Juliet Marillier - Child of the Prophecy

Chapter One

Every summer they came. By earth and sky, by sun and stone I counted the days.

I'd climb up to the circle and sit there quiet with my back to the warmth of

the rock I called Sentinel, and see the rabbits come out in the fading light

to nibble at what sparse pickings might be found on the barren hillside. The

sun sank in the west, a ball of orange fire diving beyond the hills into the

unseen depths of the ocean. Its dying light caught the shapes of the dolmens

and stretched their strange shadows out across the stony ground before me. I'd

been here every summer since first I saw the travelers come, and I'd learned

to read the signs. Each day the setting sun threw the dark pointed shapes a

little further across the hilltop to the north. When the biggest shadow came

right to my toes, here where I sat in the very center of the circle, it was

time. Tomorrow I could go and watch by the track, for they'd be here.

There was a pattern to it. There were patterns to everything, if you knew how

to look. My father taught me that. The real skill lay in staying outside them,

in not letting yourself be caught up in them. It was a mistake to think you

belonged. Such as we were could never belong. That, too, I learned from him.

I'd wait there by the track, behind a juniper bush, still as a child made of

stone. There'd be a sound of hooves, and the creak of wheels turning. Then I'd

see one or two of the lads on ponies, riding up ahead, keeping an eye out for

any trouble. By the time they came up the hill and passed by me where I hid,

they'd relaxed their guard and were joking and laughing, for they were close

to camp and a summer of good fishing and relative ease, a time for mending

things and making things. The season they spent here at the bay was the

closest they ever came to settling down.

Then there'd be a cart or two, the old men and women sitting up on top, the

smaller children perched on the load or running alongside. Danny Walker would

be driving one pair of horses, his wife Peg the other. The rest of the folk

would walk behind, their scarves and shawls and neckerchiefs bright splashes

of color in the dun and gray of the landscape, for it was barren enough up

here, even in the warmth of early summer. I'd watch and wait unseen, never

stirring. And last, there was the string of ponies, and the younger lads

leading them or riding alongside. That was the best moment of the summer: the

first glimpse I got of Darragh, sitting small and proud on his sturdy gray.

He'd be pale after the winter up north, and frowning as he watched his

charges, always alert lest one of them should make a bolt for freedom. They'd

a mind to go their own way, these hill ponies, until they were properly

broken. This string would be trained over the warmer season, and sold when the

traveling folk went north again.

Not by so much as a twitch of a finger or a blink of an eyelid would I let on

I was there. But Darragh would know. His brown eyes would look sideways,

twinkling, and he'd flash a grin that nobody saw, nobody but me where I hid by

the track. Then the travelers would pass on and be gone down to the cove and

their summer encampment, and I'd be away home, scuttling across the hill and

down over the neck of land to the Honeycomb, which was where we lived, my

father and I.

Father didn't much like me to go out. But he did not lay down any

restrictions. It was more effective, he said, for me to set my own rules. The

craft was a hard taskmaster. I would discover soon enough that it left no time

for friends, no time for play, no time for swimming or fishing or jumping off

the rocks as the other children did. There was much to learn. And when Father

was too busy to teach me, I must spend my time practicing my skills. The only

rules were the unspoken ones. Besides, I couldn't wander far, not with my foot

the way it was.

I understood that for our kind the craft was all that really mattered. But

Darragh made his way into my life uninvited, and once he was there he became

my summer companion and my best friend; my only friend, to tell the truth. I

was frightened of the other children and could hardly imagine joining in their

boisterous games. They in their turn avoided me. Maybe it was fear, and maybe

it was something else. I knew I was cleverer than they were. I knew I could do

what I liked to them, if I chose to. And yet, when I looked at my reflection

in the water, and thought of the boys and girls I'd seen running along the

sand shouting to one another, and fishing from the rocks, and mending nets

alongside their fathers and mothers, I wished with all my heart that I was one

of them, and not myself. I wished I was one of the traveler girls, with a red

scarf and a shawl with a long fringe to it, so I could perch up high on the

cart and ride away in autumn time to the far distant lands of the north.

We had a place, a secret place, halfway down the hill behind big boulders and

looking out to the southwest. Below us the steep, rocky promontory of the

Honeycomb jutted into the sea. Inside it was a complex network of caves and

chambers and concealed ways, a suitable home for a man such as my father.

