How do I summon The Gift? Is it on demand, or will it just appear? What do I have to do? I need you now to help me interpret my mind map.
Since her visions in Laos and then her epiphany in Siem Reap, Cait was still all fingers and thumbs when it came to how to assimilate the Otherworld into her once-ordered and structured life. It was still a mystery to her, and the logic of it made no sense. The only way she could rationalize current events was that it felt like falling in love again.
I feel like I’m floating in a world of raw emotions, she told herself.
Cait was in a perpetual state of flux, both excited and nervous at the same time. Her previous cogent, familiar life was still there front and center, constantly dragging at her subconscious, still defining the boundaries of her very existence, her perceptions and her expectations, telling her what was possible and what was pure fantasy, but now she also found herself with an expanded view of the world around her. Like coming to grips with a newfound partner in her life, Cait had no real idea where this magical union would end up. All she knew was that she was riding on an experiential roller coaster that was about to take her on one hell of a ride.
Cait glanced back down at her mind map with a renewed sense of purpose and the logic of it started to fall into place, not the connections that she had previously drawn between all the players in the game. The rules had changed, and this was past history. Instead, she was looking at the events depicted in front of her more as a war game than as, “Oh woe is me, I’ve been wronged.” As far as she was concerned there were now new ground rules.
As Cait continued to drift she sensed a subtle warmth envelop her, as soft as the breeze from the waft of a gull’s wing on a warm summer’s day.
Relax, a siren song seemed to be calling to her from an unseen place. Listen to your heart, Cait, a whisper drifted past, golden words momentarily hanging in the air, then slowly fading like a gentle ebbing tide. The answer is in the question. Ask and you shall find.
Cait blinked and the siren songs had gone, but she knew what she had to do: she had to find the question.
How can I right the wrong?
The answer was a conundrum. Cait knew she’d been wronged, but looking at the problem through fresh eyes, what was the correct answer?
How should I proceed from here?
As if a switch had been flicked on inside her brain, in a light-bulb moment Cait instinctively knew the way forward with a clarity of purpose that was nonexistent three weeks ago.
I have to see this through to make sure that those bastards are brought to justice. But there’s something even more meaningful than justice here.
There’s revenge. And big-time. I’m going to make those bastards suffer, just as I suffered . . .
Cait was on fire, and with The Gift now in her corner, she wanted retribution. No more laying back, feeling sorry for herself. The time had come to act. Cait innately knew that no matter how dangerous the Warlocks were—how fearsome they may be—she now had the power and insight of the Otherworld on her side. The blood of hundreds of generations of shamans running through her veins, holding her hand, guiding her, and protecting her made a powerful army for her to draw upon, and she was determined to win this battle.
“I won’t let this die a slow death. I’ll avenge Rishi and make the bastards pay for my kidnapping if it’s the last thing I do,” Cait said out loud in a defiant voice.
Cait was done for now with her mind map. Standing up, she stretched her arms upward and arched her stiff back then strolled over to the window to gaze lazily outside at a flock of sulphur-crested cockatoos noisily fly by with a loud screeching sound that had caught her attention. As she stared vacantly out the window, Jools’s prophetic words to her in Siem Reap came to mind: “The Gift’s chosen you, Cait. There’s no going back now.”
The stillness of her mind focused on the realization that she had arrived at the crossroads and it was decision time; that this was a tipping point where she could either languish in the past, or capitalize on the present and move on.
If I go with the Otherworld, from this point forward my life will never be the same again, she silently thought to herself.
“Mum, I’ve thought about the words you told me on the phone when we talked in Siem Reap last week. You know, about The Gift being an integral part of my life now.” Cait was sitting at the dinner table with Jools, G, and Dec, and they were having a family conversation about the case, lamenting that there seemed to be no tangible progress.
“Well, I’m trying to come to grips with it all and yep, I now see what you mean. It’s there twenty-four seven, knocking on my door, saying ‘let me in, let me in.’ It’s impossible to just ignore it anymore.”
