Part 1 (written by Carolyn on the blog Nuggets of Gold)

She was thankful for the moonlight shining on her path as she made her way through the deep, dark woods. She jumped as she heard the sound of a branch snapping, and then she realized that it was her foot which had stepped on the branch and snapped it.

She kept walking as she listened to the sounds of the owls calling and of the Nighthawk. Oh how many times she had walked through these woods as a child. Back then if she had to travel through the woods at night the trees loomed over her and used to look so scary, compared to how they seemed in the daylight. Now though the woods spoke comfort to her soul. She felt peace being among the trees and hearing the familiar night sounds.

As the trees got less dense she could tell that she was getting closer to her destination. Her heart smiled as she continued to walk. She was looking forward to seeing the lake again, it had been so long. How many nights had she spent sitting by the lake as she had grown older and wasn’t frightened by the dark any longer? How many times had she come here just to clear her brain and think while she was growing up?

The moon’s reflection on the lake was just as beautiful as she had remembered it. She drew in a deep breath as she wondered again why she had stayed away from this peaceful place for so long. The sounds of the owls were behind her and now the bullfrogs were singing their song. She sat down on the soft grass, touching it with her hands, watching the ripples on the water.

As she stared out into the lake she felt something magical in the air. It had been so long since she had been to this lake, why had she come now? Why had she felt such a strong desire to drive several hours to get here tonight? She propped her head on her knees as she wondered.

The bullfrogs serenaded her and the moonlight danced on the water as she tried to quiet her mind and listen to her heart.

Part 2 (continued by Meg)

Somewhere across the lake, a rooster crowed. The sound carried clearly in the still air before dawn. She blinked, startled; the lake now reflected pale pink clouds instead of moonlight. It seemed that only a moment had passed since she closed her eyes, but somehow she must have dozed off without knowing it.

Rising to her feet, she brushed grass and twigs off her long, full skirt, which came down far enough to brush against wooden shoes fitting tightly over thick homespun stockings. But no, that wasn’t right at all—she had been wearing jeans and gym shoes when she walked through the woods to the lake.

When she turned around, she couldn’t see any path through the tall grass and midsummer wildflowers. Farther back, instead of the familiar patch of woods, a large old-growth forest loomed, with trees much taller and broader than she’d ever seen.

The air felt invigorating; it was fresh and pure, filled with the scents and sounds of nature. She turned back toward the lake, only then noticing how easily her body moved, without the aches and stiffness that she’d have expected from falling asleep outdoors at her age. Although she was in fairly good health at 67, camping in the woods would not have been on any list of her favorite activities.

The landscape on the other side of the lake had changed, too. Where was the new subdivision of expensive lakefront homes that she’d driven past, and the state highway not far behind them? Now there was only a small, tidy log cabin, surrounded by vegetable gardens and—yes, that was definitely a chicken coop.

“Hello.” The little voice came from a girl, also wearing an old-fashioned dress, who was walking across the grass to her left. “My name is Mabel. Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

None of this could be real, she thought. There was only one sensible explanation—she was still asleep in the grass where she had dozed off listening to the bullfrogs in the moonlight. “I am in a dream,” she said, more to herself than to her young companion.

Mabel smiled, showing a gap from a newly lost baby tooth. “You’ll have to come and meet my Mama,” she declared, setting off toward the cabin, where a woman had just stepped outside with a wicker basket.

By the time they reached the cabin, the basket was full of freshly collected eggs. Mabel announced cheerfully, “Mama, this is my new friend, Miss Ina Drim. I found her on the other side of the lake.”

The woman had light hazel eyes and a kindly smile. “Good morning to you, Miss Ina. You can call me Nellie. Have you traveled far? You’re very young to be walking through the Wild Forest by yourself—why, you can’t be much over sixteen. And today, of all days!”

Her first reaction was to open her mouth in surprise, thinking that she’d better set matters straight as to both her name and age. But her hands looked young and smooth at the end of her long, billowing sleeves, with no age spots or swollen knuckles. How old was she, really? And what had her name been? The more she breathed this lovely fresh air, the harder it was to remember.

Seeing that she looked confused, Nellie clarified the last sentence. “I meant, today is the summer solstice. Folks say that the witches who live in the Wild Forest use their magic every Midsummer’s Eve to bring girls here from far away, so as to train them in the secret ways of witchcraft. The magic is said to be so very strong, the girls can be summoned from distant countries or even through time itself. They forget everything about their old lives.”

Ina, who by now couldn’t recall if she’d ever had another name, shook her head in denial. She couldn’t possibly have been summoned by witches, could she? No, of course not, that was ridiculous. She’d come here to the lake because of—something about family, and memories, and an old woman. Surely it would all come back to her soon.

“I was visiting my grandmother,” she said finally, not sure whether that was quite right, but concluding that it must be close enough. “And I lost my way in the woods.”

Nellie looked horrified. “Lost and alone in the Wild Forest all night—you’re lucky the wolves didn’t get you! Of course, you’ll have to stay here for now. It would be much too dangerous for a young girl like you to travel through the forest alone, especially today.” Her tone made clear she wouldn’t stand for any argument.

Although her first inclination was to argue anyway, Ina decided that was silly. After all, the invitation plainly was well-intended, and there didn’t seem to be any reason to leave just yet. She might as well stay for a little while—at least, until she could remember where she ought to be.

Part 3

Lightning flashed again, dimly visible around the edges of heavy oak shutters. Ina, wide awake on a straw pallet in a corner of the small cabin, counted to six and then heard the distant rumble of thunder. The cabin’s other occupants all slept soundly—Nellie and her husband John, their daughter Mabel, and little Godfrey in his cradle.

Ina felt that she ought to be sleeping soundly too, after a long day of farm work. She had cleared weeds from row after row of corn and other crops, swinging a hoe till her hands got sore and blistered. Then, after lunch, she had filled a few baskets with early vegetables and sweet black raspberries before helping Nellie to cook and clean until dinner. She’d expected to be fast asleep by now—but instead, something called persistently to her. She felt it at the edge of her thoughts, an elemental energy as strong as the storm that had by now started spattering the cabin with loud, heavy raindrops.

What was out there in the storm, waiting for her? Ina couldn’t see much of her surroundings. The cabin had been dark since Nellie, while reciting a prayer for protection from evil spirits, had latched the shutters and barred the door before blowing out the candles—hours ago, it seemed like. Although Ina could hear the door and its thick wooden bar rattling in the gusty wind, she couldn’t make out the shapes.

Light—she needed light to find her way. The next time the lightning flashed, and without thinking about it at all, Ina reached toward the shuttered window and caught the fading glow between her hands, like a child capturing a firefly. It flickered and then brightened, much as a candle would, when she opened her hands to let it hover above them. The tiny flame’s warmth felt good on her blistered palms—but no, there weren’t any blisters to be seen now. All at once, Ina’s hands had healed completely.

The flame rose higher and made a bobbing motion toward the door, like a playful puppy hoping to be taken for a walk. A memory teased at the back of Ina’s mind—it had something to do with a pet she’d once had, but it slipped away, elusive. The flame bobbed again, more insistently. Ina took a few steps toward the door and located her shoes, which were neatly lined up with the family’s shoes on a mat beside the wall, underneath some pegs from which hung thick cloaks.

A sense of being watched came into her awareness. Turning to her left, she found little Mabel standing in a nightgown, with wide eyes reflecting the supernatural glow.

“You’re a witch,” Mabel said softly, in a matter-of-fact voice that held neither question nor fear.

Ina turned the word over in her mind, letting it settle into the empty space where a now-distant identity once had been. It seemed like it fit reasonably well. “Yes, I suppose I must be,” she answered, in the same calm, descriptive tone.

Mabel glanced up at the hovering light, which had by now floated over to the door. Rain pounded steadily on the roof, but everyone else in the cabin still slept without stirring. “Can you teach me how to make witch-fire like that? It’s pretty.”

Putting on her shoes, Ina considered the question. Had she made the fire, or had she simply come upon it already existing in nature, waiting to be found? And was anything about it a skill that could be taught? She had no answers.

“I don’t think so, Mabel. It’s not something that I know how to teach.”

The little girl nodded as if she hadn’t expected anything more. “That’s all right. Mama probably wouldn’t want me to do it anyway. She says witches are evil. But the fire doesn’t look evil, and you don’t either—so maybe, sometimes, Mama could be wrong.”

“Maybe witches, like other people, are not all one thing or the other,” Ina suggested. She couldn’t feel anything evil in the magical firelight or in herself—but then, how would she know what evil felt like? It might seem okay at first glance, like a tree that looked healthy but had rot or insects hidden under the bark. She remembered ash trees dying from the borers, their dry bare branches outlined against a crisp, clear autumn sky. Where had that fragment of memory come from?

She wouldn’t find any answers here. It was time to get going.

Ina lifted the heavy bar, setting it carefully into its slot beside the door. The flame danced eagerly out into the storm when she opened the door a crack. The rain wasn’t dimming its light at all. Ina was about to follow when it occurred to her that Mabel wasn’t quite big enough to put the bar back across the door. She lifted the bar partway, told Mabel to hold it there for a moment, and pulled the door shut behind herself. Although she was instantly soaked through, the rain felt invigorating. The bar clattered into place, and Ina thought she heard a little voice saying “Bye,” as thunder boomed again.

