At last she rose up from the damp ground, wiping her tear-streaked face and streaking it still more with mud. A large craggy rock jutted out from the landscape, and Bonnie, on an impulse, hiked up her skirts and crawled atop it, standing tall and allowing the wind to caress her flushed face with its cold fingers. The moon illuminated the world around her, and she once more turned in place to take it all in.
Her gaze came to rest on a distant forest. Much of this country was forested, but for some reason her eye lingered particularly upon that dark expanse of trees to the south.
Even as she looked upon it, a strange prickling touched the edge of her conscious mind. A sensation she could not quite define, like the creeping shadow of illness upon a household, or the scent of a bad storm blowing in from the sea. The feeling pulsed from the forest, throbbing across miles of dark landscape.
Bonnie shook her head and told herself it was nothing more than the heaviness her heart had suffered these last many weeks. With a shudder down her spine, she turned to climb back down from the rock.
But suddenly she gasped and fell to her hands and knees, her fingers scrabbling for purchase on the stone. She could not see the stone, however, nor anything else around her, for her mind exploded with a sudden image—the image of a bleak castle rising up from a fog-shrouded forest, its iron gates swinging open. She had never before seen this castle, and yet she could swear that she heard the creak of the gates themselves, that she smelled the wetness of rain upon the great stones of the wall.
The image passed, replaced at once by another. She saw a gloomy dining hall in the style of generations past, lit by a huge fire upon an equally huge hearth. Her ears roared with the crackle of that blaze. Something moved in the corner of her vision, something standing beside her. Some great shadow which breathed so heavily.
Then that image vanished and she stood in a snow-covered yard, gazing upon a yellow rose. Snow fell from the sky around this rose, mounding in a circle all about it. But where the snow touched those blooming petals, it melted away in an instant.
And in her ear a voice whispered—a child’s voice, clear and soft and unmistakable. Bonnie heard the two words it spoke with utmost clarity:
Help us.
The breath rushed from her lungs as she landed hard upon the ground, having slipped and fallen from the stone. The jar was enough to banish the visions from her mind, but Bonnie, picking herself up, using the stone for support, still felt the pulsing darkness emanating from that far-off forest. She could not deny it now, not with the child’s voice still lingering in her mind.
She dropped to her knees, clasping her trembling hands as she had been taught since childhood. The only prayer that came to mind was the same one she and Maisie had said together the night of the fire. She spoke it now, the words spilling from her lips: “Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord! By thy great mercy, defend us from all perils and dangers of this night . . .”
Even as the words fell fearfully into the night air, the darkness upon her soul lifted. By the time she spoke the amen, she was able to rise and face the forest once more. No longer did it strike her as evil. It was only a forest several miles away. Nothing to fear.
“Bonnie!”
With a gasp Bonnie whirled about, only to see the familiar lanky form of Calum scaling the hill. The moon shone bright upon his bandaged face. “Foolish lass, what are you doing?” he demanded, catching hold of her hand as he gained the summit beside her. “You can’t go wandering out alone like that, leaving us half-mad with worry! What were you thinking?”
“I—I’m sorry,” Bonnie gasped. Her relief at seeing her brother and feeling his hand in hers was so great, she forgot for a moment her crippling guilt. “Oh Calum, I . . . I . . .”
The next moment she flung her arms around him, clinging as though she would never let go. “Calum, forgive me!” Her words came out muffled against his shoulder, but she knew he heard them. She felt him stiffen and then embrace her, holding her tight.
“Oh sweet Bonnie,” he said gently, “I forgive you. You know that, right? I forgive you, and I want you to be as happy as you can be.” Gently he pushed her away, holding her at arm’s length. His good eye searched her face in the moonlight. She knew then that neither of them spoke of her foolish wanderings that night. Not anymore. “Do you believe me, dear sister?” he asked. “Will you now forgive yourself?”
With an effort of will, Bonnie nodded. “I will try,” she agreed. “I promise, Calum. I will try.”
