Elsa Winckler - The Whisperer

Shaking his head, he proceeded to open a bottle of wine. “When our mom died, he was still very young. She was thrown off a horse’s back. For him, it was a double loss. Not only did he lose our mom to whom he was very close, we lost a father as well. Dad immediately sold every single horse on the farm, lost all interest in the farm, in us, in life basically. Like our mother, Cameron loved to paint and draw, but my dad stopped his art lessons after our mother’s death and he removed all her paintings from the walls.”

He grimaced. “I think the development of his right brain stopped right there and then. You’re so right when you call him a left brain introvert. He is very logical and analyzes everything to death, and yeah, he’s argumentative and stubborn. The scientist in him only understands what he can see and explain. What you do is totally outside his comfort zone.” He poured them each a glass of wine and took a seat. “But let’s eat and forget about my brother for a while. At some point, his stomach will bring him to the table.”

Cilla inhaled the lovely aromas coming from the dishes on the table. “This smells divine,” she groaned. “Are you also involved in the running of the farm?”

“No, I love the place, make no mistake, but I’m no farmer. I’m a chef. While Cameron was riding horses, I was helping Mom in the kitchen. My dad hoped I’d change with time, but eventually he had to acknowledge the fact that Cameron was the farmer, not me. I have my own restaurant in Hermanus. Let me know when you visit, it would be my pleasure to have you as guests,” he said, his eyes on Imke.

He lifted his glass, his eyes twinkling. “A toast to the woman who has rocked my brother’s world within the span of two days!”

Cilla looked up in surprise. “What are you talking about? He thinks I want to put a spell on Bravo and is not impressed with this mere woman who has the gall to say she can help him with his horse.”

Philip smiled. “So you don’t understand people as well as you understand animals, it seems?”

Cilla pressed her lips together. These bloody Rahl men – they obviously think they have all the answers.

“But tell me, how does one become a horse whisperer? Do you really whisper?” he teased.

Deep breaths, Cilla, deep breaths. As calmly as possible, she tried to answer him. “I don’t whisper, I communicate with animals. And it’s really very simple. All of us are capable of doing it. As kids we know intuitively how to listen to animals, how to let them know what we want. Unfortunately most people lose that ability as they grow older. We live according to a certain set of acceptable rules and ideas. I grew up on a farm and I’ve always just known what the animals around me were feeling and experiencing. And my parents didn’t think it strange when I spoke about it.”

“She’s always been very intuitive,” Imke interrupted and placed a hand on her arm. “She always knows when I’m feeling sad even if we’re not together. And she had an imaginary friend, if I remember correctly until …” she looked at Cilla. “Right up until high school she would sometimes smile at and talk to the air next to her.”

Embarrassed, Cilla shrugged. “His name was Roux. He and I had a wonderful time on the farm. I don’t remember when he left. One day he was just gone.”

She looked up to see the frown on Philip’s face. “See, now you also think me strange.”

Imke touched his shoulder. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to her. And do try and persuade your brother to listen to her. If she says the horse wants a particular mare and that he’s bored, I’ll bet you that would be exactly what his problems are. I’ve seen too often how she helps people and animals. I’m a true believer.”

The hair on her arms raised even before she heard the noise behind her. Cameron was back. She looked up as he walked into the room. He looked calmer somehow, the frown from earlier had disappeared. She relaxed. A little bit.

Philip noticed him and motioned him closer. “Now that you’re here, we can eat. Wine?”

Cameron nodded and pulled out the chair next to Cilla. When he sat down, his knee touched hers. The temperature of her blood rose in milliseconds and a rushing noise in her ears drowned out everything else. She tried to move away but her chair wouldn’t budge. Heat radiated from his body in her direction, threatening to overwhelm her. He was restless, agitated. She felt it deep inside herself.

A hard kick against her leg made her look up. Imke was making big eyes and motioning in Philip’s direction with her head. He’d probably said something that she didn’t hear.

“Uhm … sorry. You were saying?”

“I want to know how you communicate with animals if you don’t whisper. Do you talk to them? Do they talk to you? Your mouth didn’t move when you were with Bravo, I was wondering how it works,” Philip asked, his eyes twinkling.

Cilla smiled. It was easy to talk to the brother; it was the silent man next to her that she had trouble communicating with. “No, they don’t talk but they communicate with images that explain what they want to say. Animal communicators use different techniques – some only see pictures, others use a kind of dialogue. What is important though, is the relationship you build up with the animal. Energy flows through all forms of life. You only need to open yourself up to it.”

“Okay, but exactly how does it work?” Philip insisted.

Next to her, Cameron had stiffened and she glanced quickly in his direction. That he didn’t want to be listening to this conversation was obvious. She ignored him, though and looked at Philip.

“Well, you start by regulating your breathing, then you are more susceptible to experience things in a different way. Let go of all your rigid ideas of what reality is supposed to be, and you’ll become more intuitive, and will be able to use telepathy. Telepathy derives from the Greek word ‘tele’, which means distance and ‘pathe’ which brings across the idea of a feeling, a perception. In other words, you get a feeling, a perception over a distance.”

Next to her, Cameron cleared his throat. “I’m sorry but as a scientist the whole idea is bloody ridiculous! I find it highly unlikely that Bravo will communicate to you he wants to mate with a specific mare, one whose scent he supposedly caught on his way here. I’ve never heard of anything so … so bloody bizarre.”

Cilla turned to Cameron. He was sitting so close to her, if she put out her hand she would be able to touch his hair and …

“… How do you explain that?”

She again hadn’t been listening to the conversation. Her leg touched his again and she turned her body away from him.

“I think we all have an idea, for instance, of how you think your dream husband or wife would look like. Don’t you have a picture like that in your head? One you sometimes dream about?”

He stared at her for seconds before he slowly nodded.

“Well, I got such a picture from Bravo.”

“Can you see the picture in my head?” Philip teased.

Cilla shook her head. “I can read people who are close to me, someone like Imke, who doesn’t wear a mask. Sometimes there are so many layers between who the person really is and the persona he or she shows the world that it’s difficult to read him or her.”