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David relaxed, warm and full. He stood up and removed his wet leine croich. His long hair, gathered at the back in a tail, still dripped with water.

“Do you mind if I let it dry?” he asked as he stood up.

“Aye, lad,” said Padean. “Do so.”

“I look for faerie stones,” David said as he stood by the fire with his leine croich hanging from his hands. “The ones that are up there—”

He stopped because the woman gasped, and the slurping stopped, and the only sounds were of rain and fire and wind.

“Leave,” said the woman. Her voice was like a thunder strike. “Get out now.”

Dùghlas chuckled. “Please, ’tis nothing. My friend is just curious—”

The woman turned to David, her face dark under her hood. “’Tis a curse. Those stones are a curse. The same curse that hit me. ’Tis the faeries’ fault, all their fault that God is punishing me, and now my husband. Leave before ye bring death to us!”

“Peigi,” said Padean placatingly, “the lads have nowhere to go. It rains and there’re nae other farms nearby. Come now, calm down, they can just go to the stables—”

“Nae, ye fool. I already brought the curse on ye. This man is just another one sent by God.” She looked straight at David. “Up there, Dunadd hill, is the stone with the foot. But ’tis nae what ye’ve been looking for, aye, lad? Or ye wouldna have asked. Ye’ve been searching for the stone with the hand, aye?”

Mumbling angry curses, something along the lines of I told ye nae to tell folk the wrong things, Dùghlas stood up from the table and came to the fire, quickly rubbing his hands. His tunic, his hair, and his shoes were still wet, and David knew his friend didn’t want to go out into the rain any more than he did.

David slowly picked up his leine croich. “Yes. I was looking for a hand.”

The woman laughed hysterically. “Ye fool. ’Tis nae in the open like that, facing the sky, looking over the country. ’Tis in a place darker than night, where nightmares are born.”

Even drunk, David felt a chill go through him. He stood, holding the wet leine croich that weighed as much as a sheep. “You know where it is?” he asked.

“Shut up,” murmured Dùghlas as he put the baldric back on.

“I ken,” Peigi said, narrowing her eyes at him. “But I wilna tell ye. I follow God’s path. Only when my soul is healed, will my body heal.”

He looked helplessly at Dùghlas, who shrugged. David shook his head, attempting to make his drunken head work faster.

Padean took David by his elbow and led him to the door. “Ye must go. Ye are upsetting her.”

David picked up his sword. “Where then?”

But she didn’t reply. Disappointment weighed at David as Padean opened the door and gently pushed him and Dùghlas out into the gray, muddy rain. Water poured over them as Padean led them firmly to the farm gates.

“Where is the stone with the hand?” David asked.

Padean pushed them out of the low gate and closed it, creating a barrier between him and David and Dùghlas. Then he sighed and shook his head, looking down.

“’Tis in Carlisle Castle,” he said. “I was born here, but as a lad, I was brought to my uncle, the mason who worked on the castle dungeon. I remember seeing that stone—the handprint, the odd carvings of waves and a tunnel or something similar. ’Tis odd and pagan and shouldna be talked about by God-fearing Christians,” he added with anger.

Carlisle…David thought. English territory. His next destination.

Padean’s eyes softened. “If ye think about going there, lad, be careful. The castle is probably still well guarded. But I remember a way in. See, as a young lad, I fell in love with Peigi. She lived in the town, but I wasna allowed to leave the keep after dark. So I sneaked out. On the northwestern side of the curtain wall, the stones form a sort of stairway. They stand out a wee bit. The enemy wilna notice that, only them who kens ’tis there. My uncle, a Cambel, told me about it, to help me see my love. So mayhap it will help ye in yer search. Ye helped us with the stables and the firewood. We didna give ye shelter. ’Tis the very least I can do.”

Then he turned, and, slouching like a question mark, returned to the sick love of his life. The girl for whom he’d spent his youth climbing the castle walls. Look where love had gotten them. David shuddered.

Sighing, he took out his map. Rain still poured, but he hoped to make the mark quick enough for moisture not to destroy it. He laid the parchment on top of the stone wall surrounding the farm, then took out a quill and a small jar of ink Rogene had given him so that he would write to her.

His sister was a dictator. What did she expect from a dyslexic who could barely write with pen and paper, let alone with quill and ink? He hadn’t written her in two years. He hadn’t seen Paul, his nephew, for two years. David had left Eilean Donan Castle when Paul was about two months old.

He missed Rogene and Paul and thought of them often. Paul would already be a toddler, walking and babbling. He was a sweet baby, and his sister and Angus couldn’t get enough of their son.

With a quill, he made a cross where Carlisle was, approximately. Rain poured on top of it, and it smudged. “How long till Carlisle?” he asked.