Corrag (13 page)

I knew I could not lie there, missing her.

No magick brings the dead back, and I think the newly-dead need quietness to say their own farewells in, to leave their old earthly shapes behind and slip away. I believe this very much.

The rain had made small lochs as clear as glass is. The air smelt clean. I washed my face in a burn and drank it, and saw how the sky lightened pinkly in the eastern parts. It was good and peaceful watching. I gave an honest thanking to whatever sees us in such times, a thank you for her ways and an asking to now keep her well. When I looked back across the peat I saw the hut’s shape in the darkness. She’d had no better resting place in all her days—even Mr Fothers could not have filled his stable with such soft moss or heather—and it was my comfort that she died in a very fine horse-place.

I watched. And as I watched, her ghost came out into the morning air. She shook her mane, grazed.

I headed north with silvery horsehair on my cloak.

I was twenty days on Rannoch Moor. The wind was less at night-time and so I travelled then, for the moon was waxing and gave light enough. I came to know bogs, in the dark. I used stones to cross them. I ate roots. Some stalks have a nectar in themselves that you suck upon, and this was enough for another fist of miles. But my cloak picked up branches and thorns, as I walked, and my body felt so tired from a year of
north-and-west
. I stood very still in high places. I crouched by lochs which were dimpled with rain, and heard their dimpling, felt it on the backs of my hands, and I thought
I am meant to be here. I am meant to see this rain.

I was done with roaming. By a rock with lichen on it I said
I will walk for one more day. And where I am in one day’s time, I’ll stay.
This was not a spell. It was just a tired soul speaking. I told this to the moor, but the moor already knew.

You have been patient. How many days of my chatter have you sat with me for? And you never said
on with it, Corrag
or
I am full
. You will be glad of my next part I reckon—for it is my arriving. It is the proper start of it.

Kind Mr Leslie with your goose-wing quill.

Listen. I came to the glen on a full-moon night when the mare was gone. There was still magick in the world, and still wolves in lonesome places. The Covenanters were nearly done with, and William was newly-kinged and making his wheezy Protestant noise, and
Jacobite
was an infant word still wet from its hard birth. Men I loved were still living, as were men I did not love. I’d not yet breathed a stag’s breath in. I thought I was wise when no, I was far from it.

I came like the queen of rain and wind, of tiredness, with a skirt so mud-hung that I was twice as heavy. I dragged branches behind me with moss and spiders on. These spiders had made their cobwebs in my hair at night, so moths were caught in them. My hair was wings and whiteness, and I felt their legs upon my face as I walked. I wore thistles on my hem, and held some. My bodice creaked with frost and mud. It was no pretty creature that fell into the glen.

B
UT
I did fall into it. And I stood in Glencoe and thought
this is the place.

Is it not the name you’ve been asking for, all these nights?

Glencoe, Corrag! Speak of Glencoe…It is Glencoe I am after…

And I will speak of it. I am speaking of it now.

T
HIS
is the place
. I was certain. For the heart knows its home when it finds it, and on finding it, stays there.

I
love that I was there. I love that I saw it before the trouble came—that I trod in the glen, and washed myself in its burns. I love that I closed my teeth down upon its berries when it was only
den of thieves
—no worse than that. Most folk will never see it. Most the world will never even know its name, or write it—or if they do they will speak of its badness, of its hurts, of its deaths and betrayal. They will say
Glencoe? There were murders there
…and say nothing more, for what will they know? Not how, on summer days, the clouds moved their shadows along the valley floor, over the cows and the heather, over the lochs, and me.

Before it was bloodied, or snow-thick, Glencoe was lit by moon. It was a quiet, night-time valley which I crept into, with mud and moths in my hair. It was height—such height that to see it I tilted my head so much that my mouth opened a little, and I held my arms out so I might not fall. I looked up, up. Up.

It was cool air, with the sea’s breath. It had the thick, earthy smell of plants at night, and water, and water sounds, and as I stood there, breathing it, I knew in my whole being that this was the place my mother meant when she stood by her cottage, still living, red-skirted, and said
north-and-west, now! North-and-west!
I knew it was the place that my mare had seen, beneath her white lashes, and galloped for. I’d had no reins on her, so how could I guide her? Steer her? She took me where she chose to, and she had chosen this place.

When the plum-faced man or any soul had said
Highland
I’d thought,
yes
. Like a deep, female part of me knew more than the rest. How can I explain it? I shall leave it unexplained. All I know is that when they said
it is a wild place
or
they have savage ways,
I thought
there. That is where I must be. Go there.

Can you see it? In your mind’s eye, which is our sharpest eye? A valley of such narrowness, and with such steep sides that it is like walking into a hand, half-closed. Some would say this frightened them—that it was a fist of rocks. Some said the mountains were so high they might fall down, and crush a man. But I never felt that. I felt Glencoe was kind. It was an open hand that I could lie inside, and it would keep me safe.

