“The grays have returned,” was the greeting Evelyn received from MacKerrick upon his return to the hut.
She looked up at the large highlander from her seat on the stool, where she sat with Whiskers in her lap. Alinor and Bonnie both trotted over to greet MacKerrick as he closed the door and dropped the bar in place. Evelyn thought the wolves must be quite near for MacKerrick to sentence the hut’s occupants to a long evening of choking peat smoke. He leaned his quiver and bow against the wall.
“Did you see them?” she asked, returning Whiskers to his bowl near her feet and then rising.
“One of them,” MacKerrick replied uneasily. When he turned, Evelyn noticed his ashen face and the long, black cloth in his hand. She would have demanded further explanation of his encounter with the animal, but she gasped when she recognized the patched fabric he held.
“Where did you get that?” Evelyn asked, walking to MacKerrick and taking the cloak, holding it in both hands with a pang of melancholy.
“It’s yours, then—good.” Conall nodded once and then brushed past Evelyn to retrieve the mead jug from the shelf. He claimed Evelyn’s vacated seat and removed the jug’s cork. “I reckoned you had lost it on your way to the hut.”
“Nay—my cloak has long since become rags. This is not mine,” Evelyn said, stroking the worn wool and remembering the woman who’d worn it. “It belonged to Minerva. She—” Evelyn swallowed. “She was wearing it when she died. I can only assume there is naught left of her now but bones.”
Her eyes flew to the highlander as he choked on the mead.
“Wearing it?” he gasped.
“Yea, she…Wasn’t it with her?” Evelyn frowned. “But where did…how…?”
“Ronan’s tree. Where he’s buried,” MacKerrick was finally able to choke out, although his voice was still gravelly and strained. “It’s surrounded by—”
“Rocks,” Evelyn finished faintly. “’Tis where Minerva…She wasn’t there?”
MacKerrick shook his head, his eyes a bit wild and fixed on the cloak held between her hands, as if he could not look away.
“She wasna there. The gray—” He broke off as if he’d forgotten what he was to say.
“The gray?” she prompted.
MacKerrick started. He looked at Evelyn at last. “The gray I saw…was lying on it. On top of the pyre.”
It was now Evelyn’s turn to be at a loss. She returned MacKerrick’s stare. “I don’t understand.”
His eyes dropped to the cloak again and his brows lowered menacingly. He set the jug aside without a glance and rose slowly from the stool. MacKerrick held out a long arm toward Evelyn, his palm open.
“Give it to me, Eve.”
As if he’d commanded them, Alinor and Bonnie skittered away to the lower end of the hut and disappeared into the farthest pen.
“Why?” Evelyn asked warily, and her instincts prompted her to pull the cloak to her bosom.
MacKerrick was before her in two great strides. “It’s cursed. I should’ve known, should have never brought it back. I must destroy it.” He snagged a corner of the cloak and pulled.
Evelyn held tight, curling her fingers into the thin wool. “Don’t be ridiculous, MacKerrick. ’Tis but a cloak. You sound like Minerva, with talk of curses and spells.”
“Itiscursed. How else do you explain that I found the cloak where she died, but no body? Not even a single bone! And the gray was lyingatopit—protectingit!” He tugged again, drawing the cloak closer to him.
Evelyn pulled harder, worrying for the rotten material. “I know not,” she growled. “But if the gray was lying on it, how did you get it? Did you kill the wolf?”
MacKerrick looked into her eyes for an unsettling moment and Eve shivered at the chill in his gaze. It was as if he wanted to tell her something, but was too frightened of whatever it was to speak it aloud. She could feel the fever of him from where she stood.
“’Tis unsafe,” he said at last. “Give it to me.”
“I will not! I loved her, and this is all I have—”
“Eve, give it—”
“Nay!”
