“Oh, no,” Magda said, deflated. “Never mind then.”
“Ah.” A slow smile brightened the woman’s plump face. “I think I ken your mind, lass. And no, there’s not much else than these rooms you’ve seen. But have you walked the lands around Tor?”
The idea was a revelation to Magda. It wasn’t like she’d been a prisoner at the castle, yet somehow it hadn’t occurred to her to go outside for a walk. A simple walk.
The look of wonder that crossed her face encouraged Kat to continue. “Aye, Lochaber can be quite bonny this time of the season. With snow on the mountains, there’s a wee bite in the air, but naught too much for a brisk walk to take care of.”
After borrowing thick, woolen stockings and an additional shawl, Magda was on her way. She’d walked for some time, crossing a glen hard with frost, then on to the low hills, picking her way along the red and yellowish green tangles of coarse grasses. At first the bitter air was a shock to her lungs and the cold stung her cheeks red, but once Magda started moving, the feel of her muscles working and her blood pumping invigorated her.
A wall of trees spiked along the horizon, and as she drew gradually closer she could hear a river rushing in the distance. Wary of getting lost, Magda had merely skirted the edge of the forest, until she spied an old drover’s track. The path was thin, but etched deep through the trees, attesting to many years and hundreds of hooves being led from home to pasture and back again.
Hesitantly, she stepped onto the path, venturing in a few yards, and it took her breath away. To see the woods from a distance was one thing, but to be immersed in its hush was quite another. Scots pines were all around, and though their evergreen needles were similar to those of their American counterparts, they seemed somehow more ancient, with huge swells of roots that wrapped down and around each other to clutch at the ground like great claws, and gnarled trunks silver with frost and lichen. Birch trees studded the forest at random. Leafless in winter, they rose like skeletons from the loamy ground, bony limbs scratching among the pines like primeval ghosts of the forest.
Magda walked on, captivated, careful to stick to the trail. The rush of the river was louder now, and taking her eyes from the path, she looked around to see if she could pinpoint its origin. Her foot was stopped short and the air suddenly rushed around her as she fell to the ground, tripped by a root meandering across the path like a great snake. She felt the pain sear up her arm like fire crackling along a fuse, and with it came the immediate bone-deep knowledge that she’d done something very wrong to her right wrist.
Arm clenched at her side, Magda shifted to sit against one of the trees along the trail. She breathed slowly, and when the pain subsided into a dull throb, she opened her eyes again and studied her already swollen wrist. She’d instinctively broken her fall with her hand, which she clenched and unclenched now, as acute pain was gradually replaced by panic over whether or not it was broken and how, exactly, she would deal with that.
Gingerly, she touched the bones along her wrist and forearm and was relieved to find everything seemingly intact. The pain, though, was an angry pulse in her arm and hand, and she thought if a sprain was this painful, she couldn’t imagine how excruciating a broken bone would be. Magda leaned back and, willing the throbbing to subside a little, simply focused on the feel of cold air on her face and the dappled sunlight as it shifted through the leaves overhead, brightening to orange then dark again on her closed eyes.
“Losh, but didn’t I think a wolf got you, lass.”
Magda’s eyes shot open. Before her stood an old woman, grinning through the smoke of a pipe which she clenched between her teeth. Her wiry body seemed to stand straight and strong, despite the roughly carved walking stick that she gripped in her bony hand.
“Well, what’s the keening about, then?” She hobbled closer, and Magda saw for the first time that the woman’s eyes were a disconcerting shade of white blue. “I was sitting for my tea when I heard you howl like some injured beast.” She tapped and nudged her stick against the thick root bisecting the path. “I’d half a mind thinking mayhap I’d find my dinner here, slain and waiting for me.” She cackled, stabbing her cane into the ground for emphasis, pipe bobbing up and down in her mouth.
