summer was upon the highlands. the serene curves of the hills glowed with a hundred shades of green and tawny and rose, all with a faintly unreal, spirit-of-opal quality, so that the distances looked no more solid than a rainbow.
kelpie breathed the salt wind as she climbed higher above the glen, and stared hungrily at the distant hills. for she was beginning to feel restless. a wee glen was not space enough, and there were too many people, too much routine, and she must away to the hills to be alone. here were only the mild shaggy cattle peering mournfully from behind long fringes of hair, and the hares and red deer, the hill larks and whaups and gulls, and an eagle—high and alone in the free air.
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her acute senses had been lulled by the months of security at glenfern, and she was startled to see the bent, wiry figure of mina rise unexpectedly from behind a clump of juniper.
they looked at each other, and kelpie’s expression could not possibly have been mistaken for delight. mina took one good look at it, swung back her strong, scrawny arm, and aimed it at kelpie.
it seemed that kelpie’s reactions as well as her senses had become rusty. she didn’t duck in time. and, since mina had fully expected her to, the resounding smack startled and pained them both.
mina shook her stinging hand and glared at kelpie as if the girl had done it on purpose. kelpie, her head ringing, glared back. and black bogle, who had appeared as silently as his eerie namesake, shook with malicious laughter.
“amadain!” grumbled mina sourly. “forgotten everything you ever knew! fine-lady clothes and clean face, and hands that will have lost all their cunning—such as it was. blind and deaf and slow as a sleeping snail. amadain!”
“sssss!” remarked kelpie, looking and sounding like a wrathful snake. she had forgotten how ugly and mean and dirty mina was. och, how she hated her!
mina looked pleased. she enjoyed kelpie’s impotent hatred. and kelpie, knowing this, controlled her feelings
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and hooded her eyes and made her sharp-jawed small mouth curl upward. she had been a fool to show her feelings at all at all!
“come away, then,” ordered mina, suddenly becoming brisk. “you have kept us waiting long enough! why weren’t you coming as soon as you got my message?”
“what message?” asked kelpie blankly. mina’s eyes blazed with fury and humiliation. bogle laughed aloud, and kelpie knew that mina had tried to send her a message by magic—and it hadn’t worked. och, but she must say something quickly, or no telling what mina might do!
“it would be yon red-haired serpent down there,” she said improvising hastily. “he was no doubt setting up a spell to prevent your message from reaching me. teach me to say spells, mina,” she wheedled, “so that i may set one on him.”
it worked. mina’s pride was saved, and her wrath turned from kelpie to alex. “i will be cursing him myself,” she growled. “he is the same one who would not pay me enough when you were hurt, and who would not let you steal? very well so! he will pay, and the others as well. we will go now and demand your wages before you leave.”
leave? kelpie’s heart sank. back to the old life of fear, hatred, beatings? away from wee mairi and ian and the companionship and teasing? she backed up a step and braced herself.
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“what for should i want to leave?” she stuck out her jaw rebelliously, and mina slapped it.
“because i am saying so!” she snarled. “and because i will put an evil curse on you if you do not obey.”
kelpie prudently pulled in her smarting jaw and considered this. on one hand, mina was not as powerful as kelpie had thought, for she almost certainly could not read the crystal alone, and her magic message had failed to get through. but that was not to say she could not curse. kelpie still had great faith in the power of mina’s evil spells. and mina’s curse would be even more disagreeable than her company. kelpie brooded darkly over the unpleasant alternatives before her, almost inclined to risk the curse.
“why would you not want to come?” demanded mina, and her cursing changed to wheedling. “and here i have been to the trouble of arranging for you to learn witchcraft at last, ungrateful wretch that you are, then! what, would you stay to be a slave to arrogant fools such as these? stupid sheep, spending their lives shut in a wee glen?”
