The malevolent green eyes that glared at him from the middle of the bucket disappeared and the milk went gollup!, a spray of creamy drops erupting from the bucket like a miniature volcano.
“Shit!” he said. Mrs. McCallum had backed away as far as she could get and was staring at the bucket in terror, both hands clapped across her mouth. Aidan had one hand pressed over his own mouth, and was similarly wide-eyed—but a faint fizzing sound was audible from his direction.
Roger’s heart was pounding from adrenaline—and a strong desire to wring Aidan McCallum’s scrawny neck. He wiped the splattered cream deliberately from his face, then, gritting his teeth, reached gingerly into the bucket of milk.
It took several tries to grab the thing, which felt like nothing so much as a very muscular and animated glob of mucus, but the fourth try succeeded, and he triumphantly pulled a very large and indignant bullfrog out of the bucket, showering milk in every direction.
The frog dug its back legs ferociously into his slippery palm and broke his grip, launching itself in a soaring leap that covered half the distance to the door and made Mrs. McCallum scream out loud. The startled baby woke and added to the uproar, while the cream-covered frog plopped its way rapidly out of the door and into the rain, leaving yellow splotches in its wake.
Aidan prudently followed it out at a high rate of speed.
Mrs. McCallum had sat down on the floor, thrown her apron over her head, and was having hysterics under it. The baby was shrieking, and milk dripped slowly from the edge of the table, punctuating the patter of rain outside. The roof was leaking, he saw; long wet streaks darkened the unbarked logs behind Mrs. McCallum, and she was sitting in a puddle.
With a deep sigh, he plucked the baby out of its cradle, surprising it sufficiently that it gulped and quit screaming. It blinked at him, and stuck its fist in its mouth. He had no idea of its sex; it was an anonymous bundle of rags, with a pinched wee face and a wary look.
Holding it in one arm, he crouched and put the other round Mrs. McCallum’s shoulders, patting her gingerly in hopes of getting her to stop.
“It’s all right,” he said. “It was just a frog, ye know.”
She’d been moaning like a banshee and uttering small intermittent screams, and she kept doing that, though the screams became less frequent, and the moaning disintegrated at last into more or less normal crying, though she refused to come out from under the apron.
His thigh muscles were cramped from squatting, and he was wet, anyway. With a sigh, he lowered himself into the puddle beside her and sat, patting her shoulder every now and then so she’d know he was still there.
The baby seemed happy enough, at least; it was sucking its fist, undisturbed by its mother’s fit.
“How old’s the wean?” he said conversationally, during a brief pause for breath. He knew its age approximately, because it had been born a week after Orem McCallum’s death—but it was something to say. And for as old as it was, it seemed terribly small and light, at least by contrast to his memories of Jemmy at that age.
She mumbled something inaudible, but the crying eased off into hiccups and sighs. Then she said something else.
“What’s that, Mrs. McCallum?”
“Why?” she whispered from under the faded calico. “Why has God brought me here?”
Well, that was a bloody good question; he’d asked that one fairly often himself, but hadn’t got back any really good answers yet.
“Well … we trust He’s got a plan of some sort,” he said a little awkwardly. “We just don’t know what it is.”
“A fine plan,” she said, and sobbed once. “To bring us all this way, to this terrible place, and then take my man from me and leave me here to starve!”
“Oh … it’s no such a terrible place,” he said, unable to refute anything else in her statement. “The woods and all … the streams, the mountains … it’s … um … very pretty. When it’s not raining.” The inanity of this actually made her laugh, though it quickly devolved into more weeping.
“What?” He put an arm round her and pulled her a little closer, both to offer comfort, and in order to make out what she was saying, under her makeshift refuge.
“I miss the sea,” she said very softly, and leaned her calico-swathed head against his shoulder, as though she was very tired. “I never shall see it again.”
She was very likely right, and he could find nothing to say in reply. They sat for some time in a silence broken only by the baby’s slobbering over its fist.
