“Well,” he exclaimed, as they approached the workshop. “You were right about people fixing it up. It certainly never looked this good when I lived here.”
She felt a bit of pardonable pride, for it was a neat little place now, with the stone walls scrubbed and morning glories and moonflower vines climbing up the trellises she’d built on either side of the door. The thatch had been patched and freshly trimmed last fall, too, and this spring she’d painted the shutters white.
“Show me around the outside first,” Darian urged. Always happy to show off her garden, Keisha took him around to the back.
“Oh, this is good,” he exclaimed, as the garden came into view. “What have you got here?” Without waiting for her reply, he walked carefully around the beds, identifying plants aloud. “Feverfew, wormwood, basil, thyme, lobelia, comfrey - ” Keisha was impressed, for she would never have thought he’d have any knowledge of herbs. “I must say, I’m glad Justyn didn’t have all this.”
“Why?” she asked, startled.
“Because then I wouldn’t have had so many excuses to go out into the forest,” he replied with perfect logic. “Keisha, you’ve done some remarkable things here. This is wonderful from the point of view of having supplies at hand.”
“And to trade,” she pointed out. “I’m able to get some things by swapping with traders that come here. Perfume oils are popular, and dyes, of course.”
“Of course.” He took another long look around the garden, nodding. “So, why don’t you show me what you’ve done with the inside?”
His grin as soon as he entered the door made her flush with pride, and she was very glad she’d cleaned everything thoroughly last night. “Good job. Really good job. You’ve made this place into a fine home and workshop.”
“I had help,” she began shyly, but he shook his head.
“I see one person’s hand everywhere,” he began, but a tap on the doorframe interrupted him.
The Hawkbrother woman - Nightwind - stood there. She said something quickly in the Hawkbrother tongue; he nodded and turned back to Keisha.
“Nightwind says that Lutter wants to speak with me, and she wants to have a word with you,” he told her. “Right now, she says - while things are still quiet.”
“Me?” she squeaked, surprised once again. “Why?”
He shrugged helplessly. “I suspect that’s to be between Nightwind and you. I’ll see you later, when Kel comes in.”
With that, he slipped past Nightwind, who entered and closed the door behind her.
“You need not look so apprehensive,” the woman said, in slow, careful Valdemaran. “I think that this may be a very welcome conversation for you.”
Keisha swallowed, and recalled her manners. “Will you sit down? Can I offer you something to drink?”
“After that feast?” Nightwind laughed. “Thank you - but no. I shall sit, however.”
She took one of the two chairs at the cold hearth; warily, Keisha took the other.
“I have spoken with Healer Gil,” Nightwind said, with no warning, and Keisha stifled a groan. “Nay, do not look so stricken! I am a kind of Healer, as is Adept Firesong; we believe that together we can supply the teaching that you lack.”
Before Keisha had time to react, Nightwind went on. “You do not know how close you came to turning into a hermit,” she said soberly. “You have been feeling unwell around others, have you not? That is because you have never learned to shield.”
“Shields? You know what that means?” Keisha was too excited by this to be annoyed and embarrassed now. “I haven’t been able to make any sense out of what was in the books, and I knew it was important, but Gil couldn’t explain and - ” She stopped herself, took a deep breath, and told herself to calm down. “So that is why I get upset when other people are upset?”
“Exactly.” Nightwind relaxed just a trifle. “And you will be getting your first lesson from me, right now. I put a shield around you at the feast; now you will learn to make your own.” She studied Keisha’s face. “I think you will learn quickly, and it is a good thing that you are a Healer, rather than an Empath. You already are grounded and centered.”
Those were two more terms that hadn’t been explained in the Healers’ texts. “What does that mean?” she asked, determined to indeed begin her lessons at once.
“When you are working here, when you are in the forest - you feel a strong connection to the earth, do you not?” Nightwind asked, and Keisha nodded eagerly.
“I’ve never even dreamed of flying,” she confessed. “I dream about being a tree, a really huge tree, with roots going all the way down into the heart of the earth.”
“Empaths must learn to ground and center themselves, to create that connection to the earth,” Nightwind told her. “Healers - those with the Gift - are born with it. They just have to learn to identify it, strengthen it. So - first, I will take the shield from you, and I wish you to do just that. Find that tie and wait a moment. I will touch your mind with mine, and show you the strength of the earth about you, and how to pull that strength into yourself.”
Keisha was too excited now to be apprehensive; she had always enjoyed learning, and now she was about to be given the keys to mysteries that had frustrated her for years. She closed her eyes and sought that still, deep place within herself where her tree-dreams came from. It was easy enough to touch, but a moment after she did so, something strange happened.
There was something - someone? - there as well. Something that wasn’t her.
:Good,: she heard, startled, inside her head. :So you have exactly the sense of self that you need already! And you are hearing me in words?:
Cautiously, she tried to form her reply in the same way she “heard” it. :Yes. What is this?:
:This is Mindspeech, so besides being a Healer, you are also a Mindspeaker. That is not always, or even often, the case. It will make things easier for both of us.
Ah, let “me“ come closer, and touch “me “ so that you see through “my” eyes.:
Keisha forced herself to relax as the alien presence somehow moved closer to her, and then -
“Oh, my!” she exclaimed involuntarily; her eyes flew open, and she felt disoriented, seeing things in the strangest kind of double-vision, herself looking at Nightwind looking at herself -
She didn’t have to be told to close her eyes again; she squeezed them shut as her stomach churned. Nightwind also closed her eyes, making things easier. . Nightwind waited patiently until her insides settled, then opened her own eyes. :Now, see what I am seeing? This is just the surface of the world. This is how a Healer sees it, with the Oversight.:
The world was suddenly alive with light, all colors of light; to Nightwind’s eyes, Keisha had a halo of emerald green, the seedlings growing on the window ledge had a similar halo of light, though weaker. Keisha had a sudden flash of memory. She had seen the world like this before, but she had rejected it as an hallucination.
“Let me try by myself!” she demanded, and Nightwind pulled away. She opened her eyes and, with a mental twist, brought this new kind of vision into focus.