The week passed in a frenzy. A blur of movement and madness that left little room for thinking or feeling. It was all I could do to stay tethered to reality. I moved my hands and body through tasks as if action alone could keep me from sliding into an abyss of terror. I became my father's phantom, following him from sunup to sundown, eager to learn anything that might help me in his absence. He would offer me offhanded instructions, passing along a ledger or file that contained crucial information to Stormway and Ellesmure's dealings.
"Use this account book for the rents."
"This is the latest crop rotation, you shouldn't need it but just in case."
"You shouldn't need these, but here are the keys to the crypt. God, I haven't been down there since I was a boy."
It was all bewildering.
The morning they left — my parents, brothers, every battle-eligible man — I sat in the great hall in a stupor. The castle was desolate. Breakfasts sat half-eaten, forgotten on silver plates. Hastily left-behind favors from sweethearts and family members lay scattered amongst the benches. Gaudy, bright ribbons. Roughly hewn totems that would get swept up and discarded once the maids got around to cleaning. The servants were nowhere to be seen. After all, they had sent off their husbands and sons and brothers, too. Everyone remaining in the castle had retreated to their rooms in private grief. The sound of sniffling and wailing sighed through the castle like a bitter wind. A chorus to neutralize the ghostly quiet of the halls.
I was alone.
I tried and failed to remember the last words my father, mother, and brothers had said to me. Ian had hugged me, my arms hanging at my sides for a surprised minute before I held onto him with all my might, burrowing my face into his chest. Walther had gripped my hand and told me something urgent. His eyes had been bright and wild as he made me promise to... I couldn't remember. All I could recall was the clammy feel of his hands on my own. Rupert had roughly yanked me into his side and mussed my hair. He alone had laughed, he alone was jolly. My wild brother's enthusiasm never failing him. He had kissed the top of my head again and again and then told some bawdy joke as he jabbed an elbow into my ribs. If his barb was at his expense or mine, I had no memory of it.
I still did not understand why they had gone. Why this war was being fought. Life had been fine, right? We had everything we needed. Was it not enough?
There was movement in the doorway of the main hall, I looked up as Alex wandered in. His eyes scanned the empty room as he approached me. A grim, sorry look adorned his brow. He bit his bottom lip and refused to make eye contact with me. A tremor rumbled low in my gut and took root. Before long, my entire body was shaking. Something was wrong. Something else.
"Eilean," he started once he approached the head table. His voice was strained and hesitant. "I — I have to go."
I only blinked, scowling as his words ripped through my foggy thoughts. Their meaning was clear enough. He was abandoning me, too. Wasn't that what this was? My entire family gone? An alternative world had come into being. I was alone and my best friend was now my enemy who had to flee home to prepare to kill my brothers. Silent tears rolled down my cheeks. I couldn't feel anymore. I didn't want to. Terror that hurt like grief had taken root inside my chest. It throbbed with every heartbeat. An agonizing pulse.
"Please, don't," I offered him my pride in a small, powerless whisper.
Alex looked up at me. The anguish in his eyes added to the anguish in my heart.
"You promised," I pleaded. "You said you'd do anything —"
"To keep you safe, yes. I know. But Eilean, we're enemies now." He grabbed my hand and held it to his chest, pressing my fist over his heart. "Not here! Never here. But if word gets out that you're harboring a Mainlander... that could be very, very dangerous for you. Your position is vulnerable enough without my presence complicating things."
I looked away from him, out of the nearby window. The brilliant blue sky and bright sunny landscape were an affront to the horror my world had become. They didn't match the darkness that gnawed on my soul.
"I should have told you earlier. I should have left earlier," Alex cursed himself. "Forgive me, please. I will remain neutral... as long as I can. Grandmother has demanded I return home. I cannot refuse her. Not now."
My chin wobbled and my heart thundered. I ripped my hand out of Alex's grasp. For the first time in months an old, familiar nothingness flooded my mind, numbing me with its sedating fog. The pain ebbed, quieted. I felt nothing, saw nothing, knew nothing.
"At least you said goodbye this time," I replied. Even to my ears, my voice was bitter.
"Don't be cruel, Eilean," Alex pleaded. "If I had a choice — "
"No one seems to have had a choice," I spat, turning to face him. "Not my Father, not Ian, not you. Least of all me!"
Alex took a step back, his brow furrowed.
"It was my entire family! Every man on the Island! And I wasn't good enough. I was the only MacLeod pitiful enough to leave behind." The pent up fury of the last week dribbled out of me with a pathetic whimper. "What am I supposed to do?"
I was petrified, so perfectly terrified. The castle was defenseless, full of women, and the most ignorant person of them all was to protect an entire Island.
Alex looked at me, stricken. If I was unequipped for my new role, he was far outside his ability to comfort a hysterical, sobbing, pathetic girl. But he did not back down. He walked toward me, braving my bitterness, and kissed me. He held my face in his hands as if by doing so he might hold me together and prevent the destruction of my body and mind I felt was imminent. I grasped his wrists, holding on to whatever comfort and strength he could give in these final, harrowing moments.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I said, choking on sobs.
