Seer of Sevenwaters by Juliet Marillier

with crippled hands and a scarred face. And Clodagh had missed her turn as well, for the year that would have been hers was the year that disaster happened. The ritual had passed a grieving Sevenwaters by.
    “Long before I was old enough to perform this dance myself,” I said, thinking how complicated was the web of family sorrows and joys and shared experience, “I discovered the gods had a particular path in mind for me. Up until then, I don’t believe the rest of my family knew how differently I saw the world. My eyes should have given it away. My sisters have green eyes, but mine, as you see, are a light blue-gray. Such eyes are shared only by those members of my family with a powerful seer’s gift.” I paused, an image of my little brother in my mind, with his tangle of dark hair and his clear, unswerving stare. At four years old, Finbar had the manner of a wise hermit, which was more than a little disconcerting. His eyes were like those of his namesake, the man with the swan’s wing; and they were like mine. “Such a gift manifests itself in many of my kin. Some are able to speak mind to mind, without words. Some have prophetic dreams. Some are gifted in the interpretation of signs and portents. In a few of us the gift is . . . more powerful. Perilous, if not well governed.
    “I knew quite early that I was not like my sisters. I never wanted to race about and play and make lots of noise. I preferred to sit quietly, watching and thinking. I had a thirst for learning; I was pestering Father’s scribe to teach me reading and writing before I was three years old. I found that creatures trusted me. Observing them, I discovered I could feel, inside myself, the ways their bodies worked, their different manners of seeing and hearing, their small secrets. I did not like to be cooped up indoors too long; I needed the earth beneath my feet and the wind in my hair. But all of those things could have meant simply that I was a thoughtful, scholarly, quiet sort of child. Then, when I was five years old, I saw her.”
    I had learned the art of storytelling in the nemetons, and I let the silence draw out. He did understand, surely; how could such an intent expression mean anything else?
    “I was alone on the rocks by the lake, close to home,” I went on. “The others had gone to gather cress at the mouth of a stream. I was looking into the water, wondering why it was I always saw something that I knew couldn’t really be there—a ship on the sea, a crowd of strange, small creatures, a tower with a banner at the top—when someone spoke behind me. ‘Sibeal. Turn around, child.’
    “Such a voice! It was honey and sunlight, and it was stream and oak, a voice I knew was that of no human woman. I stood up and faced her. She wore a blue gown and a cloak that seemed to move of itself, wood-smoke and water and drifting cloud. Her hair was dark, her skin pale. She was taller than any woman I had ever seen, towering over my five-year-old self. How had she come here, so silently? Nobody came to Sevenwaters without my father’s permission. Nobody came uninvited.
    “ ‘Sibeal. Let me look at you.’ Her lustrous eyes were fixed on me in careful examination. ‘Child, I am Deirdre of the Forest. I am a friend; you need not fear me.’
    “ ‘My lady,’ I croaked nervously, ‘welcome,’ for my mother had taught me good manners. At the back of my mind were the tales I had heard of the Tuatha De Danann, the Fair Folk, some of whom were said to dwell deep in the forest of Sevenwaters. It seemed to me this lovely woman could only belong to that ancient and noble race. Indeed, I knew the name Deirdre of the Forest already, from one of our family stories.
    “ ‘Come, Sibeal,’ she said, and motioned me back to the water’s edge. Already, as I moved, I could see images dancing there, warriors and horses and eagles flying. ‘Tell me what you see. Do not be afraid.’ She knelt down beside me in her flowing gown, and I could smell