I've always been able to view anyone I liked, and at the same time it has always made life hard for me. I used to want to warn those I saw, but rarely did they respond favorably of the knowledge that they would marry a woman they hated now, or that they would have a near miss with drowning. The first man I viewed had the best response to the knowledge that he was going to break his arm falling off a horse. He scowled at me and cuffed me around the ears - this would be when I was twelve or so. "You just be quiet, little girl, and stop trying to stir up trouble," he told me, and then gave me a piece of chocolate and sent me home.
My mother had walked out of Baerlon when I was young, and my father had died before that in a fight in a tavern, so the care of me passed to my three aunts – Jan, Miren, and Rana. They were fond of me, but could be very strict whenever I tried to stretch my limits – which I did quite often. Even when I was very young, I grew skilled at crawling out of open doors. My first real adventure was when I crawled all the way across the street into the baker's house. I imagine that she was slightly surprised to find a young child in her kitchen, but I just remember her scooping me up and carrying me back across the street – which, of course, I thought was great fun. She returned me to my aunts, who had been panicking about where I could have gone.
They were so relieved to have me returned safely that I wasn't punished for that. However, when I began walking, they encountered another bucketful of trouble. I frequently escaped the house to wander the streets, and though I always came back, my aunts worried themselves sick all day. I am ashamed to say that to me, this was all part of the game of escaping.
I think that I had my first viewings when I was almost twelve. They scared me, and I took to staying inside, huddled on my bed and not looking at anyone, for a very short week. Then my aunt Miren walked upstairs and threw the blankets off of me and stood there, hands impassively on hips. "Are you sick, girl?"
"No," I said miserably.
"Then why are you up here in your bed, all day, as if you were?"
"I see things around people," I whimpered, feeling very sorry for myself. "And it scares me. Am I going mad, Auntie?"
In a single step Miren was over to me, and my cheek stung viciously with the strength of her slap.
"What was that for?" I whined, rubbing my cheek.
"Stop this right now," said my Aunt Miren. "You are not a young child, so stop acting like one. You are feeling sorry for yourself, and I know a very good cure for that…."
"No, really. I'm fine," I said hurriedly. Auntie Miren's "remedies" were the foulest things I'd ever tasted.
"Then get out of that bed and come downstairs to eat something. You must be hungry."
"I am, a little," I admitted. "But…"
"No buts about it, young lady. You are coming downstairs if I must drag you out of that bed. So are you coming?"
I hesitated, but the mention of food had awakened my stomach, and I climbed reluctantly out of my bed. After that I found that the viewings didn't bother me as much, and gradually they became merely a personal idiosyncrasy – like some people have eyes for horses or luck with gambling.
However, I did begin telling people about my viewings as soon as I was numbed to this strangeness of mine. After all, if I didn't find it strange, why should someone else? My aunts were very helpful in warding off the anger of these victims of my viewings. "She just has an overactive imagination," I remember Aunt Rana saying to an angry family that showed up on our doorstep, blaming me for the death of their son – a death that I had foretold. "You needn't take her so seriously. She's only a little girl, you know." Then she shut the door firmly, and bolted it, before giving me the spanking of my life and sending me upstairs without a bite of the pie that had just come out of the oven. I sulked about that for quite a while, I recall.
However, the first time I truly put my small family in danger was when I was when I was nearly thirteen, though still terribly naïve. I looked at a man in the street with his wife, and saw that he would marry a woman that I recognized as a woman who sold produce downtown. I walked over to him and tugged on his sleeve and told him what I had seen. His wife gave me an annoyed look.
"Are you trying to spread rumors, little girl?" she asked sourly. "You shouldn't say such ugly lies."
"Oh, come now. She's only a little girl. What does she know?" said the man, and laughed, but he looked at me nervously before they passed down the street.
I fear it may have been my fault, I fear, that the man chose to run away only a few days later. He was afraid, I think, that I had overheard him and would tell his wife about his plans. The wife remembered my warning and gathered a mob, then marched them to my house and accused me of using the One Power on her husband, or giving them some sort of potion. My aunts grabbed my arm and drew me aside before I went outside. "Elmindreda…please, tell them something. Something other than the truth." My Aunt Jan said fiercely.
"Why should I lie?" I asked. "I just…"
"Just trust me that it is not a good idea," said Miren harshly. "Say that…you overheard them, or something. We've got to get out of this trouble. We'll speak to you later."
I told my story about overhearing them together in a flat, emotionless voice. I didn't like telling lies, and I didn't really understand the danger. My aunts promised to punish me, and emphasized that I was a child. If they hadn't been so righteously angry at me, the mob might have killed me, or burned our house down.
After the mob was gone, my aunts sat me down and explained to me why people would shout at me in the streets, and why people with torches sometimes came to my house in the evenings, and why the Dragon's Fang had appeared on our door once. Thankfully the Town Watch had come and dispersed the mobs, and my aunt had rubbed the charcoal drawing off before morning, though she had looked on the point of tears.
"My dear, about these viewings of yours, if they really are true…"
"They are!" I insisted. "Remember-"
"You have been right, once in a while, and I admit that it is a bit too often to be attributed to coincidence, but…Elmindreda, darling, you must be careful of who you tell about these things you see."
"But won't they want a warning?"
"People are funny, darling," my wise old aunt told me. "Half the time they want to know what will happen, but only if it's good, like gaining a fortune, or becoming famous. People don't want to hear about how they're going to get their arm broken or fall in love with someone they dislike, and too often, the warnings you give tend to be of that sort. Please, Elmindreda, for my sake…don't say anything about your viewings….to anyone. They may be putting you in danger."
"But why would people want to hurt me or you?"
"These things you see show that you're different, and sometimes it scares people, and people want to hurt things that scare them. I'm afraid that if you keep telling people about these things, we may have worse than the Dragon's Fang or mobs threatening fire. Promise me, darling, you won't tell anyone about these viewings."
I was still confused, but agreeably I said, "I promise, Auntie," and I wouldn't forget it.
