Page 6 of Sightwitch
She will be clear-eyed. A true Sightwitch Sister.
It is worse, though, knowing she will no longer be allowed to share a room with me. She will return from the mountain at the dolmen in the Grove, where all newly gifted Sisters arrive, and then she will move two stories above me in the Convent. She will have a new roommate, a new room, a new life.
I cannot help but wonder if our Threadsister bond can survive that.
A week after Tanzi arrived at the Convent, Hilga assigned us sheep duty with Sister Gwen. But Gwen fell asleep, the sheep wandered outside the glamour, and Tanzi and I got horribly, hideously lost while searching for them. Ever since that day of rain, cold, menacing forest, and unruly sheep, we’ve been best friends.
Please Sirmaya, don’t let that change. I cannot take fake kindness from her. The gift of Sight changes everything. It digs a chasm between friends as wide as the mountain. As deep as the scrying pool from which the spirit swifts fly.
And it happens every time. First there was Sister Margrette, then Sister Ute, then Lachmi, then Oriya. Fazimeh, Yenna, Birgit, Gaellan. They were all my friends; now I hardly speak to them.
No doubt there are even more lost friends who I’m forgetting since I do not have the gift of Clear Eyes. Once seen, often forgotten. Once heard, usually lost.
MEMORIES
I wish I’d been the one Summoned instead of Tanzi.
I hate myself for that.
And just as I predicted, I was charged with clearing the mountain paths today. Summer has fully awakened in the forest that hugs the slope. The weak, fighting buds of spring that I saw last are now full leaves. Green, green everywhere.
On anormalday, it would have made me feel better to be outside instead of cooped up in the kitchen. And on a normal day, Tanzi and I would have played the game we always played when no one is around to hear us.
“What happens inside the mountain?” I would ask. Then she’d chime back, “What happens during the Summoning?” For hours we would make guess after guess, each more absurd than the last.
I tried to play alone. To pretend today was no different from any other. To imagine what Tanzi might be doing right now. Yet it was a battle to come up with any clever answers—something as silly as what she might conjure. I gave up after only one try.
“Maybe Sirmaya is not even real,” I mumbled, my arms full of fallen pinecones and branches. “Maybe we inhale too much bat droppings in the air, and it turns our eyes to silver.”
The words tasted of ash. Especially because part of me wished they could be true. No sleeping Goddess. Just bat droppings and a spirit swift’s random choice.
On my hike back to the Convent, I found the two newest Serving Sisters picking flowers off the path.
I yelled at them. It wasn’t nice of me, and shame burns in my chest as I write this.
“Rule 15!” I hollered as they dashed for the trail. “Never leave the marked path!”
They tried to apologize the entire trek home, but I wouldn’t listen and I wouldn’t stop frowning.
I bet they’re terrified of me now.
Why do I always do that?
Ryber Fortiza
Y18 D154 — 2 days since Tanzi was Summoned
DREAMS
No dreams. No sleep.
Tanzi has not returned.
Hilga acts as if there is nothing to be alarmed about, but there is. There is. After a Summoning, a Sister returns on the eve of the following day. Almost always, she comes back.
But I waited in the Grove for her all night, and she never returned. I sat beside the dolmen, within view of the slab that will slide back once she has completed her Summoning.
Not once did the granite budge. Even Sister Ute and Sister Birgit, who sat gossiping beside the alders, grew alarmed by sunrise. Then Ute went off to find Hilga.