The bobbing firelight already had moved several paces ahead of Ina, in the direction of the Wild Forest.

Part 4

Beneath the Wild Forest’s thick canopy, the raging thunderstorm soon lost its force. Ina hadn’t yet taken five steps among the majestic old-growth trees before the pouring rain began to sound distant and muted. Even the lightning, bright as it was, barely reached into the forest’s dark depths. After a few more steps, Ina had left the storm far behind and could feel only the warm, humid night air. Her soaked dress seemed to be drying with unnatural speed. An occasional drop of rain still came through the trees, but by now Ina would never have known there was a storm going on if she hadn’t just walked through it.

The hovering ball of witch-fire stayed close to her now, illuminating a narrow path that had not been made by human feet. Every now and again there was a hoofprint in the soft ground; probably deer tracks, Ina thought, but she couldn’t see them clearly. Once she came upon pawprints that looked like a large dog’s—but no, it was much more likely they had been made by a wolf.

She found herself wondering, in a strangely detached, abstract way, how she could walk without fear here. Wolves roaming the forest, witches scheming to mysterious ends—surely, there was danger at every turn. And yet Ina knew, with a certainty that went beyond ordinary knowing, that she would come to no harm.

The path narrowed even farther as it began sloping downward. From the thick brush on either side, brambles caught at the hem of Ina’s dress. Water was flowing somewhere off to the right, and Ina thought at first that the path might be leading her back out of the forest, into the storm. Then, as she turned another bend, the witch-fire illuminated a fast-rising brook that was very near to overflowing its banks.

Twisting away to the left, the path began to rise out of the valley, winding its way toward a rocky hillside where lights flickered softly. As she came closer, Ina could see that they were not simply candles or torches but had magical origins, just like the fire that had been her guide.

Four teenage girls were standing near the base of a cliff. A bright swarm of fireflies hovered around the nearest girl, who was short and had freckles and red hair. A taller, dark-skinned girl with cascading black curls was surrounded by a cloud of luminescent moths in bluish-purple hues. Another girl with straight dark hair and broad cheekbones stood next to a large bird whose feathers glowed like fiery embers; it perched atop a granite bounder and had the fierce beak of a hawk or eagle. Rounding out the group was a dark-eyed girl whose hair could not be seen beneath the heavy hood of her cloak, the fabric of which was thickly coated with multicolored patches of gleaming moss.

All of them turned to face Ina as she approached, and the tall girl with the cloud of moths gave her a tentative smile. Nobody spoke, though, and Ina decided she’d better introduce herself and try to find out what was going on here.

“Hi, my name is Ina.” She gave her new acquaintances the friendliest smile she could muster. “Ina Drim. I came from the lake, just a few minutes ago, after the thunderstorm started.”

Instead of giving introductions in return, the girls just stood there looking perplexed. Finally, the red-haired girl spoke in a hesitant tone.

“I am—well, I guess you can call me Firefly. I’m not sure what other name I might have. I’ve been in the forest all day, I think. Maybe.”

The other girls now looked even more confused. The girl standing next to the fiery bird shook her head wearily, as if giving up on the whole idea of speech. Then, as if responding to a signal that no human could hear, the bird broke the silence by cawing once, loudly.

A scraping sound came from the cliff face as a door set into the rocks, which had been invisible until now, began to slide open. It revealed a wide passage, well lit with torches on each side, in which a middle-aged woman stood with arms outstretched in greeting. She wore a black cloak and a wide-brimmed hat—not quite pointed, but close to it. Graying hair tumbled over her shoulders.

“Welcome, my dears. We have been joyfully waiting for you.”

Part 5

The wide stone hallway leading into the hillside looked warm and inviting. The torches lining the walls burned steadily, without noticeable smoke or flickering. Ina had already taken a step toward it before she realized what she was doing. The other girls moved forward with her.

“Do come in, dear girls,” urged the black-cloaked woman, who was now standing just outside the doorway. “I am delighted to welcome you! My name is Petra, and I am the guardian of this sacred threshold.”

The red-haired girl standing to Ina’s right, who was looking more confident than a minute ago, took another step toward the door in response. “Uh, hello ma’am. I’m Firefly.”

“You are indeed!” Petra declared, looking appreciatively at the swarm of blinking fireflies hovering around the girl. “Your tiny companions have done well, leading you safely through the forest. They have completed their task and are now free to depart with our gratitude.”

At her words, the fireflies immediately began to disperse and soon flew out of sight into the forest’s depths. The red-haired girl entered the doorway as Petra approached the tall girl on Ina’s left.

“Your name will be Violet, my dear,” Petra announced even more cheerfully, extending her arms as if to embrace the glowing purplish moths that surrounded the girl. “To be sure, your little friends are exactly the color of a lovely patch of violets in a meadow on a sunny afternoon. Many thanks to you all, dear moths, and you’re now at liberty to leave.”

The moths began lifting away into the darkness, just as the fireflies had done. Violet, now without escort, took a few steps into the stone hallway and then stopped to wait next to Firefly.

“And you’re Phoenix, of course. Your companion is free to leave with much appreciation for work well done,” Petra informed the dark-haired girl standing next to the fiery bird. Just after Petra spoke, there was a crackling noise like a burning log suddenly falling to the ground in a campfire. Sparks flew up from the bird, and its outline perched on the granite boulder became indistinct, fading into the night air. Petra calmly picked up the flickering orange egg that remained atop the boulder and slipped it into a pocket of her cloak.

“That’s just her way, disappearing like that,” Petra said reassuringly. “No harm done. She’ll hatch again when the time is right.”

The dark-eyed girl in the moss-covered cloak took a deep breath and blinked, but did not speak, as Petra turned to her.

“You’re a dryad, how delightful! Or perhaps a naiad, with this lovely river moss. I shall call you Daphne. We can release the moss now, with our thanks; you won’t have any need for it indoors, and even river moss has a life to which it longs to return, as simple as it is.”

The glowing patches of moss separated from Daphne’s cloak and flowed smoothly to the ground, oozing away in the general direction of the river. Daphne threw back the hood of her cloak, which was now a nondescript fabric of a muddy color. Thick vine-like braids were pinned neatly on top of her head.

Petra then turned to Ina.

“My dear, you have a rare talent. The lightning serves you like a faithful hound. I’ll call you…”

“Ina. My name is Ina.” She knew the interruption sounded surly, but letting herself be renamed without any say in the matter—well, that just wasn’t happening, not tonight.

As if reflecting her sentiments, the hovering ball of witch-fire that Ina had plucked from a lightning flash suddenly burst. It crackled through the air in a bright, arcing bolt, complete with thunderclap, and then dissipated into the night sky. Unlike the other magical guides, it hadn’t waited to be granted leave to depart before it vanished.

Petra looked somewhat taken aback but quickly regained her composure. Turning from Ina toward the girls in the doorway, she clapped her hands briskly. “Come now, my little ducklings, let’s go indoors. You must all be tired after such a long day. A light supper for you, and then it’s off to bed! Tomorrow will be very busy.”

Part 6

Birds chirped in the trees outside the kitchen window on a pleasant summer morning. The two plates laid out on the table for breakfast had a border of pink roses, as did the matching coffee cups. Eggs were frying in the skillet, bread was toasting, and in just a minute her daughter would come in and sit down.

“Awwwwk!”

A particularly loud, harsh cawing jolted Ina out of a sound sleep. She blinked in confusion at the cool whitewashed stone of the walls and ceiling. Where was she? And where had she been just now, while she was dreaming? All of it had looked and felt so real—there was a window, a big square window letting in plenty of light. It wasn’t at all like the high, narrow slits in the otherwise bare wall above the wooden bed where she now found herself. Elaborately carved animal figures decorated the bedposts.

The dream faded as Ina sat up and looked around. Her bed was on the end of a row of five, and it was the farthest from the door. On the other side of the room there were tables, chairs, a freestanding wardrobe, and two dressers. The furniture was a dark and well-polished hardwood, which reflected the gleams of sunlight coming through the high windows. Thick mats made of reeds in geometric patterns lined the central area of the stone floor.

There was a small partitioned area—a changing room—on the wall directly across from Ina’s bed. She had used it last night, by candlelight, to put on a comfortable nightdress that she’d found neatly folded on her bed. At present, a closed curtain showed that the room was occupied, apparently by Daphne, given the fact that Phoenix was still asleep and both Violet and Firefly were already dressed.

A side door next to the changing room opened onto a high-walled courtyard. Ivy covered the walls so thickly that Ina, making her way toward the latrine at the far end of the courtyard, had no idea whether the walls were of stone or another material. Branches of spruce and fir had grown thickly together overhead, letting in a cool, filtered green light. Their cones and needles carpeted the otherwise bare ground.

