Mary lay awake, watching the shadows on the wall dance with the flickering light from her candle.
It had to be near morning. She stood up and wrapped her blanket around her shoulders and walked to the window. She opened the shutters and leaned out into the cool morning. The horizon was dark and the sky was a still moonless sea.
She leaned there on the sill and breathed the cool air in in deep deliberate breaths. She could smell the sea.
She was afraid, though she couldn’t quite place what she was afraid of.
She had gone over the dream so many times. So vivid. So strange.
In the market with her mother the day before, she was overcome with such a sense of dread, of panic. The noise, the clutter, the smells, it was all too much. All the merchant’s eyes on her,their features seemed sharper and exaggerated somehow. She felt like she was being watched, by something malevolent.
These are the thoughts of a madwoman, she thought, as a chill went up her spine. She shuddered and leaned out to pull the shudders closed when she notiched a bright light upon the hills in the east.
She wrapped the blanket tighter around her and stepped back from the window. The light rose higher over the hill and down into the glen and was moving towards her at a steady pace. It moved over the land like a spirit over the dark waters.
The candle went out behind her. Mary backed up and sat on the edge of her bed, dropping the blanket from her shoulders.
The Light was outside her window, it was waiting. She began to hear a voice in her mind. The voice sounded like a thousand rivers flowing into the ocean. She nodded. Suddenly, the Light was in the room, it was upon her, it was around her, it was in her. It felt as if a cool breeze was blowing through her. She lay back on the bed, a wild wind began circling her, touching her hair, her neck. Her long brown hair blowing across her face. She began to laugh.
She heard the sound of children whispering to her, they were angels, she knew it.
“Hail, Mary.” Girls voices sang.
Mary smiled.
“You shall be called blessed by all generations.” A boys voice rang in her ears like the music of a thousand bells across a thousand years.