Read The Pattern Scars for Free Online Page A

twist up your face so much, like it’s hurting you?”
    She had lifted one eyebrow. She had been thrusting copper combs into her hair, which, if not contained, stood up around her head like a thick, black-and-white bush. “The visions are clearer and easier when you’re a child—I’ve told you this—do you hear anything I say, Nola-girl? They rise up like breath—and usually only one of them for any one person. One, which you can look at and then away from. But”—another thrust, and copper tines disappearing—“then, if you’re a girl, you begin your monthly bleeding, and everything changes. The one, quick vision may still come up to meet you, but now it’s not as clear, and not alone. Layers, Nola. Layers of pictures, and you wondering which among them is truest.”
    “So do boy seers always have the easy visions, since they never bleed?”
    She made a huffing sound that I knew was a chuckle. “No. It is harder for them too, as they grow. Seeing either world is never easy when childhood’s gone.”
    When Chenn arrived I had not yet begun my monthly bleeding. My Othersight was still swift and easy; all that happened after I used it was that I felt dizzy, and colours looked different. But I was twelve, and I knew that things would soon change for me—and so I watched Yigranzi with particular attention.
    She ran her fingers around the mirror’s rim. Her eyes were on Chenn.
    “Tell me what the Pattern holds for me,” said Chenn.
    Yigranzi looked down at the mirror. She began to hum: a low, formless tune that was different every time. Her fingers slowed against the copper. Moments later they stopped, and so did the humming. She was motionless. Big, round snowflakes fell on the mirror and she did not brush them off. There were only a few patches of metal showing when she lifted her head.
    Usually she was smiling a small, lips-together smile at this point, no matter what she had seen. This time she was not. Her eyes were all black; the pearl centres returned as she blinked. She was quiet for a long time, which was also strange. (She had told me that seers should say something as soon as the vision had passed, something slow and quiet that might have nothing to do with the vision itself, but that would be calming to both seer and seen.)
    “Well?” Chenn bit her lip as soon as the word was out.
    Yigranzi did smile now, but I could tell that she was trying to; that it was weak, held on only by her will.
    “The Pattern is unclear,” she said. “There are many spirals, all of them twisted like—”
    “Just tell me.”
    Yigranzi’s smile vanished. “There was a wolf with the hands of a man. Its teeth were set with gems. It snarled and reached for you, and you turned to it—you knew it, but this did not matter, for it fastened its jaws around your thigh while it held you still with its hands.”
    I had never heard her describe a vision so starkly. Chenn did not seem as alarmed as I felt. She nodded once, as if she understood what Yigranzi had told her, and said, “And what of the other, lesser pictures?”
    “Unclear,” Yigranzi replied. “The twisting lines, all of them the colour of blood.”
    One more nod, and then Chenn turned to me. “Please,” she said, “tell me your name, and take your turn.”
    I straightened. I noticed only now that I was taller than she was. “Nola,” I said, trying not to sound too proud or too timid, and reached for the mirror. I wiped the snow off it with the hem of my cloak and sat down on the stone.
    “Tell me what will come, for me,” I heard Chenn say.
    I
see right away. I am sure, as the copper mist eddies and parts, that there will be horrors—but there are not. Just Chenn sitting on a golden chair like a throne, only smaller than I imagine a real throne would be. She is bathed in sunlight; the gold shines, as do the beads of her light green gown. Her hair is as dark as her eyes and unbound, brushed glossy-smooth. She is looking off to her right, smiling at