“Good lass,” said he. In the distance both of them could hear Mr. Alleway and Sorcha shouting Bonnie’s name as they searched for her nearer to the cottage. “Come on then,” Calum said, wrapping an arm around Bonnie’s shoulder and leading her down the hill. “We’d best get . . . home.”
He hesitated briefly over the word, but when he spoke it, he did so with conviction. For the first time since that horrible night of the fire, Bonnie felt her heart begin to lift with something like hope.
That night, however, as she lay upon her crude bed of piled blankets and sacking, she could hardly bear to close her eyes. For every time she did so, she saw again in her memory the image of the forbidding castle . . . and that strange rose blooming in the snow . . .
Chapter 4
Five Years Later
HELP US!
Bonnie woke with a start, gasping as she tried to scream, but her lungs could not draw enough air. Her heart thundering in her breast, she stared about her, at first unable to comprehend where she was. Her mind was so alive with the vision of that fire-lit hall . . . the shadow beside her she never could see . . . that garden shrouded in snow . . .
But there was no hall, though there was indeed a fire: a small peat fire burning in the center of the cottage room, close to where she and her sisters slept at night. The peat harvested from the surrounding landscape could burn on indefinitely with little tending, and the Alleways had grown used to using it as fuel rather than wood. The flames had scarcely lessened throughout the night, even as the family slept, and its light now illuminated the cottage, seeming to emphasize rather than lessen the pre-dawn gloom.
Bonnie breathed a long relieved sigh. Her sisters lay asleep around her on their straw pallets. In the other room, beyond the cobble divider, her father snored, sometimes accompanied by a snort or two from Calum. She heard the sheep muttering in their pen outside, and she knew that at any moment the rooster would crow, summoning the family to wake and start their day.
There was no massive dining hall. No garden. No child.
Nevertheless, Bonnie did not try to snatch even a few more moments of sleep. She rose and very quietly began preparing the morning meal. Action and activity were better than lying in the semi-darkness, thinking about those visions.
Ever since moving to the crofter’s cottage—ever since that first night out on the heath—Bonnie had periodically experienced these same dreams and visions. Sometimes they came to her in sleep, as in this instance. Sometimes she might be in the middle of a daily task and suddenly find herself incapacitated, unable to move until the images passed from her mind. Bonnie never could predict when they might come and, though she had labored over the question for five years now, she could not guess why they came at all.
She stoked the fire and hung the iron kettle over it, heating water for porridge. As she worked, she whispered the prayer she had grown to depend upon throughout the years: “Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord.” As though in answer, the sun rose on the horizon.
A few hours later the household was awake and busy as the new morning brightened the sky. Mr. Alleway and Calum ventured out to the sheep pen and worked to separate from the small flock those lambs they would drive into market at Inverness that day. “You can come along, my dears,” Mr. Alleway told his daughters. “Take a walk with us into town.”
Maisie declined, a little sadly. Though her health had improved dramatically in the five years since the fire that nearly claimed her life, her lungs never would be a
s strong as before, and a long walk into town was more exertion than she could well manage. Sorcha, however, declared her intention of selling eggs and, if she made a good price, purchasing new needles from the town needle-maker.
“And you, my Bonnie wee lass?” Mr. Alleway asked, turning to Bonnie just as she stepped out of the cottage into the sun, wrapping her shawl about her shoulders. “Will you be joining us?”
Bonnie hesitated. She hated to leave Maisie alone. But her sister stepped into the cottage doorway and smiled at her. “Go along, Bonnie,” she urged. A mischievous glint lit her eye. “Perhaps you could persuade Sorcha to buy us some golden silk thread as well.”
“We have no need to be extravagant now!” Sorcha protested as if on cue, and glowered when everyone laughed at her sharpness. Rolling her eyes, she adjusted the basket of eggs on her hip and demanded, “Are you coming then, Bonnie?”
So Bonnie found herself walking the road to Inverness beside Sorcha, following her father and brother and Calum’s collie dog as they herded the sheep. Calum no longer needed the heavy bandages and dressings, but he always wore a broad-brimmed hat as if its shade might somehow hide the disfiguring scars covering the left side of his face. His left eye was blind, but he moved lithely as he whistled directions to his dog and guided the sheep down the road, and one would not know to look at him that he often still experienced pain from his burns.
