He sang to you while he worked; sang of love of tribe and land. For the first time in years, you wept. And as you sat by the warmth of his fire after you had eaten your fill, you promised that you would do anything he wanted. If only he would stay with you. If only he would stay.
Such things he did for you, your gentle dove. He took you to the cooking pit; he laid you down in the fragrant, warm broth. Took a handful of fat and massaged your joints and bones; he scoured and scraped and smoothed your skin. Built a bed of leaves, of moss and rushes from the forest floor; he laid the deerskin below you and his cloak over you. He made love to you again, and you slept.
You stayed in the clearing for two months. Each day he spoke to you of the world you had left behind; each day he made love to you on your bed of moss. Each day he scrubbed gently at your skin. Scraped and flayed your life away. Slowly the fur fell off you. Your feathers he plucked out, one by one. Slowly the wild woman left you. No wings now for Mad Mis. But you wanted this. You wanted him. You thought it would be enough.
On the day that you did not then know was to be your last, he cut away your claws. Then he showed you the fine gown he had carried with him. You did not want his dress – but he was right, of course, to insist. ‘You will be the most beautiful woman in all Ireland,’ he said. ‘And besides, you cannot go naked to the court of a king.’
So you put on the dress he gave you; clothed yourself again in the robes of civilisation. And when he held up his small glass so that you might see the transformation he had wrought in you, the face which stared back belonged to the beautiful girl you had once been. You did not know who she was, this child. You did not know who she might become. You knew only that Mad Mis was dead, and no one would mourn for her now.
They said that he civilised you, they said that he tamed you. Those are the stories that men like to tell. Those are the words that men like to say. But it wasn’t civilisation that led you to marry Dubh Ruis. You did not marry him for his gold coins, nor the sweetness of his harp. You did not marry him for the fine deep strokes of his tricking staff. You married Dubh Ruis, son of Raghnall, because you loved him.
You went back to the world with him. You went back to the world for him. You played the part they required of you; the part they require of all women. You played it well – no one could say otherwise. Put on their fine, bejewelled gowns, and a torc like a golden collar round your neck. It is the way of things; you taught yourself not to care. You took the words and turned them into poems. Three fine sons you bore Dubh Ruis; grieved for the war-making men they would someday become. At last, you bore him a daughter. Accomplished, they said of you now, and regal bearing. Bearing? – you bore what you bore, and what you bore was the loss of Sliabh Mis. There is always something lost, even in the midst of the greatest joy. In gaining your love, you lost your love. But Dubh Ruis was your love now. Your dove, your lasting love.
Nothing lasts, though, in the world of men. They could not let you be. War was in their hearts and war was in their blood, and the grand warriors of the king’s court had always in their hearts been at war with your Dubh. They said he’d made them look small. They were envious of his lands, and his beautiful wife. Envious of his three strong sons, and the daughter who already rivalled her mother in beauty. So they planned their revenge, and planned it well. One day, when he was out gathering the taxes for the king, they killed him.
Well, he was gone, and nothing you could do would bring him back. But they brought back his body to you – his nightingale throat slit right through. Did you weep, did you wail? Did you drink his blood and suck at his wound? Did you fly through the air like a bird?
You did not. So civilised were you now that, quietly, you wept. You laid out his body, and then you wrote him a poem. So civilised they thought it, your elegy for the well-lived life of Dubh Ruis. So civilised they thought you that they did not think to watch you. So civilised that it never occurred to them what you might do.
You’d found the very final straw. So you laughed, and went to war.
Stay? You would not stay. You would not stay in a world owned by such men. But there is one less man in that world now. You killed him in his bed, the fine warrior who had boasted of murdering your love. Slit his throat so deeply that his head fell off his neck. And then you journeyed home.
Here you are, then; here you are. Home in your mountains, home in the wild. In the only place of comfort and safety you have ever known. There is no comfort for a woman in the world of men. No comfort in their cold-hearted halls, in their hard, stone churches filled with the judgement of their hard-as-stone God. Comfort is the sound of Owl calling in a night wood. Comfort is the solid rock of Mother Mountain at your back. There is no safety for a woman in the world of men, but there is no safety now for men in the verdant, lush valleys of Mad Mis.
