Silver Eve by Sandra Waugh Read Free Book Online Page A

the Insight spell because she’d wanted to learn why her son had abruptly left their village. Ever after she was mute and came no more to market. No one knew if this was brought on because of what she saw or the spell itself. Eowan Holt said she’d uttered a last word about
breeders;
he laughed that she was struck dumb for a gaggle of geese. But whatever the reason, it cut short my studies. Had Dame Gringer not gone silent, I might have learned how to use the yew to raise the dead.
    I might have saved Raif.
    Two days I lasted, arguing every reason why I should neither attempt something beyond my gift nor use up my remaining poison—my
escape,
as Harker said. But the answers to his portents were too great a temptation.
    Besides, every ingredient for the spell was at hand, and that seemed no coincidence.
    On the third day of my sojourn I undertook to cast the Insight spell. The preparations began at dawn—the importance of which Dame Gringer had impressed upon me above any actual casting. “Show that your intention is sincere,” she’d scribbled in the margins of her books, “The rest will follow.” And so I woke at first light and carefully laid out all the mal stones that I’d gathered the day before in a wide circle on the lawn to create the neutral space, sweeping out any bits of pebble and twig and seed from the grass within. I milked the nanny goat and drank the first cupful with a handful of blackberries. Then I tethered the goats far from the circle with strands from the protective willow tree, so they could neither interrupt nor fall prey to the spell’s workings. I set a cinder stone, a hard stone, the yew, and minion just inside the circle and added the second cup of goat’s milk within as well. I took the last things from my satchel and laid them down: the lark feather and the leather ring. I felt some guilt to use them for this, but mementos made spells most powerful.
    I washed in the stream, then laid my cloak and frock and sandals to the side, wearing only the white undershift as a show of humility. I brushed my hands over my body to shed old energy. Then—with an earnest wish that I’d done well—I took a deep, shaky breath, picked up the branch I’d broken from the beech tree, and stepped inside the circle.
    With the beech I scraped a cross, quartering the circle. In one quarter I carved the word
Shell;
in the second,
Lark;
the third,
See,
defining the questions that I wanted answered. I did not ask to learn my weakness; the seer had already told me that. I kneeled in the remaining quarter.
    Minion first,
I reminded myself.
Minion shields Earth from yew.
I opened the tiny vial of dried minion and divided it equally, mounding a tiny heap of minion over each of the three words. Then I picked up the vial of yew and poured all of it into my palm. I sorted equally the needles, bark, and wizened little drupes that still burned rich red in color. I saved three needles, three chips of bark, and three drupes, which I dropped into the goat’s milk. The rest of the yew was portioned atop the minion heaps.
    “Representations of intent,”
I murmured; items to focus each answer. I pulled a strand of my hair and placed it on top of the
Shell
pile. ’Twas the weakest offering, since I had no idea what this shell was, but if I was meant to find it, then the answer would be within me. I placed the feather for
Lark
and put Raif’s woven leather ring on
See.
    Glass for clarity.
I took the hard stone and smashed the empty vial of yew, then equally sprinkled the shards. One shard I used to pierce my little finger, adding a drop of blood to each pile.
“Life’s blood,”
I murmured. Then I pressed my hands into the earth by each word, saying aloud three times, “Show me the reasons; show me the whys.”
    I went over the steps in my head one more time for good measure, then picked up the cinder stone and struck it on the hard stone next to the first offering. I watched it spark and flare into a little flame