MM01-The Beginning

Monica. She liked her name. She liked the way her dark auburn locks fell in waves about her face to spread about her shoulders. She liked her slim figure which did not need a corset to keep things where they should be. She had a good existence.

At 19 years old, she knew it was unusual for her not to be wed but her father was very indulgent and seemed to be willing to wait for her to decide who she wanted. She just had not yet found anyone that she felt that she could spend the rest of her life with.

It was possible that his attitude in the matter was in large part due to his unwillingness to have her leave the household. His last wife had died two years ago and the house would be more cold and lonely than a Scottish estate in winter should be, without the fresh air that her presence provided.

Modern ideas were starting to take hold in 1789, but she was fully aware that the lot of a married woman was still controlled by the whims of a man. This was a life of restriction that she had not been raised to desire.

Her father doted on his only child to the point that he had constantly had to defend his actions to his late wife when she was alive. She was not the mother of the child, but she still had the sensibilities of her gender and era. It was her opinion that he was doing a great disservice to the girl by not teaching her the truth about the typical life of a Scottish woman and what would be expected of her when she matured and inevitably wed.

Monica was not thinking of all this, though, as she went out to the stable yard. Her mind was on the exhilarating feeling of freedom that she always experienced riding through the moors, her loose hair streaming behind her, as she glided along, the muscles of her sturdy horse pulsing beneath her.

As she had commanded, Ewan, the stable boy, had saddled her favorite horse, Kenna, who was truly born of fire as her name suggested. The steed could run for the entire day through the moors without faltering.

Ewan was standing in the middle of the stable yard now, Kenna's reins tied to the post, a small step stool positioned strategically to make mounting the tall animal easier for her. As usual, the horse was meticulously groomed and fitted out.

The groom himself was not nearly so well presented. His sandy hair stuck out erratically from beneath his soiled Tam hat. She had never seen him without a smudge of something on his cheeks and tattered work clothes. At least the lad did not smell like he looked. Whatever the smears on his face and britches were, it was clearly not horse dung.

The groom said, “Watch your step, M’Lady,” as he always did when he brought her a horse.

Monica stepped quickly up on the stool, slipped her left foot in the stirrup that Ewan had positioned for her, and hauled herself up with practiced ease, helped ever so slightly by Ewan's left hand on her ankle holding it in the stirrup while his other pushed up under her armpit. In any other circumstances, having a man touch her such would have been highly inappropriate, but servants were expected to perform such duties without falling prey to illicit thoughts.

As she settled herself into the saddle, Monica leaned forward and rested her hand lightly on Ewan’s shoulder saying, “Thank you, kind Sir.” She added a small smile as a signal of gratitude for the service.

Ewan beamed up at Monica as he stepped back to allow the horse and rider to depart, which Monica did without another word or glance.

The young groom’s gaze followed the pair as they left the paddock with obvious longing. This emotion was not missed by another pair of eyes, eyes which belonged to the 16-year-old kitchen maid, Marcy. Her green eyes reflected a mixture of desire and jealousy as she leaned around the corner of the manor and watched Ewan who in turn watched the young mistress of the house ride away.

* * *

Monica reveled in the feeling of wind blowing her loose curls about her face as she urged her mount up old Druid Hill. The steed was performing beautifully as always. The sweat dripped from his sides, but his gait never faltered. It seemed as the ride through the heather covered moors had been nothing to his stamina.

As the slope began to level out, Monica’s eyes fell on the familiar sight of the oddly shaped stones that dotted the top of the hill. No one living had any idea of who put the stones in place or why they were arranged in a rough circle. The lack of knowledge did not detract from the wealth of theories.

Most seemed to agree on some sort of Druidic influence, hence the name of the hill. The fact that all of the mysteriously placed rocks had strange symbols etched into their surfaces added to the overall legends.

Monica loved to walk between the stones, running her fingers over their rough surfaces, tracing the symbols. The feeling of ancient power that she felt in the engravings made her tummy twitch delightfully.

She found one of her favorite resting spots between two of the stones where she was protected from the normally stiff breeze blowing in from the northwest but also bathed in the afternoon rays of the sun on the days when it was not playing hide and seek with the clouds.

It was not unusual for her to drift into a brief nap sitting there, but she did not do so on this day. Instead, she watched the birds flitting in and out of the heather under which the wild mountain thyme was in full bloom. She hummed a popular tune softly as she took in all the color and activity.

