along the shelf to make room for one of Tam's black bottles, and the silver of the buckle had gleamed out at me from among the cobwebs.
The cobwebs. Annie. She had talked about the cobwebs. She had been standing beside the shelf when I was feeling for the eggs in the crock. I saw again in my mind's eye how suddenly she'd moved away from the shelf, and how her hand had hidden itself in her shawl. And why had she run so fast out of the cottage, as if she was being chased?
I knew then, as surely as I knew my own name, that Annie was a thief and that she had stolen my buckle.
"What's all this? Why are you standing there like a gatepost when there's work to be done?"
Granny's voice at the door startled me.
"My buckle. It's gone. Annie must have stolen it," I blurted out.
"That girl of Macbean's? What was she doing here?"
I wished then that I'd held my tongue, because I had to tell Granny that I'd given Annie an egg. To my surprise, she only smiled triumphantly.
"So the girl's a thief? I'm not surprised. We'll have them on that. I'll get you yet, Macbean! My granddaughter's silver buckle—her dowry from her father—stolen by your servant."
Why did I break out crying? Why did such a feeling of desolation sweep over me? I'd learned a long time ago that tears were no route to Granny's heart. She would be more likely to stop them with a slap than a kiss. I stumbled to the door, careless of the cold December drizzle and the darkness that had now fallen, wanting only to go into Blackie's byre and lay my head down on her rough warm neck and cry there.
But Granny barred my way.
"Aye, girl, you may well cry." The rough sympathy in her voice was so unexpected that I was shocked into silence. "The world's a cruel place, but there's no need to burden the poor dumb cow with your troubles. Sit down by me."
She set her three-legged stool by the fire, sat down, and drew her skirts up over her knees so that she could warm her legs. I fetched my stool and sat down too.
"They'll be going past on tiptoe soon on their way home from Macbean's, stuffed full of the meat and wine that by rights we should have enjoyed too. But we're to take no notice of them. I've had my say." She laughed, the sound rasping in her throat. "I've given them something to think about. Did you see them run up the lane, the dafties? Each one as terrified as a hare when she smells the fox. As for that fool of a prating minister..."
She lapsed into silence, staring into the fire, and her face was full of a fierce joy as she relived her triumph.
"But I've something to say to you, Maggie."
She pointed up to the whiskey bottle on the shelf. I fetched it down for her, glad to see that it was nearly empty. She took a long pull at it, shook it to check that nothing was left, and set it down regretfully.
"Crying on a cow's neck is no way to fight your battles. You've got to take the war to the enemy. Make them fear you. If Macbean hadn't been afraid of me, he would have got me out of this cottage long ago. Just because you're a girl and you'll be alone in the world when I'm gone, you're not without power."
Her eyes, reddened with peat smoke and whiskey, stared into mine. A chill hand closed around my heart.
"Granny, you wouldn't—not Ebenezer! You wouldn't hurt..."
Her heavy brows snapped together, then she threw her head back and laughed.
"Hurt that miserable little scrap? He'll need no help from me to find his way out of the world. Maggie, what are you thinking? That those precious fools are right? That I'm a witch? The Devil's servant? With the power of life and death?"
It was what I had been fearing, in my heart of hearts.
"No," I lied, "but when you said, out there in the lane, that evil had come to you all your life..."
"And so it has. I was a farmer's daughter, from Ettrick. Two good plaid cloths I had and a plate of meat once a week, summer and winter. Sickness took my parents. Your grandfather brought me here and fished the herring from Scalpsie Bay. Much good did he do me, for the sea took him as