Jools looked at Cait across the table and saw a spark in her that had been missing for months. She was engaged and intense once again, like the Cait of old, but she now also had a level maturity and determination about her that was all new.
“Cait, the journey you have to take now is yours, and yours alone. How The Gift manifests for you will play out over time. You may become a healer, a visionary, a telepath, or a Shapeshifter, who knows? That’s your path to tread.” Jools was aware that G and Dec were intently listening in, so she had to choose her words carefully.
“You’re now becoming aware that there’s not only a normal, but also a paranormal side to everything around us. You have to create a new world for yourself where these two opposites are assimilated into a single view of reality.”
Jools paused and Dec chipped in, “Is that how Cait knew about the bus crash before it happened? That was weird.” Before Cait’s visions in Laos, Dec would have had no hesitation in stating this was all garbage. But now he was a believer on his own journey of self-discovery, and keen to know more.
“I think what your mum’s saying is that there’s a battle of the hemispheres raging in Cait’s brain happening at present.” G took up the slack and filled the void. “Actually, if you think about it, in all our brains. You know, the rational versus the irrational, the logical left side of the brain versus the more emotional right side.”
“Eh?” said Dec. “Speak English please.”
“Dec, the doubting side of Cait’s past normal life now has to be tamed, cajoled, and reprogrammed,” said Jools, as she looked over at G with a “stop interrupting and let me finish” look. “She’s got new ground rules to go by.”
“Ah, like hello, I’m right here,” said Cait, a bit peeved that everyone was talking around her instead of to her. “And I’m not some kind of superfreak, if that’s what you mean. I’m still me, and I’ll be fine.”
“Yeah Cait, sorry about that,” said G apologetically. He looked at his daughter and saw tomorrow, the future, and in his eyes, it was all good.
“Okay, as you’re my family and none of you seem to really know what’s going on inside my head, I’ll enlighten you,” replied Cait with a slight sarcastic intonation to her voice.
“The Gift is certainly there. I know it, I can feel it, sense it. I can’t control it, as it comes and goes, but we’ll see. And I’m still having visions of my kidnapping and that horrible Boss-man, but they’re not frightening now. They’re a bit like an interactive movie, sort of.”
Jools, G, and Dec were transfixed, amazed.
How can this girl—our daughter—go from an emotional wreck to this, all in the space of three weeks? thought G and Jools simultaneously. This is one hell of a transformation.
“I actually had a vision last night if you really want to know. It was so vivid that it woke me. Remember how the visions were more like horrible nightmares and I always used to say that that snake was trying to attack me? Well, last night Rishi and I were riding side by side on the cobra’s back, but the difference was that I was the master, the tamer of the beast. Like in Game of Thrones where Daenerys Targaryen rode her dragons, well guess what, we were riding the cobra.”
Dec looked at Cait in awe: What the . . .?
Jools knew instinctively that The Gift
had accepted Cait: Yes, she’s the one. The prodigy that my mother told me I’d have one day.
G couldn’t hold back a beaming smile: I’m so proud of you, Cait. You’re bound for greatness.
“Cait, it strikes me that your visions are a bit like ideas—they’re nothing but mental toys, something to play with until you do something with them,” said G to his daughter, sensing that she had the answer.
“So where does that lead us? Where to from here?”
“Dad, I was studying my mind map for the millionth time today and it suddenly hit me with a blinding flash of the obvious—we have to find Frog. I told you about him. He’s the one who smoked those funny clove cigarettes. By the way, I know what they are now. Dec and I met a backpacker in the hostel in Pakse and he smoked them. They’re Indonesian cigarettes called Gudang Garams.”
“Yeah, I remember you telling me that in Laos,” said Dec. “But I didn’t take any notice of it.”
“Well he’s the one who grabbed me in the street and bound me up, then broke my ribs when he kicked me.” Cait was now speaking purposefully, with an air of authority that commanded attention, almost like a warrant officer ordering his troops.
Cait let her last sentence hang in midair while she gathered her thoughts.
