To Bewitch a Highlander (Isle of Mull series) (2 page)

Not ten strides away stood a slip of a girl with radiant golden hair, which shone even in the dim forest light. The string of a narrow and intricately carved bow was pulled taught against her cheek, arrow at the ready, aimed at his prize. And as far as he could tell, she did not realize he was there.

She had to be one of the fair folk, but he didn’t know whether she was a threat. As though she sensed his gaze, her head turned, and their eyes met. Then with lightning speed, the girl shifted her weapon, and he stared at the lethal tip of her arrow and into wide eyes, which glinted like steel swords. He jerked back, his footing lost. Twisting to the side, he tried to regain his balance, but the ground at the edge crumbled beneath his weight, pulling him over the brink. As he fell, his eyes connected once more with the now terror-filled gaze of the girl who screamed as he plunged downward. He landed with a thud, and a sharp pain cut through his skull as the world turned black.

Chapter 2

Shoney raced through the woods with her heart pounding in her ears and her mind spinning with terror. She did not know what scared her more, the prospect of the giant gaining consciousness and chasing her down or the approaching darkness. She should have returned home earlier, but all she had to show after a full day’s hunt were a couple scrawny pheasants and a red grouse; then she spotted the stag.

She shot a quick glance back to check if he followed, but the darkness obscured the forest. An advantage Shoney knew he would welcome. Not for a moment did she believe
he
was afraid of the dark. Even now, he might be trailing just behind her, like a wolf stalking a panicked fawn that had lost its mother. As longing for her mother’s protective embrace filled her heart, she realized it was an apt description. Her mother, Brethia, had died three years before, leaving Shoney with a wound impossible to heal. Without her, she was alone in the world—hated, feared, and alone.

Shoney glimpsed light ahead and surged forward to hasten her passing from the gloom of the wood onto the open moors where her way would be lit by the final efforts of the setting sun. When she at last cleared the trees, she knelt straightaway to the ground and readied her bow. If only she had her sword. Her eyes scanned the tree line and the surrounding hills, which were painted with the violets of dusk. As far as she could tell, she was alone. Even so, she held her breath, expecting the giant to launch out of the woods and attack.

After several peaceful moments passed, she lowered her weapon. He did not give chase and likely remained on the ravine floor in forced slumber. Now she need only contend with the approaching shadows, but despite how she longed to race home to safety, she dare not run without the coverage of the trees. Too many clansfolk could spy her crossing the open moors. She stood up and twisted her strong, young back to the left and then hunched her shoulders. The wind blew her hair across her face, and she swore loudly, remembering to pull the hood of her cloak down low past her brow to mask her true identity from the villagers.

“Who’s afraid of the Witch of Dervaig?” she sneered, “everyone.”

She stooped over once more and hobbled off toward home. Concealed beneath the folds of her cloak, nightfall did not frighten her as much: it was always dark under the cloak. Besides, her mind churned with images of deep brown eyes and wide shoulders, which also proved a good distraction from her fear.

He had seen her.

No one had ever seen her before. The villagers knew her only as the crippled and terrifying Witch of Dervaig. She grimaced as she imagined her mother’s fury. Brethia never ceased warning her about the wicked prejudice of the Gaels and was forever reminding her that their only protection from the clan was concealment under the Witch’s cloak. But he had taken her by surprise. One moment, she was aiming her arrow at the heart of a stag, the next she was staring at a man—an enormous man. Before her mother died, she warned Shoney about men in particular, paying special attention to their salacious appetites for young women.

“Fool”, she spat.

Why did she not flee the forest when they first spotted her near the road? She almost laughed out loud when the giant and his companion dove for cover as they hid from the Witch of Dervaig. Little did they know it was not a toothless hag concealing her gruesome facade beneath the dark folds, but rather a young woman more frightened of them than they could ever be of a wrinkled old witch. She overheard his name. It was Ronan, but she could not remember the little one’s name.

“Mother of all”, she swore. What did their names matter?

