Page 75 of Of Heather and Thistle
Instead, she tucked the shawl back into the box and placed the lid on top.
Even after all these years, her mother’s room still held so much.
It wasn’t just furniture and trinkets.
It was a piece of her mother’s soul.
A piece she hadn’t known was missing.
Heather ran her fingers along the spines of the old books stacked inside the worn wooden crate. Most were familiar—dusty history texts, a few classic novels—but one stood out.
It was smaller than the others, its deep green cover worn at the edges, the gold lettering on the spine faded with time. When she pulled it free, the binding creaked in protest.
She turned it over in her hands.Anam agus Cuimhne.
Heather swallowed. She didn’t need a translation to feel the weight of those words.Soul and Memory.
Her stomach twisted. She knew some of the language, or at least pieces of it. Enough to understand. Enough to feel the meaning settle in her bones.
She hesitated, thumb resting on the edge, before flipping it open.
The text inside was old-fashioned, the letters flowing in a script that felt impossibly foreign—and yet, not entirely unfamiliar.
‘Chan eil’…Not something.
‘Mo chridhe’ …My heart.
A prickle ran down her spine. She knew that phrase.
Chan eil seo ceart.
It’s not right.
The words slipped out before she could stop them, halting, uncertain. But the moment they left her lips, her chest clenched, because she knew them.
A memory flickered, clear as day—her mother’s voice, soft yet insistent, correcting her pronunciation at the kitchen table.
“Again, a ghràidh. Chan eil seo ceart.”
Heather sucked in a breath. She hadn’t thought about that moment in years. She had been—what? Five? Six? Barely old enough to string the words together, twisting her tongue around the unfamiliar sounds while her mother guided her through them. But at some point, the lessons had stopped. At some point, English had swallowed everything else.
She snapped the book shut like she had burned herself.
For a long moment, she just sat there, staring down at it, feeling the weight of something she couldn’t quite name settle in her chest.
Had her mother read this? Had she run her fingers over the very same pages?
Had she whispered these words to herself, the same way Heather just had?
She exhaled sharply and shoved thebook back into the crate.
She wasn’t here to get lost in nostalgia.
She was here to pack up a past that didn’t belong to her.
Heather turned to the letters. The handwriting was elegant, the ink slightly faded, but the words were still evident. Most were addressed to her great-grandmother, Fiona MacKenzie. Heather traced the name with her fingertip, a quiet awe settling over her. How many women in this family had stood where she was standing? Had they felt the exact weight of history pressing down on them? Had they wondered if they were strong enough to carry it forward? She spent the next hour lost in the letters, reading snippets of her family’s life from decades past. There were mentions of celebrations at the house, notes of hardship during the world war, and tender exchanges between Fiona and her husband, Callum, her great-grandfather. It was a window into a life she never knew, making her feel oddly connected to the place.
The afternoon sun dipped lower in the sky when she pulled herself away from the trunk. Byrdie padded into the room, meowing in protest, and Heather smiled. “Alright, alright. Dinner time.”
