Jenny put down her basket, hugged me, quick and hard, then ducked without a word beneath the hanging quilt into the surgery. Rachel had a basket, too, and Oggy in her other arm. She detached the baby and handed him to Fanny, who looked relieved to be given something to do.
“Is thee all right, Claire?” she asked softly, then glanced at Mrs. Cunningham, who had taken up a station beside the covered surgery door, hands folded at her waist. “And thee, Friend Cunningham?”
“Yes,” I said. The odd sense of being in an intimate bubble with Elspeth Cunningham had burst at once with the advent of friends and family, but the experience had left me feeling oddly moist and exposed, like a half-opened clam. Elspeth herself had closed her shell tightly but nodded to the new arrivals. Her own near neighbors would be coming down as soon as the news reached them, but it would take some time; the Crombies’ and Wilsons’ several cabins were at least two miles from us.
Jenny was praying softly in Gaelic. I couldn’t catch the words clearly enough to know what she said, but the distinctive lilt of mourning was in it.
“Come aside,” Rachel said softly to me, and drew back the quilt a little, beckoning me with a sober nod of the head that simultaneously summoned me and indicated that no one else need follow.
Jenny had just finished her prayer. She put out a hand and rested it very gently for a moment on Amy’s white-capped head. “Biodh sith na Màthair Beannaichte agus a mac Iosa ort, a nighean.” she said quietly. May the peace of the Blessed Mother and of her son, Jesus, be on you, daughter.
Rachel looked at Amy’s body and swallowed, but didn’t flinch or look away.
“Germain said it was a bear,” she said, and I saw her eyes slide toward the pitiful pile of tattered, bloodstained garments. “Was thee … present, Claire?”
“No. Brianna was with her when it happened, picking grapes. Some of the children were there, too. Jemmy, Germain, and Aidan. The little boys. And Mandy.”
“Dear God. Did they see it?” Rachel asked, shocked.
I shook my head.
“They were up above, playing. Bree and Amy were picking muscats in that little gorge beyond the creek. She—Brianna—got the children away and then ran for Jamie. She—Amy—was just barely alive when I got to her.” My throat tightened, seeing the small pale hand, limp in Roger’s, the twitch at the corner of her mouth as she’d tried to bid her children farewell. Despite my determination, a small hot tear slid down my cheek.
Rachel made a small sound of distress and smoothed my hair away from my cheek. Jenny cleared her throat, reached into her pocket, and handed me a clean handkerchief.
“Well, the front door was open when we came in,” Jenny said, ticking off a mental checklist. She glanced at the huge, glassless surgery window, open to the day. “And ye’ll not need to open the windows.”
This tinge of dry humor, small though it was, relieved the tension and I felt a small crack between my shoulder blades as my spine relaxed, for what seemed the first time in days, not hours.
“No,” I said. I blotted the tears and sniffed. “What else—mirrors? There’s only the hand glass in my bedroom and it’s already lying facedown.”
“No birds in the house? I see ye’ve got salt …” A few grains had spilled on the counter when Elspeth had thrown salt into the water. “… and bread willna be a worry.” She cocked a still-black eyebrow in the direction of the kitchen. I could hear the voices of women as they greeted new arrivals, unpacked baskets, made things ready. I wondered if I should go and organize things, tell them where to place the coffin … Ought it to be in the front room, or in the much bigger kitchen? Oh, God, a coffin; I hadn’t even thought of that.
“Och,” said Jenny, in a different voice. “Here’s Bobby a-coming up the hill wi’ Roger Mac.” As one, we all glanced at Amy’s body, then looked at one another, questioning. We had made her as seemly as we could, but could we leave Bobby alone with her? That didn’t seem right, but neither did a crowd of women, likely to set each other off if one burst into tears—
“I’ll stay with him,” Rachel said, swallowing. Jenny glanced at me, eyebrow raised, then nodded. Rachel had a gift for stillness.
“I’ll mind our wee man,” Jenny said, and, kissing Rachel affectionately on the forehead, went out. Elspeth Cunningham had already vanished, presumably to help the women now murmuring in the kitchen, busy but subdued, the sound of them like termites working in the walls of the house.