by Katie M John
I wondered when Glen would come home, how long his transformation lasted and what was the trigger for it ending. I couldn’t help but feel disappointed that he had left just when things between us seemed to be… what? I shook the thoughts away. Glen was my friend. At most, some kind of fleeting holiday style romance, which would soon be a fond memory. I really couldn’t waste my time and energy thinking about kissing Glen when I should be finding a way to get back home.
A rustle in the woods to my right pulled my attention and for one moment, I was hopeful it might be Glen in his beautiful Stag form but when I saw the hunched figure of Meg, I was even happier.
“Mrs…Meg,” I called cheerfully, leaving the track and crossing the tree-line.
She was gathering kindling sticks from the floor and adding them to a pile she had tucked under her arm. She didn’t look up when I greeted her and I didn’t quite catch what she mumbled under her breath.
“Here, let me help you,” I said, bending down and handing her a stick.
“That one’s no good. It’s damp and rotten,” she said, not bothering to hide her lack of gratitude.
“Oh, okay,” I said, casting the stick aside. “How about this one?” I stooped to pick up one that looked, with my total lack of experience, more suitable.
“Better,” she said, adding it to her bundle. “What kin I do for you?” she asked, still busy.
“I…” I coughed, not sure what the best approach was; whether to come straight out and just tell her what I was convinced she already knew, or to try and test her out first.
“Are the gossips true? Has Glen McGarrick got you with child?” She stopped her task to scrutinise me and shook her head. “No, I don’t think so—you still smell innocent.”
How I wished the ground would just swallow me up in that minute. I snickered and sniffed. “No, Miss. It’s not like that between Glen and I.”
“Oh. Perhaps that is why you’re here. A love potion, a spell…”
I shook my head. “No. This has nothing to do with Glen. This is a more personal matter.”
Meg handed me the bundle of sticks and beckoned me to follow her. “Come on then, lassie,” she said, shuffling off in the direction of her home.
Meg’s house was, as I had predicted, one of the small cottages, or perhaps hovel was a better word, that hugged the sea-loch bank. It was down a steep track and I could see why Meg stayed mostly at home. It was hard going even for me and several times, I worried my footing wasn’t secure.
“Your house is remote and a hard walk to the village,” I said, trying to make conversation and break the awkward silence.
She grunted. “It’s home.”
I nodded, taking in the natural beauty of the location. Her small stone cottage was topped with heather and framed by several wind beaten trees that created the perfect frame to overlook the sea loch towards the Isle of Skye. It was a small piece of paradise in my world, but a hard and hostile world for Meg.
Chickens come hurrying towards Meg, which she shooed away with a stick before cursing under her breath. “Little bastards!”
I liked her immediately.
I continued to follow her in through the door, which I had to duck to clear, and into the dark cottage, which was made of just one larger room that acted as a cooking, sleeping and living area, and a smaller room, that acted as a store room, which is where Meg instructed me to add the kindling wood to the diminished piled in a wooden box at the back.
The rest of the room was filled with a couple of hanging rabbits and pheasants, dried herbs, and a chest full of salt in which bits of meat and fish were mostly submerged. There was also a large barrel of what I guessed was seawater, given the smell and seaweed that was in it. Two large brown crabs moved lazily around in it.
The whole place belonged to someone who knew how to survive and my admiration piqued. When I returned to the main room, I looked around for Meg but there was only a willowy, straight-backed slim, attractive woman with silver hair pinned tidily up on top of her head. She wore a dark green velvet dress, embroidered with gold Celtic symbols. She was reaching up into one of the crude wooden cupboards fixed to the cottage wall and was gathering a couple of pottery cups. The woman turned to me and I recognised the same grey eyes immediately
“Meg?” I asked, not believing what I was seeing.
“Now you see me, child.”
“I don’t understand. How did you change?”
She waved at one of the two wooden chairs that sat either side of a rough pine table, the centre of which held a crystal ball held in place by a stand made of crossed driftwood.
“I didn’t change. You did. You chose to see me differently. Here. I’m afraid it’s not that fancy black tea from across sea.”
I smiled, receiving her offering with thanks. It was hot and it was wet and despite the golden light of the day, the chill had crept into my bones.
“Now why are you here, Skye?” She took a seat opposite me and waited with a stillness very few people have. There was no doubt in my mind that I was in the presence of a magical being.
“I need to get home,” I stated, hoping that was obvious enough without giving too much away.
She nodded. “Okay. And home is far away, yes?”
I smiled, still not sure how much she knew.
“This is not something I’ve had to deal with before. I’m not sure I have the power to help you in the way you wish, but leave it with me. I have some friends who may be able to help. Only, I won’t be meeting with them until the next full moon.”
“Thank you,” I said quietly, beginning to feel secure in my belief that she knew exactly what my problem was.
“Will you stay for lunch. I don’t get many visitors out this way—not unless it’s in the middle of the night.”
