Highland Ballad | Page 3

She buried her face and wept once more, defeated.
Again a breeze stirred, this time more gentle, this time much nearer. She felt a large hand caress the crown of her head, and brush the side of her face as she turned again, bewildered. Half blind with tears she saw the wavering outline of a man, and heard a voice whisper,
"My Mary."
She knew no more.
Two
She was found there by her aunt, pale and shivering. And as consciousness and memory returned to her, a light of wild hope and fear widened the deep emerald of her eyes.
"Aunt Margaret, I saw him! He called me by name, I swear it!"
But whether because the wisdom of age had taught her the wishful fancies of the young, or for some other reason, the hale, grey-haired woman elucidated no surprise. She helped the frightened girl to her feet, and without a word, started her on the path to home.
But once Mary had gone the old woman turned, and made her way back to the grave. Reaching inside a goat-skin pouch that hung from her side she produced something cold and pale, and kneeling, laid it upon the heart of the mound. Then rose and looked about her with a narrowing eye. Clasping a withered hand about the amulet that hung from her neck she set off, leaving the bit of melancholy white behind.
A human finger.
The amulet about her neck was a raven's foot, clutching in frozen death a dark opal.
Many hours later the old woman had still not returned to the cottage. Mary sat with her elbows upon the sill of the loft window, the rage of thoughts and questions inside her gradually slowing to the one emotion possible in one who had seen and known such endless disappointment: disbelief.
But try as she might to resolve herself to it, to accept that it had not happened, still the phantom touch lingered inside her, denying all peace. "My Mary." How differently the voice had said those words, than on the day of her brother's passion! And yet how similar, how full of the same love and care. And the only thought that would take solid hold in her mind was that the two feelings, gentle love and hard desire, were one in a man, inseparable, and that even as a child she had inspired both in him. My Mary. Mine. She wanted to fall on her knees then and there, and pray to be taken to him, in death or in life. But the sound of her mother's voice stayed her, rising angrily from below.
"Mary! What are you about? Come down here at once."
Obediently, though without affection she submitted, descending the wooden ladder-stair from the loft that served as her bedroom. Her mother's face and whole bearing spoke of the cold composure, the loveless discipline which always followed such an outburst. It was an expression she had come to know all too well. Wherein lay the mystery of this woman? She did not know, only that there was no commiseration, no sense of shared loss between them, and that she was hardly what the younger woman imagined a mother should be.
But on this day there was especial agitation among her classic, though faded Scot features---round, sturdy face and steady, full blue eyes---and a greater visible effort to control herself. Of late this usually meant that she had quarreled with Margaret. And these arguments, Mary knew, somehow centered on herself.
"Where is she?" the mother burst all at once. Like Michael she often kept her deepest feelings under lock and key, revealing to the world only a lesser parody of herself. But now something had happened---
"Go and find her!" she cried, at long last giving in. "And if she has gone to that witch's hole of hers, then. . .tell her she may just as well stay there, and the Devil take her! I've had enough of it, do you hear? Let them burn her at the stake; I'll not have her bring shame upon this house. It's all the same to me!" And she ran to the armchair by the fireplace, hiding her face in her hands.
The daughter followed, more confused and forlorn than ever. She loved her aunt, though she also feared her, and could not understand the vindictive nature of the words spoken against her.
"Mother, what are you saying? What are you thinking of?"
The hands came down to reveal a tired, careworn face no longer able to think of pity. "So, you never knew she was a witch? How blind a woman can be, when she wants to. Why, you don't even know, still haven't guessed---" She faltered, then cried out. "Dear God, I cannot bear this cross any longer! You have taken my husband, my beloved son, and left me with his temptress." Then turning