Free The View From the Cart by Rebecca Tope

we all danced around the fire, and waved burning sticks around our heads. The crescent moon rose above us, and there was a softness in the air which made me feel I was after all in the right place - where I was destined to be.
    I had drawn a circle, with some runes marked around the edge. At the moment of sunset I set light to the fire and called Wynn to sit before me. Binding her eyes, I kissed her and said a blessing. Then I led her into the circle and turned her around three times before telling her to point down at a spot before her. The nearest rune to her pointing was the fourth, the sign of messages and gifts. An auspicious rune for a young girl, and I clapped my hands in delight and called Edd and Cuthman to see.
    â€˜It is true already,’ said Edd, producing his gift for her. He had carved a small figure for her from some apple wood, unbeknown to me.
    â€˜What is it?’ I asked, almost snatching it from the girl. It resembled nothing I could recognise, in the dappled light of the fire. Then I saw that it was a crow, stained black with a sharp beak and wide-open wings. ‘What have you given her
that
for?’ I demanded.
    He looked at me, with his tired eyes, and explained, ‘The crow be I. Dark, solitary, despised. He brings a message, daughter. Go from here, leave this place when you can and live amongst people. Be happy with the singing and play-acting. ‘Tis all wrong, us keeping you up here. Take’n and remember what I say.’
    â€˜I have something, too,’ said Cuthie, solemnly. ‘I made it in secret.’ He took something from a linen bag; something large and awkwardly-shaped. I gasped when I saw it.
    â€˜Remember when Mam made one just like?’ he said, holding up a bigger version of the little straw house I had made so many years ago on the day of Cuthie’s baptism. This one was of slender twigs, bound carefully together with thin strips of bark. It had a roof, and a large crucifix attached at the front. ‘‘Tis a church,’ he told us. ‘One day, I be going to build a real one. But you have this, Wynn. It’ll keep you mindful and bring you blessings.’
    I looked again at the rune she had chosen, and the cup I had made for her. It all came together, with the separate tokens from each of her closest kin. We had worked alone, and yet our creations had combined to point Wynn towards her future life. I sighed, content and trusting that for my girl child, at least, life would go well.
    But there were dark elements, too. Edd’s crow was a sinister thing, and a sad one. It held more than the message for Wynn. It told me something terrible about my man and his idea of himself. Cuthie’s little church concerned me, too. A young boy with an obsession turns too easily into a restless driven man. Edd had been just a one, but somehow I feared that his son would overshadow him completely with his secret Christian passions. Where, I wondered weakly, did he get them from? Where on those moors had that great God and his Son laid their hands on my boy?
    But we danced and sang and watched the fire die down as the moon rose high and we watched for whatever messages or signs there might yet be for us at the beginning of that remarkable summer when my daughter began her menses and Edd began the final seasons of his life.
    The meaning of Wynn’s rune seemed to last for months. First Spenna came, driving two early spring lambs before her. They were scrawny from being weaned too soon, and she explained that their mothers had died and she hadn’t the time to trouble with rearing them.
    I looked her in the face. ‘Not time to trouble?’ I echoed. ‘When they could keep you in meat through the winter and more?’
    She looked down at her feet, smiling a little. ‘‘Tis a gift for young Wynn, then. We’ve been fortunate this spring, with all the lambs alive and fattening well. Take them, will you?’
    I can’t pretend