Caitlin

::Chapter 7::

It had been a few days before I ventured back to the wooded island. I felt that I needed time to think about everything. Every night since my vision, I’d been having that dream, only now, I remembered it throughout the day, whereas before I would usually forget it before I had even gotten out of bed. But that wasn’t the only thing I had needed to think about.

I had kissed Lucas. Not just kissed, we made out. I had to think about what this meant and how it would change our relationship. While it was happening, I had been trying to convince myself that it could have worked. I think that I was just trying to hold on to some aspect of a normal life.

But Marcus…I had kissed him, too. It wasn’t a make-out session like it was with Lucas, but…

I enjoyed it. It was very…special. It was so much more different than what I had with Luc. He made me feel safe and welcome. All that from a simple non-persistent, fleeting touch.

He was always so guarded with his emotions that I never knew what he was thinking. Which was why it kind of surprised me when he kissed me. But I think, given time, I would have guessed his motives. Whenever I caught him in one of those faraway gazes, or when he let his eyes betray him; he would always try to cover it up, but I knew that he knew that I had caught him.

He’s not much of a talker, but I could deal with that…Maybe Lucas was right about there being someone else. I hadn’t really thought about Marcus like that before this whole incident, but…

I could.

--

The mansion was seemingly unoccupied when I arrived. I could hear no movement from anywhere as I made my way through the house.

“Marcus,” I called, hoping to draw him out of hiding. “Marcus, where are you?”

I made my way upstairs, searching the never-ending halls filled with closed doors, still calling for him. I knew how easy it was to get lost in this labyrinth of rooms, because it had happened once before, already. I was cocky and thought that I would be able to make my way around the house without any help. I was, of course, wrong, and Marcus had to come “save” me.

I felt a draft behind me as if something had moved quickly into one of the rooms, and as I turned around, I noticed that one of the doors had been opened. I let a smile light upon my face as I made my way back to that room.

It was a simple study with a large mahogany desk sitting off to the left and a comfortable looking couch on the right. The walls were decorated with hanging tapestries and an oriental rug graced the floor. I had to admit that the man could decorate.

He was sitting at the desk, facing the wall, pretending that he didn’t notice my appearance. I coughed lightly to get his attention, and when he looked up, mouth poised open in readiness to speak, I interrupted him.

“I’m back,” I said before he had a chance to utter the words.

He closed his mouth, and sat back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest, head slightly inclined towards me. “And what would you have me do, dear Caitlin,” he asked. I cringed at the accusing intonation of his words. “You’ve been away for weeks. Do you think we could just pick up where we left off?”

“I thought…”

“No, you didn’t. Training is very important to your future. If you can’t find the time to do that, then I am wasting my time.”

“No, Marcus. It’s not like that. I just needed time…time to think about things, to think about my family, my friends, you, and myself. Just to think. And I was scared. I saw things that I couldn’t explain, and…”

He held up his hand, signaling for me to stop. I didn’t want him to be angry with me. That was the last thing that I wanted, especially from him. It was bad enough that Lucas wasn’t speaking to me at the moment; I didn’t need it from Marcus as well.

“I’m not angry with you, Caitlin,” he said, as if reading my thoughts. He had a strange tendency of doing that. “I’m only wondering if, in fact, you are as dedicated to this task as you need to be. In the near future, you may need…” He stopped speaking, and just looked at me, his eyes roaming my face in an appreciative manner. “Perhaps you should think about dedicating more time to your training.”

“I’ll study as hard as I can, Marcus, but I don’t have any more time to give you. I have to work, you know.”

He said nothing, merely raised an eyebrow and turned back to his desk. I sighed heavily and sat on the couch behind him.

“Cate…” I realized with a start that he had called me ‘Cate.’ Not Caitlin, or dear Caitlin, for that matter, just Cate. He turned around in his chair to face me. “I’ve made it no secret that I enjoy your company.”

I think that was about as good an invitation as I was going to get from him. He was never very direct with his words. I was welcome here whenever I had time for it, be it the middle of the night or early in the morning, but was that the extent of his invitation? If I did give up my job, of course there would be no shortage of people to help me. My mother would gladly take me in, and Lucas would have no problem doing the same, and now Marcus…would he take care of me like I needed? It was obvious that he had some kind of feelings for me, but I wasn’t quite sure what those feelings were.

“What exactly do you want from me, Marcus?”

“Nothing that you won’t willingly give, Caitlin.”

All right, that answered everything and nothing at all, and I was back to being “Caitlin.” I sat back and closed my eyes. In the distance, I could hear the low rumble of thunder falling upon the island. This ever-elusive man…I wanted to know more about him, but he seemed like he was always reluctant to tell me anything about himself...like he was hiding something from me. Was he hiding anything from me?

“Marcus, are you hiding anything from me?” Well, that was blunt. Nobody could ever say that I didn’t get to the point with my questions.

