Wild Irish Heart (The Mystic Cove Series Book 1) by Tricia O'Malley

stop her from dyeing her hair blonde."
    Keelin smiled. It was true. Her mom went into New York City every month for the perfect Fifth Avenue blonde. She claimed that Boston hair stylists couldn't even get it right.
    "I, I've always done this. I didn't know why. It scared the shit out of me. I remember when I was young and a car hit our cat. I was so distraught that I picked him up and ran with him to our house. I could feel his pain; his two back legs were broken and I was certain the vet would put him down. I held him and wished with everything I had that he would be okay. I cried, and cried, and prayed. I covered him with my body and held him and everything went black. I came to and my mom was shaking me awake. Our cat was running in circles around me. I was on the floor and began throwing up. I was sick for two weeks." Keelin hadn't thought about that in a long time. Her mom had refused to speak of it with her until she had brought it up during their recent talk. It had scared her at the time and they had come to a silent agreement to never speak of it.
    "Ah, yes. Raw power unchecked. Your love was true and your intentions pure. You were able to heal your beloved cat yet without protecting yourself you took the pain into you. Sickness has to go somewhere. If you don't learn to direct it outward, you will absorb it and it will poison you. Had you done this with someone deathly ill, you very well could have killed yourself." Fiona walked around the circle as she talked, tidying up the center and snipping off leaves from plants that hung into the circle. She tucked a few pieces into her bag and pulled out the book.
    "Are you ready for your first lesson?" Fiona asked.
    Still adjusting to the shift in her world, Keelin could only nod. This was not how she had expected her summer to turn out.
    "All healers must learn to protect themselves. You are a source of light and universal energy that allows you to heal others. However, there will always be dark energies that seek to take your light as well as the fact that you can't heal without directing the pain or sickness somewhere. Without proper protection, you'll kill yourself or allow a dark energy to break through and latch on to you."
    "Okay, this is totally creepy. I don't want to get involved in any of this." Keelin stumbled out of the circle. Her breath hitched as she started to walk the path back. Dark energies were too much for her. She felt the long dregs of panic begin to claw at her stomach. Was her grandmother talking about demons? The devil? Heat flashed through her and Keelin broke out in a sweat. She had no frame of reference for handling any of this. Science didn't address demons and Catholicism shunned them. 
    "You can't ignore what you are, Keelin. You'll die. You must either give away your power or use it."
    The words stopped her. Their truth resonated deeply in Keelin. She had a choice to make. Keelin stared at the water and trembled at opening the door to what she had kept locked away for so long. She was scared to lose her tightly knit control over what and who she was.
    "You'll be safe, Keelin. But you must learn." Fiona's voice was gentle.
    Keelin turned. Her grandmother stood in the circle, her white hair whipping in the breeze. Her weathered hands held bunches of herbs and a leather cord wrapped around a crystal. Destiny came in the strangest of forms, Keelin thought.
    "Why do you say that I will die?" Keelin needed to know.
    "If you have a child, and your child becomes ill, you will give everything you have to save them. Without proper training and protection you will die in protecting what you love. This goes for your one true love as well. Your purity of love will make your strength of healing the highest it can be and in exchange you will give your life if you remain untrained."
    The thought of being a mother slapped at Keelin. She had always rebelled against it. Yet…yet something tugged in her. Deep down. It was hard to argue with the absolute truth