Black and White

This was a good idea. Sister Madeleine wasn't black and white about things. Happily they scampered off down the lane to consult her. She thought it might well be possible; some people did have a gift.

"How much silver do you think she'd need to cros her palm? Would a threepence do?" Kit wondered.

"I'd say she'd want more. What would you say, Sister Madeleine?" Clio was excited. It was her birthday next week. Maybe they might get enough money before the caravans left. How marvellous to know the future. To their disappointment, Sister Madeleine didn't seem at all in favour of it.

She never told anyone not to do anything; she didn't use words like foolish or unwise; she never spoke of sin or things being wrong. She just looked at them with her eyes burning from her brown, lined face and her look said everything. "It's not safe to know the future." she said.

And in the silence that followed both Clio and Kit felt themselves shiver. They were glad when Whiskers stood up and gave a long unexplained yowl at nothing in particular.

Rita made her quiet way down the narrow road to Sister Madeleine's cottage. She carried her poetry book and the warm shortbread that was just out of the oven. To her surprise, she heard voices. Usually the hermit wa alone when she called for her lessons.

She was about to move away, but Sister Madeleine called out. "Come on in, Rita. We'll have a cup of tea together." It was the tinker woman who told fortunes. Rita knew her immediately, because she had been to her last year. She had given her half a crown and had heard that her life would change.

She would have seven times by seven times the land that her father had owned. That meant she would have nearly fifty acres. The woman had seen that she would have a life with book learning, and she would marry a man who was at this moment across the sea.

She also saw that the children of marriage would be difficult - it wasn't clear whether in their health or their disposition. She said that Rita, when she died, would be buried in a big cemetery, not in the churchyard in Lough Glass.