“Well, get up with you. The cold will seep into your bones and dull you to no good, and then a wolfwillcome for you. Come on,” she said impatiently, whacking the stick against the tree above Magda’s head. “Up now. No lass ever died from a staved wrist, aye? ”
The old woman clearly expected Magda to follow her. Though relying heavily on her stick, she was already trekking off the trail and through the trees. Magda felt only a moment’s worry before curiosity won out, and quickly caught up and stayed close behind the woman, eyeing the frizzy white braid hanging long at her back as they picked their way through the woods.
Her cottage was tucked in a small clearing surrounded by trees on all sides. Shadows fell long in the woods, and the house was cut neatly in two by sunlight and shade, one half luminous whitewash, the other a dingy gray. A chimney rose along the side, the old, roughly mortared stones charred deep black from soot at the top. A tendril of smoke spoke to a warming fire within.
Magda followed her into the shadowy interior, as much for the promise of that fire now as to satisfy her curiosity. There was only the single rectangular room, and the slimness of the lone wooden cot sidled in the corner attested to but one occupant. The clumps of dried herbs and flowers hanging along the far wall were as close as the cottage got to decoration. A tea service in a rosebud china pattern was jarringly out of place sitting atop a thick butcher-block table in the center of the room. Otherwise, the woman lived simply, with a few cast-iron pots hanging from hooks, a crude wooden trunk, and a rocker by the hearth.
She pulled a stool from under the table and sat, a little sigh of ecstasy escaping her. Her hands trembled as she wrapped them around the teapot to test its warmth. The old woman shot Magda a gratified smile and, pouring the tea, shooed her over to sit by the fire.
“Rest your legs awhile. You’ve given your body a good scare. Milk, lass?”
Magda shook her head. “Good!” the woman hooted. “I’ve none.” Chuckling to herself, she brought Magda’s tea and pulled the stool by the fire. “Och,” she said, easing down, “I’ve had neither goat nor cow for years now.”
“Please,” Magda said, gesturing to the rocker, “you sit here.”
“No, lass, no,” she said dismissively. “My old rump knows this stool like I kent the cup of my husband’s hand.” She cackled again, fishing in her deep skirt pockets for her pipe.
“You’d be the one staying with the Camerons then. Magda. Have I the right of it?”
“I . . . yes.” She smiled. Between the tea and the warm peat fire at her shoulder, Magda was warmed through, feeling oddly comfortable and affable with the strange woman. “How did you know?”
“I’m Gormshuil, lass.” She held her gaze for a moment. “Aye, I suppose you’d not ken me. The years pass, and bones and names fade to dust.” Leaning over, Gormshuil pulled a thin stick from beside the hearthstone, lit it, then held the wavering flame to her pipe. She gave a few encouraging puffs and added, “The laird asked about you. Rather, the laird’s grandda did ask. The generations do pass, aye?” she muttered, sucking at her pipe.
“He asked if it were right to keep you under his roof. ‘And why not?’ I said. Och, the old man sometimes calls on me just to hear himself talk.” She looked in the bowl of her pipe, then tapped the side hard. “But in return for my ears and words, the Camerons supply what I find wanting, which is not much these days.” She pulled the pipe from her mouth and sipped her tea. “Not much at all.” She gestured to the items in her hands and gave Magda a near toothless smile.
“But you, lass.” Gormshuil rose from her stool and studied the clumps of herbs hanging along the far wall. “I ken what you’re wanting. I can see the pain on your face. Writ clear around your mouth, aye? Sometimes muscle can scream louder than bone. I’ve something for it.”
She took a dried plant from its hook. “This will help if the ache from your wrist robs your sleep. Crush the leaves in hot water, but not too much, mind. Or you’ll sleep like the dead. Wouldn’t want the Camerons to think I’ve killed you, aye?” She laughed and gestured for Magda to take the plant.
It was an angry, foreign-looking thing. The thick stem and spiked leaves gave it the appearance of a great weed, its once-vibrant green leaves and yellow flowers faded to ghosts of their former color.
“Eh,” Gormshuil spat, “don’t fret, lass. ’Tis just the henbane. It won’t kill you. Stronger than wine, aye, but still weaker than the poppy. Take it, take it.”
