by Jane Yolen
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The Pictish Child
Jane Yolen
For Robert Harris,
my Scottish consultant
Tartan:
Plaid cloth.
In Scotland each clan
has its own distinctive pattern.
One
Luck
Jennifer looked out the window in disbelief. What awful luck. They had been in Scotland for only five days, the first part of their summer vacation, visiting with Gran and Da—and three of those days had been full of rain.
They’d driven from the airport in a storm so fierce it had washed the tidy streets of Fairburn clean of any dust. Yesterday it had been pouring again, the rain coming down straight and then slantwise. Today the sky was slate grey, like a badly erased blackboard, and there was more rain.
They’d already spent too many hours up in the attic playing dress-up, which Peter hated but Molly loved. And lots of card games, none of which they’d ever heard of in the States, like Patience and Happy Families and Bezique—which Peter loved and Molly hated.
And, Jennifer thought miserably, I have been stuck in the middle of every argument. It’s no different than being at home. Except for the magic.
The magic!
They had had two incredible days when magic had surrounded them like the Scottish weather. She had conveniently forgotten the fear and the terror that had accompanied those days, remembering instead only the dizzying wonder she had felt.
But now, Jennifer thought, it’s just rain, rain, rain.
She traced the path of one drop as it slid down the window, her finger leaving a peculiar long smudge. She could see her own image faintly in the glass, the red hair almost black against the tall, dark, wet trees, the wide-set eyes that made her look permanently surprised.
“Dreech,” she said, turning to the others. It was one of the few Scottish words she had really learned, and it perfectly described the day: grey and wet and dreary. “A dreech day.”
“Och, child,” Gran said as she cleared away the breakfast dishes, “this day is hardly dreech. A drop or two, that’s all. And with your parents and Da off to Edinburgh on business, it is just the perfect kind of day for us to go and cheer up my friends at the Eventide Home. You must be bored silly with attic games.”
“You mean—go out?” Peter asked. “In this?” He sounded as if he were expressing astonishment with all of Scotland. “A complicated country,” was what their father kept calling it. In America such a rain would have canceled baseball games and sent Peter and his friends scurrying gratefully to the mall.
“Och, aye.” Gran’s round face beamed at him. “No one ever melted in this sort of rain.”
“We can take Da’s big umbrellas,” Molly said brightly. “They’ll cover us all the way up.” She was right. The umbrellas were huge, as tall as Molly. Though at four she wasn’t that big.
“And,” Gran added, “for all the way down, I think I can find extra wellies.”
“Wellies?” Jennifer asked.
“For yer feet, child,” Gran explained. “In the wardrobe cupboard.”
Without further discussion, Gran sorted out the rain gear in the wardrobe cupboard, which turned out to be the standing wooden closet in the hall. She handed them each a pair of bright red rubber boots and one each of the enormous golf umbrellas. “The dishes can wait. Or Da can do them, should he get home before us. Though I shall be shocked indeed if he does!” She laughed out loud, as if she had made a great joke.
Jennifer and Molly put on the wellies they were handed, and Molly tromped up and down the entryway happily. Even dry, the wellies made a squishy sound. Frankly, Jennifer thought her wellies were silly looking, but at least they’d keep her feet from getting soaked.
“What about you, Gran?” Jennifer asked.
Tying a flowered scarf over her head, Gran said, “I’ve lived in this sort of rain since I were a wee lass. Besides, we’re not going far. Just down the road.”
“You two look like … nerds,” Peter said, refusing the red boots.
Jennifer felt the word like a sword in her heart.
“Besides, my Nikes are waterproof.” He took his umbrella with barely concealed disdain and opened it while they were still inside the house. FAIRBURN GOLF CLUB was emblazoned in yellow letters on the side.
“Och, bad luck, that,” said Gran. “Opening a brolly indoors. Shut it at once, Peter.”
