As creating Margot’s shield had gotten easier, I had wondered if I could make a much larger version, and here was the result. A sphere of Forest, big enough to hold my house, garden, and chicken coup, was encircled by the darting of the shield spell. There was a single hole at this end, which was blocked by another shield sphere; the continuous motion of the spell meant it didn’t work as well in any other shape. I rolled back what I thought of as my boulder-door, and entered our sanctuary.

  Once inside, I dismissed the shield around Margot and me; we had been here several times, preparing, and Margot had pulled almost all of the ambient magic out of the sanctuary. I flopped down on a conveniently placed boulder near the edge of the spell, and the realization of what I was doing finally hit.

  My breath came faster as I thought about staying here for a week, not just the hour or two that I had been spending in the Forest until now. I had hoped that I would have more time: time to make more safeguards; time to learn more about the Forest. Without a magic sink, no one could survive the Forest, and as Margot was the only known magic sink, study of the Forest had been limited to what you could see from the edge, and thus almost nothing was known about it. I’d actually written up a couple of articles about it already, but they were sitting unsent in my house, since I didn’t want to make myself more of a target.

  But that was beside the point. I had survived all my previous trips, and I had prepared this sanctuary, I would be fine. Everything would be fine. My resolve renewed, I walked over to where my packs rested on the ground, and rooted around until I found my tent. I certainly hadn’t had time to build a house here, even assuming that was something I knew how to do. The routine of tent set-up calmed me, and by the time most things were in order, I was exhausted enough to sleep.

  ~o0o~

  The next afternoon revealed the real trouble with my weeklong stay: boredom. You can only be terrified for so long, and when nothing is happening, that’s not very long. Well, for some definitions of nothing. My tent had grown fur overnight, and I had sprouted a couple of small horns. However, my earlier forays into the Forest had prepared me for these sorts of minor issues. I had milked Margot this morning to clear the magic from her system, and even now my horns were shrinking.

  Since I was more or less the village hedge witch, I spent most of my time visiting people, fixing their charms or making up new ones. I daydreamed about having a whole day free to work on my experiments, or read in front of the fire, or catch up on writing papers. However, now that I had my free day, I was feeling restless and lonely. I hadn’t realized how dependent I was on my business to keep me socialized.

  I had brought a book, and the Enchanted Forest paper I was working on, but I hadn’t been able to concentrate on either for more than an hour. As well as being lonely, I missed my comfortable reading chair; sitting on the dewy ground is just not the same. I had finally settled on the rock near the entrance, and was staring out at the magic floating by outside. The shapes were mesmerizing: now a lavender star slowly shrank, and a yellow globule replaced it. A feathery green vein cut across it, slowly rippling into the distance. A yellow arrow descended, and a fern grow polka dots as it touched the ground.

  I blinked. Was that yellow arrow a wild spell to give things polka dots? Magic was taught as a mixture of spell components: you add feverfew and dill, mix them a particular way, and your acne is cured. If you change out the dill for chamomile, it helps rosacea. Mages experimenting with spells played with ingredients, or invocations. Few people even bothered using magesight once out of their apprenticeships; it wasn’t considered a very prestigious skill. Magesight had come especially easily to me, so I used it far more than most, and still did. Now, watching the Forest magic twist, I wondered if a spell could be designed based entirely on what the spell looked like, rather than the components of the casting. If I could replicate wild spells, then I could open up whole new areas for spellcasting; no one had ever managed to get a good spell to replicate the smell of strawberries, for example, and, while that wasn’t something one usually needed, study had proved that it required an entirely different type of perfume spell. Mages had been blowing things up for years trying to find one that worked, but if I could see a related spell and try that, I’d have a good head start. And strawberries were just an example; a way to find working new spells automatically could make anyone into one of the premier spell developers of the land. Plus it would give me something to do while I hung out for the rest of the week.

