Extract from Company of Shadows

Here is a sneak preview of my next book, the third book in The Healer's Shadow trilogy. 
“If I were a real healer, I wouldn’t have stopped. I couldn’t have stopped. So you are wasting your time, Bessie. If you only knew, how easy it was to turn people in need away.”   “I would believe you, but for these dreams.”   “They are nothing to do with healing.”   “On the contrary they have everything to do with becoming a wisewoman. It is the common belief that to dream of falling means you are in a situation you cannot control. And to some extent that is true. But for us, the dreams we acquire when we start to become wisewomen have another meaning. They open the door to our familiars.   “When I was a young woman, my dreams were always of being buried alive. Night after night, I dreamed of being in the cold damp soil, with the earth in my mouth and nostrils. I fought for breath, I fought the earth as it pressed down on me. My dreams were of the dark and of the crawling things that dwell in it. Sometimes my body would be caught up in the roots of trees and sometimes I would be alone in endless tunnels. I still have those dreams, but now, they bring me joy. For when I faced my dreams, embraced my fear, I came to know my familiar. We all have a creature, through which we can travel through the world, through which we see the world, that is our other self. Mine is the fox, that wanderer in the dark places of the forest.”   “I saw you once. You had your fox–head stick in your hands. Annie said you were with your familiars, but you hadn’t gone anywhere. You hadn’t turned into a fox. It could just be your mind, your subconscious, playing tricks.”   “How eager you are to explain things. No, my mind is not playing tricks. I choose to go into my dreams, I choose the paths. Maybe I do see there what I intuit. There is an explanation for you. Does it matter? It is a skill, if you wish to call it so, that has served me well over the years. It is a skill I learned with my mother’s help. With my help, you could do the same. But first you must learn to love falling.”   I laughed “I very much doubt I would ever do that.”   “Yes, you can, Judith. Let me help you.”   “No, don't you see? I'm not interested in becoming a wisewoman.”   “It is not a choice, Judith. You were born to be one. It's in your blood. Your mother...”   “My mother again! You know nothing about my mother.”   “And you do? You were only young when you lost her. How many things does a mother hide from her daughter, waiting the time when the child is ready to hear? How much have you told Jo of your past? Very little, so much so it is virtually nothing.”    I remained silent.    “When I say you have no choice, I mean that to deny what is inside you is dangerous. You too have power, I have seen it. Deny it and it will break out all the same. That is what is happening with your dreams. You have always had them, ever since you experienced the first blood of womanhood, but they are getting stronger and more frequent. You must admit that is true.”   “So I get nightmares, so what? I can live with them.”   “But can others? Those around you?”   “What?”   “Sarah died of a fall. You fell from a tree. Your dreams can spill into your life, endangering you and those you love”   “Preposterous, they were accidents.”
   “Were they, Judith? Are you sure?”
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