The Kelpie

By Caroline Ashley

Originally published in Elixir Verse Equinox: Terra Verses

I roam the moors like a dispossessed phantom. I dream of a land I never knew, where comfort and security spill forth from the soil.

Summers here bring the moors to life with heather. Ptarmigan and hares bound through the rocks with me and we chase each other. We revel in the open-skied freedom, though the razor-sharp cliffs are never far from mind. When winter sets in, the wind is our enemy. It sweeps across the village, as relentless as the thundering waves crashing against the shore below. I shelter at home with my family, huddled by the dried peat fire, seeking comfort in the dark.

On those cold nights, Da prays at his bedside, whispering hopes to the Lord, while Ma lays a cup of milk at the door, to ward off the fair folk. “The Lord may protect us,” she would say, “but the fae dinnae listen to prayers.”

As I walk through the moors one cool spring morning, winter relaxing its deathly hold on the terrain, a movement draws my eye to the burn.

I see a man. A chiselled square face, pink rosebud lips, skin damp with dew. Black hair falls in a glistening wave to his shoulders. He lifts his head, tossing the tresses to reveal steel-silver eyes that pin me in place like a mouse in a trap.

My heart scrabbles for purchase, trying to escape his sights. My arms rise to my chest, as if fragile flesh could defend me. I swallow bile and step backward.

My eyes scour the path to the settlement, but I am alone. When my gaze returns to the man, he has become a shining black stallion, nostrils flaring as he huffs out a breath. His tail cuts through the air and he stamps a rounded hoof against stone.

“Mercy,” I whisper and drop to my knees, head bowed.

A sudden thud draws my eyes upward. The horse lays on his side, chest rising and falling in a hurried beat. I hesitate – trapped in the moment like a deer catching sight of a bow. When he doesn’t rise, I take a step forward.

“Kelpie,” I say. The word is a petal on the breeze, spoken so softly my own ears struggle to catch it.

He hears. He lifts his head and tosses his neck. Muscles strain to stand, his limbs trembling and mouth straining for breath. His eyes turn to the burn, as if willing it to flow in his direction. Somehow he is injured, severed from the safety of his realm. The preacher would call him an emissary of the devil. The godly thing would be to abandon him, return to my home and pray for my immortal soul.

He closes his eyes, accepting his fate. I share the sentiment. I wonder if the earth has expelled him to the ends of the land too.

My father used to farm at Ausdale but he and Ma were evicted before I was born, sent here to rebuild their lives on the sea while the land they used to till made way for livestock. Sheep are worth more than we are.

Others abandoned the Highlands entirely, setting sail for the new worlds, in hope of re-growing the roots they’d lost. Da wouldn’t hear of it – Scotland’s ma hame, he’d say. They cannae tak’ that frae me.

Camaraderie compels me to action. I reach into my apron pocket for a handkerchief. I run to the burn and bathe the fabric in water, dripping a trail of ice-cold liquid across the grass before running it across his brow. He closes his eyes, embracing the touch of the cloth.

His stillness makes me brave. Trembling fingers stroke his side, the surface smooth as silk and warm as a rock in the summer sun. His muscles relax beneath my fingers.

Thunder rumbles and the first drops of rain strike my head. I hear my name drifting across the moors. His steel eyes watch me, waiting for my next move. I rise and back away, only turning to run home when certain he won’t chase after me.

#

He is my shadow in the months of spring and early summer, gleaming flanks drawing my eye as I venture through the moors. He stands tethered to the burn, water caressing his fetlocks. I dare not touch him, fearful of being swept to a watery grave. Sometimes I lift my hand, tracing a path over his muzzle, never quite connecting with flesh. They say you cannot trust the fae. They haunt our lands with music and beauty, inviting the unwary to abandon their cares and drown in wanton revelry. I wonder if that is only what the gentry want us to believe, lest we all vanish into fairy land, never to work their ships or land again.

When my woman’s blood comes, it feels like the world shifts, sending everything off kilter. Ma says it was once a symbol of power, a ward against the fae on the most dangerous of nights. The preacher decries her folk beliefs. It marks my original sin – I am a filthy woman, there by the grace of the Lord.

“If I climb yer back, will you tak me away, somewhere better’n here?” I ask in whispered tones. But his gaze is impenetrable and his intentions beyond my ken.

Coming of age means thoughts of a future outside Badbae, talk of husbands and babies and womanhood. I feel like a fox being hunted from the undergrowth, dazed and confused, searching for the right path to take.

Da’s favourite place in our house is a spot by the fire, dram of home-distilled whisky in his grasp. He lifts his cup to me and smiles, skin creasing at the corners of his sea-beaten eyes. “Ye’ll hae yersel’ a fine lad and escape this godfersaken place. Jist you see, ma bonnie lass.”

