Kilts and Catnip

by Zoe Tasia

  I checked my watch. It was nearing five o’clock. I didn’t see a small tea shop staying opened much later than that. I expected that, like most small towns, once the clock struck six, the town pulled in its welcome mats and said good night—at least to any shopping. “Jess, Tate, Miss Sheey should be back soon. I’m going to follow this trail and see if I can catch the kitten. I won’t be gone long.”

  “Okay, Mom, I hope you find her,” Jess said.

  She took Tate’s hand and led her into the cottage with a promise to share the third of scone she had planned to save for dinner. I watched them go inside then walked back to the trail. At first, I had to walk duck-style as the branches caught on my clothes. An old forest, once I passed the barrier of plants and bushes Kay had planted, the ground was relatively bare. With the shade of the enormous trees, it was dark and foreboding. I stumbled over rocks and knotted roots, trying to keep an eye on the time. I didn’t want the girls worried, and I didn’t want Kay to think I set her up to baby-sit without asking. Not that they’re babies anymore. I traveled almost as far as I deemed prudent and was about to turn back when I heard water splashing.

  The path twisted around to expose a small pond with a waterfall. Clear water revealed a rocky bed several yards out, but then the surface darkened, indicating much deeper water. Just over the splashing of the water fall, I could hear a meow. Below the roots of a giant tree, I saw a hollowed-out space and a tiny black paw, claws out, scratched at the slimy edge. The kitten must have tumbled in and gotten stuck.

  “Now, now. I’m coming to get you,” I reassured the kitten.

  I worried how close the hollowed tree was to the edge of the pond, and that the rocks would be slippery. As I drew nearer, I could hear something else, a wailing, morose crooning in a minor key. It reminded me of a funeral hymn, perhaps one of the older songs sung a-cappella, though I couldn’t make out the words. It was hypnotic, like a Gregorian chant. A mist crept over the surface of the water obscuring the farthest shoreline, but I could make out a female figure in a white gown. She was so close to the waterfall that the spray and increasing haze made her hard to see. The fog muffled her voice. As I watched, she fell to her knees and bent toward the water.

  “Are you okay?” I called.

  What was she doing out in the forest dressed in a gown? She either did not hear me or chose to ignore me. She sat slumped at the water’s edge and moved to and fro in a rhythmic manner. I winced when I stepped closer and the cold water abruptly soaked my walking shoes through to my socks.

  Cupping my hands around my mouth, I called again, louder. “Hello! Do you need help?” I must have traveled out farther than I intended because suddenly I plunged into thigh deep water. I shrieked, as I fell to my knees. The water was abnormally cold. It felt like the temperature that teeters on the very edge of water turning into ice. “Okay, enough of this,” I muttered.

  I was going to be no help to anyone if I collapsed from hypothermia. I turned toward the ledge I had stepped off to search for something to grab so I could pull myself up. Reaching into the water, I grasped the base of a large rock, digging my nails into the sand underneath it to gain purchase. As I tugged, landing on the ledge, something wrapped around my calf, and before I could take a breath, I lost my balance. I flailed my arms as I fell back, soaking myself more than I would have if I had just collapsed gracefully.

  The water felt heavy, almost like quicksand. It seemed to cling to me like taffy. I fought to get to my knees. Whatever encased my calf vanished. Perhaps algae? I dashed wet bangs from my eyes and looked for the woman. Gone.

  “Well, I won’t have to rouse the town to look for her, I suppose.”

  I began to think I had imagined it or maybe she was some sort of white bird like a large heron or swan that I mistook for a woman. I rose from the water and stepped back as I appraised the shoreline once more. My foot slid on the slippery, sloped rock, and I went down again, hard, banging my head. I coughed and sputtered, getting a nose and mouthful of freezing water—liquid so cold, that it caught my breath and yanked it away. I rolled to my hands and knees, and vertigo unsteadied me. All I could do was sway, as my wet hair dripped into the water with a loud plop-plop as each drop entered the freezing pond. I jerked my head up when I felt tendrils wrap round each ankle. My head spun, and my stomach churned at the horrific surprise. I thought I would have thrown up except, before I could, something jerked and my knees fell from under me.

