Evelyn feared bringing this child into the world, yea. But the horror that now consumed her eclipsed her earlier worries completely. She had accepted that the ordeal might kill her, but if it did and she was alone at the remote hut, who would care for her child? Who would hold him and feed him and love him, as Evelyn’s father had done for her? She had no one now. Should she die, so would her child.
Evelyn scrambled to close her mind to the memories of MacKerrick’s stillborn daughter. She could not let her thoughts go to that possibility, nor to him, now. Not when the life of her own child depended on Evelyn’s next decision.
’Twas then she realized she still wore Minerva Buchanan’s patched, old cloak. And as if the old witch had whispered the solution in Evelyn’s ear, she knew her path was decided.
She stood shakily from the bed, her palm cupping her belly as if to reassure her that the child was still within. She crossed the hut and lit an oil lamp with trembling fingers, dropping the little twig of flame twice. Once the golden glow bloomed on the rough walls, Evelyn moved to the shelf to retrieve the last bit of oats in the sack for Bonnie. On the morrow they would leave, and the less Evelyn had to carry, the faster they could travel.
A little gray bundle tumbled from the top of the sack, startling Evelyn for a moment.
“Whiskers?” she whispered, then huffed a weak laugh. Evelyn laid the back of her palm on the shelf and the little mouse clambered up without hesitation. “How did you—”
But before she could complete her question, a tap-tapping upon the door sent Alinor into a frenzy.
Evelyn closed her fingers securely around Whiskers and crossed the floor. She bumped Alinor aside with her hip and opened the door but a handsbreadth to peer out.
Sebastian popped through the narrow opening near Evelyn’s feet with a squawk, and then quickly took wing to land on the pen wall, away from Alinor’s playful but deadly snapping jaws. Evelyn closed the door, the evening’s strange and terrible events pummeling her nerves. She turned to look at the disheveled room.
Alinor pranced and whined beneath Sebastian, who seemed quite pleased to be returned. Bonnie had become hopelessly tangled in her tether, pulling over the muckrake and finally laying down half atop it. Robert crouched contentedly in his trap-turned-hutch, still picking at the handful of greens Evelyn had dropped to him earlier. In her hand, Whiskers snuggled and nibbled at the folds of her palm.
In her belly, Evelyn’s babe tumbled again.
“I am not alone,” she said aloud, realization and hope—or mayhap mere determination—growing. Her eyes fell on each creature in the hut. “You are all my family. Perhaps I saved you once, but now it’s you who will save me. And my babe.”
Sebastian squawked. “Bay-bee!”
Evelyn took in the broader portrait of the hut, in complete disarray with toppled furniture and broken pottery, but also the precious surplus of supplies that had once belonged to MacKerrick. She calculated in her mind what they would require versus what she could carry.
Two days, MacKerrick had said.Following the valley to the west the whole of the way to Loch Lomond.
She thought she remembered the loch, having briefly spotted it on her fateful journey with Minerva Buchanan. As Evelyn crunched over broken shards to begin gathering their supplies in MacKerrick’s pack, she hoped she could find it once again, for the babe’s sake.
It was full-on dark and the moon was high when Conall gasped his way into the MacKerrick town. Only when he stood at the edge of the wood, but a stone’s throw from the main street, did he at last pause to gather a score of burning, agonizing breaths, bent double, his hands on his knees.
His whole body shook and sweat had conspired with a light, misty rain to drench him to the skin. His eyes burned, his ears rang. His heart screamed like a wounded beast.
He shuddered and panted himself slowly aright.
Even though the hour was late, faint music trickled through the mist from inside one of the houses, a lone flute, keening a soft tune slowly, as a lullaby. Even in the wet shadows of night, the town was transformed: the streets wide and recently smoothed; baskets, traps, and bundles flanking neatly tended dooryards adorned with windflowers and sleeping primroses. Peat smoke drifted in orderly columns from smoke holes and joined together in the dense air to form a protective blanket over the MacKerrick town. The air smelled sweet and musky with warm sensual perfume. The scene was peaceful, prosperous and welcoming.
Conall recognized somewhere deep inside him that this façade of comfort should enrage him, endangered as it now was by Eve’s deception. But he was not at all concerned for the welfare of the townsfolk, God forgive him. Not any longer—he was done.
All that mattered was Eve. Eve and the bairn.
With great effort did he put one foot in front of the other, moving him mechanically down the dark, soft street to his longhouse. A bar of yellow light shone from beneath the door, as if it was in itself a threshold, and only then did Conall know a moment’s hesitation. Once he had told all, it could not be untold. His father’s wishes would be destroyed, Conall’s own pride turned to dust. All the years of struggle, of perseverance, for naught.
Conall took a deep breath and pushed open the door.
His mother, Lana, sat near Duncan around the peat fire, and they were joined by a plump, copper-haired town lass Conall knew as Betsy. Had Conall been in a clearer state of mind, he might have given more notice to Betsy’s hand upon his brother’s knee, or the smile upon Duncan’s face, or the way the couple’s shoulders brushed together intimately. But the cozy scene gave him no pleasure and when the door scraped wide, Duncan turned to face Conall, and the easy smile fell at once from his mouth.
“Ah, glory,” Duncan muttered on a sigh. Lana craned her neck to seek the visitor and, unlike his brother’s melancholy welcome, Conall’s mother immediately rose to greet him, her smile surprised and somewhat hesitant.
“Conall!” she gasped and stepped forward to embrace him. She pulled away to look him up and down. “Why, you’re soaked! Come nearer the fire lest you catch your death.” She tugged him away from the door, looking out into the street pointedly before closing it. “Where is this wonderful surprise Duncan has told us of? I vow, I—”
Conall let his mother lead him to her vacated stool and push him down onto the seat, chattering all the while. But his eyes never left Duncan’s and after only a moment or two, his brother called order.
Duncan rose from his stool, pulling the pretty, voluptuous townswoman to her feet. “Forgive me, Bets, but I’d speak to the MacKerrick. He’s been long away, has he nae?”
“Fer certain, Dunc.” The woman smiled warmly and her eyes flicked to Conall’s with a blush. “Good eve to you, MacKerrick. Glad to see you home at last.”
