She compressed her lips, but in a way that suggested grim amusement at my feeble attempt to exert authority rather than offense, and left without a word.
There was a good bit of barking out front, and I heard Gillebride—his name meant “Oystercatcher,” he’d told me—calling to the dogs. I ripped the worn sheet into wide bands; we’d fasten her legs together, and her arms at her sides—insofar as was possible; I eyed the left shoulder dubiously—cloth binding her body into seemliness before we braided her hair and put her into her shroud.
Mrs. Cunningham reappeared with her sleeves rolled up, a bucket of steaming water from the cauldron in one hand and a hammer in the other, a quilt from my bed over her arm.
“There’ll be men coming to and fro in a moment’s time,” she said, with a jerk of her head toward the hallway.
“Ah,” I said. I would have closed the surgery door, save that there wasn’t one yet. She nodded, set down the bucket, took a handful of tenpenny nails from her pocket, and hung the quilt over the open doorway with a few sharp raps of the hammer.
There was plenty of light coming in at the big window, but the quilt seemed somehow to muffle both light and sound, casting the room into something like a state of reverence, despite the growing noises outside. I took a handful of dried lavender and rubbed it into the hot water, then tore sweet basil leaves and mint and tossed them in as well. To my slight surprise, Mrs. Cunningham looked over the jars on my shelves, took down the salt, and threw a small handful into the water.
“To wash away sin,” she informed me crisply, seeing my look. “And keep her ghost from walking.”
I nodded mechanically at this, feeling as though she’d dropped a pebble into the small pool of calmness I was hoarding, sending ripples of uneasiness through me.
We managed the cleansing and binding of the body in silence. She moved with a sure touch, and we worked surprisingly well together, each conscious of the other’s movements, reaching to do what was needed without being asked. Then we reached the head.
I took a breath through my mouth and lifted the towel away; there were blood spots on it, and it stuck a bit. Mrs. Cunningham jerked a little.
“I was thinking that we might just keep her head covered,” I said apologetically. “With a clean cloth, I mean.”
Mrs. Cunningham was frowning at Amy’s face, the wrinkles in her upper lip drawn in like an accordion.
“Can ye not do a bit to tidy her?”
“Well, I can stitch what’s left of the scalp back in place and we could pull some of her hair over the missing ear, but there’s nothing I can do about the … er … the …” The dislodged eyeball hung grotesquely on the crushed cheek, its surface filmed over but still very much a staring eye. “That’s why I thought … cover her face.”
Mrs. Cunningham’s head moved slowly, side to side.
“Nay,” she said softly, her own eyes fixed on Amy. “I’ve buried three husbands and four bairns myself. Ye always want to look upon their faces, one last time. Nay matter what’s happened to them.”
Frank. I’d looked at him, and said my last goodbye. And was glad that I’d had the chance.
I nodded and reached for my surgical scissors.
“GERMAIN TOLD ME where the bear came upon them,” Ian said. “I went along there, quick, on my way down, and I could see where it had gone through the vines, out the end o’ the wee gorge. We’ll start there, aye?”
Jamie and MacMillan nodded, and MacMillan turned to say something reproving to his dogs, who were sniffing industriously from one end of the kitchen to the other, thrusting their broad heads into the hearth and nosing the lidded slop bucket.
“Speaking of Germain,” Jamie said, suddenly aware that his grandson was missing, “where the devil is he?” It was completely unlike Germain to be absent from any interesting situation. He was much more often right in the middle of—
“Did he go with ye to look for the bear’s track?” Jamie asked sharply, interrupting Gillebride’s recriminations. Ian looked blank for a moment, recollecting, but then nodded.
“Aye, he did. But … I was sure he was just behind me as I came down …” He turned involuntarily and glanced behind him now, as though expecting Germain to spring up through the floorboards. With a deep foreboding in his heart, Jamie swung round to face Gillebride.
“Did Jem come back with ye, Gilly?”
MacMillan, a tall, soft-spoken man, took off his hat and scratched his bald pate.