The Pictish Child Read Online Free PDF Page A

stone, for it skipped across some long slabs of rock that were laid out inside shallow depressions like four open graves beneath the tree. At that very moment the mist lifted and the radio was turned off.
    She chased after the talisman and found it lying—incised side down—in the smallest of the open depressions, which looked about the right size for a child to be buried in.
    When she picked up the stone she heard a voice gabbling at her in an unknown language. Looking up, she saw a girl not much taller than Molly but clearly twice Molly’s age.
    Sun browned and black haired, dark eyed and wiry, the girl had on a scraped leather skirt like Native Americans once wore. Jennifer had studied Native Americans in school, not once but many times, and this girl had the haunted, hunted look of some of the tribal photographs in the textbooks. Instead of a shirt or blouse, the girl had on a woven cloak held together in the front by a large silver brooch. Jennifer had seen that same kind of pin in the tourist shops on Fairburn’s High Street.
    The oddest thing about the girl, though, was that her hands and arms were covered with blue tattoos. Real tattoos , Jennifer thought, not the paste-on, wash-off type. Not so odd, perhaps, if the dark girl had been a teenager, some sort of runaway, living rough on the streets. But she didn’t look as if she were any older than seven or eight, and surely that wasn’t allowed—not in America and not in Scotland, either.
    She had not an ounce of fat on her, either. As if , Jennifer thought suddenly, she was only an ounce away from starving.
    The girl stood imperiously, hands on her hips, still speaking in her strange tongue.
    â€œYou frightened me!” Jennifer said, but in a joking way. “I didn’t see you come in.”
    The girl was obviously in no mood for jokes. She held her hand out toward Jennifer and gestured at the talisman. Then she spoke a quick, sharp command. Jennifer didn’t know the words, but it was clear what the girl meant.
    Give me the stone.

Six
    Lost Child
    A howl made them both turn around. The dog was sitting at the gate but would not come in.
    â€œDark!” he was howling. “Dark!”
    Gran pushed past him, holding Molly by the hand. “Have ye got it?” she said, coming to stand next to Jennifer. “Have ye found the blessed thing?”
    The dog continued to howl.
    â€œI want my talisman,” Molly cried.
    â€œSo does she,” said Jennifer, pointing to the dark-haired girl glowering under the tree.
    It was as if they hadn’t seen the girl until Jennifer pointed her out. Then Molly shut her mouth and Gran’s mouth dropped open.
    And the dog stopped howling.
    The girl repeated the same unintelligible phrase to Gran that she’d said to Jennifer and held out her hand. As she did, the cloak fell away from her arm and Jennifer recognized one of the tattoos.
    â€œLook!” Jennifer said. “Isn’t that tattoo the same bird and snake as on Molly’s stone?”
    â€œIt is indeed,” said Gran.
    The dark girl repeated her demand.
    â€œIs it the Gaelic, then?” called the dog from behind the gate. He was now pacing back and forth. “Is she speaking the old tongue?”
    Gran turned and bade him enter the cemetery, her fingers shaping some kind of warding spell.
    The dog came in slowly and reluctantly, making certain that he did not touch any part of the ironwork. His tail hung down between his legs.
    When at last he got to Gran’s side, she answered him. “Not Gaelic. Not Scots. Not any language I ken. Is it something older, dog?”
    The dog sniffed the air, then he shivered all over. “Older than ye think, carline. Older than even I can guess at.”
    â€œI thought so,” said Gran, nodding her head. “A Pict, by the look of her.”
    â€œDon’t give her my talisman,” wailed Molly. “Mrs. McGregor gave it to