Triallaire

Behold the Turtle

17 March, 1767

The Artemis

CATRÌONA POV

I sat in silence in the Captain's Quarters alone, glancing down at the letter I was composing to Cailean. I had mentioned that Caoimhe had stayed on the Porpoise and would be safely reunited with us in Jamaica, but then I recalled something else about this day - the date, in particular. It was Saoirse's birthday.

Had Saoirse lived, she would have been forty-one on this day, but she had died young at only thirty-one. She still had so much life ahead of her, such as seeing her children grow into adults and start families of their own, give Saoirse grandchildren... but her life had been cut short by the unfairness of her physiology. I could tell when I had performed the surgery on her now twenty years ago that she had very narrow hips that could have caused problems for her had she given birth to a larger child. She got lucky with Cillian and Caoimhe because they were twins, meaning they were naturally smaller than a single bairn born. Riona, however, was not a twin, and was likely too big for Saoirse. Or she had what I had had with Maevis - a placental abruption. Caoimhe had mentioned briefly to me that Saoirse had bled a lot during the birth and must have died that way. It was hard to say, considering I wasn't there to see it myself, but however she died, it was tragic.

We hadn't gotten along much at first, but when we did, we were like true sisters. We shared many giggles as we exchanged stories about our respective husbands, she laughed when I told her my favourite stories about Cailean's childhood, and we bonded over being mothers to our handsome sons and our bonny daughters.

"You mean te say you put crabs in his bed?" Saoirse asked me, her green eyes wide with surprise.

"Trust me, he earned it well. I never liked him or Calum playin' pranks on me so when they did, I made damn sure they never made tha' mistake again. Their pinched bollocks taught them tha'," I replied, and her face turned pink from laughing so hard.

"I once pulled a prank on my sister, Sigourney. I caught her kissing a lad I liked, so I put frog eggs in her shoes. She wasn't very happy about that," she replied, laughing at the memory.

"Yer as mischevious as yer husband, arenae ye?"

"Aye, and you are as stubborn as yours!"

I smiled faintly at the memory. I missed having a sister to giggle with, confide in, love and protect. I had once had that in Jenny, but she now hated me, and to a degree, I had that with Maidie, but of course, our bond was never as strong as mine was with Saoirse. Sometimes, it was hard to look into Caoimhe's face. She was nearly identical to her mother, right down to the pattern of freckles that dotted Saoirse's cheeks and nose. If it weren't for the fact that Caoimhe had a bit more of her father's height, or her father's eyes, I would think she was Saoirse herself.

The door opened and I looked up from my letter, watching as Jamie entered the room as he carried in my tartan and the medical bag I had come to this century with. He smiled when he saw me. "I missed yer red hair," he told me kindly. "Ye look verra bonny in it, and just as I remember ye. The brown did no favours fer ye." I smiled slightly up at him as he set down the bag on the desk while I touched a short piece of red hair, which ended just above my shoulders. "Ye didnae take this wi' ye?" he asked me.

"Wouldnae have been enough te treat a few hundred men," I told him. "That, and the antibiotics I have wouldnae prevent Typhoid."

"Ah," Jamie replied, sitting on the desk beside me and resting a hand on my face. "Yer pink in the face, and ye feel as if yer burnin' up."