The Magic Sequence Volume Two by Andre Norton

Author:Andre Norton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2017-07-27T00:00:00+00:00

HAGAR

Holly went forward confidently without even glancing around to see if the others were following. At first sight this was the same house they had visited before. But the woman standing by the hearth in much the same way—she was not Tamar!

She was smiling gently, not watching the kettle before her, though her hand still moved to stir its contents with a long-handled spoon. Where Tamar had been plain of face and of clothing, this girl (for she looked much younger than Tamar) was very pretty. She wore the same type of cap, but it was pushed farther to the back of her head. Showing around her face were small curls of hair which were almost silver-fair. The wide skirt of her dress was green and it was kilted up over a second skirt of a darker green, while her long apron and the kerchief over her bodice were both edged with narrow plaiting, also of green.

The lighter green of her dress matched the color of her eyes. In her face these seemed very large, beneath brows and behind lashes which, in spite of the fairness of her hair, were dark. There was a dimple in her cheek as her smile grew broader.

“Good morrow to thee, my poppet,” she said directly to Holly. “And to thy kin be it also a merry-a-day. Thou art prompt to the bidding, and that be in thy favor, small sister.”

Holly stood tongue-tied. This was not Tamar. Then who was it standing at Tamar’s hearth, using her kettle as if this were her home?

As if she could pick that question out of Holly’s mind, the girl in green laughed, low and sweet. “Ah, be it that I know thee and not thou me, poppet? I be Hagar—”

It was not Holly who interrupted her then, but Crock. “Where’s Tamar?” he asked. His voice sounded rough and almost too loud in the room.

Hagar’s smile vanished. Her eyes narrowed, and for a moment Holly thought she looked like Tomkit when he was annoyed enough to flatten his ears to his skull and hiss a warning. But it was only for an instant that she looked so.

Then once more she smiled, and her voice was gentle and sweet: “La, young sir, my dear sister be abroad. I keep the hearthside this day, as thou seest. And thy company be most welcome, for this be a lonely place—”

“You’re Tamar’s sister?” Holly blinked. She was so unlike Tamar. But then Crock and Judy were twins and they did not look at all alike, either.

“Her sister, yes, poppet. But it be me thou hast come to see, be that not the truth?”

Slowly Holly nodded. Until this moment she had not been aware of that fact, but now she remembered a little of last night’s dreaming. It had been Hagar, not Tamar, who had spoken to her in those dreams, shown her the way to come.

“Then let us have no more of Tamar. She has her own concerns, and this day we have no part of them but pleasure ourselves otherwise.

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