"I sent her." She gave a ragged sob. "I knew I 'd done wrong when I took your doll away and gave it to her. I t meantso much to ye. I t was a cruel thing to do, and I sorely regretted it. Before I could put things to rights, you'd run off. Granny said you thought I favored Elen more than you, and I knew it must seem that way at times. She was little for her age, and we'd near lost her when she was a wee bairn. She was sickly and needed me more is all. Y e had spunk right from the beginning and an independence that tested me at times."
"Granny called it my questing spirit."
Mama smiled sadly. "Aye, she did, didn't she?" She touched my hair. "She understood you so well, Cadi.
Better than I ever did. There were so many times when I was envious of the way you could sit with her by thehour, talking, while we hardly ever had a word to say to one another."
"Oh, Mama . . ." How I 'd longed for her to sit with me and Granny and pass the time 466with us even for a few minutes. I thought she'd stayed away because she hated me, because she blamed me for Elen's death.
"I never meant for ye to blame yerself, Cadi. I t was my doing. I told Elen to go and find you and give your doll back. And she went. And she died."
"Y e dinna know I 'd gone to the river, Mama. Y e dinna know I went to the Nar rows.
"I should've been the one to find you." Her mouth trembled. "I should've been the one to follow after ye.
Not Elen. I t should've been me hunting for ye so I could tell ye I was sorry for what I 'd done. I t'smyfault she fell down into the Narrows. I t's my fault she died, Cadi, not yours."
"I t was an accident, Mama.""An accident that never would've happened if I 'd been a proper ma." She withdrew her hand from me, clutching the sheet over her. Her heart was breaking all over again. "I lost ye both in the river that day.Y e wudna get near me after that day, and I didna blame ye. Oh, and when ye'd look at me, I 'd see that terrible grief in your eyes and know it was my fault it was there. Y e were sufferingso, I thought I 'd lose my mind. I 'd lost both of my girls that day. Both of ye." She closed her eyes and turned her face away.
467Aching for her, I brushed my fingertips lightly over her wan cheek. "Y e dinna lose me, Mama." I stroked her hair the way she used to stroke mine when I was small. Her muscles relaxed. Perhaps she was remembering, too. Turning her head slowly, she looked up at me again, her eyes awash with tears.
"Y e looked happy with Bletsung Macleod. There seemed to be an understanding between ye."
"Aye, there is."
"I know what people say about her, but they're wrong.
She's kind and loyal. She's lived all these years close to that terrible mountain; hoping, I guess.""Y es." I laid my palm against her cool cheek.
"Bletsung's all those good things, Mama, but if you'd opened your arms to me that day ye came and stood beneath the mountain laurel, I would've run into them."
She blinked, searching my face. "Y e would? Truly?"
I smiled shakily and nodded, for I couldn't speak.
Hope flickered in her eyes, the tiniest spark of it - and fear, too. A fear I recognized only too well. She lifted one arm. I t was all I needed. I leaned down to her.
When I felt her arm slip around me in a firm 468embrace, I let out my breath. "Oh, Mama, I love you so much!"
She pulled me close then, holding me tight so that I was lying next to her on the bed. We clung to one another, weeping.
"Oh, Cadi," she said, kissing me. "I love you, too." I drank in the sound of her tender voice.
And then she called me the name she had when I was very small. "Y ou're still my wee 1'il bit of heaven....
"Lilybet. Little bit of heaven. They do sound some alike. And it's raised questions over the years, though whether Lilybet was an angel or no ain't for me to say.
Fact is, I don't rightly know what she was. I 've thought about it from time to time, and what's come to me is this: some things we'll never know until we face the Lord and ask him. Granny Forbes told me that as a child, and Lilybet said it again in her own way. She was ever pointing the way to God's high path.
I can't tell ye rightly whether Lilybet was real or not. All I know is she was there when I needed her most. I never saw her again after the day of the new covenant.
That's what we came to call it. A new beginning, it was.
I didn't need Lilybet after that, ye see? I had the Lord.
469I like to think God sent Lilybet to me and she wasn't someone I made up in my own mind, though I had a surefire imagination. I can tell ye this, though, if God'd come himself in a burning bush the way he did with Moses, I 'd've died of fright on the spot. No question about it. Instead, I 'm thinkin' the Lord gave me a little girl who looked like my sister, Elen, and spoke like Granny Forbes. And I 'm pure thankful for his tender mercies in my regard.Those tender mercies extended to many of us in ways too many to count. Light came into our highland valley that day so long ago, and it's been shining bright ever since. What started with seven of us grew with each passing day. Soon more joined us at the river.
Some took months, even years, to believe in the truth and make the journey to be baptized.
I 'm sorry to say some never went at all. Iona stayed by Brogan Kai, taking the blame for everything that happened, making guilt her mantle. The Kai stayed proud and bitter to the end of a long, miserable living, and then fell into the hands of almighty God.
Douglas was never seen again after that day.
Everyone figured he headed over the mountains, wanting to get as far away from 470his father as possible. His brother Cleet was killed the following spring when he got between a she- bearand her cubs.
As for the others in our valley? Well, some was just tooproud to believe they'd ever sinned bad enough to deserve hell. Gervase Odara was one who said so.
She held to that conviction right up to her last day onthis earth. She helped others hold to the same way of thinking, and no amount of talking and praying swayed or softened their hearts. I reckon they put all their faith in her medicines and their own good works. And though it made 'em feel right good during this life, it grieves me to know it didn't do much to save 'em in the next.
Some of the folks who went down to the river later was driven there, like I was, by guilt over sin, by shame and despair. They longed for forgiveness and peace.
And by God's grace and mercy, they received it and rejoiced in it all their livelong days.
I kept up praying, from that day forward 'til now, that every last one of our folks in our highland valley would make the decision to pursue the Lord rather than serve the devil. Sadly, some never made a choice. Some thought living as they had was armor enough against Satan. So they just walked on through life, mortally wounded and 471never even knowing it.
But to those of us who opened our hearts, God Almighty gave us peace and joy beyond any we'd everknown. And ye know the rest of the story, for I 've told ye young'uns the tale often enough.
We renamed Dead Man's Mountain for the man of God who brung the word of the Lord to us. Prophet's Peak it is to this day.
Sim Gillivray took Bletsung Macleod as his bride, and they had a fine son the following spring. Morgan Kerr Gillivray. Y our father.
Fagan Kai left our valley for a time. He went down into the Carolinas and worked so that he could get some schooling. When he learned to read well enough, he came back to the mountains and brought a Bible with him. First place he come was my folks' house to see how I 'd growed up. Guess he liked what he saw, 'cause he asked me to marry him not a month after he come home to stay. The Lord blessed us with a baby girl two years later, Annabel Beathas Kai. Her name means beautiful and wise, and so your mama is.
Since your grandpap and I 've gotten too old to walk over these mountains much, your mama and papa have carried on for us, preaching the gospel from New Covenant472House. 'Course it's bigger now, ye know. I t ain't the mean little cabin Miz Elda Kendric lived in all those years ago and gave to your grandpap Fagan when he come home.
I t's sad but true, there're still people in our mountains who ain't seen the light or accepted the good news of Jesus Christ. Not yet, anyway. We're still aworking on 'em and praying for 'em. But as for our house, we serve the Lord who brung your grandfather, the last sin eater, down off the mountain and back among the living.
Now then, darlings, it's long past your bedtime. Y our mama's standing at the door, waiting to tuck ye in. Give your old Granny Cadi a hug and kiss good night. I love ye so.
Sleep well, now, and dream dreams of the Lord.
For ye are my own little bits of heaven.
end.