“I came to see you, of course.”
Echo glanced around her. True, the fog was thick but...where had the child come from? “How did you know I would be here?”
“I just know things,” Cassidy said in a matter-of-fact voice, and then she dipped her chin and looked up at Echo with eyes too old for one so young. “So do you, sometimes.”
If Cassidy was a hallucination, she wouldn’t feel solid to the touch. Echo took a step toward the girl, intent on placing a hand on her shoulder. Just to be sure. Girl? Ghost? Pure imagination?
Cassidy smiled and took a step back. “He likes you. He likes you a lot.”
“Who likes me?”
The little girl giggled, and then said, “You know who.”
“I don’t...” Echo began. She was almost close enough to touch the child. Almost there. She reached out, slowly, so as not to alarm the kid. Up close Cassidy looked real. She appeared to be solid.
Just as before, Cassidy disappeared without warning. Poof. Gone.
“Dammit!” Echo stomped her foot on the lush, green grass. Then she turned and looked toward the fairy fort. She’d always put fairies in the same classification as the Easter Bunny. Pure fantasy. But there was definitely something odd going on here. Was it possible...?
She shook her head and turned away. No. She would not go there! She’d seen a lot of inexplicable things in her life; she knew magic existed. Magic those who were not a part of her world would dismiss without a second thought. Ghosts, premonitions, elements that could be manipulated with a wave of the hand. Again, she looked toward the mound. She drew the line at fairies. And leprechauns.
At that moment a gentle breeze kicked up. Tall grass around the fairy fort danced as the wind whistled around what was left of the castle.
“No way.” Echo turned and headed back toward town. She had a long walk ahead of her, a long walk in which she’d have time to think, and to talk herself out of what she’d seen and heard. A nap, that’s what she needed. A nice long nap.
Strange or not, this was a beautiful place. An enchanted land. She’d never seen grass so green or fog so thick. She’d never seen a child—or an adult, for that matter—appear and disappear at will.
As the village ahead came into view, Echo wished she’d had time to ask Cassidy again, “Who likes me?”
* * *
It rained for three days straight. Echo couldn’t help but wonder if it was her fault. Her mood was definitely gloomy, and if Duncan was right and she’d discovered a new unwanted power in Cloughban...great. Just what she didn’t need. She wanted to dampen—or even better, get rid of—the powers she possessed, not pick up another one she didn’t know how to control.
The weather was so persistently wet she braved her way to Brigid’s shop and bought a dark green raincoat and matching waterproof boots. While the shop owner didn’t refuse to sell merchandise to her, she also wasn’t the friendly, welcoming woman she’d been before Echo had spoken her name.
She wanted to ask the woman straight out what had happened. Why the change in attitude? But as curious as she was, she didn’t see the point. Brigid didn’t like Echo. Her friends didn’t, either. If she was going to stay here maybe she’d feel compelled to find out what had happened and try to address the issue. But she was temporary here, and it didn’t matter.
The rain didn’t keep customers out of Duncan’s pub. With raincoats and galoshes and umbrellas, they came. Sometimes they came for the beer—and the cider, which Echo much preferred. They gathered to talk, to share stories of their lives.
Sometimes they came to hear her sing.
Her sets were short, the crowds were small. But she sang, and the music soothed her in a way nothing else could. She sang love songs and sad songs, a little country, a little folk, a little new-age stuff. Normally Echo loved to channel Joan Jett, but not without a band behind her. So she settled for the softer stuff.
It was that softer side that was getting a little fixated on Ryder Duncan. Rye, most of his friends and customers called him. It was more than his good looks that made him interesting. He had secrets, probably lots of them. Men like him always did. Why no girlfriend? Every single woman in town flirted with him, some more outrageously than others. A few of the married women were just as bold. He kept his distance from them all. He smiled politely; he was never rude—to anyone but her, at least—but there was always a part of himself that he held back.
When she looked hard enough she could almost see the shield he’d built around himself, the shield that kept all those women at a distance. Not just the women, she realized as she watched him speak to a young man who was seated at the bar. His energy was contained, separate, as if he lived in another world and simply observed this one. Why?
Had his heart been broken so badly he didn’t dare to love again? Did he have a heart at all?
She needed to stop thinking about Ryder Duncan as anything other than a teacher. For the past several rainy days he had been trying to instruct her in the quiet afternoons when they had the pub to themselves for a couple of hours. He worked with her on learning how to recognize when a vision was coming and how to control it. He insisted that she master the ability instead of allowing it to master her. That sounded good, in theory.
For three days of rain and moping and daydreaming about a slightly surly pub owner, there had been no episodes. There had been no opportunity to practice what she was trying to learn.
Control.
It would help if she actually thought control was possible.
Gideon controlled his abilities, to a certain extent. So did Dante. If not, they’d live in the midst of complete chaos. Their abilities were potentially dangerous. Dante and his fire, Gideon and his lightning. She could not imagine what their lives would be like if their abilities ruled them, rather than the other way around.