The Pictish Child Read online

  “Go,” Gran said. “Now. I have my hands full here.” And indeed she did, with Molly and the dog making equal rackets.

  So Jennifer looked where Gran was pointing.

  Down a tiny lane that was much too narrow for a car, she saw a small ironwork gate. Taking a deep breath, she gave Gran her umbrella and went along till she reached the gate. Then she pushed on it with both hands.

  It made an awful creaking noise, like something out of a bad horror movie, but moved less than an inch. She wondered if it had been opened in years. But then, when she pushed on it again, shoving with her shoulder, it opened slowly, protesting all the way.

  She went in.

  There was a kind of hushed reverence inside the cemetery, made more intense by the fact that both Molly and the dog had suddenly and without explanation fallen silent beyond the wall.

  The cemetery was small, about the size of their backyard at home, and easily contained within the high stone walls. There was another ironwork gate on the other side, which led to the Eventide Home’s lawn. Jennifer could see a patch of green.

  The grass inside the cemetery had recently been cut and rolled flat. However, the forty or so gravestones were not so well tended. They seemed ancient, the inscriptions on them mostly obscured by moss or rubbed flat by the passing years. Jennifer could hardly read a word or date on each: “Drowned … 1745 … lost at sea … invictus … 1567 … salvation …” None of the stones stood up straight. They leaned like drunken old men.

  Jennifer went over to the wall that paralleled Burial Brae Road. A huge oak shaded the area, and several of its limbs overhung the wall. The corner was dark—much too dark for the time of day—and she looked around.

  A sea mist—which Gran called a haar—had come in sudden and thick and fast and was flowing over the wall. It was an odd grey, the color of stew left three days in the pot.

  The silence that Jennifer had noticed was suddenly muddied by a muffled roar, like a radio broadcast of a battle, not quite tuned in. She thought she heard faraway shouts, cries, and she turned around to see where the sound was coming from. But she was all alone in the grey mist in the graveyard.

  She kicked at the sparse vegetation under the oak with her wellies—and suddenly her foot must have connected with the little 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.

  “You 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.

  “Dark!” 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.

  “I want my talisman,” Molly cried.

  “So 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.

  “Look!” Jennifer said. “Isn’t that tattoo the same bird and snake as on Molly’s stone?”

  “It is indeed,” said Gran.

  The dark girl repeated her demand.

  “Is 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.”

  “I thought so,” said Gran, nodding her head. “A Pict, by the look of her.”

  “Don’t give her my talisman,” wailed Molly. “Mrs. McGregor gave it to me.”

  “What’s a Pict?” asked Jennifer.

  “One of the oldest races in Scotland,” said Gran.

  “Is she like … like a gypsy?”

  “Nothing like,” said Gran. “There are still Travelers—gypsies, as ye call them—about in Scotland today.”

  “Then what’s she doing here?”

  “That’s what I do not ken, Jennifer,” said Gran, shaking her head. “There haven’t been Picts in Scotland for a thousand years or more.”

  The Pictish girl had obviously gotten tired of waiting to be given the stone, and she made a rush at Jennifer to take it. But Jennifer was older and—if not quicker than the girl—at least a lot taller. She held the stone high over her head and the girl could not get at it, much as she screamed and spat. She aimed a kick at Jennifer’s knee, which—if it had landed—might have done some damage, but Jennifer quickly jumped aside. Her karate lessons hadn’t been in vain, then, she thought with satisfaction.

  “Mind your manners!” Jennifer told the girl, which was something Mom often said to them.

  Suddenly the dog began to howl again. It was a terrible sound, high and keening, that raised the little hairs on the back of Jennifer’s neck.

  “Dark!” he howled. “Dark, dark, dark.”

  Gran’s simultaneous intake of breath made Jennifer turn around.

  Behind her, under the tree, the dark grey haar had returned, and the noise as well. It didn’t take a witch—or a rocket scientist—to know that what was forming was not something good.

  “Out!” shouted Gran, pointing to the gate they had come in. “Molly, Jennifer—out of this place right now!”

  The dog needed no telling. Tail still firmly between his legs, he galloped through the gate.

  Jennifer whirled, grabbed Molly by the hand, and raced after him.

 
Huffing, Gran followed.

  “The gate!” Gran said as soon as she had gotten through it. “Pull the gate closed. Cold iron will keep it in—whatever it is. Fey things cannot stand cold iron.” She placed both hands on the gate and began to pull.