  I sank beneath the gelid water’s surface, clipping my chin on a rock hard enough to bite my tongue. The tangy iron of my own blood filled my mouth. I flailed to the surface. Managing to take deep breaths, I swallowed back vomit. I held my breath before I went under once more. I tried to ignore the hard, rough rocks tearing and poking my clothes and body. I reached to free myself and felt long fingers, complete with sharp nails, curled around my ankles.

  Tugging at the hands, I struggled to open them. The fingers were so long that they overlapped the thumb by at least three inches. Panicked, I forgot to hold my breath and opened my mouth to scream. I bucked and flailed. The water was up to my waist when I briefly surfaced. I spit and gulped air before being sucked in deeper.

  I thrashed my legs and tore at the fingers binding me. A nail bent back and one hand released me. As the other clenched claw let go, I placed one foot precariously underneath me. A monstrous, bald head sprang from the water. It had three ridged, bumpy slits on the side of its neck like gills on a fish, but there, the resemblance ended. It was greenish blue in color and had black, pupil-less eyes. The thing gawked at me, revealing double rows of sharp teeth like a shark. I couldn’t decide if it had tiny scales or roughened skin. I watched it bite off the nail and spit it into the water. An oily-gray blood oozed from the wound.

  More hands clutched my ankles and knees and tugged me underwater again. I opened my eyes this time. Six creatures clung to me and fluttered their webbed feet as they attempted to drag me farther down. I twisted and turned until I had no idea which way was up or down. My head throbbed and, exhausted, I relaxed. My breath was giving out. I thought of my children, alone. I wondered if my husband awaited me wherever I ended up after death. The water wasn’t deep. Probably not even chest deep, but if my face was underwater, it wouldn’t matter.

  I closed my eyes.

  Chapter 8

  I FELT HANDS, HUMAN hands, grasp me under my armpits and wrestle me upright. The other hands burned as they were torn from my body, but I didn’t care. I was free. I wondered who had come to my rescue. When I tried to stand, my legs collapsed. Thankfully, whoever held me—and, from the feel of the hard chest my head rested against, it definitely was not Kay—kept me from falling.

  “Steady there. You’re bleeding.” He lifted me, one arm across my back and the other beneath my knees, but even though he was gentle as he waded out of the pool, I felt my gorge rise.

  “I’m gonna be sick,” I warned.

  He sat down with me on his lap and held my hair, as I leaned sideways and threw up onto the mossy shore. My long, wet bangs hampered my vision, and my head pounded like Vulcan was using it as an anvil. I combed back the errant locks with a shaking hand and saw my savior. “Greg?”

  “You remembered. ’Tis surprising since we’ve barely spoken.” He examined my head, and I winced when his fingers encountered a cut and what would no doubt be a huge goose egg.

  “Ouch!” I ducked out of reach then swayed with vertigo.

  “Sorry. We need to see to that and get you warm.” He chafed my hands which I could barely feel.

  “I came from Kay’s cottage and—oh! The kitten!”

  “You’re lucky. I heard the wee one crying and came looking. Usually, grindylows, while mischievous, dinna attack. What were you doing in the pool?”

  “I heard a lady crying and got too close.” I shivered and bit my lip to stifle a moan. “I got my feet wet and since I was already wet, I thought I’d wade in a bit and see if she needed help.”

  “You were going to go wading?”


  “No farther than my ankles.” My teeth chattered and I felt like I’d never be warm again. “W—water’s too cold for my Texan blood. Anyway, the lady wouldn’t answer and then disappeared.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “She was wearing white, like a long dress with fluttery sleeves. Her hair was down. She held something she moved in the water.”

  “Doing her washing?”

  I coughed, sounding like a barking seal. “Maybe. But why? She sang a—” I coughed again, less deeply this time. “—sad tune. Didn’t get the words.” I felt uneasy sitting on a strange man’s lap, but when I tried to rise, I quickly fell back.

  “Just sit still.”

