Without warning, Amelie closed the distance between them and grabbed Mercedes’s hand, gripping hard. She expected fierce resistance and was caught off guard when Mercedes gripped back, leaning forward.
“Do you want to see?” Mercedes whispered angrily.
Fearing this was a trick and that Mercedes might try to break away, Amelie reached out with her thoughts for the spark of Mercedes’s soul. She felt it right away and focused on the events of last night, on what led up to the mushrooms finding their way to the cook’s table.
“No,” Mercedes breathed in her ear. “If you want to see, you’ll see it all.”
The first jolt hit and Amelie gasped, bracing for another, but she didn’t let go. As the second jolt hit, she found herself rushing through the gray-and-white mists, flying backward in time with Mercedes. Effortlessly, almost without choice, she felt her spirit meshing with Mercedes’s, intertwining with Mercedes’s, until she saw through Mercedes’s eyes. But unlike ever before, her consciousness remained separate and aware.
The mists cleared, and she found herself kneeling on a riverbank, looking down into the dead face of a beautiful woman.
Listen . . . , a voice whispered inside her mind.
Chapter Nine
Mercedes: Five Years in the Past
The Death
The first time I experienced fear and sorrow in the exact same moment was the day I found myself looking down into the face of my dead mother.
I couldn’t believe it. It happened so fast.
She’d been standing beside me, my father, and Mariah, on the bank of the Vudrask River, just outside the city of Kéonsk. She was smiling and looking forward to all the pleasures of the Autumn Fair. Even in her late forties, my mother was lovely, small and lithe, with black eyes and a mass of black hair. She wore white peasant blouses and brightly colored skirts and silver bangles on her wrists. Everywhere she walked, the heads of men would turn to follow.
That morning, we’d just arrived outside Kéonsk, to set up for the fair, and we’d walked over to see the rushing river. There were barges coming and going, loading and unloading, and it was always enjoyable to watch the activity.
A merchant was trying to get a team of young horses to pull his wagon closer to the bank, and two dogs beside them broke out into a snarling fight. The horses bolted, coming straight at us. My father pushed me and grabbed Mariah, and my mother was struck full force by one of the horses as it tried to stop itself at the top of the bank.
She was knocked into the water, and my father cried out.
Men began to hurry over, but she was in the current facedown and did not appear to be moving. My father jumped into the river. Mariah and I ran along the embankment, calling to her, but it was a good distance until Father was able to reach her and pull her out.
She was dead, her face white, her hair soaked, her eyes closed.
Standing beside me, Mariah stared down, and in my shock and sorrow, I was hit by a sense of fear. My mother’s name had been Moira, and she was the leader of our small group of Móndyalítko. We depended on her for many things.
And in a blink, she was gone.
Kneeling on the ground, my father, who was called Jude, let out a shameless sob. Mariah continued staring down in silence.
I asked, “Father . . . what are we going to do now?”
He didn’t appear to understand my question, as I do not think he fully understood that it was my mother who had managed everything . . . everything for our family community for my entire life. His tears were all shed for the loss of a beloved wife, but I saw the larger scheme of things.
And I was afraid.
The Family
Our traveling group consisted of four wagons—one for each family—eight horses, one good-natured milk cow, and a varying number of chickens.
My mother was from the line of Marentõr.
And as an eldest surviving daughter, she was the undisputed leader of our small branch. Since my father, Jude, had married into our kin and joined with us, he took her family name, as was the custom. For some reason no one could remember, her grandmother had believed all children born into the line should be given first names starting with the letter M.
Mother believed in following such traditions.
Although our immediate family consisted of only four people, we had the largest wagon, and we always led the way.
The second wagon housed my mother’s younger sister, Miriam, her husband, Landrien (who had also married in), and their two sons, Mikolai and Marcus.
The third wagon belonged to my mother’s elderly uncle Marten and his wife, Leticia, along with their son, Micah, and his wife, Katlyn, and their three young children, meaning seven people were packed into one wagon, but they seemed to manage.
The fourth and last wagon had once belonged to a second cousin of my mother’s, who, for reasons never revealed to me, had been shunned by her closer kin and joined up with our group before I was born. Her husband’s name was Shawn, and between them, they’d brought five sons into the world, and she’d died giving birth to the last one. My mother, of course, could not turn Shawn and the boys away, so they’d remained with us. However, this family did not follow the traditions of naming children with the letter M, and the two oldest boys, Payton and Orlando, had proven to be a great trial to their father—and thereby my mother—as they neared manhood. Both young men had a tendency to be light-fingered. This, coupled with their mutual lack of wits, had been occasionally troublesome in our travels.
My own father was not above theft in a pinch, but he never got caught.
At the time of my mother’s death, I was nineteen and Mariah was eleven. Without Mother, our group numbered twenty people.
Everyone stood in shocked silence when my father told them what had happened on the riverbank . . . that my mother was gone. But I was the only one who truly appeared to grasp the full implications of her sudden absence.
My mother was known as “the Great Moira.”
She was not Mist-Torn and possessed no inborn abilities. In our family community, Marcus had been the only one born with a Móndyalítko gift. He was a shifter, and a fine hunter as a result. We were proud of him, but his gift was a secret, known only to us and other Móndyalítko. He could not be used to earn money or gain fame. But even without a Mist-Torn among us, we managed quite well.
Mother was a palm reader, the best I’d ever seen.
She knew how to make someone else feel like the only person in the world. She knew how to shine her light and give someone else hope and joy and peace. She knew how to make other people feel good about themselves and to do it in a way that was natural and believable.
This might not seem like such an unusual gift—but it was.
Every autumn, large numbers of farmers, merchants, and Móndyalítko converged upon the city of Kéonsk for the fair, far too many to be allowed inside the already crowded city.
Wagons, tents, and market stalls were set up outside, overseen by a city administrator called Master Deandre. He was lord of the fair, and like everyone else, he adored my mother. Not only that, but he was a shrewd businessman also, and he was well aware just how many people would line up outside our wagon to be read by the Great Moira.
Because of her, our small group from the line of Marentõr was considered important and quite a draw for the fair, as some people came just to see her and then would spend money at the merchant stalls. Master Deandre always kept a prime spot for our four wagons, just outside the west entrance of the city. Nobody could miss us there.