  Jennifer helped and the gate, again protesting with a high squeal, began to swing shut slowly.

  At the very last minute, the dark girl slipped past the gate as well, running just ahead of the dark mist. Screaming something none of them could understand, she put her own hands on the gate and pulled along with them.

  With one last protesting squeak, the gate closed.

  Behind it the dark formless mist swirled but could not get through.

  “That was close,” said Jennifer.

  “Much too close,” Gran agreed.

  But then they heard someone sobbing. Turning, they saw it was the Pictish girl, her hands held up in front of her as if in some kind of supplication.

  “Gran, she’s burned her hands,” cried Molly. “How did she get burned?”

  But Jennifer knew without being told, because the burns cutting across the dark girl’s hands were the same shape as the bars on the gate.

  “Iron,” she said to Molly. “Cold iron burned her, but she didn’t let go.”

  “She helped save us all,” added Gran grimly. “Blessed be.”

  Blessed be, indeed, Jennifer thought.

  “Can I have my talisman now?” asked Molly, holding out her hand.

  Wordlessly Jennifer handed the stone over, her thoughts at that moment not at all charitable toward her little sister.

  But then Molly did something that surprised them all.

  “Here,” she said, “this is really yours.” And she handed the talisman to the Pictish girl, who closed her poor, burned right hand over it and held fast.

  Seven

  The Back End of History

  As they walked down the lane, conscious that just beyond the stone wall a dark mist was stalking them, the rain started up again in earnest.

  Jennifer snapped open her umbrella.

  The Pictish girl gave a little scream and ran out onto the cobbles.

  “Come here, child,” Gran called. “Or ye’ll be run down.”

  Luckily no car came by while they coaxed her back onto the sidewalk, but she would not walk under either of the umbrellas. Indeed, the very sight of them seemed to send her into a panic. So Gran stayed behind with her while Molly and Jennifer walked on ahead.

  As quickly as the rain had begun it ended, and a fiercely hot sun came out from behind the dark clouds. First Jennifer, then Molly shut their umbrellas, and only then could Gran convince the Pictish girl to close ranks with them.

  “Has she never seen an umbrella, Gran?” asked Molly.

  “No, my sweet,” said Gran. “And what she will make of cars and stone houses and running water and electric lights, I canna begin to guess.”

  “And the telly? Has she seen a telly before?” Molly asked. She had already picked up more Britishisms than the rest of the family combined, and was using them interchangeably with her American words.

  “Of course she hasn’t seen a TV before,” Jennifer said.

  “How can you know, Jen?” asked Molly.

  “Because TV was invented in this century. And that girl is hundreds of centuries old,” Jennifer said.

  “She doesn’t look hundreds of centuries old,” said Molly. “Only a little older than me.”

  “She … her … the girl …” Jennifer shook her head. “Gran, we can’t keep calling her that. Does she have a name, do you suppose? I mean, one that we can pronounce!”

  “I dinna ken how to ask her,” admitted Gran.

  “I do,” said Molly. She turned to the dark girl and put her hand on her chest. “Me Molly,” she said. Then she touched the girl on the arm. “Who you?” She turned back to Gran, grinning. “I saw that in a movie.”

  “Me Molly!” the girl said seriously.

  “No, no. Me Molly!” Molly’s face got red. “Not you.” She stamped her foot.

  The girl put her hand—the one without the talisman—over her mouth. Her dark eyes were full of laughter. When she had control of herself again, she touched Molly’s arm. “Me Molly,” she said. Then she put her fist, thumb side in, on her own chest. “Ninia.”

  “Ninia!” Molly crowed. “Her name is Ninia!”

  The dog growled, “Or her chest is Ninia. Or her heart. Or—”

  “Shut up, dog!” Jennifer said. “If Molly says that’s the Pictish girl’s name, that’s her name.”

  “Quite right,” agreed Gran. “At least that is what we will call her.”

  They walked on to the junction where Burial Brae turned into Double Dykes Road, and—luckily—no cars went by. Gran hurried them along so that they got safely and quickly to Abbot’s Close. Gran’s house, whitewashed and welcoming, stood but a little way down the lane.

  Sitting on the doorstep was Peter, his face as long as a ruler.

  “What took you all so long?” he asked. “I didn’t have a key.” Then, catching sight of Ninia, he added, “Who’s she?”

  Jennifer tried to explain, and then Gran. Even Molly had a try at it, but Peter just shook his head.

