Was it not so, after all? Did the Lowlander, in turn, obey someone—or Something? For an instant Kelpie sensed something infinitely dangerous and horrible. Was Satan merely another name for those ancient Dark Powers? And was the price for invoking them to be a slave to them? She shuddered, and cold droplets of sweat broke out on her short upper lip.
Then she pulled herself together. She must not give in to foolish worries. The Lowlander was a fearsome man, but witchcraft was the only way to be free of Mina, and when she had learned it she need fear neither of them any longer.
All the same, the first seed of doubt had taken root, and it no longer seemed quite so easy to become the most powerful witch in Scotland. It was a rather subdued Kelpie who meekly cooked the fish and oatcakes for breakfast, bade the Lowlander farewell, and followed Bogle and Mina on to Loch Awe.
At a ruined old shieling hut by the loch they stopped and waited for a day, until there came a round-faced young woman with a wealth of brown hair and a slate-colored dress kilted up over a striped petticoat. She seemed an unlikely person to be working with witches and warlocks, for her bright-cheeked smile was quite artless.
“Dhia dhuit!” She beamed. “Is this the lass who will be fetching the hair to hex Mac Cailein Mor, may the demons fly away with him? I am Janet Campbell, who will take you to Inverary. I will call you Sheena at once,” she added chattily, “so you can get used to it, for Mrs. MacKellar would never be hiring a lass named for a kelpie.” She chuckled cheerfully.
Kelpie gave her an appraising look from under her thick black lashes, but Janet didn’t seem in the least put out. “I could not be doing the task myself,” she explained, “for I have my work, and no reason to be going into the castle. And,” she added forthrightly, “I am not brave or clever enough. But I will be your messenger, Sheena, when you need me.”
Kelpie, more and more resentful of being used by others, nodded sullenly. But Janet’s next words cheered her considerably.
“She cannot be asking for work in such rags,” pointed out that young woman matter-of-factly. “They would know her for a gypsy at once, and Mac Cailein Mor has a fearful hatred of such. Best be giving her your blue dress to wear, Mina.”
Bogle chuckled, and Kelpie hid her satisfaction behind a blank face. Mina snarled and gave in. The string of epithets she flung at Kelpie along with the dress hardly amounted to an objection at all, and Kelpie’s earlier misgivings rose again briefly. If even the formidable Mina was so meekly obeying, then what power this Lowlander must have!
She was still brooding on this as she and Janet set out on the last bit of the journey, her cheek still stinging from Mina’s farewell cuff. On down Loch Awe, and to the wild steepness of Glen Aray, and along that gash in the hills toward Loch Fyne, Janet led the way sturdily enough, although Kelpie’s wiry legs could have gone much faster. Part of the time Janet left the thin path altogether and threaded her way along the slopes, among great clumps of brilliant pink rhododendron, groves of oak and hazel and rowan, patches of lavender-blooming heath and the mystic white bog-cotton.