“Get off of me!”
Malcolm flung Vash off with such force that the elf vanished. He heard a last shriek before the ringing in his ears crescendoed; and out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed a pale form flapping by the window, like a giant moth trapped inside. But otherwise he was simply in his room, simply waking.
“The devil…” He closed his eyes and flopped back onto his pillow.
“Cousin?”
Malcolm’s eyes fluttered open again. A talking moth was not normal. The moth turned out to be Cousin Condal, but waking to find Cousin Condal at his bedside was not normal either. Something out of the ordinary had happened. He began to remember…
Condal whispered, “Cousin, can you hear me?”
Malcolm rolled his head towards her and drowsily smiled. “It helps if you aren’t whispering at me, Connie.”
“Ach! How stupid of me. Can you hear me now?”
“Aye.”
His tongue was thick in his mouth, as if he were drunk, but he did not feel queasy in his stomach at all. He felt as light as foam… a little chilly, but so happy. All his troubles were at an end.
Condal asked him, “Do you know where you are?”
Malcolm gave her a beatific smile. “Is this Heaven?”
“Ach!” Condal scrunched up the knitting in her lap and started to rise. “Mother Curran!”
“Wait, wait, wait!” Malcolm pleaded. “I was only teasing you, Connie. I know you’re not half the angel you appear to be.”
Condal thumped back onto her seat and stared at him with wide eyes. Her cheeks bloomed pink with outrage.
“Teasing, teasing,” he murmured, smiling. His drowsy voice naturally took on a tenderness he would not have attempted while awake. “You’re half again as good.”
He tried to wink at her, but his eyelids seemed to drag through the air, like powdery wings fluttering closed. His heart was still racing from his nightmare.
“I think I should get Mother Curran anyway,” Condal said.
“No, Connie, wait, wait… What is Mother Curran supposed to do that you can’t?”
He forced his eyes open and looked at her again. Her sweet face was pinched with worry as she sought after an answer.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I suppose Mother Curran would know what to do, though.”
“But there’s nothing whatever to do.”
He smiled in real beatitude. All his troubles were over. He remembered. He was free.
“Only bide with me a while and knit.”
“Aren’t you thirsty or anything?”
“Only tired. Mother Curran would only come in and fuss and peck and scratch like an old hen, Connie. I would rather have you.”
Condal looked dubious—an adorable expression involving a slight pout topped by their family’s characteristic scowling brows—but she picked up her needles again and began to knit.
Malcolm listened to the faint clicking for a while, basking in the skeptical little glances she cast up at him every few stitches. He wondered whether she was assuring herself that he was still awake, or ensuring that he stayed in bed. He floated like foam on the waves, neither quite water, nor quite air.
Dreamily he asked, “And what are you a-knitting there, Connie, my child? The burial shroud of me?”
Condal’s knitting flopped down onto her lap. “Malcolm!” she gasped, horrified.
Malcolm laughed.
Condal flushed and picked up her needles again. Her mouth twisted as she fought back a smile. “Pish! And if I were? ’Twould serve you right, if we buried you under a pall of pale purple.”
She brandished her bit of wool at him, thinking to menace him with the feminine color, but to Malcolm’s homesick eyes it had other associations.
He leaned back his head and sang, “And make my bed on the high gray moor, beneath the blooming heather…”
His voice was soft and breezy, more mournful than he had meant. His heart fluttered faster. He did not know what had come over him—some wild new sort of freedom. He was always so shy about his singing.
Condal turned back to the soft click-clack of her needles, but a pink glow lit her face, as if she truly cradled a snippet of moorland in her lap, and a snippet of moor wind had risen out of it to sting her cheeks. He had struck upon a longing they shared.
God, she was as sweet and homelike as a pot of heather-scented honey. Even his snippets of songs were not wasted on her: she knew the old Gaelic ballads as well as he. By the hawthorn tree on the high gray moor, it’s there you said we’d marry…
“Sorry,” he said. “Don’t know what came over me. I could swear I’m a little drunk.”
“Ach! But Malcolm! Aren’t you knowing what happened to you? I must get Mother Curran.” She balled up her knitting and began to rise.
“No no no no, Connie, I remember. I—”
He did know. But he wondered now what she knew. And where was Iylaine? How had he made it home? It seemed his troubles were not at an end after all.
“What did happen to me?” he asked, trying to sound meek and confused.
“Ach, Cousin…” She eased herself back onto the edge of her chair. “Old Devil threw you, and you hit your head on a stone. Alred and Bertie had to carry you in. We’ve been so afraid. Alred sent for Joseph this morning, since you weren’t waking on your own. He should be coming—”
“Where is Iylaine?”
“Ach!” Condal’s chair creaked as she settled herself onto the seat. “You see, Gunnie came just a while ago to take the babies for the day, and Iylaine went to walk with her and Bertie.”
Condal bit her lip and looked anxiously at him. She was always coming along after Iylaine, tidying up the messes her temper and her tart tongue made, and dreaming up explanations that showed Iylaine in the gentlest possible light.
