by M. L. Briers
“Wait … let me tune in my psychic abilities,” I offered back dryly.
I did have the sight, but it was sporadic and fleeting at best, which she well knew so she ignored my teasing.
“Old man Croon slipped off the cliffs at the point and … died.” Her eyes were wide with excitement at telling the story to someone who hadn’t heard it – which, admittedly, on a smallish island was hard to find after the morning rush when the gossips were out in force.
CHAPTER TWO
~
“I should think so – it’s a good few hundred feet down to jagged rocks, now if he’d lived, well, that would have been a really good story to tell with a punch-line at the end,” I offered back, and got the open-mouth look of a woman that had just had her story spoilt for her.
I couldn’t help myself, gossips were the bane of the island, of my life, and I spent most of my day having to listen to them whether I wanted to or not. Almost everybody knew what almost everybody else around them was up to, and if they didn’t know then they were eager to find out, and if they didn’t much care, well, they got told about it anyway.
That was small island living at its finest.
“Maggie McFae!” She looked shocked, and she really shouldn’t have been – she’d known me since birth.
“Isla McFae McInnies!” I offered back, because I could, and because it got her to shut up for a few peaceful seconds more. It was an inbred reaction to my grandmother; she liked to use our full names before she went into a long-winded rebuke.
“There’s nothing funny about death,” she offered, the little self-righteous troll, and spoilt the peaceful silence.
“I seem to remember you sniggering quite nicely when old man Stuart died on top of someone that he shouldn’t have been on top of because it wasnae his wife,” I tossed back.
I wouldn’t be lectured by a hypocrite, and she looked downright contrite at that one. Troll.
“That was different, and you know it,” she hissed out her words on an almost whisper, as she leaned in over-the-counter top. “Can I get a drink; I’ve run all the way here to tell you about it after finding out what had happened?”
“From the point? That’s a good effort, but did ya think I’d want to know that keenly?” I had to tease her, it was somewhat obligatory in my family, and teasing was a Scottish pastime.
“I did not run all the way from the point, as you well know.” She offered me a glare, and I offered her a bottle of water that she snatched up and started to guzzle down like she’d been out in the desert for a week.
“Best to bind your tongue, Isla, you know how some hate the gossips,” I offered back, and her head snapped forwards as she eyed me back.
A little drop of water chased from the corner of her mouth down her pointy little chin. Some might say that she had a sweetheart chin; I say she looked like a fairy with the little pointy ears that went with it.
“I do not gossip!” Isla offered back, just as Moira came back from her short break, and instantly snapped her attention on Isla.
Mischief fired in my sister’s eyes, and I groaned inwardly, at the same time as mentally jumping up and down with glee.
“Isla, did you hear?” Moira offered teasingly, and I rolled my eyes back in my head at my sister’s timing. I thought the teasing would be more subtle than that.
“I did. What a shocker!” Isla offered back, and I saw the small frown on my sister’s forehead. Obviously, she’d walked right into that one and knew nothing of the old man’s accident.
“It was …” Moira played along as her eyes flicked to mine and I shook my head to try to get her to stop before she dug a deeper hole for herself.
“Poor, poor, Mr. Croon.” Isla looked downcast for only a moment before her head snapped up, and so did her bright wide eyes. “Well, I should be going. I have others … to … visit with.”
I nodded and so did Moira as Isla rushed towards the front door and all of those others that she needed to tell her gossip too.
“What happened to old man Croon?” Moira asked with a frown as she started toward Ross’s table to clear the mess that he’d left there.
The man had a habit of picking bits off his paper napkin and discarding them. I’m sure that he only did it to get Moira’s back up.
“I couldn’t say.” I shrugged my shoulders.
“Don’t make me get witchy with you, sister,” she warned me, and I couldn’t help but smile.
“I know something that you don’t,” I teased.
“Wicked, evil woman,” she hissed back.
“But you love me, anyway,” I offered back and got a snort in return for my trouble.
My sister, the truffle hunter.
“Don’t make me go hang around the door until another gossip walks by,” she whined.
“Suffer, witch!” I just started to get into my best dramatic poise when the door opened, and four backpackers walked in, and the fun and games were over – for now.
Ah, tourists. It was probably time to play another game of charades with both sides trying desperately to understand each other, and frustration running rampant, like midgies in the summertime, and with just as much arm waving.
~
“I can’t understand what Earnest would have been doing at the point. Nobody, but tourists have any business up there,” my grandmother, Fiona, said; as if being there was the tragedy in itself and not the fact that he was gone.
“Bird watching?” Moira offered as she reached for the bread rolls in the middle of the table and gave me an evil glare as she was doing it.
It had taken her another three hours after I’d learned the news of Mr. Croon’s accident for someone to spill the beans to Moira, and it still wasn’t me that had told her. Unlike my sister, I could keep my mouth shut when I had a mind to do it, and if it annoyed my sister like a festering boil, then I had a mind to do it.
