The Imposter

            “I
love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.  I love you simply,
without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any
other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that
your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your
eyes close.”

~Pablo Neruda

Chapter One

My choices were
dismal.  Forced marriage to a man twice my age or plunge to almost certain
death in the icy water.  I stood on the bow of the ship clad only in my shift,
starting out at where the moonlit sky met the thunderous waves of the Atlantic
Ocean.

No man will
choose my fate.  I am mine.

The frigid water
took my breath away. 
Breathe.  Breathe!

My muscles
rebelled.  For a moment I thought that death might win out.  My powerful legs
kicked to the surface, and I sputtered as I searched for the reference point of
land.  The swim to shore took every ounce of my courage and strength, but I
arrived on shore a free woman.

                                                            ***

I awoke in the
early hours of dawn, chilled to the bone and immediately on edge. 

I need to move
before they find me.  I can never let them find me.

I surveyed the
remnants of my shift.  The ocean had shredded its light gossamer fabric. I felt
every pine needle and rock that I had slept on, each having made a painful
imprint in the gooseflesh that covered my body. The forest was quiet now save
for the early morning chirping of a few birds. 

So, this is
Scotland
. 
Land of the bloodthirsty barbarians. 

I remembered the
words that my father had used to describe the land that was to be my new home. 
Rugged, beautiful, and filled with bloodthirsty barbarians.  His words echoed
in my head, and a chill ran the length of my spine as I surveyed the vacant
forest.

 My alabaster skin
reminded me of that of a ghost, standing out in stark contrast to the dark soil
of the forest floor.  I ran my fingers across my skin assuring myself of my
bodily strength.  Although I found myself in quite a predicament, I knew that
my lithe body was fit and strong enough to carry me to salvation.  Fate had put
me here and my stomach twisted with excitement to find out why.

***

I carefully rose
to my feet, steadying myself with the help of a nearby fir tree.   The bark was
rough against my skin.  I rested my cheek against its moss covered surface,
giving my chilled, aching limbs a moment to adjust to the weight of my body. 

“Ok, Kate…think!”
I said out loud, willing myself to choose a course of action.  In answer, the
wood smoke caught my senses.  If there was a campfire surely there would be
people.  I could watch them from afar and weigh my options.   If I stayed
hidden, I could gauge if it would be safe to reveal myself to them.

I set off in the
direction of the smoke.  My bare feet made slow and painful progress, crunching
the pine needles on the forest floor.  I raked my hand through my long auburn
hair which was littered with the remnants of sticks and moss from last night’s
restless slumber.  I carelessly pulled them from my hair as I walked, then
gathered my thick waves at the crown of my head and secured the pony tail with
a knot.  The wood smoke was growing stronger, tickling my nostrils, and I was
encouraged that I was heading in the right direction as I trudged onward
through the trees.  Walking had forced some warmth back into my body, and the involuntary
chattering of my teeth had finally stopped. 

“Ouch!” I
exclaimed as yet another sharp rock broke the skin on the bottom of my foot.  I
balanced on one leg and examined the foot in question, stained nearly black
from walking through mud and twigs.  I scanned the dense forest and continued
my slow pursuit of the smoke. 

The trees became
sparse and I found myself standing on a primitive road.   I mentally
congratulated myself on finding such a swift path to salvation, knowing that
roads led to people.  I was quite overjoyed with my discovery of the road and
suddenly the fact that I was nearly naked brought me crashing back to reality. 
I decided to follow the road, but for safety’s sake, and to preserve my last
shreds of modesty, I committed to walk in the trees just off the road.  When I
came around the first bend in the road, I stopped dead in my tracks.  I had
found the source of the fire.

***

My pulse hammered
in my ears as I frantically tried to make sense of the scene before me.  Shock
was an understatement.  I surveyed the nightmare before me, frozen in place,
having never seen such horror as what lie before me in the road. 

My eyes darted
nervously over the blood pooling around the three bodies that were crumpled
next to a horse drawn coach.  These people had been brutally slain and my eyes
focused on the man first, crumpled in a final pose of anguish, eyes glazed and
fixated on an object that I knew was not there.  Fight or flight.  My brain
fought the impulse of telling my body to run. I stood fast. 

The women lay
where they had fallen next to the coach.  The coach looked strange with no
horses attached to the front end, and the loose leather straps swayed in the
chilling breeze.  The younger woman appeared to be in her twenties, and the
other, more plump appeared to be a bit older.  The remnants of the fire that
had drawn me here burned a few feet away from their bodies. 

My trembling legs
reluctantly carried me closer to the coach, and I peered down at the young
woman.  Her dark hair had been ripped from its pins, and purple bruises stained
the skin of her face and neck.  She had fought like hell for her life, as was
evidenced by the defense wounds on her lower arms and the blood beneath her
broken nails.  Blood stained the front of her dress, and had collected in a
pool near the fatal gash to her neck. 

I had never seen
this amount of blood before.  To see such a violent scene, such a young woman
killed so brutally made bile rise, burning my throat.  I took deep breaths,
willing myself not to be sick.  I felt my body temperature quickly peak.  I was
neatly sick in a grassy patch next to the young woman.  I promptly turned away
from her, embarrassed at the poor control of my stomach. 

Breathe, Kate,
breathe.  Pull yourself together.
 