  I could hear the kitten’s more insistent meows. Greg parted my hair to look at my wound again and tsked like an old maid coming upon a girl and her beau kissing. He pulled a kerchief from a pouch he wore round his waist—I thought it was called a sporran—and pressed it against the gash.

  I hissed in pain. “Yow!”

  “Sorry. Will you be all right if I fetch the wee kitten?” he asked.

  I began to nod, but reconsidered it since my head throbbed when I barely tilted it. “Yes.”

  He gently shifted me from his lap to the rock he had been sitting on and stood. When he reached the trunk, he squatted and slowly lowered a finger into the hole.

  “Well, she’s a friendly one. A lad or a lassie?” he remarked as he picked her up.

  “Kay told me it’s a girl,” I answered. When he unbuttoned his cream-colored shirt, I noticed a cut on his neck just under his chin. “You’re hurt too. Did you get cut when you fetched me from the pond?” I asked.

  He rubbed his neck. “Nae, I nicked myself shaving. I used to have a fine ivory-handled blade but lost it. I’ve made do with my blade.” He tucked the cat inside his shirt then rebuttoned it.

  As he stood, I marveled how he did so in a kilt. I, on the other hand, would have probably exposed myself. The kilt was a bit longer than I’d seen on old Benny Hill reruns but neatly pleated and held up by a thick belt on which the sporran hung. He had a knife tucked into his calf-high sock. “Home for you two.” The kitten mewed, and he reached inside his shirt to pet it. Muffled purrs soon replaced the meows.

  “I need to get back to Kay’s house. My girls are there, waiting for me, and I’ve been gone longer than I thought I would, thanks to that—what did you say those things were?”

  “Grindylows.”

  I had heard of grindylows because the girls and I loved that series of books and movies which mentioned them, but these things did not resemble those portrayed in the film. “Grindylows are real?”

  “Aye, and not generally dangerous. The weeping lady—she portends misfortune.” He returned and offered me his hand. I gripped it, and he slowly lifted me to a standing position. My head spun, and I clung to him, feeling my cheeks heat as I did so but having no other choice unless I wanted to fall on my rear.

  “Let me see how your heid looks,” he said.

  I rolled my head and, when I didn’t feel like it was going to tumble off my shoulders, considered it a good sign then gingerly lifted the cloth for him to examine the wound.

  “’Tis clotting. I dinna think it needs stitched. Head wounds bleed so that the damage seems much worse than it is. Needs ice though as soon as you get back.”

  “I don’t know if I can make it back on my own,” I admitted.

  “No need. I’ll help you.”

  As we walked, I asked, “What brought you out to the woods? Are you still camping or do you live near?”

  “I am neither too near nor too far.”

  Cryptic, much? “I haven’t been here long enough to do much exploring, but I know there isn’t another path between my cottage and Kay’s.” I waited expecting him to give me a general location to his home, but he added no further information.

  “Aye, true.”

  We walked for several minutes in silence and made much better time than I would have without his help.

  “What do you do?” I asked.

  He raised one eyebrow as he stopped for a second and met my eyes.

  “I mean—for a living. Where do you work?”

  “Around.”

  Definitely in avoidance mode. I looked at my watch but was dismayed to discover that, at some point in the water, I’d lost it. “I wonder what time it is.”

  He looked up. I did too, but the forest was so thick it was hard to see a bit of sky. “Near to tea time, I expect.”

  I walked faster and tripped over a rock.

  “Careful now,” he warned, grabbing my elbow and jarring the kitten. The kitten mewed in protest. He frowned at me. “You’ll be adding more bumps to your noggin.”

  I sighed and resigned myself to a more leisurely pace. “I didn’t thank you. I’m afraid I was too out of it at the time, but I appreciate you jumping in the pond to save me.”

  “’Tis nothing. Chances are, you would have been able to beat them back and scare them away.”

  “I don’t know about that. By the time you arrived, most of the fight had gone out of me. I’m not one for swimming.”

  “You dinna know how to swim?”

  “I took lessons as a child, but mostly I just dog paddle.”

  “You must remedy that. An island is surrounded by water.”

