Free Merlin's Harp by Anne Eliot Crompton Page A

in the roof. I pictured my little one rain-swamped, maybe sitting in an apple tree soaked through, rain and tears mixed on his small face, waiting for daylight so he could slosh home.
      Then I pictured him curled up squirrel-fashion in the tiny willow shelter Mellias had shown me or in one of several I had found myself. One leaned against a beech like a fallen branch. One humped in the lee of a big rock. Bran was most likely as safe and warm as I was myself, I thought, and I had better sleep, then go seek him in the morning. How far could a small boy go, after all? He was somewhere on the island. I turned over and felt his empty, cold space under our cloak, and wept.
      At first damp light I visited Bran's shelters. Slipping and stumbling toward home I met Mellias returning from a good night's fishing. Bran is gone, I signaled him.
      "Well." Bent under his net Mellias paused beside me. "That was a rough first night away! But that is how boys like it, you know. Niviene," he added kindly, "you are distressed. You have wept."
      "Tell, and I'll turn you into a toad!"
      Mellias laughed. He dumped his net, took my hand, and turned with me toward the villa. He smelled of fish and mud and rain. I leaned against him.
    "Don't take it so hard. Boys go free younger than girls."
    "Not this young!" Bran was barely five.
      "Well, you have a bright one. My first night out it was snowing. Wolf tracks all around me in the morning." Mellias led me along gently, steadying me with an arm around my waist.
      A wet greenness ahead was the villa back wall. He let me go. "I'll wager you'll find your nestling drying his feathers at the fire. Be calm with him, Niviene."
      "Well, naturally!"
      "If he's not there, talk to your mother. She raised two of you. She knows."
      I looked away. "I fear her scorn."
      Mellias said, "Perhaps you misunderstand the Lady." Then he left me.
      My nestling was not by the fire. I found the Lady in our room, searching through his pile of clothes. Many of these she had made herself, taught by a Human woman whose sick child she had healed.
      She looked up almost guiltily as I entered. "I wondered if he took his cloak. He took so little, I think he will come back today. Enjoy your freedom. Remember how you longed for it?"
      "Yes." Well did I remember the foolish girl-mother who ground her teeth at the hounding cry of "M-Ma!" I tried to enjoy my freedom that day and the next and the next.
      On the fourth morning, a glad golden autumn morning, I crouched by the courtyard fire-stones, warmed my palms, and lit a small scrying fire. Kneeling over it I intoned, Bran! Bran! Bran! Snapping, the fire spoke of sun and rain, wind, snow, cool earth. "Bran!" I cried; and dropped tears into the fire.
      Now the fire spoke briskly of several things. I saw three children in invisible cloaks swing through yew trees. I saw a boar splash into the lake and swim toward Avalon. I saw a winter-wise serpent slither into his hole under a rock.
      The fire faltered.
      Feet came softly about me. I looked up at the Lady, Mellias, and Aefa. Aefa said, "The ravens told me to come."
      I snatched at hope. What one could not see, maybe another could. I cried, "Aefa! Scry for Bran!"
      She sank on her heels beside me. "You know, Niviene, he is at that age when children disappear."
      "Not this suddenly! Not for four days at a time! Scry for Bran!"
      The Lady stood over us, absently combing her hair with her fingers. Her eyes were red from crystal-gazing. "With all our scrying we should have seen him by now," she murmured. "Niviene, calm yourself. Excitement wastes power."
      The little fire died.
      Aefa sat back. "I saw him in the flesh, Niviene, not two days ago."
      "Gods! Where? Why did you not tell me?"
      "I did not know you sought him. He was passing under my tree house, oh so skillfully, almost invisible. I thought, 'There goes a future Mouse Spy!' "
      I stared at Aefa. Her tree