Torin gently took her within his hand, vividly remembering the day he had married Sidra. The wildflowers that had crowned her. How he had found stray petals in her hair hours after the ceremony, when she sat in his bed and they drank wine and talked late into the night.
He inhaled a sharp breath. “Has my wife been here?” And he turned to show the beautiful figurine to the woman.
She cackled. “Are you wed to Lady Whin of the Wildflowers?”
“This is a spirit?” Torin studied the figurine more closely and saw that flowers also bloomed from her fingertips. “I didn’t realize the folk looked so similar to us.”
“Some of them do, captain. Some of them don’t. And remember … take care with your questions. I am only beholden to answer one, after my tale has been spun.”
“Then tell me your story,” he said.
She was quiet for a long moment. Torin watched as she continued to cut into the wood, another figurine coming to life in her hands.
“I was Joan’s handmaiden,” she began at last. “I went with her when she married Fingal Breccan. I accompanied her into the west.”
Torin’s eyes widened. He knew the legend of his ancestor, who had sought to bring peace to the isle. Joan Tamerlaine had lived two centuries ago.
“In the days before the clan line, it was beautiful,” the woman said. “The hills were cloaked in heather and wildflowers. The streams ran cold and pure from the mountains. The sea was full of life and abundance. And yet a shadow lay over it. The Breccans often sparred amongst themselves, keen to prove which family was stronger. You had to sleep with one eye open, and trust was scarce even among brothers and sisters. I witnessed more bloodshed than I ever had before, and I eventually couldn’t bear to live there. I asked Joan to release me from my vow of service, and she did, because she understood. Every night, we dreamt of the east, homesick.
“I left and she remained. But when I returned home, I wasn’t welcomed by my family. They cast me away for breaking my vow to Joan, and I wandered, destitute, until I came to a loch in a vale. I knelt and drank and soon noticed something else, deep within its waters. A glimmer of gold.
“I was hungry and weary; I needed that gold to survive. I plunged into the water and began to swim to the bottom. But every time I thought I was almost there, when I stretched out my hand to capture the gold, it evaded me, sinking a little deeper. Soon, I could feel my chest smoldering—I was almost out of air. And just before I changed my course, the spirit of the loch met me. She kissed my mouth, and suddenly I could breathe in the water, and I continued to swim, defiant of my mortality, deep into the heart of the loch. Greedy and desperate for that promise of gold.”
She fell quiet, her hands pausing in their work. Torin stood transfixed by her story, the figurine of Lady Whin cradled in his palm.
“But you never got the gold,” he murmured.
The woman met his gaze. Her voice was changing, becoming raspy and frail, as if her confession was aging it. “No. I came to my senses and realized the loch was bottomless, and soon I would lose myself within it and the games the loch spirit played. I turned and swam back the way I had come, so exhausted I almost didn’t reach the light. When I broke the surface, I realized a hundred years had passed while I had been treading the deep.” She resumed her whittling, emotionless. “The family I knew was dead, long buried. Joan, too, was dead, I learned. She had died entwined with the Breccan laird, their blood staining the earth. She had cursed the west as Fingal had cursed the east. The magic of the spirits was unbalanced now because of their strife and the clan line.
“Magic would henceforth flow bright in the hands of the Breccans. They could harness enchantments with no consequences to their health, weaving magic into plaids, hammering charms into their steel. But the folk would suffer from their magic. The crops would grow sparse in the west. The water would be murky. The fire would burn dim, and the wind would be harsh. The Breccan clan would then be a strong yet hungry clan, belonging to a solemn land.
“In turn, magic would flow bright in the spirits of the east. And while the Tamerlaines would have to suffer in order to wield it, their gardens would flourish, their water would be pure, their winds would be balanced, and their fires would be warm. The Tamerlaine clan would then be a prosperous but vulnerable people, belonging to a lush land.”
Torin was quiet, soaking in her story. He knew of the curse. It was why the Breccans had no resources come winter, and why so many Tamerlaines required the medical attention of his wife.
He glanced at the woman, wondering how many questions he could ask before her voice fully faded.
“Do the spirits of the isle come here to visit you then?” he asked.
“Occasionally. When one is in need.”
“You didn’t happen to see one with two young lasses, did you?”
“What would a spirit want with a mortal bairn?” she countered.
Torin felt his impatience rise. “Is there a way to call the spirits? To make them manifest?”
“If there is,” the woman said, her words almost undecipherable, “I don’t know it, captain.”
He sensed her time had ended; her voice was spent. He wanted to ask her more about the spirits, but he would have to do it another time, when her voice had been replenished.
How will I find my way back to this place? he wondered, knowing this glen was cursed to shift and change. He studied the figurine of Lady Whin once more. Perhaps it could be a guide to him. It was uncanny how much it reminded him of Sidra.
“May I keep this?” he asked.
The woman gave him a curt nod, her attention focusing on her work, as though he were no longer present.
Torin left the bothy, the door closing behind him on its own. He tucked the figurine into his pocket, thinking Maisie would love it, and began to walk up the river before he paused, listening as the water’s babble changed.
Torin glanced over his shoulder and froze. It was just as he had feared.
The river had altered its course by a handbreadth, and the timeless woman’s bothy was nowhere to be seen.
Torin had just emerged from the glen and was heading north when he caught sight of Roban, sprinting toward him through the heather.
Torin knew something was wrong. He felt a pit in his stomach as he ran to meet the young guard.
“What is it, Roban?” Torin asked. But he already knew the answer.
He saw the sweat dripping from Roban’s brow, the sheen of panic in his eyes. His worn edges from searching day after day, night after night, with nothing to show for it.
“I’m afraid it’s happened again, captain,” the boy panted. “Another lass has vanished.”
CHAPTER 6
Sidra walked the streets of Sloane, a basket of healing supplies hanging from her arm. Each door she passed held an offering on its threshold for the spirits. Appeasements and manifest prayers in the shape of carved figurines and small stacks of peat, so the fire could dance and burn, and chimes made of fishing line and glass beads, so the wind could hear its own breath when it passed by. There were small bannocks and cups of milk for the spirits of the earth, and salted herring and jewelry strung with shells for the water.
Desperation hung like fog, and Sidra let her thoughts roam to dark places.
She thought of the two lasses, Eliza and Annabel. Two girls now unaccounted for, and Sidra imagined them being claimed by the folk. She wondered if a girl could become a tree, no longer aging in mortal ways but by seasons. Could a girl become a wildflower patch, resurrected every spring and summer only to wilt and fade come the sting of frost? Could she become the foam of the sea that rolled over the coast for an eternity, or a flame that danced in a hearth? A winged being of the wind, sighing over the hills? Could she be returned to her human family after such a life, and if so, would she even remember her parents, her human memories, her mortal name?