by Jane Yolen
“We’re no going down to the Gloaming Pool. Ye know Ma says to stay away from there. There are slippery rocks and dangerous reeds and—”
“Wheesht!” Mairi said, wagging her finger at me. “I’m in nae danger. The prince is always looking out for me.”
“Stay here!” I told her, not a plea but a command. The pool was a dangerous place. Last year one of our cows had gone down the path and broken its leg.
Mairi looked at me, her eyes suddenly moist. “Oh, Duncan, would ye no like to come away to the Fair Country, where it’s always summer and they drink fresh dew from crystal cups and fly on the backs of swans?”
She was getting that faraway look again and I needed to humor her or she would get agitated and run off.
“I suppose.”
Brightening, she took my hand again. “Good. When I go, I’ll take ye with me.”
“I dinna think so,” I said firmly. “Somebody will have to stay here and do the work.”
“Aye, I see that,” she said, nodding soberly. “But dinna think I will ever forget ye, Duncan MacDonald, my own dear brother.”
My fingers slid from her grasp and she darted off, laughing.
I ran after her and that made her laugh harder. “Mairi, ye know what Ma said!”
“Och, I’m going anyway and yer too slow to catch me,” she teased.
Though I was stronger than she, with a longer stride, she seemed to fly along on her bare feet like a swooping swallow skimming over the grass. By the time I caught up with her, she was kneeling on the rocky ledge overlooking the pond, her skirts petaled around her.
Flopping down beside her, I laid a weary hand on her arm, like a bailiff making an arrest. I was breathing hard and the blood was pounding in my head. My fingers were tingling strangely, the way they sometimes do before a fit begins.
“There,” she declared, pointing down.
The Gloaming Pool lay thirty feet below us, with lilies on the surface and a patch of hollow reeds at the far end. Sunlight glancing off the water made my eyes blur and I had to shake my head twice to clear them.
“Mairi, the Fair Folk dinna live there,” I said. “There’s only rocks and reed beds and a boggy bottom. Now come away before Ma gets upset.” The tingling in my hands was worse now. I knew I had to get her away quickly.
She shrugged my hand off as I slumped onto my back, drawing in deep breaths to try to settle the throbbing in my temples.
“Yer wrong, Duncan. See the ripples they make in the pool sailing their wee boats back and forth.” She jumped up.
“Och, that’ll just be a trout under the water,” I said, not looking but concentrating on trying to stop the ache in my head.
“There’s nae fish in this pool, Duncan.”
“Then it’s the wind—or the midges.”
Mairi spat on her finger and held it in the air. “There’s nae wind.” She set her hands on her hips. “And I canna see any midges.”
“They’re too small to see,” I said, sitting up carefully. “But ye can still feel them when they bite!” I gave her a nip on the arm and she squealed and wriggled away.
“Och, yer a beast!” she cried, ripping up a clump of grass and flinging it at me.
But I was tiring of the game. Besides, I was suddenly sweating. The tips of my fingers had gone numb. Oh, God, I thought, no here, no now. Not when I had been sent to fetch Mairi back.
“The prince …” I must have said it aloud, meaning that the prince was supposed to have cured me.
Mairi grinned, turned, and started off down the hill, waving her arms over her head. “The prince!” she cried.
“No, Mairi!” I called after her and tried to stand. I was brought back to my knees as if an invisible hand had caught hold of me. A blinding light stabbed my eyes. My knees buckled under me and I toppled to the ground, choking in agony. I rolled onto my side, my arms and legs twitching uncontrollably. In my head was the buzz of a thousand tiny voices. My eyes rolled up in my head, and then there was nothing I could do but give way and fall into the darkness.
14 LOST
When the darkness cleared, there were lights dancing before my eyes, like flies with wings of flame. A buzzing filled the air. I knew what it was and was fair used to it. It didn’t scare me as it had once.
There were voices in my ears, too, but I could hardly understand what they were saying. They were like the piping of birds in a far-off forest.
“Laddie. Laddie. We’re here. Dinna fash … here.”