  ~o0o~

  Thursday evening, I emerged from the Enchanted Forest with Margot, and took the back path up to Alex’s farm. We didn’t meet anyone on the way, and I put Margot back in her old stall and knocked on Alex’s front door. The door opened to Alex and the smell of beef stew. My months of work with Margot had taught me that he didn’t do much cooking, especially with winter over; the stew was a rarity.

  “I have some stew going, if you’re sick of camp food,” he said as he looked me over. I’d lost the last of my tentacles on the walk over, so I looked more or less as usual. “How’re you holding up out there?” He led the way into the kitchen and spooned stew into two bowls.

  “Well, it’s been interesting. I was afraid I’d be bored to death, but I had an idea of how to develop some new spells from what I saw in the Forest, and I’ve been working on that.” It had been going rather well, in a limited sense; I’d designed spells to have certain shapes before, but the color often seemed incidental, and it had taken a few days to learn how to make a spell come out the color I expected. I hadn’t gotten as far as trying to determine what the results might be, but I was starting to reliably do shapes and colors. And yellow arrows did seem to make things polka-dotted.

  “And that’s safe? Using magic in the Forest like that?”

  “I don’t see why it wouldn’t be. In the shield, there’s not much ambient magic at all. And at least it gives me something to do. What’s the news in the village?”

  Alex frowned. “You were right, there was a mage here looking for you. Lord Ardon. Seems he’d gotten some confused story from Tom about his adventures in the Forest, and put two and two together and realized that you must have rescued him. So he came sniffing around to see who you were and what you could do. He’s been staying at the inn, and hasn’t been showing any signs of leaving. Ned Williams saw him prowling around by the Forest the other day, muttering, so presumably he’s been trying to do some sort of magic. Karen says he must be spending a fair amount of time doing that, since he certainly isn’t always at the inn.”

  I’d never heard of Lord Ardon, which meant he was probably another hanger-on at the court, like Tom, and not a terribly serious mage. Unfortunately, this was a situation where an idiot who knew more gossip than magic could cause more trouble than an actual mage. “Well, I guess I should lay low for a few more days, then….I’ll plan to come back out Tuesday to see how things are going. And here I was looking forward to spending some more time among people. But I can always do that next week. Anything else going on?”

  Alex was perhaps the least gossipy person I knew, but his snooping had produced some results. We chatted about how people’s farms were doing, and how Mia had a baby girl, and Leandra was planning to move to the capital in just another couple of months. One person Alex did not mention, however, was Karen, my best friend who ran the inn. He looked a little uncomfortable when I brought her up.

  “Karen’s doing just fine….the inn has been doing well.”

  “And?”

  “What do you mean, and?”

  “What has she done now that you’re trying not to tell me?”

  Alex sighed. “It’s nothing really….but Lord Ardon referred to you as the Enchantress of the Forest, and Karen found it hilarious and has been spreading made up stories about you all week. I think some of her regulars are in on it too, now…when I was there last night Liam was talking about how you turned a tree into a basilisk to move it to the other side of his house.”

  I loved Karen, but she could cause trouble like no one else. I really didn’t want her drawing that much attention to me, though I suppose that if Lord Ardon came back spouting too many ridiculous stories, no one would believe him. “Well, hopefully everyone quickly assumes the cow stories are as made up as the rest. I should probably be getting back.” I stood up, restless, and ready to do something, even if it was just walking back into the Forest.

  Alex stood, too, and scooped me up in a hug. He rested his cheek on my head, and said, “It’s going to work out, Clara. This will pass like a nine-days’ wonder and things will get back to normal.”

  I relaxed into his arms and his reassurance, but I didn’t really believe him. I was sure things were going to get worse before they got better.

  ~o0o~

  Tuesday evening, I was just about ready to hand Margot over myself if it got me out of having to stay in the Forest. I breathed a sigh of relief as I stepped out of the Forest, and considered heading to the inn for some companionship, regardless of who might be lurking there. I looked over at the path toward the inn, and thoughts of spending an idle evening left my head as I saw a frantic-looking Alex, pacing across the back path to his place. “Alex? What’s wrong?” I hurried over.

