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There is less blue light—much less blue. For the first time I have seen it—how the cell’s daytime light is paler, thinner, and I know that the last snow is gone now, or nearly gone. Melted. I reckon there are the small green shoots, the buds like fingertips and an earthy smell—rich, and cool. And hear that? Not a drip, drip. It is a faster sound now. The snowmelt runs.

I know this running sound. I have heard it before in other, lost places, and in those places I knew that it meant my season was closing down for a time, and the spring was flooding into the land—with its filled burns and flowers. Boggy ground softened. Rocks felt warm. And I liked these things—these changes, which spoke of warmth and blue-sky days. But this rushing water and paler light means more than that. A different warmth. Not blue skies, but black ones—filled with the smoke of burning me. Fiery me. Me blazing like homes did.

I used to feel a little sadness, at seeing my weather go—at winter curling up, like furry creatures do when they know that winter comes. The season pressed its snout to its belly, slept, and I’d think then goodbye, for a time. I have knelt in marshes and thought, till next year—for winter always comes back, does it not? Like all seasons? In comes the frost. Then the ice. Then the snow.

I say goodbye to it now. But properly. For I won’t see another.

When it comes back, will you see it for me? Will you breathe against a wall of ice, and watch how your breath steams back for me? Crunch out on snow? Sit by fires?

Look how pink your cheeks are. How wet your shoes are.

It has been a long winter, I know. In the glen, it was long. It was thick frosts which creaked underfoot, and the crump of snow as it fell from my roof. I’d stretch in the mornings, breathe that air.

And the soldiers came in this weather. On a February day they came in their bright-red coats with their polished muskets and cold cheeks. Knocked on the Chief’s front door.

 

WHAT was on my mind that day? I think nothing was. Or maybe it was the small things I’d been looking at—my clouded breath, and a cobweb with droplets on. I know a thin snow was blowing, pricking my face, and my hands were very pink so I turned them over, looking at their pinkness. I was neither happy nor sad. I was just as I was. Sitting on Keep-Me-Safe.

Then, I looked up. In the distance, I saw a line of red. It moved along the shores of the loch, past Ballachulish, and on. I squinted, and thought what is so red? And moves like that?

And I knew it was redcoats.

Soldiers.

How did you know it was soldiers which would murder us? Who has told you? Or maybe the whole world knows, now—that it was soldiers who came to the Glen of Coe. With muskets. With smiles.

 

It changed the glen, of course. All those tall, redcoated men with their Lowland voices and snowy boots which they stamped, in doorways, and with their jokes which I did not hear, but I heard the laughter from them. I was not there to truly see it—how the MacIain greeted them. I was minded to think he’d have roared his dislike and banished them, for he hated all things which had William in it, or by it, and these were William’s men. I thought he might draw out a sword or two. But he did not roar. He saw the falling snow. He saw their cold faces, heard their bellies growl.

He welcomed them, Iain said, when I saw him three days afterwards. Gave them meat. Lodgings.

He welcomed them?

Aye. What else might he do? ’Tis foul weather, Corrag, and they need quartering.

But they’re William’s men…I did not understand.

And Iain sighed, like he often did with me. Like he had no patience for this dull-witted English creature he said did we not sign the oath? To William? We’re no outward threat to him or his men, now—nor are they to us. And it is the Highland way—to offer shelter when asked for it. His garron shifted beneath him. Did we not offer it to you? All those months gone?

They had. I nodded.

Then you cannot protest.

I turned from him, and went, and I remembered his words. Outward threats. Oaths. I knew that Iain’s reasoning was proper. There is no danger I told myself, treading over the ice. And they were smartly done, I saw that. They had their crimson coats and their shiny boots and some had curled, snow-topped wigs. They clanked with their metal. They blew on their hands as they stood in the glen, looking up at the mountains.

There is no danger. All is well.

But still I was not truly calm. Still, there were so many changes in the glen, so many shifts in its air and light, that how could I like it? This coming of men? What, I wondered, of the rocks? What of the tiny, animal lives? It troubled me deeply, despite Iain’s words. With my uneasy sea inside me, slapping itself against my sides, I eyed the soldiers. Holding my breath, I crept like a cat through the snowy parts. I slunk my way to Achtriochtan, and saw a soldier by its loch, making it his privy, and I did not like that. On my dark daytime walks, I saw heavy-booted footprints in the snow by Achnacon where cowslip grew in spring, and would this mean no cowslips? When the spring came in? I chewed upon my bottom lip. I did not see my stag for a week—more than a week.

