Eye of the Falcon (Psychic Visions #12)(46)

“And the last one?”

She opened it up. “It’s mine.” Inside was a single picture of when she’d been a very young child. On her shoulder was a falcon. She sat back, and this time the tears would not be held back. Hadrid.

As she stared at her childhood photo, her fingers stroked the feathers of the only creature who understood who she was.

*

“Have you always had an affinity for birds?” Eagle asked.

But she didn’t look up. Instead, she seemed lost in the passage of time. Her finger slid down the feathers of the bird resting on her shoulder.

As he thought of the relationship he had seen between her and Roash, he could see she had a deep-rooted passion that had obviously started in childhood. “Was that your falcon?”

As she raised her gaze to meet his, he could see the tears sparkling over her beautiful blue eyes. “Yes. No.” She shook her head. “It seems he was always a part of me.”

“What happened to him?”

Her shoulders hunched. “When I lost my father and brothers, I also lost Hadrid. I don’t know if he lived, died, was captured, or stolen away.” She shook her head. “I’m pretty sure he’s dead though.”

“Why’s that?”

She gave him a challenging stare. “Because I no longer feel him.”

And that was at the heart of the matter. He pulled out a chair and sat down quietly beside her, but he didn’t drop his gaze. But at least he was no longer looming over her. He kept the two of them linked as he searched for the truth. What he could see was that, as far as she was concerned, she spoke the truth. Whether she had actually felt the bird’s life presence or not, he had no idea. He’d never felt such a thing with another person, let alone an animal. But, in her mind, she couldn’t feel the falcon, so he didn’t exist anymore.

“And do you feel that way about Roash?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yes, I felt him and Humbug both. Plus a couple others, but they weren’t as strong.” She sniffled slightly. “None are as strong as the bond I had with Hadrid.”

He let out his breath slowly as his body sagged in the chair. “When you say feel, what do you mean?” He didn’t know any other way to ask such a question except directly.

“I could feel him inside my head, chattering away at me when he was upset, when he was happy, and when he was in distress. I could also feel him in my heart. He was there when I woke up in the morning, and he was there when I went to sleep at night. When he soared in the sky, it was as if I was there with him.” She wiped the tears from her eyes. “After he died, and we moved to America, there was nothing for so long. Yet I tried so hard. I called the birds all around me, looking for that same connection. I was like an amputee missing not just an arm but both legs. I was completely crippled. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t speak for so long. The voice in my mind had gone silent, so my own voice did too.”

She dropped her gaze to stare down at the picture. She sniffled once and then again. Regaining control, she slowly placed the picture down and covered it with her hand, not to hide it, but as if she could see the images through her palm. When she raised her gaze again, some of the sadness had slipped back.

He could see her grief, but it wasn’t as sharp.

“I joined the falconry club for that reason. I thought surely everybody else would have the same connections. My parents had told me to stop making up stories. My brothers used to laugh at me. But, in my heart of hearts, I knew what I had was real. So when I found out there were clubs with people dealing with the same birds, I was sure I’d found people like me.”

“And did you?”

A ghost of a smile peeked out. She shook her head. “Just as there are men and their dogs, and old ladies and their cats, there were men and their birds. But nobody I spoke to had the kind of deep connection like I was talking about.”

She gave a broken laugh. “Of course I was limited to who and what I could ask about without appearing to be crazy. I learned early that nobody appreciated me discussing my relationship with my falcon. They were quite happy to use it for their own purposes, but they certainly weren’t open to acknowledging that such a bond was possible.”

He latched onto the one word that he could understand. “Use it?”

She wrapped her arms around her chest as if once again cold.

But he figured it was more the chill of time and bad memories than the actual temperature of the room.

She gave a lopsided grin and said, “Can you see any other reason why a six-year-old would be a lookout for smugglers? A role I’d played since I was three.”

His cup landed on the table with a bang. He leaned forward. “Are you saying the falcon was the lookout, and somehow he communicated to you what was going on, whether the men were safe or not?”

Her smile brightened. “Exactly. That’s also the reason why my mother was inside the house during those times. I’m not sure she believed in what Hadrid did, but it gave her an excuse to stay inside.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “That’s a lot of trust to place on a trained bird.”

“He didn’t have any other use as far as my family was concerned, and they didn’t like him. However, he was one of the reasons I could never be punished. My father and my mother both feared reprisals from Hadrid. His claws and talons were huge. If he hadn’t been so useful, my father would’ve shot him.”