Chapter Thirteen
She was nine at the time, all scabbed knees and wind-tangled hair, the sort of girl who would chase a dare right over the edge of a cliff if she was in the mood for it. Even then, Elena MacTavish had never been the sort to back down from a challenge, be it a looming Highland storm or the stern, barked command of her father. Most days she moved through the castle like a gust herself—disregarding the rules of etiquette as if they were a pile of old tartans for the laundry, making up new games for herself and her brothers when it pleased them to indulge her, and finding ever-ingenious ways to wriggle out of the small, polite tasks assigned by her mother.
In the memory it was always late spring, the tidal winds off the firth still cold but sharp with the promise of coming summer. They’d gone down to the beach at Wolvesly, a half-sheltered cove below the western ramparts, the sand there pale and fine, strewn with the occasional statement of black basalt or the odd bit of driftwood that had traveled all the way from the Orkney islands, if Dougal, the old Wolvesly retainer, was to be believed.
Having finished training for the day, and wanting to remain too far to be caught for the odd task, Jacob, Alexander, and Michael, had escaped to the beach. Elena was never far behind on any such occasion.
Her brothers had quickly retreated from the beach to the dunes, where the sand rose in strange, undulating ridges. Alexander claimed there was a nest of adders somewhere in the tall marram grass, and Michael was ever his shadow, and so at his side.
Jacob busied himself with a driftwood stick, prodding at the rocks and seaweed and chasing a small, furious crab back and forth along the wide beach. When he looked up again, the brothers were gone, vanished into the dunes or perhaps lured back to the keep by the promise of warm bread from the kitchens. He considered calling after them, but knew the futility of that; no sound could outdo the roar of the waves crashing onto the sand fifty yards out.
It was typical, Jacob thought, that they would abandon their sister, almost a regular occurrence in fact. Elena didn’t seem to mind. He watched her from a distance, her narrow back hunched over some trinket she’d discovered just above the reach of the tide. She wore a too-large linen shirt rolled up at the elbows and a homespun skirt stained with salt and sand, its hem ragged and wet. Her feet, as usual, were bare.
When the crab had finally escaped his prodding, and there were too few spots of intrigue to explore, Jacob decided then that it was time to round her up. He strode across the beach, his boots making deep prints in the wet sand, and stopped a few paces behind her.
“We should head back up,” he said, not unkindly but with the firmness of one who’d been forced too often to serve in this capacity.
“In a moment,” she replied. Her voice was soft but unwavering.
Jacob frowned. “Elena,” he warned.
“Just a moment,” she repeated, still intent.
He sighed and set his mouth into a line. For a while he simply stood there, waiting for her to tire of whatever she was doing. When she didn’t, he relented, stepping forward to see what had so thoroughly captured her attention.
At her feet was a shallow pool, bound by some exposed rock, and left by the retreating tide. Sunlight glinted off the water’s surface, and inside the pool darted a tiny silver fish, so quick and translucent it seemed like a trick of the light. There was also a shrimp, trying to burrow and failing, likely meeting more of that rock, what was beneath the sand. A scattering of periwinkles, small snails, clung to a loose rock that must have come in with the tide.
Elena had one hand planted in the sand for balance, the other tracing slow, careful circles over the water.
“It willna last,” Jacob said, crouching beside her. “The next tide’ll sweep it all away.”
She glanced briefly at him, her eyes the precise stormy green of the afternoon sea. “That’s why I have to watch now,” she said, as if it was the most self-evident thing in the world.
“Only watch, that’s all ye do?” he asked, gesturing at the frantic, spinning fish.
“For now.” She nodded once, entirely serious. “Sometimes, if I ken they’ll die afore the tide comes back, I move them myself.”
He blinked. “Ye move them.”
“Aye.”
“With your hands.”
She looked at him as though he were being difficult. “What else would I use?”
He leaned back on his heels, studying the pool again. “And how do ye decide which ones to move and which to leave? Which get to live and which will be left to die?”
“I just said, did I nae, I only move them if I imagine theywillnasurvive.”
“What if ye’re wrong?” he challenged.
She shrugged lightly. She shrugged. “Dougal says the world does what it means to, whether we help or nae.” She glanced up at Jacob. “Mam says we canna save everything, but we’re still meant to try.”