“If it was bird shooting…” my father offered with a snort, “then Croon would be your man, but he’d consider watching them and not killing them a waste of his time.”
“Let’s not speak ill of the dead,” my grandmother offered with a nice frosty look for my father in the process.
Gran was a pro when it came to berating someone with just a look.
“I wasn’t speaking ill of the man, just pointing out that he was a bird killer, not a watcher,” dear old dad offered back with a small, smug smile that really shouldn’t have been allowed to be there.
Challenging Gran was never a good idea.
“What’s that then if not speaking ill of the man?” Gran offered, like a dog with a bone, and she was definitely always right – at least, she thought she was because elders knew best. Which would have been all well and good – unless she was having one of her senior moments, and then all hell could break loose.
“Telling the truth,” Dad offered back like he owned the truth, and got a short, sharp snort from my Gran for his pains.
“Yes, well, let’s not dwell,” my mother, Caitlin, said as she nudged my arm off the side of the table and pointed towards the bowl of peas. I got the impression that she wanted me to hand them to her.
“Maybe it was murder!” Eileen offered with those same wide eyes that Isla had shown when she recounted the news earlier. My sister had a flair for dramatics.
“Maybe,” Dad offered and got another snort from my Grandmother. “You don’t think so?”
He pressed his point and had started to sound a little exasperated at her antics. Who could blame him? With five opinionated women at the dinner table, someone was bound to disagree with something he said at some point.
“I don’t think speaking ill of the dead is a good look on you, Donlan. Please refrain from doing it.” Gran was in her near-shrill phase, which came before her true-shrill phase, but my father never listened to her moods, or took into account her aura, bless his male soul.
“How is a man getting murdered speaking ill of the dead?” He leaned in and rested the sides of his hands on the table, c
utlery gripped between his fat fingers, as he eyed Gran.
It was like challenging a bear to eat you – it was never going to end well.
“Because … it’s implied,” Gran said, the tone of her voice peeking upward once more.
“How is it implied?” he asked with sheer frustration.
There were times when the two of them could hyper each other into a frenzy, and after living all of his life with my Gran, you would have thought that he would have learned by now, sort of like Tic-Tac-Toe – nobody ever wins, but that was Dad.
“Because to be murdered you need to be doing something wrong, or annoying someone, ergo, speaking ill of the dead!” Gran shot back, and I could see the little nerve under my father’s right eye twitch.
“Be careful you’re not next,” my father muttered under his breath, and I caught every word, and so did Moira.
Of course, my sister chuckled and gave the game away to Gran. Little sneak.
“I heard that,” Gran grumbled.
“Well, the next time you go to the doctors you can tell them that there is nothing wrong with your hearing then,” he offered with a deadpan look back at her, and a dry tone of voice, but still that little nerve under his eye was twitching away.
“So much for a nice family dinner,” mother offered with a small sigh.
“I like it,” Moira chirped up, and I kicked her right in the shin. Her upper body came forward over her plate as her knee thudded against the underside of the table and made everything jump.
“Be careful, Moira,” Gran scolded her, and I bit off a smug smile as my sister offered me a death glare.
“We should all be a little careful,” Moira said with her eyes warning me of things to come.
“Why?” Mother asked.
“Because…” Moira started, getting caught on the hop and having to rush to come up with something that wasn’t flat-out threatening me. “If people are getting murdered…”
“Who said he was murdered?” Gran exclaimed. Her cutlery clattered down against her plate, and she gave an exaggerated sigh.
“She did!” I pointed to Eileen and watched her cheeks go a bright red hue as she shrank down in her chair a little.
“I was just offering an alternative…” Eileen started with a big old shrug of her shoulders that brought them up to her ears. She was never good with confrontation.
“Well, you’re wrong!” Gran offered her a rebuke, and I could see that Eileen wanted to just slide off her chair and under the table to get away from Gran. “I can’t see why anyone would want to kill old Mr. Croon.”
“Old?” Dear old dad took a moment to savor the punch line, but I could see the light bulb that had flicked on over his head and winced inwardly. “Aren’t you the same age?”
My Grandmother almost choked on her tongue – which was never a good sign for the one that caused that reaction in the first place. The way my Gran’s eyes narrowed was like hanging a sign over her head that read; duck, and sure enough, the salt pot flew up from the table and whizzed by my father’s head as he ducked for cover.
“Message received an understood,” he offered back as he sat upright again and cleared his throat.
“So, Margaret…” My gran said my full name and that meant I should tread carefully because she was still in the smarting at the insult phase. “Where do you stand on Mr. Croon’s untimely demise?”
She gave a poignant look toward my father – more of a death glare actually, but it was Gran, so that was normally her default mode.
“I’d like to plead the fifth because it’s safer,” I offered back, toying with death at the hands of the matriarch when she turned those steely grey eyes on me.
“We don’t plead the fifth here, dear. This isn’t America, no matter how many tourists we get – we still do not have a MacDonald's, thank the Goddess,” she returned fire.
