Veil of Time

by Claire R. McDougall

  “Margaret, can you hear me?”

  No, I cannot hear you. I can hear only the creak of the thatched roof in the wind. I can hear only the small waves lap against the shore. I can hear my daughter’s breathing and the crackle of the fire. But I cannot hear you anymore.

  I put the cup holding Iona’s medicine into Illa’s hands, but it falls suddenly and rolls towards the fire as though on a track. The rafters supporting the thatch begin to groan. Iona comes through the door, moving quickly, gathering her piles of herbs and roots. The small waves at the shore turn into a great sloshing. The ground on which we sit begins to heave, not shake as it had done before, but as though a great rift were splitting the earth.

  Iona is shouting at us, urging us towards the door. Marcus flies in, grabs Illa under the armpits, and drags her free of the building. I follow though I am naked, and get out just in time to feel the roof collapse behind me with a gust of dirt and air

  We’re on the ground, because there is no mechanism of the inner ear that can adjust balance this quickly. The walls of Iona’s hut fall in, sending another layer of dust over our backs; a louder crash from the water means the crannog has come off its stilts. Winnie runs across my field of vision, but I have no sense of where she came from or where she’s going.

  The shaking is interminable. A few rotten apples roll and bounce on the ground like Ping-Pong balls, but, like the swirling contents of a tornado, nothing is real or reachable. If there were a moment of distraction I might amuse myself with the thought that that old fuddy-duddy Colonel Malcolm had been right after all: the shaking of Dál Riada came just the same.

  27

  When the sun had cleared the clouds and gained its highest place, Fergus held his hand up to stop his people by the waterfall where the beavers lived. The children ran off to gather bulbs of garlic and chew a few pieces before they traveled the second half of their journey. Sorrel and watercress lay along their path, but it had been made bitter by the cold. As the afternoon wore on, the children straggled behind, but the singing of the women added strength to their steps. Many of the songs were in the Pictish language, and it seemed strange now to be separating themselves from what had become part of their own heritage in the long years since the first people from Erin had arrived.

  Fergus began to recognize the slant of the hills as they approached Glashan. Not much farther and they could see smoke rising above the trees.

  “Look!” he shouted to the children. “Not long now.”

  He brought his people slowly into the bay, but he could do nothing to stop the children running ahead along the shore, mingling with the people who were gathered around a large fire. It wasn’t long before Fergus assessed the damage caused by the quake: the thatched roofs now floating in the loch, men fighting over the small huts that still stood in the fields. Women were weaving wattle as fast as they could soak and bend the hazel and willow into new fences.

  Out of the crowd, the woman who had come to be known as Fergus’s ran to him, her face dirty and shining. Fergus tried not to smile. She threw herself against him while he struggled to keep the horse calm. Despite their weariness, the people in the line behind him laughed a little.

  It was good to see her, too, but he would show her that later. For now he had the business of settling his people among this lake population. He noticed Illa leaning against a tree and nodded to her.

  Radha came out of the wood with her father. Her scratched and bruised face fell when she saw that Talorcan was not among the travelers.

  “Murdoch’s army has been smashed. Dunadd has been taken,” said Fergus. “Talorcan will come when he can.”

  Radha’s father stepped forward. “Why have you brought these people here? You can see we no longer have homes ourselves. We do not want the force of Oengus’s army on us for harboring his enemy.”

  Fergus had thought out his strategy along the way. “We will not deplete your winter food supplies. We will stay only long enough to help you rebuild.”

  Days or weeks. It was a lot to ask. The old man walked the length of the line to see what he would be inheriting by taking these people in. The young men would be of some use to the women at the loch with no husbands. He liked the look of some of the Scotti women, a few with cockiness in the way they stood. He would take them and explain to the people of the loch later. He pointed to his curragh and the net that lay drying on the shore.

  A handful of men and women stepped forward and pulled the boat into the water. There was no time to waste; the children were hungry.

