Wh an easy but flawlessly precise turn of his wrist, Friedrich Gilder lifted a leaf of gold on the fine hairs of his brush and laid it over. The gold, light enough to float on the gentlest breath of air, drew down onto the wet gesso as if by magic. Leaning over his workbench in concentration, Friedrich used a sheep's-wool pad to carefully rub the freshly gilded surface of the small stylized carving of a bird, checking for any flaws.

Outside, the rain occasionally tink-tink-tinked against the window. Though midday, when the prowling clouds passed bearing fits of rain, it darkened as if to dusk.

From the back room where he worked, Friedrich glanced up, looking out through the doorway into the main room, watching the familiar movements of his wife casting her stones over the Grace. Many years ago he had gilded the lines of her Grace, the eight-sided star within a circle within a square within another circle-after she had properly drawn it all out, of course. The Grace would have been useless had he drawn it. A Grace, to be real, had to be drawn by one with the gift.

He enjoyed doing whatever he could to make the things in her life a little more beautiful. She was what made his life beautiful. He thought that her smile had been gilded by the Creator Himself.

Friedrich saw, too, the woman who had ventured to their home for a telling lean forward expectantly, absorbed in watching the fall of her fate.

If they could really see such things, people would not come to Althea for a telling, yet they always watched intently as the stones rolled from his wife's long slender fingers and out across the board upon which was drawn the Grace.

This woman, middle-aged and widowed, was a pleasant sort, and had been to see Althea twice before, but that had been several years back. As he had concentrated on his own work, he'd absently heard her tell Althea about her several grown children who were married and lived close to her, and that her first grandchild was on the way. Now, though, it was the drop of stones, not a child, that held the woman's interest.

"Again?" she asked. It was not a question so much as astonishment. "They did it again."

Althea said nothing. Friedrich burnished the freshly laid gold as he listened to the familiar sounds of his wife gathering up her stones from the board.

"Do they do that, often?" the woman asked, her wide eyes turning from the Grace to Althea's face. Althea didn't answer. The woman rubbed her knuckles so hard that Friedrich thought the skin might come off. "What does it mean?"

"Hush," Althea murmured as she rattled the stones.

Friedrich had never heard his wife be so uncommunicative with a customer. The stones clacking in Althea's loose fist seemed to have an urgency to their bony knock. The woman rubbed her knuckles, awaiting her destiny.

Again, the seven stones rolled out across the board, come to divulge the holy secrets of the fates.

From where he sat, Friedrich couldn't see the stones fall, but he could hear the familiar sound of their uneven shapes rolling across the board. After all these years, he rarely watched Althea practice her profession, that is, watched the stones themselves. He did, though, despite the years, savor watching Althea. As he looked out, seeing the side of her strong jaw, her hair still mostly a golden sweep down past her jaw, falling like sunlight over her shoulder, he smiled.

The woman gasped. "Again!" As if to make the woman's point, thunder in the distance rolled over the house. "Mistress Althea, what could it mean?" Her voice carried the unmistakable timbre of apprehension.

Althea, on her pillow on the floor, leaning on one arm, her withered legs out to the side, used the arm against the floor to straighten herself. She finally looked at the woman.

"It means, Margery, that you are a woman of strong spirit."

"That's one of those two stones? Me? A strong spirit?"

"That's right," Althea confirmed with a nod.

"And the other, then? It can't be good. Not there. It can only mean the worst.»

"I was about to tell you, that the other stone, which follows with each throw, is also a strong spirit. A man of strong spirit."

Margery peered again at the stones on the board. She rubbed her knuckles. "But, but they both.. " She gestured. "They both keep going… out there. To beyond the outer circle. To the underworld." Her troubled eyes searched Althea's face.

Althea pulled on her knees, drawing her legs before herself to cross them. Though her legs were withered and nearly useless, crossing them before her pillow on the floor helped her sit up straight.

"No, no, my dear. Not at all. Don't you see? This is good. Both strong spirits going through life together, and together ever after. It's the best possible outcome of a telling."

Margery cast another worried look at the board. "Really? Really, Mistress Althea? You think it's good, then, that they keep… doing that?"

"Of course, Margery. Good it is. Two strong spirits joining."

Margery touched a finger to her lower lip as she peered up at Althea. "Who is it then? Who is this mystery man I'm to meet?"

