Osburga wasted no time with me. As soon as the offer to teach me bewitching left her lips, a powerful wind blew through my spirit. I gasped at its bite, the chill of it snaking along my limbs. But I held Osburga’s eyes until it passed. She seemed pleased with my tolerance and my stoicism. “Good,” she said. “You can feel the power and already have a respect for it.” She paused, tilting her head as she considered me more thoroughly. Her gaze was a test, though I didn’t understand what she was testing. My spirit was thrilled by her gaze, though I did not understand why. She smiled at me broadly. “And you have respect for yourself as well,” she said.

She rose from her place at the table paced to her door. She flung open the door to the outside air. “Come,” she said without looking at me before she disappeared outside.

I followed. There was no other choice.

We went on deep trails through the forest, going deeper and deeper until I had lost all sense of direction. Osburga walked two paces ahead. I imagined how we looked from afar- women determinedly marching through the woods, holding up their skirts to avoid snags and snares in the fabric as we passed by thorn and bur and branch. Two women, headed somewhere no one but wise women would go. We moved along without speaking, until finally Osburga came to halt ahead of me.

We were standing at the top of a small hill, and at the bottom of the hill ran a stream. Rocks littered the path down the hill and the stream bed. My eyes followed the flow of the water to an entrance to a cave. My heart leapt to my throat. “Are we going in there?” I asked, the dread settling in my bones.

“In the cave?” Osburga laughed. “No. No one can go into that cave.” She laughed to herself. “We’re going into the water.” Her laughter had a twinkling quality, like starlight. She moved down the hill and I followed her to the stream, crunching last year’s leaves underfoot. I followed her right up to the bank of the stream. I didn’t know how she deftly avoided slipping on the mossy stones. She was so light on her toes, while I could barely find my balance.

The stream pooled at the mouth of the cave before it ran underground. The pool was deeper than it looked from at the top of the hill. I peered into the depth, feeling the swirling power in the water.

“What do you see?” she asked.

I focused my eyes on the rocks at the bottom of the pool, which changed colors and shape as I stared. My vision swam with things of the past as I watched the rocks morph into the face of my mother, and the horse that carried Ealdred, that threw him to the ground when he tripped, the face of Cynewulf, leering in the dark of the woods. And there was my gran too, whom I had never met, hanging in the tree, as my mother watched her house burn. By grandad took her by the hand and led her away, swords pointed at their backs as they left the only home they’d ever know. I could see a long line of women, all the way back through the ages, each one’s face rise to the surface as the pool as they looked me in the eyes, smiling with magic and guile. No, stop it. I pleaded with them to go away, but I could not more stop the sight than I could stop my breath.

Osburga touched my shoulder, and the visions broke. I gasped, tears filling my eyes. I gulped in air as if I had been drowning. “I can only see into the past,” I cried, tears streaming down my hot cheeks. The stones at the bottom of the pool were just stones again. I wiped the tears from my face with the back of my hand. “I can’t see anything about now, or about the future.”

“Oh, it takes a great power to see the future, little witch,” Osburga said.

I whirled on her, feeling hot with anger at her words. “Goda said you could help me. But you’ve only shown me what I’ve seen before.”

Osburga crinkled her nose at me, as if I smelled like something she didn’t want in her house. “I’ve shown you nothing, Eadgyth.”

I calmed, her flat pronouncement of the truth registering as a indisputable fact. My anger cooled and I bowed my head. I did not want to meet her eyes. The wind rustled the leaves overhead, and for a moment, I thought I heard a call on the wind. It sounded almost like my name, but I pushed away the ridiculous thought before it could take root.

“Eadgyth,” Osburga said tenderly. She took my face in her hands, turning my eyes upward along with my chin. “To find your mother, you must first find yourself.”

My head felt as if I had drunk too much mead at the Easter feast. I pushed away the thoughts that threatened to creep across me. You’re weak. You’re not worthy of the power. You will never see anything of value. All lies. Told by the great liar, whom the priests called the Devil. But they called my mother and my gran of the Devil too. Why should I believe that the Devil didn’t speak to me as well?

Osburga frowned. It was as if she sense the thought that intruded into my skull. “You are thinking that this is not a gift?” she asked. “That it is too hard?”

I realized then that she didn’t know my thoughts; she had only guessed, probably based on what she had experienced when she had awakened to the powers she had. “They will call me names. They will cast me away, as they did my mother. They might hang me in a tree, as they did to my gran.”

Osburga dropped her hands from my face, only to take up stroking my hair. “Ah, they might, little witch,” she said. “Better then, that you stay with me.”

And the sight took me at her words. I saw the friendship blossom between us, and how she felt already like a replacement for the mother I had lost. I reached for her, wrapping my arms around her waist, and falling into her. She tucked my head against her shoulder, shushing sweetly as I let silent tears flow.

“I will help you,” Osburga whispered. “You will need protection from those who seek to do you harm.”

I shut out the image of the burning house, and the screaming horse that would not leave me. I looked for my mother among the images, but she was nowhere to be seen.