"Yes," she said, avoiding his eyes. "Everyone's all excited. It's been so long since we've had anything to celebrate. A few people did want to hold off until all the houses were done, but everyone else kept saying, 'Vorona's kitchen.'"
"Yeap, that's what my folks said. So, I reckon you've already been asked to the dance, aye?"
Doona took a deep breath and turned to look him in the eyes. "No, Kieran, I haven't been asked to the dance yet."
At once he was fairly bouncing with glee, utterly unable to hide his grin in the dark.
"Kieran," she heard herself say as she put her finger to his lips to quiet him. "If you're about to ask me to the dance, please don't."
"But you just said that no one's asked you. Oh, I see. You're waiting for Oisin to ask you, aren't you? And you can't say yes if you've already agreed to go with me."
"I'm not going to go to the dance with Oisin, Kieran."
"Then I don't get it, Doona. If you're not waiting for Oisin to ask you, then why aren't you going with me? Oh, I see. You want to be with both of us, so you can't say yes to either one of us, right?"
"Oh Kieran. Why does this have to be so awful? Please just stay quiet and listen. You and I and Olloo have grown up together, and we've always been friends. I don't ever want that to change, but I know that it's about to..."
"Doona, it wouldn't be that different for the three of us, if you and I..."
"Stop! And let me finish. Please."
Kieran fell silent.
"Kieran, you're a wonderful friend. You're more like family, like another brother, really. But what you don't see is where it stops. You just don't seem to get it. I am not in love with you and it tears me apart knowing that telling you this will change your feelings about me forever, but it would be plain cruel for me to let you think that there could ever be anything more than friendship between us. I'm so sorry it's come to this..." she said as a tear ran to her chin in the dark.
"It's because of Oisin, though, isn't it? You're in love with him. He's stolen your heart away from me..."
"No Kieran. Haven't you been listening? Oisin hasn't stolen my heart away from you because I've never been in love with you in the first place. And right now, I care for you every bit as much as I ever have."
"I see. I think we had better climb Carraig Faire before your folks send someone down here to see what's keeping us." At once he was on his feet, quickly walking along the tops of the broad walls to the back of the house where the wall was lowest before leaping to the ground.
"Kieran?" said Doona. "Are you going to help me down?"
Kieran hesitated.
"I guess it's too late for strike falcons, but how do you suppose it would look if you got back there without me?"
Kieran darkly turned on his heel and came back to help her down before seeing her the entire way back to the sandstone shelf, a step ahead of her.
"Ah! You're back," said Brenden with a smile as he set down his bow and lyra. "Why don't you ones have a seat and I'll play a tune or two before we sleep?"
"Thanks Brenden," said Kieran, avoiding his eyes, "but I really have to be going. How about another time?"
"Any time," said Brenden. "You're always welcome."
Kieran nodded and vanished without another word.
"My word!" said Brenden. "What did you do to him, Doona?"
"Shut..." said Onora between her teeth as she smacked his shoulder, "your mouth!" She kissed him at once and held her finger to her lips, shaking her head.
Doona was up and dressed well before anyone else. The sky was taking on the faintest twinge of purple as she scrawled "apothecary" on a piece of slate and laid it upon her bedding. She knelt beside the slate and hurriedly braided her hair before at last tiptoeing away into the darkness. A sleepy field sparrow sang a piece of song as she slid to the ground at the foot of Carraig Faire and hurried along the meandering path in the dew. Even though they had no more of the roof up than the purlins on one side, she, Oisin and Edard were already doing some work there. Today would be a very good day to get an early start, catching up with preparing salves and tinctures, and she would be there long before Oisin and Edard. Best of all, she could avoid her family and be doing something to take her mind off the horrible way she still felt.
Baase tugged at Olloo's blanket and flashed him a mind picture of a nice plump rabbit. Olloo crawled to the basin, splashed his face and tied back his hair. "Ow, you little cac!" he said as Baase pinched and twisted at his bare toes and showed him the image of another rabbit. “It isn’t even daylight yet.”
