Scarred Ground

Chapter 2

The screech of unknown wildlife fighting jerked Sarann awake. It was barely dawn, strands of misty light just beginning to turn the room grey. She struggled out from under the duvet and peered out of the window. The infernal din was caused by two amorous hedgehogs on the lawn. Sarann laughed delightedly and opened the window, letting in a blast of cold air heavily laden with the sharp scent of pine.

Monday, morning, and time to find a job! She flung on clothes and skipped to find some breakfast in a hurry to start the search. She wasn't that confident, after all Kilbain was a small village and there were no nearby towns, but then, she wasnt fussy as long as it meant she could pay the rent and keep eating.

"Och, it will no be easy lass!" The postmaster sighed "There be little in the way of work aboot hereby. Ye could go on up tae the big hoose though. I heard they be needing a new housekeeper there."
"Big house?" Sarann enquired "Where is that from here?"
"On the estate lass. Beyond the farm; wi the great wall around it."
"Oh! Maybe not then. I was up at the gate yesterday and this old man came up shouting at me to go away."
"Aye. That would be Maclennal. He can be that way with stangers. Devoted to they trees in the copse he is. Guards em like they might be grand jewells, but he'll leave ye be once ye work for they at the hoose"

Sarann was dubious that she wanted to test that theory, but listeed to the postmaster giving directions to the main gate and thanked him for his help.  After all, it couldn't hurt to ask.

"Wow!"  Sarann skidded to a halt on the gravel and her battered old Fiat expired gratefully.  The 'big hoose' was about as accurate a description as calling the car a Porche. It was massive. A  great crumble of old stone, three stories and three wings, sprawled over the land like the carcass of a strange mythic monster.           

'Must be Hell to heat!' She chuckled to herself. They didnt need a housekeeper; they needed half a battalion! There had to be thirty or more rooms!

"Thirty three actually" The charming and ancient Proffessor told her when she axked a few minutes later. "But dinna worry lass, most of this house has been closed off. My sister Oriele asnd myself use just a few rooms in the East Wing, and Cousin Phaedre
and her two children live herein the main court. None of the upper rooms have been unlocked since Father died, oh, twenty or so years now."

Proffessor Ulyses Jamieson smiled sown at her cheerfully. Sarann found herself grinning back. The immensely tall old man was impossible to dislike. His younger, delightfully eccentric sister Oriele sat waving to her from a corner of the kitchen they were using as a sitting room, surrounded by at least a dozen quite enormous cats. It was so totally unlike her brief and turbulent life in the city that she found herself agreeing to start work the following day with no real idea what exactly she was to do.

"Phaedre will tell you all about it!" Her new employer reassured her. "Nothing to it really, and it will be so nice to have some help with my work! Fay tries, but the children..... yes! Splendid, you will do fine! Tomorrow then!"  Sarann was outside and turning her car around, somewhat breathless, half an hour later.  As she drove away she glimped a tall white haired man leaning on  massive rake in the gardens, and  he was string after her. She could feel his eyes follow her all the way to the road.