The Pictish Child (10 page)

“Or anytime,” added the dog, sniffing. “The nose kens all.”

Molly jumped off the gate and ran into the cemetery, toward the oak where the Pictish graves lay.

“Wait!” Jennifer called. “Molly! It might still be dangerous!”

The dog sniffed the air again. “Definitely gone,” he said. “Let the bairn run.”

Still they all chased after her and when they caught up, she was down on her knees under the tree. “Look, Jen! Look, Peter! Look, dog!”

They looked. And Gran, who had caught up with them, looked as well.

The three large graves were still there, undisturbed. But of the littlest grave, there was no sign.

Gran smiled. “She gave Auld Kenneth an earful, indeed. That Maggie MacAlpin always was a good talker.”

They left the car in front of the Eventide Home and walked back to the cottage. There was a light scattering of rain, but no one seemed to mind it.

“Da can drive the car back himself,” said Gran. “I think that's safer.”

They all agreed, and Peter seemed the most relieved.

“I'd probably have driven it right through the garage wall.” He was actually grinning.

“Through the door first,” added the dog, “and then into the wall. Ye have an uneven foot on that pedal.”

“I dinna think so, Peter dear,” said Gran. “I wouldna let ye.”

“Let
me?”

“Were you keeping us safe all the way along, Gran?” asked Molly. “With magic?”

“Let's just say,” Gran told her, “that I was praying mighty hard for the lad. Uneven foot and all. If it's mechanical magic he has, he's nae quite grown into it yet.”

Jennifer nodded. “Boys
do
mature later than girls,” she said.

“Later than dogs as well,” said the dog. He braced himself for a yank on the leash.

But Peter just laughed. “Gran—I hope you'll come to America in three years.”

“Why three exactly?” asked Gran. “Be it a magical number, ye mean?”

“It's when I take my driving test,” Peter said. “And Scottish magic then—well, it couldn't hurt.”

Peter and Molly were sent out to the garden to straighten up the mess they'd left, and the dog followed close behind. To their astonishment, there was the horse, contentedly cropping the grass, his once-glossy coat matted with sweat.

“I thought ye were off fighting battles,” said the dog. “Winning wars. Blowing into Pictish noses. Snuffling hotly into their hands.”

“And quite a battle it was, too. It went on for many long hours.”

“Really?” Peter asked.

“And since when does a horse have any sense of time?” muttered the dog. “Carry a clock, do ye?”

The horse pointedly ignored him. “Well, many long minutes, anyway. Those weapons are heavy, you know. Blow after blow after—”

“Enough blowing!” moaned the dog. “Get on wi' it.”

The horse shook his head. “Some folk have no sense of story.”

“Story, yes—but yer making it a history,” said the dog. “With nae beginning and nae end, only lots of middle.”

“Please go on, Thunder,” Peter said softly. “With the story. We really want to know.”

“Really!”
Molly added.

Thunder nodded, obviously pleased with his new name. He grinned, showing large yellow teeth. “For you, Peter, and you, Molly, I will continue the tale. But not for him.” He lifted his head toward the dog, who was now studying his paws.
“He
is a Philistine and a boor.”

Molly clapped her hands. “Go on! Go on!”

The horse cleared its throat. “When at last the Scots champion slammed Bridei with the butt end of his spear …” The horse paused. “And a false blow that was, I can tell you.” He sniffed loudly. “Poor Bridei slipped off my back and, falling, pulled loose the stone in my mane.”

“On purpose?” asked Peter.

“Or accident?” asked Molly.

“Does it matter a whit?” asked the dog.

The horse ignored them all, deep into his own story. “And then Bridei was gone, into the dark mist, and the mist gone with him. I had been tied to them and to time by that knotted stone, and when it was undone, I returned here. To the garden. With naught to do but wait for you.”

“A likely story,” said the dog, scratching himself. “And much too complicated.”

“It
has
to be true,” said Molly. “Thunder's all sweaty. And look—some of his mane's been pulled out.” She patted the horse on his neck and he turned his head back to nuzzle the top of Molly's hair.

