by Hazel Hunter
Catriona couldn’t help but care for them all, for they were her only friends and teachers she’d ever had.
Today her feet took her beyond the village and out onto the glen, where she stopped to check the horizon. Storms came to the island with little warning, but Catriona sensed nothing brewing. The animals, whom the gods had attuned to the weather as she could never be, always warned her when she should stay indoors. The thud of an ax on wood caught her ear, and she turned to see a thin plume of white smoke coming from the forest.
The highlander never made a fire on the days he left the island. The smoke meant he would spend another night.
Watching the trees, Catriona moved to a darker spot before she crossed the barrier to enter the forest. The sounds of the ax ceased, and then came the pounding of a hammer. She moved silently through the dappled light, and tucked her arms around her waist to stop her hands from trembling. This was more than foolish, it was pure madness, and yet she could not stop herself from walking up to the edge of the clearing.
The highlander had fashioned a work table from some planked timbers and two old barrels. He plied his hammer against pegs, driving them into bore holes on three-sided rectangles of wood. Beyond the table lay on the ground neatly-bundled thatching of reeds, twigs and straw. Behind him the frame of the cottage roof rose in golden peaks above the finished walls.
The man stopped hammering and hefted the thatch bundle, testing the sides before adding it to a pile of others he’d finished. That seemed to be the last, for he walked to the cottage wall and hoisted himself up, balancing on the double stone walls as he gripped a roof beam at the base and tested it with a gentle shake.
Dismay filled Catriona. He would finish his cottage this very day, and she would never be rid of him.
She felt the tug of him again, this time in her chest, and abruptly turned her back on the forest. Now he would come to live in this house he built, and spend every night here. When she came she would be obliged to always remain on the other side of the barrier, and that might not protect her from discovery. Once the highlander knew of her, he would talk to others. More would come, and word would spread.
The druids had eyes and ears everywhere. Uncle would hear of her and come. He would come to silence her. If she wished to live, Catriona would have to leave the island for good, never to return.
From the forest Catriona followed a path that made her heart heavier with each step. It led to a smaller meadow on the other side of the glen. Wildflowers nodded their bright heads as she approached the broad oval of carved stones marking the place. The first time she had come alone to the island it had been winter. The swans, who of all the island’s creatures had the longest memories, had accompanied her to the place where the tribe had been buried. They remembered the strange druids coming during their first nesting, and what the outsiders had done after finding the bodies.
Each time she came here Catriona still felt guilty.
She stopped just inside the stone oval, where gold and violet flowers grew in great profusion in the soft, sweet meadow grass. She knew the bodies in the ground were not the souls who had lived in the village, but only what had been left after they’d disincarnated.
“Our souls cannae die, sweetheart,” her mother had told her after explaining why druids were not like mortals. “When we leave one body, we return to the well of stars. Then, when it is time for us to live again, we return to the mortal realm as newborns.”
As not one of the Harals had ever returned to Everbay, Catriona suspected that they never would.
“I am here, and I think of you,” she said as she sank down onto her knees, and pressed her hand to the warm earth. “’Twill be for the last time. I must go and stay with Ennis and Senga, and live my life with them. I will be safe.”
We shall never be safe from the Vikings or the Romans, her uncle’s silken voice whispered inside her head. Only power will protect us.
The conclave will never permit you to dabble in these magics, her father had told his brother flatly. The people of the black land worshipped the dead.
No, brother, they sought true immortality. We waste ourselves hopping from body to bairn. Uncle’s eyes had glittered with a strange joy. Once I possess all of the scrolls I will ken what must be done to set us free.
Her father’s expression grew hard. I cannae permit it. You will abandon this notion, or I shall take you before the conclave myself.
Uncle had bowed his head as he agreed, but Catriona had seen his eyes fill with malice. From that day he had grown distant and cold, openly avoiding Tavish and Isela, and frequently disappearing for days on end.