Behind us the slope stretched up and up to the flattened top of the hill,

where the stone circle stood, and then down again to the cart track. Beyond

that was the land of Kerry, and farther still were places whose names I did

not know. But Darragh knew, and Darragh told me as he stacked driftwood neatly

for a fire, and hunted for flint and tinder while I got out a little jar of

dried herbs for tea. He told me of lakes and forests, of wild crags and gentle

misty valleys. He described how the Norsemen, whose raids on our coast were so

feared, had settled here and there and married Irish women, and bred children

who were neither one thing nor the other. With a gleam of excitement in his

brown eyes, he spoke of the great horse fair up north. He got so caught up in

this, his thin hands gesturing, his voice bright with enthusiasm, that he

forgot he was supposed to be lighting the little fire. So I did it myself,

pointing at the sticks with my first finger, summoning the flame. The

driftwood burst instantly alight, and our small pan of water began to heat.

Darragh fell silent.

"Go on," I said. "Did the old man buy the pony or not?" But Darragh was

frowning at me, his dark brows drawn together in disapproval. "You shouldn't

do that," he said.

"What?"

"Light the fire like that. Using sorcerer's tricks. Not when you don't need

to. What's wrong with flint and tinder? I would have done it."

"Why bother? My way's quicker." I was casting a handful of the dry leaves into

the pot to brew. The smell of the herbs arose freshly in the cool air of the

hillside.

"You shouldn't do it. Not when there's no need." He was unable to explain any

further, but his flood of words had dried up abruptly, and we brewed our tea

and sat there drinking it together in silence as the seabirds wheeled and

screamed overhead.

The summers were full of such days. When he wasn't needed to work with the

horses or help around the camp, Darragh would come to find me, and we explored

the rocky hillsides, the clifftop paths, the hidden bays and secret caves

together. He taught me to fish with a single line and a steady hand. I taught

him how to read what day it was from the way the shadows moved up on the

hilltop. When it rained, as it had a way of doing even in summer, we'd sit

together in the shelter of a little cave, down at the bottom of the land

bridge that joined the Honeycomb to the shore, a place that was almost

underground but not quite, for the daylight filtered through from above and

washed the tiny patch of fine sand to a delicate shade of gray-blue. In this

place I always felt safe. In this place sky and earth and sea met and touched

and parted again, and the sound of the wavelets lapping the subterranean beach

was like a sigh, at once greeting and farewell. Darragh never told me if he

liked my secret cave or not. He'd simply come down with me, and sit by me, and

when the rain was over, he'd slip away with never a word.

There was a wild grass that grew on the hillside there, a strong, supple plant

with a silky sheen to its pale green stems. We called it rat-tails, though it

probably had some other name. Peg and her daughters were expert basketweavers,

and made use of this grass for their finer and prettier efforts, the sort that

might be sold to a lady for gathering flowers maybe, rather than used for

carrying vegetables or a heavy load of firewood. Darragh, too, could weave,

his long fingers fast and nimble. One summer we were up by the standing

stones, late in the afternoon, sitting with our backs to the Sentinel and

looking out over the bay and the far promontory, and beyond to the western

sea. Clouds were gathering, and the air had a touch of chill to it. Today I

could not read the shadows, but I knew it was drawing close to summer's end,

and another parting. I was sad, and cross with myself for being sad, and I was

trying not to think about another winter of hard work and cold, lonely days. I

stared at the stony ground and thought about the year, and how it turned

around like a serpent biting its own tail; how it rolled on like a relentless

wheel. The good times would come again, and after them the bad times.

Darragh had a fistful of rat-tails, and he was twisting them deftly and

whistling under his breath. Darragh was never sad. He'd no time for it; for

him, life was an adventure, with always a new door to open. Besides, he could

go away if he wanted to. He didn't have lessons to learn and skills to

perfect, as I did.

I glared at the pebbles on the ground. Round and round, that was my existence,

endlessly repeating, a cycle from which there was no escape. Round and round.

Fixed and unchangeable. I watched the pebbles as they shuddered and rolled; as

they moved obediently on the ground before me.

"Fainne?" Darragh was frowning at me, and at the shifting stones on the earth

in front of me.

"What?" My concentration was broken. The stones stopped moving. Now they lay

in a perfect circle.

"Here," he said. "Hold out your hand."

