Sidra didn’t want to deceive Graeme, but neither could she remain in his house another minute. At midday, she convinced him to let her return home to change her clothes and gather herbs and materials so she could at least work while she waited for Torin to bring news.
She avoided the hill, choosing to walk by road to her front door.
Covered dishes were piled on the cottage’s stoop. Pies, loaves of bannocks, creamy parritch, stews, cakes, pickled vegetables and fruits. Sidra stared at the jumbled assortment a full three breaths before she realized they were for her, because Maisie was missing.
The food only made it more visceral, and she wiped tears from her face as she struggled to carry everything inside to the kitchen. At Graeme’s, she had sipped whiskey and eaten one oatcake, all that her stomach would permit. Everything within her was wound tight, and she wished Torin would understand that she needed to walk the hills. To sit and wait was agony. She needed to search for Maisie.
By the time she had all the food inside and had shut the front door, it was midday. Sidra stared into the silent chamber. At the patches of light on the floor. At the dust motes that spun in the air.
It was quiet without Maisie. It felt as if the croft had lost its heart, and Sidra sat at the kitchen table, overcome.
She rested her face in her hands, reliving the events, wondering what she could have done differently. She remembered Donella’s warning. The ghost had seen the perpetrator’s path. She had known he was coming for Maisie.
Sidra lifted her head and whispered, “Donella? Can you meet with me?”
She waited.
The ghost rarely visited twice a season, and she never materialized upon command. But Sidra believed Donella might find a way, given what had happened to her daughter.
Sidra’s hope faltered as the silence stretched on. She heard someone knock on her door. She didn’t answer it as she waited patiently for the ghost.
But Donella never came.
Soon, Graeme would call for her, and Sidra sighed. She began to gather her herbs, and that was when she saw them. The two red flowers. Orenna blossoms.
She took one in her hands and studied its small, fierce petals. The legend claimed that to eat one was to gain a spirit’s secrets.
Without hesitation, Sidra placed a flower in her mouth and swallowed.
She felt nothing at first. The flower tasted like frosted grass and a hint of remorse. But then a sigh tugged on her mouth. Once, twice. As if she were breathing in a cold enchantment.
Sidra rose. She flexed her hands, her fingertips tingling. She blinked and saw a world lined with faint traces of gold. At first, she thought she was hallucinating, until she walked out the back door and beheld her garden.
She could see the life of the plants. The faint glow of their essence. She could see the lines running deep in the soil—roots that fed into a catacomb of intricate passages. Overhead, she could see the streaks in the clouds. The routes the wind blew.
She stood in the splendor, soaking it in.
My eyes are open, she thought. I’m seeing both realms.
She was straddling the mortal world and the domain of the spirits and could see how they overlapped. Sidra began to walk. Her bare feet met the ground with a whisper. She could feel the depth of the earth every time she stepped. She was weightless, as if nothing could hold her down.
She turned and looked behind. Her feet had left no tracks in the soil or the grass.
This is how he did it, her mind raced. This is how he leaves no trace. He eats a flower and steals our girls.
Sidra’s breath caught. She returned to the hill, even though it made her shudder. Perspiration glistened on her skin as she studied the crushed heather. She could see how a spirit had wept when she fell and tumbled, its tears beading gold in the grass. She searched the area again now that her eyes were sharper, and she could see where Torin and his guards had marked the beginnings of a blood trail. It looked like the kidnapper had carried Maisie to the south, but Sidra wasn’t certain.
After a few steps, the blood dried and there was no trace of where he had gone.
She followed the stakes the guard had set to mark a potential path, hoping she didn’t run into Torin. She had washed the dirt from her hands and tended to her bruises earlier that morning. She had even found a looser chemise of Emma’s that fit her and had wrapped herself in one of Graeme’s woolen cloaks to ward off chills, but she knew she still looked half dressed and wild.
Sidra didn’t care.
She realized as she walked the hills that her steps had quickened. She could move thrice as fast as normal, and she almost laughed as she felt the magic rush through her. She could also sense how close other people were. There were four guards to her right, two kilometers away. There was a croft to her left, five kilometers away. She could feel the distance in her bones, and it enabled her to travel, undisturbed by others.
All too soon, she came upon the end of the marked path. She decided to continue walking to the southwest, following threads of gold in the air and in the grass. They brought her to a copse of birch trees. Sidra paused, confused when the golden essence flared violet on one of the trunks. She could sense the maiden in the birch tree; Sidra faintly heard her voice as she lamented. The spirit had been wounded.
