A spike of fear knifes through me, but I don’t respond, and quickly contain my anxiety. I’m used to being threatened. Hell, I’m used to being beaten. There comes a point where you can detach mentally from brutality when you’re face to face with it on the regular.
I grip Bailey more tightly in my lap and bury my nose in his fur, as my belly dips and my heart falters. I’ve known from the very beginning these men were not good men, but a sick part of me, the part that hopes for a scrap from a table like a beggar,was momentarily relieved I wouldn’t have to go home to my brother’s fury and fists tonight, even if these men are no better.
But I watched them in the graveyard. I heard the few words they spoke, and knew they were here as retribution for the wrongs done against Father MacGowen. And if they’re here to defend him, they can’t be all bad.
Can they?
It isn’t the realization that I’m in danger that deflates me, though, but something altogether different.
I’m familiar with how this always goes.
“What are you called?”
Could be someone at the shops, a friendly child, a new librarian at the library who hasn’t yet heard my story. The most common form of greeting, and I can’t help but fuck it up. It’s the first sign that I’m abnormal to others.
You can see someone in a wheelchair. You can even tell when someone’s blind. But the terrible irony of being mute is how it makes you not only silent but invisible.
Sometimes, people look away when they realize that I won’t reply. Some get embarrassed, as if it’s their own fault for not knowing I won’t answer, or they regret the show of friendliness. Still others respond in anger, muttering to themselves about rudeness and courtesy and the like. And some just walk away.
They all walk away in time. Everyone but Father MacGowen and Bailey. One because he’s tender and kind, the other out of loyalty and understanding. It’s sad that my only allies in the entire world are a celibate man of God and a mutt.
“If she won’t bloody tell you her name, you’ve got a more stubborn bitch on your hands than you thought,” says the man sitting in the passenger seat, the one they call Mac.
The driver, whose name I haven’t yet heard, nods. “I’d tend to agree, there, Leith.” He opens his mouth as if to speak again, but closes it abruptly, as if thinking better of it.
They all start talking at once, but all I get from the conversation is their names. The large man driving the car is Clyde, and the man to my left who won’t touch me’s named Tate.
I’m piecing bits of what I’ve observed together. Leith is the clear leader of them all. They obey his commands and defer to his authority, at least here. Mac is surly but still obeys, and both Tate and the driver defer, but they catch themselves. They’re not used to blindly obeying him. Is he new to this position of leadership, then?
What highlanders would have a hierarchy of power? I wish I’d read more history books and fewer novels. I wonder if that’d even help me now.
Leith puts a sudden halt to the conversation with a stern, sharp, “Enough.”
He reaches for me and I flinch. He blinks in surprise.
“Skittish, there,” he mutters. He’s got something soft in his hands, but I can’t quite see what it is. A second later, I’m plunged into darkness with whatever it is tied around my eyes.
They don’t want me to see where we’re going, then. But it’s too late. I already know by the way they speak and the way the car inclines that we’re heading to the highlands. Other people underestimate how the handicapped rely heavily on their othersenses. They can blindfold me and deprive me of all my senses and I already know we’re going to the mountains of the north.
It’s likely foolish of me not to be more afraid, but my response to fear’s been muted over the years, I believe. It used to be that I’d cower from my brother’s fists or flinch at my father’s biting strop, but I’ve hardened myself.
I’ve never been this far out of Inverness, and if I’m honest, a part of me hopes I get to see the mountains. They can’t keep me blindfolded forever, can they?
For now, they’ve dropped the topic of my name. Logic tells me that their means of coercion are limited in the car like this, and I’m more likely to have consequences when I arrive wherever we’re going.
Fair enough. A delayed reaction is better than now. They speak to one another as we keep driving upward, and my ears pop. I have a vague memory that’s what happens when you increase elevation. I swallow hard and it doesn’t hurt anymore.
I feel weirdly relaxed as I hear them speak, the cadences of their voices oddly soothing, like waves lapping on a beach. The anger has passed, and now they’re chattering, almost jovially. A few make wisecracks, and they laugh, as we continue to drive. It’s warm in here between these two men, Bailey on my lap, and the car’s heater. My head bobs, and I quickly force them open. I can’t fall asleep. I’ll miss everything.
“She’s a danger, but a damn good looking one, isn’t she?”
“She looks wild and untamed.”
A chuckle, then, “I’d like to be the one that tamed that lass.”
“Fuck off.”
Silence.
