A New Time

PROLOGUE From where I stood, ye could not see from where I escaped, Dornoch. The beautiful hillside and slopes masked the evil that lay beyond them. All I have left of my mother now lay painted in the sky. Orange, red, wi’ black smoke risin’, splittin’ the heavens before me and leavin’ a pain of guilt so deeply buried within me, I dinna think I’ll ever be the same. Her face played in my mind. The strained look, wi’ eyes empty, distant. Her hair that once glistened dark ebony, now dull and disheveled. To look at her, one would think she be mad in the head. She dinna know me. Dinna recognized me, just another person in her mind. Da’s death ended her livin’. “She didna know me, Bram! How could she not remember her own daughter?” Bram, being a crow, but in human form now, didna say a word. Couldn’t, he just looked as sad as I felt and shook his head. “I couldna take her wi’ me. She wouldna listen… didna even look at me when I told her we had to escape. She kept on touchin’ the walls in the tollbooth as if seein’ pictures or something.” Wet lines marked my face. “Was I bad leavin’ her? Should I have stayed and died too?” Bram just sat there, sad and all. “Damn, I wish ye could talk! Tell me that what I did was right. That I had no other choice. Why are ye even here wi’ me? What good is ye now? Yer supposed to help me remember? But ye didna! My mother is now dead. Burnt to a crisp, like logs in a hearth. Black, brittle, and… ash.” In an instant, Bram flew to the nearest treetops and sat there, lookin’ down at me. He had changed form right before my eyes. Gone was the handsome highlander, wi’ his black, shoulder-length hair and full Scottish garment. “I’m sorry, Bram, I shouldna have blamed ye. Tis not yer fault. It’s all mine. Please come back down and sit wi’ me. It was a comfort.” He flew back down and perched himself on a rock that was next to me. “No, not as a bird, but as a human.”