“Och—and another fine display, that,” complained the dog. “Do not, I beg ye, Mistress Molly, blow in his nose. It only encourages him.”

But Molly, taking the dog's complaint as some kind of dare, pulled the horse's head down till his nostrils were even with her mouth and blew.

Meanwhile Jennifer was helping in the kitchen. “Do you think Ninia lived to grow up? To get married? To have babies? To be a queen?”

Gran put her head to one side, considering. “It was probably Ninia as a grown-up, remembering what was to happen in the future, and carefully taught by Maggie, who sent that stone through history in the hands of MacAlpin women, till it reached here centuries later.”

“Whoosh!” said Jennifer. “Like a snake swallowing its tail! She lived here and so, with Maggie's help, knew in the past what to do to make the future safe.”

Gran smiled. “Yer quick, my lass. I'm pleased with ye.”

Jennifer beamed.

“Ninia certainly didna die young,” Gran continued. “There was no grave in the cemetery for her. And there's
always
been a child's grave there, as far back as I can remember—which is very far, indeed.” She handed Jennifer a towel for drying.

“I'm glad,” said Jennifer. “Though it seems strange to be happy about something that happened hundreds and hundreds of years ago. I mean—however Ninia's life turned out, it's in the way far past.”

“We are
all
someone else's past,” said Gran. She began to wash the dishes. The white cat suddenly appeared in the doorway and came over to twine around her legs.

Jennifer considered what Gran had said for a long moment, wondering whose past
she
could possibly be.

“Gran …” Jennifer at last said slowly. “What do you think the dark mist was?”

“Concentrated history,” said Gran, handing Jennifer a dish. “And tied somehow to the little stone, the focus of MacAlpin power. When the stone was given to Molly and then you took it up with your raw, untrained American magic, that history began to unravel and Ninia got flung forward to knit it up again.”

“To get the stone?”

“To get what the stone was sent for, hand to hand over the years.”

“Then it was a race, really, between the stone's wishes and the mist's wishes?”

“Something like that,” said Gran, handing more dishes to Jennifer. “Though neither stone nor mist actually wished anything. It was Ninia's wish—the grown-up Ninia's, as well as the child's—that used both stone and mist to get what was needed. The stone to change things, the mist to open the gates of time.”

“And Bridei?” Jennifer said, swiping at the dishes with her cloth.

Gran sighed. “Ah—Bridei. I think Ninia hoped when he appeared that he might win. But she was taking no chances. He had lost before in the past, so why should he win here? She sent herself into the future, her child self, and Bridei simply followed.” Gran turned off the faucet and dried her hands.

“So the past got more than it bargained for,” Jennifer said.

“Och—aye, that it certainly did. It got Maggie MacAlpin.” She suddenly put her apron over her eyes, and her shoulders shook.

Jennifer set the dishes down and went over to Gran and hugged her. “Don't cry, Gran. I know Maggie's having a good time. Surely better than in the Eventide Home.”

“Och, I ken that, all right,” said Gran. “But I am going to miss her sorely. We've been the best of friends since childhood, and noo she's gone away. As far away as ever she could.”

“And you wish she were back?”

“Maybe I just wish I were with her!” said Gran. She dried her eyes with the apron. “And dinna ye be telling Da I said so, or I'll have a year of explaining to do.”

Just then they heard a key turning in the lock. “Speak of the auld de'il himself,” said Gran. “What a story we shall have at tea!”

And they did, too, though no one quite believed it. Not even themselves.

