by Juliet Dark
“And well he should have,” William proclaimed heartily. “To tell ye the truth, the two of them sound like a pair of dunderheads. If they could not keep ye, they did not deserve ye.” William huffed and turned to walk back to the cottage.
When we reached the house, he produced a handful of dried heather and put it in the jug on the table. After dinner, while we sat by the fire, William taught me how to knit. I was so clumsy at it that he had to hold both my hands in his to guide me. I thought about whether these hands on mine were the same that had once touched me—or would someday touch me—until my head felt dizzy with trying to figure out what I wanted from those hands. He may have felt the same. After a few minutes, he let go.
“It’s the fault of these big clumsy needles,” he grumped. “Delicate hands like yours need finer needles. I’ll make you a pair.”
He spent the rest of the evening carving a pair of fine wooden knitting needles out of a branch of hawthorn wood, while I practiced knitting. It kept my eyes off his agile hands turning the wood and my mind from imagining the touch of those hands on me.
The next day I opened my door to find Nan and three other women—at least, I assumed they were women. They were all swathed so heavily in shawls and scarves that they looked like woolly mummies. When everyone was unwrapped, Nan introduced me to Beitris, a plump middle-aged woman and Nan’s cousin on her mother’s side from o’er Erceldowne way; Una, an ancient-looking crone; and Aileen, Una’s daughter-in-law, who disclosed a baby beneath her copious wrappings. If Nan had told them that they’d come to weave a magic tartan, they didn’t let on. Beitris remarked it was good to be out of the village and the prying eyes of the witch hunters.
“They’ve taken Bess MacIntire, have ye heard?” Beitris said. “Dorcas MacGreevey accused her of bewitching her husband. If you ask me, it wouldna take a witch to make a man stray from a dried-up stick like Dorcas.”
Aileen looked scandalized. “But it’s a mortal sin to commit adultery! Surely Dorcas’s husband wouldn’t do it unless he’d been bewitched.”
Una snorted. “Poor lass, ye think that because you’re new married and my Ian’s fair besotted with ye.”
Aileen blushed prettily at mention of her husband’s affection for her and jostled the baby, whom she managed to nurse while spinning, a feat I couldn’t help but admire. I leaned forward to peer at the baby’s plump face, his pink mouth pursing like a sea anemone.
“What a pretty baby,” I said. “What’s his name?”
“Ian, like his da,” Aileen replied, her cheeks turning as pink as her baby’s mouth. She leaned forward so I could see him better, and a fold of his swaddling cloth fell over his face. Instinctively, I pushed it away, stroking the velvet softness of little Ian’s cheek.
“What a handsome young man,” I cooed.
Pleased, Aileen jostled him again and began to sing—the same song that Bill had once sung, the one William’s mother sang to him as a baby. Little Ian laughed and crowed at the song and at being bounced up and down. We all laughed, and the atmosphere in the room lightened. When we’d all gone back to our spinning, I noticed a faint shine to our threads—Aileen’s was the pink of her baby’s cheeks, Beitris’s was a vivid yellow, Una’s a dark navy, Nan’s a forest green. And mine was heather purple—the color of the flowers William brought home for me. I looked around to see if the women noticed, and Beitris winked at me. Una and Nan nodded, but Aileen seemed oblivious, humming her lullaby to baby Ian.
Throughout the rest of November and the beginning of December, the spinners came to the cottage. Beitris always had news of who’d lately been accused of witchcraft and who was rumored to be next. Nan would shake her head and suggest we dwell on cheerier topics. Baby Ian always provided a few items of good news in the form of a new tooth, sitting up for the first time, and, on an overcast day in mid-December, his first step. All our threads turned bright gold when that happened.
Nan observed that the thread glowed after I touched the spinner. “It’s your magic combined with our feelings,” she said. But the results were erratic and unstable. The thread would glow for a bit and then grow dull. If the spinner became angry—as Aileen did once when Una chided her not to let baby Ian suck his thumb—the thread might suddenly break. Once, when I was thinking about how William had brushed against me the night before, my thread went up in flames. Even Aileen seemed to notice that, and Nan gave me a guarded look and stayed after the others had left.
