Wise Child, by Monica Furlong
"I know a spell," I told Juniper when my hunger was somewhat appeased. I didn't want her to think she was the only one who could do magic. "Well, it's more of a charm, really. For the toothtache. Niall taught it to me.
"That boy with the sad eyes who lives in the house opposite the church?" (I was to be astonished at how carefully Juniper had observed us all.)
"I'll tell you if you like." I could never resist any chance to recite, so I plunged at once into the charm.
Peter sat weeping on a marble stone.
Jesus came and said,
'What aileth thee, Peter?'
He answereth and said,
'My Lord and my God.'
He that can say this, and believeth this for My Sake,
Never no more shall have the toothache.
I finished with a fine dramatic flourish.
"Well!" Said Juniper. "Does it work?"
"I'm not sure," I said truthfully. "I only half had toothache once, and I had a feeling it was about to get better anyway."
"Toothache is a difficult one," Juniper admitted, as one magician to another. "I expect I'd have some ideas if I racked my brains. Chamomile might help a bit. Now I must go and shut up the chickens - there's a wicked old fox on the prowl - and perhaps you could wash the plates?"
I did not want to admit that I was the only girl in those parts who had never washed plates - that I had always left it all to my grandmother - so although I hated doing those sorts of jobs, I lifted the big water jug that stood in a sink near the table and poured some water into a bowl. I used a sort of scratchy twig to take the stickiness off the plates. Luckily they were not very dirty. Then I found the cloth and dried them, and although a little of the stickiness came off on the cloth and made it dirty, I more or less got it done.
Juniper meanwhile had come back bearing an armful of driftwood, and quite soon the salty flames began twisting green and blue around the wood. It was lovely to look it.
"Would you like me to tell you a story?" Juniper asked. "I'm a good storyteller."
I said nothing, feeling that the distance between us had become too narrow over supper. I had even told her what I knew about the stars - how my father used to take me out at night and hold me on his shoulder to teach me the names of the planets. And how in the summer sometimes we would lie out at night on the hill with a blanket or two and watch the great constellations wheel about us. I would fall asleep and wake up and find that Orion, my favorite, had moved toward the horizon and that other stars were looking down on me. Suddenly I wanted Finbar very badly. As if Juniper could read my mind, she said, very quietly, "He will be back, Wise Child. In a while. Meanwhile, you will have to make do with me."