‘Very well.’ Grandmother was looking straight into my eyes, very intently. ‘You know how to turn a frog into a bird, and a beetle into a crab. What would you do with this girl?’
‘I –’
‘Scruples, Fainne?’ Her tone sharpened.
‘No, Grandmother.’ I had no doubt she had told me the truth, and I must do as she asked. If I failed, my father would pay. Still, a transformation need not be for ever. It need not be for long at all. I could obey her, and still do this my own way.
‘Good. Just as well the weather’s better, isn’t it? You can walk down this afternoon and stretch your legs. Take that dour excuse for a raven on an outing, it still seems to be hanging about. You can do it then. You’ll need to catch her alone.’
‘Yes, Grandmother.’
‘Focus, now. Remember all you’re doing is making a slight adjustment. Quite harmless, in the scheme of things.’
I timed it so the boats were still out and the women indoors. If I were seen at all, two and two would most certainly be put together. I lacked the skill to command invisibility, for, as my grandmother had told me, we had been stripped of the higher powers. Still, I was able to slip from rocky outcrop to wind-whipped bushes to stone wall without drawing attention to myself, crooked foot or no, and it appeared that Fiacha knew quite well what I was doing, for he behaved exactly like any other raven that just happened to be in the settlement that day. Most of the time he sat in a tree watching me.
The girl was outside her cottage, washing clothes in a tub. Her glossy brown hair was dragged back off her face, and she seemed more ordinary than I had remembered. Two very small children played on the grass nearby. I watched for a little, unseen where I stood in the shade of an outhouse. But I did not watch for long; I did not allow too much time for thought. The girl looked up and said something to the children, and one of them shrieked with laughter, and the girl grinned, showing her white teeth. I moved my hand, and made the spell in my head, and an instant later a fine fat codfish was flapping and gasping on the earthen pathway, and the brown-skinned girl was gone. The two infants appeared not to notice, absorbed in their small game. I watched as the fish twisted and jerked, desperate for life. I would leave it just long enough to show I was strong; just long enough to prove to my grandmother that I could do this. Then I would point my finger and speak the charm of undoing. Now, maybe. I began to focus my mind again, and summon the words. But before I could whisper them, a woman came bustling out of the cottage, a sharp knife in her hand and a frown on her lined features. She was a big woman, and she stopped on the path right before me, blocking my view of the thrashing fish. And while I could not see the creature I had changed, I could not work the counter-spell.
Move, I willed her. Move now, quick.
‘Brid!’ she called. ‘Where are you, girl?’
Move away. Oh, please.
‘Where’s your sister gone?’ The woman seemed to be addressing the two infants, not expecting a reply. ‘And what’s this doing here?’ Before my horrified gaze she bent and scooped up something from the path. If only she would turn a little, all I needed was a glimpse of silvery tail or staring eye or gasping mouth, and I could change the girl back. I would do it, even if it meant all knew the truth. If I did not do it, I would be a murderer.
‘Who’s been here?’ the woman asked the children. ‘Tinker lads playing tricks? I’ll have something to say to your sister when she gets back, make no doubt of that. Leaving the two of you alone with a tub of wash water, that’s asking for trouble. Still, this’ll go down well with a bit of cabbage and a dumpling or two.’ She made a quick movement with her hand, the one that held the knife, and then, only then, she half-turned, and I saw the fish hanging limp in her grip, indeed transformed into no more than a welcome treat for a hungry family’s table. I was powerless. It was too late. The greatest sorcerer in the world cannot bestow the gift of life. A freezing terror ran through me. It was not just that I had done the unforgivable. It was something far worse. Had not I just proved my grandmother right? I bore the blood of a cursed line, a line of sorcerers and outcasts. It seemed I could not fight that; it would manifest itself as it chose. Were not my steps set inevitably towards darkness? I turned and fled in silence, and the woman never saw me.
Later we heard news from the settlement of the girl’s disappearance. A search was mounted; they looked for her everywhere. But nobody mentioned the dead fish, and the children were too little to tell a tale. The incident became old news. They never found the girl. The best they could hope for her was that she’d run off with some sweetheart, and made a life elsewhere. Odd, though; she’d been such a good lass.
After that, it became more difficult to get to sleep. Riona stayed in the chest. I could imagine her small eyes looking at me, looking in the darkness, telling me truths about myself with never a word spoken. I did not want to hear what she might have to say. I did not want to think about anything in particular. I knew a lot of mind games, tricks Father had shown me for focusing the concentration, strategies for shutting out what was not wanted. But now, none of them seemed to work. Instead, my mind repeated three things, over and over. My grandmother’s voice saying, Scruples, Fainne? Darragh, watching as I made the fire with my pointing finger. Darragh frowning. You’re a danger to yourself. And a little image of a red-haired girl, weeping and weeping, frenzied with grief, eyes squeezed shut, hands clutching her head, nose streaming, voice hoarse and ragged with sobbing. She, of them all, I wanted out of my mind. I could not bear to witness so wild a display of anguish. It made me want to scream. It made me want to cry, I could feel the tears building up in me. But our kind do not weep. Stop it! Stop it! I hissed, willing her away. Then she raised her blotched and tragic face to me, and the girl was myself.
After an endless winter and a chill spring, summer came and the travelling folk returned to the cove. I passed my fifteenth birthday. This year, when I might have roamed abroad free of Father’s restrictions, I did not climb the hill to see the long shadows mark out the day of Darragh’s arrival. But I heard the sweet, sad voice of the pipes piercing the soft stillness of dusk, and I knew he was here. Part of me still longed to escape, to make my way up to the secret place and sit by my friend, looking out over the sea, talking, or not talking as the mood took us. But it was easy, this time, to find reasons not to go. Most of them were reasons I did not want to think about, but they were there, hidden away somewhere inside me. There was that girl, and what I had done. It didn’t seem to matter that my grandmother had made me do it; it didn’t seem to make a difference that I had intended only to scare her, that I had been prevented from changing her back in time. It was still I who had done it, and that made me a murderer. I knew what I had done was an abuse of the craft. And yet, all that I had, all that I was, I owed to my father. To save him, I must be prepared to do the unthinkable. I had shown myself strong enough. But I did not want anyone to ask me about it. Particularly Darragh. And there was another, even more compelling reason: something my grandmother had said one day.
‘There’s a further step,’ she’d told me. ‘You did well. You did considerably better than I expected, in terms of the end result. But it’s easy to tamper when you hate; easy enough, when you don’t care. You may need to do more than that. Tell me, Fainne, is there anyone who is a special friend? Anyone you are particularly fond of?’
I thought very quickly, and blessed my grandmother’s failure to master the skill of mind-reading.
‘Nobody,’ I said calmly. ‘Except Father, of course.’
Grandmother grimaced. ‘Are you sure? No friends? No sweetheart? No, I suppose not. Pity. You do need to practise that.’
‘Why? Why should I? What do you mean?’
She sighed. ‘Tell me, what things are most important to you?’
I framed my answer with care. ‘The task I have been set. That’s all that is important.’
‘Mm. Seems easy, doesn’t it? You go to Sevenwaters, you insinuate your way into the household, you work your magic, and the task is complete. But what