Glitter of Mica by Jessie Kesson

Author:Jessie Kesson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black & White Publishing
Published: 2017-05-16T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

‘It’s as bright as day, and as quiet’s the grave.’

‘Aye. It’s going to be a right fine night. Mam,’ Fiona assured her mother, finding her hand and squeezing it, the only demonstration of affection they ever allowed, or needed between them. ‘It’s going to be a fine night, Mam,’ Fiona insisted, as they stood looking out on a night that their wish had willed.

You would never have thought that a moon on the wane like this would give such light. But with it was ground frost, and in your mind the promise of the lengthening nights. The quietness over it might well be known to the dead, where every sound was in itself an interruption, and lights snapped up like noise upon the landscape.

‘I’d know the Plunger’s wife’s skirl anywhere.’ Sue broke their own silence.

‘It’s all the Darklands’ cottar wives making for the Rural,’ Fiona said.

‘So it is,’ Sue remembered. ‘God help us. They’ll all be singing And Did Those Feet and Land Of Our Birth the night, then.’

‘I know. Grown-up women seem terrible gowkit when they’re all together,’ Fiona reflected, as they laughed together in the darkness, adding for good measure, in the great goodwill of their togetherness, ‘But you’re never like that, Mam.’

‘Fiona!’ The pressure of Sue’s hand indicated the urgency of her question. ‘The truth, now. Say you had never once set eyes on me or on Isa Riddel in all your life, and suddenly you met us both together on the road, which one of us would you say was the bonniest?’

‘You, Mam.’ The answer was unhesitating and sincere. ‘You are far younger looking and bonnier than Isa Riddel.’

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