Sidra reached out her fingers to trace the bark.
“Don’t touch her,” a voice thundered in the ground. The words raced up Sidra’s legs, and she snatched her hand away before she could comfort the birch maiden.
She took a step away, but she could feel the sorrow in this place. The trees were in anguish, and she didn’t know why.
Sidra pressed onward.
“Can you take me to my daughter?” she asked, but her voice fell unanswered, even as she sensed the spirits’ wary attention. “Can you show me where she is?”
Her thirst suddenly became intense. She could hardly think of anything else, and she closed her eyes, seeking the closest water spirit. She sensed the cold, quiet presence of a loch, just over the next hill. Sidra hurried to find it—a narrow but deep body of water, nearly hidden in a secluded valley.
She hadn’t been here before, and she heard her grandmother’s voice, echoing in her memory.
Never drink from strange lochs.
But Sidra was so thirsty. Her mouth and her soul were both parched, and she knelt at the bank and filled her hands with clear, icy water. She took her first sip—it was sweet, as if spun with honey. She took another draw before she paused, noticing the swirl of gold within the water. Like threads of flaxen hair. Disquieted, she lowered her hands. Her eyes drifted to the deeper side of the pool, where something was bubbling.
It was Maisie.
Maisie was in the water, held just beneath the surface.
Sidra cried out and lunged into the loch. She tore Graeme’s cloak away from her collar and dived, pulling her body through the water in frantic strokes.
She was almost to Maisie, but then Sidra saw that her daughter was farther below the surface than she had realized. Sidra cursed, returning to the surface to gasp fresh air. She plunged again, following those golden tendrils down, deep into the dark waters of the pond.
But every time Sidra stretched out her hand to grasp Maisie, she discovered the lass was just beyond her reach.
Maisie drifted farther and farther below, as if she were tethered to something in the heart of the loch. Sidra continued to chase her. Her open eyes burned as she reached for her daughter again and again, to no avail.
She could feel her lungs begin to smolder. She was almost out of air.
Sidra glanced upward; the surface was far away. She hesitated, her black hair tangling like silk across her face.
From the corner of her eye, she saw movement. She wasn’t alone in the water, and Sidra glanced sideways to see the water spirit approach. A woman with translucent skin, dark blue fins, and oversized, cat slit eyes. Sharp, pointed teeth and long, blond hair, its tendrils illumined in the dark water.
Sidra’s fear and indignation morphed into a blazing fire.
This is a trick. She’s fooling me.
She closed her eyes and began to kick to the surface. Sidra could feel the threads of the spirit pull against her, inviting her to stay. To sink into a place where the world shed its old skin. To be reborn in the weight of the loch.
Sidra desperately swam upwards, where she could feel the waters grow warm again. Her legs and hands felt heavy, but she opened her eyes and followed a bold wisp of gold now, as if another spirit was urging her to rise. Bubbles slipped from her lips as she struggled to keep her mouth shut. To resist taking a breath of water.
I’m not going to make it …
She thought of Torin. His face appeared to her, stark and broken at a graveside, as if she had shattered the last of him.
Sidra found the surface with a gasp.
She trembled as she swam to the bank. She crawled upon the mossy rocks, spluttering and coughing. She lay down for a moment, until her heart was steady again. A spirit had tricked her, played her for a fool. Sidra covered her face and sobbed. She had been holding the tears in for hours, and she let them flow.
When her tears had dried, she noticed the time of day.
She had dived into the loch when the sun was at its zenith in the sky. It had now set behind the hills, leaving only a vestige of light on the horizon. The stars were winking overhead, and Sidra pushed herself to stand on shaky legs.
How much time had she lost? How many days had passed?
The panic coursed through her as she began to hurry home. She noticed that the effect of the Orenna flower had faded, zapping her energy. She could no longer see the spirit realm, and her head began to viciously ache.
The earth spirits must have felt compassion for her, although Sidra was reluctant to trust them. But five hills became one. The kilometers compressed, and the rocks receded, granting her a swift path to the croft.
She decided she should go directly to Graeme’s. She knew her father-in-law would be worried over her lengthy absence, but then she noticed the firelight illuminating her house from within.
Sidra paused, wondering who was home. Following the light, she entered through the back door.
Torin sat at the table, waiting for Sidra to come home.