  “Clara! I thought he was one of your friends, but I didn’t want him to be there when you arrived in case I was wrong, so I came out to meet you. To warn you, just in case.”

  This garbled message seemed to imply that someone wanted to see me, but I wasn’t sure of much else. “Is there someone to see me?” I asked cautiously.

  “Oh! Yes, Andre Farington arrived two days ago. Sorry, this whole situation has me in a bit of a muddle.” He let out a breath. “Andre arrived, and asked for you, and I thought he was one of the mages you’d been corresponding with, so I brought him back to my place to meet you tonight. Though he is a rather odd guy.”

  Andre Farington was better known as the Prophet of Codswall, and prophecy tended to turn anyone odd. I had always thought Andre sounded surprisingly sane in our letters, but I had not met him in person. “Yes, I think he’s a friend, and I certainly should meet him. Though it does worry me that he arrived now, when all this is going on….I wonder what he’s seen.” With that troubling thought, we headed up the path to Alex’s farm.

  As we turned up the lane to the farm, a giant of a man burst out the front door. “Clara! I’d recognize that aura anywhere! Thought it’s not as calm and ordered as usual.” He cocked his head to one side, staring right above my left ear, then shook his head and came barreling toward us. Alex looked as if he wanted to step in front of me, but wasn’t quite sure he was ready to do something that rude, and Andre swept me up in a bear hug. “That sympathetic magic technique sure worked a trick; I can recall prophecies much better now. But, when I saw you were approaching such a strong nexus in your last letter, I had to come right away.”

  I’d like to say that this scattered speech made sense to me, but all I really got out of it was that since he mentioned the techniques from our letters, he probably was actually the Prophet of Codswall. But he had to come right away? “What nexus?” I asked cautiously.

  “Of course, of course, you need more detail than that, and you’ll want the whole prophecy,” he patted my arm with a hamlike hand.

  “Why don’t we all go inside and have some tea?” asked Alex, since it seemed like things had calmed down. He rescued my arm from Andre and tucked it into the crook of his own, leading the way into the house. I looked at him in surprise; he wasn’t usually so protective, but perhaps it was the situation.

  Once settled at the table, Andre started making much more sense. “I read your aura, you see, through your letters, and get a hint of your future that way. It’s been a fairly calm, nice aura, but recently it had the feeling of destiny arriving, and with your last letter I knew you were about to reach a nexus. A crossroads in your life with the power to shape the way you lived. Not many people experience such a powerful nexus, so I knew I had to come at once to help my friend get through it.” He stared at me expectantly, looking pleased.

  I still felt fairly pole-axed. I hadn’t realized that he thought of me as such a good friend, let alone that he’d be willing to cross the country to help me through a hard time. I patted his hand where it rested on the table. “Thank you. And I think I have reached a crossroads; can your prophecy help me decide what to do?” It hadn’t occurred to me that someone else might arrive and offer me a solution to my problems, but I’d take whatever I could get. “Do I need to tell you what’s going on first?”

  “No, tell me afterward. It will be my payment. Let me tell you the prophecy first, so it is unclouded by my impressions.” Andre got up, turned down the lamps, moved his chair over next to mine, and sat so that our knees were almost touching. He held out his hands, palms up, and I placed mine in them.

  “Do I need to leave?” Alex asked nervously. He looked like he was torn between wanting to stay to hear the prophecy and being uncomfortable by the magic and potential intimacy it might bring.

  Andre raised an eyebrow at me. “It may be personal, but he will cause no problems.”

  I smiled over at Alex. “You’re welcome to stay; the prophecy will probably involve you too.” He settled back into his chair, and I turned back to look at Andre.

