Fated

life-changing yoga session. The newfound enlightenment lasting a few weeks at most—until the next fitness craze hit and the starlet moved on.
    But Paloma’s no starlet. Though I’ve no doubt she could’ve been—back in the day. If my math is correct, she’s got to be somewhere in her early fifties, though she’s still really pretty in a no-fuss, organic sort of way, with her long, dark braid that trails to her waist, clear brown eyes, tiny frame, thin cotton shift dress that reminds me an awful lot of the one I wore in my dream, and bare feet.
    I trace my fingers over the rock, amazed by the way it just butts right into the room, solid and insistent, demanding everything else find a way to exist around it.
    The house looks different this morning, and not just because of the rock I failed to notice before. Last night the house seemed so warm and glowy with the fireplace blazing and the assortment of table lamps lit. But now it seems simple, almost plain. Bearing a handful of Navajo rugs, simple wood furniture, jam jars crammed with small clusters of yellow and purple wildflowers, and these odd little nooks that punctuate the walls, each of them filled with hand-rendered carvings of various saints.
    Still, as monastic as it is, it offers an undeniable sense of comfort I can’t quite place. Though that might have something to do with its size. It’s small, cozy, impossible to get lost in. Consisting of this big open space that hosts the kitchen and den, two bedrooms—one for me, one for Paloma (and I’m guessing two bathrooms as well, since I don’t remember her using mine)—and another room at the far end that’s clearly a recent addition. The short brick ramp that leads up to it ending in an arched doorway that frames an entire wall of shelves filled with bunches of drying herbs, jars filled with weird-looking liquids, and all kinds of other miscellaneous stuff, for lack of a better word.
    “What’s that?” I motion toward the strange room.
    “That’s where I work with my clients; think of it as my office, if you will.” Paloma pulls the stopper from the sink, allowing the water to gurgle down the drain as she dries her hands on a blue embroidered towel. “But not to worry, I’ve cleared the day to spend with you, so that we can talk and get to know each other better, without interruption.”
    I glance between the room and her, saying, “Well, maybe we should start in there. After all, I’m the crazy one who was sent here to be cured.”
    She gives me a look I can’t read—is it compassion, sadness, regret? It’s impossible to tell.
    “You are not crazy.” She leans against a counter crafted from colorful Spanish tiles, her head cocked in study. “And I’m afraid there is nothing I can do to cure you, as you say.”
    My eyes bug, as her words repeat in my head. My reply just shy of hysteria, when I say, “Then why am I here? Why’d I travel all this way if you can’t help me? What’s the point of all this? Why’d you take me away from Jennika?”
    “You’ve misread my words.” She pushes away from the kitchen and motions for me to join her in the den where she stokes the vertically stacked logs in the fireplace, causing them to spark and spit, before she moves to the couch and lowers herself onto the cushions. “I didn’t say I can’t help you, I said I can’t cure you. There is nothing to be cured, Daire.”
    I glare. Fidget. Pull hard on my robe, yanking it so tight it practically wraps twice around me. Perching on the arm of a chair, having no idea what she’s getting at. It all sounds suspicious, like some kind of doublespeak.
    I’m this close to calling Jennika. Demand she fly here right now and come get me, when Paloma says, “It happened to your father as well. The onset is always around the sixteenth year.”
    I heave a deep sigh. Shake my head. “So I am psycho. Great. And, according to you, I got it from my dad!” My teeth grind, as I twist my sash so hard I hear the fabric give way.
    This is great.
    Just great.
    I travel all this way only to receive the same diagnosis I got in Morocco and L.A.
    “No.” Paloma’s voice is as stern as her face. “You are not crazy. It may feel like crazy—even look like crazy—but it’s anything but. What you’re experiencing is the onset of your biological inheritance—the family legacy that’s been passed down through each generation, always to the firstborn.”
    Wha—?
    I shake my head, peer at her again. Her