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and cloying. It distorted all objects within its ghostly form so that the land appeared to be made up of nothing more than a collection of shifting shapes, there one second and gone the next. The silence of the place was unearthly, so much so that not even the gulls, with their shrill screeching, dared to interrupt its hold over the island. The morning dew lay heavy upon the grass and low-lying shrubs. It saturated the hem of Norah’s grey wool tunic as she tread through the crystalline brush to the barracks of the unmarried clansmen.
    The slatted wooden door of the stone-and-mud building with its low thatched roof stood open. The turf smoke from the previous night’s fire drifted over the dirt entrance; as she stepped across the threshold it swirled about her ankles like shackles.
    Inside, Garrett knelt beside his pallet, still rolled out in the spot where he’d slept. He was folding the last of his garments and placing them into the centre of a tanned sheep’s hide for his journey to the lands of their Campbell kin. He was to train with the warriors there, a decision made of a sudden and without apparent reason. The claymore which their grandfather, Chief Elisedd of Campbell, had given Garrett before his passing lay beside his pack.
    “It still gleams as it did the day he gave it ye,” Norah noted.
    Garrett turned his chin, acknowledging her presence but keeping his eyes on the garments before him. “I would argue it gleams brighter, for I have spent many hours polishing it.”
    She smiled sadly. “Yet further proof that my elder brother is wiser than I.”
    Garrett laughed begrudgingly. “Dinna be daft.”
    When a heavy silence followed, Norah stepped through the door and knelt gingerly at her brother’s side. His hands stilled over his work, and his chin dropped to his chest. His defeat not only perplexed Norah, it frightened her. He was hiding something, something of such a magnitude that it was causing him distress. Never before had he hidden anything from her. What was it?
    “Garrett, ye dinna have to go,” she implored, taking his hand in hers. “Yer home is here. Ye’re the next chief of Clan Gallach, ye’re needed here.”
    “Nay, I canna .”
    “But why? I dinna understand. Why must ye go? What has happened?”
    Garrett raised his eyes to hers, searching her face. For a brief second Norah thought he might divulge whatever it was that he was withholding. But then he shook his head and looked away again. The sorrow which had set in the moment she learned her brother was leaving twisted in her chest afresh. The tears that she’d been holding back welled up behind her lids and brimmed over, spilling down her cheeks.
    With a breath to regain her composure, she reached forward and folded the sheep’s hide over the pile of clothing. “Well, whatever yer reason, I hope ye think it a good one.”
    Instead of answering her, Garrett smiled weakly as he watched Norah’s hands tuck the ends of the hide into themselves to seal the pack. “Ye were always good at that,” he said.
    Taking the pack from her, he bound it with a length of rope, looping it twice to make armholes so that he could carry it on his back.
    The pair lapsed into another heavy silence. Norah was desperate to say goodbye, and at the same time she was desperate not to. How could she say goodbye to the brother who had always protected her? Who would be there to protect her now?
    “Please, Garrett. Stay,” she begged, her lower lip trembling.
    “I wish I could,” he responded. “Ye canna imagine how much I wish to stay. But I canna. And before ye ask again,” he added when she opened her mouth to protest, “I canna tell ye why. While I’m gone, though, ye’ll take care of the children, aye? The ones that lost their fathers, especially Cinead. He needs ye. Ye keep his head level. He respects ye, wants to please ye. Make sure he grows into a fine man.”
    Norah’s eyes widened. “How long will ye be gone?”
    “A few years, perhaps.