“Well, there’s Fergus and Anne McDonald,” Eileen offered as she gave it some consideration, and my Gran’s head snapped around like a crocodile going in for the bite.
“Not those kinds of McDonald's!” Gran snapped back, and Eileen shrunk down a little more in her chair.
I’d have to say that at times like these when Eileen was in her own little bubble of a world; it might have done her good to have a salt shaker bounced off her noggin, but that’s just me – and Moira would probably agree too, but then she had a habit of lobbing things at Eileen, so I don’t suppose that counted.
“Doesn’t anyone have any good news to share with the family?” Mother asked with hope, hope that she probably already knew would be crushed into the dirt like a biting Clegg.
We all stayed silent.
“Mary MacGregor’s pregnant!” Eileen announced, back to her bonny self as she looked around at our faces. Not one of us cracked a smile. “What? That’s good news!”
“Not when her father wants to kill James McPhee for knocking her up, it isn’t,” Moira offered back before stuffing a chunk of bread into her mouth and eyeing our sister as she chewed like a hurried cow.
Gran balked. “Don’t say knocking her up; it sounds so…”
“American?” I offered back and was rightly stabbed by those evil dagger filled eyes of hers.
Don’t get me wrong, Gran wasn’t a bad person – a little insane and senile at times – which often led to some awful mix-ups with spells if she was left unaccompanied, but she was the type of – roll your sleeves up and punch you on the nose – no-nonsense woman that my sister, Moira, took after.
There was a sharp sting to the back of my knuckles, and I jumped in place. I hated it when she did that! They outlawed corporal punishment in the school, and home, a long time ago, but I was a grown-up, and that didn’t exactly count as child abuse.
Besides, magic rarely left a mark unless you wanted it to, and so nothing could be proven!
“Can’t we get through one meal without someone zapping someone?” Mother sighed.
“Maybe if we took it in shifts to eat,” Moira offered back before she stuffed another great chunk of bread into her mouth with a slimy film of Gran’s gravy running down her chin.
She knows how much I hate that, and that’s why she turned to me with a smug grin.
Yes – I admit it, it was me – I zapped her! Moira almost choked on her bread, but she wasn’t at a loss of the ability to zap me back.
“Oh, here we go, now the juveniles are acting up,” Eileen offered.
So, I zapped her as well. Little did I know that Moira was going to zap her at the same time, and I’m sure her neatly woven plait actually went all spiky like the cat’s tail when we scared the heck out of her, or when a ghost came to visit, which didn’t happen often, but it did happen on occasion.
“Girls…” mother started, but Gran had already unleashed the power of her wrath on the both of us, zapping Moira and me at the same time.
We both yelped.
“Can we not?” Dad asked, and Gran zapped him for good measure.
He jumped in his chair, and a look of resigned annoyance got frozen onto his face. Bless him.
My mother rested her elbow on the table and dropped her chin against her palm as she absently waved the other hand. “And so it begins,” she said, also resigned to her nightly fate of mayhem and magic when the family gathered to break bread together, and zapping tended to ensue.
Welcome to our family.
CHAPTER THREE
~
“So, what do you think of old man Croon taking a header off the Point yesterday?” Ross asked as he lounged back in his favorite chair, at his favourite table; from where he could eye the whole room for potential victims of his charms, no doubt, and keep an eye on Moira.
Another day – another dollar, and that was if the tourists came in. Right now, Ross was back for his breakfast, and he’d brought Jamie with him for company, which pleased me no end as Jamie and I had dated all the way through school. Not that I could ever get away from Jamie unless one of us left Skye, and I wasn’t going anywhere.
Still, after four years of sweetheart dating, Jamie and I had separated under circumstances that shall remain unspoken about – namely; the toad decided that he was going to sneak Mary the skinny troll into the backseat of his car and have his wicked way with her – but my lips are sealed, and so were Mary’s for about a month when I spelled her with tonsillitis and the flu.
I had tried to give her a mild dose of the plague but was interrupted in my spell-craft by my nosy sister, Eileen, who ran snitching to our father. For which she got a nice dose of the chickenpox the week after.
But, I’ll swear to this day that it was happenchance if anyone were silly enough to bring the whole subject up.
“Such tact,” I offered to Ross, and the man had the audacity to tip his head to one side and offer me a knowing smirk.
“Like you’re so tactful, Maggie McFae,” he offered back, and I knew he had a million and one stories to tell of my past transgressions, as childhood friends always did.
“Moving on, MacNabbie,” I offered back, daring him to start with me in my own Bistro. “She might control the flow of cookies, but I bake them,” I warned him, and for once the man took heed.
“Moving on indeed, Maggie.” He grinned, and those eyes of his sparkled like he had a secret or two to tell.
I flicked my eyes towards Jamie and the man practically coward where he sat. I could smell fear a mile away, like a lioness going in for the kill, and it was also written all over his face.
Oh, he’d been telling tales out of school alright!
“So…” Ross started, but I held up a hand, and on that hand was my pointy index finger.