Chapter 1

Colstin Hall, Scotland
October 1761

Catherine Dunnan stood at the window and pushed it ajar, feeling the sudden tenseness in the woman behind her. She almost wanted to reassure the young maid that she had no intention of throwing herself to the ground, but that would have required speech, and conversation was simply beyond her at the moment.

So many things were difficult, like rising in the morning and washing her face and hands. She preferred to stay abed, preferably asleep, but the world seemed to think that she should be awake and alert. So, she occasionally left her bed in order not to further worry her servants.

In actuality, she didn't care if the day was advanced or early, if it rained or was filled with sunshine outside her window. It had been six months since the letter and the trunk had come, but it might have only been yesterday for the pain she felt.

The day was overcast, any sight of the sun obscured by a white sky. A dampness clung to the air, making the leaves curl on the branches of the trees outside her window. Fog hugged the ground, as if the clouds had fallen from the sky.

The world looked upside down.

Behind her the maid puttered, placing a luncheon tray on a small circular table, arranging silverware, all the while prattling on about the morning's events. A litter of kittens had been born in the barn, Cook's bones were aching, the footman had a rash, a squirrel was found dead below her window.

Taken individually, each event was miniscule, almost unimportant. But added together, it became a sure and certain progression, the transcribing of life itself.

Once she had been interested in what went on around her. Now, however, her existence had narrowed, become fixed and immutable. She breathed in and out, and that was the extent of her focus.

An ache lodged bone deep in her chest, as painful as a spear wound. Never easing nor ceasing, it remained a constant thing against which to measure her hours. She awoke and it was there. She lay on her bed and prayed for sleep and it kept a vigil within her, a succubus that fed on her despair.

Air brushed across her skin, making her shiver. A squirrel scampered up from the fog, leaping from one branch to another. Through it all, the maid chattered. Catherine neither wanted to see nor hear nor feel anything, but however much she wished it otherwise, she was still alive.

And the living endure.

If she could only die. How could God not answer a simple enough prayer?

The vicar said she was wrong to pray for such things. God would see to it that she died when He was ready and not she. The vicar was obtrusive in his care for her, assiduous in a way that was grating. How did one tell a man of the cloth that he was an irritant?

"What time is it?"

"Two o'clock, madam," the maid answered, quick enough that she must have anticipated the question.

So, she had slept most of the day after all. She would spend the night in restless nightmares.

"You look pale, madam. Are you feeling well?"

Did it matter? She slept and dreamed and slept and dreamed and sometimes she awoke, sat up against the headboard feeling adrift in a mindless confusion. At times like those she took another draught of the laudanum and waited to sleep again.

"You should eat something, madam," the maid said, finally done with the chore of arranging dishes and cutlery.

Catherine didn't turn from her survey of the strange fog-laden countryside. "I'm not hungry," she said. How many times would she have to repeat those words until her staff learned from them?

Copyright © 2005 by Karen Ranney.