One of the voices grew louder and louder until I could tell it was Granda’s. He was talking to me but the words were all jumbled up. He put an arm under my shoulder to help me up, and set my bonnet back on my head. I only managed to get to my knees before my stomach clenched like a fist and I heaved up all over the grass. The stink of it made me dizzy.
There was another voice now, further away but getting closer. It was Ma’s.
“Mairi!” she was calling. “Where’s Mairi?”
Where was Mairi? Why hadn’t she been the one to help me up, as she had done so many times before?
“She’ll be about,” said Granda. “Dinna fret yersel’.”
Gripping Granda’s arm with both hands, I hauled myself upright, swaying giddily. I felt Ma’s steadying hand on my shoulder.
“Duncan, where’s yer sister?”
And then I remembered. “The Gloaming Pool.” At least I tried to say it, but the words came out as a wheeze.
The sun was just starting to sink, the night drawing in. Fear clutched at my heart. “Ma,” I cried, “the pool!” There, the words out at last.
But before I even finished, Ma had gathered up her skirts and was hurrying down the slope toward the pool while the rest of us could only watch her go. At the bottom, she fell to her knees, then crawled the last few yards to the edge of the water, wailing and keening.
I pulled from Granda’s grasp though he cried after me, “Ye’ve barely the strength to stand, lad.”
Lurching down the hillside after Ma, I could see what it was she was seeing, even through the dim light of the gloaming. There was a dark, humped shape in the water, small and unmoving, caught up in the reeds.
Granda edged sideways down the slope after me as best he could, with Andrew and Sarah calling out, “Wait, wait!” and “Dinna leave us behind!”
Even as I stumbled downhill, I saw that Ma was already in the water up to her knees, tentative about the footing because she couldn’t swim. She was weeping loudly, crying Mairi’s name.
And there floating before her was Mairi, her face turned downward in the water, yellow hair streaming about like strands of golden seaweed, dark plaid skirts as lovely as a scallop shell about her legs. She seemed to be reaching for something, something just beyond her grasp.
Ma got to her before I was quite down. Wrapping her arms around Mairi’s shoulders, she turned her over, crying, “Och, my lassie, my poor wee lassie.” Mairi’s face was a strange grey in the light, mushroom grey, and for a moment I barely knew her.
I waded into the pool, Granda beside me. Then he was in front of me, looking back.
“Give me a hand, Duncan,” he said as he eased Ma aside. He picked up Mairi in his arms, the water pouring off her.
Suddenly, I couldn’t move a step closer, almost afraid to go near, as if death were a disease and I might catch it.
“Take her legs, Duncan,” Granda ordered.
His voice cut through me like a soldier’s sword. I took one step, then another; I felt I was wading through mud, not water. At last I grabbed her legs, choking on a sob as I did so. How could this cold, limp body be my dear daft sister, my sweet companion of so many years?
We lifted her up between us, grunting as we did so. She was unbearably heavy for one so small, as though the Sidhe were clinging to her skirts and wouldn’t let her be taken. But in truth it was all the water soaked into her clothing that was weighting her down.
We set her on the grass and made her modest, her skirts pulled down over her
legs, her hands crossed on her breast. Then Ma knelt over her, tears dripping onto Mairi’s face, mingling there with the water.
Granda’s face went as grey as ashes round a campfire then, and for the first time I thought he looked truly old. Which was odd, seeing that he’d seen many dead men in the ’15, but maybe this was different, for there was no glory in it, none at all.
“I’m sorry,” I began, ready to haul it all onto my own shoulders. “If the fit hadna taken me …” I tried to say more, but my voice caught in my throat, like a rag on a nail.
“It couldna be helped,” Granda whispered. “It couldna be helped.” He said it over and over, as if repetition could make it true.
“Och, my poor wee lassie,” Ma said, weeping. “What did ye think ye were doing?”
But I knew. And knowing just made it worse. Mairi had been reaching out for her prince. And he had taken her.
II. CHOPPING NETTLES
March–April 1746
Fie, now Johnnie, get up and run!
