A bleak, keening wail sent Morrigan’s heartbeat into sickening palpitations. Darkness pressed against her.
“Watch out for the bean-nighe,” Agnes had said. “She lives in burns and rivers, washing death shrouds. You’ll hear her coming, for she sings a dirge.”
Maybe, if she remained very still, nothing could find her.
The owl gave another hoot. Something hummed past her ear. “Get on,” she said derisively. “Don’t be a gawpus.” Grabbing up her skirts to keep from tripping again, she walked. “Be a creature of the night,” she said, remembering how she’d played such games as a child. “You’re a fox. You’ve sharp eyes and ears. There’s nothing can take you by surprise.”
A squeak and the quick scuttle of some invisible creature, not five steps ahead, decimated her weak courage. She had to breathe deeply and draw resolve around her like a cloak before she could continue.
Agnes had warned her a second time about selkies, how they possessed the power to beguile humans into the ocean to drown. That was why, Agnes said severely, she never, ever looked Aodhàn Mackinnon in the eyes. She’d given Morrigan a stare so piercing Morrigan had recalled her selkie dream and felt quite guilty.
But the man in the dream had held her face against his throat, preventing her from looking into his eyes.
These disturbing thoughts were interrupted by a small, square illumination bobbing beneath the trees to the left, making the branches above jerk and writhe like living arms. Growing steadily clearer came the sound of a female, singing.
The bean-nighe washes death shrouds. You’ll hear her coming, for she sings a dirge.
Morrigan fought to stifle the shriek building rapidly in her throat.
A figure emerged from behind the pines and stepped onto the road. The lantern she held in one hand threw feeble light across her face but left her eyes in shadow. She stopped. Those black eye sockets stared at Morrigan. After a moment she raised the lantern higher and took a step closer. “It’s you.”
Impaled by the light like an insect in a collector’s scrapbook, Morrigan could only gape.
Then, astoundingly, the woman addressed her by name. “You never used to fear me, Morrigan Lawton.”
“You… you know me?”
“What are you doing here, in the night, and so far from your home?”
“I’m lost.”
The figure gestured. “Come away then,” she said, and returned to her path beneath the trees.
Morrigan stared down the depthless, yawning tunnel that had swallowed her horse and gig. What else could she do? She didn’t want to be alone out here.
The wind sighed and whispered.
They walked for a long time. Morrigan stumbled over hidden stones and into unexpected holes. Her injured ankle, much improved over the last fortnight, began to throb and swell. Before long she was limping and trying not to groan. At last the trees thinned into a clearing. She glimpsed a squat dark mass— a bothy. Her guide approached the door, pushed it open, and vanished inside. After a moment of unease, Morrigan followed.
A small fire burned in a crude round hearth. Some smoke escaped through a hole in the roof, but the room was uncomfortably acrid. “Warm yourself,” the woman said, picking up a ladle from the floor. She spooned steaming liquid from a cauldron over the fire into an earthenware mug.
Morrigan sat down, glad to rest her ankle, and tried to study her odd savior without being obvious. Twigs and bits of leaves were stuck in a snarled braid. The woman’s face was gaunt, dirty, her shapeless gown worn clear through in places. Creases around her mouth and the one laid deep between her brows made her look old, though dirt and want could give a deceptively aged appearance. She was skinny too, flat-chested, bony-wristed, as though she hadn’t had enough to eat in a long while. Her hands, working the fire to renewed life, were rough and chapped, black under broken nails. Perhaps if she were bathed, her hair combed, she might pass for a decent crofter’s wife.
“My horse ran away.” Could this creature be one of Agnes’s monsters in disguise? According to her, they all had the ability to hide behind illusion.
The woman came around the fire and held out the cup. Morrigan took it— it was nicely warm to the touch— and looked up to say thank you, but a shock of delayed recognition stopped her.
For what seemed an endless interlude she stared at that broad forehead, so fine but for the raised, angry red scar in the center, spoiling what could have been the woman’s best feature. “Diorbhail,” she said on a gasp. “Diorbhail Sinclair.”