“they do not, then,” muttered kelpie mutinously. “ian and alex have been to school in england in a place called oxford, and have seen the king and montrose and know more than we about affairs. and they do not beat me, nor make me steal for them and then set the crowd on me. and i do not believe you plan to teach me witchcraft,
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whatever, for you are always promising it and never do it.”
mina’s face darkened, and she raised a scrawny, strong arm again, but bogle loomed over her and drew her aside to speak for a moment in a voice like distant thunder. kelpie watched apprehensively. when bogle intervened, it was never for motives of kindness and charity.
“hah!” mina cackled presently and turned back to kelpie. “and what of the wee bittie lass we were seeing you playing with so tenderly this morning? shall i put a curse on her, too? aye, on all the glen i shall put the evil eye, so that they will all wither up and die horrible deaths!”
kelpie’s defiance collapsed like a deflated bagpipe. not wee mairi! she could not bear to risk harm for her bonnie bairn. but she must not let mina know how vulnerable she was on this point, or she would be in slavery and wee mairi in danger forever more! carefully keeping her face impassive, she shrugged indifferently. “och, well, just do not be putting it on me,” she murmured, and noted that both mina and bogle looked disappointed. “and will you truly be teaching me witchcraft if i come?” she demanded, as if this were her only interest.
“have i not said so?” mina growled. “was it trying to drive a hard bargain you were, then? i should beat you for it! come away down, now, for we have wasted too much time already.” and she led the way down the hill.
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it was the twins who first spotted the assorted trio approaching, and they began to shout excitedly.
“kelpie, is yon your grannie witchie? father, ian, come and see!” they yelled in full voice. and then, short kilts swinging, they raced up the slope to stare at mina and bogle with frank, fearless curiosity.
“are you truly a witch?” demanded ronald, and, in spite of her gloom, kelpie stifled a grin at the look on mina’s face.
the old woman drew herself up and glared at them. “best not be asking that!” she warned in an ominous croak that should have completely cowed them, but didn’t.
“why not?” asked ronald with great interest. “what will happen if we do? do you not think, donald, that she looks like a witch?”
“ou, aye,” declared donald judiciously. “but we have not seen her casting any spells yet. can you cast spells, grannie witchie?”
kelpie’s amusement changed to apprehension as the infuriated mina spluttered speechlessly. it was probably only her speechlessness and the timely arrival of glenfern that saved the twins from an awful fate. mina gave them one last baleful glare—kelpie fervently hoped it wasn’t the evil eye—and turned to the tall chieftain. kelpie glanced at him, and at ian, eithne, and alex, who arrived just then from down by the loch, and then stared sullenly at the ground. she dared not look straight at them, for if
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they were to read her eyes and guess how she felt, then they would refuse to let her go, and so mina’s curse would be upon them. and now kelpie found that her old misgivings were justified. she had recklessly given her affection and left herself vulnerable, so now she must suffer the consequences. angrily she promised herself never to be so weak again.
“well, then,” said glenfern pleasantly at last. “and are you leaving us, kelpie?” she jerked her head, not looking at him. “i am sorry to hear it,” he said gently, “for i think you were happy here, and we have come to like you well.”
“oh, kelpie!” eithne protested, shrinking a little from mina and bogle. “can you not stay?”
“och, you cannot go!” clamored the twins in outrage. “who will be telling us stories now?”
kelpie scowled, chewed her lip, and wished herself a thousand miles away. and worse was to come, for a brief glance upward showed her that all of them, from mina to the twins, were on the verge of guessing her true feelings. she tossed her head and gave a hard little laugh. “och, i’m away,” she said airily, “for i’ve bided too long in one place.”
glenfern was looking at her keenly. “you are welcome to stay, you know,” he told her.
“aye, to slave for you without pay!” whined mina in her most put-upon voice. if she had been slow to the
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attack, she made up for it now. “we have come to have her wages.”
from under her lashes kelpie saw the hurt on eithne’s face, and something like pity on ian’s. only alex wore a look of acid amusement that set kelpie’s teeth on edge. and glenfern was giving mina the same stern look he used when the twins had been naughty.