The Highland bagpipes mak’ a din!
It’s better tae sleep in a hale skin,
For it will be a bluidy mornin’!
—Scottish folksong
15 PRACTICE
The months after Mairi’s death dragged out slowly, like a bad dream that wouldn’t end. We healed as best we could, but it was not easy.
I tried hard to remember everything about her, the way her hair had looked like summer wheat with the fringe almost covering up her eyes. The way she leaped about, clapping her hands, and singing tunelessly. But the only thing I could recall was her face grey with death, and her hair floating like seaweed in the peaty waters of the Gloaming Pool. It was a sight I could not forget.
Ma leaned more on Scripture and old mottoes in her grief. She scrubbed the cottage till her hands were red and raw. Granda threw himself into work on the farm as though the cows, which we brought down early from the shieling, were better companions than us. Ma and Granda hadn’t exactly forgotten Mairi, but they seemed bent on trying.
On the other hand, Andrew and Sarah hardly noticed Mairi had gone, and that griped me even more. Surely they were old enough to understand. Yet Sarah, especially, kept talking about Mairi as if she’d just run off for an hour and would be back soon, with a handful of flowers to strew about the cottage door.
I had many an argument with Andrew and Sarah both, furious that they acted so childishly. I turned my back on them at the end of such fights. And all the while, I felt guilty, for fighting with them, for being alive instead of Mairi.
Only Ewan would talk to me about it, saying, “She was the best part of ye, Duncan, for all that she was daft.”
I think the whole family felt torn, a banner ripped in two. Nothing but Da’s return could mend us, or so I believed.
But Da didn’t come home.
The sparse harvest turned into a wicked and painful fall. Everyone in Glenroy went to bed hungry and arose weeping. We worried about what winter would bring. Granda grew too thin and too old over the harsh winter to help.
And still Da didn’t come home.
Word arrived back that—while the Highland folk suffered—our armies were doing well enough, chasing the redcoats from Scotland and following them right down into the heart of England. That, at least, gave me hope. I looked forward to hearing more.
Word of those successes was carried by travelers, tradesmen, and tinkers. I waylaid every one of them, bringing them home to share our little food. Granda and I questioned them well into the night and they told us everything they knew.
But nothing came from Da.
Of course I knew he couldn’t write, but he could have gotten someone to write for him. Or someone to carry a message. That he didn’t made me angry with him, furious.
Ma worried he was dead. But I never once believed he had died. I didn’t feel the ache for him under my breastbone that I did for Mairi.
“If Da is to die before I can tell him of my anger, I will give God my back as well,” I told Ewan as we met to practice our swords.
His eyes opened wide and I could see the fear in them. “Dinna say that, Duncan,” he warned “For yer sake and ours.”
“Och, God knows I dinna mean it,” I said. But, just in case, I whispered under my breath, “Just let him stay away for all I care. I’m doing the work of a man now.” Which didn’t make sense, of course, as I had wanted to be on the march with him.
Around that time, I began to think: If I am a man doing a man’s work, then surely I can go with the army on my own, and my cousin Ewan, too. Ewan had done his own da’s farming on their plot of land. Like me, he was tending to his da’s chores.
We talked of it ceaselessly, Ewan and I.
“Look at my arm,” I would say, showing him the new muscles got from the harvesting, got from being a year older.
He showed me his own muscles, bunching up when he clenched his fist. Then he punched that fist into my arm.
We grinned at each other, man-to-man.
Now that the winter chores were done, Ewan and I figured we would head out after the troops.
“It will be one less mouth to feed.” That would please Ma.
“We’ll earn a white cockade for our bonnets,” he added, “sewn by the ladies of Glasgow and Edinburgh, just like the other men.”
And, I thought, I’ll find Da and tell him how he’d hurt Ma by not sending word. How he hurt us all.
“Brothers?” I said, holding out my hand to Ewan.
He spit in his hand and grabbed mine. “Brothers.”
To this end, we practiced our sword and knife fights daily whenever we could get loose of our chores, but told no one of our plans. We didn’t want our mothers to talk us out of going. As they were certain to try.
