Chapter 4
"He is still there." Thora opened the door to peer out.
"Grandmother, please, he will see you!" Meg said.
"What harm if he sees me feeding the chickens?" Thora asked, and opened the door to go outside.
Norrie's mother chuckled as she sat on a stool by the hearth, feeding Fergus's daughter, small Anna, who sat on her lap while Elga fed her porridge from a bowl. "That kelpie's come back for you," Mother Elga told Meg. "I knew he would."
Casting a glance at her great-grandmother, Meg crossed the room to glance out. Dawn shone pink and blue-gray over sea and island, and still Dougal Stewart stood on the machair above Camus nan Fraoch, facing the sea.
She thought of another dawn when that same man—and no kelpie, not a bit of it—had waited on the black rock for a boat to fetch him. Meg had seen that, and had kept it to herself these seven years.
Now, her senses spinning from his kisses, she knew this was the very man she had met on Sgeir Caran.
She leaned her forehead against the door. The night of Iain's conception had been wild, desperate, joyful, a night of passion and promise. She had loved him, his hard, warm body pressed to hers—she had burned for him, body and very soul.
Foolish, she had been. So trusting.
Setting a hand to her brow, she wished she had never met him—but for Iain. She had ached at the memories of that night, seethed at the man's betrayal, and treasured her child. And she had wondered what she would do if she ever saw him again.
What had she done? Succumbed to the same irresistible magic as before. Surrendered—and she was furious about it.
Well, it would not happen again.
"Margaret, the bannocks," Mother Elga reminded her.
She turned. "Oh!" Smoke was rising from the iron griddle by the fire. Hastening there, she removed the burned oatcakes from the heat to a plate.
"Your mind is elsewhere." Elga watched her, bouncing the towheaded baby in her lap. Tiny, wizened, bent as a blackthorn stick, the old woman pointed a finger at Meg. "You are thinking of the kelpie-man."
"I am not." Meg placed bacon slices onto a pan to cook them over the fire. Although she had purchased an iron stove for Thora, her grandmother still did her cooking in the traditional ways over the hearth fire, while the shiny cookstove in the corner provided a convenient shelf for stacking dishes.
"He has come for you, disguised as a lighthouse man."
"He always was the lighthouse man, Mother Elga. He was never the each-uisge."
Elga snorted. "So you think. But the kelpie is clever."
Meg sighed, cheeks blushing hot, mouth pinched. She flipped the bacon too quickly and it spattered.
"Uisht," Elga said disdainfully. "You have forgotten how to cook, fine spoiled lady that you are now in your great castle!"
"I have not forgotten. But I do not cook or do chores there, only here." She smiled at her great-grandmother. "And this is supposed to be my holiday!"
"Hah. Listen to me. The each-uisge is real. You do not believe, even though you met him yourself and felt his magic!"
"There was no magic," she said as she turned the sizzling bacon. But her knees felt weak as she remembered his kisses. Magic—to be resisted with every bit of will in her.
The door opened and Thora breezed back inside, brown skirts swishing over her plush hips. "He is still out there on the machair, watching the sea." Thora went to the hearth, took a steaming kettle from over the fire, and poured hot water into a teapot to steep. "He is waiting for you."
"He longs to go back to his home under the waves," Elga said. "A kelpie cannot wear his human guise for very long." She looked hard at Meg. "He must return to the water, and he has come to take you with him."
"Ridiculous," Meg said. "He is just a man. A stubborn, infuriating man who came to our island to put up a lighthouse on our rock without our permission. He is not a kelpie." Meg transferred the bacon to three plates and spread the hot bannocks with butter after scraping off their charred surfaces.
"Then why were you kissing him up on the hill, if you are in dispute with him—and if he is not casting his spell on you?" Thora asked. Meg did not answer.
"He may look human," Elga countered, "but we know better. The kelpie and his ilk have long ruled that reef, and they accept the gift of a bride to fulfill the old bargain to protect our isle. That is you. Where's my tea?" Elga demanded.
"Here, Mother," Thora said, handing the cup to her.
Meg placed the breakfast plates on the table and sat down while Thora poured tea into mugs and added sugar and cream for herself and Elga, leaving Meg's plain as she preferred.
Anna took the spoon and tried to feed herself, while the older women talked.
Meg glanced over her shoulder to the small room beyond the main area, where Iain still lay asleep in his box bed.