He hesitated for a moment, like he always seemed to do whenever I was this direct. “There is more that I should tell you…but now is not the time.”

“You always say that.”

“I only say it because it’s true. You’re not ready for the whole truth, yet.” I knew that he was right. It had taken me a while for me to accept my own powers, and what he was talking about seemed to be much bigger than that. “I will only say that you are meant for a much higher purpose.”

“But you won’t tell me what that purpose is, will you?” He shook his head. Something about his knowledge about the whole situation, couple with a memory of our first meeting…

//“So this is the one,” he muttered as he gave a deep sigh.//

“Did you see this in a vision or something?”

“Not I. A seer passed it on to me. I do not have that particular power.”

“Well, what powers do you have?” As I asked this question, I realized that he had never actually told me what his powers were. For all I knew, he didn’t have any at all.

“Several,” he answered, looking at me through hooded eyes. “I started learning at a young age.”

“I didn’t know that you could learn other powers.”

He nodded his head. “It takes time. My very first was the gift of illusion.” That made sense. It would explain why nobody could see the house from town. He must have cast an illusion over it to hide himself.

I let out a big sigh as I sank even deeper into the couch. I felt like he was finally opening up to me, but I wanted more. I wanted to know everything about him.

“Marcus,” I began, my eyes downcast. “I like you. And being that as it may, I want to learn more about you, but I feel like you keep shutting me out. I know you’re not made of stone, and I know that it takes time to get to know someone, but with magic, isn’t there an easier alternative?”

I finally looked up at him as I finished my statement. I felt vulnerable letting him know how I felt about him. Letting him know that I had feelings that went beyond a mere teacher-student relationship… He stood up from his chair, a light smile playing over his lips as if he were mocking me and grasped both of my hands in his, pulling me up from the couch into a standing position.

“There is,” he said, simply. “But first, you must train.”

Of course, training. Everything revolved around training.

--
Training this time consisted of sword fighting. I had never picked up a sword in my life, and yet here I was, wielding a heavy broadsword that I could barely pick up, against an invisible opponent. I didn\'t know what I was doing and it showed.

\"Parry! Thrust!\" Marcus stood on the sidelines shouting out commands to me. \"I said parry!\"

I stopped dead in my movements and turned to him. \"Marcus, I don\'t know what a parry is!\" I dropped the heavy sword on the ground and placed both hands on my hips. \"You can tell me \'parry\' all you want, but that\'s not going to change my understanding of the movement.\"

“Well, then,” he said with a glint in his eyes. “Perhaps you need a sparring partner.” He did a little wave of his hand and I imagine I was supposed to be impressed.

“You’re going to fight me?” He merely smirked that awful smirk I had gotten so used to, which I took as a sign to mean ‘yes, I am your opponent.’ So I turned around to pick my sword up off the ground and no sooner had I bent down to retrieve it did another sword come slamming down next to me, nearly decapitating one of my limbs.

“Whoa!” I went down hard on my backside and scuttled away as fast as possible. Marcus had conjured up an imaginary enemy for me to fight without telling me. And now, this imaginary enemy was currently stalking towards me, sword in hand. My sword was lying behind ‘him’ and I didn’t know what to do.

“Caitlin, meet Barbosa. He will aid you in your training with a sword given that I am so incompetent at the task as you so willfully implied.” Barbosa was a bulky muscle-bound man clad in thick iron armor.

The heavy sword came crashing down once again, sending me cowering into another corner. “He’ll kill me!”

“No, he won’t.” He seemed so sure of the fact that I had to believe him. After all, he’d never lied to me before. “Pick up your sword, Caitlin.”

His serious nature pulled me out of my frightened state, and, carefully, I picked my sword up from the ground, standing only feet away from the colossal giant. And then the battle ensued.

It was obvious how inexperienced I was, but the man never once relented. At one point I raised my sword with both hands, because that was the only way that I could do it, over my head and he took a swiping blow at my middle.

“I thought you said he wouldn’t kill me,” I questioned as he continued his swiping blows toward me. I dropped my guard momentarily to take a lingering gaze at Marcus who had contented himself to admiring his nails and it was too late before I realized that the fight was still on.

Barbosa struck me with the hilt of his sword, soft enough not to cause any permanent damage, but hard enough to cause a backward tumble and a bleeding gash just above my eyebrow. Simply the fact that I was bleeding, alone, fired up the anger that I usually held in check and I began a torrent of attacks at Barbosa. None of them landed, and yet I kept at it, thrusting my sword towards him in a fit of anger.

Just as I drove the sword forwards towards the hulking man, cascades of flames were emitted from the end of my sword, completely engulfing the man.

“Enough,” stated Marcus as he stood up, waving his hand towards me once again, and I watched as Barbosa disappeared in a mist of smoke. “Well done.” He had that smirk on his face again.