It occurred to Ina, after she left the latrine and started walking back toward the dormitory, that anyone who happened to pass by would never see the courtyard. Like the rest of the witches’ compound, it was very well hidden from curious eyes. As far as she could tell, the nearby villagers rarely ventured into the Wild Forest anyway; but it was plain that everything here had been designed to avoid chance encounters.

When she went back inside, Daphne had finished changing and now had on a blue-green dress with brown threads scattered throughout. In the morning light, the fabric shimmered like a river’s surface. The other girls also wore clothing that matched their personas. Violet wore a deep blue, shading into purple at the hem, and Firefly was in black with a sparkling multicolored sash. Phoenix was just now walking into the changing room with an armful of something red and orange.

Ina opened the wardrobe and found that the one remaining dress was white, mostly, with jagged vertical streaks of silver and bronze. The fabric was soft and pretty; but as she touched the dress, Ina felt instinctively that something just wasn’t as it should be.

“That’s a beautiful dress. It will look perfect on you!”

She turned around to see Firefly smiling at her. The cheerful look on the girl’s freckled face had Ina returning the smile and saying “Thanks,” before she’d had time to work out what was bothering her.

Everyone else had gotten dressed by now, and they hadn’t come to any harm from it—or at least, any visible harm. Maybe there was nothing wrong with the dress, and she was just nervous about being in a new place. Carrying the dress into the changing room, Ina tried to sort through her feelings, but she couldn’t make much sense of them.

The white dress did indeed fit her slim figure perfectly, as Firefly had said. She found a hand mirror on top of a dresser and inspected the results. The metallic streaks in the fabric seemed well suited to the young face looking back at her, with its hazel eyes, light brown shoulder-length hair, and smooth clear skin that showed some redness from yesterday’s farm work in the sun. What had gone wrong, Ina finally determined, was that the face itself somehow didn’t match the reality of who she was.

How could that be possible? Ina hadn’t come close to reaching an answer when she heard footsteps and turned to face the doorway, putting the mirror back down where she had found it.

“Good morning, everyone!”

A tall woman in a red dress entered the room. She wore a hat of the same color, embroidered with clusters of green leaves, over brown curly hair. Her nose was thin and slightly hooked.

“I am called Rowan, and I’m very pleased to meet all of you! First we’ll go to breakfast, and then it will be time to get started on your studies.”

The words stirred a vague memory in Ina’s mind, but she couldn’t quite place it. Without thinking about it any farther, she found herself asking, “Will we have lesson plans and classrooms?”

Rowan seemed surprised by the question, and the other girls looked as bewildered as if Ina had suddenly begun speaking a foreign language. After a long and awkward moment, Rowan finally replied in a brisk tone that suggested some disdain for the topic.

“Oh, no—that’s not something we would ever do here! Everyone learns differently, after all, and we have different interests and strengths. Forcing every student along the same path would be a sad waste of potential. What they do in the timeline you came from—well, never mind. You’re here now and not there!”

With that oblique fragment of an answer, Rowan promptly turned away and began leading the girls down the corridor to breakfast.

Part 7

“Don’t think of it as learning how to control fire with magic.”

Glass beads on the instructor’s dress tinkled softly as she spoke. Luz was a short, heavyset woman with black hair, which she kept pinned neatly in a silver clasp, and large dark eyes. She stood near the back of the library, facing a row of desks. Oil lamps along the oak-paneled walls gave plenty of light and a pleasant, woodsy fragrance.

Each of the desks had a shelf with a small candle resting in a dish. Luz had lit the candles with a glance upon entering the library, along with the oil lamps. She had put the candles out again just as quickly, after telling Ina to sit down. Ina was her only student this morning; the other girls had gone off with different instructors after breakfast.

“It’s more about allowing fire to learn how to work with you,” Luz went on. “Imagine that you are training a dog or other animal. It wants to play with you and have fun, but you can’t just let it do whatever it wants—you need to set firm expectations. For today, you’ll start with this candle on the desk in front of you. See the fire in your mind, send it loving thoughts, and tell it what you want it to do. When it lights the candle, praise it as you would a good, obedient puppy.”

Ina took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and pictured herself lovingly telling a small flame that she wanted it to light the candle. Nothing had changed when she opened her eyes again. She tried once more, but she still had no success whatsoever.

Her attention wandered. The library felt stuffy, with no windows. Wouldn’t it be much easier just to say a magic word or two? If this was a library for witches, then shouldn’t the books be full of spells? But the aisle closest to Ina’s desk looked like it had books of poetry on one side and histories of ancient civilizations on the other.

“Okay, no spells,” Ina said under her breath, wondering where she might have gone wrong. What had she done to catch lightning last night? She hadn’t said anything to it, had she? No, the lightning had simply flashed, and she had reached toward it without any conscious intent.

After the lightning-fire had come to her, it had wanted to play, like a puppy—just as Luz had described. Was all fire so playful? Ina turned her attention to the nearest oil lamp, with its flame shining brightly inside the glass. Did it want to do something more? Would it like to hop over to her desk and spend a little time exploring the candle?

The flame inside the lamp bobbed toward her as if agreeing that, yes, it would. A moment later, the candle on Ina’s desk came to life, burning strongly.

“Nicely done!” Luz beamed. “Now you must praise the fire, like a well-behaved dog, for doing as you told it.”

“Good fire,” Ina said, now starting to feel rather silly, “good boy.”

“That was the easy part, you know,” Luz continued. “Persuading fire to burn is easy because that’s what it naturally wants to do. Putting fire out by magic is much harder. Then you’re going against its natural instincts. You are asking it to trust that you will take good care of it and that, when the time is right, you’ll let it burn again. That takes a lot of trust.”

A memory flashed into Ina’s mind. A small golden-brown puppy sat on a carpet, with a treat not far away. His tail quivered with excitement, but he dutifully sat still. Late-autumn light slanted through the windows. Ina heard her own voice saying “Wait, stay…”

Where had that place been? Why couldn’t she remember—and why had she been taken from that place? Surely the flame on her desk must share those feelings. She had taken it from the oil lamp and invited it to come on a new adventure; it didn’t know why. Now it was expected to snuff itself out meekly, just because she said so? Why on earth would it be willing to do that?

Tears came into Ina’s eyes. Of course the fire would resist. Of course it would! All at once she was crying out, with no idea whether she spoke for herself or for the fire. “How can I trust anyone when I don’t even know why I am here!”

The flame in the candle kept on burning—until one of Ina’s tears fell directly on the wick. Then it went out, with a faint but very final sizzle of betrayal.

Part 8

Water trickled peacefully down narrow channels cut into the stone walls of a room which, Ina found herself thinking, was the principal’s office. A drain in the far corner, with a moss-covered iron grate, collected the flow. Lush ferns and lilies seemed to grow directly out of the walls, but a closer look revealed that they had been planted in clay pots carefully shaped to fit niches in the stone.

Three square windows across the top of a wall let in the midmorning light. Along with it, Ina observed, several blue dragonflies had found their way to a roughly cut crystal of the same bright blue, which was displayed on a shelf about halfway up the wall opposite the windows.

Sitting at an oak desk in the middle of the room was the principal—and Ina shook her head in frustration when she couldn’t think where her mind had come up with that word, or even remember what it meant. Something here was not as it should be, despite the peaceful surroundings.

The desk’s occupant was a tiny, ancient-looking woman with thin silver hair in a neat bun. Her skin was so pale as to be almost colorless, and she had soft blue eyes set into a deeply wrinkled face. She nodded twice, without speaking, as Luz stood beside the desk telling her the details of Ina’s outburst in the library. Ina remained standing, as well, although the room had two chairs for visitors.

“Thank you, Luz. I’ll take care of it.”

The old woman’s voice sounded raspy but also gentle, like dry brown leaves rustling in an autumn wood. Luz gave a slight bow in acknowledgment, clasping her hands, and promptly left the room.

“Do sit down, Ina, dear,” urged the woman, her thin-lipped mouth curving into a smile. “The name suits you. In many languages, it means authentic or pure. You feel a strong need to express yourself and to make sense of any conflicts you encounter.”

That clearly wasn’t a question, and Ina sat down without replying. The chair felt very soft and comfortable. It was upholstered in a thick green fabric, and the cushion appeared to be down-filled, to judge from the tip of a white feather poking out of a small tear along one side.

“You may call me Thalassa or, if you prefer, Mother Ocean. We begin our lives here with only one name, but sometimes—as the years pass—we find that it has acquired more richness along the way.”

Ina gazed down at the smooth skin of her hands, which still didn’t feel as if they properly belonged to her. Seeing the rip in the cushion bothered her, for reasons she couldn’t express, and she arranged the full skirts of her new dress to cover it. Arranging her thoughts took more effort. As she looked up to meet Thalassa’s eyes, she finally managed to articulate the question that had been with her since last night’s arrival.

“I want to know why you took me from,” and after a rush of jumbled thoughts and impressions failed to come together into a place-name, Ina finished the sentence more simply by saying, “where I ought to be.”

“That question is far more complicated than you know, Ina, dear heart. It is the work of our lives to determine where we ought to be.”

