40. Caitlin
40
CAITLIN
When I am among my elders
I am proof that sport is forbidden.
— ANONYMOUS EIGHTH-CENTURY POET, “MOLING SANG THIS”
T he kitchen, with its scents of fresh herbs and newly baked bread, wasn’t large enough for even two people to sit in comfortably. So, at Caitlin’s invitation, I wandered through the rest of the house while she made tea.
The rest of the cottage had the same timeworn charm as the outside. A nickel-gray stone floor, shining with age and wear, extended down a short corridor to a pair of French doors looking out to a view of the sea at the back of the house. Three doors spilled into a sitting room, a dining room, and a cluttered office off the hallway, while a fourth led to a staircase winding up to a set of bedrooms, I presumed.
I settled in the sitting room, drawn by a pair of oversized armchairs covered in rose sprigs facing a well-used sofa, all situated around a fire of rowan and juniper in a stone hearth, which was likely the primary source But something else was clear. Caitlin Connolly didn’t like gloves, but she cleansed her home like every other seer I’d ever known. The familiarity of the procedure was a comfort.
I sank into one of the armchairs as Caitlin entered with a tray of biscuits, milk, sugar, and a pot of strong black tea, which she set on an oak table between the chairs. She poured the milk into the cup first, followed by the tea, which whirled around until it was the color of rich toffee. Sipping on the brew, I immediately began to relax.
“That’s it, just let it go,” Caitlin said as she took her own seat.
We sipped in silence, allowing the crackle of the fire to converse for us until some of the tension that had been in my shoulders all morning gradually slipped away.
“Thank you,” I said when my cup was half empty. “I needed a few moments.”
“I didn’t have to be a seer to know that. You’ll have had a hard enough day or two without me pestering you. The goddess knows I love Jonny, but the eejit’s a ball of nerves when it comes to dealing with people. Can’t seem to say more than two words without acting like a muppet.”
I smiled, suddenly imagining Jonathan as a character on Sesame Street, wagging his chin at me the night before. I took another sip of tea, which was deliciously strong and sweet.
“Did you know him as a boy?” I wondered.
Caitlin raised a brow. “Oh, sure, didn’t he tell you? Robbie took him in just after his mam died. Caleb Lynch sent him to the Brigantian years too early—that’s the school for sorcerers where Robbie teaches. Jonny was a scrawny thing, skin and bones, that Rob found him trying to conjure up an apple from the orchard when he thought no one was looking. Didn’t speak hardly a word of English, and the older boys at the school teased him something terrible and stole his lunch. Rob had to explain to him that it’s no good asking the leaves to turn into apples, for they’ll just turn back to leaves the moment you forget about them and give a terrible stomachache.”
I was partly enchanted, partly saddened by the thought of Jonathan as a small, foreign boy looking for magic in an apple tree. I imagined him a striking child—fair and wiry, with graceful coordination far beyond a plain eleven-year-old and bright green eyes that never stopped watching.
“Why did you take him in?” I asked. “His father was overseeing him at that point, wasn’t he?”
Caitlin snorted and shook her head. “Caleb Lynch only ever saw to Jonathan so far as his pounds had spectacles. Jonny never met him a day in his life before he finished at the Brigantian, and even then it was just for a moment. ’Twas Robbie who was first sent to fetch him from Italy, you see, and though Jonny was paid through to stay at the school year-round until he was eighteen, Robbie just couldn’t stand to leave him there through the holidays, a little boy all by himself. Heartless devil, is Caleb Lynch.”
I wholeheartedly agreed. While both of us stewed on the dirty deeds of Jonathan’s father, the room’s energy seemed to darken noticeably.
“Jonny told us what happened last February,” Caitlin interrupted my thoughts as she set down her cup and began to refill it, going through the same routine as before. Milk, tea, sugar, stirring in a practiced clockwise motion with a small silver spoon.
“Did he? What all did he tell you?”
She sat there a moment and offered a meaningful look. When I didn’t answer, her thin brows lifted. “You’re no shield, since I can See your confusion clear as day,” she pronounced. “But I won’t probe, so tell me what’s the matter?”
