the Bachelor
and the Bride

by Mr. King

Installment II
in which our Hero learns much from our Heroine of Things both odd and dangerous!

Sorcha and Duncan had long since left their village behind. The bag Granny Winter had provided them hung over Duncan’s shoulder. Sorcha was not one to be left out of the difficult work of any undertaking and, therefore, carried another bag filled with food for their journey.

The two were not entirely unacquainted with each other, which made their arrangement more comfortable than it might have been otherwise. They’d spoken often at village gatherings when their paths crossed. Sorcha had burned her arm a few months earlier, and Duncan had tended to it. If she had to put a name to their connection, she would likely have attempted to think of a word somewhere between acquaintances and friends. What she would not have admitted, though, was that she deeply liked him.

He was a good man. Everyone who knew him felt that. But he was the respected and loved bachelor doctor in the area, and she was the odd, spinster woman who’d simply arrived one day and now lived deep in the woods in a cottage. The woman who was surrounded by whispers, who had passed the majority of her life without a home, without roots, and was now without family.

“How long will it take to reach Loch Dreva?” Duncan asked.

“We are likely to arrive on its shores this afternoon. The distance is not significant.”

“And one truly cannot find the lake unless one already knows where it is?”

She nodded. “Everyone who knows its location has been brought there by someone who had previously been brought there by someone who had themselves been brought there by someone . . .” She motioned with her hand to indicate this was a pattern that repeated endlessly.

“Who, do you suppose, was the first to impart this knowledge?” He did not ask with mocking tones or dismissal but with genuine curiosity.

“No doubt a creature from the realm of fairies and monsters brought someone from the human realm there, and that person, in turn, brought someone else.”

“And who was it that showed you?” he asked.

She did not always grow emotional when speaking of her family, but she found herself reluctant to answer on account of the lump forming in her throat. “My father.”

Duncan must have sensed the emotion bubbling inside her. His expression filled with the same empathy and concern she had seen every time she’d watched him treat an injury or illness. “One never entirely recovers from the loss of one’s parents.” He spoke as one who knew.

She nodded, unable to add words to the sentiment. How sorrowful was her heart! How heavy were her reminiscences!

He managed to slip his sack from his back to his chest as they walked. He opened the bag, searching its contents. “I wonder what Granny Winter has provided us for this errand.”