Baase responded by continuing to pinch and twist all the while Olloo struggled to put on his clothes, socks and boots. Olloo gathered up his bow and quiver and started to tiptoe away.
“Good morning Olloo,” said Onora. “We didn’t think you'd be up this early. I’ll have breakfast started directly if you’d do me a favor and wake Doona.”
“Sure. I’ll wake her, but I was just on my way down the rock with Baase so he could bag a rabbit for his breakfast. He seems extra hungry this morning. In fact, I’d be asleep if he hadn’t awakened me. If you want to wait, I'll be back with a fresh brace of rabbit, maybe." He walked over to Doona's blankets and picked up her slate. "Here," he said, handing her the slate. "She's already gone."
The sun was just peeking over the horizon when Oisin stepped into the apothecary. “Good morning Doona,” he said with a smile. “I never expected to see you here, but it has certainly made my day.”
“And you’ve just made mine,” she said, returning his smile with a blush.
“Well then, let me get my apron and I’ll help you with those tinctures.”
Doona nodded and forced herself to look at her work instead of staring agape at the love of her life. Besides, she certainly didn’t want him to think her too forward, after all.
"Well," he said as he tied his apron, "hawthorn, aye? Shall I pour it while you hold the funnel?"
She gave a quick nod. Of course she would hold the funnel. It was just the keeping of her mind on it that was going to be the hard part.
“I've always thought we work together well," he said, as she moved her funnel to the next bottle. "When we finish stoppering, wiring and dipping them, rack them if you would, and I'll fix us a nice pot o' tea. I got some nice blue maidenhair leaves when we went through Vorona's Gap. They're from a tree I never picked before and they're particularly lively. Too bad we don't have milk."
"Love to," she said.
Soon they were having tea. After a moment when neither of them could think of anything to say, Oisin blurted out, “Would you go with me to the celebration dance?”
Doona set down her cup with a soft rattle and smiled in spite of biting her lip as she shook her head. “Oh Oisin. There’s no one I’d rather go with, but I can’t accept your invitation. I'm truly sorry.”
“Kieran got to you first, didn’t he?”
“Well, he did,” she said, hurrying to add, “but I told him no.”
Oisin frowned. “Who then?”
“No one. I can’t go to this dance with anyone. I’ll be there, though, and I certainly hope you'll ask me to dance. In fact, I hope you’ll be asking to see me over and again.”
“Well, certainly. You can count on that,” he said, though he still looked disappointed.
"Oisin, I’m not toying with your affections. I was forced to turn down your invitation.”
“Of course," he stammered. "I knew there had to be something. You just mean a lot to me Doona and I was hoping...”
“That makes me very happy, Oisin," she said, reaching out to take up his hand, "because I’ve been hoping too. Now, before you say anything more let me explain...”
"No Doona. If you say you have a good reason for turning me down for the dance, then that's good enough for me.”
"I know. I want to tell you anyway. Last night when I turned down Kieran’s invitation, I made it plain to him that I could never be in love with him, and I also really hurt him. And I think it's '
way too soon to go dancing in front of the neighbors, waving about my rejection of him by showing off your invitation instead. Do you understand?”
“But you'll go with me to the Shamhna dance, won’t you?”
Doona nodded, her eyes lit with pure joy.
Chapter 13
A bluestem basket in the next room fell from atop a stack of things, smashing one of its clay jugs against the other. Vorona's eyes flew open. "Damn!" she thought as she lay on her back scarcely breathing, studying the growing blue of the sky between the trusses of her unfinished kitchen roof. "No way that's a stinking troll, but there's no other way to treat the curse, either." She grew from her bedclothes in absolute silence, stepped through her bow and strung it. She took three arrows from her quiver and nocked one of them. "One good thing about oversleeping," she thought as she stepped around her kettle, "at least I can see." Something else fell over in the next room. Slowly, slowly she crept along the wall toward the doorway between the rooms. There was another crash. She drew a deep breath, and like a fluttering ghost in her white gown, took one lunging step into the middle of the doorway with her bow drawn.
