And so I rubbed my eyes and looked again and saw only a deer. The woman had been an expectation of my mind, based on my Wit. Physically, she was not there. Her presence inside the hind distorted my Witsense of the deer. I shuddered away from the wrongness of it. Rolf had left us behind. In confusion, Nighteyes and I hastened after Rolf as he strode away from the sheltered dell and the quiet pool. Some time and distance later, “What was that?” I asked him.
He rounded on me, affronted by my ignorance. “What was that? That was you, a dozen years hence, if you do not mend your ways. You saw her eyes! That was no deer down there, but a woman in the skin of a hind. It's what I wanted you to see. The wrongness of it. The complete perversion of what should have been shared trust.”, I looked at him quietly, waiting. I think he had expected me to concur with his judgment, for he made a deep noise in his throat. “That was Delayna, who slipped through the ice into Marple Pond and drowned two winters ago. She ought to have died right then, but no, she clung to Parela. The hind either hadn't the heart or the strength to oppose her. Now there they are, a deer with the mind and heart of a woman, and Parela with scarcely a thought to call her own. It goes against all nature, it does. Ones like Delayna are at the root of all the evil talk the unBlooded wag on about us. She's what makes them want to hang us and burn us over water. She deserves such treatment.”
I looked away from his vehemence. I'd come too close to that fate myself to believe anyone could deserve it. My body had lain cold in my grave for days while I'd shared Nighteyes' flesh and life. I was certain then that Rolf suspected as much of me. I wondered then, if he so despised me, why he taught me at all. As if he had caught some whiff of my thought, he added gruffly, “Anyone untaught can do a wrong thing. But after he's been taught, there's no excuse to repeat it. None at all.”
He turned and strode off down the path. We trailed after him. Nighteyes' tail stuck out straight behind him. Rolf muttered to himself as he stumped along. “Delayna's greed destroyed them both. Parela's got no life as a deer. No mate, no young, when she dies, she'll just stop, and Delayna with her. Delayna couldn't accept death as a woman, but she won't accept life as a deer, either. When the bucks call, she won't let Parela answer them. She probably thinks she's being faithful to her husband or some such nonsense. When Parela dies and Delayna with her, what will either of them have gained, save a few years of existence that neither of them could call complete?”