The Hallowed Isle Book Three by Diana L. Paxson

curled up on the grass and let the hot tears flow.
    Guendivar was still sniffling when she became aware that she was not alone. In that first moment, she could not have told what had changed. It was like hearing music, though there was no sound, or a scent, though there was no change in the air. As she sat up, her senses settled on vision as a mode of perception, and she saw a shimmer that she recognized as the spirit of the pool. Words formed in her awareness.
    â€œ You are different today . . .”
    â€œI’ve got my moonblood,” Guendivar said bitterly, “and now everything is going to change!”
    â€œ Everything is always changing .. . .”
    â€œSome changes are worse than others. Now my mother will make me stay home and spin while she talks to me about ruling a house and a husband! After this, she’ll never let me ride alone again! I don’t want this blood! I don’t want to change!”
    â€œ It was the blood that called me,” came the reply.
    â€œWhat?” She opened her eyes again. “I thought growing up would mean I couldn’t see you.”
    â€œ Not so. When you are in your blood it will be easier .. . .”
    Guendivar felt the hairs lift on her arms. Around her the air was thickening with glimmering forms: the slender shape of the Willow girl bending over her; spirits of reed and flower; airy forms that drifted on the wind; squat shapes that emerged from the stones.
    â€œWhy are you here?” she whispered. “What does my woman blood mean to you?”
    â€œ It means life. It means you are part of the magic.”
    â€œI thought it just meant having babies. I don’t want to be worn out like my mother, bearing child after child that dies.” Petronilla had borne eight infants, but only the oldest boys and Guendivar survived.
    â€œ When man and maid lie down together in the fields they make magic. Before, you were only a bud on the branch. Now you are the flower.”
    Guendivar sat back, thinking about that. Abruptly she found herself hungry. She reached for the bag, and then, remembering, started to offer a portion to the pool.
    â€œ You have something better to give us —” came the voices around her. “ There is a special power in the first spurting of a boy’s seed, and a girl’s first flow. Wash yourself in the spring.. . .”
    Guendivar flushed with embarrassment, even though she knew that human conventions meant less than nothing to the faerie kind. But gradually her shame shifted to something else, a dawning awareness of power. She bent, and scooping up the cool water in her palm, poured it over her thighs until her blood swirled dark in the clear water. When she was clean, she washed out her breeches and the saddle cloth and laid them out in the sun to dry.
    The faerie folk flitted around her in swirls of light.
    â€œ Sleep a little . . .” said the spirit of the pool, “ and we will send you dreams of power.”
    Guendivar lay back and closed her eyes. Almost immediately images began to come: the running of the deer, mare and stallion, sow and boar, men and women circling the Beltain fire. All the great dance of life whirled before her, faster and faster, shaping itself at last into the figure of a laughing maiden formed out of flowers.
    When she woke at last, the setting sun had turned all the vale into a blaze of gold. But the spirits had disappeared. Her clothing was dry, and for the moment, her flow of blood seemed to have ceased. Swiftly she dressed and cinched the saddle cloth back onto the mare. She was still not looking forward to telling her mother what had happened. But one thing had changed—the thought of growing up no longer made her afraid.
    For all the years of Guendivar’s childhood, the Tor had been a constant presence, felt, even when clouds kept it from being seen. But except for one visit made when she was too little to remember,