After the Siren Sang

Willow MacGregor, probably the most desired woman on Summerisle, lay alone in her bed on May Eve, covered only with one of her prettiest lacy sheets, a-tremble with frustration and anger. "I knew it was a bloody test," she thought. "It wasn't supposed to succeed." She thought of the pretty blonde police sergeant, probably lying as wakeful in his bed on the other side of the wall as she was in hers, and wanted to march right into his room and slap him. She knew that the laird wouldn't have asked her to dance the come-hither magic if he hadn't had complete confidence in her ability to walk the line between too much success and not enough failure, but still. It had drained her to the point of exhaustion with nothing to show for it. Damn! She lay listening to the music and laughter coming up the stairs from the pub, glanced at the friendly face of her little clock, and saw that there was a couple of hours before lock-up. There was still plenty of time to find someone to sweeten this angry bed of hers and celebrate May Eve with, but there was also a great temptation to just lie still and feel sorry for herself.

A tap came on Willow's door and she said, "Yes, come in." She sat up, bare to the waist, her glorious golden hair spilling over her shoulders. Even now she was hoping in spite of herself to see their anointed guest. Instead, her father's quizzical face introduced itself around the doorjamb. "Safe to come in, lamb?" he asked.

She sighed and pulled up the sheet. "Of course, Da." He came in and shut the door behind him. "Keep yer voice down," he said softly. "I suspect yon policeman has got ears like a bat."

"Humph," she muttered. "Yon policeman." And suddenly she was crying, angry sobs that she muffled with her pillow. Alder MacGregor rolled his eyes and set his pint down on her little night table with a thump. "Och, lass," he said, putting his arm around his daughter. "It's all that power with nowhere to go that's upsetting you. Come downstairs and work some of it off. May Eve is no time to be weeping, for the god's sake. I know! Broome Lennox from the manor just came in a bit ago, ready for some fun. What would you say to him?"

"Humph," Willow said again, grumpy now. "Why would I want to settle for the laird's man when I've had the laird himself?"

Alder set his daughter back and looked at her, surprised. "When did that happen, and why didn't you tell me? That's a feather in your cap, that is."

"Oh Da! For heaven's sake! Must I confide every tumble in the orchard?"

"Ha, with the laird I doubt very much it was just a tumble in the orchard." Willow shot sparks at him from her flaming blue eyes. Alder only laughed and gently chucked his daughter under her perfect chin. "Ah, well, all that lovely magic you were making, it rebounded on you, and now it's making you angry." Alder retrieved his pint from the night table and took a long pull. "It's also rebounding on the whole taproom downstairs, and there are lots of pink cheeks shining, and lots of meaningful looks shooting about down there. We can't let all that go to waste, now can we? Come on, lass, dry your tears, there's a good girl. Come downstairs and have a wee dram with us, and if the laird's man doesn't suit you, why, maybe the laird himself will show up by and by."

"Not he," said she. "Rose is up at the house tonight."

"Oh ho!" said MacGregor, who lived for gossip. He leaned closer and said conspiratorially, "Just he and she? The two of them back again, is it? I thought they had a little spot of trouble recently."

Willow began to answer, but they both paused, looking at the same time at the common wall that separated Willow's room from the guest's. They could both feel his curiosity - was he eavesdropping? Alder's eyebrow raised, and he glanced from the wall to Willow. She smiled, eyes narrowing, then continued as if nothing had happened, just a little louder.

"They had a bit of trouble at Equinox, but it was just lover's spatting. He can be terribly moody and she won't put up with it. They're over it all by now, you can be sure of that." Just a bit louder, she added, "I expect His Lordship probably has our schoolmistress flat on her back right now . . . or she him." She directed this last at the wall, and muffled a giggle with her hand. It was very obvious that everything about their beloved laird irked the priggish policeman no end, and after the way the copper had thwarted her magic, it was a pleasure to poke him.

"What do you think of that?"

Willow threw off her sheet and went to get her clothes. "Och, Da, nothing at all. Just an afternoon's play for us both, and pleasant it was." For the sergeant's benefit she cupped a hand to her mouth and added more loudly, "Our laird's a man who knows his way around a woman." Somehow she knew that would anger the eavesdropper most of all. Alder MacGregor laughed, and Willow continued, "But really, Da, he's too old for me. Rose is the one he'll always go back to. He's got a will of iron, does our laird, but she's got the spine of steel to match him and face him down when he needs it. And with the hard job of work that's ahead of him tomorrow, he needs her by him." Let the little sergeant chew on that. Hard job of work, indeed.

"I don't know why the laird doesn't just marry the woman and be done with it," Alder said, leaning against the corner of the wardrobe. "What a party that would be! There'd be naked folk in every hedgerow." Willow slapped a hand over her mouth to catch a bray of laughter, and elbowed her father. Don't overdo it, Da!

"Oh, I suspect they'll handfast yet", she said, "especially now that this year will be better. Neither of them are getting any younger, after all," Willow said, opening the wardrobe's door. "But I don't think she wants to live in the great house, though. She likes her own little cottage."

"Well, leave it to you to know what's in everyone's mind for a mile around." He chuckled, watching as the splendid young woman studied her clothes, standing naked as the day she was born, without a thought for her father's presence. "I wonder what our guest would think of you standing natural born naked in front of your own father. Broome Lennox says the man nearly had an apoplexy over nothing more than the wee kids dancing naked up at the stone circle - raised his voice to His Lordship and everything." He smiled, feeling the wave of indignation coming from the neighboring room, and knew their guest was certainly listening closely. Ears like a bat indeed!

Willow half turned in the act of pulling her blue sleeveless dress from the closet. "And why shouldn't you see me? You bathed my wee bottom when Mother went back to the earth and it was just you and me. You have more right to see me naked than any man on this island, and that includes the laird, the doctor, and our blessed guest."

Alder smiled as Willow pulled that pretty blue dress over her head, smoothed it over her seal-curve hips and adjusted that perfect bosom, that needed no beastly brassiere. He liked that dress on her. He had bought it for her himself on a rare trip to Edinburgh. The flawless sapphire blue of the silk reflected in her eyes till they were so blue they could hurt your heart, and that reminded him of her mother. He finished off his pint and held up the dead soldier. "Come on, I feel the need for a pint," he said. "It's been a while since I had one."

Willow laughed as she ran a brush through her marvelous golden hair and slipped her feet into her dancing shoes. She went over to her father and put her arms around him. "Thank you, Da. I feel ever so much better now."

He smiled fondly at her. "That's my fine girl. Now, there's a taproom full of twinkling eyes waiting for you to brighten it a little."

"Well then, come on, Da", she said, her cerulean eyes now shining like a June sky, her blue funk thrown off like a threadbare cloak. "Let's go down and have some fun." She shot of look of fire at yonder bedroom wall. "Policemen . . . ha!"