She hummed on and off as her eyes narrowed.
“What do ye see?” Adaira asked impatiently.
The woman clucked her tongue. “Dinna rush me. Ye rush a fortune-teller, ye get lousy fortunes.”
She hummed more then pointed to a spot on Adaira’s palm.
“Your heart line is split, not fragmented.”
Adaira leaned over her hand in the light, trying to see what the woman saw. “What does that mean? ‘Tis bad?”
Ithadto be bad. Was not Adaira suffering the worst of heartaches?
The woman grunted. “Fragmented means heartache, and dearie, most of us have some tributaries on our love lines, see?” The woman lifted her own wizened hand to show off the many lines populating her palm.
The end of her heart line was rife with tiny, fragmented lines.
“Now look at yours. A cut, a split.”
Adaira saw it. The breach was obvious, to the point each line burrowed deeply against her skin. “What does it mean?”
Another grunt. “It could mean a few things. I’ve no’ seen this many times, but what I think it means is your true love was expiring, and ‘tis naught ye can do about it. But,” here the woman lifted a gnarled finger, “ye will love again. Love will give ye another path.”
Adaira shook her head. “Nay, ‘tis gone.”
“Why do ye say that?”
“Because he left me.” Adaira swallowed hard. Saying the words aloud burned her throat, like admitting a truth she did not want to acknowledge. “He left me at the altar. I thought he loved me, yet he left me and is no’ coming back.”
“Did he tell ye that? Did he say he was no’ coming back?”
Blinding tears seared her eyes and she shook her head. The woman grasped her hand harder.
“Tell me that ye believe that. Tell me that your heart says he will no’ return.”
Adaira shook her head. She could not do that.
“The world is a surprising place,” the woman continued as she released Adaira’s hand. “We make plans or assumptions and God or the gods or the Otherworld show us that we are not in charge. Your hand tells me that your heart will return. Those lines? Those paths? Whatever or whoever ‘tis, will come back in some way.”
In a shroud, if my brothers have anything to do with it,Adaira lamented silently.
Unable to make any sense of the woman’s claims, she withdrew her hand, gave the woman a coin, and departed.
Chapter Eighteen
Arrannotedherdistressand rushed to her as she exited.
“Adaira! Are ye well? Did they hurt ye?” He glared at the tent, ready to burst through the open flap. She placed her hand on his arm. The only hurt she had was heartache, something not new nor caused by the woman in the tent.
“Nay, Arran. Dinna fret. She only spoke to me, and I did no’ understand all she said. ‘Tis of no concern.”
He did not appear to believe her – his eyes darkened in the already dimmed light – but he gratefully did not press the issue.
“Would ye like to join Fiona and your brothers at the bonfire? We can head that way.”
She was tired. The outing and emotional drain from meeting the wayfarer had sapped her.
“Nay. I think I’d rather go back to Glenachulish.”
