Somethin Freely Gien 

If ye reckon on crossin the moor when the light’s worn oot, mind ye carry three things. 

Rowan. 

Iron. 

Somethin freely gien. 

The wind off the Solway doesna just blaw; it scrapes the flesh right off yer banes. It peels the damp plaid right to the skin, whustlin through the ling like dry ribs in a creel. Keep yer chin jammed low in yer collar an yer stride lang an steady. The flow-moss doesna care for a body’s hurry, an neither do the grey folk that bide aneath the heather.

Rowan.

A wee bit plucked frae the lea-side o the tree, where the sun never warms the bark. Snip it clean wi yer thumbnail; never bring a steel blade to the bough, or the sap sours an loses its virtue. Slip it into yer left oxter pocket, nearest yer breast-bane. 

I can feel the caller berries pressed hard against my ribs through my waistcoat. My old grannie kept a withered sprig pinned above the peat-neuk in her cot near Glentrool. “A wee bit o’ witch-timber, bairn,” she’d croon, her fingers yellowed an bent like dead bracken. “It keeps the doors snecked that were never meant to be unsteeked.” 

The moor is wide an glowerin tonight, an the lift above is the color o a bruised plum.

Iron. 

A cauld wrought tack-nail will serve, or a worn horse-shoe thinned by a smith long turned to mools. Hold it bare in yer right nieve. It’ll draw the bitter frost right out o yer marrow till yer fingers ache an go stiff as ash-sticks, but ye mustna let it fall. 

There’s folk—if ye can call them folk—that canna thole the smell o the stithy. They smell o wet slate an bottomless wells. When they draw near, the air grows thick an heavy, like ye can taste copper on the back o yer thrapple. That’s the iron speakin to them. That’s the iron tellin them ye’re still anchored to the green earth o the livin. 

Don’t answer if someone calls yer Christian name frae behind ye. 

It’ll sound like yer faither, or the lass frae the spinnin-mill, or a voice ye havena heard since ye were a wee laddie playin by the burnside. It’ll sound sweet an sore wi a terrible longin. But if ye turn yer head, the sheep-pad beneath yer tackets will vanish, an ye’ll step straight into black peat-broo that has nae bottom. 

I heard my name five minutes syne. “Jock,” it sighed, softer than the wind through the bull-rushes. “Jock, bide a wee for us.” I squeezed the iron tack till my palm bled into my sleeve, kept my eyes set on the dark rigg ahead, an forged on.

Somethin Freely Gien. 

This is the sorest o the three to win. It canna be bought, nor reived, nor begged for. It must be handed to ye in pure love or mercy, wi nae thocht o a return. A piece o oatcake frae a poor man’s board. A clout wiped over a fevered brow. 

In the wee tin boxie aneath my arm, I carry her. 

She gied me her hand-blessin wi her last draw o breath, her fingers cold as a river pebble in mine. “Take us out past the gray stanes, Jock,” she whispered, her voice like dry leaves scraping over flagstones. “Out where the blackface crocks never graze. Let the wild air have what’s left o me.” 

She gied her life back to the mools, an she gied the errand to me. Freely.

Don’t count the standin stanes twice. 

If ye see three giants o gray granite looming through the mist, count them once in yer head an look away to the bents. If ye count them again an find four, ye’ve strayed clean out o yer own time, an the fifth stane ye count will be yersel. 

The moor is heavin tonight. I can hear the wet, glaur-sucking sound o soft ground settlin behind my heels. Not my own boots. Somethin lighter. Somethin that walks wi too many joints. 

If ye smell flowers where nae flowers grow, leave the pad. 

The heather is dead an black-purple this deep into the back-end. There’s nae wild roses here. Nae meadowsweet. If the reek o honeysuckle comes sudden an heavy through the freezin dark, step straight off into the whins. Scratch yer face, rend yer coat, but get off the green turf. The scent o blooms in the dark is the breath o things that burrow deep, lurin ye to drowse on a bed that will pull ye under an swallow ye whole. 

The sweet, heavy reek o grave-lilies just bit my nostrils. I swerved hard to the right, plunge-kneeing straight into a bush o sharp gorse. The needles stabbed deep, but the smell faded, replaced once more by the sharp, clean stench o wet peat an rotting moss. 

If ye hear runnin water, don’t look for it. 

The black burns o Galloway run quiet under the heather-bushes. If ye hear the splash o a clear stream, it isna water. It’s somethin turnin itself over in the glaur, washin its hair. 

A voice, high an thin like a curlew’s whistle, drifts up frae the hollow to my left. “What carry ye, traveller? What’s in the boxie?” 

The thing is stride-for-stride wi me now, just past the edge o my sight. I can see the long, pale shape o it out the nook o my eye—far too tall, bent like a rowan-wand, swaying as it treads. 

If someone asks what ye’re carryin, lie about the first two things but never the third. 

“I carry a handful o fresh rowan berries to sour the cattle-trough,” I hollered, my thrapple dry as ash. “An a spike o cauld iron to drive through a dead man’s eye.” 

The shadow in the heather hissed, a sound like water dropped on red coals. It fell back a pace, but its long, pale fingers still twitched toward the black tin tucked tight aneath my plaid. 

“An the last?” it whustled, closer now. “What is the last?” 

I tightened my grip on the ash-canister, feelin the dry, heavy weight o her shiftin inside. 

“An old wife’s grace,” I said, an my tongue didna falter. “Gien freely to the lad she reared, to scatter where the Galloway wind blows wild.” 

The shadow stopped dead. A long, shudderin sigh went up into the freezin air, an then there was naethin behind me but the empty expanse o the dark hills, an the wind keening across the moss.