Bonnie eyed him now, and a pang shot through her heart. He told you to forgive yourself, her inner voice whispered as it often did. You promised him you’d try. And she did try, truly she did! But nothing could undo the damage she had wrought, however accidentally. Nothing could ever repair Calum’s face.
The day was fine, however, and Bonnie’s spirits lifted as they came at last into Inverness. Although nothing like so fine as Burntisland, the town did boast a thriving market square. While Mr. Alleway and Calum made for the butcher’s to discuss the sale of their sheep, Sorcha took Bonnie’s elbow and guided her toward the market, eager to make her own sale.
The market was even more exciting than usual this day, for the sisters soon discovered that a caravan of gypsies had rolled into town, bringing with them their foreign ways and foreign wares. A musician sang at one end of the street, and gypsy children danced, as delightfully strange as fairy-folk to Bonnie’s eyes.
“Scarves for sale! Beautiful patterns from all over the world!”
At the sound of the gravelly voice, both sisters turned to see a booth overflowing with fabric in myriad colors and shades. The woman hawking her wares was small and frail, almost hidden by the pile around her.
The girls glanced at one another. “I need to sell these eggs . . .” Sorcha began, but Bonnie smiled encouragingly. “All right, I suppose we could look at them,” her sister said, and they hastened to the stall.
“They’re very beautiful,” Bonnie said kindly to the old lady. Her voice was a tiny bit sad as she spoke. After all, she had once worn scarves much finer and never thought twice about them. Now her garments were all rough-woven and faded, handed down many times over before they became hers. She did what she could to stifle such thoughts and simply enjoy the beauty before her.
As the two girls admired the scarves, taking care not to dirty them as they fingered the soft fabrics, they heard a sudden commotion. Both Bonnie and Sorcha turned to see a street magician pull a bouquet of flowers out of thin air as excited village children surrounded him. The children applauded.
Bonnie, however, felt her pulse suddenly quicken. For upon first glimpsing those glorious flowers, she had momentarily thought the man held a bouquet of yellow roses. But no, his hand clutched a bunch of daffodils. Nothing like the glorious blossom she witnessed in her strange visions, ever surrounded in its veils of snow.
“Witchcraft!” Sorcha muttered, startling Bonnie from her reverie. “Don’t look at it, Bonnie.”
Bonnie, surprised at her sister’s unexpected vehemence, studied Sorcha’s frowning face. “Do you believe in magic?” she asked, curiously. “Not that sort, of course. It’s only tricks. But real magic?”
Sorcha sniffed, cast a brief glance back over her shoulder at the street magician, then turned away, lifting her nose, as dignified and disapproving as the day she first returned to Scotland from her elegant French school. “If magic wasn’t real, why would the Bible instruct us not to practice it? It must be real, and those who dabble in sorcery are wicked and dangerous!”
Even as Sorcha spoke, Bonnie felt an uneasy darkening in her soul. Her eyes momentarily clouded, and for a moment she feared her strange vision would return, right here in the streets of Inverness.
“Will ye buy anything?” the scarf merchant asked. At the sound of her voice, Bonnie turned to her, really looking at the old woman for the first time. And old she was indeed! Eighty years at least, with iron-gray hair straggling about her hollow cheeks, and endless wrinkles spreading out from her deep-set eyes. But she smiled at Bonnie, a toothless sort of smile.
As she smiled, however, the same darkening passed over Bonnie’s vision. For a moment she thought she saw in that old woman’s face . . . something else.
Bonnie backed away, blood draining from her face. “Not today, thank you,” she murmured, hoping her voice did not sound as frightened as she felt. Sorcha had moved on already, seeking the right place to sell her eggs. Bonnie hurried after her and grabbed her arm, whispering urgently, “Did you see that?”
Sorcha frowned at her, perplexed. “See what?”
“That woman. For a moment she looked . . . young.”
