Bravely(66)

Feradach said simply, “The river will find its way in.”

He did not say thank you, and she did not say that they had saved him.

They just stayed there for a minute, caught in that peculiar feeling that had nothing to do with the shifting balance between ruin and growth and more to do with the shifting balance between a god and a girl, and then Feradach said, “You should go. There’s not much time left for you to do your work.”





EVERYTHING stayed peculiar after that, actually. It was not that it was bad; it was the opposite. Everything went perfectly. Logically, it seemed as if uncertainty should have set in the farther they got from home, the deeper they got into rural Scotland, the wilder the countryside became. Even if nothing had gone wrong at all, it was still a very long journey over very wild terrain, including a boat ride across a capricious autumn sea.

But instead it was idyllic. Timeless. Happy. Exciting. The royal retinue journeyed right to where the land ended, at a remote harbor called Tarvodubron, and then climbed into small boats for the crossing to Eilean Glan. Merida had never been on such a journey before and it seemed impossible, terrifying, wondrous, to be in the middle of the ocean with land visible on one side and land barely visible on the other and nothing but water and weather between. Creatures as large as Merida but with slick gray skin and small, clever eyes leapt alongside the boats, thrilling and delighting and horrifying passengers. It felt to Merida as if she had traveled not to another kingdom but to a dream.

It became obvious the moment they landed at Eilean Glan that it was not at all a kingdom in the same way that Ardbarrach or Kinlochy or even DunBroch were kingdoms. There was no massive castle here, no court, no lairds, no tacksmen. There simply wasn’t enough land or people for such a system. Eilean Glan was one of a handful of small bare islands rising from the ocean, their edges sheer pale cliffs. Everything was whipping grass and blazing sun and bare flat boulders. There were precious few trees; how could there be? The wind was continuous.

It was the most memorable part of the island, the wind.

But it didn’t seem to faze Elinor.

From the moment she stepped off the boat onto the shore, she floated. Her eyes were wide, taking everything in. With complete surety, she led them all from the harbor, to a road cut deep into the ground and edged with hedgerows and stone walls to offer a bit of a windbreak, and right up to a community of low houses and buildings dug into the ground to keep the wind from unmooring them. It was a convoluted layout, but Elinor seemed to know it intuitively. She took them directly to the main building, which was large, but like everything else, low. They had to duck to get into it.

Inside, rushlights illuminated rows and rows of girls, their hair all pinned neatly up, eerily matching the way Elinor’s hair was currently pinned, the way it was always pinned beneath her wimple and veil. They were all bent over books, fingers trailing along the words. Some of them were also writing as they went. Merida had never seen so many girls in one place and certainly never seen so many readers.

At the head of the room was a light-haired woman about Elinor’s age who was dressed just as neatly and tidily as the girls. She was tapping a dry quill in her palm absently, but when she saw Elinor, she said, “Oh! Elinor!”

To Merida’s surprise, the two of them embraced like sisters, and the woman laughed and wiped away a tear that had come out with her laugh.

“Look at you!” the woman said. “Has Máel Muire seen you yet?”

Elinor shook her head, laughing and crying too.

Merida and Leezie exchanged puzzled looks. Harris’s eyes narrowed in a question.

But there was no time for answers, not just yet. Instead the blond woman told the girls to continue working, and then she told them something else in a different language, and then she told them something else in a third language (or perhaps she told them the same thing three times, in three different languages), and then she whisked Elinor and the others out to see yet more. Here was a building where more girls with neat hair and neat simple dresses watched a woman carefully as she tugged and pressed bread dough. Here, a building where a group of girls picked very slowly at elaborate patterns in embroidery. Here, a building where girls played a song on mandolins together. Here, girls learning to handle ponies, here, girls learning to speak clearly, here, girls praying, here, girls braiding other girls’ hair, here, girls doing laundry, here, girls, girls, girls, all of them learning something new with diligence.

The girls glanced curiously at them as they came through, particularly at Harris, who was obviously out of place. He didn’t return the stares. His mood had been cool ever since the conversation about the Sight, and it had only gotten chillier during the remainder of the trip. Partway through this trip, he made an excuse to sit and wait with Brionn and the other soldiers who had been escorting them.

Merida didn’t have time to persuade him to be more engaged.

She would worry about him later.

“What is this place?” Merida whispered to Leezie as they hurried after Elinor, Ila, and the teacher, battered by the wind. And what role would she play here if she came? Teacher? Would she be like the woman gladly leading Elinor through the compound? Or would she be a student again?

“Orphans,” Leezie whispered back.

Of course, Merida thought. Now that Leezie had said it, it seemed obvious. The way the girls were all ages, from all walks of life, some clearly more comfortable with the material and each other. This was an orphanage. A school. An island for lost girls. Of course Leezie would see herself in them.