Norrie and Fergus had already gone down to the beach to start the day's fishing, and Fergus had mentioned that he might join Stewart's work crew to earn some extra money.
None of them needed the money; Norrie and Fergus need not work at all. Meg had offered repeatedly to take care of all of their needs. While they accepted some things from her for the sake of the little ones and the old women, the men would not allow her to provide for all of them.
They had even refused to move into the great house, with its roomy comfort.
Their little croft house had ample room, they insisted, and Norrie and Fergus had pointed out that it was closer to the harbor.
The croft house, which had grown over generations, consisted of three spacious buildings attached under one roof, used separately for living, cooking, and sleeping quarters, with a byre for cows, goats, and chickens.
They said it was more than enough for them.
Meg had at least insisted that the smaller house be refurbished and she had sent them new furnishings and had purchased Norrie a new boat and fishing nets. She wanted her kin, and all her tenants, to have whatever they needed. But the islanders rarely asked anything from her.
"Did you tell Mr. Stewart that you wanted him to leave Caransay?" Thora asked.
"I did. But he will stay nonetheless, and his crew with him," Meg answered.
"Ach," Elga said. "Water horses, the lot of them." She nibbled on bacon. "Especially that Stewart. A prince of the sea. He prances about in the waves by night."
"I saw him outside just now. He was not prancing," Meg said.
"Why do you think he wants to build his tower on the great rock?
It has belonged to the water horses since the time of the mists, when the first each-uisge came out of the sea and took the form of a beautiful man and then fought Fhionn MacCumhaill.
He made a bargain with Fhionn that he would keep the rock and let the people have the island, but he must have a bride from Caransay every one hundred years. "
"Stories," Meg said. "Just stories."
"Easy to say, now that you are a fine lady with riches, a castle, and servants," Elga said. "Years ago, when your heart was pure and your life was simple, you knew the truth."
"Does this Stewart know you? Who you are?" Thora asked.
"His bride? Of course," Elga insisted.
"He recognized her," Thora said. "I was at the harbor yesterday—I saw it in his eyes when he looked at Margaret."
Meg felt her cheeks grow hot. "He knows nothing."
"He has come for his son," Elga said.
"Hush!" Meg glanced at the door of the sleeping room, where Iain dozed. "He knows nothing of my son. He does not even know that I am Lady Strathlin."
"Good," Thora said. "Keep that from him for now."
"I intend to tell him," Meg said stiffly. "When the time is right, I will tell him."
"I looked into the fire and I knew he is the one," Elga said.
"That he is the kelpie? Or the engineer who has made my life miserable?" Meg asked bitterly.
"The one who is meant for you," Elga replied.
Meg took a sip of tea and did not answer.
"Uisht, Mother," Thora said. "It is bad luck to talk so much of the kelpie. You must not say it so often."
"Why? He's come back for his bride," Elga insisted. "He's part of our family now."
"Oh, do stop," Meg said, and groaned.
"A prince of the deep, building a tower on his rock for his bride, but guised as a working man," Elga intoned, nodding.
Meg sighed and leaned her chin on her fist. Through the window, the early sky lightened to blue.
Since childhood, she had loved and respected her great-grandmother, and had listened to Elga's endless stories of ancient heroes, gods, and goddesses, and had given credence to Elga's divinations.
The island's oldest inhabitant, Elga was also its mystic and its bard, respected by all—and perhaps indulged, Meg thought, as she became more eccentric and stubborn with age.
Elga clung to the old ways, the old legends and superstitions, and she still practiced spells and charms as she had always done.
Mother Elga lived in a medieval world, with a medieval mind. The rest of the world had moved on, yet she was content in her ways and certain they were right.
Yet Meg felt removed from the world of her childhood at times.
Years on the mainland had changed her—she had a practical, more modern bent, and knowing both the mainland world and the older island ways, she understood both, saw the benefits of both.
Time rolled slow in the Hebrides, and on Caransay, tradition, routine, and simplicity ruled.
Meg had acquired Caransay's lease and had done all that she could for the islanders, but she knew that Elga would always live by the old ways, and so would Thora. Norrie's wife was kind but meek, and Mother Elga dominated the family with her old-fashioned beliefs.
Meg had not only outgrown the old ways, she had been deeply hurt by complying with them.
"Mark me, he is the one," Elga said. "You made a bargain and a binding promise with the kelpie, girl, and bore his child. Now you must pay your agreement."