excerpt
Some traveller has found his way to the cottage, he thought; some shepherd caught by darkness on the hills.
He stepped irresolutely forward. He wanted to shout a brave hello to the visitor, but his voice was coward. He took a deep breath and in his mind heard Finn’s laughter die away. He wished he had brought Jipsie, the sheepdog, with him from the house. Then he grew bold enough to approach the window and peep in through the lace curtains. There on the sheepskins by the hearth, huddled in a rug that covered all but her head, Caitlin sat. She was gazing at the burning turf which every now and then she prodded absent-mindedly with a stick. In the light of the fire her black hair gleamed with the sheen of a magpie’s wings.
Michael’s heart leaped at the sight of her so violently he was almost sick. Shivers tingled through his flesh from scalp to groin. Then he felt ashamed for the fright his mind had moved him to.
“Oh Caitlin, you don’t know what you did to me just now,” he whispered to himself.
Michael was loath to startle Caitlin out of her reverie. He stepped back half a dozen paces and re-approached the cottage, whistling loudly a fiddle-tune she knew. He scraped his feet on the granite slab before the door and lowered his head to enter the two-roomed cottage. A table and chairs stood against one wall, with an old armchair to the side of the hearth, where a crook and crane held a blackened kettle above the fire. Against the wall beside the door to the bedroom an open dresser held blue-and-white-ringed plates and bowls, and ill-assorted mugs and cups hanging from cup hooks.
Michael closed the door. “Caitlin, it’s yourself as has the fire burning,” he said brightly. “What brings you up here?”
She looked at him and smiled but did not rise. “I couldn’t sleep in the house. I had a lot of things on my mind. So I slipped outside and came up here. I thought you might like a warm room tonight.”
He knelt behind her, placed his arms over her shoulders and clasped her hands as they held the rug snugly under her chin.
“That was kind of you,” he said in a gentle voice. “But what would you have done had I stayed at the house in the same drunken sleep as last night?” He rubbed his cheek against her silken hair.
“No matter. I’d have slept here alone.” Caitlin slowly tipped her head back against the pressure of Michael’s cheek and chin, like a kitten. He kissed her on the forehead. Her skin was warm from the fire.
Mayanaam
vequinox
Manolis 