Malcolm frowned.
“Gunnie said she ought to go, Cousin, to get some air. She and Bertie were up all night sitting with you, taking turns with Mother Curran. And somehow Iylaine knew something had happened to you. She knew it. And then when Alred and Bertie were bringing you home, she nearly fainted, and so did I…”
Alred and Bertie must have hidden the truth. Malcolm was glad of it. He wanted to be the one to explain to Iylaine. But first he would have to find out the whole truth for himself.
He lifted his ringing head off the pillow and felt around the back of his skull. There was a slight sore spot, but nothing like the knot he would have expected if he had truly fallen from horseback and struck his head on a stone.
Then he thought to look at his hand.
His palm was smooth and unwounded—even unscarred. Of course Shosudin could have performed that trick… but Malcolm did not remember that part. He had not even dreamt that part. The last thing he remembered was an endless struggle with Vash. Something sweaty and obscene. Had it happened? Had it all been a dream?
Condal asked fearfully, “How many fingers are you holding up?”
Ach, Condal! Dear, conscientious Condal! Malcolm frowned at his hand. “Mmm… seven?”
Condal blanched. “Mother Curran! Mother Curran!” she called, fumbling with her needles and her ball of yarn. “Ach, where is she roving? She must have gone out to feed the hens…”
“Five, Connie, five!” Malcolm said, interrupting her gabbling. “To be precise: four fingers and one thumb. You never do know when you’re being teased.”
She huffed in tearful exasperation. “You must speak seriously today, Malcolm. You’ve had a bump on the head. How shall we ever know whether you’re teasing or raving?”
Malcolm said, “If ever a man has an excuse to speak nonsense, it’s when he gets bumped on the head. It’s stingy of you not to allow me the fun of it.”
Condal turned her pouting face back to her knitting. “Then you may be speaking your nonsense to Mother Curran. I wish you would let me go fetch her. I’m afraid you’ll be taking a fit, and I shan’t know what to do.”
“Connie, my child, it’s been fifty years since a man spoke nonsense to Mother Curran. It’s she who would be taking a fit if I tried.”
Condal snorted, but she stubbornly kept her head down and shook her curls. Nevertheless, Malcolm could tell by the curve of her cheeks that dimples lurked just out of sight.
He heaved a weary sigh. “Anyway, I’m too tired to take fits today. I need all my strength to lie here and watch you knit.”
Condal giggled. “I shall knit more slowly.”
“Do be taking your time.”
She let her hands rest in her lap and looked up at him. “But please don’t be falling asleep again. Iylaine and Bertie will be returning any time now, and if we cannot wake you again…”
“I’m awake, I’m awake,” he soothed.
Condal sighed and lifted her knitting.
She soon finished her row and unrolled another length of yarn with an expression of kittenish concentration. Then she draped her knitting cozily over her knees again and set to work on the next. What a dear, homey thing she was!
Loop, stitch, loop, stitch… Ever so slightly she rocked as she worked, her shoulders stooped just enough that the cross she wore on her neck swung free and gently tapped her breast.
It had been a parting gift from Cearball, and Malcolm could never make up his mind as to why she wore it. Young gentle ladies did not accept gifts of jewelry from any men but their kindred or their betrothed. She insisted that Cearball was “just like a brother” to her—but did she wear the necklace to prove he was no more, or to hide the fact that he was?
Her needles click-clacked down her row and back up the next, passing the heather-colored web from one to the other. Condal so lost herself in her work that she began to hum. She did not need to sing for Malcolm to hear the words: As I walked out on the high gray moor, amidst the blooming heather…
Malcolm closed his eyes and sighed. His heart fluttered like a caged lark, frantic and erratic. Could this be the same organ that only last night had pounded against his breastbone like a fist? Had he dreamt it all?
He felt his foamy self dissolving into water, into air. Soon now his caged heart would break free… free to zip and dart over the high gray moor, above the blooming heather…
“Malcolm!”
“Connie!”
Malcolm paddled with his legs and arms, tangling himself in the blankets. His hair flopped over his face, and he took a sharp breath.
He wakened at once, and knew it had not been a dream. His hair still reeked of fetid smoke—of burning blood—of brimstone memories that had been seared into his mind with fire.
It had been not been a dream. It had happened. It could be done.
As you said .… shirtless Jackpot!! Now y’all can see why I would be Team Malcolm! Hubba, Hubba.
still, no smirking!
I am curious about Finnish knitting styles now. I suppose if I am going to continue writing about people knitting, I should get some yarn and a couple of bone needles and practice, so I don’t speak nonsense. 
) continental. If you crochet (or knit) have you check out ravelry?
Chapters
I am not quite comfortable with Malcolm and Connie being alone together. Its a damn goo thing Iylaine hasn’t picked up on Malcolm’s slight attraction to Connie.
On another note Meryt when do you think we might see Aia again?