“I won’t let ye starve,” he said at last, softly. “That’s all I can promise, but I do. Ye won’t starve.” Muscles cramped, he got stiffly to his feet, and reached down to one of the small rough hands that lay limply in her lap. “Come on, then. Get up. Ye can feed the wean, while I tidy up a bit.”
The rain had ceased by the time he left, and the clouds had begun to drift apart, leaving patches of pale blue sky. He paused at a turn in the steep, muddy path to admire a rainbow—a complete one, that arched from one side of the sky to the other, its misty colors sinking down into the dark wet green of the dripping mountainside across from him.
It was quiet, save for the splat and drip of water from the leaves and the gurgle of water running down a rocky channel near the trail.
“A covenant,” he said softly, out loud. “What’s the promise, then? Not a pot of gold at the end.” He shook his head and went on, grabbing at branches and bushes to keep from sliding down the mountainside; he didn’t want to end up like Orem McCallum, in a tangle of bones at the bottom.
He’d talk to Jamie, and also to Tom Christie and Hiram Crombie. Among them, they could put out the word, and ensure the widow McCallum and her children got enough food. Folk were generous to share—but someone had to ask.
He glanced back over his shoulder; the crooked chimney was just visible above the trees, but no smoke came from it. They could gather enough firewood, she said—but wet as it was, it would be days before they had anything that would burn. They needed a shed for the wood, and logs cut, big enough to burn for a day, not the twigs and fallen branches Aidan could carry.
As though the thought had summoned him, Aidan came into view then. The boy was fishing, squatting on a rock beside a pool some thirty feet below, back turned to the trail. His shoulder blades stuck out through the worn fabric of his shirt, distinct as tiny angel wings.
The noise of the water covered Roger’s footsteps as he made his way down the rocks. Very gently, he fitted his hand around the skinny, pale neck, and the bony shoulders hunched in surprise.
“Aidan,” he said. “A word wi’ you, if ye please.”
The dark came down on All Hallows’ Eve. We went to sleep to the sound of howling wind and pelting rain, and woke on the Feast of All Saints to whiteness and large soft flakes falling down and down in absolute silence. There is no more perfect stillness than the solitude in the heart of a snowstorm.
This is the thin time, when the beloved dead draw near. The world turns inward, and the chilling air grows thick with dreams and mystery. The sky goes from a sharp clear cold where a million stars burn bright and close, to the gray-pink cloud that enfolds the earth with the promise of snow.
I took one of Bree’s matches from its box and lit it, thrilling to the tiny leap of instant flame, and bent to put it to the kindling. Snow was falling, and winter had come; the season of fire. Candles and hearth fire, that lovely, leaping paradox, that destruction contained but never tamed, held at a safe distance to warm and enchant, but always, still, with that small sense of danger.
The smell of roasting pumpkins was thick and sweet in the air. Having ruled the night with fire, the jack-o’-lanterns went now to a more peaceful fate as pies and compost, to join the gentle rest of the earth before renewal. I had turned the earth in my garden the day before, planting the winter seeds to sleep and swell, to dream their buried birth.
Now is the time when we reenter the womb of the world, dreaming the dreams of snow and silence. Waking to
the shock of frozen lakes under waning moonlight and the cold sun burning low and blue in the branches of the ice-cased trees, returning from our brief and necessary labors to food and story, to the warmth of firelight in the dark.
Around a fire, in the dark, all truths can be told, and heard, in safety.
I pulled on my woolen stockings, thick petticoats, my warmest shawl, and went down to poke up the kitchen fire. I stood watching wisps of steam rise from the fragrant cauldron, and felt myself turn inward. The world could go away, and we would heal.
39
I AM THE RESURRECTION
November 1773
A hammering on the door roused Roger just before dawn. Next to him, Brianna made an inarticulate noise that experience interpreted as a statement that if he didn’t get up and answer the door, she would—but he’d regret it, and so would the unfortunate person on the other side.
Resigned, he flung back the quilt and ran a hand through his tangled hair. The air struck cold on his bare legs, and there was an icy breath of snow in the air.
“Next time I marry someone, I’ll pick a lass who wakes up cheerful in the morning,” he said to the hunched form beneath the bedclothes.
