Being a Green Mother Read Online Free PDF Page A

push your luck, nymph!” the leader growled. “The Magician doesn’t protect
you
. Our axes can still—”
    But again the old seer was cautioning him. “I see it now, as I should have before. The Magician loves this dryad. She it was who trained him in natural magic when he was a tot. If anything hurt her or her tree—”
    “Damn it, woman!” the leader exclaimed, furious. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
    “We all make mistakes,” she said. “I was so intent on the prize to be won, I forgot to look beyond.”
    “What a mistake!” he groaned. “How are we to get out of this?”
    “You’ll make amends!” the hamadryad called. “That’s what you’ll do, you scoundrels!”
    The leader sighed. “It seems we must.” He turned again to the girls, who had picked up their amulets, which no longer squiggled. “I hereby abjectly apologize to the two of you. But let me explain. We are not bad folk, we are Gypsies, and we follow the Gypsy way. We are always kind to our children, including those we adopt; not one of them would trade our way for that of the settled kind. I was stolen and adopted myself, and I bless my fortune! We are free folk, as free as any on earth. We sing and dance the day long and we are happy in what we do. We meant no harm to you; we merely wanted you to join us, because we appreciate both music and magic as no other folk do. You would have liked our life. It is not every child we choose; only those with true talents. Our approach to you was a compliment, not a threat.”
    The girls were six years old and were learning how to be vulnerable to flattery. But the hamadryad was several hundred years old and of a less forgiving nature. “Forget the blarney!” she called. “Get to the amends!”
    “I was coming to that, wood-sprite,” the leader said, firing a dark glance in her direction. Then he smiled graciously. He could be completely charming when he tried. “To makeamends for our misunderstanding, we shall give you an invaluable gift: a True Telling of your fortunes, at no charge.”
    Orb glanced at the tree, and the dryad nodded affirmatively. This was a suitable amend. “Yes,” Orb said, and Luna agreed.
    The old woman came forth again. “Give me your hands,” she said.
    The girls extended their hands as if for an inspection before a meal, and the seer took one of each. She closed her eyes. “Let us look into your futures,” she intoned.
    A shadow of the vision touched Orb.
    The woman shuddered and dropped the hands. “It’s barred!” she exclaimed. “I cannot read their lives!”
    “A likely story!” the hamadryad called.
    “No, ’tis true!” the seer protested. “A counterspell has been laid on these two, rendering their futures opaque. I doubt that the Horned One himself could penetrate these lives! Certainly I can not, nor any Gypsy.”
    Luna looked at Orb. “Daddy,” she said.
    That made sense. The Magician had evidently protected them with more than the amulets. Maybe there was some threat in having their futures told, so he had prevented it.
    “You’re trying to renege!” the dryad cried, outraged.
    “We must offer something else,” the Gypsy leader said quickly. “We always keep our deals.”
    The dryad snorted at this, but the man was serious. Orb was quick enough to grasp her opportunity. “Maybe the ’Yano?” she inquired.
    The leader shook his head. “Child, I can not give you that! No mortal person can. The Llano can only be found for one’s self. My playing is but the poorest suggestion of it, anyway; I have never been able to approach it closely.”
    “But I really want it!” Orb said.
    Luna’s curiosity had been roused. “Maybe if you just tell us about it,” she suggested.
    “Even that is little enough,” the man said. “Our whole band together hardly knows—”
    “Yes, tell us!” Orb said. “It is like the Song of the Morning?”
    The leader pursed his lips. “You hear that? You are a rare child indeed! Yes, it is said