Sliabh Mis is safe again from men, and the deer go gentle in your woods. They will not rape your land, or mine your mountains; they will not pollute your waters. For your claws have begun to grow again, and feathers are sprouting once more across your strong, muscled shoulders. Your teeth grow sharp, and your hair grows gently grey. You dance now like the old crane does, at the edge of her midnight marsh. Who will dance with you now, Mad Mis – with the wild, grey hag of the mountain? Come dance with Mis, if you dare. For you know the path the foxes take through the woods; you know where that old crane woman lays her eggs. You have listened to the song of the blackthorn at winter solstice, and drunk from the well at the world’s end. Here you are now, and here you will linger on. Forever? You have no stories about forever. Forever is a word which is loved by men.
Not quite forever, then. But perhaps for long enough.
Mad Mis, mad as a fish – but who’s crazy now?
I SHALL GO
INTO A HARE
When we go into hare-shape we say:
I shall go into a hare,
With sorrow and sigh and meickle care …
Isobel Gowdie, who confessed to witchcraft at Auldearn, near Nairn, in 1662
ISOBEL TAPPED ONE foot impatiently as she watched Clarence turn a wary eye on Rob and step smartly in front of Hattie, guarding her with his body.
‘Ah. Er – see here, Clarence. This really won’t do, mate.’ Rob threw what was clearly intended to be a winning smile in the cockerel’s direction. Isobel sighed. Clarence glared. Rob paused for a moment, cleared his throat and scratched his head, dislodging a few wood shavings that had settled on his shoulders like monstrous flakes of dandruff. ‘Come on, old man. Please?’ Clarence was unmoved. Isobel fidgeted. ‘Mixed corn,’ Rob said hopefully. ‘Mashed potato. Porridge. Your favourites.’
One leg lifted; long toes splayed and then slowly curled inwards. Clarence swivelled his head and looked off to one side as if quite unconcerned by the turn events had taken. Only the intense concentration reflected in the quivering of his tail feathers caused Isobel to doubt the seemingly casual pose.
‘Rob, I really do think—’
‘Isobel. Please. Clarence and I are having a man-to-man chat.’
Isobel rolled her eyes. Rob turned back to Clarence, who took a step forward and half-opened his beak in a curiously sinister fashion. Rob twitched.
‘Ah, well now … Come on, Clarence. This really won’t do, you know …’
Oh, for God’s sake, Isobel thought, as she watched Rob reach out tentatively towards the nest where Hattie sat tightly, apparently quite oblivious to the spectacle that was unfolding before her. Clarence, pushed to his limit, flew into action and stabbed his beak into the back of Rob’s right hand. Rob yelped. Clarence cackled and flapped his wings. Hattie pushed herself down even more firmly onto the clutch of eggs that she was determined to hatch. She had the vacant, dreamy look in her eyes that seemed to descend upon females of all species whenever they thought about babies.
Isobel saw red. She stalked over and shoved Rob to one side. Sensing victory in the forced retreat of his enemy, Clarence threw his head back and puffed himself up to utter a crow tha
t turned rapidly into an outraged squawk as Isobel grasped him by both legs, deposited him outside, and closed the barn door behind her.
‘Sorry, Hattie,’ Isobel said in a hard voice. ‘Those eggs are needed for a quiche. There’s no time for all this broody nonsense, and, besides, it’s far too early in the year.’ She tightened her lips and, in one fluid movement, scooped Hattie out of the nest and began to place the eggs carefully into a dark wicker basket. She turned to leave and almost fell over Rob, who was sitting in a heap of manure-coated wood chips, clearing his throat obsessively. ‘Oh, for God’s SAKE,’ she said. ‘Pull yourself together, Rob. It’s only a bloody chicken.’
Caught in the clutches of a restless sleep, Isobel dreamed that she went into the pantry to fetch Hattie’s eggs out for breakfast. But as she looked down into the basket, she saw that each of the eggs had hatched into a perfect little replica of herself. As if each egg had contained the potential for the daughter that she’d never been able to have. Mocking the barrenness of the eggs she held inside her own body – eggs that were destined to remain unfertilised. Holding the basket tight against her belly, she turned to leave the pantry – but Rob barred the way, the slump of his shoulders perfectly complementing the bleak look of failure in his eyes.