She cursed again; her mind was racing and fixating on the most trivial points. She had to face the magnitude of her mistakes. She should not have risked lingering in the wood when she knew there were men nearby, and she never, ever should have chanced removing her hood. No buck was worth discovery, even one as grand as that which had been in her sights.

“Damn him”, she swore as she lamented the wealth of meat and the fine pelt lost because of their chance meeting.

Finally, she glimpsed her home outlined against the twilight. Situated near the cliffs on the western edge of the island, her hut stood just beyond the Dervaig Stones. Centuries before, the stones towered above the earth, in a long line. The women of Shoney’s descent worshiped amid the tall stones, but war and weathering brought about the collapse of many. The alignment’s former glory lived on in stories passed from generation to generation. To Shoney they were sisters asleep on an earthly bed, and the power of the stones remained undiminished in her heart.

She shivered as the last light vanished and darkness fully ascended. Her pulse began to race as she tried to limp faster, but her foot caught on a jutting rock, and she stumbled, landing on the game birds, which hung from her belt.

Mother of all, could this day just end?

Hobbling passed the Dervaig Stones, her resolve and strength began to return. Darkness had always been her weakness, even when her mother was alive. Tomorrow she would pray again to the goddess of shadows for courage to face her fear.

She opened the heavy wooden door and passed into her small stone hut. The oversized entrance, better suited for a large abode, was fashioned with intimidation in mind. Dragons and other fierce animals were carved into the surface, and in the center was the head of a serpent baring sharp fangs. It was one of many devices the women of Shoney’s descent used over the years to stave off harassment from the clan. Feeling the weight of it and hearing the loud thud as it closed behind her gave Shoney the reassurance needed to rid her mind of the last dwindling notions of terror. She swept the heavy folds of the Witch’s cloak off her shoulders and breathed a sigh of relief as she hung it on a peg and turned away. It would be ignored until she ventured out again.

In the center of her hut, she knelt by the fire pit. Soon warm crackling flames illuminated her surroundings, but the comforts of home provided only a momentary respite from her troubled thoughts. Something unprecedented had occurred: she had been seen. She now existed to the outside world.

Unable to reconcile herself to the reality of the day’s events, she could not begin to consider the consequences sure to arise from her carelessness. Would this Ronan connect the girl in the forest to the Witch? She removed the hood of the cloak to shoot the stag but not the cloak itself. In one day, all of life’s certainties had receded into memory, and she faced a new world, one in which the secret of the Witch of Dervaig might have been discovered at last.

Perhaps right at that very moment, the giant, backed by the might of his whole army, was crossing the moors, armed with swords and torches. They would drag her out from the safety of her hut and burn her alive.

She shook her head. She was being foolish; even if Ronan were to figure out who she was, nothing would change. For generations, her forbears disguised themselves as the Witch, and the clan had yet to muster the courage to purge their island of her so-called black soul. Whether crone or maid, they would still be afraid…she hoped.

This Ronan, despite his great size, hid from the Witch in the forest. He feared her as much as anyone else.

Ronan.

His name echoed in her mind. She could not recall why it sounded so familiar, and then she remembered. Her mother gleaned details about clan life from stories told by her lover. She always said there were only two good things that came from her brief love affair: Shoney and knowledge. As it turned out, a deeper understanding of their neighbors was Shoney’s only legacy from her father. He fled Brethia’s side before Shoney’s birth, and Brethia had refused to speak of him except when instructing Shoney in the ways of the clan. She asserted it was essential to their survival.

Her father described two competing clans living on their island, the MacLeans to the south and the MacKinnons to the north. According to MacKinnon law, Shoney’s home was on their land, although she was certainly not governed by their law or by their leader whom Brethia called laird or chieftain. If Shoney remembered her lessons correctly, the laird of the MacKinnon was named Nathair, and he had a son whom he called Ronan.

Her eyes widened. She had indirectly rendered the future chieftain of the Clan MacKinnon unconscious. She remembered how he looked as she peeked at him over the ravine edge. He was lying on his back, and beneath his head gathered a small pool of blood. She thought at first he was dead, but then he groaned, causing her such surprise that she scurried back and darted into the woods and did not stop running until she cleared the forest.

