The Mirror & The Magic

by Coral Smith Saxe

  "Stranger things have happened."

  "Aaiggh!" She turned back to the pot of broth and began stirring vigorously, muttering under her breath.

  "What's that ye say, Julia?"

  She slowed her stirring. He stood behind her. Close enough so that he barely had to speak above a whisper. And he had said her name. In that whisky-and-satin voice.

  She swallowed against the sudden leaping of her heart. "I said 'bubble, bubble, toil and trouble, cauldron burn and fire bubble.' Got any eye of newt?"

  "I'm sorry I was sae blunt wi' ye." God, how his burr thickened and softened and melted her like butter when he spoke to her this way! She stiffened her spine against the onslaught of unreasonable pleasure that coursed through her.

  "I know I'm a wee bit zealous when it comes to protectin' my ain folk."

  "A wee bit?" She reached for the salt bowl, not daring to turn around and meet the brilliant blue eyes that went with that voice.

  "Verra well. A great lot. And Morestons have tricked us a time too many. I need to be certain that ye willna take advantage."

  "Oh, right, cooking and cleaning and nursing. That's taking advantage."

  He put his hands on her shoulders and gently turned her about. "It's my duty, Julia. With the other men taken ill, there was no one else I could ask to watch over you. And because I've been watchin', I know what a kindness you're doin' for us. Because I've been watchin', I know ye're not takin' advantage." He shook his head. "But if I hadna been watchin' and anything was to happen, I could never, never forgive ma'sel'."

  She gazed up at him, a bevy of conflicting emotions coursing through her. The tenderness of his voice, the sincerity of his tone warmed herbut his words angered her and hurt her pride. His nearness tantalized her and yet she knew how dangerous he could be. His total concern for his men touched herand still she was stung by the way he treated her as an outsider, a threat to his "ain folk," as he called them. She knew she was being irrational. She was an outsider, and had every intention of getting back outside as soon as she could.

  But it still hurt.

  She turned back to the pot, rubbing a hand over her eyes. She was tired, that was all. It had been one hellaciously long day and it wasn't over yet. No wonder her emotions were twisting like kites in the wind.

  ''It's all right," she said, with more crispness and determination than she felt. "I know you can't help yourself."

  He didn't back away. "Ye must be half dead on yer feet, lass," he said, lightly massaging her shoulders. She fought the urge to lean back into the relaxing pressure of his big hands and give in to the melting, after all. How could those huge work- and battle-hardened hands be so gentle? She gulped and slipped out from under his touch.

  "Why don't ye leave off and get some rest?" he asked, seeming oblivious to her sudden fear. "Ross and I didna eat the stew. And Dugan could eat beaks and feet and no' feel the difference. We three can tend to the men. Just tell us what to do."

  She heard the humble note in his voice as he asked for instructions. She turned with a small smile. "No. If you can stand it, I can. Besides, I doubt that anyone could sleep much with all the groaning going on down here."

  "It does sound as if we're settin' up a guild for it, wouldn't ye say?" He grinned. "Well, then, if ye won't go to your rest, ye can tell me what it is about my kitchen that you think is sae deadly."

  "Oh, my, where shall I start?" Her glance took in the entire room.

  His face fell. "That bad?"

  She nodded. "Worse."

  "Ah."

  Dawn came at last. The men had spent a miserable night, but one or two of them who had been least stricken began to rally. Julia was exhausted, dirty, and hungry. As the first glow over the hills crept in at the window, she made herself a cup of the broth and munched a late-winter apple, sure that these, at least, were safe for consumption.

  Darach sat beside her, keeping his own counsel. To her surprise the silence settled comfortably between them. He had been at her heels or by her side the whole night, as he had said, but he seemed more interested in hearing her ideas on how to improve his kitchen and his food stores than in testing her for witchcraft or espionage. He had listened with keen attention to all she said and asked pertinent questions about the ways and means of sanitation and food preparation.

  More than once she had turned to catch his eyes upon her, those watchful eyes, and been startled by the intensity in their blue depths. But he said nothing out of the ordinary to her and even seemed to go out of his way to show respect.

