keep out of her way."
"Good. That's best." He sounded relieved. "News seems to travel through the air, even in a lonely place like this. Everyone'll know soon enough that a witch girl has escaped from Rothesay. The hunt will be on for you, all over the country. I'll tell her you're my sister's son, coming on the drove to learn the way of it, but that you're shy and don't like to deal with strangers. Now stay here while I go and beat some sense into Peter's head, or he'll blab out what shouldn't be said."
***
I'd never slept out in the open before, and I was scared at the thought of it. At Scalpsie Bay we knew the places where fairies and elves lived and where ghosts might walk, and it was easy to avoid them. But to sleep outside in an unknown place, unwitting and unprotected, seemed foolish and risky to me. Granny would have known how to keep uncanny beings at bay, but I had never learned that kind of thing from her.
I put up my hand to brush away the persistent midges, and my fingers touched the silver buckle on my belt. I clasped it tightly. Silver protected people, I knew, against the spirit powers. Perhaps my buckle would be powerful enough to protect me.
I was worrying about this, sitting on a convenient boulder in the corner of the field, when Peter brought my supper out to me. He and Mr. Lithgow had eaten their porridge, cheese, and oatcakes inside with the woman. He stood beside me, leaning on his staff and looking down at me as I ate. At last he cleared his throat and said, "You could help me if you had a mind to."
I swallowed a crumb of cheese.
"How?"
"It's my ear. It's been aching this whole week past. The pain is like a hammer banging away in my head. You can make it better, I know you can. She must have taught you something. You must know what to do. Look—" He fumbled in the pouch at his belt. "Here's a penny for you if you get the pain off me."
I shook my head.
"I don't know anything about healing, Mr. Boag. I'm sorry. I'd help you if I could."
He glanced swiftly back toward the cottage, but no one was visible.
"I wouldn't tell anyone. It's just between you and me. Please! The pain's killing me."
I heard Granny's voice in my head. There was a thing she would chant sometimes, when she was tying a thread around a sick baby's body or burning oak leaves on a fire.
God teach me to pray
To put this ill away
Out of flesh, blood, and bone...
I couldn't remember the whole thing, and, anyway, the words would have done no good without the thread, or some such magical thing. I shook my head.
"I'm sorry. I really don't know anything."
But he had seen me hesitate. He was about to speak again when Mr. Lithgow called to him from the cottage door.
***
The evening was a long one as I sat alone in the corner of the field, idly watching the cows as the voices of the others rose and fell inside the cottage. When the sun finally set, the two men came out, their faces flushed with whiskey. Mr. Lithgow was already yawning mightily and unbuckling his belt, ready to wrap his plaid more comfortably around himself for the night. He inspected the ground near where I was sitting, kicked away some crusts of dried dung, and lay down on his back, his hands crossed on his chest. Peter Boag, grimacing with the pain in his ear, gave me a sour look before he too lay down and closed his eyes. Within minutes their heavy breathing told me that they were asleep.
Tired though I was, it was a long time before I could shut my eyes. I lay looking up at the darkening sky, watching it turn from deep blue to black as the sunset glow faded. The stars appeared as if they were pinpricks in a cloth at first, then they blazed more and more brightly.
How will I find my way to Kilmacolm? I thought. And if I get there, will my uncle want me? What if I'm caught and taken back to Bute?
An eerie scream from some way off made me jump, and I pulled my plaid over my head, shivering with fright. The noise came again. I relaxed. It was only a hare after all, caught in the teeth of a