I gulped more tea and set my cup on the small table just off my elbow. Normally, I convinced myself that it didn’t matter what other fae thought of me—I was what I was, and there was no changing that. But for some reason, I didn’t want to see pity reflected in Caitlin Connolly’s sharp gray eyes. I wasn’t quite ready to lose her good opinion before I’d had the chance to earn it.
“Why would I pity you?”
I frowned. “I thought you said you won’t probe.”
“You’re not giving me much of a choice, silent as you are.”
I sighed. There wasn’t any getting around it. “Why don’t you remember again what Jonathan said to you? And I’ll tell you if there is anything missing.”
She nodded, then watched curiously as I reached across the table and placed my fingertips on her forearm, bracing myself for the potential onslaught.
It wasn’t bad. I was no shield, but Caitlin had some skill. She allowed for some surprise, then quickly focused her thoughts on a linear recap of the conversation she’d had with Jonathan a few months earlier when he’d called from Rome.
He had told them everything. Of Gran’s murder, the will, the letter, Caleb Lynch’s attack. I did my best to ignore the sharp edges of Caitlin’s thoughts about my mother and Penny’s decision, the fire, and the subsequent events with Caleb Lynch. When she was finished, I took back my hand and offered my recollections of our visit to Sybil and her knowledge of Penny’s death.
I purposefully kept my mind away from the memories of that failed kiss by the fireplace and the more recent ones at the hotel. I didn’t know if I would be successful in protecting those memories from another seer, but at least I could focus on what was important.
The invasion of her thoughts and feelings had thankfully been minimal. And there would be no rehashing of the events if Caitlin and Robbie already knew what was at stake.
“Oh, you’ll have to revisit them,” Caitlin said, settling back into her seat. “If we’re to face the Council or Caleb bloody Lynch, you’ll need to remember every little thing about it.”
“I won’t necessarily have to see him again,” I replied, though a sinking feeling in my gut let me know that was categorically incorrect.
If Caleb Lynch ever discovered that I had Gran’s Secret, another confrontation was inevitable.
I still wasn’t ready to contemplate that fight.
“If I’m to be your teacher, you’ll be getting no pity from me,” Caitlin said. “You’ll be ready when I say you are.”
I wanted to argue but found I couldn’t.
“So. What kind of training have you had? Did you apprentice with Penny, or was it someone else in Boston?”
I took a deep drink of tea, my tongue suddenly thick in the back of my throat. This is silly, I thought. I was no stranger to asking for help. How many times had I waited outside my professors’ office doors, stuttered questions after a lecture, or listened as they tore my research apart? A tiny fae housewife shouldn’t pose any threat after Professor James.
Caitlin nodded as if she had just heard my entire thought process. Which, I realized, she had . She nodded as if to confirm my assumption.
Just say it, I told myself. S he’s waiting for you to say it out loud.
“Sure, and I am,” she confirmed.
“I’ve had none,” I admitted finally.
That, she wasn’t expecting. “ None ?”
I couldn’t meet that clear-eyed gaze. “Is that so strange?”
“To not have a summer as an apprentice so close to your manifestation?” She shook her head with disbelief. “Sure, you could say it’s strange.”
In fact, I already knew this. Seers were loners and usually apprenticed with a family member or close friend. Reina had actually apprenticed with Gran during the summers when I left for grad school, but Gran had refused to teach me until I came home for good.
Or was it me who had refused?
I couldn’t tell anymore.
Caitlin gulped down her tea like it was something much stronger. “I just can’t believe…what in Brigid’s name was Penny thinking?”
“Whatever she did, it was obviously for a reason,” I said sharply, if only to defend Gran since she couldn’t defend herself.“But the reality is that I can’t afford to stay in the dark anymore, and I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“Yes, I see that,” Caitlin said dryly.
