Page 95 of Laird of Secrets
“Mine too. You will be fine,” Jamie said. “I will take care of you. And then I will come back and mine all this gold—it is gold, is it not, Miss Fiona?”
“Aye, Jamie. And the stream rushes right through where the ore is locatedt. The water might even carry the flavor of gold.” And bring gold to the laird, and his whisky, and and so to the glen, she thought.
“It would make excellent whisky,” Lucy said. “We must tell Uncle Dougal.”
“We will,” Fiona said, and then paused, laughing softly when she realized how close they were now to finding an exit. “Look!”
Ahead on the upward slope, she saw the gleam of water, a shining pool that rushed, whirled, gathered, and at its center bubbled so riotously that it propelled upward toward the rock ceiling close above it, and surged through an opening there. A fountain drawn from an underground pool.
“Water does not flow upward,” Annabel said. “How can it be?”
“A well!” Fiona said. “An Artesian well. It bubbles up from below, and bursts out like a fountain. There must be a heated spring beneath it,for it to bubble like that, and push outward into the hillside as a well. Come on, and watch your step. We will have to go through the water to get out.”
Closer now to the natural exit, she peered through the fountain’s opening. Bright sunset colors glowed purple and red and amber. She could see thick grass edging the hole in the rock and earth.
“Hold your breath!” she told the children, and assisted them as they climbed into the small pool—warm indeed, and the water rushing, but not very deep, so long as she kept them away from the center, where the water whirled its heaviest. One by one she lifted them upward, and each child clung to the rock edge so that she could push each through, where the water bubbled outward.
Small hands reached down through the water as she came through the tight opening herself, soaked and laughing. For a moment Fiona realized it was like being birthed into a new life, a new place. Being birthed into beautiful, peaceful Glen Kinloch.
And here, she knew as she stepped out, she would always stay.
Standing, she smoothed her drenched skirts best she could, and laughed as the children did the same, their clothing and hair hopelessly soaked. “Come here,” she said, gathering them, and they shivered together, though the air thankfully was not very cold. The water bubbling in the little well was quite warm, and the very excitement of what was happening warmed them further.
“Look,” Lucy said. “Oh, look! Bluebells!”
Fiona looked around then, and saw them. Bluebells, thousands of them in full bloom, covered the ground in a wide swath, a haze of purple-blue that poured through a stand of trees. She caught her breath. It was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen.
“This water will make a fine whisky, with the flavor of the gold and the bluebells,” Lucy said.
“You will be a very fine distiller when you grow up, Miss Lucy MacGregor,” Fiona said, smiling. “And this place makes the very finest fairy brew, I suspect,” she mused.
This had to be the secret, protected place, she thought, slowing spinning around, where Dougal and his father collected water for the fairy whisky.
He had not told her the whole of it, not yet. But she cherished his hint that someday he would tell her, and their children, the whole secret of the fairy whisky of Glen Kinloch.
She gathered the children near again, and looked around for the direction that would lead them out of the glade and back to the glen.
Just then, she heard a rumble begin from underneath their feet, a sound like deep thunder. The well burst forth, soaking them.
“Dougal,” she cried. “Patrick!”
Turning, she began to run down the hillside with the children beside her.
* * *
Once out of the cave, Dougal and the others had turned back to drag Eldin free of the rubble and fallen stone. All of them were stunned, filthy, exhausted, and though Eldin had been injured in the collapse, he was able to limp out, shocked and silent. Stepping into the sunset light, coated in limestone dust, they hurried around the narrow lochside pathway as the thundering continued underground.
“Fiona,” Patrick said, running beside Dougal. “And the children—trapped!”
“They could have made it through,” Dougal said. “Fiona must have noticed the old water channel in the back of the cave, and took the chance that the passage would lead out and away.”
“She knows rocks, that lass,” Patrick said. “And she would find a way out of the caves, if anyone could.”
“The walls could have collapsed on them too,” Hugh said, catching up, one arm around Eldin, limping heavily beside him, looking pale and drawn. “We should go back to search for them.”
“If they did get out, I think I know where they will be,” Dougal said. “I will go there first. If they are not there, then best we gather the lads and search the caves. We are all spent after a day of the game—but they would want to help.”
“The whisky—“ Eldin rasped. “All of it—gone—”
