Astrid stirred her finger around the pool that the rain had left in the road. The water swirled with dirt as her finger glided through it. Her youngest brother, Asmund, watched her closely. He dipped his finger into the pool as well, imitating her movements. Astrid smiled at him, but thought it best not to encourage him any further. “You won’t be able to use the wild magic, Asmund. For you, it’s just dirt and water.”

               “Why?” Asmund asked. He was the youngest of the family, the youngest of six children. Astrid was the oldest child of the family, and the only girl. Since becoming a Bairn, she had been trying to discover why that was.

               “The spirits keep the wild magic to themselves. They only share it with girls,” she said.

               “That’s not fair,” Asmund said.

               “It’s not,” she agreed. The spirits did not like men and boys. They made that clear to her too frequently. But Astrid had spent her life caring for boys, watching her mother be overcome with joy each time she birthed another boy. She had wanted a sister so badly, but brothers were not all bad. They were loud, and they were rough, and they could be impossibly hard and sometimes cruel. But so could girls. Astrid shivered as she felt Freya’s energy swirl to her through the stream of wild magic that connected them. Freya was just as impossible as any man.

               “What is the pool telling you?” Asmund asked, withdrawing his finger from the water.

               “If the rain will come again soon, or if this is the last for the season.” It was early for the rains to dry up, but it had been a dry season. Their gardens were withering. The winter would be sparse.

               “And?” Asmund prompted.

               “It will rain again, Asmund,” she said, smiling. “We should leave the fruits on the vine a little longer.”

               “And the wood sorrel? The sea-kelp? The watercress?” Asmund asked, naming the greens their family cultivated in their gardens. “Harvest or let it grow?”

               Astrid let her heart swell with love for her brother, for his simplicity, for his devotion to her judgment. “Let it grow for now, Asmund. Madir and Patir will know when to harvest.”

               Asmund drug a foot through the dirt, waiting for further instructions from her, but Astrid’s attention focused on Freya’s movements. She was coming and she was holding the wild magic. Astrid rose from her crouch, and gently ushered Asmund back towards the house. “Go inside, dumpling,” she said, steering him away from Freya’s approach.

               Asmund obeyed without complaint, shutting the door of the house tightly behind him. Children, and especially boy children, learned early to do as the Bairns commanded.

               Freya turned the corner, coming up the row of houses towards where Astrid stood in the road. The sun highlighted her dark hair, silken like a raven wing, shining like a beetle shell. Freya’s eyes were white with magic, the edges of her robes billowing with its power. As she approached, the color faded from her hair. Astrid was drawn to her, like a fish on a hook. She took a step forward, unable to resist Freya’s pull.

               Freya did not speak until she was two steps from Astrid. “Your brother can make boys,” she said.

               Astrid knew which one. She had read his runes as his request. “Sigmund,” she said.

               Freya was pleased. Her smile blossomed slowly like an unfolding rose. “He knows this?”

               Astrid nodded. “He came to me two nights ago, Freya. Asking what all boys ask of us.” She crossed her arms. “How did you learn of it?”

               “Magnhild,” she said.

               Astrid needed no further explanation. A woman asked. A woman got an answer. “And you came to see if I had told him already?” she guessed.

               Freya nodded slowly, her smile drooping slightly.

               Sigmund, her oldest brother, was in his 19^th year. She had anticipated this conversation with him for at least two years. It didn’t mean her stomach wasn’t in knots.

               Freya sensed her nerves. “A man who can make boys shouldn’t wait to try, Astrid,” Freya reminded her. “We need new boys.”

               There had been no newborn boys in the last year. Only girls. Five baby girls. “I know.”

               Freya’s smile grew conspiratorial. “Did he like the news?” she said. “Almost all of them do.”

               Astrid laughed despite her anxieties. Sigmund had almost cried with relief at her reading. “But just because he can, doesn’t mean he will. You know it doesn’t work that way.”

“When I read the runes for Magnhild, she asked if I knew how many boys she would have,” Freya said. Her eyes sparkled with excitement. “The runes showed me three.”

“Three boys,” she whispered. Her fingers itched, the rune stones nearly vibrating in their pouch, wanting to be cast. She ignored the urge, wiping her suddenly sweating palms on her white skirt. “And you’re sure that Magnhild will ask to chain Sigmund?”

“Why wouldn’t she?” Freya asked. Her tone was incredulous. “She asked me if her man can make boys, and now she knows she will have three of them. She will put the two pieces together, won’t she?”

Freya thought all men were toys, means to an end, pieces on the board to use as she pleased. But this was her brother they were talking about. “I want him to be happy, Freya,” she said.

Freya’s look grew taunting, almost sneering. “He will be happy if he makes boys, Astrid.”

