his hand. It was as warm—and annoyingly comforting—as I remembered.
Lynch emitted a low hiss like he was in pain. But before I could ask why, my Sight kicked in.
A brief recollection of our other interactions flickered through my mind along with a few others that connected. It was him at the nightclub asking Aja about me. There were our brief chats after the seminar, again in his car after the pond, him watching me at the pub in Portland, all of it connected with the desire to find me and evaluate me somehow in order to tell me…something.
Which his conscious thoughts were obviously working in overdrive to obscure. His touch conspicuously revealed nothing about his character other than what he said was true—he had no intention of hurting me. He simply wanted to talk.
I let go of his hand.
“You’re some shield, especially for a dall ,” I remarked, casually using the term Gran had always used for non-seer fae. Dall meant “blind” in Irish. “And while I appreciate that you don’t, in fact, want to kill me, your thoughts don’t make much of a case against stalking. Closer to supporting it, honestly.”
It was strange to be talking so casually about it, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to be scared. The man had gone out of his way to rescue me twice, even if he had been following me. He wasn’t out to do me harm.
Lynch sighed again. “I’m not stalking you. Although I will admit to telling a small white lie about living in Oregon. Though it is reasonably nice here.” He looked out the window, as if genuinely surprised.
“So I take it you’re not a particle physicist?”
“Oh, I am. But my work is more international.” He smirked as if I should already know what that meant. “By the time we met, I’d been looking for you for a few days and needed to ascertain your identity. I’ve some rather delicate information to share, and I had to be sure you were actually you. Do you always leave for Oregon in the middle of term?”
I smiled to myself at his incorrect pronunciation: “oh-ray-GONE,” instead of the more guttural “OR-ruh-gun” that the locals used.
“I do when there’s been a death in my family. Did my roommate tell you that too?”
For once, the sorcerer’s face was devoid of any kind of derision. Sympathy poured from his large green eyes, and I knew that if I touched him, I’d feel it as well.
“Yes, I was aware,” he said quietly. “That’s why I was sent to find you. Please accept my deepest condolences regarding the loss of your grandmother. She was a lovely woman. I…I was truly sorry to hear of her passing.”
I stared, waiting for him to continue. What did he mean, he was sent here? By whom? And because of Penny’s death? He was in Boston before I had received the telegram—had he known about it before my mother?
How was that even possible?
What was going on?
Lynch made to offer his hand again, but pulled it back to his lap almost immediately, clearly thinking better of the action. Not completely heartless, then, but careful. And perhaps not quite as good a shield as I thought.
I turned to grab my breakfast and magazine from the table behind me and he sighed in relief, realizing that I wasn’t going anywhere.
“You knew her,” I said finally before taking a bite of my pecan bun. My stomach had been growling for the past five minutes. I wasn’t just cranky because of him—I was famished after a two-mile run.
“Oh, yes,” he replied softly. “Our families were great friends…in Ireland.”
“So you are Irish.”
Lynch shrugged. “In a manner. I grew up there, and I have friends there. Like family, really, of which your grandmother was one.”
“Gran never mentioned anyone from Ireland. She only talked about what it was like for her as a child.”
“We have not seen her for some time,” Lynch admitted. “She was good friends with my godfather, Rob Connolly. Did she never speak of Inis Oírr? It’s where she learned to make the sweater the barman over there is wearing.”
At the name, pronounced “Inish-eer,” something tingled in the back of my mind. A memory that maybe I’d never known I had.
I turned toward Andy, who had pushed the thick sleeves of his cream-colored sweater up his pudgy forearms while he steamed milk. My heart throbbed again at the memory of Gran making it. She had tried to teach me how to knit several times, but I had always been too busy to take up the craft she said was part of my heritage.
Inis Oírr. The Aran Islands. Yes, I knew it.
I turned back to the table and took a large sip of my coffee, somewhat guiltily. “She did mention it.”
We sat there for a moment, evaluating each other. I hoped he would volunteer more information about himself, but none came. Finally, I lost patience. Sorry, Gran , I thought. She would have always cautioned me to wait. There’s never a need to ask, she’d always say. Everyone tells a seer everything eventually.
But this man had been following me for over a week, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he knew something about the shadowed voices in the hall. I didn’t have time to wait, and I doubted he would let me hold his hand while I dug around for answers.
“So, why were you sent to find me, Dr. Lynch? How did you know about my grandmother’s death?”
Lynch looked around the coffee shop, spending a moment or two examining the few remaining customers. They were locals, all plain and all recognizable to me, though Lynch couldn’t have known that.
Finally, he bent down and from a sleek, leather briefcase removed a large white document, which he placed on the table before putting his reading glasses back on. “I had hoped to do this somewhere else, but it appears this is our chosen venue. Unless you’d like me to escort you somewhere private.”
Something else inside me buzzed at the word “private.” It wasn’t unpleasant. But it wasn’t comfortable either.
“I would not,” I replied.