“Dad, Mum, Frog’s the missing link. Don’t ask me how, but I just know it. We’ve got to find him, and he’ll lead us to that bastard Boss-man. I saw it last night when Rishi and I were riding the cobra.”
Irish was on his second Jameson for the afternoon. He’d had an unsettling few hours before Cait was due to arrive at his apartment as flashes of his murdered daughter freed themselves from the deep recesses of his hidden memory banks, adding to the pain and anguish of his normal daily life. For some reason Cait’s case had touched a raw nerve and was torturing him, forcing him to take action. It was as if his own daughter—or was it some other power that he couldn’t fathom?—was pushing him toward Cait’s case.
She needs your help, it seemed to be whispering, imploring him—telling him—to help out.
Cait knocked on Irish’s front door, totally cognizant in her head what would confront her: A kitchen to the right with dirty dishes piled up in the sink; the smell of two-day-old food clinging to the stuffy air; food stains on the carpet; remnants of breakfast still on the coffee table; an angst-ridden, gray-haired sixty-two-year-old man sitting on a worn three-seater leather couch, whiskey glass in hand, clinking his ice cubes. It was exactly as she had seen in her mental vision on her way to Irish’s place.
“Hang on, give me time to get up,” yelled Irish grumpily as he pushed off the couch with a grunt, easing himself out from the indentation where fifteen years of his backside sitting there had formed a hole that he disappeared into when he sat down.
God I hate getting old. Got more aches and pains than a broken-down boxer, he thought to himself as he half limped to his front door to let Cait in.
Cait in her newfound straightforward and confident manner took over immediately and held out her hand. “G’day, Irish. I’m Cait. Dad’s told me all about you.”
“So you’re the wee bairn that was kidnapped,” replied Irish, enveloping Cait’s outstretched hand in his own huge paw, noticing her firm handshake with a smile.
I like that in a woman—shows confidence.
Before Irish could invite Cait inside she was already in the middle of his living area, moving toward the couch to sit down.
“Well, you going to stand there all day letting the cold air in, or are we going to have a chat?” said Cait with a sassy, almost mocking tone.
Even better. We’ll get on, to be sure.
“You like anything? Glass of water, cup of tea?”
“Nup, I’m fine. Let’s just get straight down to business.”
Certainly is forthright if nothing else, I’ll give her that. She’d make a good copper with a give-me-no-crap attitude like that.
“So tell me, Caitie, how we’re going to crack this case and find the leader of the pack? This so-called Boss-man.” Irish dispensed with further pleasantries and got straight down to business as she’d suggested, and he was currently playing good cop to get her onside while he sussed her out. Not that he needed much more convincing.
This girl and me are going to get along real fine.
“It’s Cait, not Caitie.” She was a bit put out at Irish’s use of the more familiar term. Only G was allowed to call her Caitie. It was like his nickname for her.
“Well Caitie, I’m Irish, and all the Caits in my life have been Caitie, so I can’t change now, can I? I’m too old to learn new tricks.”
Cait was a bit taken aback by Irish’s bluntness and apparent lack of sensitivity, but well, if that’s what it took to get him onside, then so be it. Kylie had warned her about his take-no-prisoners attitude.
“G told me you’ve a few theories yourself.”
“Well, to find Boss-man we have to find Frog. I know it.” Cait wasn’t about to embellish the facts with her visions, so she let sleeping dogs lie on that one. She sensed that Irish was a strict “show me the money” sort of guy and wouldn’t take kindly to her paranormal experiences.
“And how would you be knowing that?”
“I figured it out by joining the dots on my mind map. Making connections. Then when Dad, Kylie, and I talked about it, it all fell into place.”
“G told me about your mind map. Said it’s a work of art, to be sure.” Irish was goading Cait to see if he could get a rise out of her. Kylie had filled him in on Cait’s supposed powers of insight and her visions, and even though her case may have been like a gnawing addiction to him, Irish wasn’t about to get involved with a girl who was flaky and into alternative, third eye stuff. That was for morons. Cait’s case was simply too close to his own daughter’s abduction and murder for comfort, and the raw memories that it invoked had to be worth the pain of reliving the past.
