Free The Old Magic by James Mallory Page B

chest, and then looked up as if he could see Nimue watching him.
     His eyes were the deep green of the forest, and as their gazes met she felt his look pierce through her, as if in that instant
     he knew all about her. He smiled, and her heart beat faster in response.
    Nimue wrenched herself free of the vision with a gasp, her heart beating as wildly as a caged bird’s. The bells still rang
     for evensong—what had seemed to take hours had in fact taken only seconds.
    She got to her feet and began to pace in agitation, the face of the golden young man still before her mind’s eye. What did
     the vision mean? Was it an angel she had seen? The words she had heard in her heart when he had looked at her still echoed
     through her mind:
You are all there is of love. Come to me, come to me—I need you—
    He was late for supper, and Aunt Ambrosia scolded him severely, but even that could not drive the image he had seen from Merlin’s
     mind. For a moment he had seen a flesh-and-blood woman in the pool—a woman with dark eyes and soft brown hair and a mischievous
     smile. Seeing her had made him aware of an emptiness where no emptiness had been before, an ache he did not know how to heal.
    His foster-mother remarked on his absent-mindedness in the following days. He knew it worried her, but he could not find the
     words to allay her fears. There was something he had to do, something he had to find. He did not know whether it lay within
     him or outside him, but there was something he needed to know, to learn.
    The milk jug crashed to the floor with a loud thud, spewing milk all over the floor. Merlin stared at it as if he’d never
     seen it before, startled out of his daydream.
    “Out!” Ambrosia lifted the hearth-broom menacingly. “A wild boar would be more use in the house than you are! What’s gotten
     into you, Merlin?”
    “I don’t know.” The boy hung his head, staring at the jug. “Sometimes I just—”
    Ambrosia reached out and hugged him, ruffling his hair. “I know, Merlin. It isn’t easy for you. But this is a difficult time.
     You have to be careful.”
    Why does everyone keep telling me that?
It seemed to Merlin as if he was always being warned about something these days, but no one would tell him what it was. Once
     again he felt the flash of cold selfishness, as if some other self were struggling inside him, striving to be born. Again
     he pushed it away, but each time he felt it, it seemed to be stronger.
    “Why don’t you just run along, then, Merlin. It’s such a beautiful day it seems a shame to be indoors. I can finish up the
     spring cleaning by myself,” Ambrosia said. “But be sure you’re back in time for dinner. I’m making your favorite: buttered
     parsnips.”
    Merlin smiled in anticipation of the feast. He backed carefully toward the door, alert for any more milk jugs lying in wait.
     By the time he’d reached the edge of the clearing, he was running, his vague preoccupation forgotten.
    If he had known then that this was to be his last day as a boy running free in the forest, Merlin could not have chosen a
     better way to spend it. He visited all his old friends and favorite places, feasted on fresh honeycomb and raspberries, and
     idled through the afternoon with nothing more pressing on his mind than the need to get home in time for supper.
    Late in the afternoon, he crossed the main road, but even that did not have its usual power to disturb him today. He found
     a warm place near it, in the shade of a hollow tree, and curled up to rest for a moment. Basking in the sunlight, he was asleep
     before he knew it.
    He dreamed that he was a merlin, like his namesake, a shining falcon that rode the wind. Below him he could see the tops of
     the trees, and beyond the edge of the forest he could see càstles and hills and rolling meadows. The landscape seemed vividly
     real but somehow mysterious, as if everything he saw was both itself and standing in for something else. But that was