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TEN years after her marriage, one week after her husband’s death, the town prophet came knocking on Aleen’s door.
Aleen did not know the town prophet. He was an old man who lived on a hill. The villagers called him a hermit, for they did not see him often, and, when they did, he merely mumbled his greetings and kept his eyes on the ground. Aleen thought him quite strange, though Jem had spoken well of him.
She was surprised to see him at her door, this man who had taught Jem magic.
“Aleen,” he said. He had several teeth missing, and the ones that were still inside his mouth were crooked and yellow. He smelled of rosemary. “I have come to see you, Aleen.”
She looked at him, alarmed that he appeared to desire entrance into her home, and then, deciding that she could not be hurt by a man so old as this, she opened the door wider. He came inside.
“Please, sit,” she said, gesturing to a chair in the kitchen. “Would you care for some peppermint tea?”
“Courteous, too,” he said, as if to himself. And then to her: “Yes, please. I thank you.”
Aleen turned to the stove, her back toward him. She gazed out the window while she filled the kettle with water and hung it over the fireplace. It would squeal when it was fully boiled.
“I have come to see you,” the old prophet said. “They call me Bregdon.”
“Yes,” she said, turning back around. She looked at his yellowish eyes. They were green in the middle. “I know.”
He cackled for a moment, and then he stopped as abruptly as he had begun. “I have Seen something,” he said.
Her heart slammed against the sides of her chest. She had only ever known this prophet to prophesy destruction and darkness in the land of White Wind. What could he have Seen that concerned her?
“Do not worry,” the prophet said. “It is not what you think. I have come to you with a proposition.”
She sat down across from him. Her hands, under the table, squeezed together. What could he want from her?
“Yes?” she said. “What is it?”
Bregdon’s eyes grew serious. She noticed that they were the deepest green she had ever seen, like the color of the white-capped evergreens in the woods surrounding White Wind. “You shall be with child,” he said.
“A baby,” she said. Her heart fluttered.
“Yes,” he said. “A girl.”
“A daughter,” she said. And while she was as excited as any other mother would be upon the news of a child, Aleen also knew what it meant. The powers of magic passed to children, and a parent could never practice magic again. Not that she did much practicing here in White Wind. Only once in a while, when she burned a loaf of bread and turned it edible again, or when she could not reach one of the bowls her husband had put up too high, or when she did not feel so much like dusting the shelves of her cottage. She supposed she could give that up. For a baby?
“Ah,” Bregdon said. “I see you know what this means for your magic.”
Aleen nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”
“There is another way,” Bregdon said. “You do not have to lose your magic entirely. There is another way.”
“What way?” she said. She had never heard of another way.
“The way of the prophet,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Aleen said. “I have never heard of this way.”
The prophet spread his hands on the table before her. They were wrinkled and spotted and jagged with bones. On his right pointer finger, he wore a golden ring. “Before a baby is conceived, one can choose to become a prophet and still live with a small gift of magic.”
“A small gift of magic?” Aleen said. “But I have no need. My husband is dead. I shall not have a child, and if I do, it would already be too late.”
“I have seen what is to come,” Bregdon said. “I have seen a child.”
Aleen stared at the prophet. A child. She had always wanted a child. “And I could keep some of my magic?” she said.
“Yes,” Bregdon said. “A small gift. Something like Seeing the future. Or, perhaps, Seeing into a heart.” He tilted his head. Of course he would have known.
“And what would I do with this magic?” Aleen said.
“Protect,” Bregdon said. “And instruct, perhaps.” He reached into his tunic and drew out a large book. She had thought him only stout, but it was a book that puffed his belly all this time. He placed it on the table. “There is more,” he said, opening the book to a page with an old woman on it. Aleen leaned close, but he snapped it shut. “You are permitted one last act of large magic.” The prophet looked at her. “Before you die.”
“One last act,” Aleen said. She was thinking, trying to understand.
“Every year on a prophet’s birthing day, they can elect to do their one last act of great magic,” Bregdon said. “And then they die.”
Aleen narrowed her eyes at him. He stared back at her, his eyes glassy in the way that ancient people’s are.
“How old are you?” she said.
“Ah,” the prophet said. “There is that, too.” He grinned a nearly toothless grin. “Prophets live much longer than the ones they love. You will watch them all die. You will be unable to stop it.”
Aleen swallowed hard. She did not know if she could do this. If she had a child, if the child had magic, if the child did not choose to become a prophet, would she be able to watch her die?
“So you have not used your last great act,” Aleen said, studying the man before her. His skin puckered around his mouth.
“I have never had a reason to use mine,” he said. “Yet.” He looked at her and tilted his head again. “But I would be willing to pass everything along to you.” He paused for a moment. “Everything.”
“Why me?” Aleen said.
His eyes widened. “You are needed more than you know, Aleen,” he said.
“And why now?” Aleen said.
“I have lost all of those I have loved,” Bregdon said. “I have no need of the prophet’s Sight anymore. I must pass it to someone else.”
“You have no relative who may want it?” Aleen said.
Bregdon shook his head. His white hair, like a halo around his face, shook with it. “No,” he said. “Not anymore.”
The cottage grew silent.
After many moments, after the old prophet had, in truth, nearly fallen asleep, Aleen spoke again.
“When?” she said.
“My birthday is on the morrow,” Bregdon said. “We must meet at midnight. That is when the transfer of powers might begin.”
“And this transfer is your last great act of magic?” Aleen said.
Bregdon shook his head. “No,” he said.
“What, then?” Aleen said.
Bregdon pointed at her belly. “To give you a child.”
She had known. She had known all along that she was barren. She had known it surely, when all these years had passed and she had no child to give her husband. She had known the days she had lost all the others, that hers was not a body that could keep a child.
“Why?” she said. “Why would you sacrifice yourself for me? I am only...” She looked around the cottage. She did not finish her thought.
The prophet smiled. His eyes nearly disappeared in all the folds of skin. Still, Aleen could see the kindness behind it. “I like you, Aleen,” he said. He leaned forward. His voice softened. “And I have Seen what you will do.”
Aleen narrowed her eyes at Bregdon. “And what if I refuse?” she said. “What of that?”
“You will not,” Bregdon said. He leaned back in his chair. “Because the one you love has chosen the way of a prophet as well.”
Jem. So Bregdon knew of Jem. Perhaps he knew where Jem was. And if she were a prophet, surely she would be able to find him. Surely she would be able to see him again one day.
And so it was that Aleen accepted the burden that was given her to bear.
Because of Jem. Because of a child. Because hope wears wings in the hearts of its people.