MacKinnons' Hope: by Tanya Anne Crosby

Author:Tanya Anne Crosby
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Highland
Published: 2015-10-20T01:42:43.158000+00:00

CHAPTER 3

December 22, 1135

Dawn broke over a smoky landscape.

The bonfire that had burned so bright the evening before was now reduced to ash, leaving naught but a bed of burning coals.

Malcom awoke with a start.

Quick on the heels of the realization that he’d fallen asleep was the realization that he was also the first to wake. The first pleased him not at all. The second filled him with relief, because everything and everybody—as far as he could see—was still in one piece.

The ground was covered with sleeping forms. Feet intertwined, arms and legs askew, heads over and beneath leaf-covered tartans. It was a veritable sea of sleeping folk, all wearing cherry-red noses from the cold and dirty faces from sleeping on half burnt grass.

He didn’t spot Constance, and hoped she would have gone to her bed. Good girl, he thought, and said a little prayer that it must be so.

Rubbing at his eyes, he stumbled to his feet, realizing that the haze of the morning was more mist than smoke. Even now, the rising sun was burning it away, brightening the landscape. Yawning, he stretched, intending to go searching for Constance, and froze where he stood.

It wasn’t possible.

He rubbed his eyes and looked again.

Nay, it wasn’t possible.

But it was.

They were surrounded—not by half finished homes—but by fully formed cottages, all with roofs complete with thatch. For an instant, he wondered if some faerie had lifted him up and carried him to another place…

Mute with shock, Malcom stepped over Angus, who lay sprawled at his feet, one hand still wrapped about the neck of his uisge flask. Mouth agape, he moved soundlessly toward the nearest hut, quite certain he was dreaming and that the cottage would vanish any second. “’Tis but a dream,” he said to himself.

“What’s that?” Angus mumbled, half asleep. Rather than bring his uisge flask to his mouth, he brought his mouth to the flask, struggling to drink with eyes half closed.

Malcom didn’t answer. He put one foot in front of the other, stepping over sleeping kinsmen, until he reached the hut and splayed his hands against the new wood.

It was solid, but there was no way a few stubborn men with a handful of hammers could have so quickly completed what they’d begun just a few day ago. Last night, after the sun went down, most of these houses were still not complete.

“What the devil?” he heard Angus ask.

And then another kinsman asked, “What’s this I see?”

“The houses—look, they’ve all built themselves!”

“Look! Look!”

“Tis a gift from the Cailleach!”

“Impossible!” he heard another man exclaim, but Malcom stood transfixed, examining the newly erected hut.

Aye, it was impossible.

Would they have him believe some old woman had simply waved her staff and thereby erected all these huts?

Glenna would have sworn it must be true.

His pleasure over the discovery was fully dampened by the simple fact that all these cottages could not have been constructed without a lot of help. Unless every last guest had put aside his uisge and his ale,

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