I worried.

I worried for the glen. I worried for the rocks and water. I worried for the air, and grass, and deer, and that the families would give all their salted meat and smoked fish and turnips to these men, and so starve themselves much later. I worried the way the soldiers called from house to house, through cupped hands, would make a shelf of snow break from the ridge, and thunder down, and claim a human life or two. I worried they would stay, and never leave.

 

AND I had old dreams, of course. I knew what redcoats were. I thought I had left them behind in the Lowlands, on a summer’s night when my mare was still living and my skirt had caught on a bramble, bent, and then freed itself—so they’d looked up from their fire, and…I had left it behind. I had not dwelt on it, for why dwell on past troubles? I had survived it all. But now there were redcoated men in the valley below, and I was sore with remembering the weight on me, the hush now. The pop.

I kept to my hut. Missed my mare.

Not all redcoated men are villains, Mr Leslie. I knew it then, and I still know it. But didn’t Mother Mundy hate all reivers, for always, once her body had been entered on a fiery, autumn night? Not all reivers did what that one had done—but she hated them all anyway. By my hearth, I thought of her. I remembered her face like it was before me—lined, blistered, hairy, sad-eyed. I wondered how she was, and reckoned she was dead, now—her rape and gummy mouth boxed in the earth, and gone.

Such thoughts made me kick stones, and feel lonesome.

Not all soldiers are cruel, Mr Leslie. Most are not.

But I did not like them being in the glen from the start, and that was that.

 

I stayed in my valley, mostly. I would not take myself out of there, by day—fearing the past, and the future, and all in between. Fearing my own self, maybe—for I would look upon my body in my bathing pool and be troubled by its smallness, its muscle, and scars. I saw my own frailty—like the web that a spider makes in corners, I was strong in some places but gossamer-thin, and gossamer-white, and strange. Amongst the clinking ice, I stared. I thought Cora made this. I come from her—and this softened my worries, at times. She had been such a wild, fighting piece. She was in me, and near me, and as the river fell down like glass into the pool, and roared about my ears, I thought I heard her voice. Be strong. Wise.

Love the world, Corrag. Concern yourself with trees. Hills.

I shall.

Good girl. My ghost-baby.

I tried. I made a dish from my hands beneath the waterfall, and drank. I brushed my goats, and spoke to my hens. And, once, I stood at the end of my valley, where a thinner fall of water had frozen blue, and its coldness made my breath steam back at me as I blew upon it, and I remembered my poor mare’s tail which was torn, by that soldier. Whisky, and a redcoat, and she had galloped with me as I’d cried go! Go!

I could feel the ice’s coldness on my face.

I closed my eyes, breathed. To the waterfall I whispered, bring Alasdair to me? His face? And words?

The world hears these little prayers.

So in time, he came.

 

HE CAME as I trod down the sides of Cat Peak, towards my hut, dragging a branch for the fire. I did not see him. I imagined him, instead. I paused, looked down at my hut and imagined how he’d look if he was standing by it—red-haired and rough-skinned, with his wet-wool smell. He might be waiting for me. He might look up…I scolded myself, and walked on. He is not there—only a chicken was, and the hazel tree with its branches of snow, and the dimpled snow beneath it where some had fallen from a branch when a small breeze had come.

But when I reached the hut, he was there. The real him, the breathing one.

You’ve kept away, he said.

And I saw his half-smile. Smelt the wet-wool.

 

WE SAT inside, where the fire was strong, and he took a cup of water which was hot with herbs in it. I thought he looked tired—as if the bairn was taking sleep from him, or he had his own worries. His hair was long, now—thick, and loose upon his neck. The long winter had darkened it, so it was a deep earth-red. Nearly peat-coloured. His beard was also dark.

Why are they here? I asked.

They say that the garrison is full, at Inverlochy. They’ve asked for quarters and food, for a time.

How long?

As long as this weather lasts. Who knows how long?

Do you have enough food for that?

We will make do. We have herring, still. Salted beef. He looked down at his cup. We have four soldiers with us, in our home.

Four?

