“It is the land of Nicneven,” someone whispered. What followed were more hushed whispers.
People began gathering around us. I saw women and men watching me. I didn’t see any other children besides Fiona. I heard the bleating of sheep from the grassy hillsides. I was in way over my head. Laomann lifted his right hand. The group quieted.
“Tell me, Harper of Clan Biel. Are you a witch?” he asked.
It was a sincere question. It wasn’t a joke. With the number of concerned people watching me, I felt as if the next few heartbeats determined how long I remained alive in this new-old Scotland.
“I’m not a witch,” I said. It came out with the same sincerity as I heard from the chieftain. “I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know where here is, and I don’t know how to get home again.” I shook my head. I felt the sting of my sinuses and held back tears.
I saw Alasdair watching me intently. He was a little older than me but younger than the other warriors surrounding me. If I guessed, I’d say twenty to twenty-two. He was old enough to make me feel uncomfortable, but not necessarily in the wrong way.
Alasdair had broad shoulders. The wrap around his upper body draped to his knees. The broad belt around his waist made the material pull in and show off his athletic shape. I looked everywhere except in Alasdair’s serene topaz eyes. His thick waves of unruly hair moved on the breeze that pushed over the scrub brush and exposed boulders surrounding the tiny village.
“She is a servant of Nicneven,” someone said. It sounded bitter, hateful.
“The witch will kill us in our sleep,” another said.
It didn’t take long for a group of well-behaved Highland folks to turn into an angry mob. When I lifted my hands, people stepped back. I saw a few farming tools raise. I saw a sword pointed in a threatening manner.
“Harper of Clan Biel,” Laomann said. “You saved my daughter. For that, I cannot allow harm to come to you. I will confer with my clansmen. We will decide what comes next. You will go to Ainslie. She will see to that arm.”
“I can take her, Father.”
“I will take her,” Alasdair said. “Come.”
He turned away from me and marched toward the far end of the stone huts. I smiled at Laomann, gave a meek bow, and moved to keep up with the young warrior. Fiona joined me. Her hand slipped inside my left hand. I carried the jacket over my shoulder and held my right arm over my front as we walked.
“I like your hair,” Fiona said.
“Thank you, and I like your hair.”
“When the heather blooms, I will make us crowns.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be around that long.”
Alasdair glanced over his shoulder at me. He said nothing, even when I tried smiling for him. He ignored me.
Ainslie sat on the ground beside a campfire. She worked weaving grass baskets. She had osteoarthritis, but working with the bent fingers with swollen knuckles didn’t seem to bother her.
She looked up at me with more wrinkles than face and waved me to her. She reached for my hand.
“What was the animal?” Alasdair asked. Obviously, it was an animal scratch.
I kneeled in the dirt in front of the old woman. She had a collection of grass and stone pots around her. She examined the wound. Ainslie poked a dirty finger into the scar, and I winced.
“It was a cat.” I wanted to focus on anything else except the pain Ainslie caused me examining the wound. “It was a big cat. It had black fur like a panther.”
“Panther?” Fiona asked. She poked at the fire with a stick squatting in her skirts. Her feet were bare and black from running around shoeless. The cold didn’t bother the girl.
“Its eyes were like a vivid blue. Bluer than anything I saw before.” I shook my head. “It had a white diamond on its chest, right here.” I touched my chest with my free left hand.
I winced again. There was something in the way the old woman examined the wounds.
“Your animal,” she whispered. “It was a Cat Sìth.” Ainslie dragged out the last part.
“A Cat Shee,” Fiona said. “A real one?” She looked skeptical.
“Aye, the lass saved a moors creature.”
“Is that a good or a bad thing?” I asked.
Alasdair stood a little behind me, to the side. He was out of my line of sight, but close enough for me to feel his proximity.
“It is an omen. The beast is of Elphame—”
“Gramma Weatherspoon said that to me, Elphame. What is it?”
“You are from Clan Weatherspoon?” Alasdair asked. “Why deceive us with the Clan Biel?”
