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“Fine, but do nae do it again,” she says. “You may nae be a witch, but the way you act is like a Godless heathen at times. How do you expect the folks of this village to accept you when you act like this? Are you mocking our ways, lass?”
“No, no,” I say, sorrow chilling to fear. “Please, I’m really sorry. It’s a lot different here than when I come from.”
We stare at each other, and I implore her forgiveness with my eyes and will. I can’t lose her. She’s the one ally I have. If I were to lose her, I’d be without any shelter or help. I have no idea how I’d survive out there on my own long enough to find my way home.
“Ach, I understand, if you’n do?”
“I do,” I say, nodding with exaggerated enthusiasm.
Relief floods away the fear and trepidation that never seems to be far from my thoughts.
“Got it,” Alesoun says, letting go of my hand. She holds up the thin, long splinter that she dug out of my palm.
“Thank you,” I say, inspecting the palm of my hand. A small bit of blood wells in the palm where the splinter went in but there’s no other obvious damage.
“Good. Now enough talking. There’s work to be done. Did you nae say that Duncan told you where the berries grow?”
“He did,” I say.
“Good, take the basket up and gather it full. We’ll make a peace offering of them around the village to help smooth your welcome.”
“Okay,” I say. I get the basket from the shelf and head for the door. As I grab hold to open it, a thought occurs to me. “Is it safe up there?”
“Safe as anywhere, I suppose,” Alesoun says. “If’n it’s your time, then the Lord is going to take you.”
I force a half smile against the resistance of my cheeks that want to frown at that less than comforting thought. I’m not going to argue though. I’ve already caused enough offense as it is.
“Right,” I agree.
My stomach clenches around a hard ball of ice as I open the door and step out for what I hope won’t be the last time.
Chapter Thirteen
As I step through the doorway of Alesoun’s home several of the village women are huddled between their houses down the path. They see me step out and almost as one they turn their backs. A fearful flutter strikes my stomach. Lovely. They never include Alesoun since they think she’s fae-touched, but Alesoun doesn’t let it bother her and I shouldn’t either.
I take a breath of the clean air and realize how stuffy, smokey, and stinky it is inside. Being outside is a pleasure. The crispness and the smell of grass, heather, and manure is clean and unpolluted. It improves my mood. The other women may hate me but that’s fine. I’ll keep on keeping on, as my Dad would say when I was little.
Taking another deep breath, I force a laugh, mostly to annoy the women who are trying to shun me. Let them chew on that. Two of them glance back so I smile and wave before turning away and heading up into the highlands. They glare in return.
The walk, fresh air, and exercise are exactly what I need. As I walk, the beauty of the Highlands rolling green and rich blue sky soothes my fear. As fear recedes, I’m left with nothing but time to reflect.
I should have been nicer to Duncan. His bluntness surprised me, and it hurt. At least he was asking me to my face, unlike the women who waited until I was out of sight to talk about me. It’s an admirable trait.
I like his boldness, now that I think about it. He doesn’t have filters. He says what’s on his mind and that’s it. Take it or leave it. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone like that in my life. And those eyes. My heart speeds up as I picture them. The way he looks at me, as if he sees my soul. The way he smiles as if he likes what he sees.
And every time we touch…. It’s magical. Is that witchcraft? Or hormones? My scientific mind comes down on the side of some kind of chemical reaction. Which does nothing to explain that weird feeling that I know him too well for someone I’ve only met recently. When I’m with him, it feels as if I’ve always known him. Forever. Which is impossible, right? Of course it is. But then so is walking into a heavy fog and emerging four hundred years in the past. That kind of throws the impossible to the wind.
My thoughts wander easily from one to the next as I stride through the heather and across the peat. I climb over the ridge that Duncan pointed out, but I don’t see any berries or bushes like Alesoun described so I keep walking, climbing higher and higher. The highlands aren’t like climbing a mountain in Colorado. It’s not like any mountain range I’ve seen.
It’s not a single line dividing the country like the Rockies or even the Appalachian Mountains. They climb one to the next with broad swaths of relatively flat land between them which is where the MacGregors and other Highland clans make their homes. Technically, I think we’re still in the lower part of the highlands too. They get much steeper and craggier.
What was the nickname of the MacGregors? Oh, Children of the Mist. Right. No, that comes later. After the bad times, when the MacGregor name was outlawed.
Ahead of me rises a massive peak which I stop to admire. The rays of the sun dance on the snow caps. Three birds circle around it. They must be huge birds because they look sizable even from this distance. I drink in the beauty of my surroundings as I turn a slow circle. My chest expands and it feels as if I’m lifting out of my own body.
My smile is so wide it hurts but I’m here to do a job and I’d best be to it, so I turn my attention to finding berries. When I turn back to resume my climb, there’s a raven sitting on a rock not a dozen feet away.
“Hello,” I say. Crazy, maybe, but it looks like the same one that I keep seeing. “It sure seems you’re following me.”
