Corrag (14 page)

I cried, too, for the mare. In my hut, I remembered her velvety nostrils, her bristly chin, her eyes. I let my sadness out very noisily, and wiped it on my arm. And afterwards, in the hush that followed it, I smiled—for it was her life I thought of, not her death. It was her whickering life, with its moors and ripe pears, and I was lucky to have seen it, to have shared it with her.

Early days, those. Quiet ones.

Was I mending myself? I think so. I was tying a knot in the old, past things—for so much was lying ahead of me. So much was to come.

You look sadly at me. Why sadly? Look what I found. Look where I lived, and where I called home. Go to Glencoe. Stand amongst its peaks, and you will understand—what a gift it was, to live there. What a gift, to follow those cows. I had milk, and a fire, and a deerskin to sleep upon. And if I called out my name the rocks gave it back to me.
Corrag…
The owls called it out.

Lonesome? Me?

Never, and always. That was
witch
for you—that one word. When was I not a bit lonesome inside? I mostly was. Seeing true, natural beauty can lessen it, because sunsets and winter light can make you say inside you
I am not alone
—you feel it, through such beauty. But it can worsen it, also. When you want a person with you it can be a sore thing. Sometimes you see this beauty and think
it is not as lovely as them.

And poor? You think I was poor, in Glencoe? Far from it. No pennies, no. But when did pennies make a person truly rich? Folk seem to fill their lives with favours or a title or two—as if these are the things which matter, like happiness lies in a coin or two. Like the natural world and our place in it is worth far less than a stuffed purse, or a word like
earl
or
duke
. Perhaps, for them, it is. But that’s not my way and never was. I was at my richest as I sat cross-legged amongst the last of the foxgloves, watching a plump-bodied bee live his life. He pushed up inside each flower so that his bottom peeped out, and his droning sound was muffled, and then he’d slowly creep back out with a louder hum, and powdered wings. From flower to flower, he went. I was watching him four hours, and I reckoned I was richer for that wandering bee than a fistful of gold could ever make me.

Poor? Not poor. Lonely? A small part.

S
TILL.
There was magick in that place—I promise it.

I felt it everywhere. I felt it in each tiny thing I saw—each stone which shifted under my heels, or each raindrop. I had time, now. Time, until now, had been as thin and as scarce as a windblown web—fluttering by, very brief. My second life had been
go! Go!
And when had I had the time to lie on my belly and watch a snail make its way across a leaf, leaving its moonshine mark? Never. I was running too much. I was galloping over mud and wild land, with the mare snorting hard, and any slow times were spent with her—picking the nettles out of her tail. No snails. No hour upon hour in the rain, watching a leaf’s middle become a rain-bright pool.

I had never liked
witch,
and still don’t. But if ever I deserved the name at all, it was then, I reckon. It was having my hair fly in the wind as I stood on the tops, and how I crawled through the woods where the mushrooms grew. It was cloud-watching and stag-seeing, and spending long hours—full afternoons—by the waterfall that I’d bathed in, watching the autumn leaves fall down and make their way seaward. They bobbed and swirled. I said
magick,
one day. In the gully that led to my valley, I stopped. The wind was in the birches, and it felt they were speaking. If they were speaking, it was
magick
they said.
Magick. Here.

I found it everywhere. I hauled myself onto the tops and sat upon them for hours, just looking—like a queen might look at her kingdom and think
it is good
. It was all very good. I learnt the glen’s shape, this way. I saw its long, thin nature, and how high its mountains were. In the west, if I squinted, I saw a shining sea. I learnt the glen’s colour, too—reddish-brown, with old ferns. Leaves were turning copper. Hours and hours were spent, just sitting there on the tops.

And coming home, one evening, I heard a distant roar. I stopped. I thought
what is that?
Not thunder. Not a drum. I looked up, to where the roar came from—and on a peak I saw a stag. He was bellowing. He was dark against the greyish sky, and I saw his wide branches, and how his breath steamed out. I thought
is this a welcome? To me?
Maybe not. But I chose to think it was, for the lonesome part in me had been stirred by sitting there, high up. My hair had blown across me. The loch had shone with dying light, and I’d wished another living thing might have seen it too. None had come. But here was a stag, looking so fine.
He welcomes me,
I thought. And he roared again, with cloudy breath.

I
THINK
, also, I healed. Those early Glencoe were days like no other days. As though I had found where I’d been looking for, for years and years, I felt myself soften and tend to myself. I think I had not grieved, till Glencoe, or be kind to myself. I don’t think I had sat down and thought of Cora, and truly allowed myself to be sad. I’d been so stern with myself—but amongst the brown ferns, and the air, and the goodness that is felt in clean, wild places I became more gentle, and remembered her. I cried for her there. I cried, too, for my mare.

All the things I loved were amongst me—rivers, rocks. Creatures. Wind sounds. And I was grateful for them. I was grateful, for amongst them I could mend the wounds inside—the losses, the sorrow. My soul, where it was bruised, could be fed and cared for in my hut, on the peaks—and who does that? Which people take the time to care for their souls, these days? I reckon not many. But Mr Leslie, hear this: I think that maybe in our lives—in our scrabbling for food, in the washing of our bodies and warming of them, in our small daily battles—we can forget our souls. We do not tend to them, as if they matter less. But I don’t think they matter less.

Still. What stays the same? What does not change?

I had been in the glen for a month, no more. And in came a brown-coloured day. I remember it—the leaves blowing off, and the ferns turning soft, and a deep autumn-red. Most don’t like such days—their damp air, and their brownness. But I never minded them. Why should we mind them? The birds liked the pools they made in fallen trees, and they make for greener grass in the months that follow them. They make silvered parts in cobwebs. Mist is a thing I’ll miss, when I am dead—walking through it, smelling it.