For one confused moment, she thought Curran, Kilgarry, Glenelg, and her new life had been but a dream, and she was still in Stranraer, staring into the poor, misused face of the local whore. It was intensified by the appearance of that same sheen of light, brighter than it had been the first time she’d seen it at Stranraer’s train station.
“Aye.” Diorbhail nodded.
“How can it be you? How in God’s name can you be here?”
“Well, God had nowt to do with it,” Diorbhail replied. “If he had his way, I’d no doubt be dead.”
“How did you get here?”
“I walked to Mallaig. From there I came by boat.”
“You walked? From Stranraer?” Morrigan looked into each corner, expecting to see a small, pinched face. “Where’s your daughter?”
Diorbhail turned towards her hearth fire, sighing. “I saw you limping, Miss Lawton. The brew I’ve given you will numb the pain.”
“It’s Ramsay now,” Morrigan said faintly. “Morrigan Ramsay.” She lifted the cup. The liquid inside was thick, with a mild, earthy smell. She sipped warily. It seemed rather like a stew, with small chunks of vegetables or whatnot. It burned her throat and sent soothing warmth through her limbs. “Thank you,” she said, draining the cup. She hadn’t realized how hungry and thirsty she was.
“Will you show me your ankle?”
Morrigan stretched out her leg. Diorbhail removed her shoe and stocking, revealing an ankle swollen to twice its normal size, and angry purple bruising. The calf was swollen too, halfway to the knee.
“I dreamed of you every night,” Diorbhail said as she gently massaged it. “I left Stranraer and walked to Mallaig, wanting to find you, but by the time I arrived, you were gone from there as well. A lady who knows your aunt told me you had come here. I could no’ pay for sea passage, so I was going to walk, but she said I’d die for sure, and talked her husband into bringing me on his fishing boat. I’ve been here, waiting, not knowing how to approach you.” She refilled the cup and handed it to Morrigan, then ripped a length of cloth from the bottom of her ragged petticoat and went outside. When she returned, the cloth was sopping wet with icy cold water. She wrapped it around Morrigan’s ankle, bringing immediate relief.
Morrigan wanted to ask more questions, but her tongue felt thickened and numb. Her ears were ringing. The pain in her ankle had somehow diminished to a faint annoyance, and she became aware that her anxiety was also gone.
“I’ve given you the mushroom,” Diorbhail said, “to help you remember what you’ve forgotten. It should be working by now.”
“Mushroom?” Morrigan’s voice sounded different— faint and tinny, with a slight echo. Diorbhail’s face wavered like it was underwater.
“That’s the last of it. Every day I’ve searched, but I can’t find any more. I was going to have the rest of it myself tonight. I hoped it would show me a way to speak to you.”
“Where… where is your daughter?” Morrigan had to know the answer to this, at least.
Diorbhail’s jaw clenched; her face sagged. Morrigan felt, with sharpened sensitivity, the pain radiating off the woman, and wished she could withdraw the question. Again, Diorbhail gave no answer. She stood and clasped Morrigan’s hands, pulling her to her feet. Morrigan stumbled and nearly fell. She was shocked to hear herself giggle, the sound seeming to bounce around the inside of her skull. Diorbhail’s body rippled and the twigs in her hair undulated. For an instant, Morrigan thought she saw yello
w eyes and darting forked tongues.
Maybe Diorbhail was a snake woman, a Medusa. But with those eyes gazing into hers, unblinking, possessing a hot, unworldly spark that seized her and snapped her to attention, wouldn’t she already be turned to stone?
Diorbhail led her to a narrow pallet. “You can sleep here.”
The sweet aromas of straw, clover, and heather rose around Morrigan as she sat down. “Thank you for helping me,” she said.
There was a soft hissing sound as Diorbhail leaned forward and kissed her. The kiss sparked tremors of unease, yet also a strange familiarity. Morrigan tried to push the woman away, but the drink had sapped her strength, making her effort no more powerful than a babe’s. She caught a new scent, one that carried her backward in time to lost hours hiding in the forest or on the slope by Loch Ryan. She inhaled. Diorbhail smelled like old books.
“It’s been so long,” her rescuer said, her brow furrowed, a gleam of tears in her eyes. She withdrew, resting on her heels briefly before becoming practical again.
