Read The Silver Witch for Free Online Page B

are no cars. No motorboats. No trailers loaded with canoes. Nothing is as she knows it to be.
    Tilda’s heart starts to pound, although she is already beginning to feel cold from standing. Her mind is spinning.
    Am I dreaming? How low must my blood sugar be? I must be dizzy from running and it’s making me see things?
    The sound of oars being raised from the water and shipped snatches her attention back to the oarsmen. The boat has reached the shallows and the reeds, and the men are allowing it to coast as far in toward the shore as it will go. Every instinct in Tilda is telling her to turn and run, but she finds she cannot move. She is transfixed by what she is witnessing. By the impossibility of what her eyes would have her believe. And, most of all, by the strange figure now standing in the prow of the boat. The woman is tall and her movements graceful. There is such a quiet strength about her. As she waits for the boat to come to a halt she turns her head, slowly, scanning the shore as the mist melts away before her steady gaze. Tilda holds her breath, sensing the inevitability of what will happen next. She wants to move, to flee, but she can no more run than fly as the phantom woman continues to turn, until at last, unmistakably, her gaze falls on Tilda.
    There is an instant of connection. A moment where all else seems not to exist, nothing but that moment of seeing and of being seen. It is both wonderful and terrifying. Something inside Tilda snaps and fear galvanizes her. As she spins on her heel and sprints away she hears shouts. Clear, loud, urgent shouts, as those in the boat alert each other to the presence of a stranger. There is a short silence, quickly followed by several splashes.
    They’re getting out of the boat! They are coming after me!
    Now Tilda runs. She finds a speed and power she did not know she possessed and pounds along the path. She can hear heavy footsteps behind her. She can feel the shuddering of the earth as the runners begin to close the gap. Frightened beyond reason, she increases her speed still more, even as the trail twists away from the lake, even as the mist returns to swallow up the fields to her right, to shorten her view to a few yards once more. Still she runs, blindly, wildly, though she can no longer hear her pursuers. And as she rounds a narrow corner she all but barrels into a tall, solitary figure standing firmly in the center of the path.
    SEREN
    Two days have passed since I delivered my words of warning at the gathering. The weather continues gentle, the lake is tranquil, but I can feel the discord and alarm on the crannog. People are afraid, and with good reason. The vision was strong, its meaning plain. They harried me for more detail, pestering me with who? and when? and why? Of course I cannot tell them, though as the danger grows stronger there will be more signs. Of that I am certain. As to the who … many of them would not believe me if I told them my thoughts, for that is all I have to give; the wisdom of my mind. They will all listen when I bring them a seeing, but some still doubt my own word. As if their prophet is nothing more than a cypher!
    But then, I must allow that I am a mystery to them. I cannot expect them to understand all that I do, all that I am. I have followed my mother’s calling as a shaman, and it was she who showed me the path of the seeker of visions. She who taught me how to read what I saw. Our strangeness marked us out, and we have always been respected as different, as having a connection to the old religion, to useful talents and gifts. The title of witch they accept less readily. There are too many tales of wickedness attached to my kind, and the combination of seer and witch is rare. My mother knew the day I was born that I carried magic within me. That I had been doubly blessed. But my skills were not enough to keep her in this life. When the sickness took hold of her, she could not shake free of it, and I was too