Chapter Three
Rose’s head pounded. She strained to lift her eyelids, but they were too heavy. Her heart started to race faster. She wanted to sit up, but she could barely move her fingers. She tried to speak, but her lips wouldn’t part, nor could she peel her dry tongue off the roof of her mouth. It was too much, too hard. A pang of regret struck her heart as she surrendered once more to darkness.
Shrill cries echoed in the distance. “I am coming,” her heart screamed, her arms outstretched, desperate to save her babies, but no matter how fast she raced through the shadows, she could never reach them. Sorrow dragged her down, stealing her strength. Her own sobs mingled with those of her children while she trudged through a thick bog of despair.
“No more,” her heart screamed.
Again, she stirred, her head still pounding. She tried to open her eyes, only this time her lids lifted slightly. A blur of light and shadow crossed her vision, and then a shape came into focus. An older man with soft blue eyes and a bald head glinting in the dim light smiled down at her.
“Hello there,” he said softly. His wide grin dimpled his plump cheeks.
The light hurt her head. She closed her eyes, and again she tried to speak. Her thick tongue refused to move. Desperate tears stung her eyes, but then she felt pressure behind her neck. Her head lifted, and the rim of a bowl pressed to her mouth. Straining, she parted her lips, inviting the drink to enter. Wetness struck her tongue and throat. It felt so good that she wanted to cry. She opened her eyes again. This time she could tolerate the light. Her gaze passed over the friendly face in front of her before she scanned her crowded, windowless surroundings. Her gaze returned to the looming face. She opened her mouth to ask where she was, but the words would not come. Lifting her head, she struggled to sit up. Her mounting fear made her heart race faster.
“There, there,” the man said, his soft voice cutting through her panic. “Lay back down. You are safe now, but it is too soon to try to speak. Rest, and later today or tomorrow you can tell us how you came to be adrift on the open sea.” He smiled down at her. “I will go tell the captain that your fever has finally broken. He will be very pleased.” Then the man turned and left.
While she lay there, her unfamiliar surroundings blurred. Her eyes closed as if of their own accord. Waves lulled her toward sleep.
Waves?
Her eyes opened.
Captain?
A ship—she must be on a ship.
But how did she get there?
The slatted wood surrounding her grew hazy. Her lids were so heavy. She closed her eyes once more and allowed the rocking ship to bring her mind back to the last thing she remembered. She had been standing on the beach, staring up at the moon as she always did. Her heart had felt empty, and then Ian had come to her and given her a gift…Aye, he had given her a skiff.
The skiff.
Suddenly, she remembered…
Ian left Colonsay to answer Abbot Matthew’s call. Scotland needed him. But his leaving broke Rose’s already shattered heart. That night, she lay on her pallet, her heart pounding in her chest, wishing that Ian was still on the isle or better yet that she had been able to go with him. Just as she was sinking into fresh despair, she remembered what Abbot Matthew had told Ian. “God is like the stars guiding a man’s ship, but it is the man who makes his own destiny.”
“What of a woman?” she whispered out loud. She clasped her hand to her chest. She felt as if her heart was going to beat straight through her skin. Pushing aside her blanket, she stood and padded across the cool packed earth. Without bothering to grab her shawl, she threw open her door. Beyond the tall, sleek grass bending in the wind, she could see the sea painted in the colors of night: charcoal, violet, and a blue so deep and dark the beauty of it made her breath catch. The waves, crashing frosty silver in the moonlight, called to her, beckoning her to leave behind her empty thatched home for its shores, which writhed with life. A shiver of excitement crept up her spine as she followed its call. Wind whipped her tunic about her legs and swept her long red curls away from her eyes and off her neck. She lifted her arms out to the side like the wings of a bird, feeling like the strength of the wind could lift her clear off the ground so that she might soar over the waves. She stared longingly at the horizon. If only she could set sail just as Ian had.
“God is like the stars guiding a man’s ship, but it is the man who makes his own destiny.”
Could she?
A woman setting out on the sea alone was foolhardy. Rose shook her head and started along the shore back to the gentle quiet of her hut. She had never been foolhardy a day in her life. But then she froze. The wind had forced her door open. The shadowy entrance mocked her with its emptiness. With a deep breath, she trudged forward. For so long now, eight years, she had carried on with the strength of a warrior, but every day it was harder and harder to go on.
One needed a reason to rise each day. But what reason did she have?
With a strangled cry, she quickened her pace, trying to outrun her own self-pity. It made her feel weak—like a sinner whose heart was ungrateful. She stumbled over a piece of drift wood and fell forward in the loose sand. Rolling over, she wiped her tears and lay numbly, staring up at the three stars on Orion’s belt.
“What should I do, my sweet lassies?”
Turning away from the night sky, she scooped a handful of sand and watched it seep from her hand, just like the sands of her own life slipping away from her.
“Enough,” she snapped and stood and gazed up at the lonely moon.
“What would you do?” she whispered.
The moon stared back with its unblinking eye, forcing her to take an honest look at what burned within her own heart.
An instant later, she stormed back toward her hut with fresh thoughts racing through her mind…
What did she have to lose?
Nothing was ever going to happen to her if she remained in her little hut on Colonsay.
She had the skill and sensibility to sail and travel.
Why stay grounded, when she wanted to fly?
Her brothers had all known adventure. Now, it was her turn.
She gathered a satchel together with a change of tunic, the coin she had saved from fishing, and some bannock and dried meat. Then she scribbled out a letter on a scrap of parchment—"I’ve set off to explore the surrounding isles. I promise I will take great care.”
With a lightness in her step that she had not known for years, she scampered down the shore to the beach. After placing her satchel in the flat bottom of her sailing skiff, she untied the rope from the mooring and climbed inside. Then, with neither hesitation nor fear, she pushed against the pier and began to drift away.
Still too close to shore to catch the wind, she reached for the oars and secured them in their locks before she started to row. Outlined against the dark horizon were her family’s small huts, each with candles still burning. She thought of Jack and Bella and imagined that they nestled together in their own bed, surrounded by Jack’s adopted lassies and their own sweet daughter. Her gaze shifted to Quinn and Catarina’s hut. She envisioned them sitting together by the fire while young Nicholas and his wee sister slept nearby. Rory and Alex, she decided, were singing a song to their wee son while Alec and Joanie lay together in the next hut, dreaming of what it would be like to have a child of their own.
Rose’s heart brimmed full of joy for her brothers, and she gazed lovingly at her island home. “I will return,” she promised.