The Song in the Silver

by Faberge Nostromo

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Biography

  The Song in the Silver

  Faberge Nostromo

  Breathless Press

  Calgary, Alberta

  www.breathlesspress.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or

  persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The Song in the Silver

  Copyright © 2014 Faberge Nostromo

  ISBN: 978-1-77101-281-2

  Cover Artist: Justyn Perry

  Editor: Haleigh Rucinski

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations

  embodied in reviews.

  Breathless Press

  www.breathlesspress.com

  For Jack and Johnny

  Chapter One

  He sat on the side of the hill, beneath the wind-stunted oak, and looked down on the thin stream of smoke drifting from the croft into the star-littered sky. A faint wisp of the Northern Lights swept like a wraith across the inky black. The wind flicked his raven-black hair from his face and stung his eyes.

  She was in there. The time was coming. The conflict in his heart hoped that it might not be tonight, but that if it was, it would be before the dawn broke over the hills opposite.

  The howl of a wolf echoed across the valley. He recognized Aatu’s cry. She had been here always, before him. She’d been here all the time he’d been far away, far from the pain. She would still be here after he left.

  A bird splashed in the dark reeds along the side of the beck at the cry, protecting her young from the night, just as he’d protected the woman in the croft when he could. And when his presence had threatened her, he’d left to take the threat far away.

  He wrapped his cloak tight around him, though he didn’t need it against the cold. He felt neither cold nor warmth—only loss.

  He touched the deerskin pouch that hung from the leather thong around his neck. The soft vibrations of the uisge, the life force, from the silver cross inside were fainter now. One pattern of vibrations, one of the harmonies within the song, was fading. The pattern had lived with him for nearly a century. It was what had brought him back, the realization that one part of the song was coming to an end.

  The journey had been long and hard. The dark highways of his existence had made it so, but he had come. And he would leave again. After he had had one last moment with her, to tell her. So that she would, at the end, know. Just as he had with her mother.

  ***

  “Come, Mary, my love. The burn is sweet and cool. Drink with me and let’s make the most of the summer evening while we may.” He swept the clear water up in his cupped hands and drank deeply. His blue eyes sparkled like the water.

  “Oh, come on, will you, William. The sheep need moving to the lower field. You’ll be sleeping in the bothy if we don’t hurry along,” she said, trying not to laugh at him.

  He was always getting them into trouble with her father, and although the sun was still in the sky, there was an ominous leaden cloud drifting over the hill to the north. She looked at him, young William Reed, his mess of black hair as wild as the glen itself, his smile as wide as the loch sparkling in the late summer sun. He stood up from the burn and picked up the staff he’d used to drive the sheep down the hillside. Such a handsome but wayward young man, tall and strong, firm of jaw, and broad of shoulder. His kilt waved about his long legs in the breeze. He wrapped his plaid around his shoulders. The wind was picking up as the cloud loomed over the hill and the temperature dropped.

  He slipped his arm around her shoulders, and they strolled down the hillside, driving the sheep before them. She liked his touch, the warmth of him against her, the weight of his arm, the firmness of the muscles of his forearm against her neck, the way he teased her long, red hair. He was special, and she loved him so.

  But her father would not approve of her taking up with a Reed boy from across the glen. Yes, he’d taken William on as a shepherd, but he’d not be happy letting his daughter get tangled up in a romance with William. She let her hand fall onto his and smiled as a tingle that she’d rather not know about made itself felt where a lass should not be feeling such a thing. With her other hand, she felt for the silver necklace she wore, the one with the small Celtic cross on it. It had been hung above her cradle by her grandmother and she had often thought of how she might pass it on to her own daughter, should she have one. Perhaps young William Reed might make an honest woman of her and they’d have bairns aplenty for her to care for.

  The small stone bothy came into view as the path turned around the shoulder of the hill, and at that moment a dull rumble of thunder shook the ground.

  “We’d best be getting the sheep inside the pen, Mary, the storm is near upon us,” William said.

  A frown creased his brow, and he hurried her to the gate in the low wall that ran around the single-story building. With skilful strokes of his staff, he guided the flock through, with Mary on the other side of the gate shooing them along.

  A harsher clap of thunder rent the air, and a fork of lightning lit up the already dark sky.

  “Quickly now, Mary, we must get ourselves inside until this passes,” said William.

  He pulled the gate closed behind them and led Mary by her hand to the door that was already swinging in the strengthening wind. She giggled at the thought of them sitting out the storm in the wee isolated building, all alone. What would her father think?

  William pushed the door shut after them and slid the bar across. As he did, the rain swept down from the hillside and drummed its fingers against the stone walls and the wooden shutters.

  “We’ll be dry enough in here until it passes, but you’ll be back late. Come here and let me keep you warm,” he said, sitting down beside her on the low wooden bench.

