Then the water rippled, and a voice echoed, not aloud, but inside his bones.
"Welcome back."
Jude dropped to one knee, breath shallow. "What is this place?"
The water pulsed. The arches around the pool began to glow faintly. Mist rose from the surface.
"Your birthright. Your memory. The name you buried."
Jude stood slowly, staring into the shifting water. "I am Jude."
"You are not."
The voice was neither male nor female. Not a voice at all, really, more like a knowing that spoke. The kind of truth that makes the spine itch.
"You are Jude, and you are not. You wear the shape you were given. But you are what came before."
"What came before what?" he asked aloud.
The water shifted again. The image changed.
He saw twelve women standing at the orchard's edge, torches in hand, watching the mountain. Grace at the front, face lifted, mouth moving in prayer. Scarlet clutching Susan's hand. Stella's jaw clenched, eyes wild.
They weren't afraid.
They were waiting.
