Gooseflesh prickled down her spine and her stomach clenched. She glanced at Roger; he looked nearly as pale as she felt, though he pressed her hand reassuringly.

“That will be the ban-treim,” her father remarked calmly. “I didna ken there was one.”

“Neither did I,” said her mother. “Who do you suppose it is?” She had startled, too, at the sound of it, but now looked merely interested.

Roger had been holding his breath, too; he let it out now, with a small rattling sound, and cleared his throat.

“A mourning woman,” he said. The words emerged thickly, and he cleared his throat again, much harder. “They, um, keen. After the coffin.”

The voice rose again out of the wood, this time with a more deliberate sound. Brianna thought there were words in the wailing, but couldn’t make them out. Wendigo. The word came unbidden into her mind, and she shivered convulsively. Jemmy whimpered, trying to burrow inside his grandfather’s coat.

“It’s nothing to fear, a bhailach.” He patted Jemmy on the back. Jem appeared unconvinced, and put his thumb in his mouth, huddling round-eyed into Jamie’s chest as the wailing faded into moans.

“Well, come, then, we’ll meet her, shall we?” Jamie turned aside and began making his way into the forest, toward the voice.

There was nothing to do but follow. Brianna squeezed Roger’s arm, but left him, walking close to her father so Jemmy could see her and be reassured.

“It’s okay, pal,” she said softly. The weather was growing colder; her breath puffed out in wisps of white. The end of Jemmy’s nose was red and his eyes seemed a little pink around the edges—was he catching a cold, too?

She put out a hand to touch his forehead, but just then the voice broke out afresh. This time, though, something seemed to have happened to it. It was a high, thready sound, not the robust keening they’d heard before. And uncertain—like an apprentice ghost, she thought in uneasy jest.

An apprentice it proved to be, though not a ghost. Her father ducked under a low pine and she followed him, emerging in a clearing facing two surprised women. Or rather, a woman and a teenaged girl, with shawls wrapped over their heads. She knew them, but what were their names?

“Maduinn mhath, maighistear,” the older woman said, recovering from her surprise and dropping into a low curtsy to Jamie. Good morn to you, sir.

“And to you, my mistresses,” he replied, also in Gaelic.

“Good morn, Mrs. Gwilty,” Roger said in his soft, hoarse voice. “And to you, a nighean,” he added, bowing courteously to the girl. Olanna, that was it; Brianna recalled the round face, just like the “O” that began her name. She was Mrs. Gwilty’s … daughter? Or her niece?

“Ach, bonny boy,” the girl crooned, reaching out a finger to touch Jem’s rounded cheek. He pulled back a little and sucked harder on his thumb, watching her suspiciously under the edge of his blue woolly bonnet.

The women spoke no English, but Brianna’s Gaelic was sufficient by now to allow her to follow the conversation, if not to join fluently in it. Mrs. Gwilty was, she explained, showing her niece the way of a proper coronach.

“And a fine job of work you will make of it between you, I’m sure,” Jamie said politely.

Mrs. Gwilty sniffed, and gave her niece a disparaging look.

“Mmphm,” she said. “A voice like a bat farting, but she is the only woman left of my family, and I shall not live forever.”

Roger made a small choking noise, which he hastily developed into a convincing cough. Olanna’s pleasant round face, already flushed from the cold, went a blotchy red, but she said nothing, merely cast her eyes down and huddled deeper into her shawl. It was a dark brown homespun, Brianna saw; Mrs. Gwilty’s was a fine wool, dyed black—and if it was a trifle frayed around the edges, she wore it still with the dignity of her profession.

“It is sorrowful we are for you,” Jamie said, in formal condolence. “She who is gone … ?” He paused in delicate inquiry.

“My father’s sister,” answered Mrs. Gwilty promptly. “Woe, woe, that she should be buried among strangers.” She had a lean, underfed face, the spare flesh deeply hollowed and bruised-looking round dark eyes. She turned these deep-set eyes on Jemmy, who promptly grabbed the edge of his bonnet and pulled it down over his face. Seeing the dark, bottomless eyes swivel in her direction, Brianna was hard-pressed not to do the same.

“I hope—that her shade will find comfort. With—with your family being here,” Claire said, in her halting Gaelic. It sounded most peculiar in her mother’s English accent, and Brianna saw her father bite his lower lip in order not to smile.

“She will not lack company for long.” Olanna blurted it out, then, catching Jamie’s eye, went beetred and buried her nose in her shawl.

This odd statement seemed to make sense to her father, who nodded.

“Och, so? Who is it ails?” He looked at her mother in question, but she shook her head slightly. If anyone was sick, they hadn’t sought her help.

Mrs. Gwilty’s long, seamed upper lip pressed down over dreadful teeth.

“Seaumais Buchan,” she remarked with grim satisfaction. “He lies fevered and his chest will kill him before the week is out, but we’ve beaten him. A fortunate thing.”

“What?” said Claire, frowning in bewilderment.

Mrs. Gwilty’s eyes narrowed at her.

“The last person buried in a graveyard must stand watch over it, Sassenach,” Jamie explained in English. “Until another comes to take his place.”

Switching smoothly back to Gaelic, he said, “Fortunate is she, and the more fortunate, in having such bean-treim to follow her.” He put a hand into his pocket and handed over a coin, which Mrs. Gwilty glanced at, then blinked and looked again.

“Ah,” she said, gratified. “Well, we will do our best, the girl and I. Come then, a nighean, let me hear you.”

Olanna, thus pressed to perform before company, looked terrified. Under her aunt’s monitory eye, though, there was no escape. Closing her eyes, she inflated her chest, thrust back her shoulders, and emitted a piercing, “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEeeeEEE-uh-Ee-uh-Ee-uh,” before breaking off, gasping for breath.

Roger flinched as though the sound were bamboo splinters being shoved under his fingernails and Claire’s mouth dropped open. Jemmy’s shoulders were hunched up round his ears, and he clung to his grandfather’s coat like a small blue bur. Even Jamie looked a little startled.

“Not bad,” said Mrs. Gwilty judiciously. “Perhaps it will not be a complete disgrace. I am hearing that Hiram asked you to speak a word?” she added with a disparaging glance at Roger.

“He has,” Roger replied, still hoarse, but as firmly as possible. “I am honored.”

Mrs. Gwilty did not reply to this, but merely looked him up and down, then, shaking her head, turned her back and raised her arms.

“AaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAaaaaAAAAAAAaaaIIIIeeeeeeee,” she wailed, in a voice that made Brianna feel ice crystals in her blood. “Woe, woe, woooooooooooe! AAaayaaaAAaayaaaAAhaaaaahaaa! Woe is come to the house of Crombie—Woe!”

Dutifully turning her back on them, as well, Olanna joined in with a descant wail of her own. Claire rather untactfully but practically put her fingers in her ears.

“How much did you give them?” she asked Jamie in English.

Jamie’s shoulders shook briefly, and he hastily ushered her away, a firm hand on her elbow.

Beside Brianna, Roger swallowed, the sound just audible under the noise.

“You should have had that drink,” she said to him.

“I know,” he said hoarsely, and sneezed.



“HAVE YOU EVEN heard of Seaumais Buchan?” I asked Jamie, as we picked our way across the sodden earth of the Crombie’s dooryard. “Who is he?”

“Oh, I’ve heard of him, aye,” he replied, putting an arm round me to help swing me across a fetid puddle of what looked like goat urine. “Oof. God, you’re a solid wee thing, Sassenach.”