Rob sniffed hopefully as he opened the door to the kitchen, but there was no answering aroma from the Rayburn. Ah well, he sighed to himself; looked like it was cornflakes again this morning. Didn’t she know it was Easter Sunday? Surely that was worth a rasher or two. He’d happily have cooked breakfast himself, but he was fearful it might be taken as a criticism; Isobel was impossibly sensitive these days.
She sat at the table, staring out across the field to the sombre grey glitter of the sea loch. She looked tired. The weight of his own helplessness sank heavily down in Rob’s chest. He took a deep breath and conjured up a cheery grin.
‘Morning, love,’ he boomed, rather more loudly than he’d intended.
Isobel flinched, then turned her head and managed a halfhearted smile. ‘Morning.’
‘Happy Easter.’
She blinked at him vaguely. ‘Easter. Oh yes. I’d forgotten about Easter.’
Rob’s determinedly jolly smile slipped. If they’d been able to have children she wouldn’t have been able to forget. There would have been hard-boiled eggs to decorate and then bury, and egg hunts to organise; he remembered it all so vividly from his own childhood. But never mind: this year he’d taken matters into his own hands. After all, you didn’t have to have children to enjoy Easter. And if nothing else, it would surely make her laugh. He broke into a soft but spirited rendition of ‘Easter Bonnet’ and crossed over to the huge oak dresser, from the depths of which he extracted a brightly wrapped, much beribboned parcel. He carried it carefully over to the table and placed it with a flourish in front of her. She looked at him blankly.
‘For you,’ he said proudly.
With limited enthusiasm but an effort at good cheer, she tore off the paper. There before her – wrapped in gold-tinted plastic, emblazoned with red bows, resplendent with pink and blue candy flowers and sporting a soft, fluffy but definitely smirking Easter bunny – sat a giant chocolate egg.
Isobel uttered a choked cry and ran from the room.
Rob stared after her with an expression of utter bewilderment on his face.
*
Isobel came to a halt in the hallway and put her head in her hands, breathing heavily. She’d done it again. Poor Rob. She knew that he was trying his best. And it wasn’t that she didn’t love him; she did. She always had. From the moment that she’d first seen him, at that post-exam party she’d gatecrashed, back when they were at uni in Edinburgh. She’d just that week smashed her way out of an impossible relationship; she was feeling decidedly unmoored and probably slightly unhinged. He’d caught her attention right away: a much-needed oasis of self-contained calm in a room full of loud-mouthed oafs, each one of them trying to out-shout – and out-drink – the others. Rob had a quiet voice and a gentle manner, and a kind, one-sided smile which had been balm to her fractured heart. There was no aggression in Rob. There was no great drive, either – but she had enough of that for both of them, and he’d always seemed happy enough to follow along. When, after ten years together in the city, her mother had died and Isobel had insisted on returning to her family croft up in Assynt to set up a freelance graphic design business, he’d thrown himself into the adventure wholeheartedly, just as he always did. He’d learned about sheep and lambing; he’d learned how to mend stock fences. He’d given up a perfectly good career as a corporate lawyer and now worked part time at the shabby old solicitor’s in town.
And in return for his good-natured support, she was acting like a prize bitch. She didn’t mean to; it just happened. She couldn’t seem to control her emotions any more; the slightest thing set her off. But it was hard to explain to him – to anyone, really – the all-encompassing intensity of her longing for a child. It was like a physical pain inside her chest; a constant craving so fierce that she didn’t know how she’d survive it. She couldn’t seem to think about anything else. She knew Rob was trying really hard to make things work, but whatever he did he always seemed to hit precisely the wrong note. And meanwhile, all around her, hens were going broody, lambs were spilling out of sheep – even the barn cat had produced a clutch of kittens the other day. Pregnant women were everywhere, too. Soon-to-be mothers in the supermarket flaunted their swelling bellies, and she followed them down the baby aisle like a stalker, sneaking longing looks at nursing pads and packs of disposable nappies.