Althea shrugged. "Too soon to tell. But the stones say you will meet a man"-she made a show of putting her first and second fingers tight together-"and you two will be fast with each other. Congratulations, Margery. It looks as if you are close to finding the happiness you seek."

"When? How soon?"

Again, Althea shrugged. "Too soon to tell. The stones only say 'will, not 'when. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next year. But the important thing is that you are near to meeting a man who will be good with you, Margery. You must now keep your eyes open. Don't hide yourself away in your house, or you will miss him."

"But if the stones say-"

"The stones say he is strong and he is open to you, but they don't fix it sure. That's up to you and the man. Keep yourself open to him when he comes into your life, or he may pass without seeing you."

"I will, Mistress Althea." The conviction in her voice strengthened. "I will. I'll stay prepared so when he happens into my life, I'll see him, and he'll see me, just as the stones foretell."

"Good."

The woman fished around in the leather purse hanging from her belt until she found a coin. She handed it over eagerly, pleased with the outcome of her telling.

Friedrich had watched Althea give tellings for nearly four decades. In all that time, he had never before seen her lie to someone.

The woman stood, holding out her hand. "May I help you, Mistress Althea?"

"Thank you, my dear, but Friedrich will help me, later. I want to stay with my board for now."

The woman smiled, perhaps daydreaming of the new life waiting for her. "Well, then, I'd best be on my way before it gets any later in the day… before nightfall. And then it's a long ride back." She leaned to the side and waved through the doorway. "Good day, Master Friedrich."

The rain rattled against the window in earnest. The sky, he noticed, had darkened, casting a gray gloom over their place in the swamp. Rising from his bench, Friedrich waved. "Let me see you to the door, Margery. You do have someone waiting to take you back, don't you?"

"My son-in-law is up at the rim of the canyon, where the path starts down in, waiting with our horses." She paused in the doorway and gestured to his work on the bench. "That's a fine piece you've made."

Friedrich smiled. "I hope to find a customer at the palace who thinks so, too."

"You will, you will. You do fine work. Everyone says so. Those who own a piece of your work count themselves as lucky."

Margery curtsied happily to Althea, thanking her again, before retrieving her lamb's-skin cloak from the hook by the door. She smiled out at the angry sky and donned the cloak, drawing its hood over her head, eager to be on her way to find her new man. It would be a long journey back. Before closing the door, Friedrich warned Margery to be absolutely certain to stay on the path and to watch her step up out of the canyon. She said she remembered the instructions and promised to follow them with care.

He watched her hurry off, disappearing into the shadows and mist, before closing the door tight against the foul weather. Silence settled once more inside the house. Outside, thunder rumbled in a deep voice, as if in discontent.

Friedrich shuffled up behind his wife. "Here, let me help you to your chair."

Althea had gathered up her stones. Once again, they rattled in her hand like the bones of spirits. As considerate as she always was, it was unlike her not to acknowledge him when he spoke. It was even more unlike her to cast her stones again after a customer left. Casting her stones for a telling called upon her gift in ways he could not fully understand, but he did understand how it fatigued her. Casting her stones for a telling drew down her strength so that it left her detached from the world and wanting anything but to cast them again for a while.

Now, though, she was in the spell of some tacit need.

She turned her wrist and opened her hand, casting the stones at her board as easily, as gracefully, as he handled his ethereal leaves of gold. Smooth, dark, irregular-shaped stones rolled forth, bouncing on the board, tumbling across the gilded Grace.

In their life together, Friedrich had seen her cast her stones tens of thousands of times. There were times when, much like her customers, he had tried to discern a pattern in the fall of the stones. He never could.

Althea always did.

She saw meaning no mere mortal could see. She saw in the random fall of the stones some obscure omen only a sorceress could decipher. Patterns of magic.

There was no pattern expressed through the act of the throw; it was the fall of the stones that was touched by powers he dared not consider, powers that spoke only to the sorceress through her gift. In that random motif of disorder, she could read the flow of powers through the world of life, and even, he feared, the world of the dead, although she never spoke of it. Despite how close they were in body and soul, this was one thing they could not share in their life together.

This time, as the stones rolled and wobbled across the board, one stopped in the exact center. Two stopped on opposite comers of the square where it touched the outer circle. Two ended up at opposite points where the square and the inner circle touched. The final two stones came to rest beyond the outer circle, which represented the underworld.