You must mend this rift with your brother, Isela had told her husband. We cannae hold the summer celebration with such discord between you.
I cannot conquer his fear, Tavish said, and sighed. When he returns I shall speak with him again.
Catriona had never learned what her uncle feared, but it had not been her parents. For them he had felt only contempt and hatred, and it showed in his ugly eyes every time he looked upon them without their seeing.
Time passed unnoticed as the sun warmed her shoulders, and a breeze from the slopes cooled her hot, wet face. Slowly Catriona rose to her feet. As they ever did, thoughts of Uncle had left her drenched in sweat. She tugged at the damp linen of her kirtle, and thought of the spring. The highlander would be too busy working on his roof to intrude on her there.
She returned to the village to collect her traveling garments, some soap and a wrap for her head. Senga would scold her if she returned home with wet hair, Catriona thought as she walked out to the spring. Mortals had the oddest notions about sickness. Druids rarely suffered illness. Even when she was a wee lass, and the itching pox had stricken nearly all the children of Ennis and Senga’s village, Catriona had not fallen sick.
This would be the last time she crossed the barrier, Catriona thought as she stepped through the spell wall and strode toward the edge of the spring. After she bathed she would take the nestling back to the cliffs, and then use the sacred oak grove to make her journey to the mainland. Ennis’s birthday would come in a few weeks, so she would have to think of what she might–
The sound of a masculine sigh made Catriona freeze in her tracks. Not a yard away from her lay the highlander, dripping wet and naked, stretched out on her sunning stone.
Her throat tightened, and she clutched her garments against her chest. How could he be here? Not half an hour past she had seen him preparing to thatch his roof. The slant of the sun answered her, for it was sinking toward the canopy of trees on the west side of the island. She must have sat for hours in the meadow and not realized it.
The highlander lay with his huge arms tucked under his head, his long bronze hair shedding water from his swim. His eyes were closed, and his chest rose and fell with the slowness of one dozing. If she made a single noise, he would look over and see her.
If he woke she could run for the barrier, through which he could not pass. She would pause only to take Jester from the cage. Left there, the nestling would starve.
She should run away, run now, this moment, but all she wanted was to look upon the man, and see all of his perfection—this once.
The highlander’s position displayed in full glory the thick length of his male member. Out of curiosity Catriona had taken two lovers since reaching womanhood, but neither of those eager lads could compare to this man. His long, vein-roped shaft should have seemed menacing, yet strangely she thought it as comely as the rest of him.
’Twill seem an unlikely business, Senga had said during a kind but blunt talk about sex. ’Tis best to trust your lad to see to it.
The lads she’d trusted had both been sweet and gentle with her, and Catriona had enjoyed love-making. Yet how did a lass give herself to such a beast? Catriona eyed the highlander and imagined him naked and on top of her. She’d be squashed for certain, she thought, but the thought didn’t make her shudder.
He had sunned himself without a tunic oft
en enough to toast his smooth skin a golden brown from shoulders to belly. She remembered her father, who had been as tall as the highlander. Tavish had been fit but not half as wide nor padded with such powerful muscle. She could see in great detail the skinwork on the man’s shoulder, which had been inked so finely the lion seemed ready to spring from his flesh and knock her to the ground. Truly she’d had no notion of how magnificent her intruder was. It made her feel the tug of him like a hard yank, one that could send her toppling upon him.
Catriona smiled a little. Would that not be the rudest of awakenings, to find a sweaty, blushing lass sprawled atop him?
The highlander breathed in deeply, and opened his eyes. They gleamed like silver crystals in the sunlight. “Fair day to you, Lady Ghost.”
Catriona stumbled backward, turned and ran.
Gavin staggered as he dragged on his trousers, but left behind his boots and tunic as he took off after the woman. The wild mane of chestnut hair whipped behind her, and he still saw the intense, violet-blue eyes wide with shock. She’d hiked up her skirts, showing long, curvy legs that ate up the ground in elegant strides. He grinned, pouring on the speed as the distance between them shrank. In another minute he’d catch her, and then he’d find out if she were real or wraith.