After about an hour, Monica decided that time had come to head back home. She knew that her excursions were a worry to those that cared for her and did not want to cause them undue stress.

She retrieved Kenna from where the horse was idly grazing and mounted with an alacrity that would have greatly surprised her groom. No stool or boost seemed necessary. A secret smile played across her lips as she imagined the muscled young boy's reaction.

Tugging lightly on the left rein, she pulled Kenna’s head around and the pair loped back towards home for one and the comforting stables for the other.

* * *

The kitchen maid, Marcy, was nervous as she walked up to the cabin of the old crone that everyone said was a witch. She hoped that the stories were true but at the same time she was afraid to meet an actual witch.

Marcy’s desire to have some potion or talisman to ensure that Ewan wanted her more than the young mistress of the house outweighed her trepidation over the witch’s reputation. She took a deep breath and lifted the knocker on the door. It was shaped like the claw of an eagle or some other such bird of prey. It clasped a ball of mostly black stone with swirls of red streaking through it and was heavier than she had expected. Letting the knocker go, it descended with a loud gong-like sound.

While the reverberating tones started to fade, Marcy’s heart began to race uncontrollably. As the seconds multiplied with no response, Marcy was torn between running away and risking the ire of the witch by summoning her again.

The decision was made for her when the heavily carved wooden door began to creak slowly open with a noisy complaint. Nothing could be made out in the dark interior until the wrinkled face of a very old woman peeked around the door. Her white-grey hair tumbled about her for several feet flowing from under her hood. The wizened crone could not have been over five foot tall if she had stood straight, but she was much shorter stooped over as she was.

Marcy and the old woman locked eyes for a moment but neither spoke. Marcy was unable to utter a sound or look away from the eyes which held much more energy than it seemed possible for the diminutive frame to contain.

After a few seconds which felt like hours, the witch finished her examination of her caller and spoke in a gravelly voice that cracked and wheezed. She asked, "What ye be wanting from old Mesolynth, girl?”

Marcy tried to get her heart out of her throat unsuccessfully and squeaked out, “I’m Marcy from the MacDonald house.”

The witch shot back with more force than her previous question, “I knows who you be child. I asked what you be after.” The glare from the old woman turned Marcy’s guts to jelly.

“I need a potion,” Marcy managed to whisper. “A potion or something, to make Ewan notice me.”

The witch’s mouth opened in a broad almost toothless smile as she cackled, “Ain’t that always the way of it!”

“Lassie wanna catch a feller’s eye but he not be seeing her,” Mesolynth said with a wheezing hissing sound which must have been laughter.

Stepping back, the old witch let the door open wide as she turned and led the way into the dark interior of her lair.

When she heard Marcy’s footsteps behind her but not the creaking of the door, she snarled over her shoulder, “You be shutten that door, girl!”

Marcy hastened to comply. Her eyes roamed the dark room as they adjusted to the dimness, trying to take in all the strange sights at once. Every surface was crammed with objects, many of which she could not identify. Some appeared to be animals or possibly insects and some were who knew what.

As she passed an old blanket covered chair, one of the objects moved, which startled her and made her wonder fearfully if all the other weird things were somehow alive. The dark shape moving before her resolved itself into a huge jet-black cat with fur spiking out in all directions.

Mesolynth continued across the room, giving no notice to Marcy’s reaction, and took a seat at a small table in the corner, where the light of a lone nearly spent candle was the sole source of illumination. She waited until Marcy took the other chair at her pointed direction before she spoke again.

“Now tells us about this lad of yours.”

The crossing of the room had somehow given Marcy a chance to get herself under control in spite of its contents. She replied more evenly, “Ewan is the stable boy. He is everything to me, but he seems to have eyes only for the mistress.”

“Hmmm, your lad's heart be set on the Lord’s bairn. There be no good in that,” the witch said.

The old crone studied Marcy for a full two minutes, neither breaking the silence, and finally said, “Bring us a piece of the lassie. A bit of hair, or some such, and we be seeing what can be done.”

That command was obviously a dismissal, as she stood with some trouble and shooed Marcy out.

With her mind racing faster than her feet, Marcy made her way back home.