Given that Gran knew a thing or two about luck—and magic, as they had already learned in the first days of their visit—Peter quickly drew the umbrella back down, catching his finger in the mechanism and pinching it fiercely. He refused to cry out, of course. At thirteen it would have taken the amputation of a major limb to make him do that.
But Jennifer saw Peter’s eyes narrow and knew what that meant. A moment later, when he popped the finger into his mouth like a cork in a bottle, she guessed that it had really hurt. Her own fingertip ached in sympathy. Twins were like that. Where one hurt, the other felt the pain.
So, she thought, there’s the bad luck, then. The finger pinch.
And the rain.
But, though Jennifer was not to know till later, it was only the start of the luck—some good, some bad, and some terrible.
Two
Eventide Home
As they opened the door a slender, long-haired dog the color of ash pushed Peter aside. Its slim tail beat against his leg.
“Ye daft beings,” the dog said, “yer not going on a walk wi’oot me. It’s been days since I’ve had a proper run. The garden’s too wee a place for a dog of my size.”
Peter looked down. “And let you babble all over town? Not on your life.”
Gran smiled. “Only someone who holds magic will be able to understand him. Let the puir fool come along.”
“I’ll get the leash,” Molly said, disappearing back into the house.
“I need no leash, thank ye very much,” the dog said. “A word of warning will do if I miss anything. And I never miss anything.”
“It’s the law …” Jennifer began.
“In yer land, perhaps,” said the dog. “Not in mine.”
But by then Molly was back, holding the black plastic collar and leash that their mother had gotten the day after the dog had come to live with them. Not metal. Gran had warned specifically about that: Magic creatures cannot abide metal.
“Here,” Molly said, bending to slip it over the dog’s head.
And the dog, with little grace, bowed its head to the inevitable, its tail drooping. “I’ll wear it for ye, lass, but I dinna have to like it.”
They went outside then, and walked down the lane, leaving behind Gran’s cottage with its grey slate roof that slumped like a farmer’s hat. The rain pattered down on the umbrellas, sounding like a code, which Jennifer tried to decipher.
“Is it a message, Gran?” she asked.
“Och, lass, it’s just a bit of rain,” the old woman answered.
“I was hoping for more magic,” Jennifer said. “Like the stuff we had when we first got here. The game of Patience, the wizard’s map, the unicorn, the dragon …”
“Ye have that greetin teenie of a dog,” Gran pointed out, “for all the use he is.”
The dog made a rude noise, somewhere in between a belch and a fart, and Peter giggled.
“And we’ve got Devil in the garden,” Molly said.
Gran nodded. “Yes—the wizard’s old black horse. Though we must give him a different name, and soon, I expect. Names are important, you know. Best not be asking for more magic just now.”
“Why?” Jennifer hated the bit of whin
e that crept into her voice. “Why not now? Once we’re back in America, I bet there’ll be no more magic.”
“You don’t need magic in a land where everything is electric,” Gran told her.
“Well, everything is electric here, too,” Jennifer said. “Even the kettle.”
“There’s electric—and there’s power.” Gran’s voice was adamant. “America’s got the electricity and Scotland has the power.”
“Then I want more of that power,” Jennifer said stubbornly.
“Hush, child!” There was steel in Gran’s caution. “Never wish for that. Power corrupts.”
“Remember Michael Scot,” the dog said suddenly, his voice hollow. And for a moment they all walked the lane in silence, remembering the awful wizard who had stolen Molly away and nearly taken over Fairburn a day and a half ago.
“Just for fun, then,” Jennifer said at last, trying to salvage something from the conversation.
But Gran’s face had lost its softness. “Magic is not something to joke about. Or play with. It is never just for fun. Magic is a force that comes when it will. And stays where it will. Few can bid it safely. Beware of folk who joke about magic.”
“But you can bid it, Gran,” Molly said. “You’re a witch. And Jen is, too.”
