A dart flies past my head, makin me flinch some. I can do this. I have to do this. I’m still sloshin along, and Eydis is runnin beside me, mud flyin out in all directions. All I gotta do is jump at the right moment, grab the reins, jam my foot in the stirrup, and swing myself over. Easy. Easy. She’s close. Okay, okay. I jump.
My left foot finds the stirrup, but I miss the reins and am grabbin at her hair. She doesn’t seem to mind none. I’m danglin, my right foot draggin through the mud as she keeps runnin. I gotta get up quick, before my foot catches on somethin sharp what’ll snap my ankle bones clean in two. I try to pull myself up, but the speed we’re goin, with the bumps and all, it’s too hard. Mud is flyin in my face, in my mouth. It tastes of salt and bitterbread. I try to swing myself up again, and this time Eydis lowers her head some, makin it easier for me. I reach for the saddle and heave my right leg over. I’m up! Only skap thing is I’m facin backward, but I’m not bothered about that none. I trust Eydis to keep goin; I don’t care where, as long as it’s forward. She doesn’t seem troubled by the mud. The woman’s brother is gettin farther and farther away from us. He fires one more dart, but it doesn’t even come close.
“You’re a good girl, Eydis,” I say to her, huggin her backside. “A hek ríkka good girl.”
She snorts outta her nose and carries on runnin.
I have to find Catriona’s bad secret. That is what Maistreas Eilionoir said and what made me have the thought. That is why I am going back to Catriona’s bothan. Maistreas Eilionoir said there are monsters in Catriona’s chest but she is wrong. I looked in the chest and it is clothes and a book and a blanket. The only thing is the bump noise though. I don’t know what it was but maybe it is Catriona’s bad secret and I am going to find it.
I put my hood on my head and pull it all the way down which is for disguise. It is not a very good disguise but it is a bit of one. I do not want anyone to see me go into Catriona’s bothan because it is naughty to do it. This is my one, two, third time going into Catriona’s bothan when I wasn’t supposed to. That is my bad secret. It is important so I have to do it.
When I am at her bothan I look around and no one is seeing me so I go in. It is the same as when I was here before except the only thing is it is more brighter. I look at the bed and the chair and the chest and am thinking where the bad secret can be. I open the chest again and look again. Maybe I didn’t look carefully enough. No, it is still clothes and a book and a blanket.
“No bad secrets in there,” I say, which is talking to myself.
I stand up and am thinking where to look next when the bump noise comes again. It is the same one from before. It is quiet bumps from far away. I do not know where it is the bumps.
I take Milkwort out. He has good ears for hearing. I ask him if he can help me find where the bump noise is and he says yes. I put him on the floor and he runs first one way but then the bump noise comes and he turns quick around the other way. He stops next to the chest. It is not in the chest because I looked. Doesn’t he know that? Then Milkwort says to me the bumps is under the chest. How can it be under the chest? Under the chest is the floor. Milkwort says again that is where. I say okay I will look.
The chest is heavy so it is hard for me to pull it. When it is away from the corner I go to the other side and push it which makes it a little bit easier but still hard. Underneath is just the floor like I knew it would be. But, oh — there is a hole. I go on my knees to see closer and it is a hole for a key I think. Why is there a key lock hole in the floor?
The bump noise does again and it is a surprise and I do a yelp. I put my hand over my mouth. I shouldn’t do that yelp sound. It came out of me because of the surprise. Something is bumping from inside the floor. What if it is a monster or a wildwolf and it gets me? I have to be brave. I put my eye next to the hole lock to see inside but it is only dark and I cannot see. The bump comes again and again and is harder and loud. I move away from the hole. Maybe Milkwort can see. He has good eyes in the dark and little ones that can see in small holes. I ask him if please he can look in and see it but be careful in case there is a monster or a wildwolf inside.
He runs to the hole and puts his nose close. He says he can see something. He says it is a person. There is a person in the ground!
