Outside the church, Ma greeted the Presbyterian villagers cordially. I kept my head bowed, not wanting to meet their eyes or see the cruel faces that had so quickly sentenced Fionnula to death. Some time had passed since her trial, yet I could not forgive these people for their crime. I would never forgive them.
“Good day to you, Rose,” said a familiar voice.
I turned to see Meara, her freckled face wrought with shadows. “Meara, I didn’t see you inside.”
“Da and I were late getting in. Ma was up all night with the pains, but she’s back resting again. Da said we should come to church and pray to Christ Jesus for her recovery.”
Meara’s mother had not truly recovered from the birth of her sixth child a few months earlier, and as the oldest daughter, the burden of taking over her ma’s responsibilities fell on Meara’s shoulders. I felt sorry for her, having to tidy up the cottage, mind the young bairns, and cook enough porridge for the whole brood of them.
“Who’s caring for the children, then?” I asked her.
“Ma’s sister, Linette, has come from the south to help for a while.” Her eyes were hollow, and I wasn’t sure if it was simply tiredness or fear over what might happen to her mother. Ma had visited Meara’s mother once, hoping to help. She told me they’d talked awhile and she had tried to raise the woman’s spirits, but ’twas all Ma could do. She didn’t dare pass on healing herbs or place her hands on the ailing woman’s worn belly to perform a spell. And that was the shame of it; Ma had the power to perhaps cure Meara’s mother, but since that very act could get Ma hanged as a witch, it would not be done.
“I haven’t seen you down by the brook lately,” Meara told me. “Do you not draw water for washing?”
“Ma sends me later now,” I said awkwardly. “She says the morning chill is too much.” It was a lie, and I hated telling it to Meara, who had always been a good friend. But the truth was, Ma had told me to find a different place to draw water so that I wouldn’t meet Meara every morning. “It’s too dangerous, the two of you talking with such ease,” Ma had told me. “One of these days you’re liable to slip and speak the Goddess’s name or mention the coming Esbat, and that sort of breach I cannot allow.”
Meara’s father summoned her from the edge of the crowd.
“I’d better go,” Meara said reluctantly. “Godspeed.”
I nodded, wondering what would happen to my friend if her ma passed. Already Meara was acting as mother to the large family. My own father had died when I was but five years of age, and though I often wished for the protection a father could offer, I remembered so little of him. Losing a mother had to be worse.
“Tell your ma...” I wanted to espouse an herbal tea that would help her mother feel better, but I knew it was too dangerous. I sighed. “Tell your ma I will pray for her.”
Meara nodded, then went off with her da.
Ma was speaking with Mrs. MacTavish, an elderly woman from our coven who’d been suffering from a hacking cough. As she spoke, I slipped away from Ma’s side to find Kyra.
Gently I took my friend’s arm and led her away from her ma and da. Feeling whimsical, I touched the stone in my pocket. “I have something for you,” I said quietly. “Something to attract your certain someone.”
She stared at me, uncomprehending.
I glanced around to make sure that none of the villagers were paying us any mind. Folks were engaged in the usual chatter, complaints of the long winter and worries over the spring planting. I turned back to Kyra. “Can you guess what’s in my pocket?” When she shook her head, I whispered in her ear, “I’ve brought an amulet for you to attract Falkner.”
Her cheeks grew pink at my words, and I wanted to laugh aloud. Kyra was so easy to embarrass. She took my hand and pulled me off the stone path, away from the churchgoers. “Would you have everyone in the Highlands hear of my secret love?”
“Harmless words,” I said, adding in a whisper, “though I dare not show you the magickal gem before everyone in the village.” The sun was still rising in the sky, promising a warm spring morning. Only days before, the last of the snow had melted from the ground. “Come with me to the woods,” I said. “I need to collect herbs. We’ll do the gathering ritual together, and afterward we’ll charge the rose stone.”
“Oh, I wish I could, but I promised Ma I would help with the baking.” Kyra pressed a hand over her heart. “Are you sure the stone holds power?”
“Ma used to let me hold it whenever we quarreled. It’s powerful enough.”
Turning slightly, Kyra glanced toward the crowd still spilling out of the church. I knew she was looking for Falkner, a beanpole of a boy who had yet to show any signs of intelligence in my presence. “Nothing seems to work on him,” she said wistfully. “He can’t even spare me a glance. It’s as if I’m just a passing dragonfly, hardly worthy of notice.”
I pressed my lips together, wishing that Kyra wouldn’t go into it again. It was precisely the reason I had borrowed the rose stone from Ma’s cupboard: to put an end to my friend’s pining and suffering. “Come to the woods with me, then,” I said.
“Kyra!” her mother called. Her parents were ready to leave.
She nodded at her ma respectfully, then tilted her head. “I cannot go,” she told me regretfully. One chestnut braid slipped over her sapphire cloak. “But I do want the stone. Can you leave it on my doorstep? In a basket by the woodpile?”
“I dare not. It’s too precious a thing to leave out.”
“Rose...”
“Maybe tomorrow. Stop by our cottage on your way to market,” I told her, wishing that Kyra could just once summon the courage to sneak away from her parents. She was my friend, but in every situation I was the bolder. While I dreamed of travel to distant places, of exploring and celebrating all corners of the Goddess’s earth, Kyra was content to remain in her small world.
I went off to join my mother, who was getting an earful of unhappiness from Ian MacGreavy and his wife. Once we were out of earshot of the village, I told Ma of the failing health of Meara’s mother.
“I fear she is not long with us.” Ma shook her head. “ ’Tis a pity the Christians don’t accept the Goddess’s healing. I would like to help her.”
A feeling of melancholy washed over me. “Poor Meara. She’s already feeling the burden of so many chores to keep the children fed and clean.”
“She shall forge ahead,” Ma said stoutly.
I wondered if that had been Ma’s attitude when my own father, Gowan MacEwan, had died. It made me sad that I barely remembered him, and whenever I asked about him, Ma went cold as the brook in winter. “Do you still miss Da?” I asked suddenly.
Ma sucked in a deep breath of crisp spring morning. “I will always love him. But ’tis not a fit subject to discourse upon, especially when we have pressing matters at hand. The MacGreavys are in a tumult.”
“Has the miller asked about dark magick again?” I asked, recalling how he had recently suggested calling on a taibhs, a dark spirit, to wreak vengeance against a Burnhyde man who had crossed him.
“As if we don’t have enough trouble with the townspeople always on the lookout for witches,” Ma said as we tramped down the rutted road to our cottage. “The tension among the Seven Clans is heating up again. Ian MacGreavy is outraged over a snub by a few men of the Burnhyde clan. Seems they won’t use his mill, and they’re telling all the others in their clan to avoid it, that it’s cursed and the evil is spilling into the grain.”
The unfairness of it irked me. “If the mill is cursed, it’s because of a spell from one of them.”
“Indeed. Mrs. MacGreavy found a sprinkling of soil and ashes on the threshold of the mill one morning, swirled in a circle.”