As sunlight slanting through the central window touched the blue crystal, it began to hum almost imperceptibly. The dragonflies soon lifted away and gathered around Thalassa’s hair, which was held in place by long hairpins tipped with fragments of what looked like the same kind of crystal. Both the hairpins and the dragonflies now glowed a silvery blue.

“I can answer you only so far,” Thalassa continued, “as to say that you were chosen because Mother Earth needs your uncommon talents. The world is in great need of healing, and we have vowed to serve to the best of our abilities. To become fully attuned to the magic that dwells in all things, we must clear our minds of distracting thoughts and memories. You are finding this difficult because you fear a loss of identity.”

Ina gave a slow nod in response, as the blue crystal came fully into the sunlight and its hum grew louder. One of the dragonflies broke away from the group and landed gently on Ina’s right hand, as if wanting to comfort her.

“Nothing is truly lost, Ina; it is only hidden, and only for a short time. For now, you must work on crafting a joyful soul with the strength and wisdom to answer Mother Earth’s call. That you were chosen for this work is both a great challenge and a great privilege.”

Part 9

Dry leaves on the forest floor, dappled in late-afternoon sunlight, crackled underfoot on the dusty path. Ina barely noticed them because the crickets trilled so loudly, announcing the change of seasons. Sunlight glinted, also, from the silver clasp that Luz always wore in her glossy dark hair.

Soon the path took a right turn beside the river, winding ever upward. Water tumbled over moss-bright rocks in the shade of a narrow ravine. Thick ferns jutted out of the banks, with trees clinging to the slopes above.

They had passed Daphne some time ago, standing as still on the riverbank as if she had been a tree herself. Her eyes were closed and her face blissfully serene.

“She is becoming one with the moss as it grows,” Luz had murmured, in a voice so quiet that it almost could not be heard over the constant background sounds of the crickets and rushing water.

Climbing higher, they had passed Phoenix as well, gazing out from a ridge toward the half-moon on the horizon. Luz had given a brief explanation for that, as well. “She is listening to the moon’s song.”

The path narrowed, taking another turn through a dense stand of laurels before coming out on a stony rise. Only one tree grew here, a majestic oak with a wide-spreading crown that overshadowed the low bushes and grass around it.

“Five hundred years old, at least,” Luz said, following Ina’s gaze toward the tree. “We’ve come far enough; now you must begin your task, which is to feel the storm in the air.”

The sky ahead was clear to the horizon. The cool, crisp air held no hint of rain, and Ina felt only the lightest breeze at her back. She turned her head to glance from one side to the other, perplexed.

“But there isn’t a storm.”

Luz only smiled.

Turning all the way around to look back down the hill they had just climbed, Ina saw a distant line of pale gray clouds. That didn’t look much like a storm to her, but it seemed to be the closest thing she was going to find. The breeze coming from that direction grew stronger as Ina focused her attention on it. Her long sleeves flapped in a sudden gust. Yes, now that was starting to feel more like a storm. The clouds were darker than they had been a minute ago, and definitely closer. The air had gotten thicker and heavier. It was unsettled and full of potential…

Ina felt the lightning strike an instant before she saw it. Although the sky overhead still looked perfectly clear, a huge bolt crackled through the air, striking the old oak tree and splitting it down the middle. The halves, both burning, fell into the dry underbrush. Flames leapt hungrily into the grass and shrubs nearby.

“Oh! I didn’t mean to do that—oh, the forest will burn, everything is so dry.” Ina stood helplessly wringing her hands in dismay as the fire went on spreading, driven by gusty winds that continued to grow stronger.

“You must put out the fire, Ina, now.” Luz cut through her confusion and fear with a brisk command. “Remember all the days you practiced in the library this summer, putting out candles with only your thoughts. Bringing a forest fire under control is within your power, also.”

The roaring flames swept farther into the dry forest, not in the least resembling the tame little candles on the desks in the library. Ina tentatively reached her awareness toward it, feeling its greedy delight as it consumed brush and trees, casting sparks high into the air. The fire felt her presence, resented her interference; it wanted her gone. It snarled in her thoughts, angry as a bear interrupted while gnawing on a fresh kill—and it turned to attack her.

Sensing the change in the storm before it happened, Ina already had leaped backward by pure reflex before a powerful gust lifted a blazing branch from the ground and flung it viciously in her direction. She shrieked, unable to help herself, overcome by terror; but Luz, who looked as calm as ever, made a small hand gesture that sent the branch falling harmlessly into the charred grass.

Ina took a breath of the smoky air and tried to compose herself. The air still felt thick and heavy, and the sky overhead was getting darker—not just with smoke, most of which was still blowing in the other direction. Was it night already? But no, those were thunderclouds above her; she had felt them earlier, just as Luz had instructed, and she had brought them here.

The clouds were so high above the ground that the fire’s intense heat could not reach them. Instead, the swirling wind carried with it the heaviness of the clouds cooling as nightfall approached. Ina searched her thoughts for the word that described this process: condensation. Small droplets coming together, growing larger and heavier until the clouds could no longer bear their weight.

She felt a raindrop on her face, and then another. All at once it was pouring, the rain coming down so heavily that Ina wouldn’t have been able to see Luz, only a few paces away, if the woman’s faint silhouette hadn’t been backlit by the orange glow of the flames. But that glow soon faded; and the rain stopped, just as abruptly as it had begun, leaving a gorgeous orange sunset and a forest that was mostly intact but for a small, soggy blackened area.

“I’m s-sorry,” Ina said through chattering teeth, folding her wet arms across her soaked clothes. She felt that whatever she might say was nowhere near adequate. “I didn’t want to kill that beautiful old tree.”

“It is nature’s way. Everything that lives must die.” Luz turned away from the tree’s charred remains, taking a step toward the path that led back down the hill. “We care for the forest and the world as best we can, but nothing endures forever.”

Part 10

The sliding glass door closed smoothly behind her. Steam rose from the coffee mug on this pleasantly cool morning. A forgotten corner of the back garden beckoned. She had been meaning to get it cleaned up for ages, but she never had gotten around to it. The bench still needed a fresh coat of paint and was overgrown with so many roses that sitting down wasn’t much of an option. Even so, looking at its riotous, unkempt beauty on this lovely morning, she couldn’t help but to smile. All was right with the world.

The tranquil birdsong was interrupted, a moment later, by the sound of someone crying. The terrified sobs sounded like a frightened child. She took a step back from the roses, and the garden abruptly faded to blackness around her.

Ina sat up in her bed in the dormitory; another dream, gone. Something about roses—there were always roses in her dreams, and a quiet, peaceful house. Lighting the candle on her nightstand with a casual flicker of thought, she turned toward the shuddering girl in the next bed.

“Wake up, Phoenix. You’re having a nightmare again.”

Big dark eyes blinked, reflecting the candlelight.

“It was the same place.” Hands trembling, Phoenix tugged ineffectually at the heap of covers that had gotten tangled around her. “Some ugly, grimy building like a dungeon, and they were whipping me again. Maybe I was a slave or a prisoner before I came here. I can’t remember any of it clearly, and I don’t want to know. When Mother Ocean took away my memories, she did me a kindness.”

Farther down the row of beds, another pair of eyes gleamed in the flickering light. Firefly sat up, leaning against the headboard as she twisted back an unruly lock of hair that had escaped from her nighttime braid.

“I dreamed about a goat doing handstands in a field of daisies,” Firefly said, in what sounded like a valiant effort to shift the conversation to a more cheerful topic. “Or maybe that would be front hoof stands, don’t you think? Because goats don’t have hands, of course.”

“Yes, hoof stands, I suppose so,” Ina said absently, still trying to recall at least a few details of the roses in her disappearing garden. Large blooms, an old bench—of that she was fairly sure. And somewhere nearby, a low wall—had it been brick or stone? And was ivy growing on it? Tendrils of ivy danced in her thoughts, mocking her inability to put together a clear image.

After a minute or so, Ina gave up, committing those meager scraps of information to the imaginary shelf in her mental library that held the fragments of a now distant life. She held onto a small, half-formed hope that if she gathered enough of them, one day they might come together into a pattern that made sense. Her lessons had been like that sometimes, made up of little snippets that eventually grew into a coherent whole.

Firefly was still chattering about goats, or something else just as unimportant. Ina hadn’t paid enough attention to give any meaningful response to it.

“Do you ever remember, Firefly? Anything?” Without knowing what had come over her, Ina suddenly found herself asking the one question that the girls never discussed.

“Remember, you mean—before?” Firefly’s usual cheerful expression turned into a ferocious scowl. “No, and I don’t see any reason why I should want to, either. We have a very good life here. It’s fascinating to learn about the creatures of the forest, river, and prairie. Being a peasant girl in some filthy little village would be awful—working in the fields all day, having to marry some nasty man just because he paid the bride price, and then being pregnant all the time. Ugh!”

Her words were spoken with such unexpected vehemence that Ina suspected there might be some memories lurking behind them, despite the denial. Whether or not that was so, it was plain that this conversation was over—even before Firefly turned her back to Ina and pulled the covers up over her head. Phoenix had closed her eyes, probably not asleep, but doing a creditable imitation of it.