“i think you must be joking,” he said quietly. “we have treated this lass far better than ever you have done. we have fed her properly, clothed her in decent, clean garments, taught her, given her affection and a roof over her head and a bed under her. what have you ever given her save harm and neglect?”
“she is ours!” mina squealed angrily, but she must have seen that she would get nowhere, for she suddenly changed tactics. “would you be wanting mac cailein mor to hear things about you?” she hinted softly. “things about how you are favoring king charles, and what you think of the covenant, and your own son associating with the king and bringing back messages from him, and from montrose as well, perhaps?”
there was only one way mina could have learned these things. everyone looked at kelpie, who stuck out her chin and grinned brazenly. ou, the wicked, careless tongue of her, to be telling mina that! ian and eithne were looking as if she had slapped them. there was a smile on alex’s lean face and scorn in his eyes.
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“and so you have not really changed at all,” he observed softly, and was surprised at the bitterness of his own disappointment. after all, what else had he expected? but his tongue went on scathingly. “selfish, faithless, unscrupulous you are and always will be. you could never think of inconveniencing yourself for the good of another, could you, kelpie?”
“of course not,” said kelpie defiantly, but the sweet face of wee mairi was warm and mocking in her heart.
“let be, alex.” ian sighed. “she cannot help it. there was not enough time to change old habits.”
“nor ever will be,” retorted alex.
kelpie hissed at him venomously. “faithless yourself!” she spat. “do not be forgetting what i told you, ian!” and she turned away to glenfern, who was laughing at mina.
“by all means go to argyll,” he said cheerfully. “tell him whatever you like. he knows well enough where our sympathies lie. but leave the lass behind you when you go, for i should not like her to be burned as a witch along with the two of you. and now, farewell. i am sorry,” he added, turning to kelpie, “that you could not stay with us, poor lass. remember that we wish you well.”
that was really almost too much. kelpie turned abruptly and started up the pass with mina and bogle, who knew when they were defeated. at least it was over, and she must just put it away out of her memory.
but it was not quite over. halfway up the hill a small
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voice wailed after her. she turned to see wee mairi tugging at eithne’s hand, one small arm stretched out and upward. “my kelpie!” she shrilled. “do not go away, my kelpie!”
mina’s pale eyes were upon kelpie, narrowed, watchful, suspicious. kelpie set her jaw, hardened her face, and deliberately turned her back on the broken-hearted little figure below.
the next few miles were blurred. kelpie tramped mechanically behind mina and bogle, unseeing, trying to wipe three months out of her life and become the person she had been before. och, she had been right to begin with! a feckless, foolish thing it was to care for anyone, and only hurt could come from it. from now on she would be hard as the granite sides of ben nevis, which now loomed ahead, snow still patching its sheer northern side. she would be what alex thought her—and a pox on him, too. nor would she even care that he would strike down that braw lad ian, for ian had had his warning, and it was his own fault if he was too stupid to heed it.
scowling, she kicked at an inoffensive clump of bluebells and deliberately stepped on a wild yellow iris. she would become a witch, then; not a “coven witch,” either. she had seen them—silly people, who made a great ceremony of selling their souls to the devil and met in groups of thirteen, called covens, and held black mass, and
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did a great deal of wild dancing. mina said these were little more than playing at witchcraft and learned only a few simple spells. no, now, kelpie would be a witch of the old sort, who needed no bargains with satan, but who tapped a power that was old before the beginnings of christianity. a power it was that could be used for either black or white magic, but kelpie had seen little of the white, and black seemed much more congenial, especially in her present mood.
she drifted into her old dream of what she would do one day to mina and bogle. aye, and perhaps she would just add alex as well. they were over the pass and heading south along the side of loch lochy before she came back to herself and began to wonder about the present.
