Fin’s little sister was born a few months after the laird of the castle disappeared.
She was a bonny child, with her father’s reddish hair but with curiously dark eyes, even from her birth. She brought a feeling of new life and happiness to the family, who all rejoiced in their first girl-child. They called her by a flower name, Heather, and they all doted on her. Fin carried her about with him whenever he could. The first time she looked up at him in a ‘seeing’ way, and smiled, showing she recognised him, Fin knew that he was going to love her more than anyone.
He told her fairy stories. The Little People he told about had long black hair, golden skins, and beautiful slanting eyes. He called them the Wee-Eyed Ones.
The years passed.
When Heather was old enough, one day Fin took her by the hand and led her to a secret place in a copse of trees. There was a little grave there. It didn’t have a cross. It had a rowan tree growing from it instead.
‘That’s my Wee Eyes, down there,’ Fin said. ‘I promised her, when she died, that I’d come back for her. And two nights after the siege ended, I crept back down there and brought her out. It was sooty-dark and I dared not carry a light, but I found her by touch, and brought her up the steps, crept out by the postern gate and carried her all the way back home here in the dark. And I buried her. She wasna a Christian so I had to make up some prayers, specially for her. I did right by her. And now we’ve a new laird who is better than the old one. And I’ve got you, and you’re going to have a good life. I’ll see to it, and that’s a promise I’ll keep, like I kept mine to her.’
And the little girl turned her strange dark eyes up at him, full of trust, and nodded as if she knew it all already.