Now it is time to rest, Ina communicated to the candle’s small flame, which obediently quenched itself. Staring into the darkness, she found herself quite unable to take her own advice. Her mind was anything but restful as an endless parade of questions stormed through it. Who had lived in the house with the roses and the old bench? Did she have a family waiting for her to come back? Were they grieving her loss? Would she ever find her way home to them again?

Part 11

Ina slid easily down from the white gelding’s back and tied his reins to a nearby branch, which was still wet from the morning’s light snow. The temperature had been rising steadily all day, and the snow had melted hours ago. Gray clouds hung low over the bay, not quite obscuring the hills beyond the far shore. A narrow spit jutted out, with a lighthouse occupying its tip.

Dismounting somewhat more carefully, as might be expected given her advanced age, Thalassa tied her dun mare beside the gelding and turned to look out upon the bay.

Although Ina had taken short journeys with other instructors fairly often, this was her first time traveling in the company of the venerable Mother Ocean, who rarely left the witches’ compound. That had worried Ina somewhat, as their mounts’ hooves clopped softly over the forest’s damp and muddy paths. Was she seen as a poor student in need of remedial work, or perhaps as a troublemaker?

That line of thought had sent Ina into a mental loop of replaying what felt like a long list of deficits. She’d gotten upset in the library on the very first day of instruction; her carelessness had been responsible for starting a forest fire and killing an ancient oak tree; and she still felt unsettled about not knowing her origins, unlike the other girls, all of whom seemed much happier with their new circumstances. Maybe she had been judged unworthy and was being sent away.

When Thalassa spoke, however, there was nothing critical in the older woman’s voice, but only a simple question.

“Look at the bay. How many ships do you see?”

Ina turned her head to peer farther in both directions but still saw only empty waters. “No ships are nearby, just the lighthouse.”

“Indeed—but there are ships about to enter the bay, and the lighthouse will guide them when they arrive. In much the same way, we have an inner sense of direction that guides us when our eyes cannot. So close your eyes, Ina, and look again. How many ships are entering the bay?”

Ina had no idea where the entrance to the bay might be; this journey, which had taken much of the day, was farther than she had ever traveled from the Wild Forest—or at least, farther than she could remember traveling. With the little shake of her head that had become her habitual response to such thoughts, Ina brought her attention back to the question of what might lie beyond her closed eyes. She felt water dripping down the back of her cloak and heard one of the horses softly nickering to the other; that wasn’t much use.

Widening her inner focus, she brought to mind the cloudy expanse of the bay as it had appeared on her left. She couldn’t sense anything in motion there besides a few tiny specks flitting about on the periphery of her consciousness, which she guessed might be seagulls or fish. Still, not useful. The lighthouse cast a warm glow in Ina’s imagination, welcoming the new arrivals—wherever they might be.

Mentally following the rays of light as they spread out over the water on her right, she became aware that there was something larger moving her way. Two somethings. No, they weren’t things, not really; instead, they were clusters of feelings and intentions. They were people, in fact, two distinct groups of them, moving calmly and purposefully as they went about their work.

“Two ships,” Ina said, keeping her eyes closed as she responded to the question she’d been tasked to answer. “But what I’m sensing is their crews, rather than the ships themselves.”

“Yes, Ina. The world is full of things, and some of them are quite large; but much of the energy lies in the tiny points of consciousness that we call our lives. You may open your eyes now.”

Ina blinked, entirely losing her awareness of the ships’ crews as a distracting thought came to mind. “Was that how you found me and took me from…”

Once again, she couldn’t bring forth either the name or a clear mental image of the place that had seemed, for just a moment, to be within her mind’s grasp. Roses, Ina told herself, almost as if repeating a mantra. Roses, and a warm and welcoming home.

Thalassa’s faint smile held a touch of sadness. “All in due time, my dear.”

Part 12

Breath, in. Heartbeat, slow and regular. Bringing joy into the heart. Infinite joy. Breath, out. Sending love to all. Love to the self sitting on this cushion, to the women gathered in this room, to people everywhere, to the world. Itchy shoulder, noted; gently releasing it from awareness. Breath, in…

A bell rang twice to signal the end of the meditation session. Ina opened her eyes, surprised; hadn’t she just sat down a few minutes ago? But no, daylight was streaming into the room now, and the session had started before dawn, as always.

Stacking her cushion on the shelf with the others, Ina walked through the broad stone corridor that led to the dining hall. She filled her breakfast plate with rye bread, cheese, and an apple from the serving platters on a long table beside the wall.

Ina’s usual instructor, Luz, who was wearing the striped apron of those on kitchen duty, set out another pot of porridge. There were no servants here, and never had been, according to Petra’s historical accounts—which went back hundreds of years. Everyone took turns doing the chores, with no distinctions made for status or seniority. Just yesterday, Ina had seen Mother Ocean down on her knees with a plain kerchief over her silver hair, scrubbing a latrine.

Taking a step toward the round dining tables in the center of the room, Ina saw the flash of a smile beneath Rowan’s brightly colored hat. Rowan was the chief healer, and Ina didn’t often have lessons with her; but, somewhat to Ina’s surprise, Rowan gestured for Ina to take a seat across the table.

“This morning, Ina, you’ll be going out with me,” Rowan said, handing an empty porridge bowl to an apron-clad Daphne. “I’ll show you how to find healing plants. They often grow in places you wouldn’t expect. Nature is wonderfully inventive! And although our library has many books of herb lore, nothing can take the place of hands-on knowledge.”

Ina finished her breakfast quickly and put on a light cloak over her winter dress before joining Rowan outside. Only a few days after the spring equinox, the sun was already high in the sky. Yesterday’s dusting of snow had melted almost entirely, leaving a muddy forest floor with hints of green here and there.

Rowan took the familiar path that led uphill beside the river. She carried a sack over her shoulder, made of a green fabric embroidered with a design of red berries. Every few minutes she stopped to put something in the sack with a few words of explanation to Ina, such as that willow bark was often used for relieving pain and that it was best harvested in the spring, after the sap started to run.

After a while, Ina’s attention began to wander. What was the point of gathering herbs, she thought, if healing could be done just as easily by magic? Why not use magic all the time—just as Ina herself did when she lit candles, now that she knew how.

She kept the question to herself at first, as she didn’t expect Rowan would want to hear it. After all, it sounded like a complaint, and Ina knew she’d likely be told that she ought to be grateful for the chance to get outdoors and enjoy the fresh air. Such as it was; the breeze felt pleasant enough, but Rowan had just gone tromping into yet another icky bog full of skunk cabbage, some of which she’d already put into the sack while cheerfully expounding on the plant’s many medicinal uses.

“What do we need herbs for, anyway?” Ina finally couldn’t help herself. “I know you can heal people just by laying hands on them, Rowan—I’ve seen you do it.”

Lifting her gaze from the murky puddle she’d been examining, Rowan calmly responded with another question. “Why did we need to eat breakfast this morning, when instead we might have used magic to draw our energy from the sun as plants do?”

Ina was still pondering her answer when Rowan, with a smile, returned to the path. Ina soon followed her up to a hilltop that was at once familiar and very different from when Ina had first seen it months ago.

The wreckage of the old oak tree still lay on the stony ground, cleaved neatly in half by the lightning bolt that Ina had unwittingly brought down. Around it, winter-brown grass was giving way to bright spring growth. Rowan approached the dead wood and pointed out a fungus growing on one side.

“This has valuable healing properties,” she told Ina, “and it grows only on the largest dead oaks—those that had lived hundreds of years. So you see, this tree’s death was not wasted; Nature made good use of it, as part of the harmony of being.”

Ina took a deep breath of air that, all at once, felt wonderfully fresh and full of life. “That’s why we gather herbs and eat breakfast, too, isn’t it? Because we’re part of the harmony.”

Rowan’s smile grew much broader. “Exactly.”

Part 13

The old stone classroom felt hot and stifling on this sunny May morning, although it had been built into the earth of the hillside and had three spacious windows just above ground level. The still air almost had Ina dozing off where she sat, trying her best to look interested during another of Petra’s interminable lectures on the ethics of witchcraft. Leaves outside the nearest window swayed slightly in the faintest of breezes. A common yellow butterfly rested on the tip of a branch, fanning its wings. Ina would have liked a fan, too…

“Pay attention!” Petra thundered, pounding the podium.

Ina flinched, wondering if she had gotten herself in trouble for letting the butterfly distract her. After a moment, however, it became clear that the exhortation was simply part of the lecture and was not directed to anyone in particular.

“We must always be vigilant—always!—lest we stray from the path of service. We face many choices every day. Some are trivial, some consequential—but in all of them, we must ask ourselves: Are we serving with love or reacting in fear? If we are honest, the answer can be found quickly. The greater challenge is to recognize the need to make a decision soon enough to ask the question.”

Petra paused to wipe her face with a plain homespun handkerchief before she brought the morning’s lecture to its long-awaited conclusion.

“Very soon, your apprenticeship year will come to an end. Then, you will go forth into the world as journeywomen. You must cultivate the habit of asking, in all that you do: Love or fear? Remember, at any time, you may suddenly be put to the test.”

