CHAPTER TWO

FLORA

It was not the first child she had lost, but it was the first that she had buried. Looking upon the lifeless form of her youngest child being lowered into his grave, cradled tenderly in the arms of his father and two surviving brothers, Flora wished that she could summon a genuine tear. Instead, she trembled in the bitter cold, disguising her shivers as sobs as her neighbours mourned on her behalf. Inside she was crippled with a dull pain, but since the day her son's storm-damaged, mutilated body had been brought back to her, she had not been able to cry. She had lain awake for the past five nights, her boy's corpse lying just beyond the partition separating her living space from the byre and waited desperately for the grief to hit her. Yet now she stood, watching as other mothers wailed and tore at their flesh for her child, while she remained silent.

With an aching awareness, Flora listened to the soft thud of Donnchadh's body hit the earth and felt a sudden twinge of longing as her boy's form was obscured from view. It had been barely seventeen years since she had first held him against her breast.

As she scanned the crowd she observed Mary, the wife of her second son, Fergus, nursing her infant granddaughter beneath her shawl. Flora stared longingly at the child. She thought of her lost daughter, and how there had been no opportunity to grieve then, no grave to weep over, no memorial cairn to sit and remember her by. No mourners had gathered to lay her little girl to rest, but that was the last time Flora had allowed herself to shed tears so freely, and even as her son's body was vanishing beneath her feet, it was still the memory of her daughter's soul which plagued Flora's thoughts.

Despite the relentless battering of the elements, Donnchadh's grave was soon filled, and Flora allowed herself to shuffle forward to the front of the congregation. The earth lay clumped in freshly dug sods which stood out from the springy turf surrounding the grave. Just yards away stood the burial cairn of Flora's parents and siblings, now so old that thick moss and lichen had crawled between the pebbles, binding them together.

John placed an arm around his wife's shoulder and pulled four round stones from beneath his belted plaid, giving one each to Flora, Fergus and his eldest son, Michael. Flora felt the stone sit snugly in her palm, warming to her touch, before she planted it firmly in the ground at the head of the grave. In procession, each member of the family deposited their stone on the growing cairn, while the remainder of the congregation scrabbled around in the turf for their own. Michael's wife, Ann, hesitated before she placed her own tribute on the cairn, hastily moving back when the deed was done to distance herself from the gravesite. Flora looked to Ann but could not catch her eye. She noticed that some of her other kinsfolk seemed unsettled as they crowded the cemetery; some hovered by the edges as if afraid of getting too close. Flora understood the unease all too well: a death such as this forecast ill luck was on its way, swept in on a high tide. Flora did not fear this, for to her Donnchadh's death was already a penance bestowed upon her by the sea, but if anyone else suspected this, they wisely chose to keep their fears unspoken.

"This is idolatry."

Summoned by a stranger's voice, Flora rose stiffly and looked across her son's grave. She beheld the owner of those words hovering at the edge of the crowd: a tall, slender man whose thin lips were set firmly on a beardless face which betrayed no warmth of feeling. Flora observed that he could not have been a great deal older than her eldest, and that the windswept hair escaping from the confines of a thin ribbon binding it at the nape of his neck was the same burnished brown as her own sons'.

Flora quickly surmised from the unfamiliar words and outlandish dialect that the strange man must be Reverend Buchan's successor. The elderly cleric had left the island with the first buds of spring, taking nothing with him but a terrible fever and leaving nothing but an incomplete structure which he claimed was a place to house God. Unlike her neighbours, Flora had paid little heed to the man's lectures and preaching.

Perhaps it could be attributed to his relative youth and sickly pallor, but Flora felt a sudden wave of sympathy for the new Reverend, who stood out sharply from the islanders in his closely fitted black clothes and odd, three-cornered hat.

"This is idolatry," the stranger repeated, his face flushing red.

Most of the mourners ignored him, but Flora could see that John and her sons were eying the clergyman anxiously. Desperate to break the dreadful silence, she took a bold step forward.

"I am very grateful to you for coming, sir." Flora looked up to meet his eyes.

The young man narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth, but unprepared, took several moments to respond.

"I am sorry for your loss, madam." He paused and straightened himself. "But I'm afraid I cannot allow this kind of superstitious, pagan ritual to continue while I am tasked with caring for the spiritual wellbeing of this island's inhabitants."

"I don't quite understand your words, Father ." Flora could recognise that the man was offering some form of condolence, but there was a coldness to his voice, as well as a trace of unease which she found both unsettling and pitiable.

In this moment, Flora felt a sturdy arm wrap around her waist and a firm hand rest once more against her shoulder as her husband came to stand beside her.

"As you can see, Father, my wife has just buried a child," John growled. "We'd be thankful if you could leave her to mourn. She's in no fit state to make introductions today."

As John spoke these words, Flora set her jaw and gently bit the inside of her lip.

"I meant no offence to your wife, sir. I was just explaining that ." The Reverend caught himself mid-sentence, before resuming in a quieter tone. "I only meant to say that it is important that you and your wife honour your son in a way which is respectful to God."

"Who said anything about disrespect?" John's voice set as hard as granite.

The Reverend's head twitched to one side. "I did not mean ."

"Are you alright, Ma?"

Another voice joined the fray. Michael and Fergus positioned themselves on either side of Flora and fixed their gaze upon the Reverend. Flora took Fergus' hand in hers and gazed up at Michael, who now towered above both her and his father.

"I'm fine, boys." Flora patted Fergus's hand. "Get yourselves back home. Those bairns of yours will want feeding."

Michael shifted, but after taking one last icy glance at the Reverend, departed with his own growing family.

"Are you sure you'll be alright, Ma?" Fergus hovered at her side. Flora gave a shaky smile and nodded, gesturing for him to join his wife and babe. With a final squeeze of his mother's hand, Fergus left to follow Michael. Flora turned back to the Reverend, who licked his lips slightly before once again speaking.

"The fact is, madam, that your son is in God's hands now, and hopefully, he'll be welcomed warmly into the house of the Lord. But no amount of scratching at the dirt will help him into Christ's embrace." The Reverend's voice rose as he drew his body upright to reveal an imposing height which dwarfed Flora's brethren. "Those stones are empty gestures; they merely serve to venerate death. We cannot permit false idols."

Silence hung ominously at the end of the Reverend's words. Flora felt the air thicken as the remaining mourners all turned to observe them.

"My wife can mourn our son how she sees fit." The lines on John's face deepened.

"Aye. And we don't need guidance from the likes of you!"

Donald Gillies, the Mackinnons' closest neighbour, stormed his way across the tiny graveyard, positioning himself close to Flora. "The last one of you lot was a good enough man but did little in the end to actually help us. We don't want any more of your kind here. Why can't that fancy laird or bishop of yours send strong, working bodies that can pull their weight around here?"

The Reverend tried to stammer a reply, but was cut off by Donald's wife, Margaret.

"Aye! Or why doesn't he send us more sheep or grain? It's feeding, not praying that we need."

There was a grumble of assent from the congregation, and several other voices shouted across their own grievances.

"As you can see, priest," spat Donald, "you're not wanted here."

A rising tide of fury could be heard gathering over the graveyard. Flora could see in his eyes that the Reverend was growing increasingly anxious, but his doggedness to his cause refused to be...