"It's fine." He traced my cheeks with his thumbs. "I am more regretful than you know it has come to this." Alex kissed me, and it felt every bit like a solemn, lingering goodbye. The softest press of his lips against mine. The taste of tears on my tongue.
"Promise you'll write me," he breathed, keeping his forehead pressed to mine.
I nodded, unable to speak.
"Good." He tilted my face, studying it keenly. His eyes softened, tears glimmered on his cheeks. Alex favored me with one last, slow kiss. "Goodbye, Eilean," he choked.
"Be safe, Alex."
He nodded, clenching his jaw. With his hands in fists, his arms rigid by his sides, he walked out of the great hall.
And I, after a lifetime of believing I had known its full promise, learned just how lonely I could be.
~
In those first weeks, I was thankful for Ian's lessons. My brother had taught me enough to ensure my transition to running Stormway was smooth. But as the weeks turned into months and time stretched on, it was obvious that I was woefully underprepared for managing a castle and its island perch.
As I had feared, the Mainland stopped all trade with the Islands. The only food we would get was the food we could produce. My immediate priority was to convert as many of the servants as I could into farmhands. Food was constantly on my mind. The sight of the empty pantries and granaries, emptied in the preparation for war, was never cleared from my vision. Tending the crops the farmhands had planted before they left and doing my best to dictate what we should sow next was my constant nightmare. At every turn, and with every decision, I was sure to be bungling it.
I identified the remaining family members of those in charge of various tasks around the estate and placed their mothers, sisters, and wives in charge of the stables, tanners, merchants, and other jobs that now needed masters. I tasked those with experience to train up others as quickly as they could. Gradually, we all pieced together the necessities needed to make Stormway and Ellesmure stable. As we needed every hand to cover the various tasks, I joined in on the work. With most of the court ladies back at their home estates across the island, it would have felt repulsive to play the role of Miss MacLeod. I had no interest in sitting around and being served. I needed to help.
I blundered everything I attempted. Try as I might to pick up plowing or canning, I failed... miserably. My soft life had left me with more than educational ignorance, I couldn't even contrive a way to turn on the stoves and boil water. Useless and in the way, the servants shared furtive glances and bit back their snickering as they watched my clumsy, idiotic efforts. They were gracious in their patience, but it was more than clear that I frustrated them more than I helped. Sweetly, as they bandaged my fingers or swept up my messes, they reassured me that it wasn't my fault, that I had not been raised for work. The truth they were too polite to admit, of course, was that I had not been raised for anything. Ian alone had seen the issue and tried to correct it, but he had been too late.
I woke up every day and committed myself to try harder than I had the day before.
From my family, I received no letters. No comforting words, no instructions, and no guidance. To combat the haunting sensation of abandonment, I spent all my time in the company of the servants. Watching them attentively, asking and quizzing them on how I might be of best use to them as their Lady. They were honest with me, laying bare frustrations and concerns that I did my best to remedy. After a few months, we fell into a comfortable pattern. Stormway came to order, and we settled into a new routine.
Every night I fell into bed exhausted and dreading the dawn.
On a crisp autumn morning before the harvest, Walther's body arrived in a nondescript box. Wrapped up in the MacLeod colors and left at the main gate with his name pinned to his shroud.
With gloomy determination, Bess and I dug his grave. Our hands blistered and bled. We said nothing as we covered his body with dirt. Our silent tears fell atop his mound. Afterward, in my father's study, my hands caked in blood and mud, I wrote Bess' name into the family records as Walther's wife. I insisted she move into his old rooms. I made her a Lady MacLeod in all the official ways at my disposal. The priest, having married them, was content to sign any necessary documents.
Thomas and Timothy arrived a few weeks later.
It was agonizing to lay them to rest. Walther, who had been willing to gamble on me. Who had planned a different life for himself, a life of love and freedom. Timothy, who had been the silent shadow to Rupert's boisterous bulk. A twin moving ahead in death without his dearest companion. Thomas, who had been desperate to live up to the glory of his brothers — to think he would never call me Bug Eyes again was gutting.
I did not allow myself to mourn them for long. I could not. There was too much to do. In a way, grieving for my lost brothers would have given me too much of an excuse to mourn for myself. If I started down the road of self-pity and sadness, I would have readily joined them in the ground. The temptation to give in, to give up, was a vicious siren. My life was nothing like I remembered. Too many nights I cried myself to sleep, aching for the memories of warmth, the comfort of luxury, and companionship. On my most defeated nights, I longed for the invisibility of being forgotten. The mantle of responsibility was too heavy to bear.
The next year, the harvest failed.
Our food stores were perilously low. Even with the previous year's satisfactory harvest, we could not replace what the army had depleted. Cook implemented strict rationing, and we survived on the most meager portions.
A bitter winter settled over the island. At night, I laid awake shaking with fear and cold. Shivering, my stomach gnawing with hunger, I was unsure if we would survive until spring.