Morag

Morag gasped as her feet slipped on the seaweed-strewn rocks – she couldn’t fall now! But any sense of relief that she might have felt on gaining the safety of the sand was instantly swept from her mind by the impossibility of her task. She could feel the sting of grit on her eyelids, grind it in her teeth as she panted against the force of the wind that tangled her legs in her wet skirts and whipped her plaid about her head so that she had to cling to keep it. Inside her head she could hear her mother-in-law’s dismissive voice: “There’s no good a wee lassie like you going out in all the weather to look. It’s a man’s job. Away now, and mind the bairn.”

The wind howled and she howled her defiance back. Lachie was somewhere out there in the boat – she couldn’t sit over the fire and wait passively. The awful wailing emptiness threatened to engulf her – out in the storm there was at least a way to fight back. Stinging eyes and ice-burnt fingertips kept the fear-monster at  bay, though she knew it would come roaring back the minute it could. Anger was the key now: Why did he go out in the boat today? She told him not to! Never mind what his bloody father said… was he going to provide for her and the bairn when her man was lost at sea? One thing for sure, when Lachie was back they were going to find a place of their own. She didn’t care if it was a hovel, she wasn’t living with his bloody parents any longer.

She gasped again as the sea swept round her ankles, swirling and tugging, the sand hollowing beneath her feet as she fought to keep her balance.