Hexed

her future as long as she belongs to our order.”
    And so the next year, I kissed my ma and da and brothers and sisters good-bye, and when the entourage arrived in our village to take me to the Northlands, the entire town turned out to bid me farewell.
    I tried to numb myself as I climbed into the sleigh but as we journeyed toward the portals leading to the Northlands, slow tears etched down my cheeks as I watched everything I’d ever loved and known fall away behind me. Up ahead lay only the unknown. Everything was changing, and there was no turning back.
    Long years were spent being schooled in both magic and history. But finally . . . our time came.
    Fully a young woman now, it was time I underwent my vision quest. The Lady Undutar, in her infinite wisdom, would whisper to me and tell me the direction in which I would spend my life.
    On Winter Solstice, I was taken out to the Skirts of Hel and left with only a thin blanket. Along with five other acolytes, I scrambled on the wide swath of ice, staring up at the cave that led into the underworld.
    Hel’s Mouth . . . Hel’s purse . . . the Gates of Hel—the cavern was called by many names. Hel was not of our order, not of our pantheon, but we respected her and it was said that during the summer she and Undutar drank tea, and their ice cubes were the calves that broke off from the glaciers.
    I looked for shelter—the night would be deadly unless I could forage for some sort of protection from the elements, and acolytes were not allowed to stay together. And then I saw it: a small cave opening, tucked away at the edge of a forest. The White Forest was filled with dangers, but a night on the glacier seemed even more dangerous.
    I used the senses I’d been taught to heighten and reached out, examining the cave. It was small, big enough for one person, and empty. Nothing creeping within. Relieved, I scrambled down the glacial skirt—half sliding, half walking—and crawled into the opening against the side of the mountain.
    The sense of earth was thick around me and I felt mildly claustrophobic. I’d been working with mist and fog and snow energy for so long that earth felt too solid. But it would protect me from the bitter wind.
    As I calmed my thoughts and realized that, while chilly, I was no longer freezing, I decided to get it over with. No idea of what to expect, I pulled out the flask that my mentor had given me. She’d mixed the potion herself, spending three days in isolation to make it.
    “Pirkitta, this will give you the ability to enter the Dream Time. It will call the Goddess Undutar into you, and she will show you the path of your life and give you your true name. I will be able to sense you while you are out in the Dream Time, but I won’t be able to help. I will, however, be the one who records your true name into the historical ledger of the temple.”
    I sat in the dark, the smell of earth thick around me, sour and pungent, and held the potion to my chest. With a brief wonder at what my fellow acolytes were going through and whether they’d all be alive in the morning, I popped the top on the potion and drained the bottle.
    At first, nothing seemed to be happening, but then I realized I was able to see inside the inky cave. The ground itself was giving off a faint yellow glow, and in wonder I picked up a handful and brought it to my nose, deeply inhaling its rich scent. The uncomfortable and frozen hideout had now become a warm, inviting womb, filled with the scent of fresh rain and windswept moors and hot soup simmering over a slow fire.
    My fear draining out of me, I leaned back and closed my eyes. “What do you have to say to me, Lady? I feel you every morning when I wake, and I sense you watching over me every night when I fall asleep. Thank you, for bringing me into your Order. Thank you for choosing me.”
    And then, I was standing on a cliff, overlooking a steep valley below. All was crystalline frost and snow as far as I could see, clear and brilliant under a pale sky, and beside me stood a tall woman with hair as black as midnight, and eyes as piercing blue as my own. She stretched out her hand and the valley below came alive with deer and white hares, foxes and cardinals darting from tree to tree, their red a siren song in the endless vista of white.
    “This is my realm, this is my land. And there walks my daughter.”
    A young woman, or she might have been ancient—I could not tell, but my senses cried out “youth”—walked