* * *

Marcy arrived back at the estate just in time to see Monica coming out of the forest. She lingered at the woodpile next to the stables waiting for the young mistress to ride into the yard.

As Monica was dismounting, Marcy exclaimed, “Me Lady! You have got your hat and frock all dusty! Let me take those and put them back in order.”

It seemed an odd suggestion from a kitchen maid, but Monica did want the items brushed off and surrendered them to Marcy without a word. The kitchen maid held the hat and cloak to her chest and hurried into the manor.

Rushing upstairs with the items that she had been given, Marcy hastened to Monica’s room. She needed to get there in time to discover something that the witch could use for her spell. Looking quickly about, she spotted the comb and brush lying on the vanity and hastened to pull Monica’s hair from them and secret it in her pocket only moments before Monica herself came into the room.

“Just leave those on the chair,” Monica instructed the kitchen maid when she saw her apparently trying to decide what to do. Marcy quickly complied, placing the soiled garments on the indicated chair and hastening from the room with her prize.

* * *

Marcy had to wait until the following morning before she could manage to sneak away to visit the witch again. Grasping the hair wrapped in a napkin to her chest, she knocked once more on the imposing door.

Mesolynth opened the door immediately and stepped back, beckoning the girl to enter.

“I have it,” Marcy said breathlessly. “I have the mistress’s hair!”

“That be good, child,” the witch crooned, taking the object of both their focused attention from Marcy and storing it safely in a hidden pocket.

“Now you can make the potion?” Marcy asked.

“Better'n that, girl,” Mesolynth replied. “I be makin’ an amulet.”

Indicating the chair that Marcy had sat in on her last visit, she continued, “Just you sit yourself down and be waitin' a bit. It not be takin' no time at all.”

Puttering about the room, pulling a small box out of a shelf and a few small indeterminate items from a drawer, she took her collection over to the stove where a pot was heating. Rubbing her hands together as she mumbled words which Marcy could not make out, she crushed some small leaves into the pot, followed by a powdery substance, which caused a foul-smelling smoke to start oozing over the sides to spill across the floor.

As Marcy watched with a mix of fascination and trepidation, her eyelids began to droop as the witch continued her activity at the stove, and the smoke started to glide across the floor, moving with a snake-like undulation. Neither seemed to notice as the tendrils started to weave between the legs of the table and chairs, the tips changing color from light gray to almost black, and then back to gray with streaks of red and yellow swirling within.

It was only when she felt something tightening about her ankles that Marcy became alarmed, emitting a startled squeal.

“Never you fear, my sweet,” the witch said in a soothing tone. “All be fine.”

Marcy attempted to stand up, but stumbled back into the chair when her feet could not move. She became alarmed when the smoke tightened about her ankles as solid as a rope and started pulling her. Letting out a shriek, she started to resist, to no avail.

Flailing her arms and twisting her body, she was inexorably dragged across the floor toward the stove and the witch. To make matters worse, if that was even possible, the spiky haired cat leapt upon her stomach, hissing and spitting as it rode her like a horse while Marcy squirmed in the grasp of the strangely solid tendrils of smoke.

With a final crescendo of arcane phrases, Mesolynth whipped her hands wildly about over the pot and Marcy was lifted into the air wailing and writhing to shrink quickly to less than an inch tall. As the pot began to glow a deep red, Marcy was deposited into the boiling mess within, her plaintive screams were finally muffled as she sank into the slimy green ooze.

Mesolynth cackled a rasping laugh as she covered the pot with a ill-fitting lid and began to arrange something upon the table. When she had her item just right, she took the lid off, picked up the pot and swished its contents around twice, accompanied with a few quiet words, then poured a small glass-like ball out. The ball rolled into the arrangement on the table.

As the witch waved her hands over them, the metal pieces formed around the ball becoming an amulet with a necklace. Anyone watching would have wondered if the lights swirling within the amulet were glints from the nearby candle or were actually inside of it. Remarkably, the witch's face seemed to have gotten less aged and wrinkled in the flickering light.

* * *

Wrapping the amulet in a cloth and stuffing it into one of her mysteriously hidden pockets, Mesolynth made her way out to the hill of Druid stones. There, she unwrapped the amulet and placed it almost lovingly at the base of the very stone that Monica favored. Then she returned to her hut, softly alternating between quiet laughter and talking to herself under her breath.

