MIST SWIRLED AROUND Catriona Haral’s clogs, chilling her toes and promising to veil the glen in heavy dew before sunrise. She glanced down at the eider ducks standing by her feet.

You’ve done well, she thought to them, and projected a memory of a sheltered niche she’d noticed near her village. Go on with you, before the voles take it for their pups.

The pair shook out their feathers and waddled off, eager to begin building the nest for their young. Catriona remained where she was and watched the highlander emerge from the spring.

Gods, but he was a massive, beautiful beast. He stood tall and broad-shouldered and deep-chested, with dark, bronze hair that spilled over his shoulders. More dark hair pelted the bulging muscles of his torso. From the firm curves of his buttocks to the strong yoke of his upper shoulders, long, wide swaths of muscle padded his back, and swelled even bigger and heavier in his upper arms and thighs. She’d already seen him balance a huge log on one shoulder and carry it off, and wondered how many years he had labored to grow so powerful and confident.

Something about the highlander called to her, as she had not felt since her childhood. It had been so long ago she might be mistaken, but the man seemed to have other, hidden power, as if he were druid kind, like her.

Why would a druid work like an ox when he could use magic to ease his burdens? a little voice said inside her head. She sighed. You see what you wish, not what ’tis there.

Would the highlander be shocked to know she had been watching him for weeks? Or that just now, if she took three steps, she’d appear in front of him like a wraith made flesh? Would he run away shrieking like the other infrequent intruders that came to Everbay? Or would he attack her, beat her, or worse?

Because she couldn’t answer those questions, Catriona stayed safely behind the barrier. Nor could she make a sound whenever the man came near her side of the island. The bespelled wall of magic that protected her and the village only prevented them from being seen. She’d had to leave several times since the highlander had come to Everbay, and each time she returned she found him still there.

He arrived every three or fiveday to work on his cottage, which he’d nearly finished. While he was away she’d done things to discourage his staying: scattering his tools, stealing his bedding, and knocking down his first attempt at building walls. It hadn’t put him off, but watching how hard he worked to build better walls the second time left her feeling a curious mixture of pleasure and guilt.

The highlander knew little of island life, but he did not give up.

When he finished dressing the man headed back for his cottage, and Catriona paced him for the length of the glen. The barrier protecting her presence didn’t extend into the forest, so she was obliged to stop at the tree line and watch the highlander from there until he disappeared from sight. Sometimes she considered waiting until he was asleep before she crossed through the spell boundary to see what progress he’d made on his house. Afraid of those unanswered questions, she sent the ducks or some of her other animal friends to spy on him.

Catriona didn’t think having ducks and voles and deer as friends seemed odd, but she had been born with the ability to wordlessly communicate with them. Far more primitive in their thinking, animals mostly dwelled on their never-ending struggle to eat, breed and care for their young. They had more instincts than emotions, so they couldn’t understand why she would sometimes curl up on her parent’s old bed and weep for hours. All of the animals on the island regarded her as harmless if a little strange. The eiders had been quite happy to keep watch over the highlander while they looked for their nest, but with the female about to lay Catriona had to stop sending them after the man.

I should leave Everbay for good. Ennis and Senga keep telling me ’tis too dangerous for me to dwell here alone, even with the barrier.

A twinge of guilt made her hunch her shoulders. She hadn’t yet told her family about the highlander.

The scent of wood smoke lured Catriona to the very edge of the barrier, where she peered through the trees in vain. Pulling her dark cloak over her head, she stepped through and emerged on the highlander’s side of the island. She quickly hid herself behind a tree, and waited while she listened for his heavy footsteps. When no sound came she darted to the next tree, and the next, until she saw his cottage.

Five arches of timber formed peaks over the rectangle of double stone walls, each braced in place. She smelled the fish he cooked even before she spied a seaweed-wrapped bundle on a flat stone in the center of the low ring of flames. He often brought with him strings of big sea cod which he always deftly cleaned, and sometimes stuffed with herbs and wild mushrooms. That and the darkening of his skin and small wounds on his hands and arms made her think he might be working at the docks, or on a fishing boat from the big island.

Tonight as his fish cooked the highlander sat with his back propped against a pine. Braced against his thighs lay a square of thin wood, on which he had placed a piece of parchment. He had something in his hand that he moved slowly back and forth over it, his brows drawn together over his storm cloud-colored eyes.

Whatever he did, it was not making him happy. His mouth had tightened so much it looked like a flat gash.

At last he put down the blackened bit of wood he’d been using, and stared at the parchment. “You’re an idiot, Gav. Let her go.”

Catriona jumped a little at the sound of his voice. Deep and soft, it stroked her very bones from within as it passed through her. Did he speak of himself? What sort of name was Gav, Norse? He looked proper Scottish to her. Why did he speak of holding a woman when he was alone here? She watched him turn the parchment to study it in the firelight. She gasped when he swore and flung it away. The parchment floated through the air to land only a few feet away from her.

In the bright moonlight she could see the fine drawing, which showed the face and shoulders of a woman. She had a pretty smile that didn’t reach her eyes, and a hard line to her jaw that spoke of determination. The highlander had captured something so bleak in the sketch that Catriona felt an answering despair in her heart.

Had the lovely, hard-eyed woman lost everything? Was that why she looked as Catriona sometimes felt, as if she might go mad with grief?

She froze as the highlander strode over and snatched up the drawing. Not daring to breathe, she peered into his face. This close she could see that his eyes were the color of moonstones, but something in them made her stomach clench. She felt as if she should know him. There was something familiar about the bitterness in his eyes. But why? She’d never met anyone who looked like him.

The highlander took one last, long look at the portrait, and then crumpled it up as he walked back and tossed it into the fire. He never once glanced at Catriona.

While he stood with his back toward her she carefully crept away and returned to safety on the other side of the barrier. It had been beyond foolish to follow the man into the woods, and she should thank the gods that she’d escaped unscathed. She had to stop behaving so recklessly and do what she had come to the island to do.

Catriona walked back to the village, which had stood empty since her childhood. From its edge, she could spy the ocean and much of the land around. Though there were other places on the island she might stay, it was always to the village she returned. She spent every summer here planting new flowers, tidying up the cottages and visiting with the creatures that had taken shelter inside the barrier for the year. During the solstice she performed the remembrance ritual to honor her family, and pray for their return from the well of stars. Yet more than twenty years had passed since they’d died now. She came back every time hopeful that she would find Tavish and Isela waiting in new forms, her reborn parents ready to shower her with love again.

Mayhap the island is cursed, Catriona thought as she looked around the village.

Since the Moon Wake people had been slaughtered, not a single druid had ever come to live on Everbay.