  “A Pict? How can she be a Pict? Weren’t the Picts all dead hundreds of years ago?”

  “Millions,” Molly said.

  “Exactly,” Gran replied.

  “Exactly … what?” asked Peter. His lips shut tight, as if locking up his entire face.

  “I expect it has to do with the back end of history,” Gran said.

  “And what’s the back end of history?” Peter asked reluctantly.

  “What a glundie,” said the dog. “Everyone kens that.”

  “Glundie or not, I don’t know it,” said Peter.

  “Me neither,” said Jennifer stoutly. Peter was, after all, her twin. And if he was to be a glundie—whatever that was—then so was she.

  He looked up at her gratefully.

  “The back end of history is the word story,” said the dog. There was triumph in his voice.

  Molly clapped her hands. “A story!” she cried.

  “Och—well, only as much of the story as I ken,” said Gran, fitting the key to the door and letting them all in. “The encyclopedia will have to fill in the rest. History, unlike story, is untidy with its endings.”

  They dropped their umbrellas in the metal stand and took off their wet wellies. Peter’s Nikes were sopping and so he left them on the welcome mat.

  “Give the dog a bowl of water,” Gran said. “I will put some unguent on the puir girl’s hands. And then I will make us all some iced tea. After, we can sit in the garden and see what we can learn about the Pictish folk.”

  Twenty minutes later, having wiped off the various garden seats and the table with a towel, they sat and drank their sweetened iced tea while Gran told them what she knew of the Picts, supplementing it with an article in the encyclopedia that lay open on her lap.

  Ninia did not stay with them. She was too busy exploring—first the house, where Da’s tankful of tropical fish fascinated her, then the garden, where the rose arbor caught her eye. But she never got so far away that she did not have them all in her sight.

  “Once upon a time,” said Gran, “the Picts were the only ones who lived here in Scotland—only it wasn’t called Scotland then, but Pictland.”

  “Pictland,” Molly said solemnly.

  “Well,” Gran admitted, “at least that is what the historians call it now. The de’il only kens what the Picts called it.”

  “Mayhap they called it Ninia,” said the dog. “Mayhap she’s a Ninian and not a Pict at all.” He circled on the paving stones three times before lying down.

  Gran ignored him. “The Picts were to us as the Indians are to ye in America. Brave warrior tribes who lived in Scotland before us. They painted—or tattooed—their skins. The name Pict means just that: ‘Painted men.’ At least, that is what the Romans called them.”

  �
��Like the first American settlers calling the Indians redskins,” Peter said.

  “But redskins is a racist word,” Jennifer pointed out. “We’re not supposed to use it.”

  Peter frowned at her as if she had just accused him of being a racist. She wanted to reassure him, but when she tried to smile, he looked away. “Is Pict the same?” she asked Gran.

  “Perhaps,” said Gran. “Perhaps not. We just dinna ken enough about the Pictish folk to be certain. They had no written language and there are no Picts left about to tell us.”

  “Well—what do ye ken?” asked the dog, stretching out on his chosen stone to soak up the sun.

  “We ken they lived from the fourth century to the ninth,” said Gran, tapping her finger on the encylopedia. “That they were ruled by kings but that the line was through the women’s side, not the men’s. A king’s nephew reigned after him—son of his sister, not his own son.” She closed the book carefully.

  “Weird,” said Peter.

  “Only to you!” Jennifer nudged him. “Oink!”

  “Oink yourself!” Peter said back.

  “Still, it was a king who ruled,” Gran pointed out. “Not a queen.”

  “Hah!” said Peter. “One for the male side!” He took another big slurp of the iced tea.

  Sometimes, Jennifer thought sadly, Peter and I seem so far apart. Not nearly as close as we once were.

  “What about my talisman?” asked Molly.

  “Och, well—the stone.” Gran bit her lip and looked over at Ninia for a moment. The girl was now on her belly in the wet grass and sniffing at various herbs in the garden.

  “The stone,” prompted Jennifer.

  “What we mostly ken about the Picts, besides some blether written by churchmen who were busy trying to convert them to Christianity—and succeeding, too, I might add—comes from the strange engraved stones they left. Ye can find these stones all over Scotland.”

  “Like my stone, Gran?”

  “Only a great deal larger, Molly, my lass. Most are taller than ye, some taller than Jennifer and Peter. And several as tall as yer father. We’ve a few in the Fairburn Museum that were found in the Eventide cemetery. Perhaps we should go there and look at them. The earlier stones had these strange drawings on them.”