“That would be really lovely, thank you,” I said with genuine enthusiasm. There was something about the woman that made me feel calm and at peace for the first time since I’d arrived. Perhaps it was because I knew I didn’t have to keep up the pretence of being someone I wasn’t, or maybe it was somehow, she carried hope with her—hope that I might get home and see my mum and my brother, who, although I hated to admit, I was missing.
I sat and watched as Meg busied around the little space with a quiet efficiency, preparing the crabs by boiling them in a large black cauldron over the fire, and then buttering thick slabs of heavy brown bread with butter. Crab had always been one of my favourite meals and I couldn’t think of a better place to eat it than here with Meg in this little cottage by the loch.
When they were ready, she offered up a blessing to Mother Nature, giving thanks for her abundance and then took a heavy wooden mallet and cracked them open, arranging them on pewter platters along with the bread. It wasn’t an elegant meal but in my mind, it was food fit for a queen. She picked up the platters and headed towards the door.
“Let’s eat outside,” she said. “It’s such a shame to waste the last of the sunny days.” She was half way out of the door when she turned and instructed me to pull a couple of soft tartan blankets from the trunk by the door.
It was strange how first impressions often deceived. On first seeing Meg’s humble house, I had thought she lived a life of hard and brutal poverty, but now I could see she was richer than any of the other women in the village with their French silks and ridiculously ornate hats. Meg was free and she was a child of nature. No wonder they all silently hated her.
We sat in relative quiet. She wasn’t the kind of person to need a lot of conversation. Seals bobbed in the salty waters in front of us and the Isle of Skye came in and out of focus. When Meg had sucked out the last of the white crab meat from the claw, she cast the shell aside on to the small pebble beach and I followed her lead, watching as a gull came down to pick out the last morsels of sweet white flesh.
“The village is a strange place,” Meg said at last, “don’t you think?”
I shrugged. “I imagine it’s pretty much like any other Highland village.”
She smiled. “Maybe, but I don’t know. I worry about our people. They seem so easily led by their fears, always in conflict with something. No one is happy anymore.”
“Well, I imagine the war between the Jacobites and the English isn’t helping any.”
She snorted and attacked the other leg of the crab. “Aye, men and their kingdoms and their god.”
“You’re not a Jacobite?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I’m not anything to do with any of them. It’s all such a waste of energy. There are far more important battles to fight.”
We fell back into a thoughtful silence as we enjoyed our crab and bread supper. The bread was the best I’d had since arriving. So much lighter than Fi’s usual boulders.
“Glen seems happy enough,” I said, putting my platter down and heading the short distance to the shore line to wash my hands of the crab juices.
“Aye, well Glen McGarrick is different to the rest of them.”
Did she know his secret, too? I wondered.
“He’s very excited about the coming Festival of Fires and all the parties that come after it. I think he likes to party.” I’m surprised to find myself talking about Glen like this and I wonder why I’m waffling on about these things other than the idea that maybe Meg might tell me about the secretive Dorcha Sìthiche.”
“Yes, the Festival of Fires was always my favourite too when I was younger. That’s where I met my husband.”
The surprise must have shown on my face and she goes onto explain. “This was his cottage. He was a fisherman—and very handsome. Strong, with features made by the sea. He was also caring and kind, something men of our world often aren’t. We were very much in love and I left my home on the other side of the forest to settle here with him. Our love was so intense that like a fire burning too hot, our time ran out prematurely. He went out fishing one day. An unexpected storm came in and he didn’t come home. None of the men came home that day. It left a row of three widows in our little cottages. They’ve all died now, too.
“I’m so sorry, Meg.”
She shrugged. “Life moves like the tides, Skye. Sometimes she comes towards you, offering her abundances, and then she moves back and all your left with is the tideline and a few washed up memories. That’s why its precious and important to work with the rhythm and flow of what is presented to you.”
“I guess,” I said, kicking at a pebble with my toe before searching out her eyes. “Do you think I will get home or do you think I’m stuck here forever?”
“I don’t know, child.”
She wiped her hands on the piece of cotton cloth she had under her platter and gathered the remains of lunch. “You should be going soon. It’s going to get dark quicker than you think and it’s a little bit of a walk into the village.”
“Thank you for lunch, Meg. I really enjoyed it, and our conversation.”
“Come by any time, Skye, you’re always welcome.”
I was about to head back up the slope that would take me to village when I paused, building up enough courage to ask her about the Dorcha Sìthiche.” She stopped as if hearing my thoughts and turned to me with a frown.
“Don’t say her name,” Meg warned.
I shook my head, not entirely sure what she was referring.
“Who told you about it? We don’t speak of it with outsiders.”
“The Dor…” Meg’s finger flew to her lips. “To speak her name is to draw her closer.” She placed the platters down on the large rock beside her door and walked towards me, wringing her hands in the cloth.
“I’m sorry,” I said, regretting bringing this shadow to our pleasant afternoon.
“What do you know about it?”
“Nothing. Aileen mentioned it. She didn’t say it was a person. The way she spoke of it was as if it were some kind of festival.”
