I hadn’t been an hour in her company before she asked me about it. While rain tumbled from an angry sky I sat in the shelter of the wagon recalling the days of my childhood, telling her how I’d come to realise I was different from others, an outsider in my own village. And Mara listened. Something in her silence encouraged confidence and I saw myself back in the chapel after Mass and eight years old again. “My mother sent me to the priest for telling lies. But they weren’t lies. I saw spirits ever since I can remember. I thought everyone saw them. Only Brother Brian believed me, and he told me I’d been chosen for some special purpose—” Tears choked off my words for I’d had no news of the priest since I’d written my letter. In my mind I saw suddenly the dust kicked by cantering hooves, the jouncing leather saddle-bag by the rider’s heels. Mara’s hand touched my wrist, light as the brush of a leaf. “The messenger travels a long road,” she said, as if she could see my thoughts.
