An hour or so later, annoyed but not in the least astonished, Kelpie wiped her greasy fingers on the dirty rags which now covered her, and glowered across the fire at Mina. The hag and the blue dress were more or less the same size, but of far different shapes. The dress sagged across the front of Mina’s hunched shoulders and strained ominously across the back, and was at once too long and too narrow in the waist, and the cuffs reached in vain for those long bony wrists. Kelpie had a mental picture of bright hazel eyes dancing in wicked amusement in an angular red-topped face. For once she could have appreciated Alex’s sense of humor, and her own white teeth showed momentarily in a matching grin.
Mina glared at her suspiciously, and Kelpie hastily stopped grinning. Dhé! Mina was almost as bad as Alex himself at seeing what she shouldn’t! And she mustn’t anger Mina too much—not yet! So she lowered her slanted eyes more or less submissively and waited.
“Hah!” said Mina suddenly. “You think I am not knowing what you are thinking?”
Kelpie devoutly hoped not. She had no desire to be turned into a toad or something equally unpleasant. Best to walk warily—neither too innocent nor too defiant. “I am wondering what you are about,” she retorted sullenly. “I have learned the things you were wanting me to, but you have not told me why, nor have you taught me any spells.”
“Hah!” said Mina again. “First we will read the crystal.”
And presently, under the ghost-light of the summer night, Kelpie sat again with her hand in Mina’s horny claw and gazed into the blank crystal ball. It remained still and empty. “I see myself,” invented Kelpie impudently. “It is in a place that I have never been, and I am wearing a blue dress—”
Mina turned on her in sudden suspicion, and Kelpie prepared to duck. But they were distracted by a small flicker of light that came from an upper window of one of the castle towers. For an instant, fear gripped Kelpie. Was it an uncanny creature of some sort? Then she noticed that Bogle was nowhere in sight, and she chewed her lip thoughtfully.
Sure enough, presently his shadowy figure emerged from the tower door. He came back to the fire and sat down without a word. But Kelpie thought she had seen him put something in his new leather sporran (recently stolen, without doubt), and there passed between him and Mina a long look and the tiniest of nods.
Kelpie pretended to notice nothing, but her mind was busy. It couldn’t have been magic he was up to, for Bogle did no magic except for ordinary curses. It must have been a message, then—a message left for him here, and they had known where to look for it. And that was why they camped in the castle instead of out in the open.
Och, there was something in the air, indeed and indeed! Kelpie went to sleep wondering what it might be—and how she might be turning it to her own advantage.