With class dismissed (mercifully, in Ina’s view), it was time for lunch, followed by midday chores. After eating her bread and cheese, Ina walked with Daphne and Phoenix to pick up empty baskets from the storehouse beside the kitchen. They would be gathering dandelion greens and wild strawberries, both of which grew in abundance at the Wild Forest’s edge.

A light wind had started blowing, and the shade under the trees felt comfortable as the girls walked along the path. After a while they came to a meadow dotted brightly with dandelions, which Phoenix began to gather. Ina and Daphne continued walking toward the strawberry patch, not far ahead.

“Do you think Petra meant it seriously when she told us that we’d be put to the test?” That unwelcome idea had just come into Ina’s mind, although she couldn’t have said why. She elaborated on it further as she and Daphne walked around a gentle curve in the path. “And what happens if we fail whatever has been planned for us? Do we get sent away as unworthy?”

Daphne took a few steps into a clearing to the right, where she set down her basket next to a large clump of ripe strawberries. “No, of course not. You’re being much too dramatic, Ina. She meant only what we knew already: unexpected events often happen, and we must be prepared to make decisions wisely.”

When Daphne knelt down and started humming, Ina’s first thought was that she had been dismissed. Almost at once it became clear, however, that the melodic sound had nothing to do with Ina and was directed toward the strawberry plants. The leaves closest to Daphne’s hand lifted up, swinging their plump berries into her palm and gently releasing them. The pitch of the humming changed, as if to express thanks. Daphne put her berries into the basket and moved on to the next plant.

Lacking any such ability to converse with vegetation, Ina started picking berries the old-fashioned way. Pinching the stems between her fingers, she found herself wondering whether harvesting a crop hurt the plant. As she picked the next strawberry, she could almost imagine that she heard the broken stem shouting in agitation.

No, she had in fact heard a shout, not far away—soon followed by another one. The voices came from the path where she and Daphne had been walking earlier. The sound of running feet came from that direction, also. A wild-eyed Phoenix came tearing around the curve at full speed, breathing hard, with her long skirts bunched up in both hands to allow more freedom to run.

The voices were distinct now, very close by.

“The witch went that way! She’s heading for the river!”

A rock came whizzing along the path, narrowly missing Phoenix, and a crowd of villagers burst into view. Ina and Daphne, holding their baskets, crouched behind a stand of low shrubs. Phoenix ran past them, taking a steep descent toward the river at what looked like a very unsafe speed.

“There she is! Kill her now!”

Nellie, the farmwife who had given Ina shelter after her arrival in the Wild Forest, charged to the front of the mob while brandishing a large stick.

Putting a foot wrong on the narrow, stony path, Phoenix stumbled and fell headlong toward the river. She landed with a muffled shriek, and even at this distance Ina could see the unnatural angle of her left leg. Howling in triumph, the villagers rushed forward, waving their sticks—and then there was a gleam of metal as one of them held up a hunting knife.

Overcome by fury, Ina half-rose from her hiding place behind the bushes. Fiery anger pulsed within her. Like a lightning bolt, it was ready to strike. It would char those ignorant villagers to ashes…

“Na, na, na. Ooh, na, na, na.”

Daphne crooned softly beside her, swaying with arms clasped together as if cradling a baby. One elbow brushed Ina’s hand—ever so slightly, but it was enough to ground the roiling power within her nonetheless. A tiny crackle ran along Daphne’s sleeve and dissipated.

Tendrils of moss reached up from the river, wrapping Phoenix in a tight grasp and turning the bright orange fabric of her dress to the same muddy green as the bank where she had fallen. Branches reached down from nearby trees. Ina thought she saw a flicker of motion as the branches lifted Phoenix from the ground, passing her from one tree to another. By the time the villagers reached the riverbank, there was nothing more to be seen.

“She was here! Right here!” Nellie shrieked in frustration, beating the bushes with her stick. A startled rabbit leaped away, and a few small birds took wing.

“She must have used her magic to disappear.” The man who held the hunting knife sheathed it again. “We’ll never find her now.”

Nellie flung her stick at the nearest tree. It bounced into the river, landing with a solid splash.

“I hate those witches worse than anything! They lurk in the forest, working their evil spells and stealing children. Next time I see one sneaking around, I’m going to make sure it’s the last thing she does!”

With shouts of agreement, the villagers began walking back the way they had come. Ina and Daphne stayed motionless behind the bushes until the forest fell silent again.

As they stepped onto the path leading toward the river, a huddled shape came into view under the low branches of a spruce tree. The murky outline slowly regained its original bright colors as the moss that had hidden Phoenix released its grasp.

Ina stopped suddenly, all at once feeling unable to take another step.

“I failed.”

“Whatever do you mean by that?” Daphne glanced back over her shoulder.

“The love or fear test that Petra told us about. I wanted to set those villagers on fire and kill them all. If you hadn’t stopped me, I would have done it.”

“I did nothing, Ina. Your thoughts and choices were your own. I had no way of knowing what was in your mind. When you withheld your power, it was because you made the right decision—without any help from me. Condemning yourself for a stray thought makes no sense, and I don’t want to hear another word of it. Now, let’s go and help Phoenix to get home.”

After delivering this rebuke in an even tone, Daphne turned away and started making her way carefully down the stony slope. Just past her, on the riverbank, the birds that had flown up in alarm only a few minutes earlier were settling back into the bushes. They chirped calmly, as if nothing worth remembering had disturbed their peace.

Ina didn’t find it as easy to forgive herself.

Part 14

Hamburgers sizzled on the backyard grill. The roses hadn’t yet overgrown the garden bench this year, but they were on the verge of reasserting their claim. For now, her daughter sat comfortably on the bench, with the Goldendoodle puppy in her lap. In a far corner, the bright green leaves of a Japanese maple cascaded over mossy stones like a galaxy of tiny stars.

“Mom, I’m feeling so blessed to be here with you and Dad today. Traveling abroad last month was fun, and I’m very glad to have had the chance, but there’s nothing like coming home. Happy birthday, Mom!”

She was just about to answer when the beautiful sunlit garden suddenly went dim. The breath she had just taken swirled dizzily through her, and she struggled to stay upright.

“Mom? Mom!”

The panicked shout sounded very far away as she fell.

Her own voice crying out was the next thing she heard. “No!”

Ina woke abruptly, her heart thudding. It wasn’t totally dark in the dormitory—a faint gleam under the door told her that the hallway torches had been lit, which meant that it was not long before dawn. Soon Petra’s raven would caw, telling the women it was time to rise for their morning meditations.

Two beds over, Firefly stirred. “You’re all right, Ina. Whatever you were dreaming, it wasn’t real.”

“No.” The word came raggedly, in a half-sob. “No, I’m not all right. And it was real—it was!”

She had thrown her feet over the edge of the bed and made her way to the door, still in her nightdress, before she gave a moment’s thought to what she was doing. The stone floor of the hallway felt cold under her bare feet, but she wasn’t about to go back for her slippers. Without a conscious plan, she made her way through the familiar passages toward the meditation room.

Candles burned softly in wall sconces, their herbal scent filling the room. Mother Ocean sat cross-legged on a cushion beside the wall, with two other women close by. Although Ina’s bare feet made no sound as she crossed the smooth floor, Mother Ocean’s eyes opened with no apparent surprise, as if Ina’s arrival had long been anticipated.

The meditators always observed strict silence, but Ina had a strong feeling that wouldn’t be the only rule she was about to break.

“You tore me away from a loving family and home.” After nearly a year, the words finally came to her, certain and precise like a string of hard, polished stones. “Why?”

Mother Ocean got to her feet, slowly, with one wrinkled hand on the wall for balance. She did not dispute the accusation as she looked up to meet Ina’s gaze.

“Walk with me, Ina.”

Part 15

A narrow stone hallway curved in a long arc toward a dark and featureless end. Torches lined the walls at regular intervals, but they had not been lit. After one glance, Ina set them ablaze with a casual thought. Puffs of dust rose from the stones under her bare feet, and she scowled.

“Yes, I would give it up.” Echoing from the dry, close stones, Ina’s voice sounded overly harsh and brittle to her ears, answering a question she had not been asked. “To go home to my family—and why shouldn’t I want to go home? I never asked to become a witch, or to be given any magical powers, and it’s only fair that I should have the freedom to walk away if I so choose.”

Somewhere far behind her, Ina heard the raven’s harsh caw.

The outline of a door came clear at the end of the hallway, gleaming in the reflected torchlight. It had no knob, but it swung open easily as Mother Ocean extended a hand toward it. Cool air blew into the passage, making the torches cast wavering shadows.

Ina followed the older woman into what looked like a disused courtyard, overgrown with vegetation, in the dim light just before dawn. The glare from the hallway left her without much night vision, and she irritably commanded the torches to go dark again. They obeyed, with sullen flickers of reluctance.

“Only two weeks remain before we celebrate Midsummer’s Eve again.” Turning her soft, lined face toward the coming sunrise, Mother Ocean spoke as calmly as if her words were only another daily lesson. “Then you will have been here fully a year, and your training will be complete. All memories of your previous life will be restored then, if you so choose. That is our custom.”