A moment later she vanished right in front of him, as if she had never existed.
Gavin stopped, frowning as he scanned the open glen from side to side. He couldn’t see a single sign of where she’d gone. Yet he could still hear the light sound of her quick footsteps through the grass, growing fainter by the second. When he followed her trail through the grass the air took on a faint shimmer that engulfed him in a momentary tingling sensation. The glen around him bulged outward around him, as if he were stepping through a mirror, and then smoothed out.
On the other side of the looking glass was a very different glen, as if the one he’d been seeing for months didn’t exist.
He looked for his wraith among the cluster of old cottages, but saw no sign of her. Everywhere he looked flowers and ivy sprouted, climbing the walls of the old structures, and splashing bits of color on the ancient thatching. The familiar perfume of the blooms mixed with the lighter scent of the greenery in the air. A light chinking sound drew his eyes to windchimes made of seashells strung on vines, which hung from the corners of every eave. Surrounding each cottage were dense beds of flowers, herbs and berry bushes. From them he spotted the flash of small, watchful dark eyes. As if on cue the two mated ducks who had visited him emerged from a burrow hole and waddled over to look up at him.
They were not the only ones watching. The back of his neck had that strange tension. He could sense her, somewhere close but hidden, staring out at him.
“I’ll no’ harm you, lass,” Gavin said, holding out his arms so she might see his empty hands. “I’ve been told no one lived here, or I’d have come to call.”
The male duck shook his head and nudged his female in the direction of their burrow.
“My name is Gavin, and I come from the highlands.” He looked around until he spotted a worn stump and sat on it. “My crewmates have told me about you, but they think you a ghost.” He waited for a reply, and when none came he added, “Your village is lovely. Did you plant all these flowers?”
A shuffling sound from inside the largest cottage gave Gavin her location, but he made no move to confront her. Instead he turned toward the open doorway and smiled.
“I finished the roof of my house today. I dinnae think the thatching will drop on my head while I’m sleeping, but I’d be glad to ken your opinion of it.” He felt a bit like an idiot, talking in the utter silence. The stillness of the place didn’t make sense to him. “Where are the rest of your people? I’ve no’ seen anyone else here. Do you ken that they call you the Blue Lady of Marr?”
A brown hare crept out from beneath a thorny bramble bush, and hopped cautiously toward the male duck. Together they stood inspecting Gavin as if he had three heads.
“’Tis good that she looks after you.” He was also glad he hadn’t yet hunted anything on the island. It seemed the woman had made all of them her pets. “Do you reckon I can persuade her to talk to me, or should I leave now?”
A squawk came as a tiny ball of black down rushed out of the largest cottage. Gavin grinned as the nestling fluttered its stunted wings and puffed itself up, swelled as if trying to look bigger.
The duck and the hare exchanged an odd glance before they flanked the baby bird and tried to herd it back inside. The nestling darted between them, scurried over to Gavin and gave him a hard peck on the ankle.
The wee thing was actually attacking him.
“You’ve got spine, but I’m a bit more than you should be taking on.” He leaned over and scooped up the nestling, which settled on his palm and regarded him steadily, as if trying to make up its mind whether to try another peck.
The scent of fish, along with the triangular patch of dark skin around the red-ringed black made Gavin guess it to be a baby puffin. He also spotted newly-healed scars on the chick’s head and wing where pin feathers had begun to sprout.
“Your name must be Trouble,” he told the nestling, and gently stroked its downy black head with a fingertip. The trilling sound it made in response felt like a compliment. Gently he placed the chick back on the ground, and watched it return to the cottage.
Gavin started seeing the village differently now. The woman evidently rescued injured nestlings, and likely provided food and shelter for anything else in need. He’d kept a pair of finches for a time back home, as watching them calmed him and made his loneliness more bearable. Maybe she’d done the same, just on a larger scale.
