“The waters rose! I tried to get away from them, but they came into the cabin through the cracks in the doors and windows. The water was so cold, too cold,” she muttered as she tried to sit herself up. Alistair turned and looked at Nora, concern etching hard lines into his face.
“You have a fever. We’re going to get you some help,” Nora said, trying to reassure Betty as well as herself that things would be okay. Betty pulled herself up and looked at Nora. Her frail eyes, creased with age in the corners, looked deeply into Nora’s as if searching for something.
“I’ll be fine, dear. Bridanach told me so. She is watching out for me. She is the one who pulled the waters back out to the loch.”
Nora’s heart began to pound in her chest, each beat echoing with the realisation that she had indeed dreamt of this very moment. How had Betty known about the name Bridanach? Was it part of some Welsh or Scottish folklore? If so, why would she bring it up now?
“What is Bridanach?” Nora asked Alistair.
He shrugged. “No idea.”
“Oh, my dear, you know, it’s the water spirit from the loch. The one you saw yesterday,” Betty said.
“Is that what they are called in Wales?”
Betty let out a weak laugh that sent her into a fit of coughing. When it finally subsided, she looked at Nora and said, “No, it’s her name,” and pointed toward the loch.
It was then that Betty noticed the little dog lying next to her on the bed. She looked down and smiled. “You’re a clever little one, aren’t you?” she said to the puppy with a sly smile briefly spreading across her lips.
Alistair pulled Nora aside while Betty was paying attention to the dog.
“The fever is making her delusional; we need to get her to a hospital right away. You stay here, and I’ll make the calls. Can you make her some tea and see if you can find any extra blankets?”
After Alistair left the room, Nora knew exactly where to find the extra blanket and walked over to the chair near the window that faced the loch. Sure enough, a wool blanket rested on the back of the overstuffed armchair, just as it did in her dream. She picked it up and slung it over her shoulders as she walked back into the kitchen.
She filled the old metal teapot with water, placed it on the stovetop, and lit the gas eye with the lighter. The blue flame danced around the bottom of the kettle as she waited for the water to boil. Her thoughts wandered back to lighting the fire. How had it caught so quickly? Maybe she was wrong, and the logs weren’t as wet as she thought. As much as she tried to rationalize it, she knew something strange had happened in that moment because it felt as if the flame had come supernaturally from her own body, not the match.
Then there was her dream. Everything in the dream was identical to what had just happened in the past few minutes. Her head was spinning. Was she tapping into some kind of psychic power? How she wished for the simple days when her biggest problem was telling her parents she wanted to go back to school and not take over the bakery. Now her life seemed to be filled with unexplainable supernatural events she had no idea how to comprehend. The sudden whistle of the kettle jarred Nora back to reality.
A box of tea sat on the counter, and Nora grabbed a mug from a set of hooks on the kitchen wall. She shivered as she poured the steaming hot water into the mug. The cabin’s frigid air was working its way through her jacket. She let the mug warm her fingers brieflybefore she delivered it to Betty, who was still happily stroking the dog’s scruffy coat.
“Drink this. It will warm you up,” Nora said, handing Betty the cup of hot tea. She took the blanket from her shoulders and threw it over top of the other blankets on the bed.
“I saw this little guy the first day I arrived here,” Betty told Nora as she blew on the tea. “He came out from under the old boathouse down by the water and ran up to the trash cans looking for food. He’s no more than a pup, maybe six months old, I would guess.”
“A stray, you think?”
“Most definitely. I tried to give him food, but he was shy and ran off. He seems like a different dog now. Very strange,” Betty said, taking a tentative sip and looking at the dog. Whatever delirium she had been suffering seemed to be fading.
“He ran off when I first saw him, too, but not before he gave Alistair a piece of his mind,” Nora said, thinking about the moment and giggling.
“Are you going to keep him? He seems rather attached to you,” Betty observed.
“I can’t. I’ll be headed back to America in just a few days.”
“Maybe you can get that fellow of yours to take him. I do, however, think he needs a proper name,” Betty said, the tea bringing some color back into her cheeks. Nora’s cheeks also blossomed with a bit of color at the mention of Betty thinking Alistair was her fellow.
“Hmm, what do you think about Lochland? Seeing how he came from the boathouse,” Nora suggested.
“I love it, and it suits him.”
The dog wagged his tail, causing the bed to shake and Betty to nearly spill her tea.
“It’s so cold in here, I fear my lungs may be frozen,” she saidwith a shiver and a cough. The color that had sprung back into her cheeks was fading, and her face began looking ashen once again. She handed Nora the mug and laid her head on the pillow.
“Are you hungry, Betty? It must have been a while since you last ate?” Nora asked.
“I’m fine just now. I think I’ll take a nap. I am still feeling a bit out of sorts.”