 I surveyed the
stillness of the scene before me.  The perpetrators were long gone, evidenced
by the forest resuming its rhythmic chatter of chirping crickets and calling
birds.  These sounds of normalcy assured me that the likelihood of ambush by
returning murderers was minimal.  The sounds of the forest didn’t stop the
small hairs from rising on the back of my neck.

There was nothing
that could be done for these people.  I looked down at my blackened, bloodied
bare feet.  My basic needs at the moment were food and clothes.  Certainly I
would be forgiven if I took some clothes from these poor people given my
desperate circumstances.  I planned to take the first thing that I found; even
a blanket would do for covering up.  I walked toward the coach with heightened
senses, the crunch, crunch, crunch of the gravel beneath my feet was
deadening.  The door of the coach was ajar, and I forced myself to quell my
nerves and walk towards it.

I peered inside
the dark interior of the coach, eyes scanning the upholstered walls and bench
seats which were facing each other.  There was a pillow on the floor, and the
cushions covering the benches were out of place, exposing the possibility of
storage spaces underneath each bench seat.

 I pushed the
brown cushion aside and lifted the hinged top of the bench to expose the
contents beneath.  Without realizing, I had squeezed my eyes shut, horrified by
what I was doing, but hoping so intently to find the clothes that I desperately
need.  I forced my eyes to open and found that indeed, luck was finally on my
side today!   Right on top I saw the bodice of an olive green dress with
intricate stitching detail of brown flowers beneath the low neckline. 

I carried the
dress with me into the forest so that I could change away from the coach.  I
felt better with each step that carried me away from the murder scene.  I
clutched the dress against my chest in an effort to stop my hands from shaking from
the shock of the murders.  It didn’t work. 

There was a rocky
outcropping a good distance from the road, and I decided that it would suit for
a dressing area.   I stepped into the billows of the voluminous dress and
pulled the bodice up about my breasts, holding its weight with my left arm,
while my right hand reached behind me to struggle with cinching up the laces. 
With quite a bit of squirming and tugging, I reached both of my hands behind me
to tie the laces into a secure bow, which I tucked into the folds of the
skirt.  Thanks to the lacings, this dress was adjustable in size and I cinched
it into a perfect fit. 

I surveyed my form
as best I could, and took a few steps, noticing how the skirts swayed and
swished as I moved about.  I undid my pony tail, bent over and ran my fingers
through my hair.  I gathered it again at the base of my neck and secured it
into a thick, auburn knotted ponytail.  Strangely, I felt better.  A lot
better.

Feeling slightly
more in control of my situation, and pleased that I would most likely not
freeze to death, I trudged back to the road.  I could now see the top of the
ram- shackled carriage through the trees, and decided that as grisly as it
would be, I should search the rest of the carriage for items that might be of
use.  I detested the thought of approaching the scene again but the growling of
my stomach reminded me that there might be food within the carriage.

 I remembered
seeing a woolen blanket in the seat compartment next to the dress, and made a
mental note to grab it when I searched the coach for useful items.  It would
make another cold night spent in the forest a bit more bearable.

The small hairs on
the back of my neck stood in terror as I heard the voices.

I heard them just
before I stepped from the shadows of the evergreen trees and into the dirt
road.  I stopped in my tracks, listening to the alarmed male voices and the
clatter of horse hooves on the road.  The blood was pumping in my veins, hammering
in my ears.   I turned and ran back into the forest as quickly as I could under
the constraints of the dress.  My breathing was ragged, and the skirts of the
dress caught on twigs and branches, making my progress through the undergrowth
less rapid that I would have hoped. 

“Hey…..Stop!” shouted
a male voice, I could hear him breaking through the branches behind me.

 Whoever these
people were, I didn’t want them to find me.  I continued running through the
forest, branches smacking me in the face in my haste, searching for a place to
crouch down.  The hairs on the back of my neck piqued.  Instinct told me that
these might be the same villains that killed the people with the carriage.

I didn’t even hear
him close in on me.  His hand clasped down hard around my wrist.  A shot of
pure terror went through my body.  I screamed in a way that I didn’t even know
was possible.  The twin to the hand painfully restraining my wrist clapped down
over my mouth to silence my protests.  I used my teeth to bite at the large
hand, and kicked my legs in vain at the body of my restrainer. 

“Ouch, lass!  Will
ye not stop?  Please?” he said with a grimace in his voice.  He removed the
hand from over my mouth and shook it to dissipate the pain of my bite.

“I don’t mean to
hurt ye.  Calm down,” he adjusted his grip on my wrist, and then brought his
other arm around my middle, restraining me against the muscular wall of his
body.

“You’re hurting
me!”  I exclaimed, feeling the sting of his grip where it had been on my left
wrist.  I stomped as hard as I could on the top of his right foot, but being
that I was barefoot, my resistance was futile.  Desperately, I brought my heel
up hard into my assailant’s crotch with all of my might.

“Ye bitch!” he
exclaimed.  “Can ye not see that I’m trying to help ye?”  The grip about my
waist tightened, and the thundering of my adrenaline soaked heart pounded in my
ears.  “If I let ye go, will ye run?” he questioned.

 His breath warm
on my neck.

“No,” I responded,
knowing that if I ran, he could easily catch me. I would be no match for him in
this dress.  I surrendered to the situation, having no choice but to do so.  As
if feeling my surrender, he released his grip about my waist, and turned me to
face him.