Chapter 2 #2
Even as she watched, half expecting Sorcha to fly away like the moth, the girl’s shoulders began to relax. Behind her on the table, the scrying stone glowed a little brighter, its powerful magik seeping beneath the weave like diaphanous threads of light.
Remove the tartan from the keek stane, Una suggested, but her lips never moved.
Startled by the command, Sorcha snapped her head about to peer at the tartan, and turned a wary glance to Una.
Remove the tartan, Una said again.
Blinking, Sorcha’s hand lifted toward the blanket as though of its own accord, but cautiously. Una watched patiently as her fingers hovered near the cloth, waiting…
Remove the tartan, she willed once again.
Clearest violet, the girl’s eyes were luminous in the grotto’s warm light. Her gaze locked with Una’s, and Una smiled reassuringly, quite pleased. Sorcha might not realize what it was she knew, but, aye, she knew…
Peer into the crystal and tell me what you see.
Sorcha found her voice. “Truly?”
The old woman tipped her chin but once.
Tentatively, as though she feared it might be a figment of her imagination and that any moment Una’s staff would fly at the pate of her head, Sorcha’s fingers pinched the tartan.
Silently, the old woman rose from the chair to stand beside her pupil at the table, moving more swiftly than her auld bones should have allowed.
But if Sorcha sensed her advance, it did not appear to alarm her, nor did she turn to acknowledge the auld woman standing at her side.
The keek stane now held her undivided attention.
Anticipation became a living, breathing creature in the stone chamber.
Una could see the misty tendrils of the bruadar—the vision—reaching out for the girl, like arms that longed to embrace her.
Sorcha’s heartbeat ticked like iron tocks, each one in tune with the beat of Una’s heart.
Una lent her the strength of the bruadaraiche—the dreamer.
Quickly, as though she feared to change her mind, Sorcha tugged the cloth and the tartan slid off the keek stane, revealing a concave crystal from whence all the mist in the room seemed to emanate. All that remained trapped within the crystal shifted violently into desperate shapes.
Una waited patiently for the energy to be harnessed, and then demanded, “Tell me what you see.”
For a long moment, Sorcha’s gaze was inscrutable, and then, curiosity silenced the beat of her heart, and she slipped past Una, around the table so that she might better peer into the ancient keek stane.
There inside the crystal, shapes began to coalesce…
but this bruadar was not for Una, so she kept her eyes affixed to Sorcha.
Illumined by the changing light of the crystal, the girl’s dark hair appeared as violet as her eyes.
Her skin took on the translucent hue of a pearl.
After a moment, Sorcha lifted her eyes from the crystal and met Una’s gaze.
Una’s brows wiggled with amusement. “Speak. Tell me what you see.”
“I-I canna be certain,” Sorcha said.
“It is better to see without certainty than to yield to blindness.”
Long accustomed to Una’s enigmatic lectures, Sorcha peered down again into the keek stane, staring into the swirling eddies. She swallowed perceptibly. “I see a broch.”
Una’s brows lifted. “A stone tower?”
Sorcha nodded.
“Of the Norman type, or rather those erected by our ancestors?”
“Not Norman.”
“What else?”
“A wolf and a blue four-legged bird.”
“What else?” Una snapped.
“I canna be certain,” Sorcha said, nipping at her lower lip.
“Ye must remember that certainty is the death of dreams. Hurry, child, tell me what more ye see.”
The images faded irretrievably and Sorcha shook her head. “I dinna see aught more,” she said, looking confused.
Annoyed, Una clucked her tongue. “’Tis too late now!” She lifted up the tartan from the table, tossing it irritably over the keek stane, concealing the crystal.
“What does it mean?”
“It means what it means.”
“What is that crystal?”
“There is an unseen life who dreams us, Sorcha… one who knows our fate. The crystal provides a glimpse through Cailleach’s eye. But the bruadar is yours alone to decipher.”
Sorcha’s gaze lifted to Una’s face, to the patch that hid Una’s one missing eye. Disappointed, Una turned her face. “Go on, take my book back to your room.”
“Why?” Sorcha argued. “I dinna ken how to read it.”
“But ye will.”
“Una… I mislike the way ye’re speaking—as though ye mean to leave us.”
The chords of Una’s neck and shoulders tightened. The strain was taking a toll. Another winter would be her undoing. She needed a long rest. At the moment, even the thought of making her way down the hillside did not appeal.
“Tha mi cho sgìth ri seann chù,” she said. I'm as tired as an old dog. Slowly, as though her bones might break with the effort, she moved back toward the chair and sat down once more. “Take the poultice down yourself, Sorcha.”
Sorcha’s brows slanted unhappily. “But why, Una? I dinna ken.”
“Ach, child! Go! Ye ha’e nae need for an auld woman’s trembling hands to apply a simple poultice—not when ye’re strong and capable yourself.”
“But—”
“There is no but, Sorcha. Take the poultice to Lìli. She will know what to do with it. And take my book as well. Guard it with your life.”
Frowning, Sorcha’s gaze moved to the high shelf where the book was supposed to be, and gasped in surprise, finding it vanished.
Now, it lay beside her upon the table. Dumbfounded, she brushed her fingers across the old leather binding, and a long overdue weariness settled into Una’s bones. “Tell Lìli I will come later.”
“Very well,” Sorcha said, relenting.
“And tell her to set two more plates at table in time for the evening meal.”
Sorcha hugged the book to her breast. “There will be guests?”
“Not precisely.”
Sorcha shook her head. “Ever with the mysteries,” she complained.
“Very well, Una. I shall tell her, and I will make certain she makes a tonic as well. Ye’re no’ looking so verra well.
” And with that, she picked up the book and came to kiss Una lovingly on the forehead.
The kiss was sweet and filled with love and Una lifted grateful eyes.
Up close, the evidence was indisputable, even through her tired old eyes.
After peering into the keek stane, one of Sorcha’s eyes had turned the color of a leaf in spring, the other remained clearest violet.
So many words teetered on the tip of the old woman’s tongue, but she kept her mouth shut, swallowing a wave of emotion that bobbled up like an apple in her throat.
She patted her young charge on the arm. “Go. I will come anon.”
With her arms wrapped about the ancient grimoire, Sorcha gave a nod.
And keeping it close, she made her way toward the ladder.
As she lifted herself out of the grotto, the torch in the room guttered, leaving Una seated in the darkness.
The fox moth returned, fanning the air before Una’s nose, before finding purchase on the stone in the hilt of her staff.
“We must prepare,” she said, and the fox moth went perfectly still.