Is the person alive? I ask Milkwort. Are they moving? He tells me yes and yes. I say to him thank you for being the best most brilliant vole and he is happy. He comes back into my pocket. I bend down on my knees and hands on the floor.
“Hello?” I say into the hole with my mouth close. “Can you hear me?”
Then I put my ear next to it for listening but there is no speaking back only faster bump bump bumps. This is the most strange ever. I put my finger in the lock hole and wiggle the floor but it won’t come. It is locked. I have to find the key. Then I will open the floor and the person will be free. That is the clever plan. But where is the key? It is not in the chest because I looked in it twice and I know. I look under the bed and it is not there. I look under the chair and it is not there as well. There isn’t any other places in the bothan to hide it. Maybe Catriona took it with her when she went. I look around again. There’s nothing except the chest and the chair and the bed and the pillow. Oh, the pillow! I haven’t looked in the pillow.
I pick it up and pull out the straw. It is yellow and hard spiky on my hands. It goes all on the bed. I am making the mess. The door does a creak and opens.
I stop pulling out the straw and look at the door. It is wide open. My heart is bumping like the person in the floor but only harder. No one comes. It was the wind I think. I close the door tighter and look out the window. Still no one is there. I am not found.
I go back to the bed and hold the pillow at the end and shake it so all the straw is out. There is no key. That is sad. I did not find it. The bumping is still louder and faster but I have to go now before someone comes. I think someone will come soon. Before I go I have to make the room right again so Catriona does not know I was here. I pick up a grab of straw in my hand and put it back in the pillow sack. Then — what is that shiny? It is a key! It was in the pillow. I didn’t see it when it came out but I see it now. It is a clever place to hide it in the pillow and I am more clever because I thought to look in the pillow and found it.
I pick it up. It is cold like puddles. I go to the key lock hole and put it in. It goes in. It is hard to turn it but then it does. There is a loud sound that is clunk. The bump noise stops. I try to pull up but it won’t open. It is too too heavy. Or maybe the key is wrong. Then the ground moves below me. I am lifted in the air a small bit. The floor hole is opening but it is not me doing it. The person from inside the ground is pushing up. I am on top so they cannot do it high. I move away to next to the bed. The person is going to come up. Please be a nice person is what I am thinking. The floor moves again and now that I am not on the top it can open all the way. A head comes up. It is a man. His face is all dirty and his eyes are scrunched. In his mouth is a rope which is tied. I think I do not know him but then I look more and I do know him.
It is Kenrick. His eyes are squinty ones and blinking a very lot. I am in big surprise.
“K-Kenrick?” I say. “W-why were you in the h-hole in the — ground?” There is a very bad smell that is nasty like poo. I go to him and take out the rope in his mouth. He tries to speak but he cannot do it and he coughs.
“W-water,” he says. His voice is different. It is croaks like dry. Behind me there is a jug next to Catriona’s bed. I pour some water into a bowl and tip it by Kenrick’s mouth so he can drink. “Thank you,” he says. “Could you help me out of here?”
“Yes, I will h-help you, Kenrick,” I say.
I hold him under his arm and help him to come out which is kind. His hands are tied behind his back. They are dirty and so is all his clothes. I do not mind dirty. I try to undo the knot but it is too hard for my fingers.
“Don’t worry about that for now,” he says. He moves his body one way and then the other to do the
stretching.
“Catriona said the — shadow things t-took you away,” I say.
“Catriona lied.”
“W-why?” I ask.
Kenrick shakes his head to get some of the dirty off but it is still dirty. The shaking makes him woozy-wobbles. “She did not agree with how I was leading this clan, with the hospitality I was showing your people. But even I did not think she would stoop this low.”
“It was Catriona who locked you in the — floor?” I say.
“Yes.” He swallows the gristly in his throat. “She took advantage of the sgàilean attack and struck me over the head when no one was looking. Next thing I know, I woke up in that hole, scarcely able to breathe. The choke-hole’s an old punishment: leaving your enemies to rot in the very ground beneath where you sleep. I believe it was her plan to let me die in there.”
