Gersonde’s face became still. With her hands she made the passes that were not at all necessary to soothsaying, but which Black Martin had taught her to make to impress the questioner and those gathered around. She made them now without thought; they had become old habit, what her body did while the inner woman reported what dim, veiled things she might perceive.... The youth’s stopping had stopped others. Said one, “Those are witch’s passes!”
Gersonde spoke. “You shall have time—you shall have time—but you shall meet your mother on the road. She comes to find you who are herself straying afar. For all that she is crippled, she will meet you before World’s End.”
“How,” cried the youth, “did you know that she was crippled?”
He spoke, spreading his hands, to the increasing crowd: “This is that soothsayer who was here before. She can tell when God is going to shake the stars like apples upon the earth—”
A current had set toward this corner. With it came the palmer who had crossed this place before. He came, tall and burning-eyed, holding his staff with the dried bit of palm. “What do you here who should fill the church porch? What do you here, gathered about a woman?”
One cried out of the throng to Gersonde: “Tell us when will God shake the stars like apples upon the earth?”
Gersonde made her passes in the air. “When the stars grow on an apple tree.”
“When comes the End,—this week—next week?”
“Know you not,” cried the palmer, “that these soothsaying women are sorceresses, leagued with the Fiend?”