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Granted she hadn’t wore her hair in braids in recent memory.
A few strands of her hair—glossy brown—framed her face. The rest was tied back.
“I apologize for disturbing your peace,” he said.
“No harm done,” she said, eyeing him. Cautious, but receptive.
He nodded. A truce. A truce to clear the air.
Was that the sound of tension dissipating? Or had the hiss become louder?
The wind gusted. He heard it again, a loud hiss, the angry creak of rigging, and something clattered inside the car.
There was an instant’s hush. All the air seemed to suck away—a sudden, silent ebb.
And the balloon exploded.
The sound knocked Tib flat, a great boom filled with a scorching storm. She was on her feet before she knew it, and James’s arm was again around her waist.
He hauled her backwards, while she kicked, while she screamed.
The crown of the tree was all fire.
Her cottage, too, wore a crown of flame. The thatch burned wildly.
It was so bright, the heat. The air flashed orange and red. Black smoke billowed.
Time slowed. There was a roaring in her ears.
Other figures began to dart through the smoke. She saw her father and brothers, Alan and Davie MacGregor, Duncan Pitcairn. Malcolm and Ada. She saw James and realized that she was standing alone, perfectly still, not restrained by human arms, but rather spellbound.
No harm done.
Had she tempted fate with those words?
With a cry, she turned from the fire, staggered to the brow of the hill, where her best friend, Corry, met her, an empty bucket in each hand. They ran together for the pond in the Fairy Dale.
More and more of her neighbors appeared, with buckets, tubs, bowls, willow baskets, whatever they had.
They worked together, filling and passing the vessels. Water splashed. Steam billowed. Tib began to feel like something boiled, but the rhythmic motion replaced thought and that was good.
Some of the men wielded axes and shovels, shimmied up trees to top them, or set themselves to digging trenches.
But the fire didn’t leap and spread, didn’t find dry tinder.
Minutes or hours passed. The work slowed. The tree was a jagged black fang in a ring of carbonized debris. The ruins of the cottage smoldered, stone caved around burnt beams.
Tib walked on shaking legs between clusters of soot-stained friends and neighbors.
Her da stood with two of her uncles, and James. Lord Blane.
He was glistening with sweat, his chest and arms striped with soot. He looked like a Viking warrior, painted for battle.
He hadn’t disturbed her peace. He’d destroyed it.
She turned on her heel.
She didn’t want to hear their conversation, the deference bound to temper her da’s justified anger, if he was angry at all. He didn’t need the ancient outbuilding.