I was afraid she’d guessed what I’d been thinking about, but when we were alone she said instead, “It’s almost the time of the trial, and we don’t know how to make this tartan of yours. We don’t have enough thread.”
“I’m not even sure we’re going about it the right way,” I said, discouraged. “The Stewarts in my time were able to weave the tartan out of thin air. They didn’t need wool and spinning wheels and looms.”
“It’s queer you don’t know how to do it, seeing as you’re the one who taught them.”
“The whole thing is queer,” I said, exasperated. “How could I have been the one who taught the Stewarts how to make the tartan when they already knew how to make it when I met them?” When I thought about the tangle of time, my thoughts became as snarled as knotted yarn.
“Aye, ’tis a puzzle. But that’s not all I wanted to talk to you about. I’ve noticed the way William looks at you when he comes home, and I saw how you were looking when your thread caught fire. Were you thinking of William—or were you thinking of the creature he became?”
“I don’t see how that’s your business,” I snapped.
Nan gave me a level look. “It’s my business because I care about the lad and I would not see him trifled with after all he’s gone through. He’s been the plaything of one woman already.”
I bristled at being compared to the Fairy Queen, but then I met Nan’s steady gaze and saw the genuine concern there. In her eyes, I might be just as much a threat to William’s happiness as was the Fairy Queen.
“I was thinking of him,” I admitted. “I’ve come to care for him. How could I not? He’s a sweet boy and he will become the man I fell in love with—and lost.”
“But you still intend to go back to your time when you’ve gotten what you came for, aye?”
“What choice do I have?” I cried more shrilly than I’d meant to. “My friends are waiting for me back in Fairwick.”
“Do ye know for sure they are, lass?” Nan asked. “From the stories I’ve heard about travelers in Faerie, there’s no telling when you might come back. Perhaps it will be a moment after you left or a month or a year or two hundred years, like Oisin when he returned to his country to find his castle in ruins and all the folk he knew long dead and gone. And then, when he stepped foot on the ground, he turned into an old man and died.”
“I know the story,” I said. “Do you think I haven’t wondered about that? No, I have no idea what will be waiting for me when I get back to Fairwick—or even if I’ll be able to get past the Fairy Queen’s curse to get there—but I can’t just abandon my friends no matter how I feel about William.”
Nan’s face softened. “Aye, I thought as much. Then I beg you to be careful not to break the poor lad’s heart.”
When William came home that night, I did not walk out to meet him. After dinner, I picked up my knitting to keep my hands busy and kept my eyes on my stitches to keep from meeting his gaze. When he asked about the spinning, I told him, “Well, we’re going to start weaving tomorrow. We’ll have the tartan soon, and then we’ll use it to get the angel stone from the witch hunters.”
William got up to poke the fire, hard enough to make it nearly go out, then with his back to me said, “Good. I’ll start collecting a few lads brave enough to carry your tartan to the castle.”
“Are there men willing to risk it?” I asked, knitting faster to resist the urge to knead the tightened muscles in his back.
“There are sons and husbands of the accused,” he answered. “What kind of man would not be
willing to risk his neck for the woman he loved?”
Without waiting for an answer, William walked out the back door, muttering something about needing to check on the sheep, leaving me to wonder why William was willing to risk his own neck carrying the tartan to Castle Coldclough.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The next day we set up the loom in the central room, and Nan and Beitris took turns teaching me how to weave while Aileen and Una took turns knitting a blanket for baby Ian and rocking him by the fire.
“He’s fretful today,” Aileen complained as she handed him over to Una and stood to stretch her back. “He might be cutting a new tooth.”
“I could brew him a tonic,” Una said, crooning to her grandson.
Aileen sniffed. “Reverend Fordick says if ye say your prayers and attend kirk regular, ye have no need of herb craft and sech witchery. Put yer faith in the Lord, he says.”
