Protector(21)

She broke off then, hands still knotted where they rested on her knee. She didn’t want to look at Maya, see the disapproval on her face. No witch was supposed to deny the gifts that were her birthright, that ran as deeply in her blood as the genetic markers which dictated her hair color or the shape of her nose. No, those with witch blood were supposed to embrace those gifts, no matter what they might be. But Caitlin didn’t want to know the future, especially Maya’s, which was all but written in the weary lines of her face.

Silence then, broken only by the faint ticking of the clock on the mantel. If Alex and his mother were talking where they waited in the kitchen, they must have been speaking in low tones, or were far enough away that their voices couldn’t carry all the way to the living room.

At last Maya said, her own voice soft, “When they came to me and told me I would be the next prima, I didn’t want to believe it. My own mother, she was a strong witch — a curandera, a healer — but nowhere near strong enough to be prima. No, the title came to me from my cousin Luisa, and, like your own prima Angela, I was young when I had to take up that role, for although Luisa was my cousin, she was some thirty years my senior. I didn’t want it. I wanted to live my own life, choose my own man, and not have to take the consort fate decreed should be mine.”

These revelations made Caitlin sit up a little straighter. She had never even stopped to think that perhaps Maya, the redoubtable head of the de la Paz clan, had not wanted to take on that role, because everything Caitlin had heard made it seem as if Maya had been born to it. In that same moment, she also wondered who that consort was, as Caitlin had seen no evidence of a husband here in the house, and neither had she ever heard anyone mention him by name. “But you didn’t say no.”

“Of course not. Just as Angela did not say no when that mantle fell to her. She knew what she had to do and did not shrink from it.”

Although Maya’s tone was mild, Caitlin couldn’t help thinking there was just a hint of disapproval in it. “So I’m a coward.”

“Would a coward have fought back against a warlock such as Matías?” Maya shook her head, then went on, “‘Coward’ is too simple a word to use here, I think. I can understand why you would not want to tell anyone of the gifts that had come to you, for in some ways I think it is even more difficult to be the seer of a clan than to be its prima, or one of its elders. The visions can intrude when you do not wish them to, and everyone, even the prima herself, will be coming to you for advice.”

“So what should I do?” Caitlin asked, and hated herself for the quaver of worry she heard in her voice.

Maya smiled sadly, then reached out to touch Caitlin’s hand. Only briefly, and even that gentle brush felt more like the whisper of a frail, bird-like wing than actual fingers. “You will have to ask yourself whether the lives of your friends are worth revealing your gift to your clan. Because I will tell you, Caitlin McAllister, that this is only the beginning. You cannot hide what you are, or even a part of it. You must embrace it fully. It is your sight that can save them…if you’ll let it. For if you do not, nothing else on earth can save them.”

This was the thing she’d feared all along, that the visions and feelings and vague sensations of foreboding were the only things that might somehow lead her to wherever Danica and Roslyn had been taken. And even then it might be too late, if Matías and his cronies determined that the powers they were summoning needed a greater sacrifice than just a few drops of innocent blood.

“I don’t — I don’t know how to use it,” Caitlin whispered at last. “I’ve spent so many years trying to hide it that now…I guess I’m afraid to even try tapping into it.”

“That’s not surprising,” Maya said, and instead of sounding disapproving, her tone was gentle, if a little sad. “But your gift wants to manifest itself, which is why you’ve had visions, even if you’ve tried to suppress them. All you must do is take down the barriers you’ve built up.”

All. Caitlin thought of the past six years, of how she’d tried to close her mind down whenever those unwanted images began to pop into it. That didn’t always work, of course; instead, her gift had edged its way into her dreams, or the unguarded moments when she was thinking of something else entirely. But it had never abandoned her, and had even tried to protect her, back there at the bar when Matías and Jorge and Tomas approached her and her friends. If only she had trusted in it more.

Seeming to sense her inner turmoil, Maya said, “Let it move through you now. Don’t try to direct it. Think of your gift as a river — it knows where it must flow. Trying to redirect it will only cause harm. And remember — always remember — that your gift is part of you. It is not some alien thing attempting to act on you from outside.”