There are some at each house—from our cousin in Brecklet to the eastern end. He smiled. Some are just boys…The weather makes them wheezy. Their sleeves are too long for them, so Sarah has sewed…

He saw me, watching.

You fear them?

I blushed. I looked down at the fire, unsure of my words. When I spoke, my voice was barely a voice at all. Yes. There are so many. There have never been so many people in the glen before, I reckon…Stamping all over it.

You fear them for what they’ll do to the glen? The plants?

Yes.

He shook his head. The glen has seen worse than some soldiers come by. It’s had battles and famine. Rain upon rain. He eyed me. You think they’ll hurt you?

Inside me, I flinched. Maybe he saw this.

I spoke to Iain. He said you were fretful. Gently, he said why?

They are soldiers.

But they have come peacefully. They are civil-mannered, as are we.

They are the King’s men. That word…

He shook his head briskly, said is this the same girl? The one who trusts the world so much? Who talks of heart and faith as much as she does? I thought I was the one who was hasty to judge.

But—

Alasdair said, Sassenach. I know. I know what life you’ve had. I know that you’ve run from trouble, and that this trouble has mostly come from men, but these are soldiers…We have sworn allegiance to the King they serve. Why would they harm us? Why now? Are we not on their side? He blew out a hard breath, looked into his cup. If we had refused to give them shelter, what then? Our oath would have been forfeited, and we’d have felt the Dutchman’s wrath for it. Or they’d have pulled out their swords, forced it upon us… He drank.

I know.

It will help you, he said, to know that they are Sarah’s kin.

Sarah’s?

Aye. The man who leads these soldiers? He is a Campbell. Robert Campbell of Glenlyon—and Sarah’s cousin by blood. Alasdair shrugged. I’ll admit he’s a drinker, and plays cards too much and too badly—but he is still kin. Still a decent man—or as much as a Campbell can be. Why might he harm us? Her?

I looked down.

In a softer voice he said, when did you stop trusting? I thought that was your way?

It is my way! It is. But I have met soldiers before.

He paused. For a while there was no sound but the fire, hissing. In a darker, slower voice he said, And they hurt you?

I thought to say yes, they did. I thought to tell him that it had been a redcoat who had grappled me, and tried to take me against my will, and who had manhandled my mare whom I’d loved, and he’d put a blade to my throat, and how much I had cried afterwards—and how fearful I was of it happening again. I wanted no claiming. I wanted no stranger’s weight on me. I wanted none of that—no man’s touch, or not from them, and not that way, and I felt my eyes feel hot and wet as I thought of this. But also, I thought of Sarah. I saw how tired her husband looked, and how much worry was in him, and I did not say it. What right had I? To say it? I kept the secret to myself. No. They did not hurt me.

Alasdair leant forwards to me. I am with you in this. I do not like them being here—eating our meat, and burning our fuel. But we have no choice. And my father prides himself on being a host, and a fine one too…Perhaps we’ll be rewarded for our kindness, in time? He winked, touched my hand. They’ll be gone with the first thaw, I promise.

He left, a little later. The hazel tree was heavy with the snowfall, and it creaked, and all night I listened to it—creaking, in the dark.

 

Sarah’s kin, sir. Write that down. Campbell of Glenylon. Sarah’s kin.

Like me, she did not go far, in such weather. Unlike her man, she did not wander the snowy hills or leave their house for much more than fetching water from the streams. She cared for her guests very well. She cut the salted pork, and roasted roots in the fire, and one evening she took the pork bone out into the dark for their dog. She called his name. She called it twice, and he gave a low, throaty sound, and caught the bone as she threw it.

I saw this. I stood near the river which was quiet with ice.

Alasdair had been right. I did not judge—I never had. Or if I ever had, I’d been cross with myself for it. For I had been judged all my life and loathed it—how tangled hair or a high-note voice had made them stare and talk behind their hands, and how Cora’s wild beauty had made witch come out. I’d been so black for that, always. And when I’d found the plum-faced man and his Mossmen in the woods, I’d learnt how truly wrong it is—to judge too quickly, or to judge at all. He had been so kind to me. I’d thought Mossman, and trouble, and been scared, at first. But then I’d sat by their fire and mended their wounds. The plum-faced one told me tales of Scotland, and his life, and maybe that lonely thief was the kindest man I’d met, for years—yet Mossman was all he’d be known for. They’d say thief. Devil. None would remember him as part of the world, with a beating heart. A friend.