“You do that,” said a muffled voice from under the pillow—whose indistinct nature did nothing to disguise its hostile intonation.
The hammering was repeated, and Jemmy—who did wake up cheerful in the mornings—popped up in his trundle, looking like a redheaded dandelion gone to seed.
“Somebody’s knocking,” he informed Roger.
“Oh, are they? Mmphm.” Repressing an urge to groan, he rose and went to unbolt the door.
Hiram Crombie stood outside, looking more dour than usual in the milky half-light. Evidently not a happy riser, either, Roger reflected.
“My wife’s auld mither’s passed i’ the night,” he informed Roger without preamble.
“Passed what?” asked Jemmy with interest, poking his disheveled head out from behind Roger’s leg. He rubbed one eye with a fist, and yawned widely. “Mr. Stornaway passed a stone—he showed it to me and Germain.”
“Mr. Crombie’s mother-in-law has died,” Roger said, putting a quelling hand on Jem’s head, with an apologetic cough toward Crombie. “I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Crombie.”
“Aye.” Mr. Crombie appeared indifferent to condolence. “Murdo Lindsay says as ye ken a bit of Scripture for the burying. The wife’s wonderin’ would ye maybe come and say a word at the grave?”
“Murdo said … oh!” The Dutch family, that was it. Jamie had forced him to speak at the graves. “Aye, of course.” He cleared his throat by reflex; his voice was desperately hoarse—as usual in the mornings, until he’d had a cup of something hot. No wonder Crombie was looking dubious.
“Of course,” he repeated more strongly. “Is there … er … anything we can do to help?”
Crombie made a small negative gesture.
“The women will have her laid out by now, I expect,” he said, with the briefest of glances at the mound Brianna made in the bed. “We’ll start the diggin’ after breakfast. With luck, we’ll have her under before snow falls.” He lifted a sharp chin toward an opaque sky the soft gray of Adso’s belly fur, then nodded, turned on his heel, and left without further congenialities.
“Daddy—look!” Roger looked down to see Jem, fingers hooked in the corners of his mouth, pulled down to simulate the inverted “U” of Hiram Crombie’s customary expression. Small red brows wrinkled in a ferocious scowl, making the resemblance startling. Surprised into laughter, Roger gasped and choked, then coughed until he doubled over, wheezing.
“Are you all right?” Brianna had unearthed herself and was sitting up in bed, squint-eyed with sleep, but looking concerned.
“Aye, fine.” The words came out in a thready wheeze, nearly soundless. He took a breath and hawked deeply, expectorating a repellent glob into his hand, for lack of a handkerchief.
“Eew!” said the tender wife of his bosom, recoiling.
“Lemme see, Daddy!” said his son and heir, jostling for a look. “Eeew!”
Roger stepped outside and wiped his hand in the wet grass by the door. It was cold out, so early, but Crombie was undoubtedly right; snow was on the way again. The air had that soft, muffled feel to it.
“So old Mrs. Wilson is dead?” Brianna had come out after him, a shawl wrapped round her shoulders. “That’s too bad. Imagine coming so far, and then dying in a strange place, before you’ve even had time to settle.”
“Well, she had her family with her, at least. I expect she wouldna have wanted to be left alone to die in Scotland.”
“Mm.” Bree brushed strands of hair off her cheeks; she’d put her hair into a thick plait for sleeping, but a good bit of it had escaped from captivity and was waving up round her face in the cold, humid air. “Should I go up there, do you think?”
“Pay our respects? He said they’ve laid the old lady out already.”
She snorted, white wisps of breath from her nostrils momentarily making him think of dragons.
“It can’t be later than seven A.M.; it’s still bloody dark out! And I don’t believe for a minute that his wife and sister have been laying out the old lady by candlelight. Hiram would balk at the expense of the extra candle, for one thing. No, he felt itchy about asking a favor, so he was trying to get under your skin about your wife being a lazy slattern.”
That was perceptive, Roger thought, amused—particularly as she hadn’t seen Crombie’s eloquent glance at her recumbent form.
“What’s a slattern?” Jemmy inquired, picking up instantly on anything vaguely improper-sounding.
