“I may not be here next market day, daughter,” she said, a little breathlessly. “I think it best that we speak now. This may be our only chance.”
It was then that our eyes met for the first time and I noted with a shock that her eyes were like mine—the left one blue; the right one brown. I wondered if people sometimes stared at her as they did me and made cruel remarks or whispered behind their hands. Most folk didn’t like it if you were a little different.
The woman’s face was lined and yellow, and suddenly I saw that she was not old at all. She was just very ill.
“Shall we go and sit over there in the shade?” She pointed to a bench against the church wall in the shade of an old elm tree.
Despite my fear of the consequences of getting home late, I nodded and followed her. There was something strange and compelling about this woman, I thought. I just knew that it was the right thing to do.
We sat together on the bench and turned to face each other. Our eyes locked again, and I shivered. Suddenly, in the shade of the tree, I felt cold.
“Twice I have named you ‘daughter,’” said the woman. “It was not merely a manner of address that might be used in friendliness from an older woman to a younger one. You are indeed my daughter. I am truly your mother. You are the flesh of my flesh. My blood runs through your arteries and veins.”
I stared at her and saw the truth in her eyes, and anger flared within me. “You are my mother!” I hissed. “You are the mother who abandoned me, who left a defenseless baby exposed to the elements!”
The woman nodded, and two tears trickled down her cheeks. “I had no choice, child. Your father was dead, and I already had six daughters whom I could barely feed. I knew of the couple who adopted you. They wanted another child, so I placed you where they would find you. I knew they would put a roof over your head and fill your belly. I loved you, child. I loved you with all my heart, and it tore me apart to leave you like that. But it had to be done, for all our sakes.”
I could understand why she’d done it, but it still hurt. Of course, she couldn’t have known that the man she chose to be my foster father would turn out to be violent.
She buried her face in her hands; her whole body was trembling with emotion.
There were tears running down my own cheeks now. “So why seek me out now? Why now, after all these years?”
“Because I am dying, child.” She looked straight at me again. “Something is eating me from within. It is a disease that twists my stomach and withers my skin. Within weeks I will be dead. So now, while I can still walk, I have come to tell you what you are.”
“What do you mean?” I cried, frightened by her words. Was she really my mother, or some madwoman?
“The blood of the Samhadre runs through the veins of our family. In most it is weak or nonexistent, but in a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter it first flares up around the time of her thirteenth birthday. I am such a daughter—and so, my daughter, are you. Your foster mother named you Jennifer, but that is not the name I gave you, which you must not reveal to anyone.”
“Who are the Samhadre, and what name did you give me?” I demanded. I’d never heard of such a people.
“They are the Old Ones, daughter—those beings who walked the earth while humans were no better than dumb animals who sat in their own excrement. The Old Ones were powerful, wise, swift, and compassionate, but deadly. You will inherit some small part of what they were. Soon gifts will come to you. I want you to prepare your mind to receive them. Nobody told me what to expect; I thought I was going mad. I want you to accept that the gifts are real. That is the first step that will enable you to survive.”
This seemed to me like an old wives’ tale, something told before a winter fire to wide-eyed children while the shadows of the night deepened. But I was certainly intrigued; I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the face of the woman who claimed me as her daughter.
“There are many possible gifts, but it is different with a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter,” she continued. “One is empathy—the ability to feel what others feel, to share both their sorrow and their joy, and thus to respond and counsel them if necessary. That is one of the basic talents, but sometimes it can be more than that. . . .”
I’d certainly never experienced anything like this—but I was still only twelve. Could such a big change suddenly take place in me when I turned thirteen? “You told me that these gifts came to you as a surprise and made you believe you were going insane,” I said to her. “Why didn’t your own mother explain what would happen?”
“She was just a seventh daughter, and had neither the power nor the knowledge. She didn’t know what was wrong with me. Finally, after years of torment, another found me—using one of her gifts, she sensed my anguish—and told me what I was.”
“What name did you give me?” I asked.
The woman—my mother—leaned forward and whispered my true name into my left ear but warned again that I must never reveal it to others: some who served the dark could gain power over a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter by knowing her true name.
So I have not written it down here. I will keep it to myself. Tom Ward told me that my notebooks should eventually go into the library. They are a legacy of experience and knowledge that we leave to future spooks. So I’ll not write anything down here that I am not prepared for others to read.
We talked for almost an hour that day, my mother and I, and she told me of the other possible gifts that I might inherit. After this, we agreed that, if she was well enough, we would meet at the market the following week.
As we parted, we embraced, tears trickling down our cheeks.
Then I ran home with my basket—but I ran in vain.
My false father took off his belt and, for the first time in over a year, thrashed me.
The pain was excruciating, but I did not allow myself to cry. I think that angered him even more.
15
A Girl Like You
MY mother did not come to the market the following week.
I never saw her again.
No doubt her illness had become worse, preventing her from returning. I imagined her slowly dying but still able to speak. I was desperate to talk to her and find out more about what I would become. I knew now that she was indeed my true mother, and all my bitterness at having been abandoned melted away. I understood why she had acted as she did. I needed to see her just one more time before we were parted forever.