“where is it we are going now?” she demanded, moving up to walk beside mina, half off the narrow path. “when will you be teaching me witchcraft? what are you planning?”
mina cast a thoughtful eye at kelpie’s blue dress, now kilted up through her belt for easier walking. “i think that would be fitting me,” she remarked casually. “we will be telling you what you will need to know when it is the right time for knowing it,” she added so mildly that kelpie looked at her with dark suspicion.
falling behind once more, she began again to brood over her life. it consisted of being pushed from one situation into another. it was other folk who acted, and herself
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who reacted, who was acted upon. was she, then, such a spineless creature? was her whole life to be molded by others? rebellion once more rose in her, but then subsided as she remembered the two-pronged stick that mina held over her—nay, three-pronged, really. she could curse kelpie, and she could curse wee mairi and ian and the other folk of glenfern, and only mina could teach kelpie witchcraft. and witchcraft, now, had become the only goal in her life, the only hope of escaping the hateful mastery of mina and bogle. kelpie set her teeth, and the look on her face was neither pleasant nor attractive.
down to the tip of loch lochy and on down the river they plodded, past the home of glenfern’s chief, lochiel; and at last they made camp for the night in the old unfinished castle of inverlochy. roofless it was, and built four-square, with a round tower at each corner, and kelpie narrowed her eyes thoughtfully as they went in. mina and bogle never looked for walls about them, except sometimes in the cold of winter. what was afoot?
for the moment there was no time to wonder. mina nodded brusquely at the river, which flowed just outside the arched stone entrance. “gather us firewood,” she ordered, “and then guddle us some fish—if you have not forgotten how.” her pale eyes rested again on kelpie’s dress, and bogle chuckled.
an hour or so later, annoyed but not in the least astonished, kelpie wiped her greasy fingers on the dirty rags
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which now covered her, and glowered across the fire at mina. the hag and the blue dress were more or less the same size, but of far different shapes. the dress sagged across the front of mina’s hunched shoulders and strained ominously across the back, and was at once too long and too narrow in the waist, and the cuffs reached in vain for those long bony wrists. kelpie had a mental picture of bright hazel eyes dancing in wicked amusement in an angular red-topped face. for once she could have appreciated alex’s sense of humor, and her own white teeth showed momentarily in a matching grin.
mina glared at her suspiciously, and kelpie hastily stopped grinning. dhé! mina was almost as bad as alex himself at seeing what she shouldn’t! and she mustn’t anger mina too much—not yet! so she lowered her slanted eyes more or less submissively and waited.
“hah!” said mina suddenly. “you think i am not knowing what you are thinking?”
kelpie devoutly hoped not. she had no desire to be turned into a toad or something equally unpleasant. best to walk warily—neither too innocent nor too defiant. “i am wondering what you are about,” she retorted sullenly. “i have learned the things you were wanting me to, but you have not told me why, nor have you taught me any spells.”
“hah!” said mina again. “first we will read the crystal.”
and presently, under the ghost-light of the summer
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night, kelpie sat again with her hand in mina’s horny claw and gazed into the blank crystal ball. it remained still and empty. “i see myself,” invented kelpie impudently. “it is in a place that i have never been, and i am wearing a blue dress—”
mina turned on her in sudden suspicion, and kelpie prepared to duck. but they were distracted by a small flicker of light that came from an upper window of one of the castle towers. for an instant, fear gripped kelpie. was it an uncanny creature of some sort? then she noticed that bogle was nowhere in sight, and she chewed her lip thoughtfully.
sure enough, presently his shadowy figure emerged from the tower door. he came back to the fire and sat down without a word. but kelpie thought she had seen him put something in his new leather sporran (recently stolen, without doubt), and there passed between him and mina a long look and the tiniest of nods.
kelpie pretended to notice nothing, but her mind was busy. it couldn’t have been magic he was up to, for bogle did no magic except for ordinary curses. it must have been a message, then—a message left for him here, and they had known where to look for it. and that was why they camped in the castle instead of out in the open.
och, there was something in the air, indeed and indeed! kelpie went to sleep wondering what it might be—and how she might be turning it to her own advantage.