Kenrick is Catriona’s bad secret. I knew it and I found him.
“Do you know where Catriona is now?” Kenrick asks me. “We have to get out of here.”
“She locked up all the deers,” I say, “and she is going to — kill them.” I tell him about Thistle-River and the other deers and how Catriona is mean and the other people hit them with the sticks.
Kenrick is looking out of the window. “I think it’s time my people knew the truth,” he says. “Catriona has a lot to answer for.”
We walk outside the bothan and through the enclave. It is hard for Kenrick to go fast and he stumbles a lot of times. People from Clann-na-Bruthaich are surprised to see him and they run to us. One person undoes the tight knot so his hands are free and other ones put his arms around their necks to help him do walking. They want to know how he is alive and if he is okay and where he has been.
“Gather the clan and bring Catriona” is all he says, and some people go.
We stop by the loch. It is raining now and cold. The wind is blowing on the loch and makes the water tremble. Lots of people come. Maistreas Eilionoir is there and she looks at me like she wants to say why I am standing next to Kenrick and what happened.
“Get your hands off me” is a shout and it is Catriona. Two people are holding her arms but she doesn’t let them and she pushes them off. “What’s this all about — ?” She stops when she sees Kenrick. Her mouth goes open. “Kenrick,” she says. “We thought you were dead.”
“Did you, now?” says Kenrick.
“Thank goodness you’re alive. We thought the sgàilean took you.” She is lying. She knows the shadow things did not take him because she is the one who locked him in the ground. She is the worst bad liar.
“You knew full well that the sgàilean did not take me,” says Kenrick, “but I don’t doubt that you thought I was dead. After all, how many days has it been now since you locked me in the choke-hole?”
There is gasps and people are speaking shocked.
Catriona looks at them. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I would never — ”
“Catriona-na-Bruthaich.” Kenrick stands up very straight. Everyone is quiet. “You stand accused of treason and conspiracy to kill your fellow clansman. How do you plead?”
“This is ridiculous,” she says. “How dare you accuse me of such things?”
“So you deny it?” Kenrick asks her.
“Of course I deny it,” Catriona says to everyone around. “Look at the man. He’s clearly deluded. He must have hit his head when the sgàilean dragged him away.”
“It’s not true,” I say. “She’s lying. Kenrick was i-in the — ground in Catriona’s — bothan. She locked him in. I know it because I — I f-found him.”
Everyone is talking again.
“Lock her away,” says Kenrick. “She will stand trial for her crimes once the current crisis has been averted.”
The two people grab Catriona’s arms again and pull them hard behind her back. One of them has a sword.
“Wait! You can’t — !” says Catriona. The people start taking her away. She looks at her clan around her. “Fine, I admit it,” she says. The people stop dragging her. “But I did it for you. For us. For Clann-na-Bruthaich. Look at yourselves. What’s happened to us? We used to be the greatest clan on all the islands. Now look at what we have been reduced to: ordered around by outsiders and retarchs.” That is a very rude word. She looks at me when she says it. She should not say that word to me. “We cannot survive here, all of us together. Nor should we want to. This is our enclave, and it’s time for us to reclaim it; it is time to send Clann-a-Tuath home. This man” — she points her finger at Kenrick — “is weak, and refused to make the hard choices necessary to secure the future of our people. You need a strong leader, and that leader is me. Together we can be strong. Together we are strong! Who is with me?”
Nobody speaks. Only the rain is the sound.
“No one? Not one person?” says Catriona. Her hands are tight in fists. She spits on the ground. “Then you deserve every misery that’s coming your way.”
“It looks like you are on your own,” says Kenrick. “So that is what you shall be. You are hereby banished from this enclave. You are no longer a member of Clann-na-Bruthaich. You are to leave at once and never return.”