But I struggle to believe. These moors are my cursed birthright and escape seems as untouchable as the moon’s reflection on the water.

#

My Da was brought up a farmer. His hands were calloused from working a till, his mind well-versed in the rhythms of the soil and the crop. He was no true sailor. When men bring news that he is lost at sea, I’m not even surprised – it’s like waiting for an axe to swing down and finally hearing the thump of the blade. Herring keeps us fed, but the water is as treacherous as a kelpie, waiting for you to drop your guard so it can pull you under. Losing someone to the sea is just a part of life on the edge of the world.

A lump grows in my throat and I try to swallow it back. My limbs tremble as I contemplate bedtime without his voice in my ear. Ma collapses before me, grief consuming her strength, leaving her as weak as the summer breeze. She expels her sorrow into the peat-smoke air. She sings the lament of the lost lover, while my brothers square their shoulders against the weight of familial responsibility.

I run from the oppressive room, escaping into a cool grey mist.

I run to the moors, where no one will find me. My tears mix with the damp air and anguish burns my throat.

He stands there waiting for me. Eighteen hands of gleaming muscle, his coat slick and shining black like the midnight sky. His rear feet are swallowed in the burn. The steel eyes watch me, unblinking, unwavering. A flick of his ear forms a question, though no sound escapes his velvet lips.

“The sea took my Da.” Of course it did. The sea, like the land, is unforgiving and heartless. The words fracture in my mouth, cutting at my throat. I drop to my knees and curl my body downward, a woodlouse trying to hide from stamping boots.

He abandons his sanctuary and steps toward me, head bowed low in supplication. Panic fills my breast but he jerks his head in a brief shake of equine reassurance. He lowers his nose and it brushes against my cheek. I smell the salt air and the aftertaste of rain and the sweet scent of primrose.

“Will you drown me now?” I ask.

He stamps a hoof, tail swishing through the air. His warm breath is like sun breaking through the clouds. I lift my hands to brush the soft hair of his muzzle. He presses his muzzle closer then shifts his legs, lowering his body into the heather. I press my forehead against the curve of his neck and I dream of the old days, when the clans protected your family and gifts to the fae might guarantee your prosperity.

#

More people come from Auchencraig as the summer draws to a close. Lonely refugees dispossessed of their land for the good of another landlord. They spend long days hauling rocks from the earth, building houses to shelter them against winter’s onslaught. The preacher speaks scripture to remind them of the Lord’s love, as if that will somehow fill the empty hole where their home used to be.

I watch them fight to make their mark on an unforgiving land. Once, my father would have helped them build; my mother would have shared our food or offered our outgrown clothes. Ma would have laughed and joked, always one to lighten the moment. Without Da, everything in her world is dark. She navigates life in a stupor, mind lost in the sea with her lover.

Winter is tightening its grip on the land when I go to him once more. I scramble over rocks, body hunched forward, hood lifted over my head to protect me from the worst of the gales. The sun is setting and the world is bathed in an amber glow.

He waits for me by the water. A gleaming obsidian guardian of the moors, head held proud in the air. His mind as distant and alien as the stars. A zephyr lifts his mane but the wind is not his master.

I stand before him, indecision creasing my brow.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

These cliffs are no home for us. The weather fights us at every turn, seeking to force us inward to lands where we’re not welcome. My brother says there are better lands; more welcoming shores. A ship will be sailing from Cromarty and our family will sail with it, to somewhere we might call home. It is a long walk, carrying all that we can on our backs, but we cannot stay here, waiting to die with Da.

He tosses his nose and huffs out a breath, as dispassionate as always. He stays in place, tethered to the rippling burn. His eyes penetrate my soul, leaving me open and exposed. I lift a hand and place it on his nose, warm and velvet beneath my fingers.

“Would I die if I stayed with you?”

He has no answer, makes no attempt to offer one. My stomach churns and uncertainty clenches around my heart, every beat sounding like a bell in my ears.

“Will it be better there?”

He lifts his foreleg and stamps it into the earth. I move closer and press my chest against his muzzle. His body radiates the warmth of a fire, chasing the chill from my limbs. I could stay here forever, with him.

In the distance, my name echoes through the air, once more disturbing our moment.

I close my eyes, building the willpower to move. I step back, fingers drifting across his neck, extending our connection, delaying the moment when his warmth is gone forever. Why don’t you just take me?

But he doesn’t move. He stands sentinel on the edge of our village, bound to my ancestral land in a way denied to me. The last thing I see before I turn away, tears burning my eyes, is his head lifted proudly in the air, unbroken, untamed.

THE END