Page 13 of The Women of Wild Hill
Brigid felt the gloom lift a little. It had never occurred to her that her dark gift might come with a silver lining. “It means I can do anything I want.”
“No. Not exactly,” Ivy cautioned her. “You must be careful or you’ll suffer injuries. To your body or your soul.”
“But I won’t die.”
“No,” Ivy confirmed. “Not unless you see your own death.”
A million possibilities flooded Brigid’s head all at once. She could rescue people from burning buildings or swim with sharks or jump out of airplanes or—
“Most of our kind don’t fully develop their gifts until much later in life,” Ivy said. “The Duncans’ gifts come early so we have time to master them. Yours is very powerful, and you will need more time than usual.”
“Which ancestor did I inherit it from?” Brigid asked.
“My sister, Rose, had visions,” Aunt Ivy said. “But they weren’t like yours. As far as I’m aware, you’re the first in the family to possess this talent. It’s a remarkable gift—one that gives you great power. When you see someone die, Brigid, you’ll know what will kill them. In certain circumstances, that information may prove very useful.”
“How?” Brigid demanded. Then she heard Phoebe gasp, and she knew she’d found the catch. There was always a catch. She began to panic. “I don’t want to kill anyone.”
“Let’s continue this some other time,” Flora urged her aunt.
Ivy ignored her. “It isn’t a matter ofwant,” she told Brigid. “We all have a part to play. Given your gift, I’m convinced your part will be more important than most.”
The horror of it all was beginning to register. “What will I have to do?” Brigid asked.
Aunt Ivy’s eyes dropped to her meal and she picked up her fork.“I don’t know, my dear. Prophesy is not among my gifts. Only time will tell.”
Outraged, Brigid stood up, letting her chair topple over behind her. “So Phoebe gets to heal people and I’ll be a villain who kills them? That’s not fair!” The tears and snot were flowing freely. Brigid didn’t bother to wipe them away.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Brigid,” Ivy ordered. “There are no villains in this family. And there’s nothing unfair about your calling. Death and life are equally important. You can’t have one without the other. Everything that lives must die. Death feeds life. Plants and animals are eaten so that others will live. When living things decay, fungi consume them and leave soil behind—soil that nourishes the next generation of living things. The Old One maintains a delicate balance of life and death at all times.”
“Then why does she need me?”
Flora heard the despair in the girl’s voice and her heart went out to her daughter. It was a lot to ask of a child.
“Because that balance has been upset,” Ivy said. “Mankind has wreaked havoc on the earth. The Old One must use every tool she has to restore it. Storms, drought, fires, floods—they’re powerful, of course, but they’re not precise. They kill indiscriminately. Sometimes nature must get right to the root of the problem, and so she turns to women like us.”
“You mean our family?”
“We aren’t the only ones with gifts. Far from it. There are women like us all over the world.”
“Just women?” Phoebe spoke up.
“We were made in the Old One’s image,” Ivy told her. “Like her, women can create and destroy.”
Outside the dining room windows, a flash of lightning lit the sky, and thunder followed immediately. The rain fell faster and the wind howled.
Ivy turned back to Brigid and squeezed her hand. “I want youto use your gift right now and tell me if anyone in this family will die today.”
Brigid sniffled. “No,” she said. “We’re safe.”
“Then why are we sitting here?” Ivy took one last sip of tea and dropped her napkin down on the table. Then she stood up and unhooked her overalls. “Let’s go out and greet the storm.”
The Key
Back home in California, Flora monitored wildfires in the state and kept track of all storms. The girls could spend hours studying the ever-changing map that their mother had taped to the wall. Bright orange pins marked the location of every new fire. Blue swirls indicated cyclones in the Pacific or hurricanes on the other side of the continent. Gray thumbtacks were tornadoes. Once, a single green pin had marked the town where residents claimed tadpoles had rained down from the sky. At certain times of the year, the map bristled with pins and tacks.
“There are so many,” Phoebe marveled.
“Yes, far more than there were when I was your age,” Flora told her daughters.
