The Pictish Child (9 page)

What was it Gran said about elfknots?
Then Jennifer had it: Their power depended on the magic-maker's intentions.

Well, she knew Fiona's intentions, all right—and they weren't good. The knots on the shawl over Gran's shoulders had sapped her of her natural power. Jennifer thought that if she could just somehow get over and pull the shawl off of Gran, then Gran could battle Fiona for them all.

Slowly Jennifer sat up.

But Fiona saw the movement and turned. “Dinna try me,” she said, lifting one finger from her work. She had already tied the second elfknot and was beginning the third. “Dinna think to try me. Ye Americans—ye have nae power.”

That was when Jennifer remembered Gran's voice clearly saying,
Scots have power, but Americans have …

She hoped it would work. She knew herself untrained in magic; indeed, she hadn't even believed in magic before they'd come to Scotland and battled Michael Scot. Still—she had to
try.
There was no one else. The old ladies and Gran were caught by the magic shawls, Peter and Molly frozen by the ice cream, Ninia stunned by all that had happened. It was
really
up to Jennifer now.

She moved the hand that held the three-pronged plug, held it in front of her like a weapon, and pointed it at Fiona.

“No power, maybe,” Jennifer said, “but we
do
have electricity!”

Focusing entirely on the hand holding the plug, Jennifer made herself think of electrons rising up inside her.
My hand is a conduit
, she thought.
I am a conductor.
She raised her hand for a magical downbeat.

And suddenly arcing through her body was a surge of electric power that ran down her arm and into the cord. She could feel it, like a great tingling sensation all over. Then the electricity leaped out of the plug in three separate shining strands, to strike right at the center of the silver scissors lying on Fiona's breast.

The shock hit Fiona with such power she was knocked backward across the room and bang up against the wall. Falling to the floor in a heap, she lay without moving.

“Out like a light,” Jennifer said, trying to stand but suddenly so weak she could not get up off her knees. “An electric light!” She giggled, not out of amusement but out of pure relief.

The dog came galloping back into the room. “Did it work?” he cried. “Did it work? I remembered the elfknots on the lampshades. So I scampered out of here and knocked them over and chewed through as many as I could … Ye should see the auld dears moving aboot in there. They have much of their auld energy back.”

“And maybe,” Jennifer added, “their power.” All she wanted to do was to sleep. But they had no time for that, so instead she pointed to where Fiona lay on the floor.

The dog loped over to the fallen Fiona. He sniffed her head to toe, then back again, and looked up. “What's this? What's this? Nae the knots, then?”

Jennifer stood slowly and went over to the table. She lifted the shawl from Gran's shoulders and felt a rush of foreign power under her fingers.

“I expect you weakened Fiona a lot, otherwise what I did wouldn't have worked.” She wasn't sure she believed that, but she was not sure
what
she believed anymore.

“Weel, I did that. I did,” the dog said. But—”

Jennifer shrugged. Then she took the shawls off the other three women as well, feeling the power once again, a strange, eerie tingling. She threw the shawls in a far corner, where for a moment they shimmered, then went dim. “But what?”

“But
ye
finished her off,” the dog said.

For a moment Jennifer went cold. “Finished her off? Do you mean that she's dead? I didn't mean to kill her. I didn't know I had such—”

“Power? Aye, that ye do, lass. Though ye may call it sommat else.”

“How will we explain this to the police?”

The dog chuckled, tiring of his joke. “She's nae dead. But she'll nae remember a thing of her black magic noo. The shock was too great.”

Jennifer sighed and felt a weight lifting from her shoulders. “How did you guess about the knots?”

“The nose kens all,” he said, giving a large sniff. “And I recalled that Pictish child plaiting elfknots in Devil's mane.”

“Or maybe,” Jennifer said slowly, “you were just listening to us at the door.”

The dog grinned and showed a mouthful of yellow teeth.

“And all that while I lay in agony on that electric cord,” Jennifer said. “Why didn't you help?”

“I'm just a dog, ye gormless fool, nae a wizard. I have nae hands! Besides, ye were doing just fine wi'oot me. Now get those knots oot of yer sister's hair,” he said. “I'd try it myself but I'd make a sopping mess of it.”