“That’s a lady who’s no lady,” Roger informed him. “And a bad housekeeper, to boot.”
“That’s one of the words that Mrs. Bug will wash out your mouth with soap if she hears you say it,” amended his wife with ungrammatical acuity.
Roger was still attired in nothing but a nightshirt, and his legs and feet were freezing. Jem was hopping around barefoot, too, but without the slightest sign of being cold.
“Mummy is not one,” Roger said firmly, taking Jem’s hand. “Come on, chum, let’s nip up to the privy while Mummy makes breakfast.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Brianna said, yawning. “I’ll take up a jar of honey or something to the Crombies later.”
“I go, too,” Jemmy announced promptly.
Brianna hesitated for a moment, then looked at Roger and raised her brows. Jem had never seen a dead person.
Roger lifted one shoulder. It would have been a peaceful death, and it was, God knew, a fact of life on the mountain. He didn’t suppose that seeing Mrs. Wilson’s body would give the child nightmares—though knowing Jem, it was quite likely to lead to a number of loud and embarrassing public questions. A bit of preparatory explanation might not be out of place, he reflected.
“Sure,” he told Jem. “But first we have to go up to the Big House after breakfast, and borrow a Bible from Grandda.”
He found Jamie at breakfast, the warm oatmeal smell of fresh parritch wrapping him like a blanket as he stepped into the kitchen. Before he could explain his errand, Mrs. Bug had sat him down with a bowl of his own, a jug of honey, a plate of savory fried bacon, hot toast dripping butter, and a fresh cup of something dark and fragrant that looked like coffee. Jem was next to him, already smeared with honey and buttered to the ears. For a traitorous instant, he wondered whether Brianna was perhaps a bit of a sluggard, though certainly never a slattern.
Then he glanced across the table at Claire, uncombed hair standing on end as she blinked sleepily at him over the toast, and generously concluded that it probably wasn’t a conscious choice on Bree’s part, but rather the influence of genetics.
Claire roused at once, though, when he explained his errand, between bites of bacon and toast.
“Old Mrs. Wilson?” she asked with interest. “What did she die of, did Mr. Crombie say?”
Roger shook his head, swallowing oatmeal.
“Only that she’d passed in the night. I suppose they found her dead. Her heart, maybe—she must have been at least eighty.”
“She was about five years older than I am,” Claire said dryly. “She told me.”
“Oh. Mmphm.” Clearing his throat hurt, and he took a sip of the hot, dark stuff in his cup. It was a brew of roasted chicory and acorns, but not that bad.
“I hope ye didna tell her how old you are, Sassenach.” Jamie reached across and snared the last piece of toast. Mrs. Bug, ever-vigilant, whisked the plate away to refill it.
“I’m not that careless,” Claire said, dabbing a forefinger delicately into a smear of honey and licking it. “They already think I’ve made some sort of pact with the devil; if I told them my age, they’d be sure of it.”
Roger chuckled, but thought privately that she was right. The marks of her ordeal had nearly vanished, bruises faded and the bridge of her nose healed straight and clean. Even unkempt and puffy-eyed from sleep, she was more than handsome, with lovely skin, lushly thick curly hair, and an elegance of feature undreamt of among the Highland fisher-folk. To say nothing of the eyes, sherry-gold and startling.
Add to these natural gifts the twentieth-century practices of nutrition and hygiene—she had all of her teeth, white and straight—and she easily appeared a good twenty years younger than other women of her own age. He found that a comforting thought; perhaps Bree had inherited the art of aging beautifully from her mother, as well. He could always make his own breakfast, after all.
Jamie had finished his own meal and gone to fetch the Bible. He came back, laying it beside Roger’s plate.
“We’ll go up with ye to the burying,” he said, nodding at the book. “Mrs. Bug—can ye maybe put up a wee basket for the Crombies?”
“Done it already,” she informed him, and plunked a large basket on the table before him, covered with a napkin and bulging with goodies. “Ye’ll take it, then? I must go tell Arch and fetch my good shawl, and we’ll see ye at the graveside, aye?”
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