He had been waiting for a full hour now. Weary and heartsick from a long day of searching, he had gone to Graeme’s at dusk, his arms aching to hold Sidra.
She wasn’t there.
His father rambled anxiously, claiming she had gone home to fetch her herbs at noontide and had never returned. Adaira had even called that afternoon to visit with her, but Sidra had been absent and Graeme could only surmise that she had been summoned to help a patient.
Torin had swallowed his panic and rushed down the hill, only to find a cold, dark cottage full of untouched food.
He didn’t know where she had gone, but he imagined she was searching for Maisie. He had seen the determination in her eyes when they had parted ways earlier, how his sharp orders had upset her. Torin was so exhausted now that he decided he should simply wait on her to return. Surely, the night would drive her back home. And he was so tired of searching.
He lit a candle.
He stared at her herbs, scattered on the table, an utter mystery to him.
He stared at Maisie’s toys, tucked away in a basket by the hearth. He closed his eyes, unable to bear the sight of them.
The kittens were crying at the back door. Torin ground his teeth and poured a dish of milk, setting it on the stoop for the cats.
He paced the chamber but eventually sat again. He hadn’t slept in two days. He could hardly see straight, and he knew he had run himself ragged that afternoon.
My daughter is missing.
It still didn’t feel true. This happened to others, not to him.
You thought the same when Donella died, didn’t you?
Torin felt numb, and he wondered when it would truly hit him. He wondered what more he could do. He had searched house after house, croft after croft, all the castle chambers. He had glanced over more backs than he’d have liked to, searching for a wounded man, and yet he had failed to find the answer he sought.
He thought of Jack. The secret Adaira had shared with him earlier.
The bard was Torin’s last hope.
He was thinking of how long it had been since he had heard music when the back door creaked open. Torin stiffened, his eyes flickering to the threshold.
Sidra stepped into the house.
The first thing Torin noticed was that she was barefoot and completely drenched. He could discern every line and curve of her body through the damp chemise. The second thing he noticed was the strange expression on her face, as if she had just woken up and had no idea what had happened while she slumbered.
Seeing him sitting at the table, she closed the door and approached, but stopped a few paces away from him. Her long hair dripped water onto the floor.
“Where were you?” he asked. He sounded angry, but only because he was deeply afraid.
Sidra opened her mouth. Nothing but breath emerged. She was trembling; the sight made Torin ache. He could also see the bruises beginning to bloom on her chest, from where she had been kicked.
His hands curled into fists beneath the table.
“Sidra.”
“I was looking for Maisie,” she said, her gaze dropping to her feet.
He stared at her, wondering what she was withholding from him.
Since the moment he had met her, he had always been able to read Sidra’s face. She was an openhearted woman, honest and genuine and fearless. He remembered the night when he had first held her, skin to skin. When she had invited him to share her bed at last, months after they had wed. The wonder, the pleasure that had been in her eyes when she looked at him.
He regarded her now, standing like a stranger in their house, and he couldn’t read her face. He didn’t know what she was feeling, what she was thinking. It felt like a wall had risen between them.
She lifted her eyes to his, as if she also felt the distance. Her voice was reserved when she asked, “Why are you here, Torin?”
“I came to be with you tonight, Sidra.”
She blinked, surprised. It made him realize how few nights they had spent together. And even then, Maisie had often slept between them in the bed.
“Oh,” Sidra said. “You … you didn’t have to do that.”
He studied her, his pulse throbbing in his temples. Did she want him to leave? “I can go, if you would rather that.”
“No,” she answered. “Stay, Torin. We shouldn’t be alone tonight. And I have something I need to tell you.”
Why did his stomach drop? He braced himself and motioned to the countless dishes, scattered across the kitchen. “We both need to eat. But you should change into some dry clothes first.”
She nodded. While she went to the bedroom, Torin perused the offerings. He eventually brought a bannock, a cauldron of cold stew, and a bottle of wine to the table, careful not to disturb Sidra’s herbs.
She returned a few moments later, dressed in a floor-length chemise. Torin noted that she had laced the collar tight, to conceal the bruises on her chest as if they didn’t exist, and he felt a lance of pain in his stomach. He didn’t want her to feel as if she had to hide things from him.
She looked at the stew he had chosen.
“Should I heat it?” she asked.
Torin should have thought of that. He wordlessly stoked a fire in the hearth, and Sidra set the cauldron over the iron hook. While they waited for the food to warm, he glanced at her.
“You have something to tell me?” he prompted.