  The closeness now of him, his arm around her, his warm breath on her cheek, the brush of his long, black hair against her red did nothing to placate the warmth she felt just...there, where she wanted his fingers to be. She looked into the sky blue of his eyes, seeing the sparkle of the life and the mischief in his soul. He was special, that was sure and certain. Maybe her father would come around one day.

  His lips were so near now, soft but masculine. Oh, that he should kiss her. Her own lips parted just a little, and he responded to her invitation by gently brushing his against hers. The tingle below responded and became a wave throughout her as she gave herself up to the kiss, letting him take control of her mouth. She wanted him completely, knowing the heat she felt was for him, waiting for his touch, his caress, to claim her. His tongue met hers as he explored her mouth. He pulled her close to him, so close that that she was almost part of him. He reached beneath her dress with his hands, firm and strong, and caressed the warmth of her skin. She responded to him, his to take, opening herself to his exploration of her womanhood.

  The kiss broke for a moment, and she gazed up into his eyes, yielding to the fire she saw there. He found the heat of her, and she softly moaned her acquiescence to his desire.

  “Yes, William. Yes.”

  He lifted her in a single, confident motion and took her to the raised bedding area at the back of the bothy. He lay her gently on the blankets that covered the straw bales and brushed her long, red hair from her face.

  “Oh, my Mary, my love.”

  She parted her legs for his eager han
ds. He trailed delicate kisses until both lips and hands found the sweet warmth that she offered freely to him. He knelt between her legs, and she sought beneath his kilt for the hardness she knew he had for her. A low groan of desire escaped his lips as she found first his taut balls, then the long shaft of him. She caressed the silky skin of the head, at the same time smoothing the moistness leaking from the tip over it. She knew from the answering wetness in her heat that she was ready for him, that she wanted him, that she needed him. She guided him toward her, eager to give herself fully to her lover, and felt her lips part as he slid all of him into her.

  She moaned as he took her, as she encased him in the heat and wetness of her passion for him. They started to move as one, her hips pushing up as he slid deep into her. William kissed her throat, her neck, bit her ear before finding her mouth again and kissing her as fully and deeply as he took her.

  They moved together, the slow, deep thrusts of his love strengthening, then quickening, and in response she felt the clenching in her stomach matching the tightening of her heat around his thickness. She knew that her pleasure was about to take her, to sweep its ecstatic wave from where she gripped him and outward to flood her entire body. She felt him moving even faster, signaling that his release was upon him too. Deeper and harder he swept into her, and she could hold back no longer. With a sudden tightening of her wetness on him, her back arched, her hips pushed up to him, and as her body exploded in rapture, she felt his warmth flood into her from the final, deep thrust of his need.

  The thunder rumbled again, and a flash of lightning seared the sky with its blue-white fork. He rolled to one side, pulled her close to nestle against him, and held her tight in his arms as the rain pounded upon the slate roof.

  Chapter Two

  The soft padding of paws in the dry twigs and pine needles appeared on the edges of his hearing. He turned from his silent vigil to see the figure of a large wolf lope into view from between the trees. The animal’s breath condensed in the cold night air into clouds of white that floated away into the black. It approached across the clearing, moonlight glinting on its silver fur and stopped by his side. He stood and nodded his acknowledgment.

  A sound like the wind through the high pines and the soft breaking of the loch waters on a stony shore surrounded the wolf from nowhere, and her shape swept in a heartbeat, like a passing shadow, from animal to woman. She stood now, tall and graceful, silver-streaked black hair tumbling to shoulders draped in a long fur cloak that fell to the ground around her bare feet.

  “Aatu, my mother. It is good to see you,” he said, bowing his head.

  She placed a hand on his bowed head and smiled.

  “William, my son, it is both good and sad to have you back in the glen. The wolves welcome one of their own back. The time is soon?” she asked.

  “Yes. Tonight. The song in the silver tells me so,” he replied. He slipped his hand inside his cloak to touch the deerskin pouch.

  “I am sorry. You will go to her?”

  “Yes, at the end. To say good-bye and to tell her.”

  She nodded and stroked his hair.

  “It’s been a long, painful time since I found you that night, clutching the silver in your burning hand, William, but you have been ever faithful to your word. The wolves will look over him if you have to leave.”

  “Thank you, Mother. I know. And I will tell her that also.”

  An owl called, and a high, thin cloud scudded across the moon.

  ***

  “William, William, you must wake! Hurry, the storm has passed, but the sun is setting. We must hurry for we cannot spend the night in here,” said Mary as William felt her shake him awake.

  He sat up suddenly and ran his hand through his hair, blinking.

  “Oh, my word, Mary—yes. Quickly now, I will run with you down the hill, but I’ll leave you at the gate. Your father will not welcome me bringing you back so late,” he replied. He grabbed his staff and wrapped his plaid tightly around her shoulders. “You’ll be cold. Wear this, and I’ll run back here once I see you safe to the gate. I should be in time to make my way back to my father’s croft if the storm does not return.”

  She nodded and kissed his cheek.

  “Get along with you now, Mary, we’ve no time for that,” he said. Then he noticed her bare throat. “Your necklace, my love, ‘tis not around your fair neck. We must find it.”

