Highland Awakening

by Kathryn Lynn Davis

  “I’ve never yet lied to ye. Esmé, look at me. Why would I start now?”

  Reluctantly, the girl met her grandmother’s eyes. “Because, Grandmam, the truth might hurt me.”

  When she offered no further explanation, Caelia turned her sketchbook away. Esmé caught a glimpse of the sketch. The rounded face of a familiar woman with no detail, blowing question marks like bubbles. “Ye weren’t really sketching; ye were waiting, were ye no’?”

  Caelia nodded, her extraordinary golden brown eyes fixed on the girl. “I was. Waiting for ye to tell me what was on your mind. Come, join me. Ask me whatever ye like. If ye can’t count on me to tell ye the truth, then you’re lost indeed.” She sat down on the bed, feet curled under her peach gown.

  When Esmé had scrambled up beside her, nearly tearing her own white lawn gown with cap sleeves, she wasted no time. “Am I…is my behavior…the no’ going out, is that hurting my family? Is it hurting ye?”

  Breda! Caelia thought. I’d like to shake the girl. She took Esmé’s hands and squeezed them.

  Before her grandmother could answer, it all came tumbling out. “Don’t be angry at Breda. She’s just afraid it will be years and years before I marry, leaving her to become an old maid. Because I don’t leave the house, ye see. She’s afraid I’ll never meet anyone, that I must choose a beau tonight. I mean, I’ve no care if she marries first, and I’m sure neither have ye, but she worries about Society. I can’t imagine who she got that from. Anyway I realized I am hurting her as she sees things. I’d never thought of that, I am so blind. I thought by staying here I was keeping ye all safe. But I’m not, no’ really, am I?”

  Caelia was strangely quiet as she tried to absorb all this troubling information. “Esmé, mo-cridhe, I worry most that you’re hurting yourself. I know you’re not interested in any of the young men of our acquaintance, but mightn’t ye learn to care for someone over time? Perhaps Peter or Angus? They’re very serious young men, but they both know how to laugh.”

  Esmé was appalled that Caelia should make such a suggestion. The girl opened her mouth to respond and was shocked by what happened next. She shook her head vigorously, surprised by her own certainty.

  Caelia was more than a little intrigued. “Why not?”

  “Because there is someone for me already.” The girl did not know where the words had come from, but somehow she knew they were true.

  In her astonishment, Caelia gaped at her inelegantly for a moment. “How can you know that?” She was not incredulous, only curious—intensely so.

  “I just do. From my dream.” Esmé leaned back, looking about as if someone else had spoken.

  Releasing her breath in a long “Ahhhh,” Caelia settled back on the bed. This she could believe, just as she believed in the magic in the secret cave below the Hill of the Hounds, which many in Glen Affric had called Fairies’ Haven for centuries. “Tell me about it.”

  “I don’t know if I can. Tis no’ something ye put in words, Grand. Tis just—” The girl closed her eyes, her face suffused with rapture. “I know he’s out there somewhere. I wake up…” She licked her lips in discomfort and tried again, though she could not stop the color from rushing to her cheeks. “I wake up wanting him.”

  “Look at me, lassie.”

  Esmé shook her head.

  “Don’t fash yourself, Esmé, I’ve no wish to embarrass you. Look at me.”

  The girl raised her head, barely.

  “You’re a young woman now. Tis all right to want a man. But I’d no’ be telling your grandfather or your father that I said so.”

  ~ * ~

  Breda flittered about among the guests in her yellow gown trimmed in delicate gold, her strawberry-blond hair half curled and braided on top of her head, half falling over her shoulder in long, loose coils. Every man there cast covetous glances her way.

  Esmé watched, grinning to herself. She sat with the older and younger guests, as was her wont, entertaining the children while participating in the conversation with her elders.

  “I haven’t seen a winter this long ever,” Grandda Rory declared, his expression troubled. He kept his voice low so as not to disturb the young people enjoying themselves at the other end of the small ballroom, furnished more like a large, comfortable sitting room, with a fire roaring in the Great Hearth. “To be frank, I’m worried.”

