believed him. But he had made the others conceal the truth from me so that I would stay at Whistling Tor. That was only one step from a lie. Perhaps he had lied about the sorcery. He’d seen how horrified I was by the mirror vision. If he were a practitioner of the same dark arts as Nechtan, he’d hardly be open about it.
My chamber door was ajar. Inside, a child in a white smock was sitting cross-legged on the floor, in the dark, with my little doll Roise on her lap.The girl’s hair was white, too, drifting in a pale cloud around her head and shoulders. She was crooning a wordless lullaby. The hairs on my neck rose. A glance around the chamber told me she’d been investigating all my things. Clothing spilled out of the storage chest, my comb lay on the floor and the bedding had been disordered with more violence than such a fragile being seemed capable of. I took two steps into the room.The child raised her head, fixing shadowy eyes on me.
“Hurt,” she whispered.“Baby’s hurt.” Her skinny hand moved tenderly to stroke the silken threads that formed Roise’s hair. Even by the fitful light of my candle I could see that the doll was the worse for wear. Some of her hair had been pulled right out and her skirt was in shreds. My stomach tight with unease, I cast my eyes around for knives, bodkins or other dangerous implements. “Oo-roo, baby, all better soon,” the child sang, rocking the doll in her arms.
A rustling sound behind me in the open doorway. I whirled around.
The young warrior in the bloody shirt stood there, the one from out in the woods. His arms were wrapped across his chest. A febrile trembling coursed through his body. Whatever it was that shook him so, rage, fear, a malady, it possessed him utterly. Brighid save me, what had I begun?
“Tell me the truth.” His voice was dry and scratchy, as if he’d been long out of the habit of using it. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Can you give us what we need? Or did you speak lies and false hope? We have waited long.”
I almost yelled for Magnus.The young man had a sword and a dagger at his belt. He sounded desperate. He looked poised on the brink of violent action. But I did not call out. I was the one who had set this in motion and I must be brave enough to deal with the consequences.
“I wasn’t lying,” I said, doing my best to hold his nervous, darting gaze. “I’ll do my best to help you.Tell me, what is it you need most?”
For a moment his eyes were full of whirling visions, images of pain and struggle.
“Sleep.” He spoke the word on a sigh.“Rest.That is what we long for. It is what we crave.Tell the lord of Whistling Tor to let us go.”
“He would if he knew how,” I said. “I’ll help him search for a way. But ... I must be plain with you. I am only a ... I am not ... I have no position of authority here at Whistling Tor. I cannot swear to you that there’s a remedy to be found. All I can promise is to do my very best for you.”
The young man bowed his head.With a sound like shivering leaves he faded away before my eyes. I turned my attention to the child and to my disturbed chamber. Since I could think of nothing appropriate to say to a small ghost girl—I could hardly tell her she should be tucked up in bed by now—I began methodically to set my belongings to rights. First the blankets; I gathered them and began to fold. A moment later the child had set Roise carefully down and was holding two corners for me, her sorrowful eyes intent on my face. We moved towards each other as in a dance; I gathered the top edges together, the girl took up the lower corners and we repeated our measure. I laid the folded blanket on the foot of the bed and picked up the second.
“Thank you,” I said. “You’re a good helper.”
“Baby’s hurt.” Her tone was mournful. She glanced at Roise, who now sat on the floor with her back to the storage chest, her embroidered eyes fixed on us.
“She’s only a doll,” I said cautiously. “I’ll mend her. But I’m sad that someone damaged her. My sister made her for me. Roise is my memory of good things.” It was hard to know how much to say. The girl seemed harmless. But she’d been in my chamber and the fact that she was helping me now didn’t make up for what she’d done to my belongings. “Please pick up the comb and put it on that chest.”
She did not put the comb away, but brought it to me, then turned her back in clear expectation that I would tidy her wispy pale hair for her. I set the second blanket down and began a careful combing.
“Where’s my mama?” the child asked suddenly.
My heart turned over.“I don’t know, sweetheart.” Her hair was as flya way as thistledown; the candlelight seemed to shine through it.
There was a long silence as I gently combed, and then she said,“I want Mama. I want to go home.”
Tears sprang to my eyes. I knelt down and put my arms around her. She was ice-cold, preternaturally cold, and although she had substance, she felt nothing like an ordinary child—she was far less solid in form than Rioghan or Eichri. I suppressed a horrified shudder. There was nothing I could say that would help; no promise I could make that a small child might understand. I could not send her home. She had no home. I could not find her mother. I could not offer her a place to stay, a bed to sleep in. She was a spirit child; she did not belong with me.
“Your hair looks lovely now,” I said. “My name is Caitrin. What is yours?”
Her voice was like the passing of a breeze in the grass. “I don’t remember.”
Down in the garden, Fianchu exploded into a fanfare of barking, seeing off some nighttime creature. In my arms, the child vanished. One moment she was there, the next I was holding nothing at all.
“Caitrin?” Olcan called from outside.
My skin in goose bumps, I went out to the gallery. He and the dog were coming up the steps.
“Thought I might leave Fianchu with you tonight,” Olcan said.“You’ll be nervous after what happened earlier with your unpleasant kinsman and his cronies. You needn’t have this fellow in the bedchamber with you, though that’d be his preference without a doubt.You can leave him out here when you bolt your door, and he’ll sleep across the threshold.”
“Thank you.” Fianchu’s presence would be more than welcome.“I had visitors just now. From the host.Will Fianchu keep them away as well?”
“You’ll be safe, Caitrin.You’re Anluan’s friend.They won’t harm you.”
I considered this as I lay in bed a little later with the door shut and bolted and Fianchu on my side of it,