Megs eyes turned dark. “Well, that’s one way of putting it.”
“Can you tell me about it?”
Meg scanned the landscape as if looking for eves-droppers, but who she thought might just be hanging around was a mystery. She bit down on her lip and tucked a loose piece of hair behind her ear whilst she analysed my face and muttered to herself, “Maybe she was meant to ask you. Maybe there’s a reason.” She cocked her head as if listening for an answer on the wind and then she pulled herself straight. “Okay, I’ll tell you but only because if I don’t, you’re likely to go snooping about and get yourself into all kinds of trouble.”
It was as if she knew me. I raised my eyebrow encouraging her to go on.
“The…” she waved her hand in the air as if searching for words before sighing. “Come in and I’ll tell you more. She can’t hear us in there. The house is protected.”
If my curiosity wasn’t bad enough before, it had just tripled. I followed her in and watched as she shut the door and the shutters over the window as well as adding more logs to the fire in the fireplace. Then she went to a wooden box and grabbed handfuls of salt before lining the door way and the window sills.
“Okay, I’m getting nervous,” I joke, not laughing.
“So you should be.”
My heart beat had picked up but I wasn’t going to deny that I was finding it all a little exciting, too.
“The village is cursed,” she said. “It always has been. When the village was founded, they cut down a sacred grove of trees and demolished a stone circle to build the church. The grove and stones belonged to the Dorcha Sìthiche, the Dark Fairy.
“She was so angry that she revealed herself to the first holy man who came to preach at the church. She informed him that as a result of the disrespect shown to her, the last baby of the year to be born in the village would be hers to cook in her enchanted cauldron, unless the people made other suitable sacrifices to fill her cauldron.
“The days before the Night of Dorcha Sìthiche, the father of the last born child pays the men of the village to go out hunting with the aim of killing every wild beast they come across in the hope it will be enough to sate the Dark Fairy’s appetites. They also make offerings of gold and small wooden dolls dressed in strips of cotton taken from the first robes of all the village babies born that year in the hope it might trick her.”
“And people still believe that? They still make offerings to her—after all this time?” I asked, thinking back to the small wooden dolls Glen had spent the week carving. Had they been for the ritual? Were they going to be a part of the offering?
“Of course they still make offerings. People have seen her in the shadows of the nurseries, and the one year, under the foolish misguided belief of a new minister, the village took a stand and refused to make any more offerings. The last born baby went missing and three days later, it’s body was found at the door of the church, its flesh ripped from its bones.”
“That’s horrendous.”
Meg nodded. “The ritual of the Dorcha Sìthiche has always been a closely guarded secret. The villagers don’t like to admit the existence of the old spirits and energies. It frightens them to think about it too much. The ritual is conducted and then it is forgotten about until the next year. That is unless you are with child, and then you spend your days looking out for another village woman who might give birth after you and ensure your child’s protection.”
“Thank you for telling me.”
She nodded. “Just don’t talk about it further and whatever you do, don’t speak her name. You already carry a strange and powerful energy, and you’re not from here so she’ll be curious about you.
I thanked her again before making my way to her door. Night had started to creep down the sky and I waved before heading up the slope towards the main track with an extra quickness in my step.
CHAPTER NINE
As I headed back towards the village, a rider on a large brown horse trotted towards me. There was nothing about it that caused any more than the usual anxiety a girl feels when she’s on her own and a stranger approaches.
The rider’s eyes fixed
on me as he neared and I could immediately tell he knew I wasn’t a local. Judging from the quality of his horse, the style of his clothes and his overstuffed belly, I made a guess that this was the infamous Duke of Gifford. He wasn’t quite as old as Glen had had me believe, but then age had a different measure here.
He raised his hand to his hat as if to salute me and slowed his horse. I flashed him a quick smile before dipping my head and picking up my pace, making it clear I was in a hurry and wasn’t inviting any kind of social engagement. I thought I had gotten away with it until I heard him dismount and turn his horse around.
“Good evening, Miss,” he said, studying me.
“Hello,” I replied, still keeping my pace brisk. I didn’t want him to think he was making me anxious but it was difficult; everything about the man raised my heckles. I couldn’t tell you what it was about him that made me feel unsafe but there was something and the sooner I lost him, the better.
“I’m afraid I don’t know you,” he said in such a way that it made me feel I had done something wrong.
“I’m sorry, Sir,” I said, not exactly sure how I should address a Duke. “I’m running so late and the evening is drawing in so fast, I really can’t stop.” I flashed him a smile, which I hoped he would read as me telling him to nicely fuck off.
All at once his hand whipped out and grabbed my injured arm, causing me to wince. “Did you hear who I was, girl?”
A lump suddenly formed in my throat making it difficult to breathe. “Yes, Sir. You’re the Duke of Gifford.”
“And I asked you who you were,” he sneered.
I’m sure he hadn’t specifically asked me any such thing but I nodded. “I’m staying with Lady McGarrick,” hoping her rank might give me a reprieve.