He turned and marched away with purpose.
“What’s going on?” I asked. Fiona, the only one in the place who wasn’t afraid of me, looked troubled.
“Weatherspoons sealed the pact with Nicneven,” Ainslie said.
I watched her work on the wound. She had a small stone container of something that looked like thick black grease and smelled like rotten fish. Before I stopped her or pulled back my arm, Ainslie slathered a handful of the stuff against the infected area. Whatever I thought of keeping my right arm from infection, I thought it was a matter of days, maybe a week before sepsis and gangrene set in. There were a few ways to lose an arm besides slipping through a hole in the fabric of time and space.
Ainslie worked on bandaging my arm. The fabric strips she pulled from the leather pouch at her hip looked surprisingly clean, all things considered.
“Nicneven laid waste to the southern lands. The Weatherspoon Clan forged a pact between the queen and her people. Life for life, they gave up all to the queen.”
I looked at Fiona. Once she had curiosity, now I saw fear.
I shook my head. I saw something in the corner of my eye. It was something in my hair. I pulled at the strands, tried to get a good look. My hair wasn’t long enough to see clearly. It looked like bleach or paint. It felt like my hair, but the color wasn’t auburn. It seemed a lot lighter.
Ainslie continued to wrap the wound on my forearm and wrist. Bandages went around the palm of my hand and up the forearm. She tied off the strips of fabric after tearing at the ends with the few teeth she had in her mouth.
“Thank you,” I said. It was a good, firm wrap without a lot of pressure on the wound.
“You look for trouble, lass, Laomann will see your head on a spike by morning.”
It was the strangest ‘you’re welcome’ I ever got. I stood up and tried pulling at my hair again. I wasn’t vain, but it looked off to me.
“Do you have a mirror?” I asked.
Fiona blinked at me.
“Something I can see my hair?”
“Aye,” she said. Fiona hooked my left hand and pulled me away from Ainslie. The old woman stared back at me.
It wasn’t a mirror. It was a polished steel plate, but it had enough luster for me to see a blurry reflection. I saw my head. To the right side of my face, the length of hair where I used to have subtle side-swept bangs now had a strip of white hair. It came from the roots and took up enough hair to look like a complete strip of white.
“What the fu—”
Friend or Foe
The smell of cooked venison lingered in the air and on my clothes. Food was for sustenance, but not for taste. I sat on the floor and didn’t complain about what they offered me to eat. Too hungry to care about the burnt skin or tufts of fur I pulled from my lips, I ate, grateful to have a meal.
They kept me isolated. My conversation with the healer and the expletive I uttered in Fiona’s presence forced the clansmen to rethink my influence on the girl. They knew the word, and I felt terrible about swearing. Sometimes, when you see a white stripe in the hairline that wasn’t there before, it’s better to swear.
Devlin and Niall guarded me. They stood with their broad backs to a door that wasn’t there because two h
ealthy Highlanders took up most of the wall. The hut didn’t have a fireplace like the other place. I had a meal, some water, and a tallow candle in a bowl. The lingering cooked venison stench came from the sizzling fat.
Once I finished the meal, leaving the strips of bones on the plate, they stepped from the small hut.
“So, what? I have to stay here?” I asked.
“You will stay here this night.” Alasdair appeared in the doorway once the brutes slipped through. I saw nothing but blackness behind Alasdair’s shoulders. I heard the rain patter on the thatched roof. “Chieftain Laomann and the others will decide what to do with you. You have your life. I think it is best to wait out the night.”
“I’m sorry if I did anything wrong.”
I stood up and faced Alasdair. He was a little taller than me. I saw his topaz eyes staring at the strip of white in my hair. Now I knew it was there. I was overly self-conscious about it. I pulled at it, and he looked into my eyes.
“I don’t mean any harm. I don’t mean any disrespect. All I want is to find my mother and get out of here. I promise I’m not working for this Nicneven, and I am not from Elphame. I’m from New York. I’m American.”
