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limbs.
    “Helwain does not hate you,” Mother says in a weary voice. “She is angry at what she cannot change. The feeling is far older than you are. Do not hate her . . . or me.”
    Her pleading brings tears to my eyes.
    “Albia, there is more that I must tell you, if you are to understand her.” She pauses. “If you are to know yourself.”
    “I am listening,” I say. My voice sounds hoarse after so long a silence.
    “There are four worlds created by Guidlicht and Neoni. We live in the Now-world. In the Under-world live the spirits of the dead, and in the Other-world live faeries, merpeople, and dragons,” Mother explains. “The fourth world, the Asyet-world, contains all that has not yet come to pass. It is visible only to those who have the Second Sight.” She lifts my chin with her hand. “Helwain believes you have the Sight, that you can see the future.”
    I turn my head aside, unwilling to admit, even to my mother, what I have already seen.
    “It is a dangerous gift, Albia. Those who have it are often tempted to misuse it.”
    “Mother, why are you trying to burden me?” The words burst from me. “I only want to go away for a while.” I press my forehead against the rough bark of the oak tree.
    “You may go. But first, listen. This ancient tree—and others like it that are bent by the winds and scorched by lightning—holds the four worlds together by its roots. And there, at Stravenock Henge, when the sunlight pours between the stones four times during the year, the borders between the worlds dissolve, and all their creatures mingle.”
    In the distance I can see the stones. Their ragged tops are lit by the sun, their bases hidden in the mist.
    “I don’t doubt that these are magical places, Mother. But what do they have to do with me?” I sigh, weary of her wisdom.
    “My sisters and I come here to greet the gods, but we are not gifted. You, Albia, are different.” Her voice is low and urgent. “Come back to this place, when you are ready to know the truth and use its power wisely. Daughter, farewell.”
    She touches my arm. My eyes remain fixed on the stones. When I look away from them, my mother is gone, vanished into the pale shroud of mist.
    I hear Colum whistling. He stands on a sunlit hill, waving his arms for me to follow him.

Chapter 6
    The Shieling
    Albia
    We walk for two days, pausing to let the sheep graze and sleeping on ferns in a hollow in the earth. Finally we come to Colum’s bothy in the middle of a wide wold, a dwelling of sod and sticks with a ruined roof. I help Colum gather bracken and reeds and watch as he weaves them together and repairs the bothy. He is barely two years older than I am, but he knows how to build a shelter, how to hunt for food, and how to find his way using the sun and stars.
    Away from Mother and Helwain and the brooding wychelms, my discontent blows away like smoke on the wind. Around me sheep gambol on the flower-strewn hills. Colum teaches me their names: Binn is the one who gives the sweetest milk; Bard’s bleating is like music; Mam’s wool is soft as a cloud. Gath will ram anything with his horns. Colum shows me how to use a staff to draw the flock together and what sounds will soothe them.
    “You’re a natural shepherdess,” he says one day as I approach him carrying Binn and Bard, one under each arm. They are not much heavier than Helwain’s brindled cat.
    “They were wandering too near those rocks. I was afraid they would fall.”
    “They’re sheep, not bairns! They won’t fall,” Colum says, laughing. “You have a lot to learn after all.”
    I had been proud of myself for fetching the sheep from danger, and Colum’s criticism stings. “Well, you can’t even make an oatcake that doesn’t taste like dust,” I counter.
    “Oh, you think not?” Colum grabs his fire-kit, drills a stick into a piece of wood until sparks fly, then blows them into a flame. “We’ll each bake a farl and see whose is best.”
    I mix some oats