Free The Pictish Child by Jane Yolen Page A

good time. Canna rush these things. All in good time. These are my friends. I miss them. I should come more often. They need a fourth for the cards.”
    â€œWhat picks do you want to talk to me about, Gwen?” Maggie’s hair was standing up around her head like a hatful of orange wires. “Are ye into horse racing now? Or is it a pick for the coming football matches?”
    â€œAbout …” Gran began, then faltered.
    â€œAbout you and Kenneth mac Alpin, the king,” Jennifer blurted out. “The one who …” She tried to remember the exact wording, then had it at last. “Who forged together a single nation of Scots and Picts.”
    â€œOch, weel, that was a long time ago,” Maggie MacAlpin said. “Auld Kenneth, as we call him. We’ve nae claim to the crown noo.” She picked up the cards and began to deal.
    Fiona came back with some ice cream for each of the children, and Peter and Molly dug into theirs with great gusto. Ninia tried to imitate them, but when she picked up the spoon she dropped it at once with a cry and shook out her hand.
    â€œToo hot for you, too cold for me,” Jennifer said, putting her bowl down.
    â€œEat it,” said Fiona. Her voice, which had been soft and persuasive before, now seemed full of a terrible threat. “Eat your ice cream.”
    Jennifer gritted her teeth until they hurt. “I … don’t … like … ice … cream,” she said.
    â€œIt’s nae ice and never cream,” cried the dog from beneath the table. “It’s a wee bit o’ the dark. Leave it be.”
    It was clear that Fiona had not been expecting the dog to speak, and for a moment she was stunned. But only for a moment. Raising her right hand, she pointed at him and cried out a single awful word. The word was as loud as a gunshot and just as deafening. For a moment everything stopped, just like a movie’s freeze-action frame, Jennifer thought.
    The dog leaped up as if burned, upsetting the table and the deck of cards, overturning a lamp, and bumping into Jennifer, who fell heavily to the floor. Then he ran from the room yelping.
    Ninia put her hands over her ears. The four old women looked strangely dazed. Ninia hadn’t moved since the dog had scampered away. And Peter and Molly seemed frozen in place by the sound of Fiona’s magic word, or by the ice cream, or both.
    Do something , Jennifer tried to tell herself. Do something now. But for the life of her, she didn’t know what to do.

Fifteen
    Power
    Fiona began to smile. That smile reminded Jennifer of the wizard Michael Scot. There was no real joy behind it and it never reached her eyes. It was a serpent’s smile, all lips and no teeth.
    â€œDo not even think of getting up, little American,” Fiona said to Jennifer. “Ye canna stand against me. I have gathered all the power from these auld carlines to me. I have silenced the boy and the little lassies. And yer gran’s power, as soon as I gather it up, will make me stronger still.”
    â€œBut why?” Jennifer asked, her voice barely a whisper. Gran had said that why was the question to ask of magic. Also, if she could keep Fiona talking, someone—anyone—might come to their rescue. At least it always worked like that in the movies.
    â€œWhy?” Fiona laughed. “Because these auld wives do not know when it is time enough to die. Why should they have all the power, and we young ones have to wait? Stay quiet , my teachers told me. Study hard. And maybe —when I’m fifty years or so— ye will have the knowledge and the power. Well, I dinna want to wait that long. Till I am fifty and dried up, with lines in my face and a kernel for a heart. I dinna want to wait—and now I dinna have to.”
    â€œBut what you’re doing is wrong,” Jennifer said hoarsely.
    â€œWrong is only right from the other side,” said Fiona. “And how can it