 

SO I would not judge the soldiers. I told myself this. In a pail of water I reasoned with my ghostly eyes, my thin face. Only one ever hurt you. And that was years ago…There will not be trouble here.

In a dark afternoon, I took out my herbs. I found elderflower and coltsfoot, and put them under my cloak. And off I set, passing through the boulders which hid my valley from the glen below. I skirted the burn, and the birches, and I sang an old song as I went through the knee-high drifts. It was a childhood song, which Cora would sing. She’d sing it under her breath as she stirred her pot, or brushed her long hair.

The glen smelt of peat-smoke and men. Leather. Metal, perhaps—a cold, sharp smell. I passed Achtriochtan, and I moved beneath the Ridge Like a Church which glowed in the half-light and stared down at me. Some soldiers were by Achnacon. They watched me as I passed.

It was evening, and dark, when I reached Alasdair’s house. It looked like homes do, or should—with smoke drifting up, and candlelight coming from it, and the low sound of voices. I heard a man’s laughter. Outside, a dog scratched his chin with his hind legs, and settled down. It was a good, human sight. I watched, from the shadows.

Sarah came out. She was fire-flushed, with a bone in her hand. I heard her call and she threw the bone, and as she turned to go she said Corrag? Is that you?

I came forwards. Yes.

What are you doing? Standing in the dark and cold? Come in!

I shifted. I only came with herbs. Alasdair said the soldiers had wheezes, so I’ve come with elderflower, which helps—

Never mind what you came for—come in! Warm yourself. And she held out both her hands.

Inside, there were many faces. It was a hot, peaty room which made my eyes prick, and I rubbed them. I took down my hood, for it was hot in there. And I saw four, young-faced soldiers sitting in a line, with meat which they gnawed upon its bone. I saw MacDonald men, also—two from Inverrigan, and the balding man of Achnacon who had said will you dance? to me once, at Hogmanay which felt like a long time ago. They also ate. There was whisky. The fire smoked, and in the dark corner I knew the baby slept, and Alasdair leant against a wall, away from the fire. His head was back, as if sleeping. When I came in, his head lifted up.

Sarah said, Stay. Eat a little food.

I only came with these…

Like he knew what my herbs were for, a soldier coughed. He wheezed into his fist, swallowed hard. He blinked a little, and waited—for perhaps his lungs would wheeze again. But they did not, and he went back to his meat.

I heard that they had coughs, and elderflower’s fine for that. And coltsfoot—bruise it and put in water, and drink it, and—

She thanked me. She took the herbs, bustled. I shifted by the door with the soldiers looking at me.

A man from Inverrigan said, you have fuel enough? In that hut of yours?

I smiled. I do. Thank you.

Food?

Enough.

A soldier said, English? You’re English?

I nodded. Alasdair rose then. He stepped over pots, and boots, and a cow-skin rug, and came to me. He said, you’ve brought herbs for them?

Because you were right. About judging them. They’re people, and they have coughs, and not all folk like the winter months. I was wrong.

Behind him, the Inverrigan men spoke Gaelic to each other. The soldiers spoke English. The baby gave a single, bird-cry.

Stay for food. Come by the fire.

I shook my head. I shook it once, quickly, as if a leaf had fallen on me. He understood. He knew I could not stay, and he knew why. When I looked past him, into the corner, I saw Sarah lift their baby up and heard her say little bird…—and I am hardy, but not always. I looked back at him and said I must get back now.

Some things are hard, even if they are right. Even if you know they are the proper, decent way. I was glad to have left herbs for those men whose lungs and minds had not known Highland winters before. It was kindness. And kindness is worth showing.

My hearth still glowed in my hut. This small, thatched home of mine smelt of chickens, and a soft herb-smell. It felt like I had been away from it for longer than I had.

 

I TOOK herbs elsewhere, in those last days. I went to Achnacon, with lavender, for I knew the lady there was fond of its smell. In a thick blizzard I went to Inverrigan with rosemary—for it cleanses a room very well, and I knew they had plenty of men in there. The boy who had shared honey with me was asleep on the floor, mouth open, and there were muskets lined up by the parlour wall. The captain, this man called Glenlyon, was sitting at its table with Inverrigan’s sons, and they played cards amongst them. His eyes were button-dark. He looked up at me, as I entered, but I did not look back. Instead, I pressed the rosemary to the lady of the house and whispered its uses to her. She nodded. She looked tired, and old, and I thought be well as I left her. Cleanse the air. Be well.