I did as he bid me, puzzled, and he slipped a little ring of woven rat-tails

on my finger, so cunningly made that it seemed without any joint or fastening.

"What's this for?" I asked him, turning the silky, springy circle of grass

around and around. He was looking away over the bay again, watching the small

curraghs come in from fishing.

"So you don't forget me," he said, offhand.

"Don't be silly," I said. "Why would I forget you?"

"You might," said Darragh, turning back toward me. He gestured toward the neat

circle of tiny stones. "You might get caught up in other things."

I was hurt. "I wouldn't. I never would."

Darragh gave a sigh and shrugged his shoulders. "You're only little. You don't

know. Winter's a long time, Fainne. And—and you need keeping an eye on."

"I do not!" I retorted instantly, jumping up from where I sat. Who did he

think he was, talking as if he was my big brother? "I can look after myself

quite well, thank you. And now I'm going home."

"I'll walk with you."

"You don't have to."

"I'll walk with you. Better still, I'll race you. Just as far as the junipers

down there. Come on."

I stood stolid, scowling at him.

"I'll give you a head start," coaxed Darragh. "I'll count to ten."

I made no move.

"Twenty, then. Go on, off you go." He smiled, a broad, irresistible smile.

I ran, if you could call my awkward, limping gait a run. With my skirt caught

up in one hand I made reasonable speed, though the steep pebbly surface

required some caution. I was only halfway to the junipers when I heard his

soft, quick footsteps right behind me. No race could have been less equal, and

both of us knew it. He could have covered the ground in a quarter of the time

it took me. But somehow, the way it worked out, the two of us reached the

bushes at exactly the same moment.

"All right, sorcerer's daughter," said Darragh, grinning. "Now we walk and

catch our breath. It'll be a better day tomorrow."

How old was I then? Six, maybe, and he a year or two older? I had the little

ring on my finger the day the traveling folk packed up and moved out again;

the day I had to wave goodbye and start waiting. It was all right for him. He

had places to go and things to do, and he was eager to get on his pony and be

off. Still, he made time to say farewell, up on the hillside above the camp,

for he knew I would not come near where the folk gathered to load their carts

and make ready for the journey. I was numb with shyness, quite unable to bear

the stares of the boys and girls or to form an answer to Peg's shrewd, kindly

questions. My father was down there, a tall, cloaked figure talking to Danny

Walker, giving him messages to deliver, commissions to fulfill. Around them,

the folk left a wide, empty circle. "Well, then," said Darragh.

"Well, then," I echoed, trying for the same tone of nonchalance and failing

miserably.

"Goodbye, Curly," he said, reaching out to tug gently at a lock of my long

hair, which was the same deep russet as my father's. "I'll see you next

summer. Keep out of trouble, now, until I come back." Every time he went away

he said this; always just the same. As for me, I had no words at all.

The days grew shorter and the dark time of the year began. With Darragh gone

there was no real reason to linger out of doors, and so I applied myself to my

work and tried not to notice how cold it was inside the Honeycomb, colder,

almost, than the chill of an autumn wind up on the hilltop. It was an aching

feeling that lodged deep in your bones and lingered there like a burden. I

never complained. Father had shown me how to deal with it and he expected me

to do so. It was not that a sorcerer did not feel the heat of the fire or the

bite of the north wind. A sorcerer was, after all, a man and not some

Otherworld creature. What you had to do was teach your body to cope with it,

so that discomfort did not make you slow or inefficient. It had to do with

breathing, mostly. More I cannot say. My father was once a druid. He said he

had put all that behind him when he left the brotherhood. But a man does not

so easily discard all those years of training and discipline. I understood

that much of what I learned was secret, to be shared only with others of our

kind. One did not lay it bare before the ignorant, or those whose minds were

closed. Even now there are some matters of which I cannot and will not tell.

There were many chambers in the Honeycomb. We lit lamps year round, and in my

father's great workroom many candles burned, for there he stored his scrolls

and books, grotesque and wondrous objects in jars, and little sacks of

pungent-smelling powders. There was a dried basilisk, and a cup made from a

twisted, curling horn, its base set with red stones. There was a tiny skull

like a leprechaun's, with empty eyes. There was a thick grimoire whose leather

cover was darkened with age and long handling. In this room my father spent

days and nights in solitude, perfecting his craft, learning, always learning.