“Being a witch and bidding magic to dance are not necessarily the same,” Gran said. “Besides, I am a white witch and I deal in herbals. If Jennifer has any true magic, we dinna ken its real source yet. Untrained is untried, as we say. I expect any magic Jennifer has will be touched by her twinship and tinged with American know-it-all. And what that latter be, I canna say, for I hae never been across the lang water.”
They continued up the lane.
Peter had a funny, almost angry look that altered his normally pleasant face. Jennifer wondered what was bothering him but was astonished when he blurted out, “I don’t see why Jen is the only one with magic when we’re twins!”
The dog growled low in his throat, as if agreeing.
Jennifer turned to Peter quickly, using that soothing voice she’d come to rely on lately. “We don’t know that I have any magic, really, Peter. And remember what they said in health class—that girls mature earlier than boys. Maybe your magic will be coming later.”
He looked away from her and sped up till he was several steps ahead.
“Peter is maaaad,” Molly started to chant. “Peter is maaaad.”
The dog snapped out, “Little tongues, big wounds,” then trotted ahead to Peter’s side.
“You may be right, Jennifer,” Gran said. “But he is nae ready to hear such wisdom. So let it lie, lass. Let it lie.”
Jennifer bit her lip. The one thing she didn’t want to do was fight with Peter. A twin fight was always devastating. It hurt worse than anything. She hurried to catch up with Peter. Gran and Molly came right after.
“Remember what I told ye several days ago about magic,” Gran said, ignoring Peter’s long face. “Here in Scotland, the Major Arcana consist of earth magic, air magic, fire magic, and water magic. The Minor magics are colors, numbers, and riddles. White magic is the proper use of the gift, and black magic is done by the wicked. And Tartan magic is—”
“—old woman’s blether,” muttered the dog.
“You can say that again!” Peter agreed. He grabbed the leash from Molly, and side by side the dog and boy ran up ahead. Whatever else Gran had to say about magic after that was lost to them.
At the end of the lane Peter stopped suddenly, pulling the dog up short as a car whizzed down the cobbled road on the left side.
“Oof!” Peter breathed. “I always forget which way to look. I’m still thinking cars drive on the right, like in America.”
“Ye great gomeril,” the dog said. “Don’t yank my neck aboot.”
“Call me another name,” Peter said, “and I’ll do more than that. I’ll—” But as he could not come up with anything horrible enough, he ran his hand through his lank brown hair as if that were some kind of response.
The dog sat down on its haunches, pink tongue lalloping from its mouth, and stared fiercely and silently at him.
“So what’s a gomeril?” Peter asked at last.
“Ye dinna want to ken that.” The tongue slipped back into the dog’s mouth, as if it had a mind of its own.
“Oh, but I do.”
“A loud-talking fool is what it is. And what ye are, too,” said the dog, now scratching behind its right ear with its hind leg.
“Ah,” Peter said, then shut up, as much because the others had caught up to them as in reaction to the name the dog had called him.
“Turn left here,” Gran said, “and then ahead toward Fairburn.”
“How far?” asked Molly.
“A hundred steps,” said Gran. “Can you count that high?”
“I’m four,” Molly said sternly.
“Then of course you can.” Gran smiled. “Start now.”
“One, two, three …” Molly began.
They went along the cobbled Double Dykes Road and then up Burial Brae, passing a little cemetery where ancient stones leaned at odd angles. All the while Molly counted aloud—“thirty-six, thirty-seven …”—and the rain kept up its own count on the tops of their umbrellas.
“Dreech,” Jennifer whispered. But only because she had come to like the sound of the word.
“Sixty-four, sixty-five …”
On their left a high grey stone wall snaked along the road. Occasional yellow flowers poked through chinks.
“Wallflowers,” Gran said, pointing to the little blossoms.
Molly ran her fingers across the stones. “Ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine,” she said, quite pleased with herself, having really only just mastered the long count.
At “One hundred!” they came to a gap in the wall. Set into the gap was an ironwork gate with intricate Celtic knotwork designs.