And I took eggs to Achtriochtan. The wife of Old Man Achtriochtan took them in her hands, nodded, and she ushered me into the heat of the room. I did not seek this. I did not hope for food—only to provide it, for I knew they had killed their last hen for these men, and Achtriochtan’s bones were old. But she pushed me to the fire, kissed me, said eat! I counted seven soldiers there. Achtriochtan took his pipe from his mouth. He boomed, clapped his hand on my shoulder. Sassenach!

He smelt of oats. I remember that.

He told his poems by the fire, and it did not matter that they were Gaelic words. I felt I understood them. I knew enough. I felt enough.

I left a fistful of peat outside Iain’s house. It was not much to give, but it was a little—and little things can help more than we know.

 

I WAS soothed, for a while. I looked at the wide, white, empty Rannoch Moor and thought yes. All is well. I found a comfort in the simple tasks—milking my goats, or stroking the oily coats of them—or in the simple beauty of short, winter days. Deer left their tracks. An eagle feather showed itself in the snow, and I lifted it, kept it.

They are Sarah’s kin…

I knew this. And I had seen their faces, heard their coughs.

But still—despite it all—my heart felt unwell in the dark, silent nights. Still, I did not like these soldiers being in the glen. I did not mean to judge them, and I try to like all living things until they hurt me—for bitterness is a sad, pained thing. But I did not like how the beasts the clan had hoped to keep living for another year had been killed, to feed the soldiers, or how much fuel was being burnt. I did not like the redness of their coats against the snow.

I liked the MacDonalds, though. So I gave them gifts—in their final days.

Coltsfoot. Peat. An egg.

 

One more thing you should know, sir. One more.

It was late, late in the day. The snow was thick, with a crust upon it so that it glinted in the dying light. Like eyes, I thought. I had been by Loch Leven. I’d picked seaweed from the shorelines, slipped shells and razor-clams into my pockets, and I made a basket from my skirts which I filled up with weed. Gulls wheeled. I stood and looked, for a time—for the mountains were very black, against the sky, and the loch was silver-bright. Eilean Munda slept, and I thought of its buried people. For a while, I was peaceful as I stood there.

I turned for home beneath a winter sky.

Every window I passed was candle-lit. The air smelt of smoke, and the soldiers’ leather. Their horses shook themselves in the byres.

And with my clinking shells and wet skirts, with a few frail snowflakes drifting through the air, I thought of Cora. I thought of my birth, in such weather—how she must have steamed, and hissed, and how she heard the church folk singing as she roared, so that her voice split. I had come out. And she’d looked down, said witch before my true name.

I held my skirts up, with the weed in them. And as I went, I heard a voice. Not Cora’s. I was past the Carnoch woods, and near the river’s bend. The light was nearly gone, but the farm at Inverrigan was high on the hillside, bright with life, and candles, and soldiers’ songs. I stopped. I listened to it. Was the voice from there? But it came again—much nearer.

It is here. To my left.

I stood very still. I waited.

The voice came again. It was a man’s voice—a frail, singing voice, so frail that I wondered if it was a dead man’s soul, as I’ve heard they can whisper.

I heard branches rustle near me, and a clap of water like a foot had tripped into the Coe. I heard a curse. A hiccough. A Lowland voice.

Not a soul. A real person.

And I thought go, Corrag. Get home.

But as I hitched my skirts a little more and set off towards my hut, he called to me. He heard the crunch of my feet, and said who is there? Who is in the dark? He spoke plaintively, like a child. He struggled as he spoke, for I heard the trees shifting, and snow came down from them. I stood very still, did not speak. I held my breath, half-frightened.

Are you a spirit? he asked. Are you here to mock me? Are you here to punish me further in this—he tripped—snow?

We were both silent, for a moment or two.

Then I heard a branch break, and he stumbled, made a boyish cry of pain. There was the soft, heavy thud of a person sitting down. A sniff. A sigh.

You’re a ghost… he said. I cannot see you, but I can feel you…

And as I stood in the darkness, he cried. I heard him sob a deep, drunken sob—a heartfelt sob, and it had loss in it, and sorrow. Those were the sobs of a lonely man, a drunk, and we listened to it—the snow, the rocks and I. We heard him say Glenlyon… We heard him say maul, and fire.