  His son-in-law Connall nodded, and several others offered assent. Some remained silent, refusing to meet his eyes. “How are we going to raise enough barley and oats this year?”

  “Aye, and the sheep and cattle have no grass to feed on.”

  They’re frightened, Esmé thought. She could feel their dread as if it were her own.

  “Tis a curse from a witch or The Darkness returning.”

  Esmé heard the whisper but could not tell where it had come from, though it echoed, spoken by more than one, and then fell silent. The girl believed there was something inherently wrong in the balance of Nature, but she kept that to herself. She also kept to herself her belief, hidden somewhere in her heart, that this winter would end and spring would come. Soon. She did not know how or why; she simply knew.

  “If you’re no’ going to play games with us, will ye at least play music?” Geordie interrupted her thoughts. “Breda can dance and she’ll stop scowling at us.” The boy had learned the word ‘scowling’ just that morning when his older sister had accused her squirrel of scowling at her, and he was proud to use it in front of the adults. Before Esmé could respond, he pulled out his cuiseach—the hollow reed whistle she had made for him. “I can help,” he said, his eyes full of hope.

  “Of course ye can, Geordie.” Esmé had left her flute behind the comfortable wingback chair for just such a moment. Her father took up the fiddle and her grandfather the Celtic drum. They began to play softly, building the music note upon note, until it swirled upon itself, filling the room with its cadence and melody. She was surprised to hear how well Geordie was keeping up; he must have been practicing.

  “Well done, laddie of mine,” Connall leaned down to whisper in his ear. “I believe ye share your sister’s talent.”

  Geordie beamed and blew on his reed whistle all the harder.

  At first the guests tapped their feet to the tune, then a few began to sway. Breda glowed when Angus MacKensie asked her to dance, and other couples took the floor.

  The violin sang and prompted and demanded; the drum hummed, making skirts whirl and heels rise and fall; the flute danced hypnotically in harmony, wrapping Esmé just as tightly in its spell as it did the dancers. Angus swung Breda and she dipped and rose gracefully as naturally as if she had been doing this forever. Everyone watched the couple swaying over the wooden floor, spinning and bending like lovers who knew each other well.

  Everyone had fallen silent, watching those two dance. Everything but Esmé’s flute, weaving and interweaving notes into magic.

  ~ * ~

  That evening Caelia painted in her studio while Rory watched in fascination. He never grew weary of seeing the images form and re-form under her colored pastels. He never knew where each painting was going to end, and neither did she.

  “Tis Esmé,” he murmured, afraid to break the spell she worked under. He squinted to try and puzzle out the vivid colors in swirls and arcs across the canvas. “But there’s something different about her.”

  “Aye, mo-charaid,” Caelia whispered, “she’s growing beyond our ken, I think.”

  “Even yours?” Rory was incredulous. He regarded his wife in her deep blue dressing gown. Without ruffles or ribbons, it fell in simple elegant folds around her still slender body. She had let down her light brown hair, touched here and there with silver, and it fell down her back in a shining tumble. In the light of the oil lamp she looked young again, and wistful.

  “Even mine,” she said softly.

  Hesitating because he did not wish to put his fear into words, Esmé’s grandfather asked, “Will we lose her?”

  For the first time, Caelia
met her husband’s eyes. “Ye want her to be happy, don’t ye?”

  “Of course I do. But will we lose her, beloved?”

  Abandoning her painting, his wife sat on his lap, laying her head on his shoulder. “I don’t know, Rory. We can only hope with all our hearts that she finds what she seeks without leaving us behind.”