But though we’d sworn we’d be off at once, it was weeks later, winter still shaking its rough head at us, and still we hadn’t gone.
Once again Ewan and I were practicing with our wooden swords. It was one evening after the cows had been milked and their muck carted away. We were on a patch of weedy ground on the far side of a copse to the east of the village, where nobody would see what we were about.
“Ha! Caught ye again!” Ewan announced. “That’s three times!” He sliced at the empty air with his sword. Unlike a real sword, it didn’t whistle as it came down, but made a whuffling sound, like an old dog.
I stepped back and laid my hand over the spot where he’d bruised my ribs with the edge of his sword. I bit my lip to keep the pain inside.
“If we were in battle, ye’d surely be dead by now!” Ewan laughed.
“Nae, I wouldna,” I told him, a red flush coming to my cheeks.
“Would!”
“I’m too angry to lie at peace!”
“Angry? What for? Prince Charlie’s army is heading toward London and then fat Georgie on the throne will have to pick up his skirts and run. What’s to be angry for?” Ewan looked at me oddly.
“Because we’re not there, ye ninny!” I raised my sword and jumped at him, swinging wildly.
Ducking aside, he smacked me across the back with his wooden blade. I stumbled forward, fell, and this time hadn’t the spirit to get up. Instead I sat on my haunches, my head hanging low. Ewan was definitely quicker than me. And older. And stronger. As many of the redcoats would be. As most of them would be. The very thought made me shiver.
“This is nonsense,” I said, angry more at myself than Ewan. “Redcoats dinna fight with swords and targes. They use muskets. Why are we practicing with these?” I could not find pleasure in anything. My anger is like a fox caught in a lure, chewing at its own foot, I thought.
“Dinna be daft, Duncan. A musket shoots once and needs reloading.” Ewan sounded like his father, for over the winter his voice had deepened. Down the wooden blade came again. “Besides, once ye’ve learned how to use the sword well, killing King George’s men will be as easy as chopping nettles.” He grinned.
“There willna be any redcoats left for us at all if we
dinna get moving soon,” I reminded him. “And none of the MacDonalds will welcome us then.” I stood slowly and put my hands on my hips and said like an angry clansman, “Och, ye’ve come for the whiskey and the cheering, laddies, but what fight have ye fought?”
“So we miss out on the redcoats, there will still be raids against the Campbells and such,” he chided.
“Who’s the daftie now?” I said. “Prince Charlie will bring peace to the Highlands and the clans will leave off their quarreling. They’ll be no glory left for us at all, Ewan MacDonald.”
“Aye, and cats will leave off chasing mice.” Ewan laughed. “That’s a dream, Duncan. If ye carry on like that, ye’ll end up as silly as …” His voice trailed off and he looked abashed.
He couldn’t have hurt me more if he’d jabbed the point of his sword right into my heart, though it was almost a year since Mairi had died.
“I only meant …” he began lamely.
“Aye, I know what ye meant.” My voice was stone, but my insides had turned to soured milk. “Yer a hard, mean lad and ye’ll make a hard, mean man.” I gave him the kind of look my da often gave me. “My sister’s gone and yer making a joke of it. I thought better of ye, my cousin and brother-in-arms.”
He turned a pale color, tried to say something to make amends, but I gave him my back.
And the worst of it was, Mairi wasn’t really gone. Not completely. I had seen her the last time I’d had a falling fit. But I couldn’t tell Ewan that. I couldn’t tell anyone. They’d have thought me mad.
16 RETREAT
Ewan and I made up, fought again over small things, and made up once more. We were cousins and sworn brothers. Who else would we talk to?
We were persuaded to stay by small things: His ma had a rough cough, my granda was slower, older. Who would tend the cows? Bring in the peats for the fire? The water from the stream? We were our families’ men, now. How could we desert them?
Ewan and I still practiced with our wooden swords, a feeble hope now, no more than a game. One of these times I came back home over the brae with the setting sun spilling light as red as blood across the hills.