  Prophets were rare, and I had never seen anyone tell a prophecy before, so I turned on my magesight to watch. I almost didn’t see it at first; a diffuse yellow fog seemed to surround Andre, almost as if it had appeared from the surrounding air rather than from Andre himself. I looked down, and I was also glowing slightly yellow. We sat that way for long enough that I began to wonder what was supposed to happen next, when Andre’s eyes snapped open, and he looked piercingly at me.

  “I see you, older, walking around the town, giving charms to people, and working in your garden. Very like your life now. I also see an image of you living in a pocket of the Enchanted Forest, with some livestock and a small house. You are casting spells the like of which I’ve never seen before.” He stared at me even harder. “I did not think that you could cast spells like that. I would have said no one could cast spells like that. Whatever is happening to you must be much more interesting than I expected.”

  “That’s what you saw? I don’t see how living like this again is an option….does it say anything about how to reach those futures?”

  Andre frowned at me, like I was a student who had disappointed him. “Prophecy is not to tell you what to do. Prophecy is to show you options, to help you look in your heart and decide what you want. Working too hard to make a prophecy come true never did anyone any good.”

  “Thank you,” I replied, as I should have at once. “I just want both options.”

  Andre sighed. “People at a nexus are always so literal; I said they were your futures, but I didn’t say they couldn’t both be your future. I would have said, from the flavor of the prophecy, that they could be reconciled, but you are the one who must figure out how to do that. It is your life, after all, and you know it best. As a friend, I would also implore you to be bold. It is the cautious who give up the things that they want, so they do not lose the things that they have.

  “I have taken up enough of your time tonight. Think on what I have seen, and what I have said, and, when I pass this way again in a month, you can tell me the whole story. I am hopeful that this chapter will have an ending by then, and stories are always better with an ending. Until soon, my friend.”

  Andre Farington swept out as impetuously as he had appeared, leaving me to fetch Margot and bumble along in his wake, mind reeling. I had always thought that in real life, you didn’t get everything you wanted, but Andre seemed to think that I could go on living my normal life, with the addition of a retreat in the Forest for sorcery practice. I knew that was what I wanted, and he had given me hope that it was possible, I just didn’t know how.

  “Clara?” I had almost forgotten Alex in my thoughts of the prophecy. I blinked and looked back at him standing in front of his house.

  “Sorry, I was lost in thought. I’m a bit dazed by meeting the Prophet, and hearing about my future, and everything seems so unexpected.” I stopped this jumble of words before it got worse, and just looked at Alex. It seemed the safer option.

  “Prophecies…prophecies don’t happen to normal people, do they?” He didn’t pause for an answer, and I didn’t have one anyway. Did they? I hadn’t thought about it. Wasn’t I still a normal person? “I just wanted to say…” He had wandered closer as he talked, and I had to tip my head up to maintain eye contact. “I…I am hoping you’ll come back to the village. I’ve missed you, this past week.” He reached out a hand to touch my cheek. “I’m hoping to spend more time with you. Just in case that influences your thoughts about the future.” He dropped his hand, and looked slightly nervous.

  “I missed you, too, and I really have no idea how the future is going to work out yet. I’ll certainly let you know.” I headed off down the trail, with even more thoughts swirling in my head, which I would not have thought possible.

  ~o0o~

  The following afternoon I was sprawled on my rock, still pondering what Andre had said. I had spent the morning trying to change the color of various common spells; I had gotten the knack for making a spell the right color a few days ago, and I was trying to see if that would actually effect anything. It did, and sometimes resulted in something quite different than what the original spell predicted. A spell to make water boil was naturally red, and if you turned it orange it heated the water some, but not enough, and if you made it purple it turned into milk. However, if you made it yellow, it turned into butterflies. Several of the differently colored versions would often seem related, and then one or two would be utterly different. I hoped it would make sense eventually. In the meantime, I had a much easier spell for turning water into butterflies than I had seen before.