Their conversation was interrupted by the door banging open as the twins burst in. “I brought the crone,” one of them said.
“Webrought her,” the other one corrected.
“Will ye both quit your blethering?” A small, hunched-over woman, with a shawl covering her head as well as most of her face, hobbled in behind them. “’Tis the stone that spoke to me, nae the likes of ye.”
Although they did not look particularly chastised, the twins lapsed into silence. Jillian gestured them to leave and then turned to the healer. “Thank you for coming.”
“Aye.” She pushed the shawl off her head to reveal long, white hair. “’Tis me duty to the MacLeod.”
“Niall is a MacDonald,” Annie blurted and then blinked as the old woman looked at her. Although her face was weathered and wrinkled, her eyes were surprisingly sharp and as black as Ian’s.
“’Twas the MacLeod who summoned me, nae?” The healer moved to the bed, folded back the sheet and removed the bandage from Niall’s leg, then tsked sharply. “How long has the wound been festering?”
“I am nae sure,” Annie answered. “I ken at least two or three days. Maybe four.”
The crone gave her the same look that Ian had when she’d said the same words. “We stopped at Crianlarich to treat the wound, but the doctor was away—”
“’Tis nae matter now.” The old woman looked at the pile of bandages the maid had left and then at the kettle in front of the hearth that had steam rising from it. “Bring me some of that hot water.”
Annie moved quickly to take an empty pewter bowl the maids had left by the bandages and dipped it into the kettle, then carried it over to the bed. The crone set the small clothsack she carried on the bedside table and took out a vial which she opened and poured a few drops into the water. Instantly, a pungent odor filled the air and a cloud of mist rose to envelop her and Niall. Nodding to herself, the old woman reached into the bag again and took out a mortar and pestle, along with some dried leaves and what looked like small twigs.
As she began to grind them into a fine powder, the mist thickened, fog-like tendrils curling around the bed. The crone’s appearance seemed to change as she worked. Her back straightened, she grew taller, and the lines and wrinkles on her face faded away as her hair darkened to brown with a golden streak running through it.
Annie squinted through the now-dense haze. Perhaps Jillian’s talk of the faerie stone having a gold streak was making her imagine the shift in the crone’s appearance or maybe it was the strong, intoxicating scent in the air that was making her somewhat dizzy. Her eyes stung and she closed them for a moment.
When she opened them, the healer was finishing wrapping a fresh bandage around Niall’s thigh. How could the woman have finished so quickly? Less than a minute ago, she was grinding herbs… Annie blinked several times. The room was back to normal. The mist was gone and only a faint smell lingered in the air.
The old woman was back too, her hair completely white. She put her mortar and pestle back in her sack and nodded to Jillian. “I am leaving a bag of the sphagnum moss for ye to dress the wound with daily until it heals.”
“Then Niall will survive?” Jillian asked.
The crone nodded. “Aye. ’Tis nae his time.”
“I doona ken how to thank ye,” Annie said.
The crone set her dark gaze on her. “’Tis him ye need to thank.”
“Aye,” Annie said, although she wondered how the woman knew that Niall had gotten the wound saving her life. Maybe Ian had told her before she came upstairs.
“I will walk you to the door,” Jillian said.
“Nae need. I ken the way out,” the healer said.
Jillian smiled. “I suppose you do. I am sure Ian will be waiting to escort you back.”
“Better him than those two young ones,” the crone said as she stepped into the hall. “It will take me hours to get the creatures of the forest calmed down.”
Annie waited until the woman had gone and then she turned to Jillian. “I doona ken how she worked so fast, but that was some spectacle.”
Jillian frowned. “What do you mean?”
Annie gestured toward the bed where Niall now lay sleeping peacefully. “How the mist rose from the water and looked like fog around the bed. It was so thick I could hardly make anything out.”
“Fog? Mist? In this room?” Jillian’s frown deepened. “I did not see anything.”
Chapter Twenty
The physician arrived shortly after the crone left. “I got here as soon as I could, my lady,” he said as he was ushered into the parlor where Jillian and Annie were finishing a tray of sandwiches since they’d missed the noon meal. “It took a bit longer than I expected since I could not use my regular carriage on the steep hills and my horse was not used to climbing such.”