“You would, indeed.” Jennifer laughed and Peter, who was already coming around from the ice-cream freeze, laughed with her.

Just then Gran shook herself all over. There was a light back in her eyes. “Maggie MacAlpin,” she said, as if no time at all had passed since she'd sat down, “I need a word with ye.”

“More than one, I'll wager,” said Maggie. “Ye were always a laiging lass.”

“It's not gossip I want to talk about,” Gran said. “It's about the Picts and Auld Kenneth and a horrible dark mist.”

Sixteen

Journey Home

Before they could speak of the mist and Pictish history, Fiona stood up, shaking her head as if she had lost something. She was a bit misty herself, both apologetic for having forgotten to bring them all their tea and also wondering how she came to be so sore.

“It's as if something has gone and struck me right here in the chest,” she said, pointing to the silver scissors.

Jennifer saw that there was a half-moon shape cut out of one of the blades. The remembered power made her fingers feel all pins and needles.

“Now, who would be doing any such thing?” Gran asked sweetly. “It may be a colic coming on.”

“I have just the thing for that,” said Mrs. Campbell, standing up and taking Fiona by the arm. “In my room.”

“And she does, too,” said Mrs. McGregor. “A dab hand is our Catriona with the herbs.” She followed them out.

“Not as dab as our Gwen,” said Maggie MacAlpin, smiling.

“Ye'll not fob us off with a smile,” said Gran. “Noo, first I'm going to tell ye what happened to us, and then, Maggie, it will be yer turn.” She recited the events of the day, starting with the giving of the stone.

Maggie MacAlpin looked grey. “That stone,” she said. “It was mine to give, not Susan McGregor's.”

“I thought as much.” Gran nodded her head.

“But …” Maggie MacAlpin mused, “… if Fiona had gotten her hands on the stone …”

Jennifer gasped, thinking about Fiona rummaging through time and concentrating centuries of magic in her own hands. Like the wizard Michael Scot, but without his vast knowledge. She couldn't decide which would have been worse.

Maggie spoke again. “That stone was brought through time, hand to hand, one MacAlpin woman to the next. I got it from my ain mother.”

“Fancy that,” said Gran.

“But, as ye ken,” Maggie said, “I hae nae daughters of my ain.”

Jennifer leaned forward. “Taken …” she whispered. “Waken. Mistaken. Shaken …”

Maggie MacAlpin turned toward Jennifer so fast, pins scattered from her orange hair. “How do ye ken those words, lass?”

“Why?” asked Jennifer.

Gran smiled. “Jennifer has the right of it, Maggie, and weel ye ken it.”

Maggie MacAlpin shook her head. “I dinna
ken
the why of it. Only the spell. It's been called ‘The Chant of the Stone,' and all firstborn MacAlpin girls learn it.”

“Say it,” said Gran. “Say it to us noo.”

“I canna, Gwen. Yer nae a MacAlpin.”

Gran raised her right forefinger. “I'm nae wanting to bid ye, Maggie. We hae been friends too lang for that. But I will if I must, and weel ye ken it.”

Maggie bit her lower lip. “Time is out of joint,” she said.

“And ye put it that way, ye muckle auld witch,” cried the dog.

Maggie silenced him with a glance.

“Taken
…” Jennifer said again. “That's not right. Magic must be given, not taken. Gran told us that on our very first day here.”

“What's
lost
is not taken,” Maggie said. “What's found is given.” Then she put her head back, closed her eyes, and spoke a verse in a quavering voice that made the hairs on Jennifer's neck stand on end.

What be lost can noo be taken.

Mists of time will all awaken.

Wrongs and errors long mistaken

Noo from time can all be shaken.

Peter, who was now finally and fully warmed up, shook his head. “That makes no sense,” he said. “It's just a bunch of rhymed words.”

“They make every bit of sense,” said Gran.

Jennifer smiled.
“What be lost can now be taken
is simple. It means the talisman, of course. Lost in the garden, taken up by Mrs. McGregor, and given to Molly before Fiona could get her hands on it.”

“Exactly,” Gran said, smiling at Jennifer.