It wants me here
is what I told myself. For did it not call?

I brushed through the grasses, and drank from a pool.

Then I lay down amongst the rocks, brought my mother’s cloak about me, and closed my eyes, and slept.

I slept all day. I slept, and it was not daylight that woke me. It was a cow’s breath. She sniffed wetly, and beyond her shaggy head was rocks and evening sky.

Rocks and sky
. They are small words. To say
it was rocks and sky
sounds like it wasn’t much. But it was. Rocks can have a thousand colours in them—grey, brown, purple-grey, dark-blue. They can have moss and lichen on their sides, and heather, and birch trees, and waterfalls, and marks where waterfalls have been. There can be caves and loose rocks which tumble, and deer treading neatly, and a perched bird. I saw these things, as I sat there. I saw the different colours, and shapes against the sky. When I stood, and moved down through the cattle, I put my hands upon a stone beneath the northern ridge, and felt it. It had an old warmth, and a wisdom. It was rough, like a tongue. And like all the skies I saw there, it was a blowing sky.

I
WALKED
. I made my way further down into the dark, evening glen. My skirts dragged their branches, which dragged their own branches now. It was a noisy load to pull which grew louder with each step as it gathered more leaves, more peat and stones. I looked back on my trail. It was tatters and cow muck, and I turned to rid myself of it but by turning so my skirts did—I turned like a dog who seeks its own tail. I could not reach the branches. I stretched, but they moved away as I stretched. For a moment or two I turned, and turned.

I stopped, considered this.

A spider hung down from my hair on its thread.

Above me, a pale evening mist came down very slowly, rolled into the glen. And as I looked at it, I heard a sound. It was a sound I knew, a sound all wild places have, if you listen long enough—a river’s sound, as it drops from a height. I went on, and the sound grew louder, the heather dropped away, and I came to bright, falling water.

Like glass,
I thought. How it flashed, and smashed onto rocks. How clean it looked. How it broke.

I undressed. I lay my purse down and untied my cloak. My bodice was knotted, and stiff with old mud, but my fingers picked at it, and I stepped out of my skirt which I had not stepped out of in months. My boots came off, and my hose did. Then I looked down at my shift. It was grime, and sweat, and blood, and horse’s drool was on it, and this was my old life’s story. These were my old life’s stains.

I pulled my shift off so that I was fully bare.

And I stood, naked. I had not been naked for a full year, or more, and I closed my eyes, felt the mist on me. I was like that, for a time. I was very still, feeling it—air on me, and wetness, and how my skin tightened at the draught that falling water makes. It made me feel some tearful. I did not know why—the water’s breath, maybe? Like I recognised it, or had missed it? Like my body was grateful, and hugely so? Maybe it was Cora. For I knew she would have done this, if she’d been standing there. She’d have torn off her skirts, opened her arms.

I trod to an alder tree. There, I took the spiders from my hair and hung them on its leaves. One by one I did this. I said
there you are
…And when all the little lives were off me, I held my breath, and I stepped out under the waterfall. It was so cold and strong that I gasped—I cried out. It was the strongest water I had ever known, for it hammered about me, onto me, far harder than any rain had done. It nearly hurt. It nearly bruised, but I let it fall, for it felt like proper washing—like all the old days were being washed away, like all traces of fox dens and bogs and galloping and grief were coming off me, now. I stood in the waterfall. I felt my hair fill up.

When I was done with the thundering, I swam. I jumped from the waterfall into the deep pool. I floated like a star. I pulled my clothes in with me, and I washed them one by one—soaking them, rubbing the stains against rocks and picking mud off with my thumb. I hummed to myself. I cleaned my fingernails with thorns. Birds flitted over, and the sun came through leaves, and it was a fine, private washing place.

The Meeting of the Waters
is its proper name. So I was told, later.

When my skirt was a new colour, and my bodice was cleaner, I hung them out on rocks. It was fully dark, now—or nearly so. A thin moon was above me, and trees, and I lay down. I spread my hair about me, tucked up my knees.

I laid myself down, too. Spread my hair out, and put the cloak across me so that I was less bare. I thought,
my third life,
sniffed, and smiled. I looked up at all the rocks and sky.

T
HINGS
come to us like gifts. They do. Gifts come, and we must take them—for they are the world saying
here—this way…
The waterfall was a gift. So were the cows, with their warmth and kind eyes. I knelt beneath the mothering ones and put their teats in my mouth, and there is no better taste than fresh, warm milk after months of cold eating. I was a human calf, that way. The cow would look down on me as if thinking
who is…?

I have a list of gifts, from that time. The creak of a flower closing up. Finches’ wings.