That theory begged another question: Just how long had she been living alone here? Months, years? Back at the spring he’d gotten only a glance of her face, which had been flushed and filled with terror, but she was definitely young. He guessed she was in her twenties. Had she run away from her people? Why would she come to a place considered cursed? Was he the only other person she’d seen since coming to the island?
Gavin stood and walked over to one of the smaller cottages. He had to duck his head to enter through the open door, and once inside waited until his eyes adjusted to the shadowy interior.
Old cobwebs draped the corners of the large front room, and a thick layer of dust covered the simple handmade furnishings. On the table by the hearth lay empty wooden bowls and spoons. The cooking pot had been knocked from its hook and had landed on its side. A pile of twigs and fluff in the ashes of the fireplace suggested the chimney had become a regular nesting spot. From the amount and variety of animal tracks left on the dirt floor no human had lived here for years, possibly decades. Yet a fresh pine bough, decked with flowers, had been placed on the mantel, along with four white seashells.
Gavin walked back to the only other room, which had once been used as a bed chamber. Rotted linens lay in a tangle atop a frame of wood so old and weathered it sagged, ready to fall apart. An open trunk held mold-speckled clothing that had yellowed at every fold. A blackened wreath of what might have once been mistletoe hung over the remains of the bed.
Beneath the wreath a spray of rusty, patchy color stained the stone wall. It took Gavin another moment to realize that it was a very old blood stain.
He backed out of the door, and looked at the front room again. Now he could see more of the rusty stains on the walls and furnishings and even in the dirt of the floor. They almost screamed in the silence as he recalled what Silje had told him about Marr.
Dinnae jest about the Blue Lady of Marr. ’Tis said she seeks vengeance for her tribe. They were massacred by blood-drinkers.
Could it be true? Gavin felt his skin crawl, and hurried out of the cottage to stand in the bright sunlight. Since coming to the islands, he had put from his mind the nightmare of the undead. If Silje’s story were real then this woman lived surrounded by constant reminders of what they had done to the people here.
Why would she choose to live in
such a place? Why had she planted flowers and festooned the decaying remains of a ghost village? It was like decorating a grave.
Gavin went to stand in the center of the settlement, and counted the cottages. There were twenty-seven of them, and if each had held a family, that meant hundreds had died here. If she had some connection to the lost tribe, perhaps it was some kind of memorial.
“I ken that the people here suffered,” he said, keeping his tone soft. “Blood-drinkers are terrible creatures that kill without thought or care. They are so fast and strong that naught can escape them, and they are merciless with their victims.” He turned his head and touched the scars Thora had left on the side of his neck. “I was used by one who enslaved me. In the end I escaped, but I lost everyone I loved.”
Animals began coming out of the cottages and flower beds, and for a moment Gavin wondered if they would attack him. But while they watched him with unblinking eyes, none of them appeared to be hostile, or afraid. He crouched down as a trio of small hares crept close, and offered his hand for them to sniff.
“I journeyed to the islands to start a new life,” he said as he gave the boldest leveret a gentle scratching behind its small ears. “I built my house here because I’m no’ yet ready to be around other people. I thought if I lived alone, I might heal and find some peace in myself. That hasnae happened, but I still hope ’twill.”
He straightened and looked at the largest cottage, and thought he saw a flutter of blue move across the doorway—and there was that familiar scent.
“I’ve intruded long enough, my lady. I promise, I willnae bother you again.” Gavin smiled down at the animals gathered around him. “I’m leaving for work in two days, but I will return each night. You ken where to find me.” He hesitated before he added, “Unless you’d like to come out and meet me now.”
Catriona backed away from the window, and whirled around to hurry into her bed chamber. She had already packed most of her things. She needed only to assure she’d left nothing behind that would show she yet lived. The highlander could not have gotten a good look at her. He would remember only the blue dress.