I knew how to read in more than one tongue and to write in more than one

script. I could recite many, many tales and even more incantations. But I

learned soon enough that the greatest magic is not set down in any book, nor

mapped on any scroll for man to decipher. The most powerful spells are not

created by tricks of the hand, or by mixing potions and philtres, or by

chanting ancient words. I learned why it was that when my father was working

hardest, all he seemed to be doing was standing very still in the center of an

empty space, with his mulberry eyes fixed on nothing. For the deepest magic is

that of the mind, and you will not find its lore recorded on parchment or

vellum, or scratched on bark or stone. Not anywhere. Father owed his first

learning to the wise ones: the druids of the forest. He had developed it

through dedication and study. But our talent for the craft of sorcery was in

our blood. Father was the son of a great enchantress, and from her he had

acquired certain skills which he used sparingly, since they were both potent

and perilous. One must take care, he said, not to venture too far and touch on

dark matters best left sleeping. I could not remember my grandmother very

well. I thought I recalled an elegant creature in a blue gown, who had peered

into my eyes and given me a headache. I thought perhaps she had asked

questions which I had answered angrily, not liking her intrusion into our

ordered domain. But that had been long ago, when I was a little child. Father

spoke of her seldom, save to say that our blood was tainted by the line she

came from, a line of sorcerers who did not understand that some boundaries

should never be crossed. And yet, said Father, she was powerful, sub-tie and

clever, and she was my grandmother; part of her was in both of us, and we

should not forget that. It ensured we would never live our lives as ordinary

folk, with friends and family and honest work. It gave us exceptional talents,

and it set our steps toward a destiny of darkness.

I was eight years old. It was Mean Geimhridh, and the north wind beat the

stunted trees prostrate. It threw the waves crashing against the cliff face,

forcing icy spray deep inside the tunnelled passages of the Honeycomb. The

pebbly shore was strewn with tangles of weed and fractured shells. The

fishermen hauled their curraghs up out of harm's way, and folk went hungry.

"Concentrate, Fainne," said my father, as my frozen fingers fumbled and

slipped. "Use your mind, not your hands."

I set my jaw, screwed up my eyes and started again. A trick, that was all this

was. It should be easy. Stretch out your arms, look at the shining ball of

glass where it stood on the shelf by the far wall, with the candles' glow

reflected in its deceptive surface. Bridge the gap with your mind; think the

distance, think the leap. Keep still. Let the ball do the work. Will the ball

into your hands. Will the ball to you. Come. Come here. Come to me, fragile

and delicate, round and lovely, come to my hands. It was cold, my fingers

ached, it was so cold. I could hear the waves smashing outside. I could hear

the glass ball smashing on the stone floor. My arms fell to my sides.

"Very well," said Father calmly. "Fetch a broom, sweep it up. Then tell me why

you failed." There was no judgment in his voice. As always, he wished me to

judge myself. That way I would learn more quickly.

"I—I let myself think about something else," I said, stooping to gather up the

knife-edged shards. "I let the link be broken. I'm sorry, Father. I can do

this. I will do it next time."

"I know," he said, turning back to his own work. "Practice this twice fifty

times with something unbreakable. Then come back and show me."

"Yes, Father." It was too cold to sleep anyway. I might as well spend the

night doing something useful.

I was ten years old. I stood very still, right in the center of my father's

workroom, with my eyes focused on nothing. Above my head the fragile ball

hovered, held in its place by invisible forces. I breathed. Slow, very slow.

With each outward breath, a tiny adjustment. Up, down, left, right. Spin, I

told the ball, and it whirled, glowing in the candlelight. Stop. Now circle

around my head. My eyes did not follow the steady movement. I need not see it

to know its obedience to my will. Stop. Now drop. The infinitesimal pause;

then the dive, a sweep before me of glittering brightness, descent to

destruction. Stop. The diver halted a handspan above the stone floor. The ball

hung in air, waiting. I blinked, and bent to scoop it up in my hand.

Father nodded gravely. "Your control is improving. These tricks are relatively

easy, of course; but to perform them well requires discipline. I'm pleased

with your progress, Fainne."

"Thank you." Such praise was rare indeed. It was more usual for him simply to

acknowledge that I had mastered something, and go straight on to the next

task.

"Don't become complacent, now."

"No, Father."

"It's time to venture into a more challenging branch of the art. For this,

you'll need to find new reserves within yourself. It can be exhausting. Take a

few days to rest. We'll begin at Imbolc. What apter time could there be,

indeed?" His tone was bitter.

