Pure

Eoghan had returned with a tincture that Maigred was able to use to calm the donkey’s symptoms. It would soon be back home with its owner, along with the tincture and instructions on how to administer it until the donkey was well again. For now, Maigred had it tied on a long lead line outside the back door, where it was resting peacefully the sunshine near a bucket of water and a small pile of feed, that Maigred had been able to beg from the stable down the street.

She was getting started on lunch preparations while Aoibh cleaned the few the rooms upstairs that had been rented out the night before. Eoghan was finishing up washing the breakfast dishes. When he was done Maigred sent him off to the market to buy the yarn that Cara wanted for her next knitting project.

Maigred was slicing bread when her vision began to swim. She dropped the knife on the bread board and grasped the edge of the table, her breath catching in her throat. Then she could see her hands putting together a large picnic lunch, packing it in a basket along with bandages and tinctures. She strapped her knife to her side, put on her cloak and walked to the tavern on the east side of town, where she had worked briefly before she had come to work for Cara. Maigred could see Finten and his men ahead of her, walking into the tavern.

The vision faded and she was standing in the kitchen again, her fingers aching where they were wrapped around the edge of the table.

She stood there for a long time, her breathing shallow and quick. Why? she wondered. She had never returned to the tavern after they had thrown her out, pregnant and scared, with no place to go. And she definitely had no desire to see Finten for a third day in a row, especially not there, of all places.

I wont do it. She decided. She set her jaw, released the table, and picked up the knife, preparing to go back to slicing bread, but immediately her sight blacked out and she had the same vision again, except this time she only saw Finten’s men entering the tavern, through a crowd of people which were standing outside.

She came back to herself standing in the kitchen, one hand clutching the bread knife and the other clenched around the bread, squeezing half the loaf into a handful of mushy pulp. “Why?” She asked out loud. “What good would it do anyone? I don’t want to go, I have more important things to take care of.”

Her ability to see the present left her again, and again she saw herself preparing the picnic lunch, packing it along with specific medical supplies, preparing to leave, and walking to the tavern. She saw Finten and his men walking ahead of her.

When Maigred came back to the present again, she remembered what Cathal had said last night: ‘I think that if the earth sister sent you a vision twice, telling you to do the same thing, it’s important. And I think the gods try to guide us, but we make our own fates.’

Did Maigred really want to take her fate, and possibly the fate of her people, into her own hands, by ignoring the very insistent guidance she was receiving? What harm could there be in taking a picnic lunch to a man she wanted to punch in the face? She sighed. Then there was the knife. She frowned. She was supposed to bring her knife this time. Why would she need her knife?

She finished slicing the bread without being interrupted by any more visions. But by then she had decided to make the picnic lunch and go to the tavern. It wouldn’t be too much trouble, the food she had packed in the vision were things she was already preparing for today’s lunch. Besides, she wanted to know why the earth sister thought she needed to go there, especially with the knife and the healing supplies that she had seen in herself pack in the vision.

Was someone going to be attacked? Was she going to have to fight to protect someone? She swallowed. She’d had her share of physical tousles, mostly with drunk customers, but it hadn’t ever been serious. She hoped the earth sister wasn’t expecting her to be some sort of expert with a knife or anything.