Seer of Sevenwaters Read Online Free PDF

been compassion in his eyes as he’d said this. Maybe his own understanding of this particular truth had come at a high price. But he was wrong about me. I understood what the choice meant. I loved my family. My little brother was only four years old. Of course I knew what I was giving up.
    Eoh , Gyfu , Beorc , Ing . I had surrounded myself with signs of protection; I had sought to cleanse the little chamber of the sorrows of the past. All the same, something was wrong; I felt it in every part of my body. And now I was filled with the urge to act, but did not know what it was that called me.
    There were no windows in the chamber, but daylight showed under the door. Perhaps I had not slept long. I donned my blue gown and tunic over the shift I was wearing, brushed and re-plaited my hair, put on my shoes and headed out. Perhaps I had heard something in my sleep, some commotion that had set this unrest in me. But all seemed quiet now, though there were plenty of folk about. People were always busy here. In keeping with the philosophy of the original settlement founded by Johnny’s father, Bran, this was a place of hope and purpose. Working hard was one of the unspoken rules, and it applied to every man and woman on the island, from healer to druid, from warrior to teacher, from fisherman to cook.
    There were two sides to this coin. Inis Eala accepted the outsider. It had room for the dispossessed, the damaged, the rootless, provided a man was prepared to break free of what held him back and offer his absolute best. On the other hand, once admitted to the small community on the island, and to Johnny’s band of warriors in particular, a man got no second chances. Transgress the codes of Inis Eala, and a person would be sent away the moment a boat was free to transport him to the mainland.
    I had been here once before, two years ago. I had seen what happened to men when they came to the island: how they changed, growing hard and lean, their eyes becoming brighter and more peaceful. Here trust budded and flowered. Here wary, cautious men bloomed into fine teachers, loyal friends and, in some cases, loving husbands and fathers. For women came too, with their own reasons—seeking out kinsmen, looking for new opportunities, offering particular skills. Biddy, the cook, had come to the island after her first husband, a member of Bran’s original outlaw band, was killed in a terrible accident. The Painted Men had taken the widow in under the rules of comradeship. There were some complicated relationships in this community. Biddy and her second husband, Gull, were Evan’s parents, which made them parents-in-law to my sister Muirrin. Through Gull, a man from a hot southern land, the Sevenwaters family had acquired an exotic, dark-skinned branch.
    Whatever had disturbed my sleep, it was slow to depart. My body was tight with tension, my mind full of an urgency that had no just cause. I needed a fast walk. I judged by the light that there was still an hour or two before sunset. I would fetch a basket and complete the seaweed-gathering mission that had been interrupted earlier.
    The tide was coming in. Slate-dark clouds moved overhead, chased by the westerly breeze, but I judged it would not rain before nightfall. The plant Muirrin had mentioned went by the local name of mermaid’s tears. Dried, pulverized and mixed with certain other ingredients, it could be made into a tonic to strengthen the blood. There was a particular cove on the western shore of the island where I would likely find a fresh supply, she’d said. A basketful would be plenty.
    I took the path I had used earlier, before the wreck. Some distance beyond the point where I had turned back last time, the way branched, and I went by the westward track. I found myself walking quickly, almost running, and forced myself to slow. Beyond the level area where the Inis Eala community was housed the island terrain was steep and treacherous, more apt for goats than men and women,