“I could no’,” Shona said, her voice shaking. They would never understand. “But I will do all I can—”
“We dinna need yer help,” the first woman told her. She pointed toward the hills.“You must leave this place and never return.”
Shona’s knees wobbled. “Leave? Nay. Where would I go?”
The council elder’s wife seemed to take pity on her. “Ye have an uncle in a Highland clan. I ken this from yer father. Go to him.”
“’Tis too far. Winter is nearly upon us.”
The first woman narrowed her eyes. “Then ye will go in the spring, if ye live so long. If any of us do, after the little those Lowlanders left us.” She turned her back.
Shona nodded to the council elder’s wife, the only one who seemed willing to face her. “I will stay to help rebuild. Then I’ll go to my uncle.”