She unknotted and removed Morrigan’s shawl and velvet jacket, and unbuttoned her blouse, lending assistance as Morrigan slipped off the blouse and camisole. The corset was unlaced and placed to the side.
“There was mushroom in that drink?” Morrigan asked as she lay down. The air was cold on her bare arms, bringing out gooseflesh.
“Aye. It has many names.” Diorbhail tucked the shawl around Morrigan’s shoulders. “My mam was a healer; she taught me the properties of herbs and plants before she died. She called it ‘the prince of flowers.’ It’s a potion from ancient times. I’ve seen that these aids have made you ill in the past, but I swear the mushroom won’t hurt you or the babe you carry. My mam gave it to expectant women who were overly feared of labor and birth.”
Morrigan giggled again at the thought of a lowly mushroom making her feel so strange. Diorbhail giggled too. They laughed helplessly, as though tickled by invisible fingers.
Some time later, a voice she thought was Diorbhail’s startled her awake, but her companion had her back propped against an old rocking chair a little distance away, and appeared to be asleep.
She must have been dreaming. She’d been sitting beside Diorbhail in some cavernous place of uncertain light and dripping water. She knew the woman was Diorbhail, though she looked nothing like the woman by the fire. The figure in the dream had cascades of white hair and skin as flawless as marble. Her arms were muscled like a warrior’s.
Tell me what it’s like, when a man and woman join, Morrigan had asked. If the god comes, I want to know what to expect.
The dream-Diorbhail stroked an enormous stalagmite. See this? It is the manhood of Velchanos, buried here in Athene’s womb. As it is for Athene, so it is for women and men.
The muffled crackle of wood in the hearth fire, gently undulating shadows, and peaceful silence soon sent her back to sleep. When next she woke, Diorbhail was sitting beside her, weeping silently.
Morrigan sat up and placed her palm on Diorbhail’s cheek. She knew this woman. Trusted her. Loved her even. Somehow, Diorbhail was dearer than anyone she’d ever known, and had been, for longer than could be fathomed.
“Since the first time I saw you in Stranraer,” Diorbhail said, “I’ve known there’s something that connects us. I took the mushroom, and that’s when I saw your colors, gold and purple, all around you like a cloud. The mushroom gives us power to see things that cannot usually be seen.”
“What is this mushroom?”
“It’s as close to magic as we can get. It shows us things that cannot be seen in the light of day. I saw myself with you. We were close, closer than sisters, somewhere… a different place, a different time. You trusted me. You need to trust me again, Morrigan Lawton. The mushroom showed me. You’re the one to choose the path for the future, for all the world.”
“Choose the path for the world?” Morrigan bit off a cynical laugh and shook her head. “That’s pure daftness. Women like me can’t do anything other than vex men. I’m rather good at that. My father and my husband have made my failings quite clear.”
“You must reject those lies and follow the truth. Well do I know how hard it will be, and how easy for you to say you cannot, because of this or that reason. You have to stand up though you feel weighted down, buried under all the words they use to keep you from trying.”
Diorbhail stroked the side of Morrigan’s head tenderly. “I’ve seen other things, things I could no’ understand, but I’ll tell you anyway. Like I said, I’ve been here, hiding, trying to find a way to approach you when no one else was around.” She looked away, blinking several times. “I fear folk. I could no’ make myself come to you in the open.”
“I understand,” Morrigan said. After what the woman had endured, it was no wonder.
“I hid in the woods. I stole food. I found this place and stayed. I’ve been watching you, and the village, and listening….”
“Go on.”
“That’s how I knew you’re carrying a child. Folk speak of it. It’s no’ like it was for me in Stranraer, though. They like you. They’re pleased the laird has wed. But there’s something else. A man… a fisherman. At least that’s what he wants folk to think. I heard him called Aodhàn.”
“Mackinnon. Aodhàn Mackinnon.”
“Aye.”
Hearing his name brought images of the anguish on his face, of the kiss that had prompted everything leading to this moment. “What about him?”
“I saw colors around him, too. He’s special in some way, but no’ the same as you. I felt sick when I saw him. I cannot explain why, but I fear him. He is not what he seems.”