I went walking. I wanted berries, and a day on damp, autumn hills. And I thought I might see the stag again, or more stags, or an eagle or two.

I saw none of these.

But I saw houses.

Houses came. Or I came to them—for as I was wandering west, along the top, I paused, looked down. Chimney smoke. It rose up very steadily. It was black, in the half-light, and I sank down onto my heels and stared.
Of course.
How could I be surprised? I reasoned that a glen of such clean, fast water, and with cattle grazing in it, and berries inking up on bushes must have people in it. Others must have found this glen and thought
yes. Here.

And there they were. A single house, by the loch. I sucked my bottom lip, thought
one house is not so bad
. But when I sighed, and looked west towards the sea where the sun was going down, I saw more—more chimneys, more small, low houses with no windows. Many more.

People.
Which meant trouble.

It worried me. It kept me awake, picking my thumbs. I searched my head for all the old words I had heard about the Gaelic folk—and I searched for good things, not bad. But what good had I heard?
They are barbarous…
Not much.

There is no devil,
said Cora.
Only man’s devilish ways.

And I sniffed. I thought
that doesn’t help.
But by my fireside, with an owl calling outside, I also thought
Cora would not be afraid of them. She’d be as she is. She’d not fear them at all. She would go down. She’d peer through their doors and not care if they saw her. She’d throw back her hair. Swing her red skirts.
I told the cows this, and they listened.
Am I not her daughter?
I said. And they stared.

So at dawn, I crept down. I passed through the boulder, and went down to the glen. I scurried to the lone house by the loch, and eyed it from a birch tree. I heard no talking. I heard no footsteps. But I heard a man snoring, very thickly. Also, a dog yawned—the quick, high whine, and I heard it flap its ears. So I stepped a little closer. I breathed in the smells of the place—peat, wet wool, meat, the dog, unclean people. I smelt chickens, too, and when I was so close to the house that I could touch its walls, I heard the
cluck
of a roosting hen. There she was, in the thatch. Her eyes had the milky film on them that hens’ eyes have, when they’re sleeping, and I thought
when did I last have an egg?
Very quietly I reached up to her. I slipped my hand beneath her feathers, and felt a firm warmth. I clutched it, pulled. She broke into a squawking, and the dog woke up, and I ran.

I ran and ran, with my hair flying. I ran, and I cooked the egg up, and I curled up on my deer’s hide and pulled my knees to my chest. I felt so close to something. But what? I didn’t know.

Theft? No! I have never thieved.

I went back to that house in the evening and left herbs there. I left a little oak there, for if it is burnt and its vapours are breathed in, they can help the snoring. I put it under the hen. Maybe, I thought, the wife would check for eggs and think
our hen is laying herbs, now?
And maybe she’d prize the herb above a hundred eggs, if it meant her man stopped snoring, and she could sleep better. I hoped so. I liked that thought.

I became a bolder creature. Knowing the rocks, and the best hand-holds, and the animal sounds made me bold. Knowing the homes, the herbs, the views. Where the best sitting places were.

I had took more than an egg, I confess. I’d lifted a pot from a house, one night—a house to the western end. In trees, I’d found some houses which were nicely done—with a window or two, and a cleaner smell. And I’d peeped through a door, and seen a dozen pots in there. They had so many pots, and I longed for just one. I left all-heal for them—which is a fair exchange. Does its name not say what a virtuous herb it is? And now I was eating mushrooms and blackberries, and boiling up roots, and warming milk, and I’d made a good stew from a rabbit or two. I had a little belly from it all. I prodded it, when I bathed—a new shape, and softness.

I had also found a rock below the northern ridge which I liked. It was small, and on its own. When I sat against it, it fitted the shape of my back, and there was such a view from it that I could look for hours. Autumn was rich, and wild. And it was as I sat there, with my hood pulled up, that I saw people.

At last
.

Men. Three of them—moving in a line along the river’s edge. I kept very still. I did not take my eyes off them. Sometimes they went behind trees, but not for long. Three men in colours that were like the hillside—earthy, damp-coloured. They had belts which flashed, and I thought, too,
they move fast
. Faster than I ever did.

I thought
where are they going?

Then I thought
I know where.

They turned, and made their way between the two hills. They went up into the gully which led to my valley, so that I said to my rock, and the air,
no…

I ran.

I did not want them finding my home and ruining it, tugging at its walls or burning its roof. I did not want them spying on me, with my herbs and small fire. How I’d laid out my treasures in a corner of my hut—a pebble like an egg, the mare’s thrown shoe, an owl feather, my few coins. My basket of berries was in there, and what if they ate them? They had been a whole day’s picking. I ran with my skirts tucked into their top.

I was afraid, yes. But not of them. Not of these men being savage or cruel like the soldiers had been, for I think I knew they were not. I was afraid of them making me leave where I’d found, of my home being lost, and where would I go? I was tired of wandering on, and on. My mare was dead, my heart was tired, and I had walked into the glen thinking
here is the place, here is where I’m meant to be.
I did not want to leave. I liked my rock. I liked how I could sit by my hut, in its doorway, and see the deer on the slopes. I liked the stars. The taste of its water when I cupped my hands, and drank. I did not want to leave it.

I ran thinking
no.
I would not go.

I saw their footprints as I ran up the gully to my hut.

I came into the valley and saw them, standing there. Outside my home. One was walking round it, testing its walls with the heel of his hand. A man with a beard like a fox’s brush was dipping his head, looking in.

My skirt rustled as I walked across to them. They turned and watched me come. My heart quivered, then, for they were huge men—three huge men, and I remembered the soldier’s hand on my ankle and how he said
hush now…

The man with the orange beard spoke to me. But not in English. He spoke in the Highland tongue—so that it was babbling in my ear.