He frowned at me. “You speak strangely, Harper of Clan Biel—Weatherspoon—New York.”
I chuckled and shook my head. “I know, we talk the same language, and believe me, I think that is totally weird. When I first got here, I didn’t understand a word anyone said. Now, I understand you, and I think you understand me—a little. But I’m just me, that’s all. I’m not a spy from the queen. I don’t know who this Nicneven is, and I have no idea about the location of Elphame. All I know is that I want to go home.”
I wasn’t going to shed a tear in front of Alasdair. It took all I had inside me to keep from crying. I danced a little on the spot.
“I have to pee. Is there a place I can pee?” I asked. “Sorry.”
Alasdair smirked. It was a knowing smirk. I’d reached through that rugged Highland exterior and gave him a little warm fuzzy.
“Come, I will show you where.”
I followed Alasdair from the hut. I saw the villagers gathered in a large circle around a bonfire that took up a lot of space. I saw silhouettes illuminated in front of the dancing flames. Alasdair led me out into the dark and downhill from the village.
“Thanks, I can manage from here.”
I found a spot behind the cover of a bush. In the dark, I knew nothing showed. If Alasdair expected me to run off, he didn’t care. I saw him turn his back as I squatted. Some distance from us, I saw Devlin and Niall standing outside the hut where they kept me. I think they bet on my chances of getting away into the dark. I don’t think they cared if I fled either.
“What’s going to happen to me?” I asked.
Alasdair sighed. “They will decide if you are friend or foe. They will decide to let you live or bury you here.”
“That’s not helping me,” I whispered.
When I came from the makeshift latrine, Alasdair turned back to me. Even at that distance, that far away from the fire, I know he saw the glistening of tears in my eyes.
“Laomann is a reasonable man. You saved Fiona from the rogues. He will not take your life. I know him. He is my uncle.”
“I don’t know what happened to me, Alasdair. I don’t know how I got here. All I know is I walked a long way. I happened to save a cat that managed to shred my arm.”
“The Cat Sìth is a wandering beast of Elphame. Some say it has powers to heal. Some say it will steal your soul.”
“All I know is I think those two guys that snatched that lamb from Fiona set a snare, and the cat shee—”
“Cat Sìth,” Alasdair said, correcting me. All I heard was the ‘shee’ at the end. I knew it was close enough. I was from New York, after all, that should account for something.
“It was dying, and I saved it.”
Alasdair looked impressed. “It might bring you luck. You sleep, we will know by morning.”
He led me back to the stone hut where Devlin and Niall watched me. They discussed me, but I was too scared to ask what they were saying. I turned from Alasdair to walk into the shelter.
“What do you call that cloth you wear on your legs?” Alasdair asked.
“You mean these?” I ran my hand over my thigh. “I call these my lucky jeans. I hope they still work.”
“I will have Deirdre bring you skin for sleep.”
“Thank you.”
“If you are a witch, Harper of Clan Biel—Weatherspoon—New York, please spare us.”
“I’m not a witch, Alasdair, I swear.”
“Best not swear, lass,” Devlin said. “If Chieftess Isla hears her daughter repeat that word you said earlier, we, all of us, will pay the price.”
“Got it,” I said. I saluted the Highlanders with my left hand and felt embarrassed by the motion. I walked into the hut, and Niall closed the door.
I dropped to the dirt floor of the hut. I sat near the tallow candle. I wanted to keep it burning all night. I didn’t think there was enough braided wick or fat to keep the flame lit.
The hut door swung open. I saw the woman who tended to me when I arrived, Deirdre, who tossed the smelly deer hide at me.
“They will likely let you live by morning,” Deirdre said.
“That’s not exactly the kind of thing I can sleep on.”
She looked indifferent. “Suits me,” she said. The door closed, and I was alone in the hut.
