I had put it on when I changed clothes. Lachlan’s eyes widened. “It was from my husband.” Then, because my mind seemed intent on thinking of all the worst things: “Won’t putting up a charm on the door tell the finman that I know he is here?”
“Aye, but ’tis the lesser of evils. Any road, I believe he already kens aboot ye. Why else send the tide after ye today? He wants ye for some purpose—one ye’d best avoid.”
The finman had sent the tide after me? He could do that? I had thought myself merely unlucky. And had it been his voice I heard calling to me? I had thought it came from the faerie mound, but was I mistaken?
“You must work harder on saying comforting things,” I said absently. “People will like you better for it.”
“I daena want ye comforted. I want ye alive,” he said harshly, and strode toward the door. “Bar this ahind me. ’Tis the theacht mean oidche . The auld protective spell aen the door isnae powerful enough tae stand if the finman comes.”
I knew these words and shivered. My grandmother had spoken uneasily of the coming of midnight, but only on Auld Year’s Night and once at Beltane.
Angrily I followed Lachlan so that I could put up the bar, but after the door shut behind him I found myself strangely frightened and unwilling to do what I needed to do if it meant going closer to the outside. Under the lingering influence of Lachlan’s bite I could see Fergus’s spell. Spiked shadows, perhaps real and perhaps only in my mind, cast by some unseen thing brought on by the seeing, enframed the doorway. I was reluctant to disturb them as they stretched and swayed in their effort to guard the door. But by then storm and true night had encompassed the house and I surely didn’t want anyone or anything lingering out there to enter the cottage. I would have to reach through these shadows despite my distaste.
“Bar the door!” Lachlan snarled again from outside. He hit the panel once. The blow shook the door and scattered the shadows.
“Go away!” I snarled back, lifting the bar into place as quickly as I was able. It was heavy and ugly, but I took comfort in that. Perhaps it would be more efficacious.
Chapter Nine
But pluck the old isle from its roots deep planted Where tides cry coronach round the Hebrides…
—“ Cumba Mac-ille-Chalium Rarsaidh” (“The Lament of Ian Garbh”)
Lachlan was gone—without the damned heart but with more angry words from me, though he couldn’t hear them, being long vanished—and I fi nally had my bath and then went to bed to sulk and read. The wind and rain held a carnival outside, complete with bright lights and what I swear was the distant sound of a calliope that rang out from the Bearlach nam Cu —the pass of the hound. Though sensible people would say it was just the screaming of frightened seabirds or seals, I did not believe this, and it was with some difficulty that I finally put out the lamp and drifted to sleep.
That night I dreamed, which was not uncommon, but it was a sleeping vision like no other. No dream or nightmare has ever felt as real to me, and I came awake with the alarmed conviction that I had experienced some kind of unnatural prescience brought onby Lachlan’s bite. It was through him that I saw into another frightening world. In my dream I stood before the faerie mound, facing the corpse candle that still burned there. The sun was setting and my shadow was very long, stretching almost to the dunes. Though I was enthralled by the corpse candle burning in the air, a slight movement at the horizon lured my eyes downward and I saw a little being, a poppet with the face of a catfish, made of aged leather and twigs and stained the color of peat bogs. He was rolling up my shadow, coiling it carefully onto a sort of spindle. As I watched, he finished with my shoulders and then started on my torso. I felt a sudden chill in my heart as his clawed hand touched my shadow’s breastbone.
Another movement caught my
“Aye, but ’tis the lesser of evils. Any road, I believe he already kens aboot ye. Why else send the tide after ye today? He wants ye for some purpose—one ye’d best avoid.”
The finman had sent the tide after me? He could do that? I had thought myself merely unlucky. And had it been his voice I heard calling to me? I had thought it came from the faerie mound, but was I mistaken?
“You must work harder on saying comforting things,” I said absently. “People will like you better for it.”
“I daena want ye comforted. I want ye alive,” he said harshly, and strode toward the door. “Bar this ahind me. ’Tis the theacht mean oidche . The auld protective spell aen the door isnae powerful enough tae stand if the finman comes.”
I knew these words and shivered. My grandmother had spoken uneasily of the coming of midnight, but only on Auld Year’s Night and once at Beltane.
Angrily I followed Lachlan so that I could put up the bar, but after the door shut behind him I found myself strangely frightened and unwilling to do what I needed to do if it meant going closer to the outside. Under the lingering influence of Lachlan’s bite I could see Fergus’s spell. Spiked shadows, perhaps real and perhaps only in my mind, cast by some unseen thing brought on by the seeing, enframed the doorway. I was reluctant to disturb them as they stretched and swayed in their effort to guard the door. But by then storm and true night had encompassed the house and I surely didn’t want anyone or anything lingering out there to enter the cottage. I would have to reach through these shadows despite my distaste.
“Bar the door!” Lachlan snarled again from outside. He hit the panel once. The blow shook the door and scattered the shadows.
“Go away!” I snarled back, lifting the bar into place as quickly as I was able. It was heavy and ugly, but I took comfort in that. Perhaps it would be more efficacious.
Chapter Nine
But pluck the old isle from its roots deep planted Where tides cry coronach round the Hebrides…
—“ Cumba Mac-ille-Chalium Rarsaidh” (“The Lament of Ian Garbh”)
Lachlan was gone—without the damned heart but with more angry words from me, though he couldn’t hear them, being long vanished—and I fi nally had my bath and then went to bed to sulk and read. The wind and rain held a carnival outside, complete with bright lights and what I swear was the distant sound of a calliope that rang out from the Bearlach nam Cu —the pass of the hound. Though sensible people would say it was just the screaming of frightened seabirds or seals, I did not believe this, and it was with some difficulty that I finally put out the lamp and drifted to sleep.
That night I dreamed, which was not uncommon, but it was a sleeping vision like no other. No dream or nightmare has ever felt as real to me, and I came awake with the alarmed conviction that I had experienced some kind of unnatural prescience brought onby Lachlan’s bite. It was through him that I saw into another frightening world. In my dream I stood before the faerie mound, facing the corpse candle that still burned there. The sun was setting and my shadow was very long, stretching almost to the dunes. Though I was enthralled by the corpse candle burning in the air, a slight movement at the horizon lured my eyes downward and I saw a little being, a poppet with the face of a catfish, made of aged leather and twigs and stained the color of peat bogs. He was rolling up my shadow, coiling it carefully onto a sort of spindle. As I watched, he finished with my shoulders and then started on my torso. I felt a sudden chill in my heart as his clawed hand touched my shadow’s breastbone.
Another movement caught my
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