Page 30 of The Second Sight
“You already do,” he replied. “Though they’re likely undeveloped without proper training. Precognition, seeing events before they happen. Or maybe postcognition, seeing events from the past. Empathic sensitivity, feeling others’ emotions as your own. Aura perception, seeing the energy that surrounds humans and supernatural beings. Some fairies can manipulate the elements.”
A chill ran down my spine as he listed these magical traits. The dreams that sometimes came true. The overwhelming emotions that weren’t mine. The strange sense I sometimes got about people, as if I could see beyond their physical appearance to something deeper. I’d spent years convincing myself I was imagining these things.
“Did Moira’s glasses enhance these things for you?” He asked and was waiting for my response.
“Yeah, I think so, but I had too much to drink at the Fountain of Youth, so I don’t know what visions came from the glasses and what was just the alcohol.
“Your abilities are already inside you, lying dormant. The glasses just jumpstarted the process.”
This was all too much information for me to take in. “I don’t know. I just?—”
“There’s more,” Seven continued. “Yumboe are an endangered species.”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought the Bambara Brotherhood wiped you all out over a hundred years ago.”
A hundred years ago? “If my mother is this... Yumboe fairy, like you claim, she’s only fifty-four years old. There has to be a lot more of these Yumboes. She wasn’t even born a hundred years ago.”
“Fairies don’t age like humans. Your mother could be one, two or three hundred years old.”
“What?” If Black don’t crack, then what the fuck was the fairy version of that.
I said, speaking carefully, “then why did she leave me? Where did she go?”
Seven’s expression grew somber. “When did she disappear?”
“Six years ago.” My fingers twisted in the damp towel still clutched in my lap. “I was fifteen. I came home from school oneday and found a goodbye note. It said she loved us, but it was safer for us if she left.”
“What did your father say?”
“He was devastated. Confused. He called the police, but they didn’t find anything. No unusual bank withdrawals, no suspicious activities. It was like she just... vanished.” I swallowed. “They couldn’t do anything because they said she left voluntarily.”
Seven’s hand moved closer to mine on the bedspread, not quite touching. “And you? What did you believe?”
“I didn’t know what to believe. Me and mama were close. She wouldn’t have just abandoned us without a reason.” The familiar pain of her absence washed over me. “But I had these dreams of a man chasing her right before she disappeared.”
“A man?”
I nodded, unable to speak for a moment. When I found my voice again, the words came in a rush. “Yes, an African man. He was chasing her, and she cut him with this gold knife, like a blade.”
“On his cheek?”
I gasped. How did he know? “Yes.” He said through gritted teeth.
Seven’s face twisted like he was in pain. His body stiffened and he looked down at his hands that had balled into fists. I waited for his posture to loosen before I spoke again.
“When the man was chasing my mother, I felt her fear. She was terrified of him. I saw the blood dripping from his face.”
“In your vision, did she get away from him?”
“Yes, she ran into the trees, like a forest or something.”
“Good.”
“Why is that good?” I asked yearning for all the knowledge he could give me.
“It leads me to believe she’s still alive. I believe she had a vision of her own and that’s why she ran off. She left to protect you and your father from whatever was coming her way. Yumboes are connected. They care deeply for their Fae family. She wouldn’t ever leave you without cause. Community is everything to Fae.”
