The crone took three steps toward her. Lizzy smelled of the herbs she treasured and the deepest part of the forest. “I have the gift of sight,” she whispered.
“Sight? Such as you can tell the future?”
“I dinna like it,” Lizzy said, placing a fingerof each hand together as if creating the sign of a cross. “I try to not do it, but sometimes it comes upon me. I hear the voices. Terrible voices.”
“What do they say?” Portia asked.
Lizzy ignored her question. Instead, she said, “Rose of Loch Awe had the gift of sight. Hers was greater than mine and she was younger. I just see the edge of the future. Just a wee bit and not much more. Makes me useless. Makes me ... afraid.”
Portia felt the blood drain from her face. “Rose of Loch Awe? Rose of the Macnachtan?”
“Aye, one and the same. It’s a story told to me by my mother. Rose’s clan and mine were once the same. My mother told me not to be afraid of my gift. A wise woman knows how to use it. But the others”—she nodded her head toward the woods as if speaking of those in the valley—“they don’t understand. They are afraid of me. When I told Nan Bellamy that her baby would be born dead, they were angry with me, even though he was. They thought I’d caused his death.”
“It is not a good thing to say,” Portia murmured.
“It is what I saw.”
“Have you seen other things?”
“Oh, many.” Lizzy walked over to where she’d set her bowl of turnips on the ground. “I saw when the old reverend’s horse would die. I couldtell that Jaimsie Macdonald would drown in the loch. I warned his mother not to let him out of her door. She laughed at me. No one wants to hear sad news. None of them paid me any heed.”
“Has anyone listened to you?”
Lizzy’s face lit up. “Ye know Robbie, the laird’s gardener? I told him to stay off a boat crossing Loch Shiel ten years ago on All Hallows’ Day. He listened. The boat sank.” She pointed her finger down to the earth and gave a low whistle to illustrate her point. “Four good men died. Robbie lived.” She leaned toward Portia as if having a great secret when she said, “We can all change our fate.”
“And did Rose know her fate?” Portia asked softly.
Lizzy shrugged. “Who knows? No one can see everything. Not perfectly.”
But what if Rose had?
“Do you know anything about reincarnation?” she asked Lizzy.
“Wot?” Lizzy cocked an ear as if not hearing her.
“Reincarnation,” Portia repeated. “Coming to life after you are dead, in a new body.”
Lizzy dropped the turnip bowl and the basket and whirled in a circle before coming to a stop and forming another cross in front of her. “That’s blasphemy. Keep yer blasphemy away.”
“I’m sorry, Lizzy,” Portia hurried to say. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Why are ye asking these questions?” Lizzy wondered, craning her neck and tilting her head. She was growing agitated. People had warned Portia that Lizzy could be set off.
“I was curious,” Portia said. “Nothing more.”
Lizzy jerked away, her brows coming together, her shoulders hunching. “There are things of which we should not speak, lass. Dark arts. I’m not of the dark arts. My herbs are of the earth.”
But Portia had come too far to back away now. “Fenella knew dark arts, didn’t she?”
“I don’t know Fenella. I don’t know Fenella,” Lizzy began repeating the words over and over, her voice low as if she spoke to herself.
At that moment, Harry rode into the clearing. Portia had meant to be gone by the time he arrived.
Crazy Lizzy looked up at him and then jerked her head toward Portia, then back to him. “Nooooo,” she keened in a low voice as she sank to her knees.
“Lizzy, what is it?” Portia demanded, hurrying to the small woman’s side.
A hand gripped Portia’s arm like a vise. Lizzy’s nails were long and dirty. She held tight as she said to Portia, “You shall be thedeathof him.”
