And one lifted his voice from the silence that lulled them all, as with one arm high she spoke her speech in their faces; he lifted his voice and said: “What is this stranger?”
Then all who had listened to her looked at her strangely and noted that many times she had used the word magic. What was she? Magic too, maybe. And a fear fell on them all.
“Aye,” said another, with more in his voice than the first, “what stranger is she?”
They thought that voice, those questions, and all their looks, had quelled her. But she flashed a look at them and spoke again with irresistible voice.
“Stranger?” she said, “stranger? I am of Aragona, I!”
And an elder peered at her awhile and slowly said: “You know not Aragona.”
“Aye,” she said, “every lane of it.”
“Maybe the roadway,” the elder said, “and our notable belfry, but the small lanes never.”
“Aye, every lane,” said Anemone.
“Easily said,” cried another.
And one said: “Let her tell us tales of it. Let her tell us of this Aragona that she has known.”
And Ramon Alonzo, behind her with his sword yet in his hand, would have stopped them, for he feared that the Aragona she knew would be all faded away, and that, telling of olden things that to her were dearest, she would bring upon her their derision. So he tried to turn them but they did not hear him, and all were crying out: “Tell us what you found when you travelled to Aragona.” And they made pretence that Aragona was some far town that they knew not.
Then she raised her hand and hushed them and spoke low, and told of Aragona. She told not of things that change when old men die, or when children grow and leave gardens, but she told of things that abide or alter slowly, even now when time has a harsher way with villages. She told of yew-trees, she told of the older graves, she told of the wandering lanes that had no purpose, with never a reason for one of their curves and no reason for altering them, she told the place of the haystack in many fields, she told old legends concerning the shape of the hills and the lore that guided the sower. She crooned it to them with her love of those fields vibrating through every phrase, fields that had shone for her across the bleakness of unremembered years. She told them their pedigrees; quaint names to them in faded ink on old scrolls in their houses; but she knew with whom their grandfathers went a-maying. She told and perforce they listened, held by her love of those fields. And when she ceased crooning the last word to them, that told of some old stone there was on a hill, when the last sound died away like a song that fades softly, a low hum rose in the crowd from wondering voices. She stood there silent while the hum roamed up and down and back again.
Then one spoke clear and said: “She is a witch-woman, for none knows her here; and hath seen our village upon starry nights riding by broom from the Country Towards Moon’s Rising.”
“Aye,” said the others, speaking deep in awe. “She is from that land.”
And they opened their eyes a little wider, looking towards her in horror; for that land lies not only beyond salvation, but the dooms of the Last Judgment cross not its borders either, so that those who have trafficked in magic and known the Black Art walk abroad there boldly, unpunished; a most dreadful sight. Only they must come to it before ever they die; for then it is too late.
“No,” she said, “not from the Country Towards Moon’s Rising.”
“Whence then?” said they.
And again she said: “Aragona.”
And one asked her, “What house?”
She pointed to it where one window had flashed and blazed at the sunset; but now the shadow of the hill went over it and someone lit a candle then and placed it in the window.
“There,” she said. And no more words than this came to her lips.
“It is empty,” they shouted.
“And hath been for years,” said one.
“The candle,” she said.
“An old custom,” one answered. “It is clear that you know not Aragona.”
“No,” she said, “I know not that custom.”
“A girl lived there in the old time,” one told her, “and left it, and came not back.”
“And the candle?” she said.
“The folk that dwelt there put it there all their days, lest she should come back,” he said.
“And after?” asked Anemone.
“They left money by testament, as all men know, for a candle to be lit there always at sunset. The money is long since spent, but we keep the custom.”
Aye, they waited for her yet. Then she looked long and saw how the thatch had sagged, and doors and windows were gone except that one window, and it was indeed as they said: the house was empty and had long been so.
There was a hush to see what she would do; all the crowd waited; Ramon Alonzo stood there with his sword to defend her: none stirred.
They waited for her yet. And how could she claim to be the one that legend expected? A tale for a winter’s night, with none to doubt it of those that warmed at the fire. But in the open air, with the sun still over the skyline, who would believe her? And how tell of the long black years without speaking of magic?
A long long look she took at that tumbled cottage, then turned away and touched Ramon Alonzo’s arm.
“Come,” she said.
They went back to the hill and none followed. But they set guards about the boundaries of Aragona lest he or she should return to corrupt them with magic.
For a while he did not speak, seeing her sorrow. But when voices hummed far behind them, their accusations blurred and harmless with distance, and he saw that none pursued, he turned to Anemone. “Where now?” he said.
And Anemone answered, “I know