“Yes,” Sidra said, rubbing her arms with a shiver. “I know what the Orenna flower does.”
He frowned as she brought the red flower to him. The very one he had once carried to her.
Slowly, she told him everything. The legend she had read in the tattered book. How she had planned to come home today to fetch her herbs and thought otherwise when she saw the crimson flower. How the petals had tasted, and how they had opened her eyes to the spirit realm.
Torin’s shock gave way to anger. “You should have spoken to me first, Sid. Before you ate this. What if it was poison?”
Sidra was quiet. There was something far worse lurking in her eyes. “I think it saved me, Torin.”
He listened as she continued about the reflection in the loch. Torin went cold with dread. He imagined Sidra swimming down into the darkness, only to return after a hundred years had passed. He would be long dead, his bones in a grave. He would have never known what had befallen her. He would have lost his daughter and his wife in the span of a day, and it would have obliterated him.
“At first, I didn’t realize it was a trick,” Sidra whispered. “But then I remembered how my eyes were open, and I could see all the threads … the spirit that wanted to claim me, and the one that wanted me to rise. If not for Orenna, I think I would have kept swimming the deep.” She paused, her gaze on the fire. The stew was bubbling now, but neither of them made to remove it. “I’m sorry, Torin. I didn’t mean to make you or Graeme worry. I just needed to do something to find Maisie. And I didn’t realize so much time had passed. I dove into the loch at midday and returned at dusk, but only because I thought Maisie was in the water. It looked just like her.”
Torin reached out to caress Sidra’s hair. “Don’t go back there, Sidra. Don’t ever return to that loch.”
She met his stare. She was remorseful and sad, but there was also a hint of defiance in her, and he knew he couldn’t command her. Not even to spare his heart.
Sidra turned away to lift the cauldron from the fire, giving him no chance to speak further. She carried the pot to the table and served two bowls.
Torin sat across from her. He tried to eat, but the food was like ash in his mouth. He broke the bannock and offered her a piece, but even Sidra struggled to eat. She pushed the stew around with her spoon.
His stomach felt full of stones by the time they decided to rest.
Sidra banked the fire and crawled into bed, lying on her side. Torin took his time removing his boots and dirty clothes, then eased onto the mattress beside her. He blew out the candle and stared up into the darkness. Sidra’s back was angled to him; he felt the distance between them like a chasm.
He didn’t know how to cross this divide, how to comfort her when his own soul was in anguish. His mind wandered the same tracks it had taken all day. He kept envisioning Maisie, terrified and hurt. Why couldn’t he find her?
Torin went taut as the tension in his body intensified. He couldn’t draw breath. His panic was a winged creature, beating within his rib cage. It wanted to consume him, but he focused on what was tangible around him—the soft mattress, the scent of lavender on the pillow, the rise and fall of Sidra’s breaths.
She sniffed, like she was weeping and trying to hide it from him.
Torin’s thoughts returned to her. He wanted to touch her but didn’t know if she wanted the same. He chose to remain still, fettered by uncertainty, his face marked with pain as he listened to her tears finally ebb.
He remembered the first time he had met Sidra, four years ago.
He had been riding through the Vale of Stonehaven, a rarity, as it was one of the more peaceful places of the isle, inhabited by shepherds and their wandering flocks. He hadn’t patrolled the valley since his first year as a guard, but for some reason he had taken the eastern road on his way home from a shift.
He was thinking about Maisie. She was eight months old, and Graeme was caring for her by day. But the arrangement couldn’t go on forever. Torin knew he could do better by his daughter. That he should do better.
His stallion spooked at a shadow, a play of wind in the oak branches above him. Torin was tossed from the saddle and promptly found himself facedown in the dirt, his left shoulder throbbing. He couldn’t even recall the last time he had been thrown by his horse.
Mortified, he rose and brushed the dirt from his clothes, hoping no one but the spirits had seen him fall. His shoulder was dislocated. He knew it was, and he gritted his teeth as one of the younger guards came trotting up the road behind him.
“Do you need help fetching your horse, Torin?”
“No.”
Torin’s stallion had wandered off toward one of the shepherd’s houses. He motioned the guard to go on his way as he strode to reclaim his horse.
“Ah, that’s convenient,” the guard called after him.
“What is?” Torin ground out.
“Well, Senga Campbell and her granddaughter live there.”
Senga Campbell was the castle healer. She personally attended to the laird and his family and was renowned for her skill. Despite that, Torin hadn’t known she had a granddaughter, and he failed to make sense of what the guard was saying.
