‘Look into it,’ she said. ‘Hold it up to the light. Some see the world as it is, though in many pretty colours. But some, who have the gift, see the world as it will be.’

The girl hesitated. She didn’t know that she believed in such things. Not really. Besides, who has the strength to see their own future? Especially a poor goat-girl with a scold of a mother and a hare-shot lip?

The woman nodded encouragingly. ‘Look, child. The future may yet be sweet, and you have the gift.’

Somewhere in the distance there was a boy crying out from the river, drawing up his boat. Yelling, screaming about something. Running towards the fair. It was all the excitement no doubt, nothing more.

So the girl held the little box of coloured glass up before her face and opened one of the delicate little hinges. It was the deep red glass that she held up to her eyes, and she looked through and shuddered. Because she saw the world as if covered in blood. The mountain of gold to the west was a mountain of blood. The screaming of the boy running up from the river grew louder, closer. She saw the straggling meadows leading away along the river bank, groups of people carrying their baskets, pushing their handbarrows, coming through the long grass towards the fair on this gentle summer day. And beyond that, the low line of hills still catching the morning sun, but all red, all clouded red. The future.

She felt the old woman tugging at her sleeve, heard her saying something, and was about to tear her eyes away from this ghastly vision, this world of a blood-red future, when a movement in the far distance caught her eye, and instead of lowering the evil box she continued to stare through its red haze.