I took a step to him. I peered into the dark, and saw him—his clouded hair, his button-eyes. In his left hand was a bottle. In his right, I saw a parchment—dark, amongst the snow, and in a spidery hand.

I left him.

I crept away. I trod through the whiteness with his song in my ears—his drunk, mournful song and his heavy breath. There are old songs which Cora said the last of people sing—the last, the lonesome. It is their way of grieving, of soothing their cold hearts. And I thought he sings such a song, I was certain. I pitied him, as I made my way up to my hut. I pitied him, and his heavy song. I thought keep him safe. Calm him.

But it was more than pity.

In my hut, I could not sleep. I still heard his song. My heart sang it, over and over, and I stared at the fire thinking why am I still troubled? Why does it not leave me, this feeling?

I had heard maul… I had seen his bright, black eyes.

 

OH THERE is always sadness. Always grief. I have heard folk say this life could be all hardship and sorrow, if we let it be. If we let our hearts seal over.

I should have stayed, perhaps. Nestled by Glenlyon and spoken with him, for a while. But what might it have changed?

Men have their orders.

 

LATER, a wolf howled.

I stood in the snow, and closed my eyes. It sounded so sad to me. And the howl echoed. It came from Bidean, to the south, and yet it rang about the Coire Gabhail as if the wolf was with me. It echoed inside me, somehow. I felt it. I widened my eyes.

Gormshuil. Once she had said come to me. When the wolf calls.

Listen to your heart’s voice, little thing. And I knew I had to be with her. I knew that she was the one to see—so I left my seaweed drying in the eaves, and my goats sleeping with their heads upon each other, and I ran, and ran.

 

Is it not all there? Are the signs not all there, Mr Leslie? Oh they are now. They are clear as rainwater to the backward eye. The wolf’s call, and the stirred heart. The silence of a snowfall, and the black ink in his hand. My stag had gone—he had taken his branches and wise eye and he’d left across the tops, trod out across the moor, and hadn’t the bats streamed out from their roosts under a half-moon bridge in the days before my mother was taken, and tied thumb-to-thumb? And when did I last hear the owl? It had not called for nights and nights.

The world whispers, and we must hear. And when we don’t hear, we find ourselves running through waist-high snow, with a drunkard’s mourning song in our ears, and I knew what the truth was—I was certain of it. And the morning star was shining, and the trees had broken their boughs with the weight of the snow and you will come to me, after the wolf. You will.

I went. I ran to Gormshuil. And I was fast, that night—fast, as if the wolf’s call had woken me, so that I ran down my gully over the rocks and frozen pools. I ran east, with my heart going thump thump and my breath going in and out, in and out, in and out, and I ran onto the lower slopes of the Dark Mount thinking be there, be there—for what if she was not? What then?

I hauled myself onto stones. I slipped, cut my knees.

But she was there. She was sitting neatly. Waiting.

Ah, she said.

I fell down. I fell before her, and put my hands on her knees, not caring for their scabs or her clotted smell, and I said, Gormshuil, I heard the wolf—I heard it call. It called, and it sounded so mournful, and so wise…And I came to you—

She smiled. Why did you come? To me?

Because you told me to!

No—she shook her finger at me. Because you know it is time, do you not?

Time? For what?

I looked very earnestly at her. I looked, and thought, briefly, that I could see beyond her, beneath her skin—that I could see the truth of her. Mistreated, lonesome, haunted thing. Wise. Half-lost.

I looked about me, then. The peak was so quiet, so I said where is Doideag? Laorag of Tiree?

The snow was thin, small. It hovered in the air. It did not fall—it hung about her face, and caught itself on her pale hair. Gone.

Gone where?

She pressed her lips against themselves, half-smiled but with lonesome eyes. Fled.

Fled? Why have they fled?

Gormshuil breathed out, shook her head. You know. All your talk of second sight, and how you think it’s my henbane that talks when I speak as I do. All sour. All green-handed…’Tis not the herb that’s speaking.

I don’t understand, I whispered.