“But . . . No. You can’t,” says Catriona. “The sgàilean.” She looks scared and it is the first time I have seen it. “I’ll have no way of protecting myself. If you banish me, you’re sentencing me to death.”
“It is no more than you bestowed upon me,” says Kenrick. He steps forward and his legs do wibbles again. People move to help him but he waves them away. He stands up tall and stares at Catriona. His eyes are hard ones. “You wanted strong leadership, and now I am showing it. If you are ever seen near this enclave again, you will be shown no mercy. Am I making myself clear? Now take her out of my sight.”
Some Moths go to move her but she shakes so they are off. “I can take myself,” she says.
She walks away from everyone and we follow. When we are near the Lower Gate, the Moths open it. The rain is harder now and makes outside look dark. Catriona does not slow down. She goes straight out of the enclave. When she is lots of steps away she turns back to look at us.
“One day, I’m going to make you regret this,” she says.
I think she is talking to me.
We make camp at the base of a hill, which Cray says will help protect us from the wind, as well as being safer should another imitator turn up. It feels like we’re exposed out in the open like this — especially with the fire we made, lighting up our location — but Cray pointed out that we’d be much more at risk if we camped beneath trees, given the imitators’ affinity for climbing them. There’s also some solace in having the Badhbh nearby, after his display of power against the imitator earlier, even if his allegiance to us is still somewhat questionable.
“How’s your throat?” Cray asks.
“A little better, thanks. And your ankle?”
“Barely even tickles.”
A small pot of watery soup rests on the grass between us. We’ve been taking turns drinking from it. We offered some to the Badhbh, but he wasn’t interested. He’s sitting on the opposite side of the fire with his back to us, staring at the stars. His hands are resting on his knees, palms facing up, in the same way they were when I walked into his hut.
Cray picks up the soup pot and looks inside.
“You finish it,” he says. “There’s only one slurp left.”
“I’ve had enough.”
“Come on, you need it more than I do.”
I take the pot from him and glug down the remainder of its contents. There’s not much sustenance in the soup, but it’s warm and slips down easier than the meat I tried to eat earlier.
“Do you want first watch or second?” Cray asks as I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.
“Um . . . first?” I reply.
“In that case, I’m going to snatch myself some sleep. Here, take this.” He unsheathes his dagger and hands it to me, handle first. “Just in case.” It’s the same dagger I took from h
is waist belt yesterday. He must have picked it up after I threw it at the imitator. I take it from him, then he crosses over to Bras and lies by his side, in between the bull and the fire. “Wake me up when you’re ready to swap over or if you hear anything suspicious.”
I don’t want him to go to sleep; I’d prefer it if both of us stayed awake all night, but of course that’s not possible. Cray closes his eyes, and within moments his breathing relaxes into a soothing faraway rhythm. What I wouldn’t give to be able to fall asleep that quickly, to not be constantly haunted by the specters of the past few months. Even now, without Cray’s conversation as a distraction, my mind starts wandering into dark places filled with sgàilean and wildwolves and Lileas and death. . . . I scrunch my eyes closed and shake my head. If only dispelling my thoughts could be that simple.
“I’m taking first watch if you want to get some sleep,” I call to the Badhbh.
He doesn’t move or acknowledge that I have spoken. Perhaps he’s already asleep, or maybe he doesn’t sleep at all. Who knows with that man?
The wind batters the fire, bending its glow in eerie directions. Cray positioned Bras to block the worst of the gusts, but there’s only so much one bull can do. Outside the small ring of light created by the fire, the night is oppressively dark. Staring out into it makes my eyes weary. I should be afraid; we’re out in the open, and we know there are more imitators around somewhere, yet all I really feel is indifference: full of sickness from the past and numb to the future.
A long while later, the Badhbh stands up, his body unfolding like a blossoming plant. He turns around and then sits back down, so that he’s facing me from the other side of the fire. He looks at me, the flames fidgeting across his taut face.
The Broken Raven Page 20