"We all did," BD said. "But more than that."

Juniper took a deep breath, another, inhaling until her lungs creaked and then slowly releasing it, and all the tension in muscle and nerve with it. Ground and center… strength flowed back into her body, and firmness to mind and thought. She saw the others win to calm in their different ways; walking the paths they did gave you that.

"Now, these things we saw are signs, and a wonder," she said, in the County Mayo lilt she'd learned at her mother's knee and all her Clan had imitated. "But it is not the first I have seen here, in this place."

They all glanced at the altar. Juniper had prophesied when she held her son over it at his Wiccanning; and Raven had appeared to the boy ten years later, twelve years ago now. Juniper's voice gained strength as she went on:

"I am thinking that it is Their way of telling us that the storm breaking on us is one that troubles all the world. Not in words, but-"

"Even so, that was more… obscure than They usually are, wasn't it?" Signe said thoughtfully.

"Not necessarily, my dear," Juniper said; Signe had a warrior's fierce directness.

BD nodded. "An oracle's voice speaks like the wind in a forest, turning and twisting like Time Herself. They don't show us more than we can bear."

"We're all mothers," Melissa said in agreement. "You know you can't speak all your mind to a child. How then could the Divine to us?"

They paused, listening to the creaks and buzzes of the summer night, letting the cool scented air flow through them, winning to steadiness once more. The lonely sobbing of the wolf's howl sounded, far and faint.

Juniper added softly: "And also we are told that unimaginable Powers are at strife in the worlds beyond the world. Our struggle is Theirs as well."

"As above, so below," Sumina murmured, one of the maxims of their faith.