  Chapter Six

  Magnus dreamed, stumbling through the vivid green and gilded forest. The river flowed, glittering from flecks of gold on boulders piled one upon the other. The wind rushed through rowan, pine and birch, but water made no sound and the dancing leaves were silent. If anything, the beauty of moor and loch was more intense, more vibrant, but the music of the glen was gone. Instead he heard a new song—the rustle and murmur which at first he thought was water, and then realized was the faint shape of a woman moving through the trees, hands spread and drifting behind her as if to touch every leaf and pine needle and fern. No more than a shadow, she turned her head toward him, stopping beneath an oak that held her in its shade, caressed her as Magnus wished to caress her. He held his breath and reached for her—she with no real substance or features or beauty to seduce him. Nevertheless he found her alluring, enticing, irresistible. He was startled when she stretched her shadow arms toward him. He could feel her hunger in the vibration of her body; it echoed his across the veiled green stillness of the forest. His heart pounded in his ears and his lips tingled; he wanted to hold her, to kiss her gently so her shadow would not dissolve in his arms. He tried to move forward, smelling jasmine in the air and knowing she was the heart of that scent and his desire. He could barely breathe, he coveted her so much. The mist was falling, enveloping her in veils of white kisses, closing her away from him. Her head turned toward him once again; he saw her long shadow hair swing out behind her, and the mist whisked her away. Magnus leaned against a tree and tried to catch his breath.

  And then a slow and quiet voice began to speak of things beyond his ken. Things he felt he should have known but didn’t. The Voice, so soft he could barely hear it, told him secrets of the Gods, of the Ancients and the Druids and before man’s foot had touched the earth. It told him of the magic in the animals man used to worship, in rising and falling sun and moon—secrets of past and present, of future and of love. Of what mankind had lost as they gave up the old ways, of how magic had curled into itself and begun to disappear. Of the day that would come when he would be needed to help save what had been since time immemorial, and what would come to be.

  He saw it all and understood, and was filled with hope and all the knowledge of the universe. And it was so immense that he could hardly take it in, though he had no doubt that all of this was true. He struggled to remember it, to lock it inside him so he would never forget again.

  Because the dream was a promise and a threat, and the most amazingly beautiful thing he had ever experienced. So he clutched it close.

  And when the time came and he finally awoke, it was as if the dream had never been, and he remembered nothing.

  Except that he was filled with longing. That he was empty and desired nothing more than to be filled. He finally thought long and hard about Julia, about how he’d loved her and the grief she’d left in her wake.

  And then it came to him, like a whisper. Will Julia fill the void inside ye, and answer your need? Or must ye seek your freedom and joy elsewhere—and far away?

  ~ * ~

  “The MacDonnells of Glengarry believe they’re the kings of the earth because of their ancient name,” Graeme pronounced, wide-eyed and full of energy at breakfast once again, and pontificating on his favorite topic of late.

  Releasing a huge sigh of frustration, Magnus pretended to concentrate on his cold meat and grilled bread.

  “The name is Domhnull, ye might recall, if you’ve followed their history or ours.” Diarmid directed this dour announcement at his oldest son. “It’s the Gaelic and it means world ruler.”

  “I know very well what it means, Da,” Magnus replied. “I’ve studied the Gaelic for years.” He just managed to keep the sarcasm from his tone, but both brothers glared as if he’d poured it over their heads like hot oil. For the slightest moment he considered the possibility, biting his lip until it ached to disguise his grin. He had not yet made a decision about going to war over Julia MacDonnell’s defection—or rather, his mind had been made up from the beginning, but he did not tell the three desperate men with whom he was sharing breakfast. They never let the subject drop when all four of them were together, which was why the laird—at least for the moment, he thought—tried to avoid that circumstance all together.

  “The MacLeods of Lewis are supposed to be feuding furiously with MacDonnell of Glengarry,” Hugh reminded his older brother in the tone of an irritated instructor who cannot make his student listen. “Have ye forgotten our great-grandmother was slaughtered and the family stash of gold stolen by a couple of MacDonnell scoundrels after the ’45? I can still hear their war cry, ‘The raven’s rock!’ echoing in my ears that day!”

  “Aye, precisely so!” Graeme joined Hugh in his outrage.

  Magnus forbore to mention that neither had been alive on that day, nor even close to it. His restraint made him choke on his beef.

  “And what of the two boatloads of fish they made away with in my father’s day?” Diarmid demanded, allowing his younger sons to refresh the rage he had allowed to wane over the past weeks.

  “What of the cattle we took from them over these many years?” Magnus asked calmly, though he was more than weary of the conversation. “Or the Jewel of Glengarry Grandfather robbed them of, though she was betrothed to another. Then he married her himself?”