  I focused on not tripping and trying to make it as easy as possible for him to support me. The kitten continued to meow. Greg periodically paused to pat it and softly tell it, “Now, now, you will be back with your mum soon.”

  When we neared Kay’s home, he had me lean against a tree and hacked enough foliage with his knife so we could get through without crawling. We emerged and a minute later, the girls burst out of Kay’s cottage, followed by Kay herself.

  “Mom!” they shouted as they ran toward me.

  Jessie reached me first. “Why are you all wet?” she said, fingering my blouse.

  “I had an unintended dip in a pond,” I answered, not sure if I wanted to tell her about the grindylows, just in case, despite what Mr. Gillie said, I imagined them. Lack of oxygen can cause hallucinations, I thought. He doesn’t strike me as a jokester, but perhaps he was having me on.

  Kay reached us. “Mr. Gillie.”

  “Miss Sheey.”

  They greeted each other so formally I wondered how well they knew one another.

  “Greg, I mean, Mr. Gillie, these are my girls.”

  “Aye, Jessica and Tate.”

  “He saw you two at the ceildh,” I explained to them. I didn’t think Tate remembered him from her outing in the woods. The kitten mewed. Greg took her from his shirt and gave her to Tate. The girls cooed over her.

  Kay noticed the bloody kerchief in my hand and frowned. “You’re hurt,” she stated. “Get yourself into the cottage and let me see to you.”

  Greg swept me up in his arms and carried me across the grass.

  “Oh, no! You don’t have to do this,” I protested.

  “’Tis nae trouble and will be faster.” No doubt he wanted to get away from me and my bothersome family as soon as possible.

  Once we reached the cottage, he lowered me on the couch then brandished his tam toward us. “I need to make my way back. I am sorry you were hurt,” he said to me. “The Granite Falls is a beautiful place to sit and be lost in your thoughts. Just have a care on the rocks and avoid the water.”

  “I’ll take that advice to heart.”

  “Rebecca, girls, Miss Sheey.”

  Kay stiffly nodded her head. “Mr. Gillie.” And he left.

  Kay insisted on driving us home and spending the night. “With that head wound, you need to be woken every two hours,” she said when I objected.

  I was dead beat and my head was killing me. She set a soup before me, which I barely sipped, then made sandwiches for the girls. As they ate, she helped me get ready for bed. After I took a couple of pain killers, I slept like a log.

  THE NEXT MORNING, I rolled over and cried out when the
back of my head hit the mattress. The events of the evening before came to me. I could hear whispers coming from the other room. I slowly sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. Kay left a glass of water on the night stand with the painkillers, and I swallowed two. Gingerly, I crept to the rocker where my robe lay, slipped it on, and clung to the furniture as I made my way through the bedroom and down the hallway to the kitchen.

  Tate sat at the table with Jess. “Morning, Mom!” she piped up.

  I winced.

  “Remember girls, soft voices until your mum is feeling better,” Kay said as she poured a cup of tea.

  “Sorry,” Tate said in an exaggerated whisper.

  “How are you feeling, Becca?” Kay set a tea cup and a plate with two pieces of toast at my place on the table. I gratefully collapsed into my chair.

  “Better. And thank you again for taking us home and staying over.” My head wasn’t throbbing quite as much and, as long as I moved slowly, I wasn’t nauseated.

  “What happened?” Jessie asked.

  I told the story, describing the grindylows encounter as a combination of getting caught in seaweed and some sort of wild life preventing me from getting up. I had a feeling Kay knew I wasn’t telling the whole of it, but she said nothing. However, she gave me a look that told me that, at some point, she had some questions.

  “Did you have any special plans for the day?” Kay asked.

  “Not really.” I warned the girls not to go to the pond by themselves using the slippery rocks as an excuse. Kay reinforced my words. Somehow, the kitten ended up coming home with us. Too exhausted and hurting, I didn’t protest when the girls told me that the kitten was so stressed that she shouldn’t be left alone either. The little thing weaved back and forth around the chair legs, purring, then found a stuffed catnip mouse that Kay apparently had packed and batted it around the room.