Seer of Sevenwaters Read Free Page B

and feelings of others did crowd into my mind, as if I were a receptacle for anything too powerful for their own selves to encompass. But in the nemetons, as a druid, I could work on controlling that. I could learn to make it a gift, not a burden. Here on Inis Eala all I would be doing over the summer was wait. Wait until it was time to go back to Sevenwaters; wait until it was time to fulfill my vocation at last. I had known since I was six years old that the life of the spirit was my destiny. I had known since the first time the Lady of the Forest had appeared to me, a majestic, blue-cloaked figure manifesting before me unsought by a still pool under the oaks. She had recognized me as a seer; she had offered me her grave counsel. What did Ciarán think I would do here at Inis Eala? Fall in love with some strapping young warrior and allow my life to veer off its long-intended course? I would never let that happen.
    “Sibeal?”
    I snapped out of my reverie. “Yes, Ciarán is planning to come here and escort me home. He wants to talk to Cathal.”
    “Mm-hm. I’m glad you’re here, at any rate. Not only because this far-flung part of the family likes to see you, but also because the island lacks a druid or wise woman. I’m sorry I have to ask you to conduct a ritual so soon after your arrival, but folk will be pleased to see it done with the authority a druid can provide. Those poor fellows died a hard death. We must lay them to rest as well as we can.”
    “I’m not quite a druid yet,” I said. “But I’ll do my best.”

    There were folk in the dining hall, not laughing and talking as they usually did over their meals, but seated in subdued silence. The pots of soup and loaves of fresh-baked bread that might have fed a small army of survivors were a mute testament to the lives lost. Johnny spoke to one or two people—mostly senior members of the island community, those who had been at Inis Eala since his father’s time—then came over to tell me the burial rite would take place at dusk next day, if I agreed. It would take some time to choose a suitable spot, excavate the hard island soil, then place stones in the rough shape of a boat.
    “It’s a while for the dead to lie waiting,” I said. “I should say some prayers over them when they’ve been laid out.”
    “Thank you, Sibeal. That would be welcome. They’ve been taken to the net-mending shed.”
    “I should speak to the survivors first. I’m hoping Knut will give me the names of the dead. They should be spoken aloud, if not now, then certainly as part of tomorrow’s ritual. Where are Knut and Svala? In the infirmary?”
    “They’ll still be there, yes. Our healers are checking what damage they’ve sustained. You’ll find Jouko with them; he’s translating for Muirrin and Evan. Sibeal, go carefully with Knut. He seems calm and composed, but these fellows were his crewmates, perhaps friends. Looking on their drowned faces will be hard for him. He speaks very little Irish. Jouko will help you.”
    For the duration of my stay on the island, I was in fact sleeping in the infirmary. There was scant privacy on Inis Eala, where single women slept in one communal area and single men in another, with a partitioned building for married couples. Only those with children had their own quarters. In recognition of my status as a druid and my personal need for quiet, I had been given a chamber of my own, a narrow space at one end of the building that more usually housed patients who must for one reason or another be isolated. The first time I had stepped inside this small chamber I had felt the sorrow there, and the kindness. The place was screened from the infirmary proper by a sacking curtain, and had its own door to the outside so it was possible to come in and out—for instance, to visit the privy—without walking across the main chamber. Before sleeping last night, I had marked protective runes on the walls with charcoal. It seemed they had been well