“She looks ready for a fight,” said Kaetha, before opening the door onto the sight of anxious faces outside.
“You have a sister,” she smiled. “Another daughter, Dermid.”
“A little lassie.” Suddenly her feet no longer touched the floor – she dangled in the air, swept up in a hug by the proud father. The Morays filed inside, dripping with rain. Elspet hugged her so tightly, it was hard to breathe. She was surprised to see Mairi rushing in too.
“I got here as soon as I could after I heard,” her new stepmother said. “Are they alright?”
“Mother and daughter are fine,” said Kaetha.
“But why wasn’t the midwife called?”
“She lives across the other side of the town. Jean needed help quickly. Besides, Nannie may be blind but she has more experience than any midwife.”
“How did you find out she was in labour?” Mairi asked.
Rorie came over to them then. “Would you like to see her, Mairi?”
Kaetha leant against the wall and rested her head on Donnan’s shoulder. Her heavy limbs ached and her heart was still pounding. The baby had stopped crying now and opened her eyes which were like deep pools reflecting an evening sky. Her tiny hand had one of her father’s fingers in a fierce grip.
“Perhaps we should leave them to themselves now,” suggested Donnan.
“Aye, we should go.” Kaetha turned to Mairi but she didn’t appear to have heard them. She was gazing at Jean and the baby, smiling softly, her eyes shining in the candlelight. “Mairi, we’re going now,” she said.
“Right, aye, of course. You two go on, I’ll walk Nannie back to the monastery shortly.”
“It’s funny,” said Kaetha as she stepped out into the rain, “but I feel like I could do anything after that.” Donnan laughed at her, then gasped as a bolt of lightning cut through the sky. It was Kaetha’s turn to laugh. “You’re not frightened of a bit of lightning are you?”
“No,” he said defensively. “It just took me by surprise.”
“You do know how unlikely it is to strike a person?”
“Aye, but it could kill you if it touches you.”
She froze. “I’ve had an idea.”
“What?” A swell of thunder growled in the distance as they began the uphill walk into the town.
“It might just work,” she said, half talking to herself. “There’s something I have to do, Donnan. Something using magic.”
“What? But if Murdo finds out— What can you have to do that’s so important?”
“I can explain on the way. I need to fetch something.” She stopped. “Or I can do it alone. You obviously disapprove.”
“I disapprove of you taking unnecessary risks, aye, but I know I’m not going to dissuade you. I’m coming with you, whether you like it or not. I want to make sure you don’t get caught.”
“Good.” They stumbled in the dark, winding through side streets and common land, eventually reaching Nannie’s cottage at the edge of the woods.
“How are you supposed to find it?” said Donnan. “I can’t see a thing.”
“I know my way around.”
Donnan swore as he walked into a bucket which clattered, sloshing water over the floor.
“Donnan!” she growled. “Just wait by the door.”
She circled the room, brushing her hands over boxes and jars. She would feel it if it were close, she felt sure of that. But she was wasting time at the shelves; Nannie wouldn’t put it somewhere so accessible. She strode across the room, cursing the table leg as she bashed her hip against it. How Nannie got about without seeing her way, she had no idea.
“You alright?” Donnan didn’t keep the laughter out of his voice.
“Shut up.”
Kneeling down by a nook in the wall, she heaved a basket of logs to one side. Feeling the rough fibres of a pile of blankets, she shoved them out of the way too, causing a wooden spindle to roll across the floor.
“Try not to break anything,” said Donnan, tutting.
She ignored him. Her fingers found the grooves of a wooden box. Opening it, she took out bundles of yarn and felt the small wooden boxes and cloth-wrapped bunches of ingredients underneath. “Belladonna, hemlock, mandrake root,” she said, remembering where each were kept.
“I can’t sense it,” she said, feeling deflated. “The elf-shot can’t be here.” Then, in one corner, she felt the cold, hard edges of a small metal box. As soon as she prised open the lid, she felt the hum of the elf-shot’s power in the air and laughed. “Got it!” Snapping the box shut, she suddenly felt nothing from it again. The metal was blocking its power somehow.
The wind rustled through the grasses and shook the tree branches as they reached the small copse at the edge of the common.
“Eugh!”
“What?” asked Kaetha.
“Cow pat.”
“That would be Queenie.” But before Kaetha had time to laugh at him, a fork of lightning ripped through the air, illuminating a tree, jagged whips of light searing its trunk and branches. They were knocked backwards, thudding into the wet ground as clouds roared and bellowed at one another in the sky above.
“Are you alright?” Donnan asked, tossing aside the branch that had been flung at them.
“Aye,” said Kaetha. She laughed and gripped Donnan’s arm as an idea came to her. “I think this was fate.”
“Well fate’s got something against me then, that’s for sure,” Donnan mumbled.
Kaetha felt for shards of branches, gathering only those which emitted a whiff of smoke.
“What are you doing?”
“The wood carries the power of the bolt that struck it,” she said.
As they drew closer to the Baukan rock, the storm rolled away behind them and the moon was unveiled in a patch of starry sky over the sea. With no sign of anyone
