came. I will show you. Putting down his tools he stood up, dusting his hands. He glanced at the canvas bag on Adam’s shoulder and grinned. ‘You have chocolate cake?’ he asked mischievously.
Biting back his tears, Adam smiled back and nodded. ‘And for Gemma too.’
They ate it by the fire, washed down with weak heather ale from the silver jug.
‘What is Brid studying?’ Adam asked at last. His precious knapsack lay at his feet.
‘Poetry and music; prophecy and divination and history and genealogy,’ Gartnait replied, all words, Adam realised, as Gartnait stumbled through them, miming with his hands, which he and Brid had used over their months together. ‘It takes many years of study.’
‘She must be clever.’ He knew that already.
‘She is. Very.’ Gartnait frowned again. How clever Adam could not begin to know.
‘When is she coming home?’
Gemma smiled. ‘He is so sad his friend is missing.’ She was speaking to the air above the fire.
Adam felt himself growing red once more.
‘She will not come back to you, A-dam.’ Gartnait spoke firmly. ‘She must serve her people now. She is no longer a child. And that is for the best.’
‘But she will come back to see you?’ Adam could feel the cold hard kernel of misery in his stomach growing steadily larger. He looked from one to the other desperately.
Gemma leaned forward at last and with a quick glance at Gartnait she smiled. ‘Poor A-dam. Perhaps she will come to see you. After the long days come, after Lughnasadh. I have told my brother he must bring her to see me then.’
And with that, not seeing Gartnait frown and shake his head, Adam had to be content.
At first he found he could put her out of his mind by concentrating on his school work, at least during the week. His days were spent in study, his evenings after the long drive and cycle home were spent in homework. Often now his father was there in the evenings, attempting to entertain his son with stories of the parish, with extra books bought in Perth and once or twice invitations to go, father and son, to meals with parishioners further up the glen.
Each weekend Adam would climb to the stone and each time he would be disappointed. No Gartnait. No Brid. In his loneliness he sat on the mountainside feeling the wind stirring his hair, his bird book and binoculars beside him, his sketchpad on his knee, and alone he would consume the cake he brought with him each time for Brid.
‘So, Brid, your power is growing.’ Broichan was standing behind her on the summit of a small hill overlooking the great loch out of which poured the River Ness. He had been watching her from behind an outcrop of rock, listening to the ringing incantation, watching the thrusting, bellying cloud split at her direction overhead and stream away to the north and to the south, leaving the black rocks of the hill bathed in golden sunshine.
With a start Brid lost her concentration and the clouds veered back on course. There was a sizzle of lightning, a sharp crack of thunder. Broichan laughed. ‘I still out-magic you, Niece, never forget it!’
‘But you don’t out-magic Columcille, I hear.’ Brid threw her head back and laughed. She was energised by the storm, strong, invincible. ‘He banished the beast you put in the loch to destroy him. The whole court has heard how he brought you close to death as a punishment for your treatment of one of your slavegirls and only saved you with his magic healing stone when you gave her up to him!’ It was starting to rain. She raised her face and welcomed the feeling of ice-cold needles on her skin, missing as she did so the fury of her uncle’s expression.
‘You dare to speak to me of Columcille!’
‘I dare!’ She almost spat at him. ‘You have taught me well, Uncle. My power is indeed growing!’ And soon, when I have learned enough I shall go home to A-dam. She veiled her thoughts carefully from her uncle, with a little smile. She had seen Adam in her dreams and in her scrying ball of crystal and she knew that she had him in her snare. He would wait for her, forever if need be.
‘Poor little cat. So confident. So foolish.’ Broichan’s voice was soft and velvety. Its menace brought her to her senses abruptly. ‘Don’t ever cheat on me, little Brid.’ He held out his hand to her and against her will she found herself drawn to him. ‘If you do, I shall feel obliged to give you a demonstration of my powers.’ He smiled. ‘Your brother, I think. My gatekeeper. His job is nearly done –’
‘You wouldn’t harm him!’ Brid hissed at him.
‘Indeed I would. My powers are unstoppable, as Columcille will discover when I recall the monster I put there to devour him.’ Broichan smiled again. ‘Beware, little cat. Stay obedient. Stay careful.’
He glanced up at the storm as he released her and turned away, leaving her standing where she was, her long white tunic and woollen cloak drenched to her skin. As he disappeared from sight the sky shuddered under a new bolt of lightning which hurtled past her and buried itself in the boiling, hissing waters of the loch.
The summer holidays came at last. Adam grew tanned and sturdy and once again, tentatively, he began to be friends with Mikey and Euan in the village.
He had been to kick a ball on the field behind the kirkyard with the boys after his supper and was walking back, late, up the street as the luminous dusk hung over the hills. In the distance on the west-facing side of the mountain he could see the sunlight still glowing on the dark cliffs, turning them the colour of pink damask. Where he was the shadows were dark. It was the sad time of day; the time that always filled him with melancholy. Kicking at the stones on the path he made his way reluctantly in at the gate and was brought up short by a hiss from behind him.
‘A-dam! Here! I wait for you.’ The piercing whisper made his heart leap with excitement. He stared round, confused. ‘Brid?’
‘Here. Here.’
He could see her now, crouching behind the stone wall in the shelter of a clump of rhododendron bushes. ‘I wait for you at Gartnait’s stone and you not come.’ She was taller than last year, her hair braided, her figure fuller. She was dressed in a tunic as she always was, but this one was richer, embroidered, reaching down to her ankles, and her slim arms were adorned with gold bangles. ‘Come.’ She put her finger to her lips and smiled. It was the same impish grin that he remembered, though the face was more mature, the eyes less light-hearted.
With a glance at the forbidding blank windows of the manse he ducked behind the bushes out of sight and crouched beside her in the darkness under the glossy leaves.
She pressed her lips against his cheek. ‘Hello, A-dam.’
‘Hello, you.’ He hesitated, embarrassed as he felt her hands pressing against his chest.
‘Is your father there?’ She was whispering and he could feel her hair tickling his face.
‘I don’t know.’ There were no lights on in the house that he could see.
She had found his hand. Grabbing it she pulled him to his feet and they stood together, peering out across the grass. ‘Come.’ She gave a small tug at his wrist.
The gate could be seen from his father’s study. He glanced again