  Radha’s father took Fergus by the elbow. “Your woman said the druidess at Dunadd knew of this shaking before it came.”

  “Yes. She didn’t know when.”

  “What of Dunadd? Does it still stand?”

  Fergus laughed. “Dunadd will always stand, no matter who rules.”

  The old man dropped his voice. “There are those here who say we should go there, take what is ours.”

  Fergus ran his hands through his hair. “Since the earth shook, the sea has left Dunadd. It will be a sorry trade that cannot moor its boats to the western side, but must steer up the river against the flow. Picts or no Picts, Dunadd will not last as the center of anything unless the sea comes back.”

  The old man nodded, perplexed. “Iona sees something new. I am telling you this because you brought her here, although she is one of ours, not yours.” The old man stopped to see how Fergus would react. “She says great boats with many oarsmen will come down from the far north and fight bloody battles. They are many and tall, with hair like strands of gold. This is what she sees since the earth shook.”

  Fergus waved for Illa to come over and join him. He noticed the child’s limp without thinking; his mind was still on the large boats with the yellow-haired people.

  “My mother went east to Scone,” he said. “It is a walk of about ten days. If you want, you should bring your family and follow, too.”

  The old man shook his head. “With your help we will rebuild our crannogs. The oarsmen from the north will not find us here. We are well hidden. When the time comes, you shall go to your mother, but you must leave Iona here.”

  Fergus nodded. He looked at Illa’s pale face properly for the first time. “What is the matter?”

  “My leg,” said Illa. “It was bad, but my new mother took care of me, and now it is getting better.”

  Fergus lifted his daughter’s tunic high enough to see the gash under the dried poultice. “Your new mother did well.”

  He stood up, looking for Ma-khee now. But his mind drifted to the long trek ahead: so many people and no healer, no link to the spirit world. In what little time they had at Glashan, Ma-khee would have to learn the ways from Iona. He looked out on the loch to the men and women in the curragh who were bringing in fish. Even though they were tired from the journey, the children on the shore were running and shouting. Some of the men came out of the forest dragging a deer that had died under a falling tree.

  It would be a celebration, though Fergus was wary of celebrating yet. Two hundred more people to feed from this land and this water. There would be no grain except for where the crannog people along the way deigned to give some. If the crannogs on the way to Scone had fallen, their people would be reticent to help at all.

  At Loch Glashan, the crannogs sank up to their walls in water. Tomorrow they would start the process of lifting them back onto their islands of rock and tree trunks. Tomorrow the loch people would be glad of the help. For now, some of them stood by the water’s edge, scowling. Fergus knew that he had no dominion here, that these people would soon hear about the victories of their new king in the north and would not suffer Fergus and his people long.

  He set off to find Ma-khee. He had waited for so long to be with her, and now he wanted her near and warm against his chest. He hoped she would agree to go to Scone with him. As he made his way through the scrub, he asked the goddess to hold fast to his people. And he prayed that Ma-khee might want to stay with him and never
let him go.

  28

  When I hear the news that Fergus has been spotted in the distance, I have no other thought than to get to him, so I leave Illa with Iona and run to find him.

  As I run, I say his name more than once. Fergus is dirty, bruised, and cut; still, I can’t help but wrap my arms about him, even though it spooks the horse and Fergus has a hard time calming it. People are laughing. But it has been so long since I saw him, days and days, and a lifetime. I didn’t know if I would ever be here again with my cheek against the movement of his chest, my fingers in the weave of his coat, in the warm hair at the nape of his neck. All I know is, I never want to move again.

  “Margaret? Can you hear me?”

  I bury my face in his coat and don’t let go until he moves. His hands are eager for me, but he has a trail of people behind him. He steps aside to have words with Rhada’s father, and I can see why he might have to. I don’t know how he thinks we are going to feed all these extra people when most of the flour jars sank with the crannogs. I run to see if I can find anything left in the huts by the fields. Despite the chaos, I can’t keep the smile from my face. I have missed this Fergus, son of Brighde.

