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had a hand in the Glencoe murders, then is that not proof? Of William’s own sin?
    For all her unpleasantness, this witch may help our cause.
     
    So I will not be discouraged by her smell, or strangeness. I will endure her, and use her for her knowledge—no more than that. For I believe she may indeed have news that brings James in. I have given her my true name—which I hope I will not regret. But who might she tell? She will die soon.
    She has promised to speak of the massacre and what she knows, but only if I listen to the years of her life, beforehand. A tiresome task. Who knows what horrors or filth she has seen? But she said no one knows my story. She said William is blood-red, not orange— so I agreed to her request.
    A curious arrangement, indeed. It is not one I could have imagined when I wrote to you, in Edinburgh. But God works as He chooses—we have our tests, and He has His revelations. This is an unearthly winter. I will be glad when spring comes.
     
    My love, with this knowledge, and with there being no hasty thaw of snow, I think I may be in Inverary for longer than I thought. Perhaps two weeks, or more. Therefore, if you find the time to write a small note to me, it will reach me here. It would be a joy to have your words. It is the closest I can be to you—and as always, I wish to be close.
    Charles
     

I
    “Called also Wind flower, because they say the flowers never open but when the wind blows.”
     
    of Anemone
     
     
    H ow would you like my words? I have so many of them. Like a night sky is starry, so my mind is shining with words. I could not sleep, last night, for thinking. I lay on my straw and thought where do I start, with my story? How?
    I could speak of the night of the murders itself—how I ran all breathless from Inverlochy with the snow coming down. Or how the loch was dark with ice. Or Alasdair’s kiss—his mouth on my mouth.
    Or further back?
    To before the glen? To my English life?
    I will start there. I’ll start in a town of clover, with my mother’s glossy black hair. For it’s right, I think, that I start with my early days—for how can you tell my tale, if you don’t know me? Who I am? You think I am a stinking, small-sized wretch. No heart in my chest. No skin on my bones.
     
     
    Y ES I will wait a moment.
    A quill, ink, your holy book.
    Is it a goose’s feather? Very long and white. I have seen geese flying at twilight, and I have heard them call, and those are good moments. They happened in England, in the autumn days. Where were the geese flying to? I never really knew. But sometimes their feathers would undo themselves, and float down into the cornfields, and Cora and I would find them, take them home. She couldn’t write, but she liked them. So long and white… she’d whisper, fingering it. Like your quill.
    And a small table, that unfolds?
    You have brought plenty in that leather bag of yours.
     
     
    There is the saying, sir, that witches are not born at all.
    I have heard such lies—that their mothers were cats, or a cow whose milk had soured so she heaved her curdle out in human form. A fishwife once said she hatched out from fish eggs, but she cackled, too—she liked the whisky too much. Then there was Doideag. She swore she grew like a tooth on a rock, on the isle of Mull—and she believed her own story, I think. But I didn’t. That one lusted for henbane, like Gormshuil did. Fiercesome pieces, both. They smiled when they heard of a boat being wrecked—and I asked why? It is awful! A boat is gone, and all those lives… But I reckon they smiled at what they knew, from years before—loss, and sorrow. That’s why.
    A tooth? On a rock?
    Not me.
    I had a mother. A proper human one.
    She was like no other human I have ever known. Her eyelashes brushed her cheekbones. Her laugh was many shrieks in a line, like how a bird does when a fox comes by it. She wore a blood-red skirt, which is why she wore it, I think—for when our pig died, his blood