Midsummer Night. Deanna Raybourn

if you do not change your course.”

      “How frightful!” I murmured.

      She gave me a sharp look. “You do not believe.”

      I bared my teeth in a smile. “I’ve heard these things before.”

      The Gypsy woman dropped my hand as if she had been scalded. “And yet you mock me, lady? You are arrogant. But you will learn to mend your ways.”

      “How?” I asked.

      She blinked. “How?”

      “Yes, how? You speak of darkness and woe and—shadows, was it? Now, how am I supposed to avoid them? With a hefty payment, I suppose? I’ve already told you I have no silver for you.”

      She rose, wrapping her shawl about her in spite of the warmth of the day. She lifted a finger and pointed it at my heart. “And I told you I did not want your money. If you wish to avoid tragedy, you must give him up.”

      A cold chill struck me then, and I no longer felt flippant.

      “Him?”

      She gave me a sly look then, cutting her eyes sideways at me as she turned to go. “Him. The one who sits in your heart. He walks with death, lady. And if you choose him, death will touch you, too.”

      She was gone, melting away with the same silence with which she had come. The sun still beat down; the breeze still danced in the reeds, bending the wildflowers and teasing the scent of honeysuckle from the throat of the blossoms. But there was a shadow over the afternoon that had not been there before. I rose and dried my feet on my skirts and put on my stockings and slippers and walked slowly back to the Abbey.

      1 Silent on the Moor

      2 Silent in the Sanctuary