  There’s no bread, of course, and the little flour that remains is being guarded. No querns, because they were the first things to sink. It will be a cold recovery, but recovered they must be. Somehow everything will have to be set back up, like time-lapse photography moving backwards.

  When I get back to the fish roast, Illa is among the children waiting in line. She stands a head taller than the Scotti children her age; her red hair marks her as another breed altogether. My auburn hair marks me as something in between, so I am allowed to stand waiting with Illa among the hungry travelers. Fergus is at the shore with a band of men, brewing plans, I expect, while the women busy themselves with the more immediate task of feeding the five thousand. I keep glancing over at him.

  “Margaret?”

  No. I don’t hear you. I want so badly to get my hands around Fergus again, over him, on him. But I am in a race with time that I cannot win.

  Marcus walks over and stands behind me, another outcast allowed some privilege at the feast.

  “What are the men talking about?” I ask.

  “Brighde went east to Scone. Fergus says we must follow.”

  “Everyone?”

  Marcus shakes his head, smiling. “Not I.”

  Fergus must have granted him his freedom.

  Scone, I know, is in Perthshire, which I reckon must be a four-hour car drive from here. If we’re all going to march, it’s going to take a week or more. The “scenic route” is the old route east, around Loch Awe and then across land to Loch Earn.

  I eat the half fish I am given, but pick out the staring eyes and hand them to Illa. For these children, fish eyes are as close to sweets as they get. Afterwards I walk her back to what remains of Iona’s hut. Some men are already setting her roof back up. The thatch will take longer. When I notice Illa limping, I let her lean in against me. She puts her arm around my waist and holds on tightly.

  She looks up at me. “You won’t leave, will you?”

  I am her mother. How can I leave her?

  “Have you seen Winnie?” I ask.

  She shakes her head, looks sad.

  We find Iona seated inside her walls, her look far off. I pick the old poultice off Illa’s leg and look for the dried root that Iona made her ointment from the last time. Everything is mixed in with everything else now. Iona pushes me with the toe of her shoe towards a pile closer to the door.

  The mortar is still here, but the pestle must have bounced off during the quake. I go outside and bring back a stone that will do. I like the feel of the powdered root in the cup of my hand mixing together with my spit. I like the sky above the walls of the hut moving fast with the wind. It feels like I know all this, like something that was just asleep in me until now.

  Illa winces as I spread my spitty mess over her wound.

  When Fergus calls from outside the door, I smile to hear his voice, and because there is no roof and he could just as well look in. He says my name, and I relish the sound of it, not Maggie nor Margaret, but Ma-khee.

  “Margaret, can you hear me?”

  “Ma-khee?”

  Illa looks just as happy to hear Fergus, but I touch her shoulder for her to be still until her poultice sets a little. It is I myself who opens the door.

  I lay my palms flat against his chest. Though his face is serious, I feel his whole self alive, the warmth and movement of him beneath my fingers. He takes me by the elbow and leads me away from the hut, stopping among the rubble of field and upended earth. And he starts in on a speech so fast I don’t know how he expects me to understand. I pick up some of it, about Murdoch, and it must be bad news, the way his jaw tenses and the veins form ropes under his skin.

  When I put my arms around him, he shakes his head, though a smile is creeping in.

  He holds me out by my arms. “When we go to Scone, Iona will stay here. In the time left, you must learn from her.”

  I poke him, and he writhes under the tickle. “When it gets dark, will you come to me?”

  He nods but then moves off, back into his serious self. I go back to Illa.

  She says, “What did he say?”

  I sit down beside her and lay her hand flat against mine. It’s a grubby little hand, but it’s hard to tell where the heat from her palm ends and mine begins. “Your uncle Murdoch was defeated. We are going to Scone. A long distance. But not yet.” I touch her poor leg. “Not until you can run fast.”

  I am so glad that she will run fast again, that this time she goes on to live, that I wrap my arm around her and pull her in close against me. She doesn’t resist, not even for a moment.

