A Hat Full Of Sky

The moon was on the way to being full. A gibbous moon, it’s called. It’s one of the duller phases of the moon and seldom gets illustrated. The full moon and the crescent moon get all the publicity.

Rob Anybody sat alone on the mound, just outside the fake rabbit hole, staring at the distant mountains where the snow on the peaks gleamed in the moonlight.

A hand touched him lightly on the shoulder.

‘ ‘Tis not like ye to let someone creep up on ye, Rob Anybody,’ said Jeannie, sitting down beside him.

Rob Anybody sighed.

‘Daft Wullie was telling me ye havenae been eatin’ your meals,’ said Jeannie, carefully.

Rob Anybody sighed.

‘And Big Yan said when ye wuz out huntin’ today ye let a fox go past wi’out gieing it a good kickin’?’

Rob sighed again.

There was a faint pop followed by a glugging noise. Jeannie held out a tiny wooden cup. In her other hand was a small leather bottle.

Fumes from the cup wavered in the air.

‘This is the last o’ the Special Sheep Liniment your big wee hag gave us at our wedding,’ said Jeannie. ‘I put it safely by for emergencies.’

‘She’s no’ my big wee hag, Jeannie,’ said Rob, without looking at the cup. ‘She’s oor big wee hag. An’ I’ll tell ye, Jeannie, she has it in her tae be the hag o’ hags. There’s power in her she doesnae dream of. But the hiver smells it.’

‘Aye, well, a drink’s a drink whomsoever ye call her,’ said Jeannie, soothingly. She waved the cup under Rob’s nose.

He sighed, and looked away.

Jeannie stood up quickly. ‘Wullie! Big Yan! Come quick!’ she yelled. ‘He willnae tak’ a drink! I think he’s deid!’

‘Ach, this is no’ the time for strong licker,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘My heart is heavy, wumman.’

‘Quickly now!’ Jeannie shouted down the hole… ‘He’s deid and still talkin’!’

‘She’s the hag o’ these hills,’ said Rob, ignoring her. ‘Just like her granny. She tells the hills what they are, every day. She has them in her bones. She holds ‘em in her heart. Wi’out her, I dinnae like tae think o’ the future.’

The other Feegles had come scurrying out of the hole and were looking uncertainly at Jeannie.

‘Is somethin’ wrong?’ said Daft Wullie.

‘Aye!’ snapped the kelda. ‘Rob willnae tak’ a drink o’ Special Sheep Liniment!’

Wullie’s little face screwed up in instant grief.

‘Ach, the Big Man’s deid!’ he sobbed. ‘Oh waily waily waily—’

‘Will ye hush yer gob, ye big mudlin!’ shouted Rob Anybody, standing up. ‘I am no’ deid! I’m trying to have a moment o’ existential dreed here, right? Crivens, it’s a puir lookout if a man cannae feel the chilly winds o’ Fate lashing aroound his nethers wi’out folks telling him he’s deid, eh?’

‘Ach, and I see ye’ve been talking to the toad again, Rob,’ said Big Yan. ‘He’s the only one arroond here that used them lang words that tak’ all day to walk the length of…’ He turned to Jeannie. ‘It’s a bad case o’ the thinkin’ he’s caught, missus. When a man starts messin’ wi’ the readin’ and the writin’ then he’ll come doon with a dose o’ the thinkin’ soon enough. I’ll fetch some o’ the lads and we’ll hold his heid under water until he stops doin’ it, ‘tis the only cure. It can kill a man, the thinkin’.’

‘I’ll wallop ye and ten like ye!’ yelled Rob Anybody in Big Yan’s face, raising his fists. ‘I’m the Big Man in this clan and—’

‘And I am the Kelda,’ said their kelda, and one of the hiddlins of keldaring is to use your voice like that: hard, cold, sharp, cutting the air like a dagger of ice. ‘And I tell you men to go back doon the hole and dinnae show you faces back up here until I say. Not you, Rob Anybody Feegle! You stay here until I tell ye!’

‘Oh waily waily—’ Daft Wullie began, but Big Yan clapped a hand over his mouth and dragged him away quickly.

When they were alone, and scraps of cloud were beginning to mass around the moon, Rob Anybody hung his head.

‘I willnae go, Jeannie, if you say,’ he said.

‘Ach, Rob, Rob,’ said Jeannie, beginning to cry. ‘Ye dinnae understand. I want no harm to come to the big wee girl, truly I don’t. But I cannae face thinkin’ o’ you out there fightin’ this monster that cannae be killed! It’s you I’m worried aboot, can ye no’ see?’

Rob put his arm around her. ‘Aye, I see,’ he said.

‘I’m your wife, Rob, askin’ ye not to go!’

‘Aye, aye. I’ll stay,’ said Rob.

Jeannie looked up to him. Tears shone in the moonlight. ‘Ye mean it?’

‘I never braked my word yet,’ said Rob. ‘Except to polis’men and other o’ that kidney, ye ken, and they dinnae count.’

‘Ye’ll stay? Ye’ll abide by my word?’ said Jeannie, sniffing.

Rob sighed. ‘Aye. I will.’

Jeannie was quiet for a while, and then said, in the sharp cold voice of a kelda: ‘Rob Anybody Feegle, I’m tellin’ ye now to go and save the big wee hag.’

‘Whut?’ said Rob Anybody, amazed. ‘Jus’ noo ye said I was tae stay—’

‘That was as your wife, Rob. Now I’m telling you as your kelda.’ Jeannie stood up, chin out and looking determined. ‘If ye dinnae heed the word o’ yer kelda, Rob Anybody Feegle, ye can be banished fra’ the clan. Ye ken that. So you’ll listen t’ me guid. Tak’ what men you need afore it’s too late, and go to the mountains, and see that the big wee girl comes tae nae harm. And come back safe yoursel’. That is an order! Nay, ‘tis more’n an order. ‘Tis a geas I’m laying on ye! That cannae be brake!’

‘But I—’ Rob began, completely bewildered.

‘I’m the kelda, Rob,’ said Jeannie. ‘I cannae run a clan with the Big Man pinin’. And the hills of our children need their hag. Everyone knows the land needs someone tae tell it whut it is.’

There was something about the way Jeannie had said ‘children’. Rob Anybody was not the fastest of thinkers, but he always got there in the end.

‘Aye, Rob,’ said Jeannie, seeing his expression. ‘Soon I’ll be birthing seven sons.’

‘Oh,’ said Rob Anybody. He didn’t ask how she knew the number. Keldas just knew.

‘That’s great!’ he said.

‘And one daughter, Rob.’

Rob blinked. ‘A daughter? This soon?’

‘Aye,’ said Jeannie.

‘That’s wonderful good luck for a clan!’ said Rob.

‘Aye. So you’ve got something to come back safe to me for, Rob Anybody. An’ I beg ye to use your heid for somethin’ other than nuttin’ folk.’

‘I thank ye, Kelda,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘I’ll do as ye bid. I’ll tak’ some lads and find the big wee hag, for the good o’ the hills. It cannae be a good life for the puir wee big wee thing, all alone and far fra’ home, among strangers.’

‘Aye,’ said Jeannie, turning her face away. ‘I ken that, too.’