“It is a hundred, Gran. It is exactly! Number magic!” Molly cried.
“Nae magic, child. Except that yer fair young to count so far,” Gran said.
Molly made a face, and her bottom lip began to stick out. Jennifer added quickly, “I couldn’t count that far till I was five.”
The tantrum was averted and Molly’s sunny disposition returned. She pointed to a plaque, quite mossed over and a bit difficult to make out. Standing on tip-toe, she spelled out the words. She did not get them all right, but enough. Jennifer helped.
THE MCGREGOR HOSPITAL
FOUNDED AS AN EVENTIDE HOME
BY WILLIAM MCGREGOR
OF PITTENWEEM 1882
“Eventide Home!” Molly clapped her hands. “This is it!”
“This is it, indeed,” Gran said.
“But, Gran,” Jennifer said, looking through the gate and into the window of the great stone house, where she could see an old woman in a wheelchair staring out at the rain. “Gran—it’s a nursing home.”
“Not exactly,” Gran said. “The residents here must be able to cope on their own without fulltime nursing. It’s what we call a registered home for the elderly.”
“Elderly? Like you, Gran?” Molly asked.
Gran laughed. “Not exactly.”
“Older than you?” Molly’s voice held something like astonishment.
Gran laughed again. “Much older. And much less able.”
“But Eventide …” Jennifer mused. “I thought it sounded like something magical.”
Gran smiled. “You never can tell.” Then she pushed through the gate and walked up the path.
Molly skipped along beside her, curls bouncing, and Jennifer trailed behind. Peter and the dog hung back.
Once at the front door, Gran, Jennifer, and Molly walked up the ramp and disappeared inside.
“Old people,” Peter said with a shiver to the dog. “I dunno. Old gives me the jeebers.”
“Consider the alternative,” the dog told him.
Casting a quick glance to the side of the house, where he could see the tops of some gravestones, Pet
er nodded in sudden solemn agreement. Not to be left out in the rain, he walked quickly to the stone house and up the stone steps, hauling the dog with him.
Three
Weird Sisters
A young woman in a plaid skirt, white blouse, and blue cardigan sweater greeted them at the door. She had a foxlike face, long and sly looking. A metallic name badge on her collar identified her as Fiona, and she wore a pair of tiny silver scissors around her neck on a ribbon.
“Hello—Mrs. Douglas, isn’t it? Have you come to see the girls?” She spoke only to Gran, ignoring the children and the dog entirely.
“I though you said they were old people,” Molly piped up. “Not girls.”
Fiona laughed—a yippy sort of sound—and only then deigned to look down at Molly, as if just noticing her. “A little American, I see.”
Gran made a tsking sound with her tongue and Fiona stopped laughing, but a smile still played around her mouth.
“The girls are in the Garden Parlor,” Fiona said. “Though heaven knows why. On such a day I’d rather be nearer the fire myself.”
She took the wet umbrellas and put them in a ceramic umbrella stand.
“Follow me,” she said to Gran, once again acting as if the children and the dog did not exist. Then she led them through two sitting rooms crowded with heavy stuffed chairs and sofas upholstered in floral prints. Ugly wooden floor lamps with knotted-fringed shades sat beside each chair, while wooden end tables butted up against the sofas.
In the first parlor a few old women sat on a sofa, chatting in a language Jennifer could not understand. In the second a bald man in a wheelchair, fringed lap robe over his legs, dozed by a fire, his breath spurting out noisily. The old woman Jennifer had seen through the window was also in the second parlor, still staring out at the gate. She had a crocheted shawl over her shoulders and a peculiar lacy cap, like a baby’s bonnet, on her head.
“Did you magic the lady, Gran?” whispered Molly. “Is that why she stopped laughing at me?” She tried to make the same tsking sound and failed.
“I shamed her,” Gran whispered back. “For some it comes to the same thing.”