“Very well. She has a granddaughter.” Torin threw up his hands and then winced.
“Her granddaughter is a healer as well, you know. I’m sure she’d be happy to reset your shoulder for you.” The guard cantered off down the road with his amusement, and Torin swore as he finally chased his horse down in the Campbells’ yard.
Their house was quiet. It seemed that no one was home, and Torin paused when he noticed their garden. He had never seen a more organized and beautiful kail yard.
He tethered his horse to the gate and walked to the front door, frightening a cat from the stoop. He knocked and waited, listening as someone moved within the house.
It was Sidra who answered the door.
She was dressed in simple homespun. A smudge of dirt was on her cheek. Her long black hair was loose and spilled over her shoulders. A stray flower was caught within the tangles. All of his thoughts unexpectedly scattered at the sight of her, and he said nothing.
“Who is at the door, Sidra?” an older woman’s voice—Senga’s—rasped from within.
“I don’t know who he is,” Sidra said, to Torin’s great shock. Nearly everyone knew who he was. He was the laird’s nephew, and an esteemed member of the East Guard … “He is a man, and his horse just ate all the carrots in my garden.”
Torin flushed. “Forgive me. But I seem to have dislocated my shoulder.”
“You seem to have?” Sidra echoed, and her eyes drifted to it. “Ah, yes. You have. Come in. My nan can help you.”
“Is that Torin Tamerlaine?” Senga asked, recognizing his voice as he followed Sidra into the cottage. The revered healer sat at the table, grinding herbs with her pestle and mortar. But she hadn’t been the one to reset his shoulder. It had been Sidra.
Torin keenly felt the touch of her hands through his sleeve as she brought his shoulder back into its socket. It caught him by surprise; he had been numb for so long now. He had been merely existing for the past eight months. And yet he noticed Sidra’s hands like they were sunlight, burning away the last of his fog.
“This is very unusual,” he said as Sidra knotted a sling about his arm. “Me being tossed from my horse, that is. I can’t remember the last time it happened. It rarely happens, you know. Or perhaps you wouldn’t know, since this is our first time meeting.” He was stammering, as if the words were thistledown in his mouth.
Sidra only smiled.
Her grandmother was listening to them, even though they sat on the other side of the chamber, beside the slow burning embers of the hearth. Senga had ceased crushing her herbs, and the house fell quiet. There was only the sound of birdsong, drifting in through the cracked shutters, and a calico cat purring on a folded plaid.
“Why have I never seen you before?” Torin whispered to Sidra.
She met his gaze. Her eyes were the color of wildflower honey. She had freckles on her cheeks, across the bridge of her nose. One was at the corner of her lips.
He felt as though he should know her. As though he would remember if he had seen her before. Her grandmother frequently visited the city, caring for his uncle and cousin. Shouldn’t Senga’s apprentice be with her?
“I confess,” Sidra began in a husky voice, “that I have seen you before, Torin Tamerlaine. Years ago, when Lady Lorna still lived and played for the clan on feast nights in the castle hall. But I believe you and I belonged to different circles at the time, didn’t we?”
He didn’t know what to say, because she was right. He wondered what else he had missed and overlooked in the past. “And what of now? Do you still come to the city these days, Sidra Campbell?”
She glanced away to fiddle with a bowl of herbs, as if she wanted a distraction. But she said, “My nan cares for the laird and his daughter in the city. I remain here in the vale, to care for the shepherds and the crofters.”
“And for stupid men like me, I suppose.”
Sidra’s smile deepened, awakening a dimple in her left cheek. “Aye. And for men like you.” She seemed to remember her grandmother’s presence, because she said, “Here, let me walk you to the door.”
Torin followed and asked how much he owed her.
“You don’t owe me anything,” Sidra replied, leaning against the doorframe. “But perhaps a basket of carrots.”
The next day Torin sent two baskets of carrots to Sidra’s door. To atone for the ones his horse had eaten and to express his gratitude to her.
That was how the isle brought them together.
Sidra stirred in the bed.
Torin listened as she turned on her back. He felt the warmth of her body as they touched. She stiffened in response.
“Torin?” she whispered, uncertain.
“Yes, it’s me.”
She was quiet, but her posture relaxed against him. He believed she had fallen back asleep until she whispered, “I’m ready.”
“Ready for what, Sid?”
“For you to bring me a guard dog.”