Grudgingly, I curled up beside the makeshift candle. I watched the flickering flame. I pulled and curled the white hair around my fingers. The deerskin draped over my body kept the chill off, but lying on the compacted dirt floor drew coldness from the earth. I tried closing my eyes, but I kept seeing the icy blue Cat Sìth staring at me, waiting to invade my dreams.
Abandoned
It was impossible to sleep with death waiting outside the door. I managed to doze off several times, but whenever I felt a stab of panic, I realized I wasn’t home, and it made my heart palpitate. It wasn’t my idea of a summer vacation in Scotland. Looking around, after all that I had experienced, I certainly wasn’t in my century anymore.
Dawn brought a break in the clouds. The healing sunshine spread over the countryside. Rays of light filtered through the thatch roof. I sat up with the fur skin around my shoulders. Outside the door, I heard the growling thunder of the Highlanders talking and laughing.
I knew it was a moment I dreaded. I stood and ran my fingers through my hair. I straightened the windbreaker and passed my left hand in front of my face to smell my breath. I had the film of dear meat on my teeth. Perhaps when they opened the door, it wouldn’t matter if I had bad breath before they killed me.
There was a bustling outside. Niall opened the door and motioned me outside. I saw six strappingly tall Highlanders waiting for me to emerge from the stone jail. I saw women of the hamlet chattering between them and laughing. In the face of everything, I thought if I was to leave that place, dead or alive, I was going to do so with dignity.
Clansmen stood around their chieftain. Fiona slipped out from behind her father. She had a handful of sticks with one perched in her mouth. She chewed on it and ran it over her teeth. Without fear, Fiona walked up to me and handed me the fistful of stalks.
The reed in her mouth came out. “Want me to show you?” she asked. I saw the chewed end and tooth marks down its shaft.
“I think I can work it out,” I said.
I put one in my mouth. I ignored people watching me trying to use the reed like a toothbrush. I nibbled on the hard stalk. It had an unexpected effect on my mouth. I felt my taste buds respond to the natural chemicals in the reed. My mouth felt refreshed. The teeth lost the buildup from not brushing.
Then I saw that people had stopped paying attention to me. They went back to eating breakfast and passing fla
sks. A few shared mugs and swapped stories. I wasn’t as exciting a topic in the morning as I was the day before.
I noticed the distinct separation of the sexes. Women gathered, chattered, and had domestic chores like cooking. I saw a few making grass weaves, and some worked on fabrics. The men were hunters, the bringers of fortune and life within the clan. I considered that although they didn’t necessarily practice women’s rights, I knew I likely wouldn’t have lived as long if I had been a male here with my identity in question.
I didn’t know much about cultural anthropology. I knew it was a patriarchal society. The class stratum wasn’t easy to read. They were protective but not openly affectionate.
Women tended cooking fires, collected grease from the meat that dripped into leather pouches. They weren’t wasteful people. I noticed there was a purpose to their bustling. They stacked furs on flat carts. I saw a few goats among the sheep. I saw people gathering items as if getting ready for something to happen.
I saw Deirdre marching toward me from a group of women. Another woman walked with her. They stared at me, and I felt they meant harm. I readied myself for anything. I didn’t see Alasdair, but Fiona seemed indifferent to their approach.
Then Deirdre tossed a garment at me. It had swirls of green and blue. It smelled like smoke, and I couldn’t make the shape.
“We made this for you,” Deirdre said. “Elspeth said you needed a cloak.”
“You cannot stay in the wild with no cloak,” Elspeth said.
“Thank you,” I said. I pulled the wrap away from my chest to make sense of its shape.
“Dah,” Deirdre grunted.
She stepped forward and yanked the fabric from my hands. It took little time for her to throw it over my shoulders. It draped down my front and covered me entirely to my knees.
Fiona had a braided belt made of hemp that went around my waist. It drew in the fabric, and I suddenly looked like everyone else. Except my ‘cloak’ didn’t have the same tartan as Clan Slora.
“Thank you,” I said again.
Deirdre turned and left me standing beside Fiona.
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