  She says, “I am glad you came to be my mother.”

  It is not hard to exhale, but my inhale shakes and I am unable to say anything back. Illa, if you only knew what sweet torture it has been to be your mother.

  I manage quite a bright fire, relatively smokeless. I didn’t see Iona down by the loch, so I don’t know what she has eaten, or ever does eat, but she stretches out on the floor of the hut by the fire across from Illa and falls asleep in no time. I sit up, waiting for Fergus, only this time I hope he doesn’t call out at the door.

  He doesn’t. He taps, a small sound only the wakeful can hear. There is nowhere to go but inside, so he follows me in, and there is nowhere to lie except next to the others, which we do, and I can only hope that sleep lies heavily on both and they cannot see what is happening in the flicker of a fire under a very cold roof, with the wraps coming off and the tunic over the head followed by hands that want to get me down to my core skin, and bones and muscle all moving to his skin and bones and muscle until the two become one thing moving among the shadows.

  “Don’t leave me,” I say in English this time, because I don’t want him to know my need. He wants me to be strong, but here I am clinging to him, so that he will stay and stay and stay. And so will I.

  “Margaret.”

  No. I desperately don’t want to drift away. Not now.

  The next morning, Fergus joins the men who strip and push their bodies through the frozen water to exhume what can be found in the crannog below the water. The children are sent off to find grasses, nuts, and grains of any kind in preparation for the quern stones drying out and beginning their toil of grinding once again.

  I sit by the water, trying hard to hold on. A shake to my shoulder brings Iona into focus. She sits down beside me and takes my hand.

  “The moon is a woman,” she says. “The moon is Gealach. Her children are the stars.”

  Iona turns my hands palm up. “The hands take power from the sky.”

  I hold my hands up and feel first the cool breeze across my palms. But then they turn hot. I rub them together, and then hold them up again. First the coolness, then the heat. I smile to show that I know what she is saying. She takes hold of my right hand and circles her finge
r around my palm. She starts tapping it, chanting to Gealach, mother of all. It gives me a headache, the kind of rhythmic noise that usually sends me into an episode. I fight to stay on. She smooths my palm several times, then looks into the center of my hand. The look on her face is intent as she pulls back my fingers so that the blood runs out, leaving in my palm only white skin.

  Her brow furrows under her strangely pale hair. She pins me with her pale blue eyes. “You come from what has not yet been lived.”

  Yes. A time of no wolves or bears or beavers, of no crannogs on the lochs, and of only a few remaining stone circles. I come from the time of witches at Halloween; of the jealous God who will have nothing to do with the goddess moon.

  I take a deep breath in slowly, but she is looking at me now as though she doesn’t know if she should run or stay.

  Suddenly she grips my knee. “I have seen the burnings, Ma-khee.”

  I lay my hand over hers. “They won’t come for hundreds of years.”

  Her eyes suddenly fix me, so pale within the darker rim. “But it will happen. I have seen it.”

  I nod. “Yes, it will happen.”

  My gaze glances off this witch, this sixteen-year-old dreadlocked blonde with the far-off look. She’s the only one who knows the whole story, and perhaps it will be better for her to keep it to herself.

  I clasp her hands, and then I leave, because it seems as if there should be a space now.

  Fergus is by the water with some of the men, each one naked beneath a blanket. Their nakedness offends no one, not least of all me. I sit on the shore and watch them, catch Fergus’s eye and make him smile. Across the loch I see others about the same task. The men take turns out of the water shivering by the fire under woolen blankets. Slowly the end of the crannog comes up on its stilts to its former level, levered up by trunks and settled again on its island of stone. The thatch drips like a great rainstorm greedily back into the loch. The mud from the wattle walls falls in globs. I help the women hoist the walkway out of the water, heavy and weeping, until the rope cuts into my telltale palm. We bind the walkway to the end of the crannog that is still attached to the shore and repair it with fibrous rope and awls made of bone.