Astrid sighed, knowing the truth in Freya’s words. He would be happy with Magnhild or anyone else—it wouldn’t matter, not if he could make boys. Making boys was more important than anything else.

               “I can taste your fear,” Freya said tenderly, taking her hand.

               Astrid squeezed her sister’s hand before pulling it away. Freya released her as tenderly as she had grasped her. “When I became a Bairn, I didn’t realize it would involve match making for my brothers.”

               Freya raised an eyebrow. “You’ve read the runes for all of them?”

               Astrid shook her head. “No, but I’ve read the runes for myself,” she explained.

               Freya released some of the wild magic she was holding, letting it dance around them. She sighed, emptying herself until her eyes were dark and her hair was coal black again. Her cloak ceased its rippling. “What did the runes say?” she asked.

               Her purpose was written on her white stone, the one with her true name, but she wouldn’t speak the name aloud. If she did it would lose its power. “It’s me who will make sure the boys are born. I’ll make the matches. I’ll find the mothers. I’ll witness the births. I’ll read the runes for anyone who needs help. This is why the spirits chose me.”

               Freya nodded. “It seems fitting for you,” she said.

               Astrid’s eyes wandered to Freya’s dark expression. “Why do you think this?” she asked.

               Freya gave a half-shrug, then scrunched up her nose, sniffing the air. “All the men that surround you,” she said.

               Astrid stared at her, an attempt to coax more of Freya’s thoughts to the surface through her silence. Freya did not look away, nor did she expound. Astrid nodded slowly, one bob of the head to indicate that line of the conversation was finished. She thought of her five brothers, and the seven boy cousins from her father’s two brothers—a dozen men to pair off, a dozen of men to doubt her sight.

               “You don’t believe they will trust you?” Freya asked.

               Astrid glanced towards the house, her eyes settling on the window of the room where Asmund slept. “Not that,” she said. “They all would trust me to do it right.”

               Freya sniffed again, then smiled. “Oh, I see it now,” she said, almost happily. “The fear is that you will do it wrong.”

               Astrid wanted to grind her teeth but fought the urge. “You see much, don’t you?” she asked instead, tasting the sarcasm.

               Freya leaned closer to her, her breath falling on Astrid’s cheek. “I see you, Astrid. You are my sister.” Her words were honeyed with affection, though Astrid wasn’t in the mood for the sweetness of the gift. Yet, she didn’t pull away, not even a hairsbreadth. Freya felt her refusal of the compliment, nonetheless. She withdrew.

               Astrid’s tension melted, and she let a long sigh escape. “It wearies me,” she admitted. “The women expect boys from a man who comes with the right blood.” She paused, knowing she didn’t need to speak the next words. Freya knew well enough the struggles of Soledge.

               Freya sucked her teeth, and Astrid could feel her unease over how to reply. “The right blood is perhaps not all there is,” she said. “But the runes are never wrong.”

               “Three boys,” she said, thinking of what Sigmund would say when Magnhild placed her chain around his neck, marking him as hers, claiming him and the runes in his blood for her own. She wondered if the spirits would ask for him to make boys with other mothers. It would be trouble between them. Magnhild did not strike Astrid as gracious or willing to share anything that was hers.

               “Three,” Freya repeated.

               Astrid nodded. Her fingers itched. She looked down to the dirt where Asmund had crouched. The imprint of his shoes was still there in the street. “Asmund tries to learn the wild magic,” she said, not looking up.

               Freya’s demeanor grew cold. It nearly made Astrid shiver, though the morning sunshine was bright around them. “The wild magic does not take boys,” she sneered.

               “I know this, as does he,” she said. “But it does not keep him from asking questions.”

               “Then you must keep him from asking questions,” Freya said.

               Astrid’s ire rose, coloring her cheeks. “It is easy for you and Sif to hate men,” she snapped. “It is not as easy for the rest of us.”

               Freya drew back from her, as if the words had burned her. “Hate men?” she asked. “Why would you ever think I hate men?”

               “They are useless to you,” she said. “To us! To the Bairns!” she exhaled heavily, an attempt to release her anger. “I see you too, Freya,” she said. “You think men are nothing.”

               Freya was shaking her head, denying the words even though there was a sparkle in her eye that suggested Astrid was right. “Oh no, Astrid,” she said. “Men are not nothing,” she said. “Men are everything. Without men, do you think we’d have any baby girls at all?” She smiled sweetly, the way her madir would if she was pleased with the biscuits she had baked.

               Astrid grumbled something unintelligible, even to herself. “Tell anyone who asks not to pick any fruits yet,” she said, glancing back down at the puddle, then lifting her eyes to the sky. “It will rain tomorrow. After that would be the best time.”

               Freya nodded to her, then softly swept past, trailing her perfectly white dress in the dirt behind her. It didn’t collect any of the dust.