She wiped her nose on her arm and looked away. She looked across the top of Dark Mount, across the empty hearth and animal bones, and the rags, and the dirt, and for a moment she looked so very sad that I wanted to touch her arm, to comfort her heart. But I did not, for she turned. She licked her teeth. Blood comes, Corrag. It is coming. The girls spread their wings and flew from it—for it’s more blood than they know, or wish to. It comes. A man comes.

Blood? A man?

Oh aye. A man. He’ll write a word or two on you. You with your shiny iron wrists…

I looked at my wrists. My wrists were fine—flesh, not iron.

He’ll come, he will. And it won’t be cold too long, for you. It will grow hot. It will grow fiery hot…

I did not understand. I did not know her talking, and stepped back from her, and gave a small, single wail, for I could feel the snow in the air, and the truth I could not grasp, the strangeness, and I said I am lost with this! I can’t understand…

She took my hand. She held it.

I stared at this—my small hand in her blue claw.

You can. You do. Haven’t you always listened to your heart’s voice, bairn? Did it not bring you here? She leant forwards. Listen to it now. Listen to it now…

I looked upon her. I looked upon her human face, with its hollows, its bruises. I saw the sorrow, the hard living, and I saw my own eyes reflected in her eyes. And as I looked at my own eyes, I saw grass, and a dandelion day, and as the dandelion seeds drifted through the air a man was drowning kittens, and I knew. I had known. My heart had said run! Save them! And I had listened to my heart, and run across the grass, and I had saved five grey cats which had been meant for drowning—but they lived! They lived. And I blinked, and kept looking at my eyes in Gormshuil’s eyes. And I saw my mother, then—not twirling on a rope but standing in her skirts, her hands behind her back and her hair blowing out, and in the last moment before the door went bang she’d seen the autumn skies and thought of me—of me. I’d been her last thought. I’d been her one, all-feeling love—and she smiled as she died, because she was thinking of me. I knew this. I was sure. I had crouched in the dank, border wood and thought she is about to die, and I’d sent so much love to her from those woods that she’d felt it, on her scaffold—she’d felt her daughter’s love. I knew she had! And what else? As I knelt before Gormshuil I saw the Mossman’s face, his plum-mark, and his mouth, and I saw the shape his mouth took when he said Highland at me. Highland… And my heart had said yes as he’d said it. Yes! There! That is the place… And I’d heard my heart speaking, and I’d kicked the mare on. And when I’d breathed the night air of the mountains, and knelt down to feel the cold, sucking peat in my hand, hadn’t my heart and whole being said yes to it? At last. Here. Hadn’t I wept, as I knelt? Hadn’t I always known Glencoe? It had called me. It had sung my name for all its years and years, waiting for me to walk onto its earth with moths in my hair, and thorns on my skirts. It had waited, and called for me—and I came.

And him…

I knelt in the snow and looked at her. I looked at her eyes, and saw my eyes. And I thought him—Alasdair.

Of all the things my heart has known, it has known him most of all.

Never love a person. And I had nodded at Cora as she’d said this. I’d whispered I won’t. But even then—even then! As a child!—I had heard my heart shaking against its ribs, shouting you will love! You will! You will! And many years later, in a room of beeswax candles with the rain outside, I saw his face, and knew.

Gormshuil said, you want the second sight? To be taught it? Half-mad thing…You have always had it.

And she was right. I had. I knew it, as I knelt there. I had always had it, for we all do—all people born with a heart have it, for it is the heart’s voice. It is the soul’s song. I have had it with every starry sky, with each bee that knocked against me as it rose up from a bloom. I’ve had it with kindness—mine, and others’. I’ve had it with the hairs on my arms standing up, at the sound of a clan singing a fireside song, or with my eyes filling with tears at a simple, lovely sight. For it is in these moments that the heart speaks up. It says yes! Or him! Or left or right. Or run.

We all have it. But I think it is people like us—lonesome, in love with the blustery world—who hear the heart most clearly. We hear its breath, feel its turns. We see what it half-sees.

We sat for a moment like that. My hand in her hand. The snow coming down.

Then she leant forward. She put her mouth by my ear so that I could smell her breath, and feel her damp hair against my cheek, and she said the word I’ve said to myself, all my life—a word which a witch’s heart sings over and over, night after night. A second-sight word.

Corrag?

Yes?

You must run.

 

I did. I ran. I left her sitting in the snow and ran down the mountain, sliding on the ice, knocking my bones on the rocks. I ran along the glen floor thinking faster! Faster. For I knew. I did.