“Why should I care about your custom, when I never chose to follow it!” Ina was shouting now, far beyond caring whether her voice was loud enough to disturb anyone’s morning meditations.

Indistinct winged shapes passed by in the faint light, swooping to glide through an arched doorway ahead. High-pitched squeaks came from the other side of the wall. Ina flinched instinctively before realizing that they were only bats, flying home to roost for the day.

“One final task remains to you.” Mother Ocean still faced straight ahead, with her gaze uplifted. “I cannot speak more of it now, but you will know it when the time comes. Act wisely, remember what you have learned, and trust your best instincts. Allow the strength of fire and earth to flow through you—always, always tempered with kindness.”

Ina shivered in her bare feet and nightdress, feeling very far from wise and strong. The bats had gone silent as the sun rose over the horizon, brightening the courtyard without yet giving much warmth.

“Do you see it all? I mean, everything in the future?”

Mother Ocean turned toward her now, with a gentle smile. “No, Ina, I see only the points of awareness on which I choose to focus my attention—just as you did, months ago, when I instructed you to close your eyes and watch the ships entering the bay.”

Pondering that response, Ina reached with her mind toward the colony of bats on the other side of the wall. She felt their slow breathing as they drifted off to sleep, comfortable and secure in the warmth of their kin. Somewhere, only a little farther away, roses grew beside a garden bench, their fragrant blooms swaying in a gentle breeze. They were in shadow now, with the morning sun behind the house. Within the walls, she would find her kin, just as the bats had done…

“Not much longer, Ina, dear heart. You will see them again.”

The image faded, never having quite come clear.

She still could feel the bats, their heartbeats slow and relaxed. In part, she envied them for being able to sleep so easily, without wondering if they would wake up again as themselves. Even if—when—she found her way home, Ina knew her life would never again be that simple.

Part 16

Birdsong, the sweet fragrance of honeysuckle, and a cool breeze came through the spacious windows of the infirmary. The hazy morning light and humid air spoke of an approaching storm. Ina tried to clear her mind, focusing only on the rhythm of her breath and the healing energy that was supposed to be coursing through her hands, but was nowhere to be found. Her gaze drifted up to the window again.

Ina sat in a wooden chair beside a cot where Phoenix rested in a comfortable nest of pillows and blankets, with the broken left leg neatly splinted. Rowan bustled about at a nearby table, assembling ingredients for herbal medicines. Bright flashes of red from the healer’s long dress danced at the edge of Ina’s vision, and the hem swished softly over the stone floor.

Breathe, Ina told herself again, closing her eyes and trying to block out all thoughts of how Phoenix had been injured two days ago, chased by a mob of ignorant, murderous villagers. Phoenix had done nothing to deserve such hate; she was a gentle soul, whose fragmented memories of long-ago abuse made the villagers’ cruelty even more unforgivable. No, stop thinking about it, and just breathe.

“Your anger is blocking the flow of life energy.” Rowan’s voice came from directly behind Ina’s chair. Opening her eyes, Ina looked down at her hands, hovering uselessly above the injured leg she had been trying to heal. She felt no energy at all flowing through them. This had been a complete waste of time. She could never be an intuitive healer like Rowan.

“Let it go.” Rowan spoke softly, and Ina felt a surge of warming energy as her shoulders relaxed under Rowan’s gentle touch. She hadn’t even realized how tight they had been.

Ina let her hands fell into her lap, inert and defeated. “I really did try. Being a healer just isn’t…”

“Enough of such talk.” Rowan reached down to pick up several rough cloth sacks from a basket under the table. “Here, take these and go out gathering. We have a few hours before the storm blows in.”

Ina stood up, taking the sacks by rote as she tried to make sense of this sudden change of instructions. “What do you want me to gather? Are we short of any herbs in particular?”

Rowan smiled as Ina put the folded sacks into the deep pockets of her dress. “Let Nature be your guide today, Ina. The forest is full of abundance, as is Mother Earth herself. Your task for now is to let yourself accept the truth of it.”

Leaving the compound through a small side gate, which was starting to get overgrown with thorny shoots of wild blackberries in flower, Ina had to admit she wasn’t in an accepting mood. One of the brambles caught her sleeve, and she stepped in a pile of rabbit dung while getting herself untangled. Whatever Nature might be showing her today, Ina wasn’t finding much of use in it.

She made her way aimlessly through the familiar paths of the forest, noticing a fallen tree here and a trickle of water over mossy rocks there, but feeling no sense of direction. After a while, the path narrowed, winding through dense trees and granite boulders that Ina thought she had seen before, although she wasn’t entirely sure when she had been here. Stepping between two huge pines, she found herself in a meadow overlooking a wide lake, with a log cabin on the far shore.

Yes, she recognized this place. The cabin belonged to Nellie, one of the leaders of the mob that had chased Phoenix, screaming of hate and killing—but who also had spoken kindly to Ina, long ago. How had that happened? Sifting through memories that felt fuzzy and jumbled, Ina plucked one clear thread: she had followed Nellie’s little girl, Mabel, around the lake to the cabin, early in the morning of the summer solstice. She had told Nellie she’d lost her way in the woods, but that hadn’t been true. Even now, almost a year later, the meadow still vibrated with the echoes of strong magic.

Ina heard her own voice, clear and certain, before she realized she had spoken aloud.

“This was where it happened.”

Part 17

“Witch!”

Ina had tensed to run before she consciously knew it. The voice had come from somewhere on her right, high and excited. Had a mob gathered to attack her already, in just the few moments she had been standing here in open view?

Turning, she saw only the high grass and bright wildflowers of the meadow. Bees buzzed placidly among the tall blossoms of purple clover. The lake spread out beyond, its muddy surface rippling in a steady southwest wind. Sycamores along the shore reached spidery branches over the water.

The branches swayed in the wind, in harmony with the lake’s ripples—but no, farther up in the canopy, a limb shook more vigorously. A small head came into view, framed by rustling branches.

“Hello, witch!” The little girl gave a cheerful wave, leaning out precariously along a quivering branch. Ina recognized her at once; this was Nellie’s daughter, Mabel. The child had been the first person Ina had met, right here in this meadow, almost a year ago when…

“Mama is baking apricot scones. My favorite!” Mabel announced, distracting Ina from a memory that teased at the ragged edges of thought. “We have enough to share. Come and visit with us!”

Ina fumbled for words, pondering how she might give a kind refusal without telling this innocent child her mama would more likely try to kill a witch than offer hospitality.

Without waiting for a reply, Mabel dropped quickly from one branch to another, the pace of her descent quite alarming. The wind gusted, shaking the tree even more; it wouldn’t be long at all before the approaching storm arrived.

“Be careful,” Ina started to say—just as Mabel lost her grip and fell.

The sycamore overhung the lake there, on a slight rise. Mabel had climbed down enough that she wasn’t far above the water. Ina expected to hear a splash as the child fell below the level of the bank, just out of her view. Instead, she heard a thud, followed by a scream of equal parts terror and pain.

The scream continued as Ina ran toward the lake. Just beyond the bank, a large dead tree limb, with several smaller branches attached to it, jutted out of the water. Mabel had fallen directly onto it, impaling her right leg on a spiky branch. A frightening amount of blood had soaked through the little girl’s skirt in just the short time it had taken Ina to run across the meadow.

Then, with a sharp crack, the branch broke, throwing Mabel into the lake. The scream stopped abruptly as the child sank beneath the rippling surface. A moment later, nothing but a few bubbles could be seen.

Ina, keeping her eyes fixed on the spot, flung herself into the water.

Part 18

The lake wasn’t very deep where Mabel had fallen from the tree. Ina could stand up easily; the water didn’t quite reach her shoulders. It was murky enough that she couldn’t see the bottom, however, and rain had started to fall. She looked for bubbles or other disturbances, but none were apparent.

Mabel couldn’t be far away, but Ina’s foot touched nothing when she swept it in a broad circle. Taking a deep breath, Ina plunged under the water, reaching more widely around herself. Still nothing, and below the surface it was literally too dark to see her hand in front of her face.

With burning lungs, Ina came up for air. She blinked the muddy water out of her eyes and looked again, feeling increasingly frantic; still, there were no bubbles nearby. Was Mabel dead already? Had Ina failed, yet again, incapable of something as simple as finding a little girl who surely had to be right here…

A voice spoke in her thoughts—Mother Ocean, from a lesson months ago.

“Ina, close your eyes. What do you see?”

Forcing herself to shove away the rising panic and take a calming breath, setting an intention on the breath out—let Mabel be safe and well—Ina obediently shut her eyes.

There, just to her left, a tiny pinpoint of life energy. So faint, so terrifyingly faint—but she could feel it. Ina reached down again and touched the soft fabric of Mabel’s dress almost at once. She got her arms around the child’s torso, heaved Mabel over her shoulder, and waded up out of the lake.

The rain was coming down in earnest now, huge sheets of it. Ina set the motionless girl down in the sodden grass. Her hands moved almost on their own, as if they knew what to do without need for guidance from her half-panicked mind. Compressing Mabel’s chest, she forced out a big gush of lake water. Had the child started breathing now, or was that only Ina’s imagination? Her skin was so cold, so pale. It was hard to believe she could still be alive.

