Her lips pressed into a white line and the plates in her hands rattled.
"I have visions of the famine. The Great Hunger. Always have." I kept my tone steady and gentle to keep her from becoming too upset. "They're just getting…" I hesitated, filtering the word ‘worse’ out, "…more real now."
I looked down at my wringing hands to avoid the truth in all of their eyes. They must have thought I was nuts.
Gram dropped the plates onto the table with a crash, making everyone flinch.
"What'cha mean, more real? What am I supposed ta think of that?" Her voice rose three octaves.
Michelle and Declan squirmed in their seats, speechless.
Gram continued, "I won't sit around and watch yer life fall apart like this, Isobel. Yer vulnerable. Fragile. It’s time I do something about it. Once and for all." She paced from the kitchen to the dining room and back again.
My chin pulled in and I grabbed onto the rising angst in my gut. The one that said "fight," not "flight."
"I am not fragile!" I shouted in defense at her low blow.
But she was right. I was weak. I was frightened.
I took another breath. "I’ll figure this out. I don’t need your help. I can do this by myself."
"Oh," Gram interrupted. "Like yer friend, Maeve?"
The words punched me in the gut. She'd never spoken her name before and her tone was like a slap to my face.
Declan stood in an instant.
"Stop, Gram." His voice left no margin for challenge. “Not another word.”
Gram's face fell, like she knew she had gone too far. But it hardened again in a tight grimace as she looked back at me.
"I won't have ya go missin', Isobel. I wouldn't be able to live with m’self." Her voice cracked and she spun to hide her face. Her trembling shoulders betrayed her though. She was crying.
I looked to Declan and Michelle for help but they both held deep worry in their eyes too. It was their sympathy, oozing out all over me, that pissed me off though. My hands lifted to my face and rubbed it in exasperation.
Gram turned back to me before I'd realized she’d stopped crying. Now her face flushed crimson with determination and focus.
"Yer comin' with me. Now." She turned down the hall and opened the closet. In a blink, she had her coat on and her purse slung over her shoulder. She dug through the bag with impatience. "Where are me keys?"
I reached for my pocket and felt them there. I turned my gaze from her for fear of her reading my mind.
Too late.
She stood next to me, tapping her foot, extending her hand to me.
I dropped the keys into her palm.
“Up," she commanded. "We’re going."
My mind scrambled through escape plans as I pictured pulling into the Emergency parking lot of the hospital and jumping out of the car, running. Gram couldn't catch me. I had that in my favor.
But where would I go?
My head shook in defeat as my eyes dropped to my lap. After leaving Declan and Michelle back at the house, Gram drove me without speaking a word. But she didn’t need to say anything. I knew exactly what was going through her mind and it had everything to do with her granddaughter being unruly and out of control.
As we pulled out onto the coast road, my body anticipated the left swing of the roundabout, toward the hospital, but my body knocked in the opposite direction as Gram turned right, toward the Spiddal road.
I strained to see the oncoming road signs in case Gram planned on taking a different way.
"Where are we going?" My tone rose with my anxiety.
She glanced at me quickly, then returned her gaze to the road.
"Ta see Mother Maureen," she stated. Her flat tone hinted at her uncertainty with the decision.
Mother Maureen?
Gram had spoken of her before in what seemed more like bedtime stories or fairy tales. She described her as a mystic, for special effect and added intrigue, I always thought. But she was also a dear friend to Gram. She was actually Gram's longest-known friend, whom she’d met in the early years of school and kept in touch with since then.
Strangely enough, though, I'd never met Maureen. Gram had somehow dodged any overlap between us for all these years. I picked at my cuticles, thinking maybe Gram was trying to keep me a secret.
My shoulders relaxed from their high, defensive perch at my ears as I absorbed the fact that I wasn't being admitted to the psych ward. Instead, I gazed forward at the open road that travelled along the jagged coast of the wild Atlantic and considered what Gram thought Maureen might be able to do to help.
One thing for sure though, I was not going to say a word to her. Gram was out of her mind if she thought I was going to discuss this situation over tea with an old biddy friend of hers. My eyes nearly rolled into the back of my head at the thought of it.
If I played it right, I’d convince them both that I was just having weird dreams. I’d change my diet. Drink less coffee. Attend school on a regular basis. All the crap they’d want to hear. Then I could get home and think about what really mattered. My visions, and figuring out why they’d changed.
I chewed on my lip with impatience as we entered the quaint village of Spiddal, passing a couple pubs nestled in between small shops and brightly painted store fronts. Gram turned down a narrow, hidden road toward the coast. The car bumped and jerked along the uneven lane with only two lines of dirt for the tires and a row of lush grass running down the middle.
In the thick overgrowth of brambles and nettles, a stone wall emerged, surrounding a humble cottage within its private confine. Smoke plumed in swirls out of the chimney that rose from the thatched roof, sending the scent of burning sod through the briny air.
Gram pulled the car to the side of the country road into a grassy patch by the wall. Before we could even get out of the car, the front door of the cottage flew open, spilling welcoming light out into the misty gray day.
Maureen was at the car in a flash, greeting Gram with hugs and welcomes that stretched for miles. I crept out my side, hoping to go unnoticed for as long as possible.
Which was all of about two seconds.
"My stars, Eileen, how she's grown. Barely just eighteen." She spoke like I wasn't even there. "Such a beauty, Loov, sure I can't take me eyes off her."
She walked to me and reached for my face, like she knew me. Her warm eyes settled my rising angst and I allowed her touch.
"Deary, I've known you yer entire life and I've waited fer this day each an' every moment of it." She spoke to the depths of my soul with her heavy, country dialect, and I let her in without guard. "Come. Inside. Let's get ta know one another, shall we?"
She led me up the path to the cottage as Gram followed. Gram's eyes shone relief through their relaxed lids as if she believed she made the right choice bringing me here.
Entering the cottage, Maureen turned to me and said, "You're very welcome here, Isobel." She led me through the warm, open space of the cottage to the table by the fire. The kettle was boiled and she placed a pot of tea next to the small milk jug and sat across from me. She glanced at Gram while filling my cup and then leaned in toward me, gazing into my eyes.
"They call me Mother Maureen. I'm a seer. I've the gift of second sight. And Eileen here, your Gran, she tells me you might have the same."
The hairs on my arms stood up.
There was a name for it.
Second sight.
I was a seer.
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Urban Mystic Academy: Graduation (A Supernatural Academy Series Book 6) Page 15
