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“Why doesn’t any of this surprise you?” Lily asked. “I just told you about time travel, and people with special abilities, and rewinding time. You should be shocked, or at the very least doubtful.”
Abi picked up her coffee mug and sat back in her chair. “There are many things in this world I don’t understand. It doesn’t mean they aren’t true.”
Fear. Guilt. The guilt confused me. I leaned forward in my chair, concentrating on trying to read Abi.
“What?” Lily asked, looking back and forth between the two of us.
Sharing Abi’s emotions with her granddaughter wasn’t my place.
“I just told her you can sense emotion. So she knows she can’t hide anything.” Lily had covered a lot of information in an hour. She turned from me to Abi. “If you knew something about all this, you’d tell me. Wouldn’t you?”
More guilt.
“There’s no reason to discuss it.” Abi’s voice was full of grim determination. “It’s the past, and we left it behind when we left Cuba.”
“We never discuss Cuba at all. There are things I want to remember. Our home. Our family.”
“I do remember. And you are better off not knowing.”
“I don’t accept that.” I saw Abi’s fierceness in Lily’s eyes and anticipated she’d make grown men piss their pants one day, too. “If you know something, you have to tell me. ¿Por favor? Please.”
Abi put her coffee cup down and walked to the wide, arched double windows that overlooked the town square of Ivy Springs. “People lose things, they look for them. Ask for help. ‘Help me find my house key. Where is the grocery list?’ It was always funny that your grandfather seemed to know where things were. He just … knew. Then your father was born, and he could find things, too. Your father was five when I discovered el truco de magia—that’s what we called it—wasn’t a magic trick.”
“¿Como?” Lily asked, her face softening with understanding..
“I asked questions. Women didn’t ask questions back then. I was silenced, and I never got any answers while your grandfather was alive. I didn’t get them until about ten years ago. They came directly from your father, when he started doing survey work.”
“I didn’t know he did survey work,” Lily said. I couldn’t imagine not even knowing what my father did for a living.
“Cuba was a trade hub for over four centuries. Ships sank. Many riches were lost. Imagine what someone with a supernatural ability could find with the aid of satellite imagery. Your father saw things he should not have seen, but it was part of who he was. Who he is.”
“What kind of things?” Lily frowned.
“The gift seemed to increase in strength with every generation.” Abi returned to the table. She traced the rim of her cup. “One of the first things the realtor gave us when we moved in here was a town map with tiny little cartoon drawings of all the planned renovations. He tried to hand it to you, I guess because it was colorful and he thought you’d like it. I jerked it away, telling him I wanted to make it a keepsake, that you were too little and you’d tear it up. I always taught you to touch the maps in your schoolbooks with the eraser end of your pencil. Remember?”
“Yes,” Lily answered, remembering. “And when I had to make a topographical map of Tennessee, you wouldn’t let me.”
“The only time I’ve ever done your homework.” Abi stared into her coffee cup as if it held all the answers. “Your grandfather couldn’t find things on maps, but your father could. I didn’t know what you’d be able to find.”
“I can find things on maps,” Lily confessed. “And … people, too, I think.”
“I suspected as much,” Abi said, resigning herself to the truth. “Please understand, my love, I thought by keeping your ability dormant, I was keeping you safe.”
“Safe from who?”
Dread settled in the bottom of my stomach.
“From the people your father worked for. They knew about your grandfather, too. It would only make sense that they’d look to you one day. We considered lying, saying that the gift had skipped a generation, but it was so strong in you. You couldn’t control it, not at that age. So we left Cuba, and I swore I’d do everything I could to make you forget.”
Lily leaned forward. “Papi looked for things on survey maps. On the ocean floor?”
“Knowing the history of a piece of treasure, its origin, and the path it’s traveled can increase the worth by hundreds of thousands of dollars. Priceless to museums, collectors, historians, or anyone with money and interest.”
“Lily’s father can trace provenance?” I asked. “Can Lily?”
“I don’t know.” She was lying.
If Lily could trace ownership of artifacts, it would make the artifacts more valuable. It would make Lily more valuable.