  Was this progress? She wasn't sure.

  She finished her breakfast and stood up from the stool where she had collapsed at long last. "I think I could sleep now," she said, yawning and stretching. "Ross knows what to do and Dugan's had a rest and can help." She looked down at Darach. "You'd better turn in, too. You haven't slept in over forty-eight hours, unless I miss my guess."

  He nodded and rubbed a hand over his stubbled chin. "Aye, I will. As soon as I've secured the house."

  He rose. She sighed as he followed her out of the kitchen. He accompanied her to the stairs and then watched until she shut the door of her chamber.

  To her surprise, no one came to lock the door.

  Darach watched Julia climb the stairs, a sudden wistfulness rising up in his heart. The sway of her hips and the flash of her ankles below her skirts delighted him, aroused him as always, but this sudden yearning caught him by surprise. He'd seen yet another side of Julia during the night. He'd known she was strong-minded and beautiful, clever and outspoken. Last night he'd seen her tender and gentle, and a true leader in a crisis. Not once had she lost her head, not even when Gordon had seemed to be choking to death before their eyes. And when she went among his men, soothing their brows with cool cloths, aiding them as they heaved their suppers left and right, she remained calm and collected, murmuring words of comfort and reassurance to each man in turn.

  For all her pepper-pot temper fits, her outlandish ways and words, she was a woman who'd make any man a jewel of a companion, he thought. She'd be a wife fit for a king, let alone a chief. And if she proved half as fiery in bed as she was in her defiance of him, her husband would be one lucky man indeed.

  He turned from the stairs with a sharp shake of his head. He wouldn't be that lucky man. He couldn't be. He'd forsaken those dreams long ago, when Isobel had died and he'd realized that the Morestons had declared a very different kind of war.

  He passed the great hall, where his men snored in chorus on their pallets. When he entered the library he found Alasdair sitting before the fire, a flask of spirits in his hand. Alasdair had been on the watch around the borders of their land when the men had taken ill. He'd taken over the task of tending to all the animals and other outside duties while the others continued nursing the sick.

  Darach walked over to his brother and held out his hand. Alasdair handed over the flask and Darach took a long pull. He wiped his mouth and handed it back, then hooked a footstool with one foot and dragged it near the hearth. He sat down with a soft groan.

  "Ross told me what happened," Alasdair said, still staring into the flames. "Good thing Julia, was here, eh?"

  "Aye, I suppose. 'Twas only a bit o' tainted meat in the stew. We'd have managed."

  "Ah, yes. I forgot your training as a surgeon."

  Darach scowled. "None o' your jibes today, lad. I'm that weary I might do something you'll regret."

  Alasdair took another pull from the flask. "Ye can't make me regret anything more than I already do."

  "Ye haven't lived that long."

  Alasdair fell silent. Darach peered at him. "Have ye done something I'll regret?"

  His brother shook his head. "Dunna worry, big brothair. I've no' done anything that would trouble ye more than a gnat."

  "What hae ye done?"

  Alasdair looked at him for a long moment, then looked at the fire. "Not a damned thing."

  "Maybe that's the problem."

  "Meaning?"

 
; "Meaning that maybe ye need a bit more to occupy that clever brain o' yours. A wife and bairns, maybe?"

  Alasdair choked on his drink. "Oh, aye," he said when he could speak again. "Ye're a fine one to talk of wives and bairns. Ye're the older of us. Ye're the chief. Don't ye think ye ought to take yer own advice?"

  Darach reached for the flask. "It's no' the same." "Oh, aye. I forgot. Ye're not mortal, like the rest of us."

  Darach glared at him over the edge of the flask but Alasdair continued. "Do ye think we're all blind?" he asked. "Ye're as touchy as a bear with a thorn in its paw. Ye can't take your eyes off her for a moment. Ye can hardly say her name aloud. And ye must admit ye've spent the night wi' her. I'm surprised ye aren't camped beside her bed even now. Or in it."

  Darach was on his feet in an instant. "Watch yer tongue, cub. What I do or don't do is no concern of yers."