"Yes, Father." I did not ask him what he meant, though it troubled me deeply

that he seemed so sad. I knew it was at Brighid's feast that he first met my

mother; not that he ever spoke of her, not deliberately. That tale was well

hidden within him, and he was a masterly keeper of secrets. The little I knew

I had gleaned here and there, a morsel at a time over the years. There was a

remark of Peg's, overheard while I waited for Darragh under the trees behind

the encampment, unseen by his mother.

"She was very beautiful," Peg had said to her friend Molly. The two of them

were sitting in the morning sunlight, fingers flying as they fashioned their

intricate baskets. "Tall, slender, with that bright copper hair down her back.

Like a faery woman. But she was always—she was always a little touched, you

know what I mean? He'd watch over her like a wolf guarding its young, but he

couldn't stop what happened. You could see it in her eyes, right from the

first."

"Mm," Molly had replied. "Girl takes after her father, then. Strange little

thing."

"She can't help what she is," said Peg.

And I remembered another time, one summer when the weather was especially

warm, and Darragh finally grew impatient with my persistent refusal to go

anywhere near the water.

"Why won't you let me teach you how to swim?" he'd asked me. "Is it because of

her? Because of what happened to her?"

"What?" I said. "What do you mean?"

"You know. Your mother. Because she—well, because of what she did. That's what

they say. That you're frightened of the water, because she jumped off the

Honeycomb and drowned herself."

"Of course not," I replied, swallowing hard. "I just don't want to, that's

all." How could he know that until that moment, nobody had told me how she

died?

I tried to dredge up some memory of my mother, tried to picture the lovely

figure Peg had described, but there was nothing. All I could remember was

Father and the Honeycomb. Something had happened long since and far away,

something that had damaged my mother and wounded my father, and set the path

forward for all of us in a way there was no denying. Father had never told me

the tale. Still, it was an unspoken lesson built into everything he taught me.

"Time to begin," said Father, regarding me rather severely. "This will be

serious work, Fainne. It may be necessary to curtail your freedom this

summer."

"I-yes, Father."

"Good." He gave a nod. "Stand here by me. Look into the mirror. Watch my

face."

The surface was bronze, polished to a bright reflective sheen. Our images

showed side by side; the same face with subtle alterations. The dark red

curls; the fierce eyes, dark as ripe berries; the pale unfreckled skin. My

father's countenance was handsome enough, I thought, if somewhat forbidding in

expression. Mine was a child's, unformed, plain, a little pudding of a face. I

scowled at my reflection, and glanced back at my father in the mirror. I

sucked in my breath.

My father's face was changing. The nose grew hooked, the deep red hair frosted

with white, the skin wrinkled and blotched like an ancient apple left too long

in store. I stared, aghast. He raised a hand, and it was an old man's hand,

gnarled and knotted, with nails like the claws of some feral creature. I could

not tear my eyes away from the mirrored image.

"Now look at me," he said quietly, and the voice was his own. I forced my eyes

to flicker sideways, though my heart shrank at the thought that the man

standing by me might be this wizened husk of my fine, upright father. And

there he was, the same as ever, dark eyes fixed on mine, hair still curling

glossily auburn about his temples. I turned back to the mirror. The face was

changing again. It wavered for a moment, and stilled. This time the difference

was more subtle. The hair a shade lighter, a touch straighter. The eyes a deep

blue, not the unusual shade of dark purple my father and I shared. The

shoulders somewhat broader, the height a handspan greater, the nose and chin

with a touch of coarseness not seen there before. It was my father still; and

yet, it was a different man.

"This time," he said, "when you take your eyes from the mirror, you will see

what I want you to see. Don't be frightened, Fainne. I am still myself. This

is the Glamour, which we use to clothe ourselves for a special purpose. It is

a powerful tool if employed adeptly. It is not so much an alteration of one's

appearance, as a shift in others' perception. The technique must be exercised

with extreme caution."

When I looked, this time, the man at my side was the man in the mirror; my

father, and not my father. I blinked, but he remained not himself. My heart

was thumping in my chest, and my hands felt clammy.

"Good," said my father quietly. "Breathe slowly as I showed you. Deal with

your fear and put it aside. This skill is not learned in a day, or a season,

or a year. You'll have to work extremely hard."

