Free The Foretelling by Alice Hoffman Page A

Queen studied me to see whether or not she should believe me.
    I gave you the wrong name,
she said.
    I felt something hot in my eyes that I knew could not be tears. Could she see that I was something more than sorrow? Could I see that as well?
    I should have waited to name you until I knew you. I should have known you before now.
    I thanked the Queen and kissed her hand.
I'm Rain, and I'm grateful for that name.
    Her hand was too cold even for this cold time.
    What can I do for you?
I whispered.
    But she had already closed her eyes, and Penthe told me she needed her strength for other things. What those things were neither of us wanted to know or say or even think about. But here is what I saw before I walked away: I saw my mother's shadow, resting there beside her. It had returned to her after all this time.
    It was late at night when it happened. Dreamtime, a bad hour for things of this world. When it came, it was horrible. Worse than men dying, worse than women fighting. Blood against blood. Bone against bone. They gathered the other women who would soon have daughters and took them deep into the caves so they would not fret Or panic and then lose their own daughters due to fear. But the screaming followed them, with a jagged edge, like wind. It was impossible to escape such things. It was death from the inside out.
    The baby was coming too soon. It had happened before to other women, but not to our Queen, my mother. All of the women who knew how to bring daughters into this word had been summoned. They made my mother walk, even though she was so weak, to try to stop the baby from coming.
    We need the priestess,
Penthe told me.
    She looked as ill as the Queen, pale, shaking, but she thought of my mother first, as she always had. She sent me to get Deborah. I didn't bother with my heaviest shirts; I just pulled on my boots and ran. There was a crust of ice over the snow and I ran fast, flying. But Deborah could not come with me. She was too old to get there in time. She could barely move out of her blankets. I knew from her expression that she had no hope. All the same, she sent her daughter, Greeya, with me. Greeya was wise in the ways of babies and she was quick. I could barely keep up with her as we ran across the ice.
    We could hear the Queen wailing before we got there. Her voice was shaking the branches in the trees, and then it stopped. We ran faster. Most of the women who knew how to bring forth daughters were on their knees, praying to the goddess for guidance. Greeya sat down and had Penthe lift my mother's blankets and her clothes so she could reach inside the Queen. This was a birth that had gone wrong; there was too much blood, not enough time, nothing anyone could do. My mother screamed like a warrior. And then, like a woman in pain.
    I could not watch that. I turned away. I covered my ears with my hands.
    Greeya murmured that one life was being lit while another was burning out at the very same time.
    Then kill it,
I heard Penthe say.
Maybe that will save her. Do anything!
    But it was too late. The baby was already being born. The Queen was already dying.
    Greeya helped to bring the baby out into the light, this child who was meant to be Queen. She quickly untangled it and cleared out its mouth with one finger.
    All I could hear was Penthe, raging, weeping. She threw herself across Alina until there was as much blood on her as there was on my mother.
    It was silent again, everywhere, except for Penthe's sobbing. I turned and saw the spirit leave my mother, a cloud of air rising from her pale lips. I saw the look on Greeya's face and I knew.
    My brother had arrived in this world.
    Kill it,
Penthe said.
    Asteria and Astella and my mother's sister, Cybelle, came to kneel and honor the Queen. They all echoed Penthe's words. But I remembered what Deborah had said. Greeya picked up the baby that had made us lose our Queen and tucked it inside her shirt. I led her back to the mouth of the cave, then I stopped