Chapter Four
“He is still there.” Thora opened the door to peer out.
“Grandmother, please, he will see you!” Meg hissed, trying to close the door.
“He will just think I am feeding the chickens,” Thora said, and stepped outside.
Hearing a chuckle behind her, Meg turned to see Mother Elga, her great-grandmother, laughing. Seated at the table, she was feeding porridge to Fergus’s daughter, Anna, perched on her lap. “The kelpie came back for you,” Elga said. “I told you he would!”
Casting a sour glance at her great-grandmother, Meg went to the window, seeing Thora heading toward the chickens under a dawn sky shining pink and blue-gray. Beyond the small kailyard, Meg saw Dougal Stewart standing on a hillock above Camus nan Fraoch, facing out to sea.
If he stood there waiting for her, he could wait all day. She would not go out to him.
Yet her mind went back to another dawn when that same man—no kelpie, not a bit of it—had waited on a black rock for a boat to fetch him. She could never forget watching him sailing away. At the time, angry and hurt, she hoped he had fallen overboard.
Now, her mind was spinning from discovering that Stewart was that same man—and her heart still thumped with the memory of new kisses and powerful urges awakening in his arms.
She leaned her forehead against the window frame.
That night had been wild, desperate, joyful, full of passion and promise—and betrayal.
But she had burned for him, body and soul, had loved him, could never forget him.
Now she was pressed to either forgive him—or stir up all the hurt and regret again.
The only thing she could not regret was wee Sean, born of that night.
Yet she had been foolish. Too trusting. And today, with the dawn, she had succumbed to his same irresistible magic. Well, it would not happen again. She was not the same foolish girl as before, and she would do her best to avoid him.
“Margaret, the bannocks!” Mother Elga reminded her.
“Oh!” She whirled to see smoke rising from the iron griddle over the fire and hastened to the hearth. Grabbing a wooden spatula, she moved the burned cakes to a wooden platter.
“Your mind is elsewhere.” Elga bounced the towheaded baby in her lap. Tiny, bent as a blackthorn stick, the old woman pointed a finger at Meg. “You are thinking of the kelpie-man. He has come here disguised as the lighthouse-man.”
“He was always the lighthouse man, Mother Elga. He was never the each-uisge. We were all fooled.” With silver tongs, she flipped the bacon slices already cooking in an iron pan suspended over the fire.
She had purchased an iron stove for her grandparents’ cottage, but they continued to cook in traditional ways, while the gleaming black oven and cookstove in the corner provided a shelf for stacks of dishes.
Elga snorted. “That kelpie is very clever.”
Cheeks hot, mouth pinched, Meg flipped the bacon too quickly and it spattered.
“Tcha,” Elga said disdainfully. “You have forgotten how to cook, now that you are a fine spoiled lady in a great castle!”
“I know how to cook and do chores, but I do not need to do those in my house near Edinburgh.” She smiled at her great-grandmother. “This is supposed to be my holiday, and I enjoy doing things the old way. Though I do wish you would use the cookstove.”
“Hah, that beast! Now listen, lass. The each-uisge is real. Even if you do not believe, he can still be real. You met him and felt his enchantment.”
“There was no enchantment.” But her knees felt curiously weak as she recalled those recent kisses. He had some kind of magic—and she would firmly resist it.
Thora breezed inside again, skirts swishing over wide hips, plaid shawl fluttering as she closed the door. “He is still out there, watching the sea.”
“He longs to return to his home under the waves,” Elga said.
Meg took up the steaming iron kettle suspended over the fire, and poured hot water into a teapot. “He can jump in the sea for all I care.”
“A kelpie cannot wear his human guise for very long.” Elga looked hard at Meg. “He must return to the water, and he wants you to go with him.”
“Ridiculous! He is just a man, can you not see it? A stubborn, infuriating man who intends to build a lighthouse on our rock whether or not we want one. He is no kelpie!” She transferred the bacon to pewter plates, scraped the charred bannocks, and spread them with butter.
“Then why did you kiss him up on the hill, if he did not cast his spell over you? We saw you. We saw magic. The love of a human and a kelpie,” Thora said, smiling.
“We did see that! The kelpie’s kiss means he will bless our isle again,” Elga said.
“Oh, my dearie dears,” Meg sighed. She knew very well Elga’s vision was especially weak for detail now, but her belief in the old ways was strong; Thora, as her daughter, shared that belief.
“He may look human to a young lass, but we elders know better,” Elga continued.
