Euphemia
Everybody sat to eat, but I held back to scrape what was left of the porridge from the pot.
The iron cauldron still hung over the fire, swaying slightly on its chain as the peat smoke curled upward into the rafters. The thatch above was already darkened from years of the same routine—smoke rising, ash settling, another day survived.
Ever since our houses had been confiscated and we were driven from our land, we’d struggled.
The walls around us—thick stone stacked by hands older than mine—kept out the worst of the wind, but not the memories.
Back when our crops failed, we thought it was sabotage by the enemy.
My parents grew weak and eventually succumbed to illness.
But as I scraped the last clinging oats from the bottom of the pot, feeling the rough grain catch under the wooden spoon, I understood.
They’d fed us instead of themselves.
Bit by bit, bowl by bowl, they’d starved, so we would go on.
I poured water from the pitcher into my bowl, the tin cup clinking against the wooden table. I kept my eyes down. The air smelled of damp wool, peat smoke, and the faint sweetness of porridge that wasn’t enough for all of us.
I didn’t dare look at my brother.
Uncle Callum had taken us in eight years ago. He’d fought for our family home, but the soldiers burned it to the ground.
Every last memory turned to ash.
“Come sit doon, Euphemia,” my brother said, giving me his sweet smile as he pushed back from the table. The stool scraped against the packed earth floor, the legs leaving small grooves we’d all learned to step over.
He was only four years younger, but already towered over me like some blooming beanstalk.
“Naw. Am no sittin in yer seat. Ah dinnae want tae catch yer fleas.”
His smile vanished. He sat down again with a dramatic huff, making the dishes rattle on the shelf beside him.
“Yer so mean,” he muttered.
“Yae ken am jestin’ wae yae,” I said, blowing on the thin porridge before spooning it into my mouth.
It tasted of oat, smoke, and determination.
“Aye,” he said, wrinkling his nose at me.
“You two are worse than the wee ones,” Aunt Flora said, wiping little Moire’s mouth with the corner of her apron. She stood near the dresser stacked with chipped plates and mismatched bowls—the kind passed down until they became family themselves.
The truth was, we’d never managed to salvage much when our homes were taken, and rebuilding from nothing had been hard. Every piece in this room had been bartered for, gifted, or fought to keep.
The fire crackled, throwing a warm glow along the stone walls, and for a moment—just a brief, precious moment—despite everything we’d lost, the house felt like a beating heart. Patched together, smoke-stained, but still ours.
? ? ?
I was out picking the last of the berries from the bramble bushes when I spotted them—flashes of red weaving through the distant gorse. My breath stalled. The hatred in my heart would never die. Not for what they’d done to my clan, nor the dozens of others scattered like ash across the glens.
The initial uprising was long before my time, but the stories lived in us.
The brutality.
The burned homes.
The laws meant to choke our heritage.
The whispered threats—our kinfolk raped to break the will of a people.
I bent my head and kept plucking berries, pretending I hadn’t seen them. But the crunch of hooves over frost-bitten grass came closer.
A saddle creaked.
Someone slid off a horse.
I tugged my shawl tighter around my shoulders.
“You. Girl.”
His voice cracked like a whip.
I bit my lip hard enough to taste blood. One wrong word and they’d take it out on my family. We’d already lost too much.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, boots thudding closer.
From the corner of my eye, I caught the bright, hateful red of his uniform coat. My fingers tightened around my basket.
I stretched it out so he could see the berries.
“Are you dumb, girl?” he snapped.
Don’t do it.
Don’t rise to him.
He’s goading you.
“Should you be wearing this heathen cloth?”
He reached out and thumbed the edge of my plaid skirt. The touch made my stomach twist with disgust. I stepped back, heat rising in my cheeks, and finally turned to glare at him properly.
That’s when I saw the marking on his jacket—high-ranking.
And behind him, the betrayers.
Scottish men in uniform, standing with their backs straight and their shame buried deep.
Our own, turned against us.
His pale blue eyes narrowed, sliding over me with the oily interest of a man who thought himself untouchable.
The shadow of his hat cast half his face in darkness.
His curled moustache twitched as he smiled, and the brown hair down his cheeks made him look more wolfhound than man.
His breeches were high, the white cross-strap on his chest pristine as bleached bone.
“If you are hungry,” he said, voice dropping to a lewd murmur,
“You can earn a coin on your back.”
Something inside me snapped.
A spark.
Then a blaze.
A fire I’d carried all my life but never let loose.
My hands shook around the basket.
“General, we should go,” one of the men behind him called—uneasy.
A low rumble stirred in my chest.
A vibration deep enough to make my ribs tremble.
I gasped—but the sound burst out of me anyway.
A growl. Raw and furious.
“What the devil?” the general barked, stumbling back, hand flying to his sword.
The sound frightened me as much as it startled him.
I clutched the basket tighter and ran.
I didn’t look back, even when I heard no hooves, no shouts, no pursuit.
The ground was uneven beneath my boots, tussocks grabbing at my skirt, long grass whipping my legs as I fled.
What was that?
What in God’s name was that?
I reached a large tree and planted both palms against its bark, gripping it to steady myself. My basket swung uselessly from the crook of my arm. My breaths came fast, the rush of blood loud in my ears until, slowly, the world quieted.
Only the breeze remained, whispering through the leaves above.
I sniffed the air—
damp soil
cold moss
and the faint, distant scent of smoke…
but something else too.
Something I couldn’t name.
I pushed away from the tree trunk, scanning the glen.
Nothing.
No soldiers.
No eyes watching me.
Only that strange tightness in my chest.
I lifted a hand to it.
“Grrr…” I tried softly, recalling the sound.
Pathetic.
Nothing like before.
I let my hand fall.
Perhaps I was losing my mind.
But as I headed toward the bramble bushes close to the glen, the unsettled, crawling feeling stayed lodged beneath my ribs.
Something had changed.
I just didn't know what.