A Scottish Glossary

aboot
—about

ain
—own

auld
—old

bairn
—child

besom
—unpleasant woman

blether
—nonsense

bricht
—beautiful (as in a beautiful woman)

brolly
—umbrella

canna
—cannot

carline
—old woman, witch

clan
—one's extended family

crisps
—potato chips

cummer
—witch

dab
—light, soft, fine

daft
—crazy

de'il
—devil

didna
—did not

dinna
—do not

dreech
—wet, dreary

fash
—bother, annoy

fob
—to palm (off) something

glundie
—a fool

gomeril
—loud-talking fool

gormless
—stupid

greetin
—crying, weeping

greetin teenie
—someone who is always complaining

haar
—a sea mist

hae
—have

havering
—going on and on about something

hokeypokey
—ice cream; hocus pocus

honk
—throw up, vomit

keep us
—God keep us safe

ken
—know

kin
—relatives

lad, laddie
—a boy

laiging
—gossiping

lang
—long

lass, lassie
—a girl or young woman

midden
—dung heap

muckle
—great

nae
—not, no

nain
—none

noo
—now

puir
—poor

sommat
—somewhat, something

tea
—can be used to mean supper

wardrobe
—a stand-alone closet

wee
—little, very little

wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous
—from the Robert Burns poem “To a Mouse,” it means “small, sleek, cowering, frightened”

weel
—well

wellies
—short for “Wellingtons,” rubber boots

willna
—will not

wi'oot
—without

A Personal History by Jane Yolen

I was born in New York City on February 11, 1939. Because February 11 is also Thomas Edison's birthday, my parents used to say I brought light into their world. But my parents were both writers and prone to exaggeration. My father was a journalist; my mother wrote short stories and created crossword puzzles and double acrostics. My younger brother, Steve, eventually became a newspaperman. We were a family of an awful lot of words!

We lived in the city for most of my childhood, with two brief moves: to California for a year while my father worked as a publicity agent for Warner Bros. films, and then to Newport News, Virginia, during the World War II years, when my mother moved my baby brother and me in with her parents while my father was stationed in London running the Army's secret radio.

When I was thirteen, we moved to Connecticut. After college I worked in book publishing in New York for five years, married, and after a year traveling around Europe and the Middle East with my husband in a Volkswagen camper, returned to the States. We bought a house in Massachusetts, where we lived almost happily ever after, raising three wonderful children.

I say “almost,” because in 2006, my wonderful husband of forty-four years—Professor David Stemple, the original Pa in my Caldecott Award–winning picture book,
Owl Moon
—died. I still live in the same house in Massachusetts.

And I am still writing.

I have often been called the “Hans Christian Andersen of America,” something first noted in
Newsweek
close to forty years ago because I was writing a lot of my own fairy tales at the time.

The sum of my books—including some eighty-five fairy tales in a variety of collections and anthologies—is now well over 335. Probably the most famous are
Owl Moon
,
The Devil's Arithmetic
, and
How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?
My work ranges from rhymed picture books and baby board books, through middle grade fiction, poetry collections, and nonfiction, to novels and story collections for young adults and adults. I've also written lyrics for folk and rock groups, scripted several animated shorts, and done voiceover work for animated short movies. And I do a monthly radio show called
Once Upon a Time
.

These days, my work includes writing books with each of my three children, now grown up and with families of their own. With Heidi, I have written mostly picture books, including
Not All Princesses Dress in Pink
and the nonfiction series Unsolved Mysteries from History. With my son Adam, I have written a series of Rock and Roll Fairy Tales for middle grades, among other fantasy novels. With my son Jason, who is an award-winning nature photographer, I have written poems to accompany his photographs for books like
Wild Wings
and
Color Me a Rhyme.

And I am still writing.

Oh—along the way, I have won a lot of awards: two Nebula Awards, a World Fantasy Award, a Caldecott Medal, the Golden Kite Award, three Mythopoeic Awards, two Christopher Awards, the Jewish Book Award, and a nomination for the National Book Award, among many accolades. I have also won (for my full body of work) the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Science Fiction Poetry Association's Grand Master Award, the Catholic Library Association's Regina Medal, the University of Minnesota's Kerlan Award, the University of Southern Mississippi and de Grummond Children's Literature Collection's Southern Miss Medallion, and the Smith College Medal. Six colleges and universities have given me honorary doctorate degrees. One of my awards, the Skylark, given by the New England Science Fiction Association, set my good coat on fire when the top part of it (a large magnifying glass) caught the sunlight. So I always give this warning: Be careful with awards and put them where the sun don't shine!