“And we know the mists of time have awakened. You”—Jennifer pointed at Peter—“even let them in twice.”

“I didn't mean to,” Peter grumbled. “No need to remind me. Not you, Jen.” He turned away.

But as they were talking, the dark had begun to gather again. It was Ninia who noticed it first. Since she hadn't understood a word they were saying, she'd been gazing through the window and drawing Pictish symbols with her finger on the glass.

Suddenly she gave a cry and pointed toward the cemetery. It did not sound like a cry of fear or terror. Rather she seemed sad. Even lonely.

“She's homesick,” Molly announced.

“But her home is many centuries away,” Gran told Molly.

“And full of wars. And people dying,” added Jennifer.

“The world is
still
full of wars,” Peter said, with irritating logic. “So she ought to feel right at home here.”

But Molly answered with irrefutable four-year-old reasoning, “Even with wars. Back then is her home.”

Jennifer clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh!” she said.

“What is it, lass?” Gran asked.

“Wrongs and errors long mistaken.
Could that mean what happened when the Scots killed all the Pictish leaders? We read about it in the museum. Maybe we're meant to go back and shake things out of time and change them so that the Picts win.”

“And
poof
!” said Peter scornfully.
“We'd
all go out like a light. All the
good
things done by Scots through the ages would disappear as well.”

“Like what?” asked Molly.

“Like kilts and bagpipes and tartans and golf,” said Jennifer.

“Like Watt and the steam engine,” said Peter. “Like McAdam and paved streets. Like Bell and the telephone. Like …” They all suddenly stared at him. He shrugged. “I like reading about science stuff.”

“It's the Scot in ye,” Gran said, smiling.

“That's all well and good,” the dog said, “but how do ye get Ninia back? The stone is gone, tied up in a knot in Devil's mane.”

“Only we call him Thunder and Night now,” Molly put in.

“A knot in the de'il's mane,” said Mrs. McGregor. “Well, well, well, and here's a lot to ponder.”

“And no time to ponder it in,” said Gran. “The mist is already here. I suspect that it can take the child back with or without the stone.”

Maggie MacAlpin stood. “I have had long enough, my dears, for my pondering. Here's what I be thinking. Fiona, puir lass, didna go about things correctly, but she had the right of it nonetheless. Nae a one of us kens when it's time to give o'er our power. Nor do we ken the moment when we are to die. But seven or eight is surely too young, I'm thinking, as Ninia here must have been when she died in the past. And killed by my own kinsman, too. All because he feared her child to come. Well, I dinna like it and I willna have it! Surely the Chant passed down through time means that none of the other MacAlpin women have liked it, either. That stone was to remind us that one day one of us women with enough wisdom must go back and change things. Not to give victory to the Picts. That's a man's solution. But to make the Scots more just, which is a woman's way. And if Kenneth mac Alpin will listen to this auld carline, I will give him an earful.” She grinned. “And some advice on ruling, too.”

“What do ye mean, Maggie?” Gran asked.

“Why, the Pictish lass and I will be going home together,” Maggie said. “Back through the centuries. To Pictland.”

“Pictland's not yer home, Maggie,” cried Gran.

“Nor is this, Gwen,” Maggie said, gesturing around her.

She went over to Ninia and touched her on the head. “Come, dearie.” Then without a word more, she opened the garden door and—leading Ninia by the hand—walked across the rolled lawn toward the mist.

“Gran,” Jennifer cried, “you have to stop them!”

“Maggie MacAlpin always was full of herself,” said Gran. There were tears running down her cheeks. She didn't wipe them away.

As they watched through the window, the dark mist greeted Ninia and Maggie, not as if they were enemies, but like old friends. It wrapped itself around them and—in an instant—they were gone.

Seventeen

After

Jennifer flung the door open and started after them. By the time she got to the gate, the mist was gone as well.

“What happened, Jennifer?” asked Molly, who had followed her and was now swinging on the gate. “What happened to my Ninia?”

“I don't know,” Jennifer said. “I just don't know.” Her voice tore, like cloth on a nail.

Peter came up behind them. “The mist—it's not anywhere.”