  He turned the blankets over and heard the soft clink of the necklace hitting the floor.

  “Oh, William, the chain is broken,” she said. He picked it up and tried to place it around her neck. “Will you hold it for me until the morning? We haven’t time to fix it now.”

  “Of course, my love,” he said, examining the small silver cross. “I can fix the chain tonight, and tomorrow it will be as good as new. Now we must hurry.”

  They rushed down the hill while the sun headed westward to the horizon behind them. At the gate to the farm, she stopped to kiss him gently on the cheek, then turned and ran along the path, calling behind her, “I shall want my necklace fixed by tomorrow, William Reed...”

  He ran back toward the bothy as he watched the sun set before him. The darkening sky was heavy with the clouds that had delivered the earlier storm, and they looked set to try again. He neared the stone dwelling; a rumble of thunder accompanied the suddenly stronger wind, and the skies opened once more. The rain and wind battered his face and quickly soaked his woolen jacket. His heart sank. He’d probably be spending the night in the bothy after all. Well, no terrible thing. There were blankets, and he could bar the door against the wind and rain and the wolves and anything else the night might have to offer.

  ***

  In a dark glade, deep in the woods, far from any path and where the daylight scarcely ever reached, a pale woman in a green gown that covered her all the way from her white throat to the mossy forest floor stepped from behind a blackened, dead oak into a fading patch of moonlight. Dark clouds loomed above, a portent of the storm she knew was to come, the storm she welcomed, the storm that would bring fear and dread, for those were the things that called to her. Those were the things that had awakened her.

  With a pained creak and a rumble of wood against dry earth, the exposed grave closed on itself and slid back to hide again beneath the roots of the oak. The villagers who had buried her there two hundred years ago had left the spot unmarked but for the sapling they had planted over her. But they had failed to drive the wood through her heart and though it did not beat, nor would it ever, she had not truly died. Nor could she. She feared only fire and felt only hunger.

  The clouds swallowed the moon, and the pitch of night enshrouded the woods. She wrapped the darkness around her and turned from her grave. The footprints she left in the damp moss as she walked were of a cloven hoof. Soundlessly she moved; no breath from her lips disturbed the night.

  She stopped and sniffed the air. The wolves were there, as always, as they had been when she had last awoken, but their scent was far way on the other side of the woods. She knew better than to walk those paths. The wolves, as nonmortals, too, could kill her. They had taken her sisters before, as she and her sisters had taken theirs when they could, but the balance now was far too great in their favor. Yet her hunger needed answer, it needed it tonight; it was a pain she felt, an ache that gnawed at her. She would risk much to assuage it, but she would not dare the wolves.

  She would follow safer paths and seek easier prey not so near the wolves and not too near the farm or the villagers with their stakes and their fire. The night air carried the promise of just that. The sweet scent of young love, alone, unprotected, frightened, cold, but with a beating heart and fresh, red blood flowing. She could taste it, she could almost drink it from the dark of night around her; it lay on the breath of the wind. She had drunk from the throats of innocents before; she knew that the sweetest blood flowed from first love, from a heart beating with the one thing she would never know, had never known, nor would ever know.

&nbs
p; She would feed tonight. She would kill and leave another to walk undead. Only then would she sleep again.

  A smile of pure evil spread over her face. She lifted her head to the night sky and howled.

  ***

  William wrapped himself in the blankets that he and Mary had slept in, his soaked jacket hanging by the small fire he’d lit in the hearth. It gave little warmth, but he felt the better for it. It was dark and awful out there, but at least the rain had stopped. It was too late to get back across the glen, and he resigned himself to a cold, damp night in the bothy. He pulled the blankets tight around him as the distant echo of an unearthly howl rent the night.

  The hideous noise hung on the wind and faded slowly away. William trembled a little. The door was safely bolted and barred so he had no fear the wolves that roamed the higher slopes would get at him, but it was an awful cry. It could almost have been human, a woman screaming unimaginable loss and pain, but it was far too powerful, bestial, and raw. It had to be an animal but an animal he had no desire to meet. He was glad of the four stone walls and the fire that, though it now burned low, still gave flickering light to the room.

  He slept, fitfully at first, clutching Mary’s cross to him, thinking of the love they had shared earlier and how one day he would be the shepherd of his own flock. Then he could ask her father for her hand. With that thought, he drifted deeper into a happy sleep to await the dawn and a new morning.

  He was jarred awake by a frantic knocking at the door. He sat up, not a little disoriented as he realized that he was not in his own bed. He blinked. The fire had died down to a dim red ember, but at least the rain had passed. It was quiet, and only the wind around the stone walls made any noise at all.

  The knocking came again, insistent.

  He stood and walked to the door.

  “Who is it?” he called.

  A soft voice that seemed too quiet to carry through the door at all drifted in, like a wisp of smoke on a breeze but with an icy edge to it, cloaked in seductive femininity.