  “Tis a feud, mon. Tis what one does,” Graeme answered, surprised that Magnus was so ignorant. “Besides, the MacLeods are the clan that’s been insulted now. Tis our solemn duty to makes things right.”

  “They want to beggar us, that what tis,” Diarmid added shrewdly. “Insult our honor, break a sacred oath, and steal that girl’s dowry, beggaring us into the bargain with all the expenses we’ve put into the castle just to please the impatient lass.”

  Magnus jerked upright in his newly upholstered chair, which Hugh had demanded, along with all the other improvements in the dining room. Julia MacDonnell might not have been happy here, but she had never asked for better accommodations. However, it was true the cost of making the castle ruins livable was emptying their treasury far too quickly, and Julia’s dowry would have helped the clan in an infinite number of ways.

  “I’ll tell ye what I’d do,” Hugh whispered so loudly that the guard at the front gate could no doubt hear him.

  “What’s that?” Magnus inquired with little—if any—interest.

  “I’d put every man I could on horseback, put a sword and dirk in his hand, and we’d thunder off to crush the MacDonnell of Glengarry in his keep.”

  “Aye!” Graeme was up in the middle of the room, sword in hand, swishing it viciously left and right. “Come, men! Don’t ye want to root out these devils where they live? To catch them in their beds and slaughter them?”

  Only a few servants lingered, waiting to see if the group needed more food or wine, but a gusty cheer went up as they grabbed their dirks and began to call for a raid. Even the women.

  Magnus sighed again. He had expected as much. He knew all his brothers wanted to do was fight, and many a man would follow them, whether it had aught to do with the problem at hand or no’. It made them feel more masculine, he supposed, and braver and more useful. The problem was, it had nothing at all to do with repairing the breach between the MacLeods and the MacDonnells.

  “In point of fact,” he said in his quiet but firm voice, “I don’t think the MacDonnell had anything to do with Julia running off. To crush him and his men would only excite more enmity and would in no way solve the trouble that faces us.”

  His father and brothers glowered at him resentfully. “How dare ye—” Diarmid began.

  “Because tis the truth. Julia MacDonnell
herself is the answer.” To our problems and to mine, he added silently.

  The room, though mostly empty of people was nearly full of war cries.

  A small voice whispered in the laird’s ear. “Will ye take me with ye when ye ride against the MacDonnells? Ye’ll have wounds to sew up. Ye know ye will.”

  Magnus turned to glance at diminutive Sam, looking indistinguishable from a boy, with her hair pushed completely under her cap. He buried his head in his hands. Why had God blessed him with such morons for relatives? “I said we’ll no’ be going on a raid, Sam. We need to end the feud. The days of the great clan feuds are gone. We’d look like fools. Tis time for the clansmen to be taken care of, not hauled off to war at their laird’s angry whim.”

  Sam frowned hugely. “I know, but tis nice to dream.”

  What kind of dreams did this young girl have, he wondered, and thought of his own, and shivered with unexpected pleasure. “Do ye even know the history of this feud?” he asked, more to distract himself than anything.

  “Tis no’ important. Tis just a fantasy.”

  For a moment, Magnus pictured Sam in the middle of a melee. All a man had to do was to swing his shield wrong, and he could crush the girl’s head. Yet she was excited and eager to go.

  He’d had enough. He swigged down the rest of his wine, knocked the glass over when he set it down too hard, and went off to do some useful work.

  No one paid him any mind.

  Chapter Seven

  That night The Voice spoke in a whisper, cried in the fall of a crush of leaves, sang in an alluring song the reached out from the heart of her dream and bid Esmé come. ‘Come, I need ye. There is pain—great pain, and flames and the smell of burning flesh. I have no’ the strength to fight all these things, and yet they are determined to fight me. Come’

  The vivid verdant greens and blues and yellows of the forest dimmed, then faded altogether, and the voice shouted—barely above a whisper—‘Come!’ Ye are needed, little lost one. Come and help to bring the color back again, before it is burned to colorless ashes that have no color left to give. Come!’