Page 14 of Reviving Her Highland Spirit

Maggie bent over an empty bucket propped up against the walls of the keep, eyes pressed closed, waiting. She didn’t vomit, but her stomach clenched and flipped as if she might.

A couple of servant girls passed by, glancing worriedly at her. One even took a step towards her, but when Maggie turned around and they recognized her, the girls paled, dropped curtsies, and scurried away.

Maggie felt like a fool, dressed up in her riding things. And she’d walked away from Callum without even thanking him for his kindness.

What must he have thought of her?

Selfish, stupid, and useless, probably.

Maggie straightened up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Even though she hadn’t vomited, she could taste bile on her tongue, and her mouth was horribly dry. That uncontrollable shaking had scared her. Thank heavens poor Stardust was so calm and relaxed. She was lucky that Callum had been there to help her. What if he hadn’t caught her? What if she’d fallen again?

Maggie hurried inside, head down, avoiding the eyes of everyone she passed. Thankfully, she didn’t pass anyone she knew. By the time she made it back into her room, Maggie had decided where she would go. It was barely mid-morning - her entire ordeal had taken less than an hour - and the day stretched out before her, bland and hollow.

Stripping off her breeches, Maggie found herself missing the freedom that they brought. Her gowns were comfortable enough, but the fabric of her skirts always wound itself around her legs, threatening to trip her up. She changed into a simple gray dress, coarsely woven, with a plain linen shift underneath. The sleeves billowed at her elbows and wrists and even stuck out over the collar of the rough dress. Most women in the keep - the Ladies, at least - wore similar clothes. It was the fashion, but it seemed unbearably tight and constricting when compared to her riding clothes.

If ye cannot summon up the courage to ride, Maggie told herself fiercely, Ye cannot enjoy the freedom of riding clothes.

She eyed herself in the mirror again. She looked paler and more tired than she had that morning. Some of her confidence and hope had drained away. Maggie stuck out a tongue at her reflection and resolutely turned away.

She’d already decided where she would go.

She knew where she needed to be.

* * *

The spiral stairs that led up to the healer’s chambers were worryingly narrow. There had been windows put into the otherwise black and dangerous staircase, but Maggie could have found her way up there in the dark. A few more steps and the narrow staircase gave way to a wide, airy room.

It hadn’t always been so pleasant. Before Uncle James was Laird McAlister, Aunt Lyla had come here and taken on a position as a healer. She was a talented healer and was renowned in more clans than just their own. People traveled from miles around to consult with Lyla McAlister, the Lady and Healer of the keep.

The room was circular and a little cluttered, with large windows letting in light. Apparently, there had once been heavy, dusty curtains hung across those windows, keeping the room gloomy and forbidding. The place was immaculate - Aunt Lyla insisted on that. Cleanliness was better for healing, she said. She had read some ancient Arabic text - roughly translated into English, a gift from a traveler - which claimed as much. Since then, she’d insisted on all of her healers washing their hands thoroughly. It didn’t do much for the signature green-stained fingers of all the healers, but fewer people died of infections.

There were about a dozen healers stationed at keep McAlister, with Aunt Lyla as the chief healer. Each healer was hand-picked, with no regard for age, station, or gender. At the moment, there were seven female healers and five males. Only four in total were here today, the rest having gone out into the surrounding land to visit villages and heal their sick if they could.

The four healers more or less ignored Maggie, concentrating on their tasks. One wrote in a huge, dog-eared book, another was searching through the endless bookshelves for a particular document, and the other two were standing in a corner with Aunt Lyla, poring over a drawing and discussing a complex case.

Bonnie stood by herself at the huge stone table that dominated the room, grinding some strong-smelling herbs with a little water to make a thick paste. She glanced up as Maggie entered, her mind clearly fixed on her work.

“Hello, Maggie. How was your riding today?”

Maggie approached the table, leaning forward to rest her elbows on the cool stone. She wanted to lie down on it, cheek to the stone, stretched out to let the cold hardness draw away her misery and whatever else was wrong with her.

“Not good,” she answered finally. She watched the pestle move, up and down, grinding the herbs against the worn, pitted marble of the mortar. Bonnie paused in her work, letting a few drops of water fall into the mortar, working it in with her fingers. Healers had always claimed that herbs responded to the warmth of a clean hand, hence the habitual green fingers. Bonnie’s fingertips already had a green tinge. In a few years, she’d be an obvious healer, her hands declaring her work for all to see.

“I can tell,” Bonnie said, her voice slow and measured. She was always much calmer when she was up here. Maggie privately envied her cousin. It must be nice to have such an obvious calling. “Do ye want tae talk about it?”

Maggie shrugged. “There’s not much to tell. I tried to climb onto the saddle, got my foot into the stirrup, then panicked and froze up. I fell.”

Bonnie glanced up. “Did ye hurt yourself?”

“No, the stable boy caught me. I couldn’t stop shaking, though. What’s wrong with me?”

Bonnie bit her lip. “It’s not unusual for people who’ve suffered greatly to experience something like this. Bad things - well, they change the way we think. It changes the way we see the world. Ye could have died, Maggie. Ye mind is fighting all the time tae keep ye alive, and now it sees getting on a horse as a threat.”

“But it’s not a threat.”

Bonnie sighed, leaning down to sniff at the ground herbs. “Ma says that our minds are more complicated than anything else in our bodies. Sicknesses of the mind are impossible to treat - or at least, they’re impossible for us to treat now. People go mad, and we don’t know why. People get anxious and melancholic, and we don’t know why. Our minds are more powerful than we know. And yours is afraid of getting back on a horse. That’s not so easy tae treat.”

“I suppose there’s no herb or potion for madness,” Maggie muttered.