It is not what the eyes see—no. I thought it was! I had thought the second sight was a dream, or a vision, a sudden rush of breath. I had thought that the truth might step into my hut, like a ghost, and says its name—that I might find it, if I sought it. But Mr Leslie, I was wrong.

You will know it, in time…

I knew it, now. And I knew it was a feeling—deep, in the chest, or in more than the chest. It was a feeling in the bones, in the womb, in the soul. It was the animal that hides in us shaking its coat, pricking its ears, and telling us run! Or fight! Or love! Or hide!

And I thought go go go.

 

I PASSED the Three Sisters. I passed beneath the Ridge Like a Church. I hauled myself through the snowdrifts, and brushed under trees, and ran.

It was dark when I came to Alasdair’s home. The sky was gone—there was only snow falling down now, and the dark. There was no wind in the glen, and before I knocked on his door I paused, and breathed. I heard the hush. All about me, there was quietness. The smoke rose tall and untroubled. The house was asleep.

But he opened the door like he’d not been sleeping. What is it?

We took ourselves to a darker place, by a tree. I could not talk for being breathless, and I leant forward, breathed hard. He put his hand on my back and crouched down beside me, and said, what?

The red men, I said.

The soldiers?

Yes.

What of them? Corrag?

They will try to kill you. Tonight. All of you. I looked in his eyes—his huge, blue eyes which were shining, so that I saw my own eyes in his eyes, and he did not say no… Or you are mistaken.

He said, how do you know? Who has told you?

I took his arm. No one has told me. But I know—I know! I beat my chest with my fist. I know…

Corrag, he said, shaking his head, why would they harm us? We are their hosts—their hosts! We have fed them, warmed them. My father is playing cards with Glenlyon at this moment… He shook his head more slowly, and then stopped. What reason would they have?

But I stamped my foot. I took his other arm so that I was before him, looking up. I know. I know what your head is saying—I know. But trust me? Please? Trust what I am saying, even if it seems strange? Did I not help your wife? Bring out your son? Didn’t I mend your father when I barely knew him and was so desperately afraid—but I still mended him? I don’t know why they will hurt you, but they will, Alasdair. Tonight, they will. I am more certain of this than I have been certain of all other things, in all my whole life. My heart knows it—here.

He stared.

I know what second sight is, now. I have it, I said. We all have it. We are born with it, as all creatures are… I calmed myself. Please—listen to me.

The snow came down. The snow was on his hair, and his plaid. He said, what do we do? We have no arms—or not as they have. And now it snows…

Go. Flee.

Flee? In this weather? It will kill folk. Perhaps just the men will flee. The women can stay for they surely won’t be hurt…

No—all of them. Take all of them.

Women? And bairns?

Yes. Go. Make for Appin. I don’t think a single living soul is safe, tonight.

He stepped back. He looked at the ground and made a sound like he was tired of this, of me—like he did not trust me at all, after all. He turned his back. He put his hand in his hair, and I thought please listen…

There was a moment which was my breath, and no other sound.

Yes, he said. Yes. You talk of what the heart knows? I’ve felt this trouble in me since they came—here, and he felt his chest. They have smiled, and sang, and we’ve fed them, and yet…I’ll find my brother. I’ll tell him, and I’ll go to Inverrigan and listen at the door.

Waste no time. Get as many out as you can.

Yes. He stared at me like I was new, like we had never met before. He was all eyes.

I must go.

He stepped forwards. What? Where to?

To Inverlochy, I told him. I’ll run there. You say the Colonel Hill is kindly, and a friend of the clans, so I will tell him. I will tell him they are killing the people of Glencoe, and he will come back with me with horses, and men, and save us. I must go.

I wanted to say be safe to him. Do not die. I wanted to speak of how I felt, which was huge, and beyond all words. But I said nothing.

He spoke instead. He called to me, as I set off to the north. He said, I will see you again, Corrag. And like he had had faith in my words, and my truth, or like he also had the second sight in him, I believed his.

I smiled, briefly.

Then I ran.

 

I ran. I ran.

Take my hand? I am running. I am sitting in a cell, in chains, but I run. I run north to Inverlochy. I run to save their lives.

 

TOMORROW I will tell you of the Glencoe massacre. The dead, and the living. Him. Me.

 

HOLD my hand? I am running. All my life, I have run.