Page 97 of A Rogue in Moonlight
“The fairies make it do that,” Lucy said, nodding.
“It is an artesian well,” Fiona said as they approached. “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 up into the hillside above. 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. Thick grass edged the opening in the rock.
“Step into the pool—carefully, let me see how deep it is,” she said, setting foot in it first. The water was warm indeed, the water swirling about her ankles and calves and the hem of her skirts, the bubbling frothing water wetting and splashing all of them as she assisted each child to step into the water.
The opening in the rock overhead was so close overhead, a wide, raw oval shape, that she could easily reach up and grasp its turfed edge. Boosting one child after another, she made sure each one was firmly out, kneeling on the grassy layers overhead. Then she took hold of the edge herself, and setting her feet on the rise of rock that formed a bowl around the small bubbling pool, she pulled herself upward, the children laughing and tugging and helping her, until she half kneeled, half lay on the grass, laughing with the awkward effort and sheer relief.
Soaked, laughing with the children, for a moment Fiona felt as if they had all been birthed into a new life and a magical place. They hadentered a place of beauty and peace. As she stood, she knew with stunning certainty that she wanted to stay forever in Glen Kinloch.
They stood together in a grove of birches, with the beautiful fountain bubbling at their feet, a sunset of lavender and pink beyond the trees, and a thick carpet of bluebells underfoot. She smoothed her drenched skirts and laughed as she helped the children straighten their wet clothing and damp hair. Gathering them close as they shivered and giggled, she smiled with them and rubbed their backs and shoulders for warmth.
“Look at the bluebells!” Lucy said. “They are so beautiful!”
Fiona looked around in earnest then, enchanted by the sight of the flowers—thousands of bluebells in full bloom, covering the ground in a haze of purple blue that poured through the trees in a liquid wave of color—perhaps the most beautiful sight she had ever seen.
“This fountain will make good whisky, flavored with gold in the rock and the bluebells too,” Lucy said.
“You will be an excellent distiller when you grow up, Lucy MacGregor,” Fiona said. “And this place makes the very finest fairy brew, I suspect,” she mused.
This must be the secret protected place, she thought, as she spun slowly around.
“Aye,” Lucy said. “This is the place where my uncle goes. He does not talk of it much, but I have heard what the uncles say. This is the place that holds the fairy magic, you see.”
“Ah,” Fiona said, understanding. Here was the place where Dougal and his father and grandfathers before him collected water for the fairy whisky. He had told her only a little, but she cherished that he had shared even that much with her. And she hoped that someday he would tell her, and their children, the whole secret of the fairy whisky of Glen Kinloch.
“We must keep this secret always,” she told the children, setting a finger to her lips, waiting as they did the same. Then she led themthrough the deep bluebells to find the way out to the bowl of the glen, and home.
Then she heard a rumble grow beneath their feet, a sound like low thunder and a shaking underfoot. The well burst upward in a high spike of rushing water.
Dougal,she thought. Oh, God. He and the others could be trapped. She had to find help, bring men to the caves—
“Hold hands!” she called. “This way!” She hurried the bairns through the grove.
*
Running out ofthe cave with Patrick and Hugh, Dougal turned to dash back and drag Eldin, who had collapsed to his knees, free of the rubble and falling stones and into the air. They were all stunned, filthy, exhausted, and Eldin, hampered by a limp, struggled to make his way up the hill. Shocked and silent, Dougal stood in the sunset light, coated in limestone dust, looking around as the cave entrance shook, cluttered with rocks, and the thundering continued underground.
“Fiona,” Patrick said, turning to him. “And the children—they will be trapped!”
“They might have made it through,” Dougal replied. “Fiona took the bairns to the back of the cave even before the rockfall began. There is an old water channel in the back of the cave—I think she saw it, and took the chance that the passage would lead out and away. I believe it does, though I have never followed it all the way through. So there is a chance. Either way, we will make sure they get out.”
“She knows rocks, that lass,” Patrick said. “If anyone could find a way through the caves, she could.”
“What if the walls collapsed on them?” Hugh came toward them, assisting Eldin, who limped heavily, looking exhausted. “We must search for them.”
“We will. But if they got out, I think I know where they will be,” Dougal said. “I will go there first. If I do not find them, we will gather the lads and go into the caves.”
“The whisky!” Eldin rasped. “All of it—gone—”
“Not all,” Dougal said. “The collapse was lower, among the smaller caves. Most of the kegs are stored near the upper entrance. But we are more concerned about Fiona and the children now.”
“Fiona is fine. I know it,” Eldin said. “I would feel it if she were not safe.”
Dougal frowned at that, and met Patrick’s gaze. “Cousins,” Patrick explained. “Fairy blood and such. I do not seem to have much of it, myself. But those two do.”
“Ah.” Dougal nodded his understanding. He had seen it in Fiona. So Eldin had the manifestation of the MacCarran fairy ancestry too; interesting, he thought.