There was a quick green look. “Very well. I am the executor of your grandmother’s will,” Lynch informed me. “Upon her death, I am required to make contact with you immediately and serve you with her last wishes. Now, do you still prefer to proceed…here?” He waved a graceful hand around the steadily more trafficked cafe. “Or perhaps remove to a more private location to go over the contents of this document?”
I stared at him, baffled and suddenly very aware of the contrast between his overall poised demeanor and clothing and the way my sweat-soaked hair and garments clung to my skin. I was also aware that his stories didn’t match up.
“A week ago, you were an academic at an Irish Studies talk,” I stated. “Then you were a scientist, ‘Dr. Lynch.’ Maybe at Oregon. Then some other unnamed institution. And now you’re an attorney too?”
He rolled his eyes, which only made me more irritated.
“This isn’t a game to me, Doctor–Mister–whoever you are!” I hissed, which was the only alternative to shouting at him. I doubted his muffling spell would completely hide that.
Not one person in the room turned toward us. Goddess, even his spells were perfect.
It was infuriating.
Unconsciously, I started to chew the edge of my thumbnail, as I often did when I was stressed or frustrated.
Lynch cringed visibly. “Do you know you carry more germs on your hands than anywhere else on your body?”
I ripped my hand from my mouth and glared at him. “My grandmother, the only family I have in the world, just died by what I suspect were very violent and painful means. You keep showing up and playing coy with your disappearing acts and flexible job titles. If you’re really here to do what you say you’re here to do, then you at least owe it to me to be honest, because to be quite frank, I don’t have any more patience for your cryptic bullshit.”
Lynch recoiled as though he’d been slapped. “Violent? What do you mean by that?”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll keep those cards close to my chest for the time being.”
He examined me for a moment more, expression torn between what seemed to be irritation and pity. Finally, his jaw softened, and he inhaled deeply before speaking.
“I am sorry if I’ve caused any additional duress,” he said. “I am only here to guide you through this difficult period. As for my, er, flexible job title, you may satisfy yourself to know that I am in fact a physicist as well as a solicitor. One can earn more than one degree in a lifetime, you know.”
He pulled a phone from his pocket and proceeded to pull up a faculty page bearing his profile on the University of Roma website, then passed me a business card with his name and lawyerly credentials printed neatly across its plain white surface. I glanced at the screen and took the card, finding through touch that yet again, he appeared to be telling the truth—or at least part of it.
With some difficulty, I resisted the urge to throw both of them back at his smug face. “Your jokes are not funny.”
I returned his phone and tucked the card into the pocket of my shorts. I was meeting the end of my bravado and was starting to feel the now-familiar prickling behind my eyes as the gravity of the situation hit me. This man was here to show me Gran’s end-of-life wishes. Because her life was over.
And yet, no tears came. I didn’t particularly want to have a fit in the middle of the coffee shop, but the fact that I couldn’t, made me feel like a monster.
Frustrated, I hid my face behind my coffee cup and looked away until I could control the flush rising up my neck.
“Ms. Whelan? I do beg your pardon. Truly.”
Lynch’s voice was soft with concern. I looked back up at him, and he reached out, fingertips floating over my bare arm.
“May I?” he asked.
I swallowed. “All—all right.”
It was only for a moment, but concern welled from him. His obvious remorse calmed me immediately. More than that…there was something else in his touch that was soothing and stimulating at the same time.
I stared at his hand on my arm, wondering what it was that I was feeling. Certainly something I’d never Seen before.
He took his hand back almost as quickly. “I apologize. I’ve overstepped. I am a complete and total arse.”
I frowned. Was he talking about the touch or his previous comments? “It’s all right. I’m just a complete wreck right now and pretty much lack any sense of humor.”
“I can only imagine. And I’m not helping, which is actually what I am here to do. No more jokes, I promise. Would you still prefer to talk here?”
“Ah, um, no,” I said, suddenly conscious of my mottled features as Andy glanced over at us with concern. Maybe the spell wasn’t working quite as well as I’d thought. Or maybe it was just wearing off. “We can go back to the house.”
“Can I offer a lift? If I’m not mistaken, the house is a few miles from here, isn’t it?”
Lynch stood after tucking his document securely back into the briefcase and waited. When he caught my suspicious gaze, he rolled his eyes as if he couldn’t help it.
“I saw the address on the documents and looked it up on my phone, planning to find you there after breakfast,” he explained. “It was just luck that you happened in here.”
He fluttered his fingers with another impatient offer. When I accepted them, I immediately felt the cold, stark truth along with another emotion he was working hard to conjure and which was somewhat unfamiliar to him: empathy. He wanted me to know not only that he was who he said he was, but also that he was truly sorry for what had happened. Though he barely knew me, he somehow found himself wanting to assuage confusion and help however he could.
What’s more, he was as confused about the connection between us as I was.
I stood up and released his fingers.
“Thank you,” I said, meaning it. “Let’s go.”