The sun had stayed out and the day was warm. It was midafternoon; my blundering journey had been a quick one, and at some cost, for I was dizzy and breathless and my whole body ached. It was Linn who saw the dark figure first, the figure of a tall woman sitting quietly on the bench under the rowan trees, her black hair flowing down her back. Her long cloak was the blue of distant mountains at dusk. The hound paused, then moved slowly forward, tail wagging hesitantly. The woman stretched out a hand.

“Come forward, daughter of the forest.” Her voice was deep and resonant. I did not move. Linn submitted to the caressing fingers; she too was tired from our headlong flight, and gave the woman’s hand a brief lick before heading for the water trough to drink in long, thirsty gulps.

“Come forward, Sorcha. Do you not know me?” She made no move toward me. I sniffed, and raised a hand to wipe my nose. Where was Father Brien?

“Come, child. You called me at your time of need. Now I am here, and I will help you.”

Anger rose in me then, and I moved at last to stand before her and met her deep blue eyes with mine.

“You did not come! We called you, all of us—and now my brothers—my brothers are gone—and she said, she said you were one and the same, it was her we called.” I could not erase the image of each of them in turn, changing, changing from man to swan, and the terrible emptiness as their minds slipped away from me and were lost forever. “How do I know which of you to believe?”

Her gaze was sharp. “Her kind will tell you there is no black and white, only shadows. That any way can be wrong or right, that good and evil are two sides of the same coin. Believe her if you will. Perhaps she tells the truth, and I a falsehood. You must decide that, and you must choose your own path. You must choose it now.”

“There is no choice,” I wailed. “She took them, she changed them, and now they are gone! What can I do but run and hide, and be alone? She said she would come after me, I must not stay here, I must find Father Brien—”

“Stop,” she said, holding up her hand, and I did, snatching air in a shuddering breath. “He cannot help you this time. Listen.”

I listened, and was suddenly struck by the absence of sound. Even the insects seemed to have stopped ehirping. The grove was deeply silent. “You may wonder why this place is so quiet. It is the stillness of sleep, of farewell. He is here, but he is not here.”

“What do you mean?” I had thought myself unable to feel anymore; but her words turned me cold.

“There is little time,” she said, standing up, and now I could sense the power of her presence as once before in this place; it was as if the heart of the great forest were centered here. “You must listen, and listen well. For indeed you have a choice. You can flee and hide, and wait to be found. You can live out your days in terror, without meaning. Or you can take the harder choice, and you can save them.”