“That’s all very well,” Una replied, “but if the Reverend Fordick didna spurn my dandelion tonic, he wouldna look like a man who’s not moved his bowels since Whitsunday.”
Beitris and Nan laughed, but Aileen looked scandalized to hear the reverend’s bowels discussed.
“And I wouldna have ye hanging scissors over his cradle anymore,” Aileen added.
“Why, the scissors are meant as a charm to keep the baby being taken by the auld folk—”
“Hish!” Aileen hissed, and took baby Ian from Una. “Reverend Fordick says it’s a sin to believe in the fairies. And look what ye’ve gone and done. You had Ian so close to the fire you’ve fair smothered him. He’s hot as a roasted hickory nut!”
I got up from the loom to peer at baby Ian, moving the blanket aside to look at him. Aileen flinched and jerked him away from me. I was startled. I’d never been sure that Aileen was comfortable with me, but she acted as though I was going to hurt her baby.
“I only wanted to see if he was warm …”
“He’s weel enough, he’s just teething.” Aileen gathered Ian to her bosom and he wailed piteously.
Nan got up from the loom and bent over the baby, her face creased with concern. Una’s face was also lined with worry, making her look as if she’d aged ten years in the last ten minutes. “I’m afraid it isna just the fever,” Nan said. “I’m afraid it’s the pest.” She tilted Ian’s fat baby neck, and I saw that his throat was dark and swollen.
“Don’t you be saying such a thing!” Aileen cried, horrified at the thought of plague. “And layin’ a curse on him. All he needs is to be home.” She was gathering her basket and strapping Ian to her chest under a layer of shawls.
Nan nodded, but she and Una were murmuring to each other in hushed voices, consulting over the best treatment. I wished that I’d paid more attention in science classes. I knew the plague came from fleas, which were carried by rats, but William had gone on a rampage against rats in our first week in the cottage and we were relatively free of them; Nan had also shown me what herbs to use to keep away fleas.
As Aileen opened the door, a gust of cold air entered the house and swirled around the room. I shivered—it felt like the cold fingers of death searching for their next victim. A brief, uncharitable thought flashed through my head—better she take the sickness away from here—but I instantly banished it. “You don’t have to go,” I said, laying my hand on Aileen’s arm. “It would be better to keep him warm here. We could tend to him together.”
She flinched away from my touch. “They all say in the village you’re a fairy enchantress. Jeannie MacDougal says you’ve put a spell on William. Just like the spell you’ve put on my Ian now.” She spat in the doorway. “I’ll no more cross your threshold, witch, and if Ian comes to harm, the witch hunters will hear of it.”
With that, she was gone. I stood, stunned by her speech, watching her swaddled form disappearing in the gray twilight. Although not much past three o’clock, the day was already turning dark, and the heavy gray clouds over the mountains looked swollen with snow.
“I’d best go after her,” Una said, joining me at the door. “She’ll need help tending to the puir bairn.”
“You’ll let me know if there’s anything I can do,” I said.
Una squeezed my hand in thanks but answered, “Nay, lass, you’d best stay out of the village. This sickness will only feed the frenzy of the witch hunt. And it’s true what she said about Jeannie MacDougal. She has been spreading stories about you.” She shook her head and hurried away, much faster than I would have thought a woman of her age could go, spurred on by her need to aid her grandson. Beitris left, as well, but Nan stayed on.
“I’ll bide till William’s come home,” she told me. “So you’ll not have to be alone.”
“You can help me, then,” I told her, going to the sheep shed for the large iron cauldron that Mordag had used for washing fleece. “We should boil all our clothes and bedding and bathe ourselves.”
“In this weather?” Nan complained. “We’ll catch our deaths!”