“Tell me more, now.” Irish’s face lit up with interest. She’d ticked all the right boxes so far.
“I brought along a few things that I think will help out.” Cait delved into her large shoulder bag and pulled out an 11” x 17” envelope that was stuffed with papers. “I’m not quite sure how, but Kylie says that you like to work, like, behind the scenes and dig up facts and information that everyone somehow seems to miss.”
Cait made a space on the coffee table by pushing aside a half-filled mug of cold tea and a dirty plate that still had remnants of what she presumed was this morning’s breakfast. Then she brushed a few crumbs onto the floor, and placed the envelope on the reclaimed bit of real estate that she managed to scavenge among the clutter.
“So what we got here, Caitie?” said Irish, dragging himself forward out of the indentation in the couch that had sucked him in, grunted, then, picking up the envelope, tore open the top flap and proceeded to examine the contents: the identikit mock-up of the two perps that one of Sorenson’s cops had drawn up; a slightly grainy blowup of Steve’s photo of Tangles’s cobra tattoo that was the same tattoo attached to the arm Cait claimed had been hanging out of the car window just before she was kidnapped; three of Macillicuddy’s newspaper articles that he had written about the incident and about Cait herself; a large wad of typed notes complete with colored highlighting and bullet lists that Cait had written and printed out, basically summarizing her mind map.
Cait leaned back on the couch and patiently watched as Irish pored over the contents of the envelope, trying to get inside his head to work out what he was thinking, but without much success.
Must be all the Jameson, she thought. Pickled his brain. I can’t seem to crack him open.
But when Irish’s expression changed from skeptical “what is all this crap” and he straightened up, leaning forward as he did so, she knew he was onside. She noticed Irish push his glasses up his nose and saw him about to speak, but instead he just opened his mouth then snapped it shut again, like a fish gasping for air. He grunted and continued flipping through the pages, sometimes m
oving forward, other times referring back to something that had previously caught his attention.
“Okay Caitie, leave it to me. I know just where to start on this. I’ll speak to you in a few days.” Irish pushed the papers to one side and flopped back into his hole in the couch, grunted again, and flashed her a cheeky smile that ended up in a jowl-shaking laugh.
“We’ll get them, Caitie. These dumbarses always make mistakes and I’ll be there when they do. But first we’ve got to find the bleedin’ idiots. And I think I may be able to help out there.”
As Irish flicked through Macillicuddy’s articles trying to get a full picture of Cait in his head and work out the best way forward, an idea was germinating in his head, but he just couldn’t quite nail it. Yet. He picked up Steve’s pictures of the cobra tattoo, staring long and hard at the serpent, then back to the identikit sketch, searching for something, anything, looking for clues. Picking up Cait’s bulleted list for the umpteenth time, the name “Warlocks” unexpectedly jumped off the page at him, igniting his thoughts.
Yes, that’s it! Irish realized in a light-bulb moment. I remember having a wee chat over a few whiskeys a few months ago with the boys in blue at our poker night and they mentioned something about some arsehole from the Warlocks being released from jail way too early for their comfort.
“I’ll bet my last shilling there’s a connection here, that’s for sure,” said Irish, verbalizing his thoughts as he slammed Cait’s list back onto the coffee table with a thump, a satisfied smile crossing his lips.
Irish sprung off the couch with the ease of a twenty-year-old and grabbed the Jameson.
“It’s time for a wee snifter,” he said to the bottle, pouring himself an oversize shot. “To be sure, we’re onto something here, or my name’s not Seamus O’Shannessey.”
“Kylie, looks like I got a match.” Irish was reporting in with his findings. “I’ve got a name and a photo of this Boss-man character. But I need Caitie to confirm, just to be one hundred percent sure.”
The Cait Lennox Box Set Page 41