"Do you want me to go down to the apothecary and get Doona?" said Olloo. "You'll need to keep an eye on Baase for me though. He's getting too big to haul down the rock twice in a row, particularly when he wants to be hunting."
"There's not much point," said Brendan. "I'd allow that she's too busy."
"So what's going on with her? Did she break Kieran's heart last night?"
"What makes you say that?"
"Well, Kieran couldn't wait to leave after he got back here with her last night. He just brought her up here and vanished. I'd think that if he had managed to ask her to the dance, he'd have been hard to get rid of, if anything."
"Well, you didn't miss anything."
"Was I supposed to?"
"Not really," said Brenden, "but she needs to feel like she's had some privacy for all this. It would only be thoughtful if we gave her the time to tell us what happened last night in her own way. And last night she didn't look very ready."
"Yea, I saw that, too," said Olloo. "I think I'll go see how Kieran's doing. He really thought that he and Doona would be together someday, don't you know?"
"We thought that's how it was," said Brenden, "and I'm sorry that Kieran had to be hurt, but you know Olloo, sometimes the people we fall in love with have no way of feeling the same way about us."
"It sure would've been easier for everyone if he hadn't."
"Undoubtedly, but I hope you're not upset with your sister for turning him away."
"Nay, I wouldn't do that. I know Doona's not to blame and neither is Kieran. It's just how things are."
"Well, another way things are is, if you run off, I'll be eating your breakfast and Doona's breakfast as well as my breakfast."
"Grandma," cried Kieran, throwing up his hands. "It's me! Don't shoot!"
"Well I might be doing myself a favor if I did," she said as she let down her bow. "And just what's the meaning of your tramping around in my crockery at this hour?"
"I just needed to get off the rock before Mom and Dad got up and I couldn't think of any place else to go but here. I'll leave if you want."
"Ye would, aye? Well, ye don't have to. I've got what must be the only three eggs laid by those old hens they brought back in a coop from the camp. You can eat two of them and I'll eat one, but you'll have to get a fire going in the fireplace."
This actually sounded like a good idea to Kieran. It had been a very long time since he'd eaten an egg. He quickly set to work scratching about in the ashes until he had managed to find a handful of embers that he huffed at until he had his bundle of dry grass burning well enough to set alight his biscuits of crumbly auroch manure.
"Good," said Vorona. "I'll boil these. And you can tell me why you're hiding out from your folks."
"I'm really sorry I frightened you, Grandma..."
"Of course you are. Nobody likes getting caught acting like a troll. Now tell me what's going on, and don't you dare leave anything out."
This was the very thing he had sneaked off Carraig Faire to avoid in the first place. The only thing he could think of on the spur of the moment was to excuse himself to go off into the tall grass and relieve himself.
Meanwhile, Olloo appeared at Vorona's door after exhausting his search for Kieran on top of Carraig Faire. At the very first peck of his knock, Kieran, who had just returned from the grass, yanked open the door.
"So Olloo," said Kieran in hushed tones, "did you come to see how I'd get along with a shattered heart? Or did Doona send you to...?"
"Oh go on. I came to see if you were in need of a friend, Kieran. I can leave now if you like."
"Wait! As a matter of fact, I could use your help right now. What I need is for you to tell my great-grandma that you've come to get me to help you with something which I'd promised to do several days ago."
"How come I don't remember your promising?"
"Because I didn't," said Kieran, rolling his eyes in exasperation. "Make something up. I have to get out of here, and gracefully, if you know what I mean."
"Well..." said Olloo as he rubbed his chin, "How about this? I'll tell the Queen that you promised to help me clear away and fix up a place for the dance, to be ready for the moment her roof's up. Of course if I do that, you'll have to go through with it and all kinds of people will be there, maybe even Doona."
"Can't you think of anything else?"
"Or I could say you promised to help Brenden and me move the first of our things down off the rock. But there again, you might run into Doona..."
"Or you could simply say that ye need to get off and confide in your best friend far more than ye need to share what's troubling you with your old gammer," said Vorona, giving them a start.