"Then why didn't you start teaching me before?" I managed, still deeply

unsettled to see him so changed. It would almost have been easier if he had

transformed himself into a dog, or a horse, or a small dragon even; not

this—this not quite right version of himself.

"You were too young before. This is the right age. Now come." And suddenly he

was himself again, as quick as a snap of the fingers. "Step by step. Use the

mirror. We'll start with the eyes. Concentrate, Fainne. Breathe from the

belly. Look into the mirror. Look at the point just between the brows. Good.

Will your body to utter stillness . . . put aside the awareness of time

passing ... I will give you some words to use, at first. In time you must

learn to work without the mirror, and without the incantation."

By dusk I was exhausted, my head hollow as a dry gourd, my body cold and damp

with sweat. We rested, seated opposite one another on the stone floor.

"How can I know," I asked him, "how can I know what is real, and what an

image? How can I know that the way I see you is the true way? You could be an

ugly, wrinkled old man clothed in the Glamour of a sorcerer."

Father nodded, his pale features somber. "You cannot know."

"But-"

"It would be possible for one skilled in the art to sustain this guise for

years, if it were necessary. It would be possible for such a one to deceive

all. Or almost all. As I said, it is a powerful tool."

"Almost all?"

He was silent a moment, then gave a nod. "You will not blind another

practitioner of our art with this magic. There are three, I think, who will

always know your true self: a sorcerer, a seer and an innocent. You look

weary, Fainne. Perhaps you should rest, and begin this anew in the morning."

"I'm well, Father," I said, anxious not to disappoint him. "I can go on,

truly. I'm stronger than I look."

Father smiled; a rare sight. That seemed to me a change deeper than any the

Glamour could effect; as if it were truly another man I saw, the man he might

have been, if fate had treated him more kindly. "I forget sometimes how young

you are, daughter," he said gently. "I am a hard taskmaster, am I not?"

"No, Father," I said. My eyes were curiously stinging, as if with tears. "I'm

strong enough."

"Oh, yes," he said, his mouth once more severe. "I don't doubt that for a

moment. Come then, let's begin again."

I was twelve years old, and for a short time I was taller than Darragh. That

summer my father didn't let me out much. When he did give me a brief time for

rest, I crept away from the Honeycomb and up the hill, no longer sure if this

was allowed, but not prepared to ask permission in case it was refused.

Darragh would be waiting for me, practicing the pipes as often as not, for Dan

had taught him well, and the exercise of his skill was pleasure more than

duty. We didn't explore the caves anymore, or walk along the shore looking for

shells, or make little fires with twigs. Most of the time we sat in the shadow

of the standing stones, or in a hollow near the cliffs edge, and we talked,

and then I went home again with the sweet sound of the pipes arching through

the air behind me. I say we talked, but it was usually the way of it that

Darragh talked and I listened, content to sit quiet in his company. Besides,

what had I to talk about? The things I did were secret, not to be spoken. And

increasingly, Darragh's world was unknown to me, foreign, like some sort of

thrilling dream that could never come true.

"Why doesn't he take you back to Sevenwaters?" he asked one day, somewhat

incautiously. "We've been there once or twice, you know. There's an old auntie

of my dad's still lives there. You've got a whole family in those parts:

uncles, aunts, cousins by the cartload. They'd make you welcome, I've no doubt

of it."

"Why should he?" I glared at him, finding any criticism of my father

difficult, however indirectly expressed.

"Because—" Darragh seemed to straggle for words. "Because— well, because

that's the way of it, with families. You grow up together, you do things

together, you learn from each other and look after each other and—and—"

"I have my father. He has me. We don't need anyone else."

"It's no life," Darragh muttered. "It's not a life for a girl."

"I'm not a girl, I'm a sorcerer's daughter," I retorted, raising my brows at

him. "There's no need for me to go to Sevenwaters. My home is here."

"You're doing it again," said Darragh after a moment.

"What?"

"That thing you do when you're angry. Your eyes start glowing, and little

flashes of light go through your hair, like flames. Don't tell me you didn't

know."

"Well, then," I said, thinking I had better exercise more control over my

feelings.

"Well, what?"

"Well, that just goes to show. That I'm not just a girl. So you can stop

planning my future for me. I can plan it myself."

