I lowered myself to Jamie’s level and snapped my fingers in front of his face.
He blinked.
“Jamie, do you hear me?”
The wee bairn nodded.
“Open your mouth like so.” And I opened mine wide, making a loud “ahh” sound.
Jamie giggled at me. “Ahhhhh.” His hearing was fine.
“Does your throat hurt any?”
He shook his head, curls bobbing.
I straightened and met his mother’s eyes. “I do not think he wants to speak. Perhaps he has not anything to say.” I could appreciate that. After Mairi’s death, there were times I barely spoke a word.
“He’s three and hasna said a word yet,” Broca told me. “He willna run and play with the other boys, only collects pebbles and draws on the ground.”
I frowned and considered the boy. “Some children are different. Tavish is a head and a half taller than I; Sorcha is much smaller in the bosom—”
“There’s summat wrong with him!” Broca burst out.
Thomas breathed in sharply, brows beetling. His face softened as he knelt to Jamie’s level. “Would ye like to see me pup, Cullen?” he asked. “There’s a ball we can throw and all.”
Mab bless him.Jamie shouldn’t be hearing this. A tenderness overcame me. We were all three misfit children, Thomas, Jamie, and I. Misfits will look after their own.
Jamie stuck his finger in his mouth, looking from me to Thomas and back again.
I gave him a little nod. “He’s a good one,” I whispered, feeling it all the way down to my bones.
Jamie took Thomas’s hand, and they headed out for the yard. Soon I heard them laughing, and Cullen barking with joy.
I turned a stern gaze at Broca and said, “You will not speak that way to Jamie.”
She ignored me. “Tavish is sore mad wit’ me, says it isn’t his child. I musta been with one of the Douglas boys, the one what fell off his horse and isna right in the head. But I swear to ye, I have only been with Tavish himself!”
“I care not whether ye have been with all King David’s army,” I said, which startled a gasp out of her. “You will not treat the child thus.”
Broca clutched at her wimple. “Things are hard going enough already. Our hens will not lay, nor our cattle give milk, though I have heard no similar complaints from the neighbors. Tavish went hunting and became so lost in the forest he did not return home before the dawn.” She swallowed hard. “I questioned him, and we had words.” Her fingers stroked the side of her face.
And blows,I finished for her. Treasonous pity filled my belly, for my brother spoke with fists and beatings. Well I remembered the hand he raised to Jamie, thinking he had broken my mother’s pitcher, though the boy was not yet three years old.
From months before, my own words returned to me.
Woe betide your ill-made face. May your path never lead you home. May your cattle give no milk, and your hens lay no eggs.
Mab’s tits!This misfortune upon Tavish and his family—I was its cause.
What then of Eamon Grieve, my erstwhile father? I had cursed him as well.
My face must have betrayed me, for Broca did clutch my arm. “What is it? Do ye know what is wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong,” I insisted. “The bairn can hear. I do not see anything wrong with his throat.”
“It’s the faeries,” Broca blurted out.
My skin went cold. My fool of a false sister-in-law had found me out. Not even my love Thomas knew the truth, yet she—