Slowly, wearily, she climbed the stairs and stood on the landing, gazing out of the small sash window at the gloomy slate-grey loch. She sighed. She’d have a bath; that usually quietened down her fretting for a while. By the side of the bathroom door, her great-grandmother Isobel stared down at her from a grubby but atmospheric old painting. There’d been an Isobel in every generation for as far back as anyone could trace, so her mother (also called Isobel) had told her, going back to the eighteenth century, at least. In the portrait, great-granny Isobel was cradling a large golden hare in her arms – a hare with peculiarly glowing sky-blue eyes. She’d always been curious about the hare, and years ago had discovered that hares with light gold coats and blue eyes did actually exist – but only on an island off the coast of Northern Ireland, not here. Artistic license, no doubt; maybe the painter had been a homesick Irishman. She stared back thoughtfully at the woman in the portrait – a woman who looked very much like she might look, too, in a couple of decades’ time, with the palest of skin and fading red hair that was liberally streaked with grey. Great-granny Isobel had a slightly amused glint in her greenish-brown eyes, but her mouth remained straight and firm. She looked as if she knew something you didn’t, and as if she was very pleased with herself as a result. Isobel had always found it a particularly irritating expression.
When she was a child, she’d listened in fascinated awe to all the old family stories claiming that her great-grandmother Isobel was a witch. Not only did she have a pet hare, but she could turn herself into one, they’d said; she made the transformation simply by chanting her intention. And then she’d be seen at night, she and her pet hare, cavorting with other hares down by the loch – distinguishable from the common-or-garden creatures by the pale gold of their coats and the bright blue of their eyes. Witch or not, her great-granny was a notable wise-woman; she used to have the cure for infertility, it was said – thanks to her magical golden hare. She’d pluck fur from the hare’s back, and fashion it into a charm which a woman who wanted to conceive would wear around her neck during intercourse.
Isobel sighed. If only it could be so easy.
Isobel finally gave up trying to sleep at midnight. She slipped out of bed, shivering in the cool night air. Rob snorted and groaned as he rolled into the warm hollow she’d just vacated. She pulled her old towelling bathrobe over her flannel pyjamas, crept to the window and drew back the curtain. She caught her breath. T
he sky arched overhead like a tented ceiling hung in subtly varying shades of dark blue velvet, and a full moon shone silver on the surface of the water. Everything was quiet; the air was perfectly still.
Down on the shore, something moved. A flash of fur; the glitter of glassy eyes mirroring the moonlight. Isobel moved closer to the window and peered out. A surprisingly large hare with a pale golden coat sat slender and motionless on the pebbled edges of the loch, its small whiskered nose turned up to the sky and long pointed ears flat against its neck. With a sudden sharp turn of its head, the distance between them shrank into nothingness – and Isobel could have sworn that it winked.
She crept down the stairs and into the boot room, slid on her shoes and slipped her grubby waxed jacket on over her nightclothes. An owl in the wood hooted its nightly omens to an oblivious world as she stole through the door like a shadow.
Rob woke to the sound of pans crashing on the Rayburn and crept hopefully down to the kitchen. He opened the door and the smoky smell of crisply grilled bacon assaulted his nostrils. Isobel turned from the kitchen counter, auburn hair free and loose around her face, and beamed at him brightly.
‘Eggs and bacon, darling?’
His jaw dropped. ‘Er – yes. Eggs and bacon would be just the thing. Thank you, love. Yes.’
Hardly able to believe his luck, Rob slipped quickly into a chair at the kitchen table. He rubbed his eyes and yawned; he hadn’t slept particularly well, to tell the truth. He’d woken in the middle of the night to find that Isobel had gone off on one of her midnight jaunts around the croft again, as she often did these days when she couldn’t get to sleep. He’d stumbled out of bed and peered out of the window to see if he could catch sight of her, and – ridiculous, really – could have sworn he’d seen a couple of pale, golden hares playing in the moonlight by the loch. He’d gone back to bed, convinced he was still half asleep and dreaming, but for the rest of the night he’d kept waking up from oddly realistic nightmares about monsters, part human, part animal – no; actually they were sometimes one and sometimes the other – who’d clearly cast some sort of spell on Isobel, because she’d let them all move into the house and sleep in their bed. The Easter Bunny from yesterday’s giant chocolate egg had played a particularly vivid role in one of the dreams, he seemed to remember. It had—
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