She shrugged off her fear. Mayhap he did die, and she had naught for which to worry. It was no less than he deserved. She tracked the buck and took first aim. Besides, he was of the clan, a Gael. The clansfolk had branded all of Shoney’s ancestors as witches, long before the legend of the Witch of Dervaig had taken root, but they were not witches. They were Picts.

She doubted whether Ronan even knew of the ancient people who lived and died on her island long before the Gaels came to stake their claim. The Picts were a magnificent people. The women fought as warriors alongside their men. Together, they safeguarded their kingdom against the Roman, Angle, and Viking campaigns, but it was the Gaels who finally broke through their defenses. Their arrival marked the beginning of the end for the Picts. They infiltrated Pictish lands and society with the goal of establishing a Scottish crown, and in time, they succeeded.

Kenneth MacAlpin was the son of a Gaelic warrior and a Pictish princess, and, because the Pictish throne was inherited though the maternal line, he stood in striking distance from the crown. When called upon, his Pictish mother legitimated his claim, believing in his commitment to the Picts. Then he met his mark in battle defeating all other challengers and became king. Once in power, he betrayed his mother by ruling that the crown would pass to the closest male relation on the father’s side. In the end, he demonstrated his true allegiance by ensuring a Gael sat upon the throne even upon his death.

Only with further bloodshed could the Picts take back the throne, and after centuries of war, they had little fight left. Besides a few minor uprisings, the Picts ceased to rebel, ultimately ushering in the age of their own demise. They had to submit to a new language, a new law, and a new god, or they were banished and became recluses like Shoney’s mother and her mother’s mother, going back centuries. Little evidence remained to prove the Picts even existed. It was as if they were consumed by the Gaels, absorbed into the body of Gaelic tradition. Only women like Shoney remained trained in the art of healing and charms, celebrating the gods of the land, sea, and sky, but even she could only speak the Gaelic language. Pictish had long since been forgotten.

Not only was Ronan of Gaelic descent, but to make matters worse, the MacKinnons were the direct descendants of King MacAlpin himself. Shoney’s hand closed into a tight fist. Fury took hold of her every time she remembered this ancient betrayal. As usual she found herself wishing for something to strike, but now she could imagine her target—Ronan’s face.

Shoney’s forebears suffered centuries of prejudice and abuse, but all that stopped with Tharain. She was Shoney’s great-great-grandmother and the first to don the cloak and feign the extravagant hobble of the Witch of Dervaig. A legend was then born. Tharain hid her own daughter from sight, and when her daughter grew they took turns using the cloak. The villagers only saw the Witch, but all the while it was a disguise used by both women and then passed down from generation to generation.

As a young girl, Shoney remembered never being permitted beyond the confines of their back garden, which faced out to sea. Her mother draped herself in the ugly folds of the witch’s cloak and bid her stay put before she set out to hunt or gather fresh herbs. She remembered asking her mother—whose beauty rivaled the most vibrant sunset—why she wore the cloak and made herself appear ancient and grotesque. She told Shoney she terrified the people as an old crone. She said it was a trick she learned from her own mother. A repulsive hag evoked greater fear in the hearts and minds of the villagers, which ensured they kept their distance.

Although not everyone stayed away, they had the occasional midnight visitor.

 Every now and then when the moon was high, there came a soft rapping on the door. Her mother would sweep the cloak over her shoulders and motion for Shoney to hide. With a candle in hand, Shoney climbed down into a deep dug-out concealed by a trap door beneath the table, which was built by Tharain for the purpose of concealing her own beloved daughter. Shoney sat very still and listened. It was always the same. A woman had stolen away in the night to seek out the aid of the Witch of Dervaig. Her monthly flow had stopped; her monthly flow would not stop; her child was ill; her husband refused to pick up a plow; faeries were stealing their goat’s milk. Depending on the complaint, her mother would whisper charms or send her home with potions or poultices.

One night, Shoney climbed out from her hiding place after hearing the thud of the great door, signifying the woman’s departure. She asked her mother how the clansfolk could hate them so but still come to beg for relief.