My frustration only grew. “For some reason, Gran taught me nothing, but she thought it was a good idea to pass on her responsibilities with this Magi Council. Now, according to Jonathan, I need to get up to speed so that I can present myself to them as her heir in order to head off persecution, seek justice for her murder, and figure out how best to protect her…well, whatever is in that box, or what it might lead to.”
I glanced toward the hall, where my things were currently piled and the box was buried in one of my duffels. Caitlin just watched the fire.
“It’s her Secret,” I said. “It’s what he wanted, I know it. But I can’t even open it. Last time I tried, I thought it might kill me.” I held out my hand again despite the fact that she didn’t need it. I needed to See her reactions to it. It only seemed fair. “I’ll show you.”
But Caitlin shook her head. “I think that perhaps we should leave…it…alone for the time being. If Penny meant for you to open it immediately, you would have.”
She talked about the box like a ghost whose name she was hesitant to speak, lest it appear before us. I understood why. Just talking about the box seemed to make the vertigo return—the spinning that had threatened to swallow me whole the last time I touched it.
“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 you can do, 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. What can you 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 and everything 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. Caitlin waved, 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.”
“Only because of what you’ve brought with you,” was her playful retort. “Now then, Cassie, let’s see what you can do, eh? Rob’s got no secrets, unlike the wee kitty over there.”
Jonathan rolled his eyes at the remark, but he perked up as I placed a hand on Robbie’s shoulder. Immediately, his thoughts started to flow.
“What do you See, then?” Caitlin asked. “Just let it come natural, and try to narrate it as you go. I can See your conscious thoughts, but not what you feel.”
I closed my eyes, so as not to be distracted by the three pairs of eyes focused squarely on me.
“Right now he’s just wondering what I’m going to be able to do. He’s curious about whether or not I’ve inherited any of Penny’s abilities, and what I might have gotten from Ciarán…whom, judging from that flare of irritation, you weren’t too fond of, Rob. And that makes you uneasy, for some reason, that I could sense that, which is why you’re looking at me with those crazy wizard eyes. Surprise now, with the ‘What the bleedin’ hell is she doing?’ Shock that I can See what you See, feel your power—” I pulled my hand away and opened my eyes. “I’m sorry, Robbie. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
He didn’t respond, just looked at his wife. The knitting needles had stopped, and Caitlin was watching me closely.
Jonathan sat up. “What is it, Cait?”
“Robbie,” she started, oddly casual in her tone, though she didn’t move her gaze from me. “Tell me, were you searching her? Looking at her energy?”
“Yes.” His smooth tenor was oddly hoarse. “I was. And she could—she could See it all.” He offered a kind, nervous smile, which I couldn’t help but return.
“And you, Jon?” she asked. “Have you had that same experience?”
“Yes. The times we’ve had, ah, contact. She can See what I do, but much more than my literal thoughts. If I look as a sorcerer, she Sees that too. Though I don’t know what she would do if I cast any real spells while she was touching me.”
“But I’m a seer.” I looked between all three of them for answers they didn’t seem to have. “That’s what we do, See what’s in others’ minds. Emotions and thoughts and everything else. Right?”
“I’d say it’s a bit more than that,” Caitlin said slowly. “Magic is in the heart, Cassandra, not just the mind. And it seems you know that. You can feel their abilities. Their power.”
“But…isn’t that normal?” My worst fears loomed. Not only was I dysfunctional in that I had to touch something to See, but now it looked like I Saw far more than I was supposed to.
“No. It’s not.” She reached out a kind hand as if to tap me on the knee, but politely refrained from doing so. I was obviously in no condition to be touched. “But it is extraordinary. To think I’d ever see this…” She trailed off, her expression having morphed from concern to one of pure wonder.
“Caitlin, what is it?” Jonathan repeated. “What is she?”
“Well, at least we know now why Penny didn’t teach you a damned thing,” she mused as she went back to her knitting.“She couldn’t have done so, or else you may have lost your powers completely had they no time to grow. Don’t you see it, Robbie?”
“See what, Cait?” Robbie asked gently.
Caitlin’s eyes shone like newly polished silver. “The girl is an oracle.”