“Why would she think me a spirit woman out of the… ah… bush?”
“You have the smell of the spirit world in your bones. But I have seen spirit women, and spirit men, and changeling children, and I know you are not one of them but something else.”
“Do you know what I am?” I demanded.
The girl hissed warningly at my impassioned tone, but the old mother smiled. “I sense you are confused. Why are you come to our village? I admit, a wedding night celebrated on Hallows Night would be ill-omened, so better that you wait on the bedding. Still, I would think you better served in a big house with plenty of rich food and fine clothing to wait out the hallowing.”
I held my tongue, thinking furiously. What could I say that would not condemn me?
“Yet here you are,” she continued. I did not think her sight extended actually into my thoughts. It surely took no great skill to look at my weary, rumpled form and figure that something drastic must have precipitated my departure from a powerful mage House on the deadliest night of the year, especially since Andevai’s sister knew perfectly well that I had only hours before arrived at Four Moons House in her brother’s company. “And now you are our guest, whatever else you may be. I expect you are hungry. Kayleigh, bring meat and porridge. How tired the feet become after much walking!” She lifted her hand a handbreadth off the blankets.
This, I realized, was an invitation for me to sit rather than kneel. The attendant brought a stool, and I thanked her nicely and examined Grandmother’s face for Andevai’s lineaments. Like all of the villagers in these parts, she was what Brennan had called “tartan,” of mixed descent, lighter than Andevai and Kayleigh but without Duvai’s brown-gold hair. She was very weak, but her gaze was alert. A frail hand stirred on the blankets. Moved by what impulse I did not know, I took gentle hold of her hand and we sat for a time in silence, my hand warm against her cooler skin. I felt oddly comfortable, almost at peace, with drums talking nearby and her breathing as steady as a heart’s beat.
“What is the name of this village?” I asked at last.
“Haranwy. We are a well-fed village, through our hard work. Growers of grain.”
“And hunters,” I added, more tartly than I meant, “who tell me they can walk in the spirit world.”
“What would a city girl like you know of hunters? Or the spirit world? To attract the interest of Four Moons House, you must have been born into a rich or a princely family, or to one that has harvested many cold mages out of its fields.”