Song of Sorcery by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

wouldn’t think being a crow would be such an awful thing, but—”
    “I take your point.”
     
    * * *
     
    “Oh, Auntie, that was so good,” Maggie sighed, leaning back in her chair.
    “Your voice is a bit crackly, dear,” said her aunt. “Care for some honey in your tea?”
    “Don’t mind if I do, at that.” She cleared her throat and rubbed her arms with the opposing hands. “I’m so hoarse and weary from all that spell-casting, I couldn’t boil water for tea right now.”
    “Well, it certainly looks lovely, darling. I appreciate it so much. Under normal circumstances it’s an enormous chore to keep this old place up, but with all this rain I was quite sure I’d finally be forced to move.”
    “Just don’t let the children eat at it any more, Auntie. You’ll have to keep a conventional cookie jar for that I’m afraid. I put such a strong preservative spell on it, it will be quite inedible.”
    “Don’t worry about it, dear. It was a wicked idea to begin with, that has deteriorated into being merely frivolous. I’ll be glad to have a roof over my head that won’t turn to goo. When mother and Fearchar lived here the two of them could keep it up—he was rather handy as a boy.”
    “Tell me about Uncle Fearchar, Auntie,” Maggie said. “None of the villagers seem to know much about him, and Gran never speaks of him at all.”
    The old lady didn’t say anything for a moment as she cleared the table and poured the tea. Ching was stretched full length in front of the embrous hearth fire, dying now that it was not needed for cooking. The evening sky had been clearing as the three people and Ching had come into the cottage for dinner, and the night was warmer than it had been at any time on their journey.
    “I was going to mention Fearchar anyway, Maggie. Colin and I were having a talk while you were working and, as I told him, I wanted to tell you one or two family things that might be—painful—for Maudie. You may think that I’m an interfering old woman—” she held up her hand to ward off Maggie’s protestations. “Yes, you well may. Quite a few do. But someone with my talent—to see so much denied the rest of you—it may be arrogant of me, but I feel that I have an obligation to give you some advice, to make things easier. And I’ll do a sighting, as well, of course, but we can do that later.”
    She stared for a moment into her earthenware cup. “You see, dear, there was a quarrel, years ago, before you girls were born, and Fearchar left, and we haven’t heard from or seen him since.”
    “Not even you?”
    “Well, I did for a while, actually, but it wasn’t a very good contact—a lot of static, you know, interference—till finally I could scarce see him at all.”
    “He was—somehow, do you think he was blocking you?”
    Her aunt nodded sadly. “I think so. He was most upset when he left—it can’t have been easy for him, the first boy in our long line of females. And then, mother died just before.”
    “Before what, Mistress Brown?” asked Colin, as the old lady was looking increasingly embarrassed. She looked, in fact, as though she wished she had not opened the subject and was reluctant to continue.
    “Before Willie and Ellender.” They nodded at her encouragingly and she went on. “I told you, Colin, that folk in the village thought little and said less of Maggie’s mother being with child and her love wedding another. That was very true. Our brother was not so prudent.”
    “Being family, of course…” Colin began.
    “We realized that, and that it was hard on him, particularly since he had always rather looked up to Willie—tagged along, making a regular nuisance of himself when he visited us at Fort Iceworm, he did. But he took on so long and so loud and in such a temper, that it was all Bron and I could do to calm Maudie. See, Fearchar challenged Willie to a duel, of all the silly things, for the ‘ruin’ of his niece—and he no more than thirteen