And
crunch…

On my fourth night I heard it. I was resting in a thicket of birch and blackthorn trees and on the shores of sleep when I heard a treading sound. Up I sat. I stared hard into the gloom. What was this sound? My heart beat, and beat. I knew. I thought
footsteps!
But there were many of them—many feet, working through the bogs. Heavy feet. Slow ones.

It was the cows. But it was not the cows wandering. They were walking very firmly now—in a long, solemn line. Mothers and calves together filed up the side of this mountain very carefully, moving round the rocks and hollows, maybe pulling tussocks up for eating as they passed. Their coats were silver-black in the moonlight, and I thought I saw their eyes flash, and I thought
where are you going?
For they walked with purpose. They walked like they knew where they must be.

I followed them. I stood up but kept low, and went. The cows trod neatly into a gully between two mountains. There was a stream in the gully, and birch trees. I felt the trunks of these trees, as I passed. We climbed, and the gully grew very thin, and I thought again,
where are they going?
For there were two huge boulders at the gully’s end.
There is nowhere to go!

But there was. The boulders had a narrow path through them.

I was amazed. I was wide-eyed, and the cows passed through the boulder like ghosts, swinging their tails. I followed. And by following, I found my home.

I called it
the lost valley,
at first. For it was hidden away. It was a small, grassy field tucked up between two mountains, and guarded by rock. Who could have known it was there? How might I have found it, without those cows?

Birch trees, and water, and a starry sky.

Made for a witch-called girl,
I thought,
who wants to rest, and be safe.

W
E ALL
need a house. We all need shelter and a hearth, in the end. This is what had made Cora come to Thorneyburnbank and live in a hut with holly in its doorway and fish stuck in its roof, and what made her be church-going for a time. As for her grey-eyed daughter it meant a home all handmade herself from stone and reeds and heather in a lost Highland valley that was guarded by two boulders, and where stolen cows were kept. Where she found a proper peace. Where the wind rocked the birches at night, and that was a good sound.

C
oire Gabhail
is its proper Gaelic name. Try that.
Corry Garl
. It’s the strangest name I’ve heard of, but it’s a strange language—or it is to an English tongue. All these throaty words like music. This talk like the river—fast-moving, deep.
Sassenach.
That’s what they called me, in Glencoe.
It is Gaelic for English,
or so Alasdair said—
for aren’t you? English?
I was. They all threw out the word like it was a curse, at first. But then, later, they said it as if it was a precious word. They used softer voices. They would put their heads on one side, say
Sassenach…

Coire Gabhail
.

The Lost Valley.

But soon, I called it
mine
. On the eastern side of the valley, I found a half-circle of high stones. Amongst them there was room for me to spin and stand, and lie down fully—so I smiled, and knew. Day by day, I made a shelter there. I used my dirk to cut up turf and heather, and I knew the cow droppings had some strength to them when dried so I hauled their doings up into my skirt which was like a basket and carried them up to my stones. I made a roof like the Mossman had done, a year before. Here were walls. They did not smell—no more than just a soft cow-smell which I never minded. Most places smell of that.

And I crept up onto the slopes about my home and looked down upon it. I saw it from heights, and said
home
to myself. I found a herb or two, in hollows, and in the glen, I found a peat-patch which was freshly dug. By it, peat was drying. It had been cut, and stacked, and I glanced about myself before taking a piece or two. For I needed fuel, like all people. I needed to cook, and be warm.

That was a fine home. It even had a window of turf that I might roll up and down as I chose to. I had a part of roof that was very thin and almost bare so my smoke might find its way outside and not fill my place with choking—but not so thin the rain might pour in. I made it, and was so proud.

Look
I said to the cows, when it was done. They were not very sure, but I was.

I will be happy here
I said as I sat cross-legged on my floor under my thatching with the rain drizzling out on the cattle and rocks. I watched the rain. When it was too dark to see it, I listened to its sound.

O
N A
day of crisp leaves twirling down from trees, I came upon a hind on the slopes of a southern hill—dead, and freshly so, and warm. I felt sad at seeing her, with the arrow in her flank—but I also saw her uses. Very carefully, I took her hide away. I used my knife, and cut it—and this was messy. It was sad, and bloody—but she was dead already, and her death would be all the sadder if it led to nothing at all. So I hauled the hide back. I dried it for days in the early autumn sun. In time, I lay it on my floor.

I took a little meat from her, too. Just enough. I roasted it, and ate my first meat in weeks and weeks. I followed it with blackcurrants—and these brought Cora to mind.

I thought of Cora plenty in those days. Maybe it was because I wasn’t running, now, or because I had a home which had only me in it, or maybe it was warmth and good food waking the sleeping parts of me up—I’m not sure. But I thought of them both, on the braes. A year after Cora had swung on a rope, and I cried. At last, I mourned her passing. Against a rock with lichen on it, I sank down and cried for her. I cried for her death, and the life that had ended too roughly, too soon. I cried for all the others who had gone, as she had gone.