  Alasdair rose to face him. "And what I do or don't do is none of yers," he said evenly.

  "I'm the eldest and your chief. I have a duty to see to yer welfare. I'm responsible for ye."

  "Ye're no' my father!"

  "Right. I'm not. Da was always too soft wi' ye."

  "And ye're going to right that mistake, are ye? Ye may be my brother, but no one named ye the savior of my soul! Even ye have to admit ye're not up to playin' that part!"

  Darach wanted to grab him by the shirt and toss him into the next county. He fought the urge and caught his temper before it went flying off for parts unknown.

  "This is the same damned argument we've been havin' for the past three years," he said, suddenly more weary than before. He sank onto the stool.

  "Too right." Alasdair remained standing, his legs apart in a fighting stance. Darach looked at his brother. Passion lit the blue eyes they both had inherited from their mother. He recalled what his mother had told him: If there was anything as fruitless as fighting with yourself, it was fighting with your own kin. And he knew Alasdair wouldn't back down.

  He rose. Alasdair eyed him warily.

  "I'm goin' to my chamber," Darach said. "Tell Ross and Dugan to summon me only if they can show blood or flames." He handed the flask back to Alasdair, turned, and left the room.

  His life was changing, he thought as he climbed the stairs. Changing beneath his very hands, running out of control. He hated the sensation of helplessness it brought and he raged against it. He was chief of the smallest, most eccentric clan in all the Highlands, and he loved every soul entrusted to his care with a fierce passion. It fell to him to see that things either didn't change or to control those changes and wrest them around to benefit his clan. To do any less was to dishonor the good, old name of MacStruan.

  He paused before Julia's door, his anger filling him once more, despite his exhaustion. She had been the herald of these changes, he thought.

  Or was she the creator of change?

  Who had sent her into his life? He wasn't going to let her wreak havoc on his world. He could at least control one small woman.

  Couldn't he?

  "Damnation," he muttered. He stomped past her door and went into his own room. He didn't bother with the bedcovers, simply pulled loose his plaid, wrapped himself in its warmth, and fell into a bottomless well of sleep.

  The mirror woke Julia.

  She shivered as she sat up in the bed. Night had fallen, filling her room with a velvety darkness. All except for one corner.

  The faint glow reminded her of Tinker Bell caught in the dresser drawer. But this didn't feel quite as whimsical as pixie dust. She felt that inexorable pull once more, that calling to her.

  Against her will, she slipped off the bed and padded across the cold floor to where the mirror sat on the tabletop, its lavender-gold glow reflecting on the tapestried wall.

  She didn't want to look. But she had to. She leaned over the edge once more.

  She gasped. The glow had become even brighter. And where she should see her own reflection, that other woman's face peered out at her.

  "Who are you?" she whispered.

  "Who are you?"

  Julia saw that the face looked as puzzled as hers must be. She had the giddy thought that somehow this woman had dialed a wrong number.

  "Who are you?" the face repeated.

  "I'm" Her New York basic training kicked in. "I'm nobody. How are you contacting me?"

  "You don't belong there." The voice seemed to shimmer in the air, as if coming up through water. Julia shivered even though the sound was melodious, the face lovely.

  "How are you doing this? Did you wire my mirror somehow?" Anger began to mingle with Julia's fear. "Why are you speaking to me?"

  "You don't belong." The voice began fading.

  "Why do you keep saying that?" Julia sensed the woman slipping away, and indeed, the image was beginning to lose its sharpness, and the glow from the silver began to dim.

  "Leave this place. Your life is in peril." The voice faded into a soft, silken hiss. And then it fell silent. The mirror went dark before Julia's eyes.

  "What is happening to me?" she whispered into the darkness. She shook the hand mirror gently. Her image jiggled in the normal way. Nothing. No other voices, no other faces. "Damn!"

  Weariness swept over her once again. She'd had her fill of this strange place and these strange happenings. She couldn't think anymore. She didn't want to think.

  She felt her way carefully back to bed in the inky darkness. Then, with a last shudder, she burrowed under and went back to sleep until dawn leaked in at the window and Darach came knocking at the door, summoning her to breakfast.

