“HERE YOU ARE, MY LAMB. IT TOOK SOME DOING, but she looks just as good as new, if I do say it myself.”
Moira’s apple cheeks didn’t rise high enough to squish her small gray eyes when she smiled anymore. And when she handed me the newly repaired doll, I could see the empty space behind them.
“Thank you so much.” I turned the delicate, priceless poppet over, examining her. “Wow, you can’t even tell.”
“’Tis fortunate you kept her in your bag at all to get her home. Were I you, I’d put her up somewhere safe. Out of the clutches of that demon creature.”
We both looked at the kitten. Hecty was crouched low, calico fur standing on end as she readied to pounce on a sunbeam that danced across my bedroom floor.
Moira turned away from me, voice hoarse as she bent down to scoop up the kitten. “Damn little beastie.”
For two days after we’d buried Mac, Hecty would not leave his gravesite. She didn’t cry or yowl. Only lay atop the cold earth, her head in the exact spot where Mac’s vest pocket would’ve been.
My lips trembled and I had to nip down hard on a half-healed cuticle. “Moira, I—”
She raised a hand to my cheek. Her palm felt like the cool side of the pillow as she studied me. At the wisdom and the compassion and the strength I saw, my own eyes started to water.
“No, no. None of that, now. There’s much to do and more. We’ve a voyage to be preparin’ for, now don’t we?”
Letting the cat slide to the floor, Moira stood back up and pulled me into her soft arms for a quick embrace. Then, hands on my shoulders, she spoke.
“Life gives us the path, lamb. But it’s our choice whether to creep and crawl along it, or stride out with shoulders back and head held high.”
For the first time in the two and a half weeks since we’d lost Mac, I saw the familiar spark of spirit.
“Aye,” she said, nodding at my doubtful expression, “I agree. Load of horse malarkey, that is. Mac spouted that same bit off at me when we were new married and I’d burned the rack of lamb. His nasty old besom of a mum was coming for Easter dinner, see, and I was beside myself.” She smiled, her eyes far, far away. “I smacked him with the potholder and told him if he wanted to walk a path so badly, there was the door. Get to steppin’.”
A laugh burst out of me. From the other side of the room came a loud sniff.
Phoebe was leaning against the doorjamb, watching us. She looked as forlorn a creature as any I’d ever seen. Of course, she’d been extraordinarily close to Mac. His death had hit her harder than almost anyone.
Moira said nothing, just held out her arms. Phoebe scrubbed a palm up over her nose and raced to her grandmother. With an arm about each of us, Moira strolled to the window. She gave us each a squeeze, then let go and pushed up the sash.
The temperate breeze smelled of rich earth and stone, of animal dung and the sweet, nutty floral of the heather and gorse. It whisked past us, sending the kitty into paroxysms of delight as she gave chase to a swirl of dust bunnies.
Moira squinted at her granddaughter’s still-drab hair and shapeless clothes.
“No. No, no. I will not have it. Phoebe Marie MacPherson,” she said, in her sternest Gram-speak. “For the love of Mary and Saint Bride, take yourself down to Fiona’s salon straightaway. I don’t want to see you again until that hair of yours is some shade of color one cannot find in nature.”
The grin that slowly split my best friend’s face was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“Oh, but your grandda loved this place with all his heart,” Moira went on, looking out at the vista below.
“He did at that, Gram,” Phoebe choked out. “He did at that.”
Outside, the Highlands were a riot of green and purple, yellow and white. And always, always the gray granite peaks of the mountains. Gnarled and knowing and eternal, they watched over the pastures and townships below.
“And just what is it you all find so interesting?”
We turned to find Aunt Lucinda in a pair of flowy linen pants and curiously bright floral top.
“Just admiring the view, love,” Moira said, her keen gaze taking in Lucinda’s short, now wigless strawberry blond hair and coral lipstick. “And where might you be off to, then?”
“She’s going out with Greta,” my mom teased as she slipped past her sister and entered the room. “Aren’t you, Lu?”
Aunt Lucinda scoffed, though her cheeks pinked. “For heaven’s sake, Sarah, could you possibly act a bit less juvenile?”
“I understand it’s what little sisters were placed on this earth for, or don’t you remember?”
My heart glowed to see a new lightness around my mother’s eyes as she winked at us. Tucking a white strand of hair behind her ear, Mom leaned up and bussed Lucinda on the cheek. “You deserve this, darling. I mean that. I’m happy for you,” she said. “Now, shall Ellie and I walk you out?”
In the field below, two knobby old rams crashed horns, while a group of ewes looked on in bland amusement.
I realized I’d been hearing something else too, for a while. The metallic clink, clink of sword strikes. The groans and grunts of athletic effort. Male shouts.
I had to lean out a bit to see them. In the stable training yard, Bran and Collum were sparring with swords while Doug twirled his oak staff, ready to join the melee.
Collum stayed low, heavy gladiator sword barely moving as his steady gaze tracked Bran’s whirling, fluid motions.
“Earth and fire. Water and air.”
I hadn’t realized I’d said it aloud, until Phoebe snorted. “Oh bother. Hope’s going all poetic on us now.”
I shoved her, and when she laughed, my heart nearly burst.
The boys tumbled to the ground in a heap of steel and muscles. Across the field, the rams slammed together again.
“Males,” Moira said, chuckling, as she walked away. “All the same and no mind the species.”
THE END