She was meant to be playing the role of a good wife, not a nagging one. The words emerged more reproachfully than she had wanted, and she winced, just a little. “You could have sat outside, you know,” she said as she handed it back to him. “Nah.” He held up a carving knife almost sheepishly, passing her the lump of wood in his other hand. “What are you doing?” But she softened, her hand opening out to pat his arm. Now that he’d turned, he was too bright, his skin glowing eerily beneath that single shining ray. He jerked upright anyway, blinking at her through the shaft of light that tumbled in through the chimney-hole. All she could see was the back of his head, hair curling around the paler flashes of his cheeks, and she hurried forward to press her knuckles against his shoulder. “Jamie, are you in there?”Īnd there he was, hunched over by the fire like it was still the depths of winter. Maybe she was mistaken, and he’d headed out – but she hadn’t seen him, nor any of the other children to ask them. “Jamie?” she called, a little hesitantly. At least the cows were gone from their stalls, all put to their still-frosty pasture for the day – but she kept her eyes on the clay floor regardless, picking her way around the channel carved into it. Cold morning light tumbled into the air, catching itself on a hundred fragments of dust, and she wrinkled her nose against the musty smell that greeted her. Sighing, Kirsty hefted Eilidh higher against her hip and pushed the door open. an old call to arms that no one knows or recalls.Īll down the house, the windows were closed. It is said that when death approaches a maccrimmon, be it through age or infirmity, or a time of war, first you'll hear the notes. But they sit with her regardless, after the deaths of her father and brother - and the ripples cast by one of them might just change her life. Kirsty MacLaren has never believed in ghosts, or spirits, or men from other worlds. The thought twisted a knife into her chest, somehow. Just as Alexander’s ghost sat with her, one hand in hers, dragging her down through the earth that had swallowed him. There was something distant on his face, a glassiness in the way his eyes drifted up to the clouds above. “It’s different fabric, ye know, but it’s – coverin’ up a hole, at least, even if the tear’s still there beneath it.” He huffed out a smile, his cheeks reddening so slightly she almost missed it. Like your dress, there.” His toe traced around the corner of a patch. Rolling his foot from side to side, Jamie bumped the edge of his shoe against her calf.
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