The two first met in a secret Scottish canyon. The lush ravine was tucked into a little-visited, windswept fold of mountains, southeast of Loch Ness. As a wee lad, Brandon had chanced upon it while solo cave-diving. He encountered a watery side-channel of the main cavern. It flowed under a hilloch and out into a sheltered gorge, hidden from view. He told no one about it.

The mossy sanctum was in shade for much of the day. Animal trails up its encircling sides yielded long views—and warm naps—when the sun was about. A mountain freshet emerged from the rock face, tumbling into tub-shaped cavities and stair-step falls.

For her part, Tory (short for Tobermoray) had wafted into it. She had been testing one of her gran’s hot air balloons. It did NAE crash. It entwined itself with a two-century old Sitka Spruce. (This tree had the distinction of being grown from seed collected by the Scottish explorer David Douglas.)

Tory was amiably disposed to trust where she landed. The spruce seemed lonely, pleased to have someone blow in. She let herself down the stabby limbs with a rope of hemp. Tory loved knots, and climbing, and that hemp was in her surname—Hemphill. Indeed, her ancestors had been weavers of hemp.

Once on terra firma, Tory hears a pleasing sound. She remembers a Gaelic word: Sombreeachh—”a rushing sound heard from a distance, foretelling that a cataract or waterfall is near.” Tory follows the sound as a bee to nectar. She enters the coolness of a horse-shoe cove. Silky water gushes over stony curvatures, collecting into a green pool. She spots two Dippers, flying through a watery veil.

Tory notices a tall lad with curly brown hair, lying on his elbow, in a patch of sun. His body exudes graceful athleticism. He is looking intently at a clump of moss. To avoid startling him, she announces herself by singing: “Oh the sky was clear, the morn was fair. No breath came over the sea. When Mary left  her heeland croft and wandered forth with me.” The lad does not look up. He is engrossed in examining a specimen he has not found in the field guide of British Mosses, Liverworts and Hornworts. She approaches softly, and lies down across from him. They pass their first three hours together in mutual rapture—bestowing the full generosity and warmth of their attention to the miniature-universe animating a ruffledy yellow-green clump of moss. When at last he speaks, Brandon says, “Liverworts are our oldest plant companions. They love Scottish burns (creeks).”

Tory adds: “John Muir’s favorite bird—and mine—is the Dipper. They love to out-sing the cataracts.”

Like spate in the stream, overwhelming the tender mosses—too precipitously their days in time-out-of-time were ruptured. Brandon joined the Royal Scots Regiment. In 2008, he was sent to Helman Province, Afghanistan. He and his mate Rob were blown up by an IED (improvised explosive device). Robbie was killed instantly: UNRECOGNIZABLE, UNRECOVERABLE.

Brandon was meda-vacced to Camp Bastion Hospital; later, Birmingham, UK. Severe traumatic brain injuries, unlikely to walk again, unable to speak.

His inability to speak was viewed as pathology. But, as Tory explained to the medical staff: “Taciturnicity is part of his gift.” Easeful silence between these two had been an anchor.

Had they not first converged in a hidden cavity, in a secluded woodland, in an obscure corner of NE Scotland? Bran having chanced upon it subterraneanly? And Tory arriving as a sylph, blown from the far pageants of the wind guardians, to become snagged by a particular Sitka Spruce? Had not this unaccountable occurrence BIRTHED THEIR TROTH? Had it not rendered them able to defy despair?

On Friday April 23, two springtimes into Brandon’s convalescence, Tory is knitting a merino blanket in patterns of lichens, mosses and ferns. She glances over at Bran, whose boyish thatch of curly hair has caught a golden shaft of morning light.

Brandon looks directly at her for the first time since the accident. He gets up lithely, steps out of the wheelchair, and goes to her. He touches her face, kisses both her hands and, holding them, sings: “Oh the sky was clear, the morn was fair. No breath came over the sea. When Tory left her heeland croft and wandered forth with me. My life had been a wilderness, unblest by fortune’s gale, had fate not linked my love to hers, O my rose of Allendale.”

Tory is sobbing too hard for speech.

Smiling broadly, Brandon says: “Myself, and Liverworts–we take oor own time. We’re back. I’M back.”

March 17, 2024