Sorcha looked over Bonnie’s head toward the scarf-seller’s stall. “What do you mean? She is young.”
“No, I’m talking about the woman with the scarves. The old one.”
“I didn’t see an old woman,” Sorcha persisted. “Just the one who called us over. She is about my age, I think. And very pretty, really.”
Bonnie sighed, frustrated. “No, I mean”—she turned to point—“that one at . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Sorcha waited expectantly for her to finish, but Bonnie stood quite still, staring. The woman stood beside her wares, wearing the same clothing and surrounded by the same colorful scarves. But this woman was young and beautiful, with glorious black hair and clear blue eyes. Her face had nary a wrinkle. Indeed, it was unnaturally smooth. There weren’t even any crinkles about her eyes when she caught Bonnie’s questioning gaze and smiled.
Bonnie sucked in a breath, too taken aback to speak. Slowly the woman’s smile faded into an expression of narrow-eyed suspicion.
Bonnie turned away hastily. “Never mind,” she whispered once she regained power over her own tongue. She tightened her grip on Sorcha’s arm. “Let’s go find Da.”
“I don’t want to find Da. I want to sell my eggs. Bonnie!” Sorcha struggled against her sister’s grip as Bonnie, demonstrating surprising strength, dragged her from the market center. “Bonnie, you’re hurting me!” She pulled her younger sister to a stop. “What is the matter with you?”
“Nothing,” Bonnie said, but she could not convince even herself. All she knew was that she felt an almost frantic need to escape the marketplace. “I’m tired all of a sudden. That is all.” She glanced over her shoulder toward the booth one more time.
The woman was gone.
Bonnie all but ran from the market square down the side street toward the butcher shop where her father and brother had taken the sheep. Sorcha, unwilling to leave her sister alone in town, followed after, scolding all the while.
They had not yet reached the smelly yard belonging to the butcher when they saw Calum running toward them along the narrow stone-paved street, his broad-brimmed hat nearly flying from his head in his haste. The look in his good eye was indecipherable, and Bonnie stopped in her tracks at the sight of him, uncertain if she should be afraid. “Calum, what is it?” she demanded as he drew near.
“A letter!” he replied, holding up an already-opened missive as though in proof. “A messenger just rode in from
Burntisland with a letter from Donald. And you won’t believe what he says, Bonnie lass, you won’t believe it!”
The seller of scarves hung about the shadows along the edges of the marketplace, her eyes keen and narrowed. There had been something different about the red-headed girl, something that set her on edge. Not the prim young miss with her nose so high in the air she might drown if it rained! No, the other one . . . the one with sorrow in her eyes . . .
She looked at me as though I were old.
No one had looked at her that way in years. She had kept a wary eye on the lands about these parts, changing her appearance every so often, and traveling a bit to remain undetected. Nothing had ever given her reason to worry. Nothing had ever given her cause to fear that the isolation of her victims might come to an end. Her plan must surely come to fruition.
His time is running out, she reminded herself. One girl who can—and only for a moment, mind—see through my sorcery will not stop me. Am I not Morag, the last true priestess of Alba? What can a mere peasant girl to do me?
The corner of her mouth turned upward in a facsimile of a smile. She would not be thwarted.
But she saw something in me . . .
No matter how powerful her magic, true evil could not be entirely disguised, and well she knew it. But few—very few people—could see through her charms. Unless something else was at work. Something more powerful than she.
The girl might not be a threat. But she was certainly a concern.
Chapter 5
LATER THAT SAME evening the Alleway family gathered around the peat fire, scarcely able to stomach the meal of pottage and oat bannock Maisie served to them. Their excitement was simply too great, and they stirred their wooden spoons around their servings of pottage without often remembering to lift food to their mouths.
“What do you think, Da?” Calum asked at last. None of them had spoken much on the long walk back from Inverness, the money from the sale of the lambs jingling unnoticed in Mr. Alleway’s pouch. A day ago that small income would have seemed a fortune. Now they scarcely remembered it.
Five Enchanted Roses: A Collection of Beauty and the Beast Stories Page 33