“The kelpie and his ilk have ruled our isle and reef since the time of the mists. The kelpie lives forever and changes into his man-form. Now and then he needs the gift of a bride. All part of the old bargain to watch over our isle. That is you. Where’s my tea? ” Elga demanded. “Take the bairnie.”
“Here, Mother.” Thora took the baby and sat down to hold her in her lap.
Meg set the breakfast plates on the table and poured tea into cups, adding cream and honey. She poured a little tea into a tiny wooden cup, adding cream to cool it, but no honey, and set it in front of the child.
“Small Anna wants to feed herself,” Meg laughed as the little one grabbed a bannock, though Meg reached for the hot bacon before Anna could burn her little hand. Thora broke the meat and bannock into small pieces, while Anna picked contentedly at the food.
“That laddie should be up, it’s past dawn.” Elga gestured toward the little room curtained off from the main area of kitchen and parlor. “We make sure he is up with the dawnlight to feed chickens and do chores. He is a good lad and learning good habits here.”
“Let him sleep this morning. A fretful dream woke him in the night,” Meg answered.
Sean, six years old now, still slept in his box bed in the little curtained room.
She had woken too, having spent the night on a cot, for she had not gone back to the larger house last night.
After whispering reassurance to Sean, who slept again, she lay awake.
Finally she had gone outside to walk a bit, where she had encountered Stewart and the northern lights.
“If you say he should sleep, fine,” Thora said. “You are his mama.” She glanced at Elga.
Meg nodded, wishing again that she could be with her son all the time. But she had made the hard decision to leave him here for his well-being until he was a little older.
“Norrie and Fergus have gone out to start the day’s fishing,” Thora said then. “Fergus said he might join the lighthouse crew to earn extra money.”
“He does not need to earn more,” Meg said. “They do not need to work so hard. I will see to everything, you know that.”
“They will do the work they have always done here,” Thora said. “And Fergus is proud. He will not let you, his cousin, provide for him and his daughter.”
“He could work for me,” she said. “Up at the big house. You could all live at the Great House.”
“Your heart is generous, lass, but Fergus needs his pride. And we like our wee croft. Norrie says it is closer to the harbor, and he will not stop his fishing until he cannot lift his nets.”
“I know,” Meg said. She had managed to convince them to enlarge the croft house with sleeping quarters and a separate cow byre.
She had provided new furnishings and the disdained cookstove, and made sure Norrie and Fergus had fine boats and nets.
She wanted her kin, indeed all her tenants on the island, to have whatever they needed. But they did not ask very much of her.
“Did you tell Mr. Stewart to leave Caransay?” Thora asked.
“I tried, but he refused. I did not tell him who I am otherwise. None of that.”
“Ach,” Elga said. “That Stewart. He will know soon. He is a prince of the sea. He prances about in the waves at night.”
“He was not prancing when I saw him.”
“Why does he want to build his high tower on the great rock? It belongs to the water horses ever since the first each-uisge came out of the sea and took the form of a beautiful man, and fought the great Fionn MacCumhaill. He made a bargain with Fionn to keep the rock and let the people have the island, but he must have a bride from Caransay every so often.”
“Just stories,” Meg said.
“Easy to say, now that you are a fine rich lady with a castle and servants,” Elga said. “When your heart was pure and your life was simple, you knew the truth.”
“I am learning the truth of it,” Meg murmured.
“Does this Stewart know who you are?” Elga asked. “His bride?”
“He recognized her,” Thora replied. “In the harbor yesterday, I saw the very moment he knew her. His eyes went wide.”
Meg felt her cheeks grow hot. “Even if he suspects, he does not know about Lady Strathlin. And you two must keep quiet.”
“He has come back for his son.” Elga nodded.
“Hush! The very thought frightens me.” Meg glanced toward the chamber where Sean dozed. “Stewart knows nothing of my son.”
“You must tell him,” Thora said.
“When the time is right.”
“I looked into the fire and knew he was the one for you,” Elga said.
“The kelpie? Or the engineer who makes my life miserable?” Meg asked bitterly.
“The one that heaven and the magical ones intend for you to have,” Elga replied.
Meg took a sip of tea and did not answer. Her great-grandmother blithely mixed religion and myth, and there was no harm in it. But too much talk of the kelpie of the rock was unsettling.
“Tcha, Mother,” Thora said, as if she knew Meg’s thoughts. “It is bad luck to talk so often of the kelpie.”
“Why not? He’s part of our family now. Bring him to supper, Margaret dear.”
“Oh, do stop,” Meg said.