“What colors did you see?” Morrigan remembered her wedding cèilidh and what she’d glimpsed, but waited, her breath catching, to hear what Diorbhail would say.
“Red, orange. Dark brown. He frightens me. I think he’s… connected to you, as I am. I felt the force of him. It was like thunder.” Her gaze upon Morrigan was penetrating.
Morrigan resisted an urge to defend Mackinnon and asked instead, “Have you seen colors around anyone else?”
“Aye.” Diorbhail smiled for the first time, a smile that made her look younger. “Around Master Ramsay. He carried you into a garden and put you on a red couch. There was another man there too, and you were all laughing.”
“Seaghan MacAnaugh,” Morrigan said. “Aye.”
Diorbhail nodded. “I was watching from the forest. I could barely tell what colors were yours and what were your husband’s. They mixed together, maybe because he was carrying you. There was blue, and purple, and gold, and white. Every shade of purple you can imagine.”
“Did he make you feel sick and afraid?”
“No.” Diorbhail shook her head emphatically. “No.” She opened her mouth as if to say something else, then looked away to the hearth, her hands clenching. “But I did feel badly about what the other one did. Aodhàn Mackinnon.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Him kissing you. It was wrong.”
“What? You’re leaping about like a snagged fish. You mean before I came here tonight?”
Diorbhail blinked. Her brows rose. “I mean in the garden that day.”
“Mackinnon wasn’t there.”
“Aye, he was. He kissed you.”
“You’d best tell me exactly what you saw.”
“Aodhàn Mackinnon came in through the forest gate when you were alone. He knelt beside you; he stared at you a long time, then he bent over you, full of nerve, and kissed you on the mouth.”
Morrigan concentrated, trying to recall that day. She’d fallen asleep after Curran and Seaghan left her. She’d dreamed of swimming in the sea, of the seal thwarting her efforts to reach the castle. The seal had drawn her under the surface. She knew she would drown, yet she didn’t care. She accepted it. The dream man had kissed her.
She’d awakened in the garden, feeling corrupt and full of fire.
“Are you saying Mackinnon was in the garden w
ith me?”
“Aye. He kissed you, and you didn’t seem bothered by it.”
“I didn’t know. I was asleep. I’ve had trouble sleeping; I suppose I was exhausted.”
Diorbhail frowned. “Doing that was an evil thing. Did you say he kissed you again? Right before you came here?”
Morrigan was reeling. “No… no. I didn’t understand.” She wasn’t sure why she denied it. Why protect him, if what Diorbhail said was true?
Diorbhail’s gaze was wary and suspicious. “He’s a trickster, that one,” she said, low. “I wanted to do something, but I was afraid, and like I said, you didn’t seem bothered. I was going to throw a rock at him, but I feared I’d hit you. He stood up and looked down at you, and then he left. Your husband returned a moment after. Aodhàn Mackinnon must’ve seen him coming.”
Morrigan turned towards the fire and imagined Mackinnon bending over her while she was asleep, stealing kisses, in the very shadow of Kilgarry. She touched her lips, realizing she wasn’t horrified, or angry, or shocked, though she should be. No, this reaction was something else altogether. She wondered if Diorbhail’s mushroomy brew caused this, because what Mackinnon had done was terribly wrong. If what Diorbhail said was true, Mackinnon had come into the garden, set upon her while she was unaware, and left before Curran returned. How… how bold.
Her thoughts were fuzzy. Tomorrow she would examine what Diorbhail had told her and make sense of it. “I’m so tired,” she said, and lay down again, closing her eyes and turning to face the wall. “My head aches.”
Diorbhail murmured something soothing and the bothy fell silent again but for the gentle, intermittent crackle of the dying fire.
A cloud of white mist was coming through the window, seeping to the floor and expanding, filled with delicate tinkling laughter reminiscent of tiny silver Christmas bells. The mist thickened, obscuring everything beyond it.
Agnes’s warning about West Highland fogs returned. She’d said they could be perilous, but nothing about how they might lie upon one like a ghostly lover.
The Sixth Labyrinth (The Child of the Erinyes Book 4) Page 37