Flora McIvor by Donald Smith

Author:Donald Smith [Smith, Donald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction, Jacobites
Publisher: Luath Press Ltd
Published: 2017-05-30T11:26:12+00:00

She was on a river. The boat was moving of its own accord and black water parted on each side of the prow. Thick weeds waved below the surface. The banks on each side were covered by bushes or reeds.

She stared down and trailed her arms in the current. She was searching for pieces from the river. Trawling them from the flow. They were laid out behind her in the bottom of the boat. But something was missing. It was the most important.

Beneath water was speeding up. She was being pursued. As the boat raced she saw something deep below and reached out. It was slipping through her fingers. A face turned. His head was on the river bed. She could not reach.

Hair like weeds, pale flesh, empty eyes. She was falling.

Flora sat up, awake. Her pulse was racing. There was a dull grey light at the window. She wiped her forehead on the sheet, got up and sat at the table. She reached below for paper and dipping her pen began to write rapidly describing her dream.

Then her hand slowed and she put the pen down. This dream had occurred before, though not in recent days. It was already recorded somewhere in her accumulated pages. And she knew the story she was in. Isis searching for her brother, his dismembered body. That was the real sorrow beneath everything. Which she would take with her from the convent as she had brought it there.

Quietly she lifted her unlit candle and opened the door of her room. The corridor stretched in both directions passed repeated doors. A night light flickered on a little table at each end. Flora stepped along quietly and lit her candle from the flame. Then she returned to her room sheltering the candle with her hand.

She set the holder down and lifted the whole basket of papers onto the table beside it. Then carefully without reading any of the words on them she burnt the pages one by one. Till all that she had was a basketful of ashes. By the time she had finished the light outside was brighter than the solitary candle. She shivered, blew the candle out and got back beneath her bedcovers. Quickly she slipped below the surface into peaceful sleep.

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