“We’ll catch our deaths from fleas and germs,” I told her. While we boiled water over the fire and I stripped my bed and tossed William’s pallet out into the yard, I proceeded to give Nan a lecture on germs and infectious diseases. She looked skeptical—she who believed in fairies and witches and who had accepted the idea that I came from the future found it hard to believe that invisible “wee beasties” carried sickness from house to house—but she helped me scour the cottage and hang all our clothes and bedding on a clothesline. When I’d pinned the last sheet to the line, I looked up as though someone had called my name. A last bit of sun had sneaked out from beneath the clouds and lit up the western ridge of mountains, turning the sky a fiery red and each line of mountains a different shade of lavender, lilac, and purple. The closest fields were the deep purple of dying heather. Just as the sun sank beneath the farthest ridge, I saw William appear along the closest ridge, his outline recognizable to me even at this distance. I’d know him anywhere, I thought, my heart feeling heavy in my chest. Even across the distance of time. Even if he took another shape, as he had when I pulled him from his fairy steed. Or if he became another man, as Liam and Bill had. Would I really be able to leave him when the time came? But I couldn’t think of that now. When William reached the house, Nan and I told him about baby Ian.
“Aye,” he said grimly, “I heard the plague bells tolling from the village. Things will get even worse now.”
“We can help,” I said. “If people knew to boil their clothes and burn the ones they can’t wash, it might keep the sickness from spreading.”
“I could go from house to house to tell them that,” Nan said.
“I’ll go with you,” I said.
Nan and William exchanged a look. “Best you stay here, lass,” Nan said. “You’re a stranger in these parts, and Aileen and Jeannie are not the only ones who think you’re a fairy enchantress.”
“Aye,” William agreed, “folks will say you’re spreading the pest with your strange ways. I’ll take Nan and see what we can do to help.”
“But what about you?” I cried. “Won’t they suspect you of witchcraft if you visit the houses of the sick? And you could get sick!”
“I’m no’ so frail, lass,” he said, smiling at my concern.
Nan went inside to look through Mordag’s pantry for herbs that might relieve illness. William put a reassuring hand on each shoulder and chafed my cold skin. Without thinking whether I should or not, I leaned into him and pressed myself against his broad chest. He was warm and solid, not the insubstantial creature that had come to me in moonlight and dreams, but a flesh-and-blood man. A mortal man who could die of plague just as easily as anyone. “Be careful,” I told him, ruing how inadequate the words were. Wasn’t there a spell I could cast to protect him? I searched my memory for something out of Wheelock but instead recalled one of that sorcerer’s admonitions.
The strongest protection a witch can give anyone is the mantle of her love.
And I did love William. As much as I’
d tried not to fall in love with him, I knew now, with the possibility that I would lose him, that I had. I wrapped my arms around him and pictured my love draped over him like a cloak. I closed my eyes and envisioned the threads I’d spun these last two months, each one a different color, each thread a moment we had shared—a meal eaten together, a walk over the hills, his hands over mine when he taught me how to knit.
“Dinna fash yerself,” William whispered into my ear. “I’ll be safe.”
When I lifted my head, I saw that the threads I’d spun were woven together into a luminous multicolored tartan that lay across his chest and over his shoulders like a Highlander’s plaid.
I heard a gasp from behind me. Nan had come out of the cottage. She was staring at William. “You’ve done it!” she cried. “You’ve woven the tartan!”
When William came home late that night, he told me baby Ian had died and there were three more cases of the pest in the village. Even though I’d seen how sick Ian was, I was shocked. “Poor Aileen,” I said.
“She was wailing like a ban-sidhe,” said a saddened William.
“How about Una?” I asked. “Has she gotten sick?”
“Nay, but she’s so stricken with grief I would not be surprised if she fell sick next. Aileen has thrown her out of their house because she said she would not have a witch under her roof.”
“She called Una a witch? But Una loved that baby every bit as much as Aileen did.”
“Aye, she called Nan a witch, too. I fear it’s only a matter of time before others join her. The miller’s family has fallen ill, and the miller’s wife was heard calling Nan and Una out as witches in the marketplace. Last fall Una accused the miller’s wife of giving her short shrift on her grain, and Nan tended their youngest wean when she fell and broke her leg.”
“I guess I can understand why the miller’s wife might suspect Una if she thought Una had a grudge against her—although I’ve heard Beitris and Nan complain of the same—but why would she accuse a woman who had helped them?”