Equal Rites Read Online Free PDF Page B

and pulled her rocking chair closer to the fire.
    There was something there, she told herself, lurking away in the child’s mind. She didn’t like to think about what itwas, but she remembered what had happened to the wolves. And all that about lighting fires with magic. Wizards did that, it was one of the first things they learned.
    Granny sighed. There was only one way to be sure, and she was getting rather old for this sort of thing.
    She picked up the candle and went out through the scullery into the lean-to that housed her goats. They watched her without fear, each sitting in its pen like a furry blob, three mouths working rhythmically on the day’s hay. The air smelled warm and slightly flatulent.
    Up in the rafters was a small owl, one of a number of creatures who found that living with Granny was worth the occasional inconvenience. It came to her hand at a word, and she stroked its bullet head thoughtfully as she looked for somewhere comfortable to lie. A pile of hay it would have to be.
    She blew out the candle and lay back, with the owl perched on her finger.
    The goats chewed, burped and swallowed their way through their cozy night. They made the only sound in the building.
    Granny’s body stilled. The owl felt her enter its mind, and graciously made room. Granny knew she would regret this, Borrowing twice in one day would leave her good for nothing in the morning, and with a terrible desire to eat mice. Of course, when she was younger she thought nothing of it, running with the stags, hunting with the foxes, learning the strange dark ways of the moles, hardly spending a night in her own body. But it was getting harder now, especially coming back. Maybe the time would come when she couldn’t get back, maybe the body back home would be so much dead flesh, and maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad way of it, at that.
    This was the sort of thing wizards could never know. If it occurred to them to enter a creature’s mind they’d do it like a thief, not out of wickedness but because it simply wouldn’t occur to them to do it any other way, the daft buggers. Andwhat good would it do to take over an owl’s body? You couldn’t fly, you needed to spend a lifetime learning. But the gentle way was to ride in its mind, steering it as gently as a breeze stirs a leaf.
    The owl stirred, fluttered up on to the little windowsill, and glided silently into the night.
    The clouds had cleared and the thin moon made the mountains gleam. Granny peered out through owl eyes as she sped silently between the ranks of trees. This was the only way to travel, once a body had the way of it! She liked Borrowing birds best of all, using them to explore the high, hidden valleys where no one went, the secret lakes between black cliffs, the tiny walled fields on the scraps of flat ground, tucked on the sheer rock faces, that were the property of hidden and secretive beings. Once she had ridden with the geese that passed over the mountains every spring and autumn, and had got the shock of her life when she nearly went beyond range of returning.
    The owl broke out of the forest and skimmed across the rooftops of the village, alighting in a shower of snow on the biggest apple tree in Smith’s orchard. It was heavy with mistletoe.
    She knew she was right as soon as her claws touched the bark. The tree resented her, she could feel it trying to push her away.
    I’m not going , she thought.
    In the silence of the night the tree said, Bully me, then, just because I’m a tree. Typical woman .
    At least you’re useful now , thought Granny. Better a tree than a wizard, eh?
    It’s not such a bad life , thought the tree. Sun . Fresh air. Time to think. Bees, too, in the spring .
    There was something lascivious about the way the tree said “bees” that quite put Granny, who had several hives, off the idea of honey. It was like being reminded that eggs were unborn chickens.
    I’ve come about the girl, Esk , she hissed.
    A promising child , thought