"Yea," said Kieran, turning beet red, "one could indeed simply say that sort of thing..."
"Well get to it then," she said as she shoved a steaming egg at each one of them. "I've plenty of things to do and the sooner you two leave, the sooner I get done."
Directly, they found themselves walking toward Carraig Faire with Baase scampering at their heels, darting here and there to snap up their egg shells. "Thanks for getting me away from Grandma's, but if you've something else you need to do, then don't let me keep you."
"I already told you Kieran, I came to be your friend, so what ever it is that you need to do today, I'll be glad to do it with you."
Kieran stopped walking for a moment. "You really are my best friend, aren't you? Even as rotten as I've been lately."
"Yea, even with that," said Olloo, pulling a grass stem to chew.
"So. You never did tell me who you're asking to the dance."
"Actually, I thought I'd skip the dance and you and I could do something else."
"What? Now that is crazy. I'm not so melancholy that you need to waste your time hanging about me for more than just some of today, maybe. This dance is special and everyone thinks so. It's to celebrate that we're safe from trolls out here on the Strah. We may have missed the exodus of our people, but we've made it and are building a new life. If we skip this particular celebration, no one will understand."
"You're right, Kieran. So. I guess we go, then. So are you asking someone in spite of everything?"
"Nay. I'll just go and dance with them all. It'll be more fun that way, and safer too. How about you?"
“I thought I'd ask Lilee. She's nice and I can talk to her easy enough because she's always with Doona."
"Is that the only reason?"
"The only reason at all. Look Kieran, Lilee and I are used to each other after all this time. Don't go imagining anything more, because there isn't anything more. All right?"
"Good for you. I'm tellin' you Olloo, it's 'way better not to let a woman grab you by the heart, because if you do, you're in for all kinds of pain. It's just not worth it."
“I know you've just been hurt Kieran, but you know yourself that most peopl
e are eventually quite happily married. You just need to find the right one."
"Yea?" he said, with a rattle of dark gravel in his throat. "But what if the right one thinks you're all wrong?"
"Look 'ee yonder," said Martyn above the noise of the unicorns wallowing through the big bluestem grass. "I can see Carraig Faire, but not any houses yet. Can you?"
"Not yet. Oh yes I do," said Donachan, standing up in his stirrups.
"See? We're going to make it, even if it is under the noonday sun."
"I think we're mighty lucky for all our foolishness, and I also think that since we can finally make out the rock, we'd better trot," said Donachan, sitting down and clucking through his teeth as he held up his arm to keep the grass from lashing his face. "Hey!" he hollered as Martyn cut in front of him at a full gallop. "What in thunder are you doing?"
"Shawkyn spooghey!" cried Martyn. "Fly!"
Donachan could see bounding white shapes gaining on them from the sides, coming straight for them through the grass. The moment he spurred his unicorn, a huge strike falcon sprang for them, slashing open his leg as it came down. With a scream of terror, his unicorn wheeled and shot away to the south. Now they found themselves furiously pounding hooves, neck and neck with Martyn, as the two giant birds paced them, effortlessly dancing about them, picking their next strike.
Donachan grabbed for his bow but found to his horror that it was gone. At that moment, one of the birds raced ahead to come at them from the front. Suddenly he found himself on his unicorn, galloping hard for Carraig Faire. "Martyn!" he cried, trying to stand in his stirrups for a look back. The grass was too tall and he nearly fell. He sat down at once and rode with everything he had.
One of the strike falcons danced up to Martyn's unicorn and ripped open her neck. The poor creature screamed and reared, came down and kicked again and again before charging away, stumbling, gaining her feet, and hammering on toward the mountains. "Go Biskee!" cried Martyn, hanging on for dear life in the spattering blood as he realized that the bridle was gone. With a sudden rush of white before them, Biskee reared, flinging Martyn off into the grass to race away in terror on his hands and knees. The two strike falcons landed on Biskee at once, ripping her open as she toppled and fell.
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