"Uh-huh." He did not ask me for details. We sat silent for a while, watching

the gulls wheel above the returning curraghs. The sea was dark as slate; there

would be a storm before dusk. After a while he started to tell me about the

white pony he'd brought down from the hills, and how his dad would be wanting

him to sell her for a good price at the horse fair, but Darragh wasn't sure he

could part with her, for there was a rare understanding growing between the

two of them. By the time he'd finished telling me I was rapt with attention,

and had quite forgotten I was cross with him.

I was fourteen years old, and summer was nearly over. Father was pleased with

me, I could see it in his eyes. The Glamour was tricky. It was possible to

achieve some spectacular results. My father could turn himself into a

different being entirely: a bright-eyed red fox, or a strange wraith-like

creature most resembling an attenuated wisp of smoke. He gave me the words for

this, but he would not allow me to attempt it. There was a danger in it, if

used incautiously. The risk was that one might lack the necessary controls to

reverse the spell. There was always the chance that one might never come back

to oneself. Besides, Father told me, such a transformation caused a major

drain on a sorcerer's power. The further from one's true self the semblance

was, the more severe the resultant depletion. Say one became a ferocious sea

monster, or an eagle with razor-sharp talons, and then managed the return to

oneself. For a while, after that, no exercise of the craft would be possible.

It could be as long as a day and a night. During that time the sorcerer would

be at his, or her, most vulnerable.

So I was forbidden to try the major variants of the spell, which dealt with

non-human forms. But the other, the more subtle changing, that I discovered a

talent for. At first it was hard work, leaving me exhausted and shaken. But I

applied myself, and in time I could slip the Glamour on and off in the twinkle

of an eye. I learned to conceal my weariness.

"You understand," said Father gravely, "that what you create is simply a

deception of others' eyes. If your disguise is subtle, just a convenient

alteration of yourself, folk will be unaware that things have changed. They

will simply wonder why they did not notice, before, how utterly charming you

were, or how trustworthy your expression. They will not know that they have

been manipulated. And when you change back to yourself, they will not know

they ever saw you differently. A complete disguise is another matter. That

must be used most carefully. It can create difficulties. It is always best to

keep your guise as close as possible to your own form. That way you can slip

back easily and regain your strength quickly. Excuse me a moment." He turned

away from me, suppressing a deep cough.

"Are you unwell?" I asked. It was unusual for him to have so much as a

sniffle, even in the depths of winter.

"I'm well, Fainne," he said. "Don't fuss. Now remember what I said about the

Glamour. If you use the major forms you take a great personal risk."

"But I could do it," I protested. "Change myself into a bird or a serpent. I'm

sure I could. Can't I try, just once?"

Father looked at me. "Be glad," he said, "that you have no need of it. Believe

that it is perilous. A spell of last resort."

It was no longer possible to take time off from my studies. I had scarcely

seen the sun all summer, for Father had arranged to have our small supply of

bread and fish and vegetables brought up to the Honeycomb by one of the local

girls. There was a spring in one of the deep gullies, and it was Father

himself who went with a bucket for water now. I stayed inside, working. I was

training myself not to care. At first it hurt a lot, knowing Darragh would be

out there somewhere looking for me, waiting for me. Later, when he gave up

waiting, it hurt even more. I'd escape briefly to a high ledge above the

water, a secret place accessible only from inside the vaulted passages of the

Honeycomb. From this vantage point you could see the full sweep of the bay,

from our end with its sheer cliffs and pounding breakers to the western end,

where the far promontory sheltered the scattering of cottages and the bright,

untidy camp of the traveling folk. You could see the boys and girls running on

the shore, and hear their laughter borne on the breath of the west wind,

mingled with the wild voices of seabirds. Darragh was there among them, taller

now, for he had shot up this last winter away. His dark hair was thrown back

from his face by the wind, and his grin was as crooked as ever. There was

always a girl hanging around him now, sometimes two or three. One in

particular I noticed, a little slip of a thing with skin brown from the sun,

and a long plait down her back. Wherever Darragh went she wasn't far away,

white teeth flashing in a smile, hand on her hip, looking. With no good reason

at all, I hated her.

The lads used to dive off the rocks down below the Honeycomb, unaware of my

presence on the ledge above. They were of an age when a boy believes himself

invincible, when every lad is a hero who can slay whatever monsters cross his

path. The ledge they chose was narrow and slippery; the sea below dark, chill

Juliet Marillier - Child of the Prophecy

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