* * *

It was two days before Monica once more rode out to her favorite place. The weather could not decide if it wanted to be cloudy or windy or what. The sun was just beginning to peak out through holes between the scattered roiling clouds as she dismounted by the stones and left Kenna to search for tender shoots of greenery.

The mixed atmosphere of misty drops occasionally filtering down from above and the steam pulled up from the ground as beams of sunlight slid across the damp earth created an eerie sight. As she made her way to her favorite stone, she was attracted by a sparkle in the grass at the base of the rock.

Bending down she spied something metallic. Picking it up, she was surprised to find that she was holding a necklace with a small stone enveloped by swirls of delicate metal strands. The beautiful object felt oddly warm in her cold hands.

Monica looked about to see if the owner could be discovered but did not really expect to find anyone out in this desolate place. She had the urge to open the chain and hang the strange piece about her neck but decided instead to store it safely in the small bag hanging from her waist.

She made up her mind that she would not remain among the stones any longer. Gathering Kenna's reins, she mounted and headed back towards the manor.

* * *

Later that night, sitting at her vanity table, Monica was brushing her hair before retiring to bed. As she ran the brush through her auburn curls, she kept feeling an impulse to take the strange amulet out of her bag. She had actually reached for the bag twice but hesitated to take it. She wanted to finish her 100 strokes with the brush first.

Finally done with her duty to her hair, she could endure the suspense no longer but snatched the bag from the end of the vanity and pulled it open. There, nestled between two small combs and her handkerchief, the necklace seemed to pulse with the need to be taken up.

As Monica lifted the pretty object from her bag, she was once again struck by how warm the metal seemed to the touch. She held it up so that she could more closely examine the glass ball at the center, held within by the fine metal strands woven about it. The light of her candle seemed to reflect from within the glass rather than from its polished surface. It was so, so pretty. Colors almost seemed to flow within the ball as she turned the object about, but she was certain that was a trick of the light.

On a whim, Monica undid the delicate clasp and holding it to her throat fastened it about her neck. The amulet was surprisingly weighty for so small a thing, but not uncomfortably so. It settled onto her chest as if it belonged there. It made her feel more pretty herself as she looked at her reflection in the mirror. She knew that its owner must miss it terribly, but she could think of no way to discover who that owner might be. She resolved to have word spread about town on the morrow to see if anyone had reported its loss.

Rising from her little stool, she went to her bed, suddenly more sleepy than she expected. She started to remove the amulet before she crawled into the numerous soft covers but decided that it would be nice to sleep with the weight about her neck. It was so comforting and made her feel wanted somehow.

Almost as soon as her head hit her pillow, Monica drifted off to sleep, images of the young stable boy holding her ankle as he helped her to mount lazily circling about her consciousness for some reason. She found that strange, as she rarely even thought of the lad, but her sleepy mind did not want to be bothered to examine the anomaly at the time.

* * *

When Monica did not make an appearance at breakfast the next morning, Dòmhnall MacDonald was a little surprised. When none of the servants could locate her, he was mildly concerned. It was not unusual for his headstrong child to take off on her own across the estate.

When the groom reported that he had not readied her horse, and in fact all of the horses were still in their stalls, Dòmhnall became very worried.

Her bed chambers were searched again. She had clearly spent the night there, but no trace could be found of her nightgown or the errant girl. The estate was turned upside down but no sign of the missing girl was found. No information on any strangers in the area nor any other clues to Monica’s whereabouts could be found. It was as if she had vanished into thin air!

The days turned into weeks, which gradually turned into months. Monica was assumed to have been kidnapped but no ransom was ever demanded.

When the anniversary of her disappearance occurred, Dòmhnall MacDonald decided that he needed to provide for Monica’s future, should she ever return. He knew that he was nearing the end of his years and Scottish inheritance laws being what they were, he decided to set up a trust for her or her descendants to have in the event that she ever reappeared.

He went to his banker and set up the unusual trust. Mr. McHenry, the banker, was against the action but acceded to the demands of his client. The trust was duly authorized, to be accessible to Monica or any of her female descendants into perpetuity.

That task being completed, Dòmhnall MacDonald lived out the remainder of his years in the lonely estate that he had feared that his home would become when Monica married.

No one who was alive at the time of her disappearance ever heard from Monica again. But…