“Nay, my dear. I was looking for someone. But I’ve found her.” She cocked her head and regarded Maddy with an intense look of scrutiny on her wrinkled face. Her eyes were some of the darkest Maddy had ever seen, like little black pebbles. The old woman held out her hand. “I’m Irene MacAskill, my dear. Very pleased to meet you.”
Maddy shook Irene’s hand. She had a surprisingly firm handshake for someone so elderly. “Maddy Green.”
“Aye, my dear. I know.”
“Oh. You do?” Had she met this old lady at some birthday party or other? There were so many of them they all blurred into one. “Have we met?”
“Nay, my dear. We havenae. But I know ye all the same. Ye are the one I’ve been looking for.”
“You have? Why?”
Irene MacAskill clasped her hands together and stared up at Maddy. The expression on her face was difficult to decipher. Pity? The old woman let out a long, heartfelt sigh. “Everything is a choice, my dear. Did ye know that? Even things that seem likethey’re not, are. Even when it seems like there is only one path, this is illusion. There are many paths, all splaying out from right beneath our feet. The only question we have to answer is: which one shall we take?”
“I see,” Maddy said slowly. She glanced at her watch. “Well, it was nice to meet you, but I had better—”
Irene stepped smoothly in front of her. “It takes courage, my dear, to turn from the path we are taking and choose another. Courage and faith and a willingness to take a leap into the unknown. Yer choice is coming.” Irene shook her head sadly. “It will be a difficult one, my dear. Perhaps the most difficult of all. I would alter it if I could, but I canna interfere, only offer choices.”
Her dark eyes were full of something like sorrow. A tremor of unease went through Maddy. What was she talking about?
“But when yer time comes,” the old woman continued, “Remember my words. A leap into the unknown. Courage and faith. Then maybe yer choice will lead ye to what ye have been looking for all along.”
Maddy opened her mouth to speak and then snapped it shut again. “I’m sorry, Irene,” she said. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
Irene nodded sadly. “Ye will, my dear. Ye will.”
She patted Maddy’s hand, then turned and walked away. Maddy watched her go, nonplussed, until she turned the corner out of sight. Okay. That had been weird. Maddy gave herself a mental shake and put Irene MacAskill out of her mind.
Instead, she strode through the school gates to collect her son.
DERYN STEWART PEEREDup at the sky and sighed. The heavens were a wall of dark gray from end to end, showing nosigns of a let up to the rain and wind that drove into Deryn’s face and had soaked him through to the skin long ago.
“Isnae it supposed to be spring?” he muttered. “Somebody needs to tell the bloody weather that.”
Up ahead, his black and white sheepdog, Mara, waited patiently for him. She was as soaked as he was, but unlike him, she didn’t seem to mind one bit. Her ears were pricked forward, her eyes were alert, and her tongue was hanging out of her mouth as though she was enjoying herself immensely.
“All right for some,” he said to the dog. “Go find him for me. I’m right behind ye.”
Mara stuck her nose to the ground and set off into the teeth of the storm. Deryn held his arm in front of his face, squinting against the wind and rain, and followed. He could barely make out the hills of the Highlands that he trudged through, not the spindly bushes, the tufts of heather, nor the great stone boulders that dotted the area. Everything was obscured by the rain except for Mara’s white rump, which he followed as though it was a lantern.
Mara suddenly stopped and turned back to look at him. She barked once. In return, an angry sounding ‘bah’ echoed from somewhere ahead. Reaching the dog, Deryn scratched her behind the ears, then peered into the gloom to see what she had found.
And there he was, the source of Deryn’s misery. Standing in the shelter beneath a thick hawthorn thicket, his ram, Surly, glared out at him. The damned beast was perfectly dry and didn’t look in the least bit pleased that Deryn had dragged himself all the way out here to rescue him from the storm.
“Out ye come,” Deryn commanded in his sternest voice. “Time to go home.”
Surly glared at him balefully then let out a long, lout bleat, before backing off further into the hawthorn thicket.
“None of that now,” Deryn told the beast. “I’m cold and soaked and just about at the end of my patience, so I’d thank ye kindly to do as ye are told.”
He leaned in and grabbed the ram by the horns, trying to pull him out. Surly, having been through this many times before, knew exactly what was coming. With an outraged bleat, he put his head down and charged. His head collided with Deryn’s stomach and sent him crashing onto his back in the mud. Surly flicked his tail disdainfully and trotted off a few paces.
Deryn lay there for a moment, winded. Then he burst into laughter. Bested by a bloody sheep!
He looked up to the sky. “Well, Lizzie lass, if ye could see me now I think ye’d be laughing yer head off. Ye always did have a better way with beasts than me. I’m sure ye would’ve had him eating right out of yer hand.”
He sighed. Heaving himself to his feet, he crouched and crabbed his way into the hawthorn thicket. Thorns tugged at his clothes and left scratches on his arms, but he would be damned if he would let the beast get away now.
Surly glared at him and lowered his head threateningly. Deryn held out a hand and made soothing noises, as Lizzie would have done.
