The Ghost by Greyson, Maeve (best motivational books to read .txt) 📕

fine enough healing on its own.” She shrugged. “Long as I dinna fall and hit it again.”

“I dinna live my life to impress anyone.” Brenna fetched the bag she had filled with every remedy she could tote. Without water, she would be hard-pressed to make a poultice, but it could be done. She glanced over at the rock with the nearly depleted puddles. Nay, she couldn’t risk using the last of it. “I wish we had some water.”

“Water that moves be good to use,” Cadha chanted as she stretched out on her side and lay staring into the fire. She yawned. “Water that’s still will make ye ill,” she mumbled as she pillowed her head on her uninjured arm.

“Aye, and water from a cave gives ye the skitters,” Brenna added as she labored to work the knitbone into a paste by crushing the leaves without the addition of any water.

“Does not.” The maid rubbed her nose as though it itched something fierce, then settled back down. “I been drinking cave water since the redcoats came, and I dinna have the skitters.” She made a face and shrugged. “All’s ye have to do is to be sure ye dinna drink water fouled with bat shite or something dead.”

Brenna paused, trying to decide whether Cadha could be trusted. “Magnus said it was unsafe.” She would leave it at that and see if the girl argued.

“He is wrong,” Cadha stated as she pushed herself up to a sitting position. With a smile that gave Brenna chills, the lass tilted her head toward the rear of the cavern. “Them rocks back there, the ones that look like soft dough piled on a board? They weep, and the water gathers at their base. I drank it yesterday and day before that, too.”

“Drink it again right now, and I just might believe ye.” Brenna was not that naïve. Cadha might have stopped with the insults, but that didn’t mean she had stopped planning ill will.

“Ha! Ye dinna trust me. Maybe ye’re no’ as big a fool as I thought.” Wincing, the maid rose from the floor and grabbed her dented oil lamp. After taking a few steps toward the back of the cavern, she stopped and looked back. “Well? Be ye comin’, cow? Ye canna verra well see me drinking the water from back there.”

“If ye dinna stop calling me cow, I’ll be coming up with an insulting name or two for yerself.”

Cadha barked out a laugh, then pinned her with a haunted sneer. “Ye canna think of a slur I havena been called before. I promise ye that.”

Something about that made Brenna’s heart hurt. It reminded her of her own upbringing. She motioned for Cadha to keep moving. “On wi’ ye now. Prove yer words.” She didn’t dare let the conniving wench think she had let down her guard.

“These rocks here.” Lifting her lamp, the maid cast the light across the rocks. She had described them aptly. Colored a slick-looking milky gray, the formation did resemble soft globs of dough piled high and waiting to be punched down and kneaded. At their base, hollowed out by ages of moisture trickling down and around the pillars, was a shallow basin of water. Cadha scooped up a handful and drank it. “I know it’s still, but I been drinking it.” She shrugged. “I havena shite m’self dead yet.”

“Since you seem to know these caves so well, why did ye not just go outside and find a spring?” Brenna couldn’t imagine choosing to drink stagnate cave condensation rather than clear, sweet spring water.

“Murdering redcoats, remember?” With a disgusted shake of her head, Cadha dried her hand on her skirts. “The mountain’s crawling with them. The MacCoinnichs just dinna know it.” Retrieving her lamp from the floor, she turned and headed back to the fire. “I’ve had enough dealings with bloody Sassenachs to last me a lifetime.” She shuddered, hugging her broken arm tighter to her chest. “Cruel bastards,” she added under her breath, but Brenna clearly heard it and agreed completely.

Brenna tasted the water. It wasn’t good, but at least it was wet. She scooped up a handful and carried enough back to add to the knitbone paste. “After I set yer arm, we’re going back to Tor Ruadh.” She would warn Alexander about Magnus’s capture and make a case for saving him from the noose—either legally or not. She didn’t care. All she knew for certain was that she wasn’t content to be a widow yet. “Ye’ll help me find the way, aye?”

“I canna go back there,” Cadha said, snorting as if Brenna had just told a poorly fashioned jest. “Fitzgerald probably set the dogs on me. Old hag hates me.”

“She doesna hate ye. ’Twas all a misunderstanding. Once she sees ye were trying to protect the MacCoinnichs, I’m sure she’ll welcome ye back with open arms.” Brenna had to convince the girl to help her find her way back. She might make it on her own, but they could move faster with the maid’s certainty of the tunnels. “Would ye not rather return to living in the keep than hiding in these caves, like a wingless bat?”

Cadha’s narrow face puckered at the question. Lips pursing tighter, she looked to be weighing her options. When her shoulders relaxed and her head tilted, Brenna knew she had her. “Ye think Lady Catriona would tell Fitzgerald to let me go back to feeding the hens and gathering eggs?”

“I will vouch for ye myself.”

“Why would ye do such a thing?” Angry wariness shone in the girl’s weary eyes. The maid looked like a chained animal, trying to find the strength to fight off another beating.

With the poultice in one hand, Brenna held out her other. “Ye and I are not so different, I think. I’ve not had an easy way of it either.” She nodded toward the girl’s arm. “Although, I believe ye’ve endured more cruelties than I have. Now, give me yer arm so that we can be on