  Chapter Ten

  A short while later, Julia spun about in the kitchen. "You mean it?" she asked, breathless. "You want me to cook for you? And you'll let me out of my room to do it?"

  "Aye, if you're sure ye want the task." Darach's mouth quirked up at one corner. "It's no' the daintiest work."

  "Dainty?" Julia sniffed. "I once prepared a banquet for the entire Yugoslavian diplomatic corps, their attaches, husbands, wives, children, pets, and hangers-on. And that was in one of the crummiest hotel kitchens ever to squeak past a health inspection. I'm not looking for dainty. But I don't want to end up like your men out there either." She smiled at Darach. "It'll be good to have something to do. Thank you."

  He nodded. "It'll be one less thing that the men and I have to worry about.''

  "Whoa," she said. "I didn't say I could do this all by myself. I can't even lift some of these pots. I'll need at least one, better two, men to help me with each meal."

  "It can be done. The men are used to takin' turns in here."

  "Good." She rubbed her hands together and looked about her. "First I need to make something light. The men's stomachs won't take much solid food today. Then we start cleaning up this place."

  Darach's eyebrows went up. "Cleaning? But you and Ilast nighthow much cleaner can it get?"

  She laughed. "A whole lot. So are you going to help me or just stand there like a monument?"

  "I have work to do. I'll summon Ross."

  "Okay."

  She set to work, humming. By midday her humming had stopped. Filth and decay lay all around her. The tools she had to work with were primitive at best, the overall conditions the same. She'd need days just to dig out, she thought.

  But she was in her element. Back in a kitchen, a big one, preparing meals and creating order out of the chaos. And when she served the men the tasty vegetable broth and soft egg custard she'd concocted, they were visibly grateful.

  To her amazement, Darach left her alone most of the day. Of course, she had Ross or Dugan with her all the time, but he didn't seem to need to watch over her personally. She mused on this as she cleaned up after the evening meal, trying to decide whether to be grateful or sorry for his absence.

  She went to bed that night tired but satisfied. Whatever Darach's motives for enlisting her in his household, she at least had something over which she could exercise some control. The kitchen would be her domain and she would belong there,
if nowhere else in this strange world. If she could prove herself to Darach and the others, perhaps they would let her go.

  Several days passed, full of hard work and pleasant hours getting to know each of the lairds. The men had rallied quickly and all had returned to their work within a week's time. Each of them came to Julia, one by one, and expressed his thanks for her care, as well as extravagant praise for her cooking. She warmed herself in their regard, though she noticed Darach kept silent and distant from her. Was he waiting to see if she was going to slip something into the soup and wipe them all out? She suspected as much, a thought which gave her only grim amusement. As if she would know what to do all alone in this weird place, with all of them dead! As if they hadn't come near to doing themselves in with all the spoiled food and dirty utensils she'd found.

  The subject of spoiled food brought to mind her current dilemma. If she was going to cook, she needed fresh food each day. She could figure out how to preserve some foods for later, but she needed fresh produce, herbs, and seasonings to prepare anything decent on an everyday basis.

  "Ross," she asked one morning as they prepared eggs for breakfast, "is there a market near here? We're going to need supplies soon."

  He frowned. "Ye'd have to go to Kinloch Rannoch if ye want to go to market."

  She grimaced. "I don't suppose Darach would allow that, would he?"

  Ross shook his head. "I doubt it. And even if ye did gang there, we've few coins to spend. What is it we're needin'?"

  "Oh, fresh vegetables and fruits. Cheese. Butter. Spices. Fish. Flour, rice, potatoes, sugar, salt, pepper" She looked at his crestfallen face. "Too much?"

  "I dunna know. I don't know what some of those things are. But I can tell ye we canna afford more than a bit o' flour and salt at market when we do go." He brightened. "But vegetables we have. In the gardens."

  "Gardens?" She clasped her hands. "That's wonderful! Oh, please take me to them, Ross!"

  "Well . . ."

  "Please?" She turned on her most wheedle-some smile. "If you want to get sick again," she said, shameless in her arguments, "if you want Darach and the others cooking for you again"