The pouring rain hadn’t washed away all of the blood on Mabel’s dress where a sharp branch had pierced her leg. Most of the branch had broken off when Mabel sank into the water, but some was still in there. Ina took hold of the splintered end and tugged it out, feeling a gush of blood over her hands.

That means Mabel is alive, Ina told herself, grasping for a tiny shred of reason. Dead bodies don’t bleed; they don’t have a beating heart to push blood out. Fumbling in her pocket for the cloth sacks she’d been carrying, Ina wrapped one of them around Mabel’s wound, and then another. The blood kept seeping around her fingers, however tightly she held the makeshift bandage in place. Maybe it had slowed, just a little…

“This won’t be enough.”

The voice in Ina’s mind was her own this time, but it held the same certainty as the earlier fragment of memory. Of course, a bandage wouldn’t be enough. Even if the bleeding stopped soon, Mabel was chilled through and half drowned, and her unnaturally pale skin showed that she already had lost a dangerous amount of blood. What she needed was a skilled healer, along with shelter, dry clothing, and warm blankets.

None of which Ina could provide right now. Although Rowan had tried to teach her the ways of healing, she hadn’t made much progress. Healing magic felt beyond her reach—unlike fire magic, which Ina always pictured as dancing joyfully, eager to play. If she could call upon healing magic in the same way, it would leap from her fingertips and dance along the child’s injured leg, sparkling with heat and life.

The bandage took on a sudden warmth under Ina’s hands, though she hadn’t consciously invoked magic. Dissolving into a glowing cloud, it first had the deep red hue of blood, shading almost at once into orange and yellow like a leaping fire. Ina felt the heat going into Mabel’s wound, bringing the torn flesh together and mending the damage. It faded into a pinkish mark like a healing scar, and then the glow moved up Mabel’s body to settle in her chest for a moment before fading away entirely.

Moving her head just a little, the child breathed more deeply and normally, as if asleep. She hadn’t regained consciousness, but her cheeks now held a trace of color. Now, she needed to be gotten out of the rain, without delay. Ina tried to control the storm and make it stop raining, but she couldn’t muster up more than a tiny flicker of magic after so much of her energy had been drawn into the healing work.

Ina still had the normal strength of her body, though, and the cabin where Mabel’s family lived was just across the lake. Carrying the child that distance would be manageable. What to do about her mother, Nellie, who hated witches “worse than anything,” might prove more difficult.

One problem at a time, Ina told herself, picking Mabel up again to carry her home.

Part 19

Ina stepped on another jagged fallen branch, tearing what little remained of her stockings farther into shreds.

She had lost her shoes in the lake rescuing Mabel, and she hadn’t even realized it until she started carrying the child home. Although Mabel’s family lived very close by, Ina was starting to feel as if she had been walking forever on scratched and bruised feet. No, it had been only a few minutes, she told herself sternly, and she could manage a few more.

Staggering under the young girl’s weight, Ina flinched when a green snake passed in front of her. She couldn’t see it clearly in the long grass. Most snakes are harmless, Ina told herself as she took another step, repeating the words as if they were a calming mantra in her morning meditations. Still, she was glad when the snake slithered out of sight into a tall stand of cattails.

The storm had blown through quickly, and the humid air of early June felt heavy and warm. Wild roses, thick with blooms, gave the meadow a pleasant fragrance that Ina would have appreciated much more if she hadn’t been so focused on avoiding their thorns. The hem of her sodden dress kept getting caught; she’d torn it in several places already. Just one more step now, she told herself, trudging along with her head down. And another step.

When she looked farther ahead for a moment, the little cabin where Mabel’s family lived was much closer. Perhaps Nellie, looking to see where her daughter had gotten to, would notice Ina struggling under the child’s weight and come running to help. Then she would understand Ina wasn’t evil after all, and whatever grudges she might have held would be set aside.

Having distracted herself with a fantasy in which the villagers all shed their prejudices and lived forever in neighborly peace with the witches of the Wild Forest, Ina didn’t even notice when Nellie stepped out of the cabin. It wasn’t until the woman came rushing toward her, with something held high overhead, that Ina snapped back to reality.

“What are you doing with my daughter, you horrible witch!”

Ina blinked, not quite believing what she saw. Yes, that really was a rolling pin that Nellie was brandishing. It was still white with flour from the apricot scones Mabel had mentioned.

Dropping to her knees, Ina very carefully set the little girl down in the grass. Then she backed away a few steps, taking just as much care to maintain a calm and unthreatening appearance. Once, in the forest, she had come too close to a wolf den and had been delighted to see the tiny cubs at play, until she’d realized her peril a moment later and stepped cautiously away. She’d learned not to frighten wild creatures or to get between them and their young; and sometimes people, she thought, weren’t all that much different.

Part 20

Nellie stopped in mid-screech when she got close enough to see her daughter’s slack, unconscious face and the bloodstains on the child’s torn skirt. The rolling pin that she had been brandishing fell from her hand, landing with a dull thud on the wet ground. Next to it, a cobweb quivered atop the grass, catching the light in spiraling reflections.

Going down to her knees, Nellie raised Mabel’s skirt just enough to see the large scar that had not been there earlier, from an injury that could have been healed only by magic. She shook her head twice slowly, as if dazed, and then lifted her head and met Ina’s eyes.

“Did you…”

Nellie’s speech trailed off raggedly, as she mustered the courage to go on. She bit her lip and tried again, her voice so faint that Ina, standing a few paces away, could barely hear her words.

“Did you bring her back from the dead?”

Ina took a step closer and replied just as quietly. Although Mabel did not yet appear to be regaining consciousness, it was possible she might hear, and Ina did not want to frighten her.

“No. But it was close.”

Biting her lip even harder, until a drop of blood could be seen, Nellie lowered her gaze again. Her face had gone paler than the child’s as she watched the slow rise and fall of Mabel’s chest. She gathered the little girl into her arms and rose to stand.

Only then, glancing warily back and forth from Ina to her house like a frightened animal getting ready to bolt to its den, did Nellie appear to take in the details of Ina’s bare, scratched feet and sopping wet dress.

“If you, uh, want,” Nellie stammered, her bitten lip twitching as she looked into Ina’s eyes again, “there’s hot tea in the house—I was brewing it just now—and fresh scones. I have a clean dress that you can put on until yours is dry, and ointment and bandages for your feet.”

While that wasn’t an apology or even a wholehearted invitation, Ina supposed it was the best she could expect, given Nellie’s fear of witches. Even if begrudging, it was an offer of hospitality, and it felt like one that should be accepted. Although she couldn’t have explained why, Ina had a sense that there was something more she needed to do here.

Part 21

Ina, wearing a faded but clean dress that fit reasonably well, sat in an oversized chair on Nellie’s front porch, piled high with embroidered cushions. Her bandaged feet rested comfortably on a feather pillow on a low stool. A table held a teacup and a large plate overflowing with apricot scones. Beyond the porch, in the hazy afternoon sunlight, bees buzzed serenely in a flower garden along a white picket fence.

Nellie hovered like a hummingbird, full of nervous energy, pouring more tea into Ina’s cup and pacing from one end of the porch to the other. Inside the cabin, Mabel and her little brother Godfrey were napping. Mabel had woken briefly, murmuring “Mama,” when Nellie stripped off her wet clothing and put a clean gown on her, but then she had fallen back to sleep.

Hammering and clattering could be heard from across the yard, where Nellie’s husband, John, was busy repairing a shed. Ina suspected he was working nearby to keep a close watch on her, given Nellie’s evident fear of witchcraft. In truth, Ina couldn’t have posed much of a threat to anyone at present. She felt weak as a kitten, and just reaching for a scone made her shoulder start to ache.

“Are you quite comfortable, Ina? Do you need anything more?”

A gray cat ran across the porch and leaped into the grass. Nellie’s gaze followed it for just a moment before darting back to the doorway. The children still slept quietly.

“I’m fine, Nellie. Sit down and have some tea yourself, why don’t you?”

Taking much slower steps, Nellie got herself a cup and sat directly across the table from Ina, with her chair pushed back so far that she could barely reach the table. Not meeting Ina’s eyes, she looked down at the cup but did not make any move to lift it.

Ina gentled her voice. “I won’t harm you, Nellie. I am a healer, taught to serve always with love.”

She turned the word over in her thoughts, seeking certainty. Healer. Yes, she could claim that status now. It seemed as if ages had passed since she had tried—and failed—to summon healing energy in the infirmary where Phoenix was recovering from a broken leg. It had only been this morning, though.

“Why do you fear the witches of the Wild Forest?” Ina took another sip of her tea, which tasted of lemon and soothing herbs. “Have any of us ever done you any harm?”

Finally glancing up, Nellie opened her mouth as if about to speak, but then closed it again. Her hands clenched around the edge of the table.

Ina took another scone and bit into it, waiting patiently.

“Six years ago, on Midsummer’s Eve—the witches killed my sister.”

To be continued…