Katriona struggled to see out the small crusted window of her father's cottage.  It was a dreich day, rain alternating with sleet, adding to the darkness of the northern highlands at this time of year.

"When is Gra'pa coming back?" asked Iain, clutching at her skirt.  "I'm cold."

She patted his silky, copper coloured hair.  "There he is! See?"  She watched Calum enter the weak glow of the entry lamp.  He had a large sack slung over his shoulder and a shovel in his other hand.  It was a sharp edged peat cutting shovel; he champed it into the ground a few times to clean it, then leaned it against the wall and entered the cottage.

"Gra'pa!" Iain squealed, and abandoned Katriona in favour of Calum.  Calum's eyes crinkled with pleasure.

"Wait now, you," she said, holding Iain back while she took her father's dripping coat.  As she hung the coat, Calum began pulling blocks of peat out of his sack and laying them in the fireplace, Iain enthusiastically helping.  Calum struck a match and very quickly the peat was smoldering and gifting them with warmth.

"This is the best Christmas ever," Iain said.

Aye, Katriona thought, it is that.  She was walking almost normally now, her bruises long faded.  Iain showed no signs of missing his father, and she was grateful for that.  The Lord knows I don't miss him, or his brutality, she thought.  Without Aidan, she was free to feel joy this Christmas.

"There's some that scorn peat, say it gives a great stink, but me -- I love the smell of it," she said with a contented smile.  She eased herself into one of the chairs before the fire.

"Lucky we are to have it," said Calum.

"Why is that, Gra'pa?"

"Peat's the fancy thing, now," he answered.  "Incomers bring great lorries and strip the bogs bare.  They take it south and sell it, plastic wrapped, in plastic wrapped shops, so wee people can spread it on their wee gardens."

"The shops are wrapped in plastic?" Iain's eyes were wide and serious.

"Grampa's having you on a bit," his mother said.  "Though the shops do have a great lot of plastic, in and out."

"Will they take ours, then?"

"No, child, our bogs are first class, what they call 'natural.'  So they're protected for now."

"Who is protecting it?  Are there soldiers?"

"Ah, no -- we've a bunch of old pussies who've never laid eyes on a bog.  They sit in their parlours in the lowlands and call down the hounds of hell on those who'd cut a natural bog."

"But won't the pussies call the dogs on you for cutting peat then?"

"No, this is my croft -- our croft -- and I've the right to cut for myself.  And if I didn't, I'd like to see the one who could catch me.  The bog's a fearsome place."

"And that's the truth," Katriona said.  "You never go out for peat but I worry I'll never see you again.  We've lost many a sheep out there, and even a pony in '95.  The bog sucks them in, and it's like they never were.  No one ever found them."

"Ach!"  He waved a dismissive hand.  "It's all in knowing the land.  I could walk sleeping there, and never a misstep.  People who don't know the land... well then... that's another thing, isn't it?"  A rare bit of darkness crossed his face.

Yes, Katriona thought.  Those who don't.  Like Aidan.  He'd gone with her father to cut peats on that last night.  And then gone off, never came back.  Left them, with no explanation.  Not that she wanted one.  Glad to see the back of him, she was.

Glancing through the window she could barely see the lamp's glow against Calum's peat shovel.  She got up, walked to the door, and turned off the lamp.  When she returned to their cozy threesome, Calum had lit his pipe.  Ah, she thought, peat and a pipe -- a fine night.

As if feeling his mother's happiness, Iain said again, "This is the very best Christmas."

Calum's and Katriona's eyes met.

"Yes, child, it is," said Katriona.

Lehua
©December, 2002