Page 89 of Blood of the Thistle

The voice sounded nothing at all like Mairead MacCailin, but the pursed lips and sternly elevated brows were close enough that Anna laughed.

Apparently some things really were universal and timeless. Mothers wanted their daughters to behave with dignity, daughters mocked them when they weren’t listening, and the impersonation didn’t actually have to be good so long as both parties knew exactly who was being imitated.

“Oh, gosh, this feels good,” Anna sighed as the first cold rush of seawater covered her feet. She sucked in a breath when another wave rolled higher around her ankles but continued farther in until the water nearly reached the hems she’d so carefully knotted. “What a day.”

“Next time Mam wants to be rid of us, we should suggest the bakehouse,” Etta said, wading in beside her. “Or better still, some quiet needlework. I could sit beside a window and embroider flowers for hours and feel nae guilt at all.”

“I’d rather weed.”

Etta looked appalled. “Then ye may have my share tomorrow.”

Anna laughed. “I didn’t say I wanted to do it every day. But I actually didn’t mind the work. It was good to be industrious, to get my hands dirty.” She bent at the waist and plunged both hands into the cold water, rubbing them vigorously together while little clouds of loosened dirt disappeared into the sea. “Although possibly not this dirty.”

Etta crouched beside her and began scrubbing at her own fingers. “I like the weans.”

Anna glanced sideways. “What is that? Weans?”

“The bairns.”

Anna grinned, still without a clue. “That doesn’t help me at all. What are bairns?”

Etta laughed, still bent beside Anna, and turned her face toward her. “The bairns,” she repeated, as though greater emphasis should somehow make the unfamiliar word perfectly obvious. “The wee ones.”

“Oh. Children.”

“Aye.”

“Yes, I like the bairns too. I could entertain them all day.”

She had, in fact, entertained them for a fair portion of the afternoon. The smallest children had begun the day gamely enough, trailing after their mothers or sitting in the grass while the women worked as a group, weeding the endless tracts of barley and rye, but several hours had proved too much for them. By midday, one little boy had been whining with impressive persistence, another child had begun crying for no reason at all, and two little girls who’d played happily together all morning were suddenly engaged in a furious quarrel over a stick.

Having done her student teaching with Pre-K groups, Anna had recognized the symptoms immediately.

“They were tired and hungry,” she said. “That’s all. Three-year-olds haven’t changed much in seven hundred—” She caught herself quickly. “In a very long time.”

Thankfully, Etta was busy rubbing dirt from the side of one foot and seemed not to notice.

“Yet somehow ye decided making them run in circles would improve matters.”

“It did improve matters.”

However, explaining Duck, Duck, Goose to three-, four-, and five-year-olds who did not speak a word of English had required considerable assistance from Etta and quite a bit of pantomime from Anna. Etta had translated the rules, or some approximation of them, while Anna demonstrated by walking around the outside and tapping each small head in turn. Even then it had taken several attempts before they understood that the chosen goose was supposed to chase her rather than simply leap up and run happily away.

Once they’d caught on, there had been no stopping them.

By the time they emerged from the water, their feet were clean and pink from the cold and their hands looked considerably more human, though Anna realized the dirt beneath her nails would require something more than seawater. Neither was in any hurry to put her hose and shoes back on, and the sand farther up the narrow beach had been warmed by the afternoon sun, so they stretched out upon their stomachs, with their elbows in the sand, and their bare feet raised behind them to dry.

For a while they talked about nothing of importance, which Anna had discovered was one of the nicest things about Etta. Conversation with her required very little effort. Etta had introduced Anna to each of the women during their work that morning and now, while they waited for their feet to dry, supplied the bits and pieces of information that names alone could not provide. Anna liked that there was rarely any malice in Etta’s stories. Occasionally she shared some unfortunate tidbit with far too much enthusiasm, but for the most part, Anna had begun to understand that Etta simply wanted her to know these people, to recognize the relationships and histories everyone else at Craig na Coille had known all their lives. Anna appreciated it so much, supposing that Etta wanted her to belong here.

“Ye ken Margaret?” Etta asked, drawing a long, crooked line through the sand with one finger. “The one with all the wild orange hair?”

Anna smiled. “I don’t think anyone could miss Margaret.”

“Aye, well, she was born at Craig na Coille, but she left when she married. Her husband held a wee croft on his uncle’s land some miles north of here.” Etta’s expression sobered. “He was killed two winters past. Nae in battle or anything grand. A tree came down upon him while he and his brother were cutting timber.”

“Oh, God. That’s awful.”

“Aye. She had the three wee ones by then and another coming, so Mam sent men to fetch her home as soon as word reached us. Fearchar found them the croft near the western burn.”